z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

The Long Journey Chapters 1 and 2

by madisonperkins59


Chapter 1

It is the starting of my eighth-grade year; We are going around introducing ourselves. When they got to me, “My name is Alexis.” I said. In the middle of me talking one kid yells out, "What is wrong with you, why do you have those?"He was talking about the crutches I use to walk with. I explained that I have Spina bifida which affects my walking.

"Will you ever be able to walk without them?" Another student asks me.

"Enough questions," the teacher tells them.

"After class, the teacher asked me to stay back."

"Sorry about what happened in class today," she tells me.

"I don’t mind when people ask me questions about my disability. I get it, I’m different from them so they are curious."

“If there is anything that you need ask me, I would be happy to help you,” she says to me.

"Just treat me like the other kids in the class," I tell her as I am leaving the classroom.

On my way to my next class, I walk into the room and everybody stares at me. I want to tell them to stop looking at me, but I can’t find a way to tell them to stop staring at me without being rude. So instead, I turn around in my chair and looked at them the way they’re looking at me.

I couldn't help to notice there was this one girl from my 7th-grade year, Diamond, who just would not stop looking at me. I ask her, "Is there something you want to ask me? If not, can you stop staring at me?"

“Does it make you feel uncomfortable?” She asks. So, you know it’s bothering me and you are still going to do it. I ignored her, and she stopped because she was only trying to make me mad. Honestly, I would think it wouldn’t bother me when people are staring at me because I have lived with this disability my whole life and I have had a lot of people stare at me.

Hours later, we are at home from school

“I had a good day” my sister says tossing her bag on the couch.

“How was your day, Alexis?” My mom and dad ask me.

Good, I tell them with a sigh.

“Are you sure? That didn’t sound very convincing."

"It was okay, I guess. Hey mom, is it too late to homeschool me?"

"Why homeschool? You have never been homeschooled."

"I can’t stand the kids at school and it’s not only the kids, it’s the teachers too. I don’t want them to treat me any different from the other kids, I can do pretty much everything that the other kids can do."

"Well, tell them that then. It’s your last year until high school so you need to enjoy the time that you have. You are staying in school and that is the end of this conversation."

"But mom!" I say in a whining tone.

"No, you are not going to be homeschooled. Now go find you something to do instead of bothering me.

As I am going to my room my sister asks, "why don’t you like school?"

"Don’t worry about it and why are you eavesdropping on my conversation. You wouldn’t understand even if I told you."

What’s wrong?"

I explain to her what’s wrong, and she says, “I don’t think I can help you with this.”

"See, I told you. You wouldn’t be able to help."

"I am an excellent listener so if you need someone to talk to, I could help with that. I’ll always be here if you need someone to talk to," she says as she is turning on the TV.

One thing that I had to learn once you block out all the negative people that try to put you down, you will be all right. They will only keep bothering you if they see that you are bothered by their negative energy.

During school, I would try my best to stay away from Diamond. I can not be getting myself into any unnecessary drama this year. Then out of nowhere, “Alexis have you seen the post that Diamond put up about you?"

Chapter 2

I can never catch a break around here, I say to myself shaking my head. "What post are you talking about?" I asked but everyone was silent. "How are you going to ask me if I saw something and I say no and you do not tell me what it is?"

As I was walking down the hall, I hear footsteps approaching me and someone calling me trying to get my attention. But at this point I am annoyed, I kept walking. It was one of my classmates and before she said anything, "If you are going to tell me about the post, I don’t want to hear it, I tell her.”

"No, I came to ask you if you were okay."

"Yes, I am fine," I tell her as my voice cracks. "Do you want me to tell someone like a teacher or the principal that Diamond is messing with you?"

"No, do not tell anyone," I say clenching my fists. "Go to class, you will be late," I tell her.

“You are not going to just sit here and let this bother you.”

" I'm not going to go to class and have everyone laughing at me."

"Come on, Alexis!"

"No, I’m not going anywhere."

"You better not be sitting here when I get out of class."

"Chill, there are only a couple of classes left so I won’t be missing too much."

Soon after, school was over and now I have to go home, and answer all the questions about how school was knowing I did nothing all day. When I got home my mom asked us about school."Can we not talk about school?" I say as I am going up to my room.

"What happened, Alexis?", she says as she puts her arm around me.

"I don’t want to talk right now. Will you leave me alone!" I say pulling away from her.

"Who do you think you are talking to like that? If something is wrong, you need to tell me so I can help fix it."

