AN: You guys are awesome. Love you guys. Update schedule is every one to two weeks now. I've updated my profile. School looks like there will be a lot of homework, but hopefully I'll stay on top of it and have time for me and writing. I'm starting to get an idea of where I want to stop this story. So, Eithne is coming back. If you want to see some of the outfits and inspiration that I have to go with this story, you can find them on Polyvore. My profile says who to look for. I've got stuff for the safe houses and I've done quite a few of the girls from Northpoint and Stacy has a bunch. My tumblr account has aliens. A lot of them. Yeah. That's all.
Oh, and I started reading Silver Bows by E. Darkbow. Good so far...one chapter in. It is good, and I am going to read the rest. Just haven't gotten to it yet. I started reading late at night a couple nights before I came up here (btw, my 7 hr and 30 min drive turned into 8 hrs and 30 min because of an accident and a detour. Blech.) and put it down while I was moving into my apartment and getting into school. I do have an art project that's related to this story right now. It's not going to be spectacular, but it's calming for me.
Okay, I'm shutting up now. Sorry.
I got over the cold by Wednesday. It was a two day bug, and was going around the school. Apparently, one of the guys in class had been contagious. I just caught it faster than the others. Yay me.
So I went to school, with my printed out copies of the other people in my groups stories and my comments on their stories. I had been harsh, because I knew my teacher would be grading me more strictly. Holding me to a higher expectation. I even color coded opinion and fact. Opinions in green, facts in red.
Ugh.
"Cassandra, glad to see you're feeling better. Nico, you have all the proper paperwork for your guest to be here?"
Guest?
I looked toward Nico.
Malcolm gave a little wave.
I grinned, and stopped myself from squealing by covering my mouth.
"Yeah, we finished it in the Principals office this morning." Nico gave me a smile.
Malcolm nodded toward the hallway and mouthed, "After class."
I nodded. I doubted I would be able to focus at all.
"Alright, let's get to these stories. I've read all of them, and we're off to a decent start. Be thankful that we have a small class. Five stories for each group. Let's start alphabetically. Tracy Alvin, let's talk about this chapter."
I shuffled my pages to Tracy's chapter. It was very red and green. Mostly red. I winced and slumped in my seat.
"Who wants to share some of their notes?"
I rubbed my temple, not wanting to start. I didn't really have anything nice to say about it. Nothing that would be acceptable. And I wanted to just be hugging Malcolm. Punching Nico in the arm for not telling me that he had arranged this.
"Come on, someone."
Nico sighed. "I didn't get it. It might have been my dyslexia, but I'm not sure what happened. It was a lot of people, and then this big description of like a castle or something? I don't know. I'm just…confused."
Ms. Jacoby nodded and looked around. "Come on, don't be shy." She gave me a glance.
I sighed. "There was too much going on, not enough focus. There's a story if you strip away all the extra and unneeded characters, and integrate the main character's personal history with the location, and maybe a little more than that but not much. If a location is that important than the history will come out as the story goes on."
Ms. Jacoby even looked surprised. "That's…very in depth. We'll work up to that, but good assessment, Cassie."
I bit my lip, hoping I hadn't come across as too critical.
"That really is the main problem," Ms. Jacoby continued. "There was a lack of focus, and too much going on. I will want you to look at each character mentioned and decide if they are essential to the story you're going for."
Tracy nodded, she looked nervous.
I caught Malcolm's eye.
He crossed his eyes at me.
I smiled and turned back toward the front of the classroom.
"Let's move on to Johnny's. Who wants to start us off?"
"Please be brutal." Johnny chuckled.
It was quiet and awkward.
He jabbed his finger in my shoulders. "That means you!"
I turned and gave him a look. "Why do you do this to me?"
"Because I know you have an opinion," He told me. "Because you refused to tell me it before."
"Fine," I turned in my seat and looked at him. "One word."
"Okay, lay it on me."
