“Does he eat?”
I frowned, looked over at Simon who sat further into his chair and pulled his lips into a thin line. I twiddled my thumb and shook my head slowly. “No, not really. Don’t bother cooking for him.” Please, please don’t be one of those overbearing I-have-to-feed-everyone types, please…
“Oh, good!” she sighed, laughing, slapping the notepad and pencil down on the table and putting one hand on her hip. “That makes my plans so much simpler. Cooking for two.” She laughed again, airily.
She spun around, hair whipping as she whipped out several ingredients from her pantry. Simon and I glanced at each other. I cleared my throat lightly. This girl was strange. Really, really strange. “Why does that make it simpler? Most recipes make four servings, right? Then you could have leftovers.”
The girl sighed, a huff under her breath. I swore I could feel her rolling her eyes. “I have a plan for everything and I do everything exactly and precisely and perfectly and cleanly and neatly. I make exactly one serving for one, two, or three or whatever amount of people I serve. I don’t do leftovers, I don’t do messy.” She waved her hand around her house. Everything was perfectly aligned. Everything was put away, neat and tidy. It made me feel sick.
Without any notice whatsoever, she was suddenly at my level, hands on hips and face in mine. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “You boys certainly aren’t very organized. I could help you with that.” Her breath was strangely cold and smelled like mint and vanilla. I didn’t dare meet her eyes. They were too bird-like and too much like a hawk’s to look at.
“No, no thanks, we don’t need help, just a place to stay for the night and a bite to eat, thanks.” I choked out.
She stood tall again and shook her head. “No. You two need me. I’m going to come with you, wherever it is you’re going. I’ll be your maid and secretary. But don’t call me either of those things, or I’ll kill you both.”
Simon snorted. I elbowed him.
“Please, no. We don’t need help. We’re managing okay.”
“And to be painfully honest, sweetheart, you don’t seem much like the sleep-eat-and-crap in the wilderness type.” Simon drawled. He folded his arms over his chest.
NO SIMON SHUT UP!
I still wasn’t used to this half-dead Simon.
I wasn’t used to the bouts of biting sarcasm and insults.
This was exactly why we weren’t supposed to be wasting our time in places like this with people like this.
Mary straightened and puffed her chest out. “What, you think I’m not tough enough to?” she hissed out through clenched teeth. She stomped her foot down and pursed her lips at him.
He just looked bored. “That’s not what I said, hun, but I couldn’t have phrased it better.”
She huffed indignantly and spun around to the stove to pour in a very exact amount of broth into a pot. “I’m glad I’m not feeding you.”
Simon smiled.
I slapped a palm to my forehead.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hey octobergrace!
I don't know much about NaNo camps but I'm sure that if could read more about it in your story I wouldn't have any trouble.
Besides --frankly-- you seem to have quite a good story, in fact, I felt like I could continue on reading long-on in the night! You bonded the characters even though you don't tell us --yet-- how did they end up together; and if you can make Mary part of this dynamic duo I think it would be great!
I'm very interested on knowing all of the details about your story! Why's Simon so fataly wounded? Are the running away from someone? Or something? What are they trying to do?
Your writing did flow gently and kept on the path of intriguing, I have no complaints!
I wish I could read more about this! So keep on coming up the good stuff!
And onward!
Okay, Black here for a review!
First off: Interesting, let me note here that I'm working on a book for NaNo as well (Camp NaNo though) so I understand this. Well, really this was interesting, to tell the truth it read well, and was fairly well written, but really I wouldn't read any more of this story.
Look: If you're going to use an excerpt you get your best, most emotionally moving section in your entire story and use that! Your readers always want action they always enjoy it the most, so you have to give it to them. If you have an excerpt that promises action, and lots of it, then they'll want to read more, so I advise you to get a good, action filled piece, and use that (Make sure it's fairly important and well written).
Your grammar is quite nice, as is your spelling, if you had any mistakes it was in the fact that your sentences are very short and jerky. . . . Personally I like nice long sentences filled with information!
But that's personal. There are a few places were it would be grammatically necessary to use longer sentences, but those are few . . . You can find them with any good grammar checker - Microsoft Word has a great one.
Also, at that one spot were you bold 'glad', that should be italics. Italics show emotion and emphasize things better.
Overall? From this quick review I will summarize that you need to: Keep writing (Practice the craft!), work on your information packed sentences, put in more commas, and get a good, action filled piece for this excerpt!
That should do it!
Keep writing!
~Black~
Thanks for the input!
Anytime.