"Ok then, can you take away my disability?"

"Alexis, you know I can’t do that. What’s going on?"

"Nothing, I’m fine. I’m just in a bad mood right now and if you don’t mind, I want to be alone."

" Well I’m going to go make dinner. Let me know if you need anything. "

Going up to my room and Imani comes in right behind me. "What do you want?" I ask her. "I was going to ask you to help me with my homework but don't worry about it.

"No, Imani I'll help you just give me a couple of minutes."

In the middle of me helping her with her homework she asks me “What’s been going on with you?”

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Yesterday you asked mom about homeschool and today you just run up to your room after coming home from school not saying anything to anyone. This isn’t like you something is wrong."

Back at school, "Have you told your mom what’s going on?" Jada asks.

"No, and I don’t plan on telling her."

"Why not?"

"She doesn’t need to know. It’s just some post on social media and it doesn’t bother me. I just don’t think it’s a big deal."

“ I am not going to stand around and act like everything is okay" she says as I grab her arm. "Well you are going to tell them yourself."

"No, no one is telling anyone anything. You know what, maybe we shouldn’t be friends if you can’t keep a secret for me."

"This isn’t something that needs to be kept. And as a matter of fact this isn’t a secret at all.

I don’t care if we won’t be friends or not. You are not even looking at the damage that you could do to yourself by keeping this from the people that wants to help you. You have not been to one class since all of this has started."

"I just don’t want to make anything worse than what it is already."

"You think a solution to this problem is just hiding in the bathroom. It does not make sense to come to school every day just to hide in the bathroom. You might as well have just stayed at home."

"If I would've stayed at home then I would've needed a reason to stay."

Later that day, everyone was at home and my mom calls me downstairs.

"Why did I get a call from the school?" "What’s been going on?" she asks.

"Nothing," I say biting my lip.

"They wouldn’t be calling me for no reason. Now you don’t have to worry about going to class for the next couple of days. I hope whatever was important that you had to skip class for was worth it. Either you want to tell me what’s going on or you can just take the in-school suspension."

"I'll take the In-school suspension, it's better than being in the bathroom all day!" I shrugged my shoulders.

"Why are you okay with being in in-school suspension instead of going to class? It's supposed to be a punishment not a reward and why are you hiding in the bathroom instead of going to your classes?" she says shaking her head.

With a sigh of despair I confess to her, "I haven’t been going to class because one of the girls in my class put a post on social media about me and it went around the school. She’s been messing with me ever since I been going there."

"You’ve been going there since you’ve been in 7th grade. Why didn’t you say something about this last year?" shakes her head in disbelief.

"I wanted to deal with this by myself!"

“This isn’t something that you should be going through alone."

I tell her trying to hold back the tears."This is why I asked you about homeschooling me because I am tired of being bullied about something that I have no control over! I didn’t ask to be born like this!"

"I know it's hard Alexis."

"No, mom you don’t know! You can walk perfectly fine instead I have to use crutches and wear braces to help me walk."

The next morning, we got to the school and my mom went to talk to the principal about Diamond. The principal called us into her office and the first thing she asked me is, "Why didn’t you tell me when she first started bullying you."

"I didn't want anyone to get involved, I thought that I could handle it on my own."

"Who else knew that Diamond was bullying you?"

"Everyone knows," I tell her.

The principal calls Diamond to her office so that she could take down the post and apologize, but when she got there before anyone said anything she says “I didn’t do anything to her, I don’t even talk to Alexis.”

"Diamond no one said that you did anything but you just told on yourself," the principal says. "Why are messing with her what did she ever do you to make you not like her?"

"She started it."

"Now you are trying to get me in trouble with you. Well that isn’t going to happen," I tell her.

"You are right, it’s not going to happen because I am not going to get in trouble." 

"For now on you guys just stay away from each other and if this happens again then you are going to be in trouble and Diamond take down that post on social media," the Principal says giving her a warning

"So, nothing is going to happen to her for bullying my child," my mom asks the principal raising her voice.

“If this incident happens again then she is going to get in trouble but since this is the first time, I have heard about it is just going to be a warning."

"This is the second year that she has been messing with her and she just gets away with it.

"Did anyone report the bullying that went on last school year?"

"No, I just found out that she was bullied last year. "

"Well we can’t do anything about an incident that happened last year that was not reported. Why didn’t Alexis say something about this last year?" the principal asks.

"This is unacceptable that a bully just gets away with bullying another child." mom's voice cracks ."There should be some type of consequence for this because it is not okay. Not only for my child but anyone else’s child that is being bullied." 

