“Kyle Finley is the kind of kid that can’t climb up a rope” couch Deacon Hirsh was sitting the lunch table in the teacher’s office at the Valhalla grade school. Jeffry Valentine, math teacher by day, poet by night, was facing Hirsh. You see some of teacher’s in Vgs engaged in a healthy game of betting from time to time. “You know as well as I do that muscles are the last thing you need to be good at math” Hirsh bit back a laugh. “I just can’t believe that your actually going to put down as dime on that looser.” Val took out a money clip, counted off ten Bens, put them on the table and smiled. “He’s going to ace this” Val said over his shoulder on his way out.
“John” Sue Finley spoke to her eldest son in a commanding tone. “Yes dear mother what can I do for you?” he asked. “Come put your little brother to sleep” John sighed. He had been expecting this; his little brother Kyle had always had his stress problems. Especially regarding tests, “I’ll be over in about” John checked his watch “ fifteen min.” He could practically hear his mother nod in relief.
A storm of swords raged through Payton manor. The barbarians cut down every living thing in that house. “Why?” shouted one of the house staff as a large bearded man tried to slam an ax in to her head.
“I bet this is where the knights come to save the day” Kyle Finley said. His older brother John shushed him.
All hoped seamed lost. The Crawly barbarians would finish killing everyone. Then they would steal everything that still shined. And just for good measure, the manor would be burned to the ground. Ayleth the youngest of the Payton children had hidden in the coal bin. When the man with the red bearded man walked passed her for the fifth time she darted out of the bin. She made it out the door, and quite a aways down the road before the Barbarians saw her. Three of them came out the door. One was holding a cross bow. “Rulf if you manage to hit that girl on the first try, I will drown you in ale” Rulf the red bearded man nodded his agreement. Rulf brought the crossbow to bear. Little Ayleth ran as fast as her legs would carry her.
“NO” shouted Kyle “I like Ayleth, does she die?” John flipped to the next page “you’ll find out in a second.”
A crossbow bolt flew through the air. Ayleth darted in to the woods by the side of the road. “Nice shot Asher” called King Edger Venroy. The white armor of the royal guards gleamed in the sunlight as they road to meet the barbarians now coming out of the house. Edger spotted Ayleth, “Asher we got a survivor” the knight that had fired the bolt that saved little Ayleth, stayed behind. The king led his knights to battle. Asher dismounted and took of his helm “it’s okay, we are the good guys.” Ayleth had tried to disappear in to her coal stained night gown.
A timer rang. “Sorry Kyle we’ll have to finish this tomorrow,” Kyle looked with pleading eyes at his brother, “No.” Kyle kept the cutie meter at the highest setting he could manage. “Fine” John reopened the book. “Mom is going to kill me” he muttered to himself before continuing.
“Take my hand miss Payton” Ayleth was not going to move. “Then I’m just going to have to carry you” Asher said before lifting Ayleth over his shoulder. Strangely she did not object. Friday
Ayleth Payton was one of two survivors. The other was Dimia Hamlin, a maid’s daughter and the only friend Ayleth had ever known. Payton Manor was damaged beyond recovery, so Asher invited Ayleth to come live with him and his family. She agreed on the condition that Dimia could join. Asher took that deal laughing.
John finished reading, when Kyle rolled out the cutie again John said “that is the end of it, look.” He showed Kyle the final page of Falling Swords. A novel which was considered too intense for a kid Kyles age. “Alright then” Kyle said and let himself fall on to his pillow. “Dude, it’s going to work out” John said, making his best attempt at sounding reassuring. “If it turns out I fucked up as bad as I think” Kyle trailed off. “They’re not going to kick out,” John threw the now finished paperback on to the desk in the middle of the room, “and if they do you can come live with me” he said smiling as he closed the door.
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137,484 Literary Works • 672,034 Reviews
Hi!! Silver here to review for you!!
Well I have to say that you started off very well, you grabbed my attention straight away. I like the idea of teachers placing bets on students, it's unusual but amusing too. The thing is though after this my interest waned very quickly. I'll list a few reasons why:
1) Structure
It is extremely tedious to read chunks of dialogue stuck together in one paragraph. Fro each time a new person speaks, a new paragraph should be formed. For example:
Should be:
“John,” Sue Finley spoke to her eldest son in a commanding tone.
“Yes dear mother what can I do for you?” he asked.
