“Billi, you have to take a shower!”
“Whose says?”
“I do!” Sarah yelled, lifting her hands over her head. It had been two days since this mutant goat wandered into her life, disrupting everything in it. Samson was afraid of him- which made Billi smile and chase after him during the night, Amelia stayed in her room for most of the time Billi was there (except at night since he was sleeping… sometimes), and Sarah hated to buy gallons and gallons after milk just for a goat. The clerk at the local shop would give her weird looks, handing the money in an awkward gesture, then would stare at her until she left. Sarah had gotten used to it, normally since the first time of buying it and the store knows how much milk she needs, only stopping inside for that some days.
Amelia would have a fit, mistaking the sour milk for her milk sometimes even labeling the jug with her name in Sharpie. Billi would then continue on his way, drinking the milk in anything that could fit it sometimes a cup or Samson’s dog food dish. Samson would drink the water/milk dish and puke on the carpet which met Sarah would have to clean it up. She was almost done with Billi, wanted to throw him out, and let the desert coyotes eat him for dinner.
“You are not the boss of me,” Billi retorted. Sarah sighed, crossing her arms. He was on the counter, grease slicked his fur back with a few insects nestling for a quick nap. He liked it this way; made other creatures aware of his lack of caring for anything and could possible kill them (as in smelling). NAPA promptly promised that Billi would be a big develop in military training, such as pretending to be a goat when really they could ram their horns through their stomach, killing them slowly. It never happened as Billi had escaped, leaving NAPA at a standstill for some time- until they came across another idea.
At the same time, Sarah pushed Billi into the tub his goat hooves sliding down the sides, causing an awful noise. She sighed reaching over to the faucet and turned the water on, shimmering down on Billi while he let out a goat scream of accusing Sarah of animal abuse.
“Oh shush it! You smell horrible, you need a shower,” Sarah said harshly, grabbing soap from the corner. She shook her head. Two days into this mess and he is refusing a shower. What a stubborn goat, Sarah thought to herself grabbing the shampoo. Could it be that he is not used to human nature or maybe he is a goat, and this is how goats think of humans? Something stupid to think about when you have to bathe a useless mutant goat, Sarah thought as she set the soap on the floor.
She knelt down, reaching the level of Billi. Grabbing the shampoo, she drizzled on his head while Billi’s cries seemed to have died as she was looking for soaps. I never even noticed, she thought rubbing his head in circles. Billi frowned, poking the soap suds with his hand as he suddenly felt the hot blasting heat on his head.
“Owh! Owh! Why does that have to be so hot?”
“Cause we need to get the soap out of your hair, Billi.”
“Doesn’t need to be that hot, for goodness sake.” Billi mumbled. Sarah laughed softly, still rubbing when she felt a hot metal on her hand. She ignored the metal feeling until it stung her hand and she whelped in pain. Billi looked at her, then at her hand, and back at her; she found my main chip. She found my main chip, he thought staring at Sarah. She rubbed her hand on her pants.
“Must have been the water. Too hot,” She thought aloud, as Billi chuckled nervously.
“Right. The water is hot like I said. Could we hurry up please?”
“Why? We only just started on washing your hair and-“
“I don’t have to give a reason, right?”
“Is everything okay, Billi?” Sarah concerned. Billi looked at the wall near the bathtub.
“Yes, I just want this shower to end.”
“But-“
“Sarah please. Are done yet?” Billi asked sternly. Sarah gave Billi questionable look before reaching over to the faucets. Billi quickly jumped out, running out of the bathroom into the hallways spooking poor Samson- who hightailed away from Billi. Sarah was shocked; was I just tricked by a goat?
“Billi! Where are you going?” Sarah heard Amelia yell, as the front door slammed shut. Sarah shook her head leaping up from her seat, and ran out of the bathroom straight into Amelia.
“Hey, watch where you are going!”
“Don’t talk like to me, Amelia Rose Tyler. Where did Billi go?”
“Do I look like I know, mom?”
Sarah raised an eyebrow, frowning. “At least we got rid of him. How did you do it? Your annoyance? Yourself?” Amelia asked, walking over to the nearby couch patting her head from the impact of her mother’s head with hers.
