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 Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 3:34 pm
AN: This is the first two-thirds of the first chapter, so it's not everything I want to reader to know right away, but it's most of it. I probably should've waited to post it, but feedback usually gets me writing faster, so I gave in! Hope you enjoy it anyway, and thanks for reading!
Oh, and warning for slight use of language.
Laughing! Bryce Arthur Kensey had never laughed harder in his life! The pipsqueak Lonnie Ermentha (otherwise known as Menstra to the Bart Wellsley Middle School population) had practically peed himself when he and the guys — Ryder’s guys, mostly — had cornered him in the girl’s bathroom.
The girl’s bathroom!
It’d taken a bit of maneuvering to get the queer in there, the door was always propped open at least (or it had been before they got there), but the time spent was well worth it. Even an hour later, not half way home and walking a reverent step behind big brother Ryder — and boy, had he ever been prouder to have him for a brother — the fresh memory plastered a great, toothy smile on Bryce’s freckled, doughy face.
Lonnie tripping over his own feet — and a puddle of what Bryce could only hope was his own urine — as he backed into the bathroom: $3.
Seeing the beanpole nearly pants himself when his cargo shorts caught on a sink pipe: $5.
The look on Menstra’s face when, upon being asked if “he needed a quarter”, he collided with the gigantic metal tampon dispenser on the wall: priceless.
Yup, life was good. Near perfect, even. If only he had to guts to just do what Ryder said, maybe it would be… Still, he had a lot going for him.
A nice laugh to round off a long week of factors and mathematic jumbo, an amazing, strong, witty older brother like Ryder to learn from (he’d just figured out that word today, during one of his ‘Beyond the Page’ tutoring sessions), and — to top it all off — Dad was coming home tonight!
Mr. John F. Kensey, who had always taken a bit too much pride in his near-famous name, had been away on ‘business’ for just over a week now. Bryce could hardly wait to see him and, though Ryder was playing it cool, he could tell the bulky seventh grader was pretty excited as well. They’d play catch — with a football of course, the days of baseball were long gone for anyone with dreams of making the high school team — and then cards while Mom washed up after dinner. Maybe they could even sneak in a movie after that... It was Friday after all!
As the possibilities of a whole afternoon with Dad (an entire weekend, even!) ran through Bryce Kensey’s head, his smile became something much more tolerable, something good. The kind of smile a child should have on their face, rather than a predatory smirk more appropriate for a shark.
As they turned the last corner onto Westley Cul-de-sac, a strong wind swept about them. It blew through the bristles of his short shaven hair and sent their mother’s tulips — pink and yellow, as was typical of nearly every lawn on their average suburban street — into a wild dance. Tangles of dried weeds and dandelion heads caught in the under current and swirled up around their ankles. Bits of trash — used wrappers, crumbled papers, and torn strips of plastic from toy buckets and sleds — snuck out from their porch lattice prisons.
It was the first wind of summer and — in the very back of their mind, in a place no one ever really uses — even these children knew there was something magical about. Something that could change lives. Countries. An entire world.
Like the garbage and the flowers, it pulled all thought of Lonnie Ermentha from their heads, banishing them to whatever place such things disappear to. By the time their feet left the last stretch of sidewalk, the only thing on either of their minds was the heavyset shadow in the kitchen window.
“Dad!” Bryce exclaimed. The deep rooted desire to be just like Ryder, to be cool and to ‘saunter’ places, turned to steam. Smile wide and eyes bright, he burst through the front door before Ryder even had a chance to hassle him about it (it was a thing, you see, for Ryder to go everywhere first, and he liked to make sure his thick-headed — and bodied — little brother knew it). He’d have to let it go this one time.
Following at a suitably punkish speed, Ryder let the door slam shut behind him and rattle in its frame a few times before following him in. After all, he wasn’t a kid anymore, he could be in eighth grade now if he felt like it (felt like studying, that is). He wasn’t about to risk one of the guys seeing him ‘running home to daddy’ or some stupid crap like that.
That was something he was guna’ have to teach Bryce, if he was guna’ keep hanging out with him and his crew that was. He didn’t get to act like a baby anymore. Not like he had today. The way he’d looked when Ryder had told him to hit the little p***k… it was pathetic. Like he was ready to cry if someone didn’t step in and do it for him. Ryder almost had too, he was his brother after all, but then he’d realized… If he couldn’t do it himself, what good was he? Probably the deepest thing he’d ever thought in his life, he’d quickly decided, and he’d told him too.
What good was he?
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Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 4:06 pm
So far, really good. I like the characters (even though they are bullies). There's lots of possibility for this, it could go a million different ways, and that's what makes it enjoyable. I hate reading something I can predict, something so... over done. But this has every opportunity to be something different and wonderful, so good start.
Hmm... negatives... think, think, think.... Really, all I can come up with is a little proof reading here and there. Like always there will be a stray comma or something floating around, happens all the time to everyone. Also, you like to use italics a lot. This can be a good tool to create emphasis, but it's usually something reserved for really grand, very important things. You use it a couple times so I think it'd be nice if you tried to find other ways of achieving the same affect. Plus, if everything becomes important, then nothing really is. We'll be shocked anyway by the girl's bathroom incident, we don't need to read it in a different font. ^_^
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-l- Psychotic Saint -l- Captain
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Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 1:29 pm
I like this a lot, usually bullies make me want to hit something but this is just so fresh and new I feel like grinning. Not that I support them in their endeavors though. razz
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 9:45 pm
Oh! Just popping through Gaia, but thanks so much Strangerthan! I'm glad Bryce Arthur didn't come across as a complete stereotype, although he is actually meant to be one (just as Lonnie is meant to be "the nerd", and Rebecca--yet to be introduced--the "good girl").
Again, thanks so much for the comment! Ictathia's been pushed to the back of my mind over the summer, but I think you've got the fire burning again... Hopefully I can get back to drinking soon, and keep the story going!
~LittleSun
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