“Come put your little brother to sleep”
John sighed. He had been expecting this; his little brother Kyle had always had his stress problem. Especially regarding tests.
“I’ll be over in about,” John checked his watch, “fifteen mins.” He could practically hear his mother nod in relief.
I'm sure that you can se how much easier it is to read now. It's spread out and it's easier to differentiate the speakers. I've also edited some of the mistakes that I've spotted.
2) Plot, Flow ad Clarity
Okay, so these are three important issues that really need to be addressed in your piece.
Plot
I am left wondering what I gained from reading this when I finished this piece. There was no feeling of intense emotion or satisfaction or even an appreciation of the writing. I was mainly just confused, which leads me to flow which I'll talk about soon.
I really like the idea of an older brother reading to his younger brother to help him cope with an upcoming test, it's really quite sweet. I think you have the bones of a really good story. The problem for me was that there was teachers gambling at the beginning, John reading to his brother and then a fantasy scene inserted all within a very short amount of space. I don't really understand the story by the end and don't really know where the plot was meant to go.
Flow
Between the different scenes that you had, there were no transitions. Each scene starts abruptly and completely throws the reader out of focus. A simple ***between paragraphs would really help.
Clarity
This is a big problem and one of the main reasons I was confused reading this. For example:
Okay, but later you mention that Kyle is going to do a test. What has that got to do with climbing ropes? Is it a physical education test? You need to elaborate.
This is actually one of the most well written sections of your story. You have brilliant imagery ad lot of action. The thing is that at first I thought they were watching a movie; you need to put quotation marks around this piece to make it clear that Kyle is reading.
This whole section is just completely confusing. What exactly did Kyle f*** up? Which are going to kick out what? John lives in a different place? Wait- so does that man that Kyles parents might kick him out? His mum sounded like she cared about him though. You're leaving the reader with all the wrong questions.
I'm really sorry if I come off harsh or mean. I really don't mean to and all I want is to point you in the right direction for future pieces that you do. I sincerely hope that I helped.
Silverlock
First I would like to thank you for surviving my story. When I get the time to sit down for second draft I will be sure to incorporate all of your suggestions. So mister silverlock thank you very much.
I'm glad that you benefited from my comments
And lol I'm a girl 
my apologies, i was not able to deduce that.
Haha! No worries! I get confused with gender too on this site
Moose here to review.
This starts out pretty good. Spelling is good, and I can visualise what's going on fairly well.
Just a few nitpicks, though.
There are a few errors in this sentence. I'm going to assume here that Deacon Hirsh is not a couch and is instead a coach. Also, 'was sitting the lunch table' doesn't flow as well as 'was sitting at the lunch table'. There should also be a comma after 'rope'. After a character speaks, there should always be a comma, the " and then a dialogue tag (i.e. she said, he said, they hissed, e.t.c.). Like if I wrote,
"You're not a hero," Jacques sneered.
Unless Jacques was asking a question or exclaiming something, there would always be a comma. Now if there was a whole line of dialogue, an exchange between two characters, the comma rule is exempt. Like so.
"What do you think about the new system?" Riley asked me.
"It's okay," I said with a shrug
"It's got more memory than all of your computers combined."
"Shut up. I know, I'm not an idiot."
If there is no dialogue tag, there is no comma.
This was a sudden transition. If you're going to transition like this, add an asterisk (*) or a tilde (~) between the two paragraphs to show it's a passage of time.
This, however, is entirely bewildering. It's like you're walking into a totally separate story. I would suggest italicizing it to show someone is reading it, or adding quotes.
Your rating is a bit off. You rated it 12+. If you're going to continue using the words 'fucking' or make the characters swear in general, I would suggest making the rating somewhere around the 16+ or 18+, depending on the intensity of some scenes (Like intense swearing, sexual content, that kind of stuff)
There were a few other parts where it's very confusing, but if you choose to continue this, I'm sure it could be explained fairly well.
*Thumbs up* Keep on writing!
Cheers,
Moose
First of all, thank you very much for your comments. They will be added when i sit down to do the second draft of the story. I would also like to appolgize for my rating mistake, it just comes down to the fact that i swear a lot when i talk so i am dezensitised to it by. Their are supposed to be numbers before each paragraph i just forgot. Anyway thank you kind dragon.
This is a nice short story with vivid describition.Remind me of the time I was in elementary school being a delicate boy,and John is a thoughtful big brother as well as mine.Thanks for uploading.Wait for your next story.
Thank you, poisonouselixir.