Chapter 35
~1,050 words
Jay and Fleta slunk back to their teal room. They got ready for bed in silence, taking turns for the shower.
“I’ll never get used to all the cool things you guys have,” Fleta whispered, drying her hair. “Warm water that sprays right out of the wall onto your head. And that conditioner stuff? Boy, I miss home but this place rocks!”
“Yeah, imagine how hard it was for me to get used to Trevon after living with showers all my life. It wasn’t easy.” Jay shook his head.
William stuck his head into the room. “Hey. Listen, I’m sorry that I’m making you go home, but it’s the right thing to do. I don’t want you to think of me as the bad guy though. Let’s keep being friends, okay?”
Jay and Fleta nodded their heads.
“It’s alright,” Jay said. “We understand. We’ve been away from home for too long anyway.” He gave Fleta a significant look.
“Good night,” William said with a small smile, and closed the door half-way.
“Night,” Jay murmured absent-mindedly after him.
Fleta was looking at him.
“What?”
“You’re not really going to have to tell your mother that you’re back on Earth, are you.”
“Well, I was hoping you could help me out with that,” Jay said, rubbing his neck.
“How would I do that?” Fleta sounded dubious.
“You would pretend to be my mother. I’d call this room on the telephone in the other room, and you would pick up and pretend to be my mother. When William asks to speak with you, that’s when you’ll really have to ham it up. I’ll give you some things for you to say to him, but if he asks any questions, you’ll have to wing it.” Jay shrugged.
“Won’t he recognize me?” Fleta cocked her head.
“It’s just your voice he’ll hear… are you any good at speaking in different voices? Mimicking others?”
“I guess a little… I can try.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Fleta.”
She laughed. “We’ll see if you can do anything to thank me.”
Jay flipped off the light and settled down into the thick blankets. Silence fell, and Jay could hear the warbling of the television from the other room. He stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. Then he rolled onto his side to watch the clock tick forwards. Minutes passed by, but sleep never seemed to even wink in his direction.
“Fleta? Are you awake?” Jay whispered.
“Yeah. I can’t sleep,” her light voice responded.
“There’s a lot that needs to go well tomorrow. It’s been hard to fall asleep for me too.”
“Mmhm,” Fleta agreed.
“Fleta?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you tell me about your life growing up in Trevon?”
Fleta rustled around in her blankets but didn’t respond.
“Or maybe just when Shep met you?” Jay tried.
“I guess I could tell you that.”
“Is there any reason you couldn’t tell me the other?”
“It just… wasn’t the best time in my life.”
“Fair enough.”
“Where should I begin…
“I grew up on the streets of a city in Rowchap called Warris. It was too hot in the summer, and too cold in the winter, and the in-between seasons were rainy. Needless to say, it wasn’t the best place to grow up. The day I met Shep—or as I called him then, Ato—was extremely hard for me. I had recently twisted my ankle, and I couldn’t jump from rooftop to rooftop like I had done before. I was having a hard time finding food, because all my normal food sources were only accessible through speed and stealth. I needed the rooftops for both of those.
“I was sitting in a recess between a barrel and a wall of an alley when I heard a voice singing:
A dusk in the sunlight,
a beam in the black.
Rust on a gold mite,
a tear in the sack.
Eyes that glimmer
through the murky deep,
teeth that shimmer
when you go to sleep.
“Despite the seemingly scary words, the song comforted me, and especially the voice. I peeked my head out from behind the barrel to see who was singing, and I saw an old man with a couple sheep by his side. Yes, I could see the sheep without that special dust. I put my hand out to feel the wool as one passed by, and Shep noticed, probably because no one else had seen the sheep before.
“Shep turned back and squatted down to look at where I was sitting. “You like my sheep, huh?” he said.
“I nodded because I was too weak and hungry to do much else.
“He said, “You know, I know a great inn down the street that makes the best soup. But I never have anybody to eat it with me, so I feel kind of self-conscious when I go there. Will you go with me?”
“I nodded again, but the idea of getting up was too hard for me to even contemplate.