I gave him a smile. "You sure you can handle it."
"Hit me with your best shot."
"Cliche."
"Dang, I thought I was strong enough."
I smiled and turned back toward my own notebook. "It's not necessarily a bad thing. But you'd have to make it so that it was mocking the cliche. That shouldn't be hard for you."
"Are you saying I'm a cliche?"
"I'm saying your a mocker. And do you know what mockers do?"
"Mock." We said at the same time.
The rest of the class was giggling.
"There were also some grammar issues, Mr. Cahill." Ms. Jacoby looked somewhat amused as well.
"It was really interesting," One of the football guys chimed in.
"Thanks Broderick."
"That's your name?" I slapped my hand over my mouth.
Broderick looked amused. "Still on the cold medicine."
"I'm so sorry."
"It's fine."
"No, it's not. Now I have to pay penance." I scribbled something in my notebook.
"How are you going to do that, Ms. Dellaro?" Ms. Jacoby asked.
"I'm going to write a short story where the best character is named Broderick."
"Well, since you're the one disrupting the class with your amusing antics."
"I'm sorry."
"We'll switch to your story."
I nodded.
"The end of your chapter," Lexi started. "You put a freakin' cliffhanger at the end of the first chapter? Are you trying to kill us?"
"Kill you?"
"With curiosity." One of the other guys (I don't know why I didn't know his name…oh wait, yes I did—he's one of Ashley's posse) said.
"Curiosity killed the cat, Cassie." Stephen (first row sitter, chess club, and generally nice if not a tad self-obsessed) piped in.
"Satisfaction brought it back, Stephen." I mimicked his tone.
Ms. Jacoby sat at her desk, visibly struggling to keep from laughing.
"I thought it was stupid," Ashley sneered.
I took a breath.
"Don't!" Nico and Johnny practically shouted.
I gave them both looks. "Sit down, freaky turtles." I looked at Ashley. "Why did you think it was stupid?"
"I think the whole idea is stupid. How can a small town be a last defense against evil? And why were they roasting marshmallows on a burning building? It's stupid."
Everyone was really quiet.
I knew if I responded that it would be discredited as being omitted from the chapter. I knew what wasn't in this chapter that would be explained later.
The only thing I had no clue about was…
"Burning building?"
"Yeah, they're roasting marshmallows over a church that's burning." Ashley folded her arms.
I turned and grabbed Johnny's copy of my chapter (I didn't have mine, okay?) and flipped to where that was. "Okay, that's my bad. I forgot to type a word there and didn't see that I had missed it. It's a model house that they're burning. I don't know where you got church though."
"The steeple roof?"
"It's a style of roof," Lexi told her. "It's angle is really…steep."
"Actually it's a spire or tower, normally on a church roof, yes, but they can be on houses. It's…decorative," Malcolm corrected softly. He looked like he was afraid he was intruding.
No one seemed to care.
"I'll probably just remove the steeple to get rid of any confusion on that part." I made a note in my notebook.
Johnny took his copy back and started looking through it.
"I liked it, but you already knew that." Nico shrugged.
"Yeah, your words mean nothing to me."
"You're on a roll."
"Downhill, too. Come on, guys, slaughter it. Butcher it. Nitpick grammar or something."
Everyone was quiet.
"Well, let's move on to Mr. Di Angelo." Ms. Jacoby cleared her throat.
I felt my shoulders slump, and I looked back at Johnny (he was the closest. Nico sat way in the back and Malcolm was with him). "Can I die now?"
"No," He whispered back.
"Mr. Cahill, you would like to start us off?"
Johnny shuffled through his papers, not breaking eye contact with Ms. Jacoby.
I slapped his hand and handed him the right one.
He cleared his throat and quickly glanced through. "I thought it was really awesome and I loved how you seemed to really know how a sword fight went. I did feel like it was a little…feelingless? Is that a word?"
"No," I whispered.
