Published June 2, 2009
Song: A Whole New World, from Aladdin
Word: Irony
Mommy wakes you up.
“Five more minutes!” you try to say, but you can’t ‘cause you’re still asleep.
Mommy opens the curtains and sun spills in. “But Jessica, honey, it’s the first day of school!”
You’re up now, jumping on the bed. “First day of school! First day of school! First day of school!”
You’ve been looking forward to this forever. Your folders are all in your new backpack and your superspecial new purple pen is ready to write your name and the date on any piece of paper it meets.
“Come on, Jessica, you’ll miss the bus!” Mommy scolds, smiling.
She shoos you into the bathroom. You put on the outfit that is hanging up on the back of the door: your yellow sundress with white polka dots. You put your blonde hair in a ponytail. “Mommy!” you call. “Can you come put a bow in my hair?”
For breakfast you have Trix cereal, and then it’s off to the bus stop. Mommy drives you there. She wants to get out with you but you say, “I’m a big girl, Mommy! I can go by myself!” She kisses your head as you slip out of the car.
There are a lot of kids at the bus stop that you’ve never seen. Some of them are big. They’re all talking to each other and laughing. For the first time, you are nervous! You turn around to look for Mommy. Maybe she’ll let you sit in the car while you wait...
You feel a tap on the shoulder. A voice says, “Hi!”
You turn around. It’s a boy voice. It belongs to a boy standing there. He’s smiling at you. “Hi,” you say back.
“I’m Gregory! What’s your name?”
“Jessica.”
He takes you by the shoulder and leads you over to the other kids. “Well, hi there, Jessica! Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” you say. He smiles. He’s a cute boy.
You hear the bus come around the corner.
“Is it your first day of school?” Gregory asks. The bus stops and opens its big doors. You turn around and wave to Mommy.
“Yes, it is!” you say. Gregory is a nice boy. He lets you go before him up the big bus steps.
Behind you you hear him say, “Don’t worry, Jessica, I’ll show you around school. I’m a sophomore!”
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141,616 Literary Works • 675,170 Reviews
thank you, mars. neither was I!
Hey Rachel
)
I very much liked this; at first I was sort of thinking, "uh, where is this going?" but it was well-written and the ending was great. I think you did a wonderful job of capturing the tone of a five-year-old, I was reading it in my head as one of those incredibly annoying women who talk in a baby voice to anyone under ten. It did go a little overboard at times though, and I think that keeping the same voice but toning it down a little bit would make the ending even more dramatic, as it'll make the reader sort of think how they interpreted it as a small child when it was really supposed to be a 14/15 yr old girl, and they'll think about it.
Also, I have to say, Jessica is quite an interesting character, a fifteen year old body but a five year old brain. I was kind of thinking about that after I read the ending, how, in the light of the end revelation, the cutesy tone actually becomes more sinister because you can see that something is obviously not right with her.
[/two cents]
Good luck in the contest! (I wasn't sure you'd finish.
-Mars
Hey nixonblitzen =]
We can't have a story with no reviews now, can we =]
So... I'm going to review this as I read, okay?
Now, on with the review =]
I don't think 'cause you're still asleep' sounds right. Maybe try replacing it with something like; 'cause you're world is still clouded by sleep.' Or something along those lines anyway. It's just that in the line above you say that you are woken up and in this line you say that you can't reply because you're still asleep - contradicting.
It's not the sun that spills in, but the light from the sun. I'd suggest changing 'sun' to 'sunlight'
I don't know if the exclamation mark is really needed.
So the intended irony is that we think, by your descriptions and the dialogue, that the character is starting primary school/her first day of school, when in fact she's starting her first day of secondary school (I think you call it high school in America?) This is what this sentence lead me to believe anyway.
Overall;
With this sentence, you could add in something along the lines of; 'You hear the slow chugging of the bus as it comes around the corner' It's up to you though - you don't have to add description if you intended for the piece to have minimal description.
So I hope that this review has been of some help to you!
Good luck in the contest =]
xDudettex