“Shep scooted aside the barrel and picked me up. He carried me down the street a ways to that inn, and just like he said, he ordered two bowls of soup. I could hardly bring the spoon up to my mouth, so Shep helped me with that until I gathered enough strength to do it myself. I could only stomach half the bowl, but Shep bought me a room for the night and said I could save the soup for tomorrow. That was probably the best soup I’d ever had.
“The next couple days, Shep got a doctor to look at my ankle, and eventually it got better. I helped Shep with a few errands and we became friends. Then one day he said he was leaving and that I had a choice. I chose to follow him, obviously. There wasn’t anything for me back in Warris. It was probably the best decision I ever made.”
Fleta shrugged. “And that’s the story of how I met him. He’s a good man.”
“Yeah… he is.” Jay smiled in the darkness. “He’s a very good man. And that’s why we’ve got to get back to him. Shall we sleep, Fleta?”
“We shall,” she said, the sound of her voice trailing off into an infinity of sleep.
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Canary word: Present
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,740 Reviews
Hi there!
I'm gonna start off with a nitpick cause I'm mean like that :3 When Fleta is telling the story, she's also telling us what Shep was saying. You put those in quotation marks within the quotation marks. Instead, you have to use single quotation marks instead. That way it's obvious that there's someone else talking in the story.
The farther along I read, the less I have to say about the chapters. I've told you all about your writing and your dialogue and your characterization. It's definitely consistent throughout the chapters. I'm constantly at awe of how easily you can move the story forward. You make it seem so easy. The dialogue is great and this chapter really shows us Fleta's life from before Jay came along. It would've been nice to know this kind of thing chapters ago, but I think this is the perfect time to reveal it. Otherwise you'd have to kill time a different way.
Are we getting close to the movie set?? I think we are. Exciting.
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Hi Fortis!
Wow... this chapter hasn't left me with much to say. I had never really given much thought to how Fleta met Shep, or what she was like before she did, so that was a nice to surprise to find out. And it looks like she really did have a tough time, so I admire her for continuing to be such a nice person. Timmy already mentioned how we're gradually seeing more dialogue, but I don't mind it at all. I like learning more about them this way, and I think it's clever how Jay cam up with the idea to avoid William calling his real mother. I hope it works, and I am looking forward to when they get going to the movie set. Sorry if this is a short review, but honestly I can't think of many things I would want to say.
One thing is I would've liked to see more about Jay's thoughts in response to what Fleta just trusted him with. We get to hear the story, but then you kind of make that the end of. We don't get to know Jay's opinion of the matter at all. Does he feel sad that such a lovely person had to live such a tough life beforehand? Does he find it hard to imagine how she could've been in such a terrible state? I also wanted to know if he felt guilty for running away as he did when she seemed to have gone through something a bit more traumatic than his. I wonder if that affects him at all.
Another thing that might be nice to see is having Fleta not only compare this luxury life of earth to the one she lives back in her own world, but also have her comparing it to the life she lived before she met Shep. This must seem like paradise compared to back then. When I say this though, I don't mean her to make the comparison before she mentions her own story. Maybe afterwards, when she is done telling she could add something along the lines of 'seeing this place is just so much more amazing than the life I lived back then. I would've done anything for this,' or a small mention like that. It would be enough.
Apart from that, I don't think there is much more to add. It would be nice to have a small mention of Cabot in there somewhere, because the less we hear of him, the less his authority seems to be important. But it doesn't have to be much at all, just a small mention would suffice. That aside, it was a pretty flawless chapter in itself and hard for me to review! You're making these characters have so much depth in them, I just love it. We're really getting to know Fleta better :3
Deanie x
Hi, there! Great chapter. It flowed really well, and I think the amount of dialogue helped with that. However, I find that it lacks detail. I mean, that leaves room for the reader to imagine whatever he/she wants to when "hearing" the dialogue, but that would be an unfortunate waste. You have many opportunities in this chapter to "beef it up" with visual descriptions and emotions.
For example, when you write, "He gave Fleta a significant look." What does "significant" look like? A worried glance? A thoughtful frown?