"Right, well, it lacked emotions. Like, you have the thoughts and everything but I felt like while everything else was there, emotions weren't."
"I loved Alexander, but yeah, he did seem a little lacking in the emotions department." Lexi—gods bless her—agreed with Johnny.
There were other scattered comments.
I could feel Nico's eyes boring into my back.
"How did you come up with this…modern greek mythology idea?" Broderick asked.
Nico didn't answer right away.
"We go to a summer camp that has a greek mythology theme. It's tons of fun," I told them, rescuing him.
"Yeah, and we learn about life in ancient greece and stuff and when I was trying to figure out what my story would be about Cassie reminded me that part of writing is to write what you know."
I smiled and quickly gave him a wink.
"Part, Cassie?" Ms. Jacoby questioned.
"Start with what you know," I said. "Then as you learn more you add to it. You can't know everything, so you use what you know to keep you going and research what you don't. Writing is just us explaining what we know and what we learn in adventure form. That's what my mom told me, anyway. Might be wrong. But I think it's right."
She nodded a bit. "Your mother should have written a writing book."
"I know," I responded, sighing.
"She left her knowledge with you," Nico said firmly.
I glanced back at him.
He gave me a nod.
Malcolm was smiling.
"Indeed she did. Now, let's finish with Ms. Ebanez."
Yikes. I didn't even like her story. Any of it. I thought it was boring and sappy—and it was the first chapter.
Thankfully, no one had much to say about it. I got to say that I liked the one character and get away without getting harsh in my critiquing.
And then I was out in the hallway and hugging Malcolm.
"Oh my gosh! I can't believe you're here!"
He laughed and hugged me tightly. "Well, I heard you had been sick and I got accepted to some colleges all over, so did some of my siblings and other campers. So…we're making our way around and I detoured to come see my girlfriend."
I grinned. "You're here!"
"I'm here," He kissed my cheek. "This place is…"
"Huge, daunting, haunted?"
"What?"
"Oh yeah, I've got like a hex on me or something because this freaky ghost girl with an ax chose me. Allison is coming to check out the curse when she can."
"Lovely," Malcolm responded, sarcasm dripping off his voice.
"So, this is the boyfriend." Johnny held out his hand.
"I am," Malcolm said, firmly shaking Johnny's hand. "Malcolm Pace."
"Johnny Cahill. You really are blonde."
"And smart," I added.
"Wise," Malcolm joked.
I hit him. "Not that wise."
He laughed.
Johnny looked lost, but amused. "Right, well, I'll see you at lunch." He disappeared into the crowd.
Nico chuckled morbidly. "I never going to let him live this down."
"Be nice, Nico."
"I noticed you didn't critique Nico's story." Malcolm pointed between us.
I gave him my fed-up smile. "I gave him a critique and he didn't listen."
"You were right," Nico murmured, looking a little guilty and embarrassed.
"I know," I said. "Just making sure you do."
"Such a jerk."
"Brat."
"Geek."
"Freak."
"Bossy."
"Gay."
"Hey," He looked seriously affronted by this change.
"I whispered," I defended my choice.
"Whisper quieter, you know what this place is like." He shoved me.
I nodded and looked up at Malcolm. "How long are you here?"
"Here here? Or in the area? Because I'll be in the area for two more days. But I have to leave here now."
"Ugh! Tease!"
"I'm sorry. If I promise to come back tonight will that be sufficient?"
"Well I won't be here here but you can come to my house."
"Semantics."
"Yeah," I hugged him again. "How are you doing…you know, with your problem?"
"Some days are better than others, but I'm a lot better than I was a few months ago." He whispered back, holding me tightly.
"Good." I kissed his cheek again. "See you tonight."
"See you," He responded. He smiled as he looked at me, then fist bumped Nico on his way out the door.
I kissed Nico's cheek. "Thank you for arranging that."
"No problem, Cassie."
