This school is like a TV show I thought as I navigated my way through the halls of Earthpromise Middle School. We've got the jocks I mentally pointed to a tall football player who was casually leaning against a dingy white wall. And the clique girls I passed a pack of skinny bleach-blondes. And last but not least, the dorks. I walked into my classroom and looked around. The only thing we're missing is Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron bursting into song. I briefly glanced at the chalkboard. It was jumbled in at least fifteen different languages for maximum ("HA!" I thought) difficulty. From Manderin Chinese to Latin; a French word sat next to a Cherokee, next to a Korean, etc. I then coldly regarded a student visiting from another class as she stared at the board with a mixture of awe and confusion. What's her problem?I wondered. I haven't taken a foreign language class in my life and even I know that means... The girl rushed out of the classroom was the warning bell rang and our teacher, Mr. Brown, strolled in. For someone who claims to be so well-educated, he sure is an idoit. It's like his own class is smarter than him. Mr. Brown smiled at the class ahead of him, his "Golden class", as he called it, though the rest of the school called us "The dorks." As Mr. Brown started a lecture about verb endings, I, like everyone else in my class, let my mind wander. Yeah, we ARE just your typical middle school. But I do guess that there's some weird things that happen here. I mean, it IS rare that the football team slaughtered that team by, what was it? A thousand-sixteen to zero? It's too bad we got kicked off the league after that. And Joan Stephenson's eyes couldn't have gone all snakelike like that....
An hour later, and I found myself in Code-Breaking, my favorite class. At least this one is a challenge. I collected a copy of a thick, ancient book sitting in a neat pile. "Hey, Angel," I sat next to a dirty-blonde girl with her nose in a book. Already she had sped through five pages, her eyes darting back and forth so fast it made me dizzy. "Oh, hey," she emerged from her book to smile at me, then dove back into the story. "Good book?" I asked curiously. Normally an inturruption would have bothered her, but since she and I had been friends since fith grade, I didn't think she'd mind. Angel paused, then, finishing the book with a dramatic cover-slam, replied, "Crappy characters, unrealistic motives, and annoying romance scenes," in a flat tone. "Glad you liked it, then," I raised my eyebrows to accentuate my sarcastic smile. The shrill bell rang, signaling the start of class. After taking attendence, Mrs.Kempt, a plump middle-aged lady in a purple turtleneck, instructed us to decode page eleven (Well, she technically said "Y'know... The one with the cobra on it") and promptly settled herself down with a magazine in the back of the room. I studied the page for a moment. We didn't work with a key, but this type of things came naturally with me and my classmates. It's hard to explain; it's like the symbols prepresent the word so clearly, it plays a movie in my head. The strange scribbles might not make sense to everyone, but my whole class had the page (A myth about giant snakes) cracked within ten minutes and, without further instruction, chatted loudly. I decided to join two of my best friends, Angel and Aaron's conversation. Angel was saying, "By the style of the illustrations, and the page and binding material, these textbooks should be from the freaking 1400's!" It WAS true, I thought to myself, everything about these books scream Middle-Ages. "But none of the pages are yellow, or even ripped," argued Dustin. "It's weird," I said thoughtfully. I chatted with Angel and Aaron for a few more minutes, then with the droning ring of the bell, walked out.
After a horrible hour of algebra, I was still shuddering as I walked home from school with my friends from Code-Breaking, Angel and Aaron, as well as Dustin, who was in a different set of classes from us. Angel had beautiful hispanic skin and caring, deep brown eyes. Aaron's eyes were hidden by thick black square frames, which might looked dorky on some, but Aaron's dark good looks really pulled it off. Dustin had sandy-brown hair to match his tanned skin and laughing blue eyes. And moi? I'm fairly unremarkable, brown eyes and brown hair to match, but I'm certianally the most opinionated of our little gang.
Laughing and playfully shoving each other, we made our way up the street to our subdivision. I then found myself sprawled out on the ground, my palms stinging as they grated against the concrete. I picked my head up to see a pair of Ugg boots and the hem of Abercrombie skinny jeans. I regretfully stood up to find Tasha Friedman, complete with tre chic posse and self-satisfied smirk. I tried to put as much hatred as I could into my eyes as I glared at her. Man, did I hate that girl. She had made my life miserable since the third grade.
"Oh, I am SO sorry! Did you get your Uggs dirty when you tripped me?" I asked, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
"These boots probably cost more than your house," she snorted elegantly. She flicked her hair back as she turned to smile at her matching Holister friends. Oh, how I wanted to punch that chick....
"You okay?" asked Dustin.
"Yeah," I shook my head to clear it. I stared at the retreating Tasha with anger.
"Come on, let's go," I said to my friends. They didn't move. Dustin raised his eyebrows and said "Listen, you've been at war with Tasha for five years, it's really unlike you to take this-" he smirked. "-falling down."
"Don't worry, she'll pay," I said with venom. The group gradually relaxed, glad that I was back to my own kick-butt self, but I was still fuming. Not wanting to scream obsinities in the middle of the street, I made myself content with muttering angry nonsense under my breath.
A tree branch promptly smacked Tasha Friedman right in the face.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm Knight Hardy here on a mission to ensure that all works on YWS has at least two reviews. You will probably never see this but....Imma do this anyway.
First Impression: Well this sounds like a great beginning and that's about it. It looks like it was just chopped in half randomly and that's a bit weird. Other than that it seems like a petty cool little premise. Onto some nitpicks down below.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Well that was quite the start that you've got right there. Sounds like there's a very generic sounding middle school but with a big ol' twist which is an awesome premise to write about and this start seems wonderful but the one issue is that this opening paragraph is massive and that is not a good thing usually to see at the start like that. Usually you want to break something that massive up into a few smaller bits.
Well that sounds like a pretty interesting class, the exchange between the two protagonists also seemed fairly realistic but I would again advise that those chunky paragraphs be broken down into much smaller pieces.
A bit of a large cluster there you've got, perhaps a little too much of a cluster almost because its got quite a few characters. This I feel would better by being a little more spread out rather than the flow being interrupted by a bunch of descriptions.
Now that was a fun introduction right there...the rest of it could probable be done better if you wrote them along these lines.
Well...useful piece of information there.
Oooh...lovely ending there...although it kinda doesn't feel like one if you get what I mean. What will all the mystery of that first paragraph this feels like a novel of some kind and you've just like chopped a chapter in half at a random point.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall it was quite a bit of fun. The characters certainly felt pretty realistic and I loved the way that they were depicted. I think the descriptions could have been changed a bit and there are a couple of other things I'd suggest you change like I mentioned above. Also this needs to get an end that feels more like an ending for the start a story...or if its just a short then maybe just take out all those random hints if they are not getting paid off at any point.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Sorry about the review thing and the paragraphs.... I'm new here
Thanks!
Hello! First of all, you need to do two reviews for each piece of work posted, so now you need to do two reviews.
The first two paragraphs should be broken up into several smaller ones-at the moment it's hard to read. For each new idea or train of thought, start a new paragraph.
I suggest breaking this down a bit and then sending me a PM. I'll write a detailed review then.
That's not to say this isn't good. From reading it, the references to popular culture and humour really resonated with me-it reads like realistic teenage life, rather than a fictional depiction of high school. This makes bits that would otherwise be quite cliche seem fresher-like the bit with Tasha.