"Noone would want their child to become a victim of bullying but the parents also have to be involved in the child's life too and we can't always handle everything that goes on. You have to build that relationship with your child so that she will be comfortable talking to you about these types of situations."

Now she looks at me and says," We will help you but you have to be willing to talk to someone when something is going on not only when something is going on at school, but in life as well. I'm not saying that it going to be easy sharing how you feel and talking about your problems but it's something you have to do.

My eyes felt heavy as I begin to think that this isn't going to be easy at all. I have kept everything bottled up for the last couple years I feel like I have forgotten how to talk to someone without getting mad. They say they understand that I'm hurt but no one really understands how I feel.


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Sat May 23, 2020 2:16 am
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@Hkumar and @starchaser I need suggestions on how to start Chapter 3

@ChrisDixon




Hkumar says...


I will come in the pad to help. You have done good work with the editing for these two chapters. I guess some final editing is still needed with the last part.





Thanks



Hkumar says...


Ok so you still got some minor mistakes. I'll suggest do a slow reading of the entire thing before you make those changes. You can easily find out those typos yourself :)



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Thu May 21, 2020 11:58 am
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sulagna wrote a review...



Hey,madisonsperkins,
It was really a wonderful story. I know its really hard for the people who are not blessed like us. Its really hard to go to school and see those people staring at you as if you are an alien.
Now ,The mistakes I would like to come to is that: when You said that" I will him I told you no."
this made me a little confused about whats the matter?

So I am not sure that weather i am not able to understand or its just a grammatical mistake.
Okay, and another point i think that Imani ,You should have briefly described her at first.[ just a suggestion]
Another thing I just thought was that you could have ended your story much better .
So ,thats it !
I hope my review will be helpful ...
Be safe...
Keep writing !!






So the last part about the ending my story much better I am still writing it and thank you



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Wed May 20, 2020 12:56 pm
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Hkumar says...



I liked that you changed the length of the chapter and decided to end the first on a cliffhanger :)






Thanks



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Hkumar wrote a review...



Hi madisonperkins59!

It's your first story and I found the topic very intriguing. You chose a very sensitive topic that many people who think they are 'normal' try to make it harder for those who have some physical disabilities. It can be a very traumatising and unpleasant experience for such a person. I didn't know exactly about Spina bifida, so I googled to know more about it.

As for the first chapter I think you were able to convey how difficult it was for Alexis to cope up in the school with all the bullying. Especially when she is not very comfortable speak it openly with any of her family members, especially her mom. I think even the principal was not very co-operative. Alexis seems to be a strong character but the people around her makes it very difficult for her. That's what made her feel irritated all the time.

But there were major problems in your writing just like the previous reviewer pointed out. You have written such a nice plot but with these mistakes you will lose your reader's interest.

First of all you have so many issues with quotations. Whenever you are writing any dialogues, whether you feel they are too short or too long, don't ever leave them without putting into quotes. Especially because in this chapter you were also describing the thought processes going on in Alexis mind. So it was very confusing at times where actually is she speaking and when there are just random thoughts.

There were many paragraphs that were too long. Just break them. The reader will lose his interests and miss important facts. One thing you can do is that you can even separate the dialogues with different paragraphs. Don't hesitate even if they are merely one or two lines. This way the whole things looks more clear.

In the very first para itself you missed to put the comments of her classmates in quotes. You may change it like this.

It is the starting of my eighth-grade year; I am in class and we are going around introducing ourselves. When they got to me, I said “My name is Alexis.” In the middle of me talking one kid yelled out,"What is wrong with you, why do you have those?"He was talking about the crutches I used to walk with. I had to explain that I have Spina bifida which affects my walking.

"Will you ever be able to walk without those?" Another student asks me.

"Enough questions for now," the teacher tells them.

“Thank you” I said to her. After class, the teacher asked me to stay back."Sorry about what happened in class today," she tells me.


I am changing one of your paragraphs like this.
"Ok, but if this gets any worse than I will say something. I’m not going to just stand around and watch this happen to you."

"Go to class, you will be late," I tell her.

“You are not going to just sit here and let this get to you.”

"Well, I'm most definitely not going to go to class and have everyone laughing at me."

"Come on, Alexis!"

"No, I’m not going anywhere."

"Ok, but you better not be sitting here when I get out of class."

"Chill, there are only a couple of classes left so I won’t be missing too much."