I know that some people don't like too much description, but I think you have room for a bit more.
Keep up the good work!
Timmy here!
So one thing I am noticing the farther we go along in these chapters is the amount of dialogue goes up with each one. Sometimes, we have a normal amount of dialogue in them where the reader can see and feel the emotions of the characters through their thoughts and narrations as well... but your writing seems to be veering off into the dialogue heavy side of things of late.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing - being a writer that does quite a bit of dialogue (for instance, I don't know if this is "his thing", but I looked at John Green and he seemed to have quite a bit), but you need to find an even balance. Like, you can't go and have an entire chapter with just dialogue - nothing else. There needs to be a bit of narration in there, and actions by the character. More than a bit, actually. Remember that human beings never actually stop moving. Even while sleeping, the most still thing our body does, we still move about - some of us quite violently (not meeee). So keep in mind that while doing dialogue, it's always good to have some character action in there, and you can really use it to your advantage in many places, using the action after a character's dialogue in the place of a tagline. They work very well as that.
One thing I am noticing in these more recent chapters is that the amount of Jay's thought is really going down. Throughout this conversation, and throughout Fleta's story and afterwards... don't you think his mind would be going haywire with all this information Fleta was giving him? And even if he wasn't concerned about that and didn't have anything to think about there - also remember that our minds never stop moving, either. Just as our bodies never stop moving, our minds keep thinking. A never-ending process of processes, if you will (wow, that sounds redundant. xD)
So I think if you boosted the amount of thought in these more recent chapters, they would benefit so much from them. Just doing that would add more of a... balance, I suppose, to the works. Look at it as building a cake. Sugar and Flour are great things, but without the milk, cocoa powder and the baking powder - the cake isn't whole. And if you only put in half or three-quarters of the ingredients, then the cake isn't going to taste right. Find the balance, and then stick to that. The recipe you had was amazing. I would suggest going back and reading the previous chapters, especially the one's where Jay is up in the mountain with Shep while they're looking at the spire. Just looking at that and keeping the mentality you've always had while writing these chapters will help you keep the same style throughout.
It's not that I find this writing empty. It's that I know you can write fuller.
Yeah, as you said earlier, this is your best line. I completely agree. I love the "wink in his direction part". Keep that up. ^.^
And just because in the previous reviews, you did ask for it....
For some reason, that boy grates on me. Perhaps it's because I don't really see Fleta as saying that? I dunno.
Oh, and comma after home
Comma after guy
Comma after long
The customary punishment for missing a question mark is forty lashes, less one. I will give you this one chance, though. Because I am so nice. hehe
Comma after me
*sighs* Comma after blankets
Cut probably. It weakens the sentence and her intention. If it is the best decision of her life, she would know it. And from what I have seen of her, I think she would be sure it was her best decision?
So, despite all of my negativeness (egh, it seems as though that is all I said) throughout this review, I really did love it. To learn more about Fleta's past and have her open up to Jay to tell him all this was just awesome. And I love, love how Shep reacted to her being able to see the sheep. He didn't astonished or ask her any questions. You kept him in character. He asked her if she wanted lunch, which was awesome. I really think you did an awesome job on the story, and keeping it lively. Eventually, in the story, I think it would be a good idea for us to learn more about her past - especially about the part before she met Shep, because that seems to be what she is most hesitant and protective about (another thing I love. Just another thing to keep me interested). I wonder what happened back then.
And now I have run out of things to say, just when I was about to wind up for more rambling. On what, I don't remember. >.< RUN, RUN. DORY MOMENT. Anywho, I really did enjoy this. I think you're beginning to move the story along as I hoped you would, so I can't really complain about that. Because while you didn't move the story forward as in more stuff happening in the present, you moved the plot forward with this story from Fleta - which is just as good. Each chapter needs to either move the story or plot forward - or both. And this one did an excellent job of combining both. You moved the story forward a bit, but mainly just built up a greater image of Fleta for us readers. Thank you.
Keep being awesome, and wear those glasses.
~Darth Timmyjake