The second time I ran away, I was six. I loved pigtails and scrunchies and the word "fabulous". I also love my little watering can and all the flowers and plants I knew the names of. From potatoes to marigolds, I was delighted when each one bloomed.
I was splashing around in puddles. Dad was supposed to pick me up for kindergarten any moment. An old, blue Ford pulled into the driveway and a girl about a dozen years old stepped out.
"You're Cleo, aren't you?" she asked. I nodded.
"I'm Arwen," she said.
"I'm fabulous," I said. She giggled. It was light and sweet, like cotton candy.
"Of course you are," she said, then held out her hand, "will you come with me, Cleo?" I almost did, but pulled back.
"I'm waiting for my daddy."
"Are you? He's in the truck back there. Why don't we go and say hi to your daddy?" I nodded and took her hand.
"Do you love your mommy and daddy?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "they're fabulous."
"Will you be brave for them?" She opened the truck door for me. A boy the same age as the girl sat there. Daddy was not in the truck.
"You're not-" I began, but the boy had pulled me into the truck and the girl shut the door behind me. She hopped into the driver's seat as I started screaming.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
140,620 Literary Works • 673,561 Reviews
I love this Tally.
Post the next one soon!!!!!!!!
I like it, but it doesn't say anything about the first time she ran away, and I don't think this counts as running away. Great catch sentence, good grammar and spelling to, I wanna no what happens next.
I am interested in what you plan on doing further into this. I want to know what happens. Great work! Keep them coming.
Wow this is really good. I was a little put off at first because it is quite short to look at first glance, but when I finished it I realized why you kept it short. It's very endearing and drawing, and pretty mind-blowing if I'm being honest. The opening sentence is intense, and we all know that the opening line is key to getting people to read on.
So there is the first perk of this chapter, the opening line. Very good.
I also liked how you eased into the tense part with the childhood imagery and comic relief, and then zoomed right into an edge-of-seat sort of cliff hanger. This potentially is a very, very well written first chapter.
I'm not trying to be pretentious, but I didn't notice any bad grammar or spelling errors. Great chapter and I look forward to reading more.
♥