Soon after, school was over and now I have to go home, and answer all the questions about how school was. When I got home my mom asked us about school."Can we not talk about school?" I say as I am going up to my room.

Breaking the dialogue exchange between two people into smaller paras can help the reader to understand who is speaking at the moment. When you are describing about the thought going on inside Alexis mind that you can leave without quotes so that the reader gets to know this is what she is thinking right now. Otherwise it gets all jumbled.

Also there was another silly mistake with commas. I will give an example-
"Sorry about what happened in class today", she tells me.

It should be like this:
"Sorry about what happened in class today," she tells me.

It happened almost at all places that's why I pointed it out.

These were just suggestions. I just picked up some parts to explain what I meant. You may change them the way you feel it's better for you. I am really sorry if I made you feel bad. I just wanted to help cause I liked the overall story and I really think you can create a very good novel. It's just that there were parts where I could simply not concentrate what was happening because of the structure.

You have a great potential. Keep writing and I hope you will have a good time here.
:)






Thank you so much and I appreciate it. I like feedback, and it's fine I'm open to all and any suggestions. This has helped me a lot and I will make changes in a little while.





@Hkumar I only chose the topic because I have Spina bifida and I was being bullied in 8th grade and I am currently going through a lot with my family and battling depression and anxiety.



Hkumar says...


I think you are very brave that you came forward with this topic. It must have been very hard for you but I hope you find the strength. I know not everyone in our society has got the understanding to feel the pain in someone's life. Someone in my family, someone very close to me is suffering from severe depression and schizophrenia from past many years and has got a suicidal nature. Things have been pretty bad in my family too. Even I use YWS just to relax and divert my mind.
Writing is a very medium to express your pain and this site is the perfect place for it. Not just writing, but here everyone is very friendly and you can interact with a lot of people suffering from similar problems.
You can always PM me if you need anyone to chat or for any help.<3





Thank you and how do you PM someone?



Hkumar says...


When you go to the profile of any user after clicking on their username, you will find the option to send PM on right side on the top, just below the avatar.





Ok and I just posted a poem. Feel free to go check it out!



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starchaser wrote a review...



Hello, and welcome to YWS! We are so glad that you're here, and we hope you are, too.

I found this work very interesting, as I have never really seen spina bifida before in a creative writing piece. However, there are some things I noticed.

1. Readers do not like big paragraphs. Make sure to break them up. A new paragraph should start whenever a (different) character speaks, the "camera"/focus changes, the scene changes, or a "dry" paragraph occurs (no dialogue).

2. You do not have quotation marks in many places. These are ESSENTIAL in stories of all kinds. Whenever a character is speaking, there needs to be quotation marks on BOTH sides of what they are saying. If not, it is considered grammatically incorrect, and it can confuse your reader.

3. There are many grammatical mistakes, other than the quotation marks issue. Two other issues are that the wrong your/you're was used, and that "but" begins some of your sentences (which should never occur, but in dialogue this is sometimes relaxed).

4. The name "Diamond" is not capitalized many times.

Keep writing!






Thanks, I appreciate it!!





@starchaser I have a question. What if the character has a long dialogue how would use the quotations. Would you just put the whole dialogue in quotations?



starchaser says...


Yes. However, if a character is retelling a story (most common reason why) or it is a very large piece of dialogue, you would split it into two (or more) paragraphs, and leave out the quotation mark at the end of the first paragraph.

Example:

"xyz xyz xyz xyz%u2026

"xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz."

or even:

"xyz xyz xyz xyz xyz%u2026

"xyz xyz xyz xyz%u2026

"xyz xyz xyz."





Ok so I don't have to put individual quotations on every sentence of the dialogue. Would it be wrong if I put one at the beginning of the dialogue and another quotation at the end when they get done talking even though it's multiple sentences that they're saying?



starchaser says...


No. The dialogue would have to be uninterrupted (it must be the same character talking without any pauses for action/dialogue tags/anything else of the sort that would not be in quotation marks). The way I mentioned is not commonly used, as characters usually don't talk for much longer than a couple of sentences. Whenever a character is finished talking, even if they begin talking again a moment later, you need quotation marks on both sides.

Example:

"Hey Anne!" Amy called out to her friend from the foyer. "It's a nice day outside today, can we maybe go for a walk?"

"Shh! We need to be quiet," Anne whispered. "The baby is sleeping, remember?" Anne walked over to the door and put on her shoes. "And yes, let's go for a walk. I would love to see all of the flowers in bloom."





Thanks




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