Should I go? The question drifted within my mind, invading all of my other thoughts. I couldn’t stop thinking about it each moment of my day, and it had been keeping me awake at night. I yawned and stretched out my arms, leaning my back over the worn cushioning of the backrest of my quaint computer chair. I had already been tired, yet homework insisted that it take more from me.
“I should check on my guild,” I said to myself, double-clicking on Internet Explorer. I waited for my Yahoo! homepage to come up and remembered about my instant messenger. “Hmm,” I shrugged, “I’m not really doing much…I guess I can sign in.” After opening my guild’s page from my favorites menu, I clicked on Messages and read the most recent posts. “Huh, Hamster’s got a new riddle up and Rockerchik has updated the games,” I said, summarizing the posts. “Is it anyone’s birthday today? I can’t really remember…” I questioned as I clicked on Calendar. “Oh yeah, it’s Predictingpast’s this Friday. I’ve got to remember to give her a gift.”
Just then a small window popped up in the bottom right corner of my screen with a slight swooshing sound. “jerthereader has just signed in,” it read. “Cool, Jeremy’s on. I should check Magic Pens.” After finding no new posts on Bloglines, and no new comments on both my blog and the Magic Pens blog, I paused and pondered over what to do now. “Should I write, draw a picture, work on my guild, make a new tutorial…” The list went on.
All of a sudden, a new window popped up displaying the start of a new instant message conversation.
jerthereader: Have you gotten an invitation from a Jonathan Karma?
For a moment, I searched beneath the homework on my desk and snatched up my letter. “Jonathan Karma,” I read, just making sure before I replied.
hyperwire03: Yes, I did.
jerthereader: Any idea what it’s about?
I thought for a moment, tapping my fingers on my keys without applying enough pressure to actually press them, before typing on.
hyperwire03: No. All I know is that everyone else has already said they would be there, even Mr. Gifford.
jerthereader: You going?
hyperwire03: My dad’s not sure, but maybe.
jerthereader: Well, try and convince him then. Everyone else is going, so we might as well go too. I’ll give you a ride.
I paused for a moment to think. Maybe if I told my dad that I was going to get a ride and make sure that I emphasize that everyone else is going to be there…Maybe if I…
hyperwire03: Okay, I’ll try.
jerthereader: Great. See ya Saturday at half past four. Meet me at the gate.
I began to type a reply just as a dull face appeared beside “jerthereader has signed off”. Closing the instant messaging window, I then stared upon my blog. “Gah,” I said, dropping my head into my hands. “I want to go to this thing!” My eyes were scrunched down within my hands and a frown was upon my face. I felt so stressed and tired. I just wanted to go to sleep and forget about everything… I was tired of schoolwork, tired of homework, tired of everything. I brought my head up and stared at the palms of my hands. Turning them over, I shivered as I glanced at my fingernails, bringing up many memories of them lengthening and curling into sharpened claws. I quickly threw aside the thought of the pain of transformation with a shake of my head, and swiftly shut down my computer to walk around my room in thought.
After many thoughts, I stopped pacing and glanced around my room. Suddenly, I darted up my stairs, turned the corner and jumped up the second pair of stairs to our computer room. There, I found my dad on the computer in the cramped room. “Hey Dad,” I started.
“What?” he asked, not turning from the glowing monitor.
“Jeremy from Magic Pens said that he will give me a ride to the party thing this Saturday.” I paused as he turned to look at me, wondering what he was thinking.
“Did you tell him that you were going?” he asked, with a little anger in his voice.
“No!” I quickly replied trying to cease his anger from growing. “I was just checking my guild when he messaged me. He said that he will give me a ride at 4:30 at the gate.”
“Oh…” my dad said quietly. “So he’s going too?”
“Yeah…everyone’s going…Even Mr. Gifford.”
“Yeah, you told me that already. But nobody knows who this guy is, right?” he asked, bringing up the one thing that was keeping him from allowing me to go.
“Well, no, but Mr. Gifford thinks that we should go anyways. He’ll be there and…” I thought over what I could use to back up my story. “You know, College-Guy Matt, he’s going to be there too. Oh, and Shaundra is too, you know, one of the Magic Pens originals I told you about,” I added, trying to name off some of the older people.
“Oh, was she the one who wrote a lot before?” he asked, getting people mixed up as usual.
“No, that’s Terri…This is Shaundra, the one who likes vampires and stuff. You know that story I told you about with the mental patient and the hole in the ceiling thing,” I reminded him, refreshing his memory.
“Oh yeah, I know who you’re talking about.” I tell my dad everything about my life, except for my feelings and thoughts, and he knows all of friends along with the people from my guild and from Magic Pens. He just needed to be reminded at times as he got all the names mixed up and such. “So, College-Guy’s going to be there?” he asked, using the name that I had given Matt to help my dad remember who he was.
“Yeah, everyone is,” I continued a little weary now as it sounded as if my dad was still unconvinced.