Sarah sighed. They did after all got rid of him; no more milk stains on the carpet, no more crying over spilled milk, no more scaring Samson… no more Billi. Her stomach grumbled, asking for dinner but she decided to ignore it. She walked past Amelia thinking too hard about Billi and such when she fell to the floor suddenly.
Amelia decided it was best, thinking her mother was asleep and walked to the library to enjoy a book. Her mother coughed, sat up, and looked around; where am I? What am sitting on? Flat wooded land. With a long, bushy coat. Hey! That could be my friend, Arthur! Why are you there Arthur? Nah, isn’t Arthur… I wish it was. Okay, ooh what is this? Hair? Long Hair? Sarah thought, touching her hair passionately. Do I have- I do! Why did I choose such a boring subject? Sarah doesn’t even seem that fun; all emotion and no fun. Ah well, Billi should have chosen Samson or Amelia; I bet those two are funnier. But I guess that is downfall of being an adult like Sarah, going through all that fun stuff. Hmm? What else does she have here…? The voice wandered off in her head, as Sarah snapped back.
Whose voice was that? Sarah thought, standing up with all of her limbs cracking from the pressure build up. Her legs went all wobbly, as she fell onto the couch and into a sleep.
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,820 Reviews
So voices......lol it's official Sarah gotta be put down. Eagle eye when you have eyes on the target you have the green light to shoot....lml, hello Tuesday, it's me Kwanza, aka everyone's favorite holiday with a review. So let's not wait and waste time let's jump right into it let's go.
So character development wise. I like what you did with Billi. He is like an abuse child, which means he doesn't understand love, nor ask for things he needs or wants. So not only does he not trust anyone, but he go around causing havoc,being mean, and being a nuisance . So getting love from Sarah was a foreign concept to him and I think she should go and find Billi..... I did love the story though, it made me laugh, but at the end when Billi ran out the house my heart dropped because I know what it feels like to not be loved. I had to learn to let it go so that the people who did love me could. So this story does hit a bone. Thanks for posting such a tasteful story.
Hi Tuesday!
#NaRevWriMo!
Good morning :3 I am back again and today I want to be all caught up with your novel so you should expect one more review later on today! I just want to say, I am really glad that we have come back to Billi's story. Here we can see he has a secret and a chip in him that I didn't know existed. I wonder if this chip is what keeps him alive or something, and I wonder if the NAPA could potentially track him using that chip as well. Lot's of things we don't know yet, and with him missing this could be interesting! As well as this, Sarah has another voice in her mind and I can't figure out who or why they are there. It's an interesting twist in the story and I am looking forward to finding out more about that incident and what it could mean for Sarah. I am worried it isn't something too good actually. And I wonder where Billi Wack has gone as well, but I guess for that information I am going to have to read on. Which I shall be doing as soon as possible!
At one point you mention that Billi was going to be used in the military to look innocent and then ram into people's stomachs. You mention that doing this would kill them slowly, but I am not sure that would be a good idea? Soldiers can still harm you when injured in such a way that could kill him. Most likely the military would have made sure that whoever Billi rammed would die quickly. So maybe change slowly to quickly or do whatever you need to to make him an instantaneous weapon instead.
One thing that is bothering me quite a bit is the fact that Sarah has seemed to have forgotten all about her dear husband who has died. There has been no conversation with Amelia. She hasn't contacted the police or gone to identify a body. No funeral or memorial or anything. And she was someone who supposedly loved the guy enough to make a family with him and have future plans as well! I know it was a subplot to get the novel started but it can't just be pushed to the side and forgotten because a death in a novel is always of great importance. And right now I need to see a bit more of it in a follow up.
I also noticed that in this chapter you include a lot of Sarah's thoughts, which is wonderful because we always would like to know more about a characters mind and thoughts! My only suggestion here would be to put her thoughts in italics so they are separate from the rest of the narrative and we can quickly identify between the two! I am looking forward to hearing more of her thoughts as well.
Nitpicks!
After should be of.
