By the time they arrived at the staff room, Ruth was thoroughly sick of the cheesy jokes that Anna was making in order to lighten the mood.
Did no one ever tell her that cheese always makes food heavier, Ruth thought to herself in exasperation
As soon as she pushed the door open, the strong smell of coffee assaulted her nostrils, filling her lungs and obscuring the room in a foggy, caffeinated haze.
Ruth looked around in confusion, unable to make out the faces of the esteemed givers of education, seated as they were in their sacred space, around their Round Table, holding their marker-lances that, on multiple occasions, slew the evil dragon of ignorance.
Anna cowered behind Ruth, intimidated by the cool stares that were being directed at her by a teacher in a corner, who occupied her striped purple armchair as though it were a throne. She glanced at the two girls over the thin golden frame of her spectacles, with a look that conveyed both disregard at the silliness of their personages and annoyance at their apparently unsolicited presence.
Just then, a hand covered in chunky bronze bracelets with bright pink nails manifested in front of their slightly fearful eyes, and grabbed at the notebooks.
The crazy physics teacher appeared, and would probably have picked up her rant wherever she had left off, had Ruth not muttered a indistinct "No problem," and hurriedly walked out with Anna in tow.
Anna decided that it would be wiser to let the silence ensue, instead of taking the risk of annoying an already angry Ruth further. What is she mad about though, Anna wondered.
Ruth dug her hands deep into her pockets, searching for a pen. When she found one among the multitude of stationery that she carried about, she proceeded to fidget with it, taking the cap on and off. Her need to do something was satisfied by this action, and this calmed Ruth down considerably.
Anna, on the other hand, looked more puzzled than before at this. So jokes annoy her but fiddling with a pen calms her down?, Anna thought, a little annoyed that her jokes had been rebuffed in favor of a gel pen.
No sooner had they entered the classroom and gotten settled in their seats, the door was flung open.
"I have a bad feeling about whoever is gonna step out from behind that door," Anna proclaimed.
"And what scientifically foolproof method did you divulge that piece of information?" Ruth asked. eyebrows raised mockingly.
"I just get this vibe, you know. Like something bad is going to happen. Something really horrible," Anna replied solemnly.
Ruth was about to scoff at this when she saw a flurry of pink cloth sashay in.
"Good morning students! I'm your new Physics teacher, and we are going to have a lot of fun together aren't we," said the crazy notebook-demanding lady from earlier, beaming benevolently upon the horrified class, as Anna whispered to a open-mouthed Ruth, "I told you so."
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,029 Literary Works • 672,775 Reviews
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!
I really love how you add realistic and relatable expressions in your work. Like the part where opening and closing the pen clams her down. I do that ALL THE TIME (though I always lose my pen caps at some point).
I'd never thought about it that way, and it makes sense to me. Personally, I hate cheese (the edible sort)
I also like the way you describe the teachers. I've never heard (or read) them described in such a way, with so much imagery.
In the second sentence of the story, you could italicize her thoughts or put them in quotes. I think italicizing will be better. Also, the sentence does not have a full stop at the end.
Just a suggestion: maybe you could use Grammarly or a similar program to check your typos and punctuation. It really helps.
This chapter seemed a little short, you could consider extending it a little.
Overall, I think this piece is great. I like the informal but eloquent language you use. That really gives a great feel to the work.
Keep Writing! Tag me when you update!
Thanks for the review! I'll try the italics thing for the thoughts and stuff.
hi, this is my first review, so forgive me if it was brief.
first of all, I've got to say I love the similes and metaphors
for example,
"By the time they arrived at the staff room, Ruth was thoroughly sick of the cheesy jokes that Anna was making in order to lighten the mood.
Did no one ever tell her that cheese always makes food heavier, Ruth thought to herself in exasperation"
I thought that was absolutely hilarious.
it was slightly on the short side, but with the little bit of story you had, you gave quite a lot. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of how the characters act, even though I've only ever read this chapter.
I didn't notice any grammatical errors, but i've never been good with noticing bad grammar so, that's not really saying much.
over all, I thought it was really good.
Hey Froggy! I'm glad you liked it!
Thanks a lot for reviewing!! <3
Hi NivedaJames22,
Mailice here with a short review!
Glad to read the continuation of the story.
Some points that stood out to me while reading:
There is no full stop at the end of the sentence. Since you use italics later in the sentence, I would mark this thought process as well.
That's a great and partly very funny description you've written here.
I like to see that you continue to include these kinds of descriptions, giving the reader an insight into Ruth's inner life.
The question mark is too much here. The comma is quite enough.
Instead of a full stop, a comma is appropriate here after the "Ruth asked".
I have nothing directly wrong with this chapter. I just thought it was a bit short and wondered if it wouldn't have made sense to add a few more passages. Of course you have created a good cliffhanger with this last paragraph, but as the previous chapter talked about Ann and Ruth taking the notebooks to the staff room, I had thought that this was only a small point in the coming chapter.
Not only would it have been good to include, for example, the lesson that Ruth and Anna now have, but you could have created another cliffhanger there.
On the other hand, you could have dragged out some other things, like the cheesy jokes Anna tells Ruth or maybe describe the atmosphere in the staff room a bit. What kind of conversations are going on there? Is there something like a notice board with information that Ruth and Anna are not allowed to read? Etc...
What I like, though, is that you stick to your old stylistic device in your points about portraying Ruth. It builds a certain coherence in the reading. Despite the brevity, you manage to set the scene well for some of these moments.
In summary, it was a good chapter, but also think there could be a bit more to come here.
Enjoy the writing!
Mailice.
Hey Mailice!
Thanks for pointing out those errors about the punctuation...I'll change them soon.
About the chapter, I agree. I think it's kind of brief. I guess I was kind of in a hurry when I wrote this...I'll try and expand it a little more.
Like always, you have given me great pointers in your review! Thanks for reviewing!