THREE
At lunch I went to the canteen. Norma went down to the pub with some other friends.
I took my packed lunch out of my rucksack, said grace and started eating.
Pretty soon Daniel arrived at my table.
“Hi, Paul,” he said sitting down.
“ Hi. How's your day been so far, then?” I asked him.
“ All right. Same as normal really, nothing new to report.” He put his lunch box on the table. “ How was your lesson then?” he asked.
“Okay,” I replied twisting my kit kat wrapper into a ball. “ We had genetics which is my least favourite lesson. It’s really difficult.”
“I like that subject,” Daniel said unwrapping his sandwiches from a tin foil packet.
“How old are you again, Paul?” he asked me.
“Sixteen. What about you?” I asked him.
“Thirty One.”
Daniel took a bite out of one of his sandwiches.
“ How are your brother and sister. Are they al right?” he asked after he had swallowed his mouthful.
“ They are al right. Robert had a cold the other day but he’s better now. Vivian is fine."
"So, you've got one sister and one brother?" Daniel asked.
"Yes."
"And they're both younger than you?"
"Yes, that's right. How’s your job at the garage?”
“Same as normal, although we had a couple of new people this week.”
“What are they like?”
“Al right, very nice to work with.”
We continued talking until we had finished eating. Then I went to the library to do some work and Daniel went to meet some other friends.
All through the day I kept my secret to myself.
I was in love with Daniel.
FOUR
I had not told anyone. I could not bring myself to tell Daniel or anyone else. There was also the secret that I was gay, that I had not realised until now, but I hadn’t told anyone that either.
I met Daniel again at the bus stop at the end of the day. He lived in the same town as I did.
“Did you get much work done?” he asked me.
“ Yes, I handed an assignment in, one on animal anatomy.”
“ Just think, in three weeks time we will be on holiday,” Daniel said.
“Yes, that’ll be nice,” I said.
We stood in silence. Next to the bus stop we could see over the barbed wire fence into a field of cows. Rooks wandered over the damp grass, prodding it with their pale grey beaks. The pavement was covered in wet copper and yellow coloured leaves.
Soon the bus pulled up beside us. We both got on, paid the driver and sat down. In ten minutes we arrived home. We said goodbye and went our separate ways.
I spent the rest of the evening working on assignments, but Daniel was still in my thoughts.
*
We had been taught at home all our lives, Vivian, Robert and me. We were raised in a Christian home by Christian parents. They encouraged us to read the Bible and took us to church every Sunday. I thought I had become a Christian, but I was wrong as I found out later.
I had taken my GCSEs earlier this year. I took six subjects, English, English Literature, Maths, History, Biology and Chemistry. It was hard work but I managed to pass my English, Maths and Biology with a two As and a B. I revised at home and took them at a local school in our area.
After I had achieved the results mother found out about a college nearby that did animal management courses. I had always had a keen interest in animals so it seemed like the ideal next step for me. We made enquiries, I had an interview and I was offered a position in September.
The first few days were really strange. I had been home schooled all my life and i felt like a complete outsider: I did not seem to have anything in common with the other students and I had to put up their silly questions like
“ Have you ever been pissed?”
“When did you loose your virginity?”
“Have you ever been stoned?”
Of course, I could not answer yes to any of these questions and I felt really awkward and self-conscious. I complained to my parents about all this. They were sympathetic, but told me not to worry too much. “You’ve only just started,” Mum told me. “Wait and see how you find it.”
So I did, and they were right. Soon I did settle in. I found I was enjoying the course and I made a few friends. The two people who I was closest to were Norma Davidson and Mark Wilson. They were both the same age as me. I sometimes had the feeling that we did not have much in common, but I was able to work around this.
“You mustn't worry to much about what other people think about you,” Norma told me when I confided in her once about how uncomfortable I was feeling. “ I was bullied at school myself. I like you, otherwise I wouldn’t talk to you.”
I felt better after that.
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As I am not finished writing my re-debut yet i will keep this short. you use the phrase "he asked" too prolifically. try to find an alternative. i would suggest reading the help forums for trouble with dialogue endings and i would also suggest looking into an author by the name or Jennifer Fallon for further reference regarding this. she is a good example of keeping the interest of the reader with dialogue heavy intrigue without much use of suffix like word attachments to quotations.
again i will say that i did not finish reading your story and i will mark this for a later review. i simply saw that issue in your writing as i was scanning the front page. in light of that i will say that Yes, its that visible a blemish on your writing, change it and you should have less trouble.
i wish you luck and as i am in a rush will not bother to edit this comment before quick posting.
I bid you adue.
~Sean Pendr
O hai.
“Hows” should be “how’s”, and there should be a comma after “far”.
There shouldn’t be a space after the quote marks, and “al” should be “all.”
This is kind of boring. Too much detail. Paul fiddling with his wrapper is realistic and fits in smoothly, but blurb about the lunchbox doesn’t really work.
Doesn’t sound very realistic. Maybe italicise “least”?
Good ending line. ^_^ Sharp, sweet and to the point.
It would be good to specify exactly who “he” is. I get that it’s Daniel, but for people who’ve taken a gap between chapters, mention who “he” is.
The description is nice, but “walked” is too boring. “Roamed”? “Wandered”?
This, my starched savoury, is an info-dump. We don’t need to know all this. If any of it is important, you can find a more subtle way to show us later on. Dropping a pile of data-loaded sentences on your reader’s toes isn’t friendly. Take it all out.
Same here, and you need a full stop to end it.
This is too long, and you’re lacking some punctuation. Make it something like, “I had been home schooled until now, and I felt like a completely outsider. I didn’t seem to have anything in common with the other students, and I had to put up with their silly questions:”
Wrong to. Should be “too”.
Sentence is too long with too many ands. Make it into two sentences.
Boring… we don’t need to know their appearance just yet – you can slip it in some other time.
I’m pretty sure that’s “tae kwon do”.
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I think you need to speed the pace up. It's very slow at the moment, and although that's kind of the point, you need to make it interesting, otherwise no one will read it. You might be at a bit of a disadvantage having not read that many pure fiction books. Autobiographies are often told as one big infordump, and the style of writing is different to that in a fictional novel.
There isn't anything you're doing majorly wrong, but you need to spice it up and skip over the boring bits that make sense in real life but don't work in fiction.