Here we have what is called a run on sentence, when we have commas in places that we don't need them and yet it simply extends the sentence. I would make the first comma a full stop. Then the second sentence would start with 'since', cutting the word normally completely. I would rewrite the rest of it to read as: Since the first time she bought it, the store knew how much milk she needed. Some days the only thing she stopped for was milk.
I rewrote it because the wording above makes it easier to understand what you meant to say.
I pulled out this sentence because it isn't complete. I would make the first 'her' hers instead and put a full stop there. That way we also don't repeat the word milk twice close to each other. And then the beginning of the next sentence could be 'sometimes she even labeled... etc'.
There should be a full stop after the word 'it'. You can tell this because when you read that sentence aloud it's the natural place where you take a pause. Remember to read things aloud if you are unsure where to throw in the pauses. Which means the rest of the sentence would need to be rewritten so it could fit an independent sentence.
Those two parts of the sentence are basically unrelated from each other, which means that the comma is a splice. They should really be two sentences because him sitting at the counter has nothing to do with the conditions of his hair.
*development
Again, when reading this I automatically take a pause after the word 'tub' which means a full stop should be there. The second sentence could be rearranged to start with 'His goat hooves slid down' to make it fit itself being an independent sentence.
Is should actually be was so we are keeping everything in past tense.
You are missing an 'a' before the word questionable.
You need the word 'that' after the word like.
I would rearrange this to say 'They did get rid of him after all' seeing as that is more often said and seems to flow easily. I will be reading the final chapter now before I am all caught up!
Deanie x
Hello!
Stegosaurus here for a review!
I loved the beginning of this XD. However you did use the wrong 'whose' and there is a site that can help you with figuring that out: Whose vs Who's. That can help you improve on writing and make it easier for the reader to read
I liked the relationship between Billi and Sarah; like an old married couple which in case could explain their bond for each other as friends since to me they seem to fight like an old married couple too >.>
As from what arty said before me, I wanted to know more about this clip that is implanted into Billi's fur and is that for some secret mission? As the previous chapters, I would say that (maybe) it is. However, I would touch upon that later on chapter; why does Sarah and Amelia seem to want to get rid of Billi? I would love to have a mutant goat in my house- in my opinion because the adventures you could have (and I hope you will write some adventures with Billi SOON AS YOU COME BACK!!)
Overall, this was a lovely piece; humorous and such. I will review the rest of chapters asap. Hope you write more when you come back; also could tag me when you write the next novel chapter? :3
Steggy
Happy Review Day!
I haven’t read the previous chapters and, hence, this review will only be based on this one.
Let me clarify, Billi’s a mutant goat? If so, how does he look? Is he half-human, half-goat? O.o I’d suggest you to describe him. NAPA? What does it stand for? How did Sarah find Billi?
I’m curious about the content of the main chip. It appears that Billi’s hiding a secret. Is he there for a top secret mission?
How did she know they got rid of him? Is it simply because he ran away? Has Billi never done that before?
I couldn’t stop smiling though. It’s a light, humorous piece! I loved the interaction between Sarah and Billi, and their bickering. They acted like siblings. xD
There are a couple of spelling and grammatical errors, e.g. “whose” in place of “who” and “met” instead of “meant”, but it’s nothing a quick edit can’t fix.
Great job!
Well done, and keep writing!
Hi Tues!
Oh no- not a shower! XD
But maybe "“Whose says?”" Should just be who.
Funny, but maybe you should say "IT made other creatures aware" and "possibly kill them".
This bit of information seems randomly placed. It's nice to know, but it doesn't seem to have a specific purpose where it is. We're just talking about how Billi smells, but now we're talking about building a super-army of mutant goats. Maybe there is somewhere else to put this that would be more relevant?
Maybe yelped in pain rather than whelped? Also, if you're going to repeat, "She found my main chip" for emphasis, then make the first one, "She found his main chip" because it's not in Billi's thoughts yet. The second one is fine. Possibly, you don't need to repeat the phrase in the first place, but it's your call based on how important it is.
Her mother fell to the floor? And Amelia only thinks her mother is sleeping, after randomly falling down? That's a bit crazy. The entirety of the next paragraph doesn't make sense, but I'm sure that it will soon, in future chapters.
I can't wait for more!
-Falco