“Well…” he said, still thinking and conjuring the words in his head. “I don’t know. I don’t want you going if you don’t know who this guy is.”
“So, I can’t go?” I confirmed.
“Well Noelle, nobody knows this guy. I don’t want you to get hurt or anything…” He paused as he had that tone of voice that meant that he didn’t like what he was doing. “I just don’t want you to go.” He returned to his computer, excusing me from the room and ending the conversation.
I stood there for a moment, just to make sure that it was his final decision before leaving the room and walking down the hallway, turning down the stairs. I glanced to my left at the stairs that went down into my room, but I didn’t want to go there just then. Instead, I turned right and walked past our living room and into our reading room. Surrounded by my mom’s figurines of unicorns and faeries scattered on her giant porcelain mountain and my dad’s dragons lurking around the bookshelves stuffed with books, I sat on the beige chaise and just thought. The reading room had always been my favorite room, especially for thinking.
I wasn’t allowed to go to the strange dinner party. I knew that I shouldn’t go for the safety of my friends. I wanted to go and I even felt that I needed to be there…
What was I to do? There, in the dim room amongst the fantastical creatures and stories, I thought of a plan.
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Yay, Chapter 2!
Again, excellent realism. Nice inclusion of the chat from the other portion, as well. Not exact, but similar enough to be your own perspective.
Hmm, as I struggle to find a criticism, I can only come up with one thing…pacing. Your story is moving along slower than some of the others. I’m not sure that’s bad, since you have a much more realistic feel to it, but it’s the only critical comment I can come up with. 😀
Yeah, I know it’s kind of slow. I wanted to do that because nobody else is though. I wanted to go through getting the letter, and wanted to emphasize on how my “power” hinders my life so much. I really wanted there to be a struggle between me going or not since my power is so destructive even when I don’t want it to be. Most everybody else’s powers are by choice.
I’ve started on Chapter 3 and am about halfway through with it, but now I need some information from Jeremy until I can continue…
If I wanted to be realistic my mother would never ever let me go…that is why I have my mother knowing the cook and me working for her…even though that would never happen either…
It all works.
And remember, I was searching for something to say because this is written so darn well, Noelle. If this is the pace you want to keep, don’t let me stop you. The rest of us are probably racing through our stories. 😉
And Lizzie, your angle works, too! The key to a solid fantasy story is finding the reality in it to ground it.
Sigh, i guess i better get #2 up….
Did you even read it, Matt?
Loved it, mostly because I am a horribly vain person and I was mentioned in this story 😀 But I do have one question. Does your father know that you turn into a werewolf?
“This is Shaundra, the one who likes vampires and stuff”- This line made me wonder about that just because it says likesvampires rather than is a vampire. Are our powers concealed from the rest of humanity or are we out in the open about them? Maybe we should discuss that?
In my next chapter I say that my dad does know that I am a werewolf, but I have concealed my “power” from all of you, (or at least so far.) I say it’s up to the rest of you if we know of your powers or not. For the most part, I think that all of us have been keeping it a secret though.
Maybe we have been.
Anyways with my special ability I can feel your thoughts and emotions. Through pain or sorrow. It doesn’t realy matter.
Well, as for us keeping our powers a secret, I apparently know what we all do already, as that information was kind of forced upon me by Jon (not that I mind). That means I have some dirt on you all though, lol. I wasn’t really going to keep mine a secret, just maybe not have you all know the full extent of it yet.
Yeah, it’s up to each member if they want to share their powers. I know that Jordan does, too, becuase he said “I feel a disturbance in the force,” in Mr. Gifford’s first chapter. But with my “ability”, you can guess why I wouldn’t want anyone knowing. 😀
So are you thinking I should keep my other abilities a secret.
Hmmm… I’m not sure if I want my powers revealed or not… There is an obvious reason why I wouldn’t want anyone knowing but then again my character is all about freakin ppl out. Lol Ive always been one for shock value…
Wow! I can’t think of any thing that can be changed in this story.
My club story has been posted now.
You just gave me a great line for the drive there. This is awesome. Just what the club writing project was meant for, all of us using each other for inspiration.
Part 3 up and running.
Cool… I wish I could be in this thing. But I’m neither there, or consistant enough with my writings. Or you could call them burstings.
You can throw yourself in anywhere, making yourself “there”. 😉
Yes she could.
But that may through some people off track.
No, not always. She could just come in somewhere you know, like arrive late. That’s only if she wanted to though.
True.
Anyways how can you people show only small bits of your posts on your blogs? When I can’t seem to do that. All it does is show the whole post on mine.
I educate him.
That was interesting. I felt I was missing something, then I realized that this was chapter TWO. I guess I’ll have to go back and read the first one…
oh muse, why have you left us? i’m waiting very impatiently for your next chapter!
I’m sorry, but I am glad to hear that I was missed. I’m working on it right now and I hope to have it published later tonight (or morning actually as I see it’s past midnight now.) I’ve been so busy lately, it’s ridiculous. What English teacher gives two projects over the Thanksgiving Break?!