Chapter One

The journey begins

    I sighed heavily as I got out of the passenger seat of a beat up white Corolla. I just got out of Summer School, and I was pretty exhausted. I had to go all the way to Manchester to take the damn class I failed in Freshman year, but I was hoping that after this, there would be no more failing. I stood beside the car for a few moments as I glared at the church doors, unsure. The church youth group would be doing a play and his grandfather, who was also the minister, was directing it. I looked over at my sister who had been driving. She looked back and smiled a little bit. "I'm sure you’ll do fine." She said. I wasn’t scared of the youth group; I had done plenty of events with the church, though not a play. Last time I did a play was when I played Jesus in a non verbal reenactment, which I still laughed at, because the other kids had trouble lifting me up. I shrugged in return trying to keep it cool, and walked towards the door. Before entering, I ran a hand through my dirty blond hair and took a long breath.

                After five minutes of just wasting time until the meeting started, we sat down at a long circular table in the Parlor. We were mumbling amongst ourselves as we waited for ‘Bum’ to get back with the scripts. Bum was my grandfather’s nickname his grandchildren called him; I was one of them.

                “Sorry, I’m late guys." A male voice said in between his panting. I looked up to find my best pal, Kenny, standing in the doorway. He was a pretty tall guy and very skinny too. Hell, compared to me he was a fricking anorexic T-Rex with long arms. Kenny sat down next to me, and we began talking about random things like Tetris high scores, competition with Pearl Worm, and our favorite conversation about how we both fail and denying it. Classic.

                “Man, my mom would not let me leave the library until all books were put away. I mean it was like 15 minutes after my shift ended," He complained. His mom, Mrs. Ballou, ran the Children’s department in the library and Kenny worked at the library because of it.

                “At least you didn’t have to wake up early for torture. What time is it now? 4? Jesus Christ, man. I woke up at 8 and didn’t get out until 12. Then I had to get back, do homework, and finally come down here. I don’t see why you’re complaining when I’m going to miss the annual Water Country trip," I said slightly irritated. His summer school was going to stop him from joining the Teen Group in going to Water Country, a water park. There's a reason why ‘summer’ is called ‘summer’. SUM meaning ‘total’. And MER being mermaid which means ‘water’. So summer means, TOTAL WATER, not total torture!”

                Kenny laughed. "Where does your logic come from?” I smiled in return, one of the things I loved doing was making confusing sentences and say them to make people laugh.

                “Well it does make sense. Summer does stand for ‘Total Water.'" I said in a matter-of-face tone.

                “No it does not!” He said in response.

                “Man, it’s like saying Elvis is alive, and Hogwarts does exist. Might not seem true but it is," I said with confidence.

                “So you believe Elvis is alive, and Hogwarts is real?” He asked with his eyebrows up.

                “Of course I do. What? You don’t?” I said with a smirk.

                “Of course I don’t. I love the movies and books, but I know they’re not real," He replied.

                “Ok, let me say this. It is real; J.K. Rowling say it for herself and wrote it down. Harry Potter and Dumbledore are based on real people. I saw Hogwarts for myself, so I know it’s real." I said with slight edge of PWNAGE in my voice.

                “Believe what you want, Dakotakins," He said.

                “I told you to stop calling me that! Just because Ashley told you to do it doesn’t mean you have to jump up and down at her command!” I said with malice.

                “Am I late?” A female voice came from behind me.

                “No you’re right on….” I turned and saw it was a girl. Well, looking at her you couldn’t say she was a girl. She was slightly taller than me. Red lips, brown eyes, long hair and fully developed. Damn.”…time," I managed to finish.

                “Ok, good.” She took a seat across the table from Kenny and me. Kenny still tried talking to me, and I pretended to listen. But I was watching her from the corner of my eyes. Oh my god, she was the most beautiful thing I ever laid eyes on, and I’ve seen some girls. I frowned slightly; something wasn’t right about her. It almost felt like there was something more to her story then just being beautiful and having a great life. Almost like something kept her from happy. And this was the very first impression I had of her.

                “I finally found the scripts. The play is called the Perplexing Happenings of Professor Hypotenuse. I read through it, and it seems to be pretty funny," His grandfather said as he sat down in a chair that faced almost everyone. "Alright, so let’s go through the cast and see who wants to read what.”

 

                After five more minutes, I had the main character, Sam Maxwell… and the new Mystery Girl played Magnolia, who Sam Maxwell (Private Eye) flirts with in the play. Ok, to sum up the reading of the play, Lucas Maxwell wants a new football but can't, so he dreams about what career he wants to have and chooses to be SAM MAXWELL, PRIVATE EYE! He tries solving a crime where the daughter of a Professor calls him and wants him to find the Professor. They flirt a little bit while Sam Maxwell tries to get the story straight. His friend, Hercules, a clumsy funny guy played by Kenny, helps him. It's official, my favorite part in the script is:

                Hercules:”Hey, boss. I found fingerprints in the cookie jar. And I think I know who it belongs to”

                Sam:”Good work, Hercules! Who?”

                Hercules: "Me.”(Eats a cookie)

                Other than that, Magnolia flirts with me, which is hard to do when you’re heart is thumping like crazy and your head looks like a cherry pop.  After the reading, I talked with Kenny outside.

                “Hey, you know who she is? I haven’t seen her around before," I asked curiously.

                “Oh, her? Her name is Sarah Ryder; her family donated computers to the new library so she knew about the play and decided to try it out.

                “Sarah Ryder, huh? She seems quiet." I said slowly,  still processing the name in my head.

                “Not really. You just got to know her. I know her, but she was quiet because she didn’t know anyone else. But she did a killer southern accent for Magnolia, didn’t she?” He said.

                “Yeah, it’s better than my natural southern voice," I said sort of disappointed. I loved being a southern, but not having the voice sucked. It definitely would’ve helped when I moved to New England.

                Kenny laughed." See you later man.” He walked away and hopped into his Dad’s red Dakota truck and drove off, but my eyes were on Sarah Ryder driving away with her sunglasses on. I looked down and slapped my face once. Stop it, first Cassie breaks your heart, and now you want to know this girl. It’s going to happen again, man. Don’t be stupid.

                “Ready to go and eat dinner?” Kaydee’s voice came from behind me. I sort of jumped but recovered quickly.

                “Do I have a choice? You’re the one driving.” I smiled and hopped in the car with her, and we drove off. My mind was far away thinking about who this Sarah Ryder girl was.

Reviews

[Jazique]

Errors: "freshman" in the first paragraph should not be capitalized, in the third paragraph where you say "Classic" don't put a period put a "," or ";", In the 5th paragraph you explained the meaning of Summer well get rid of the "." between "total' And" and make "And" a lower case, and other then that you had a few other errors but, I can't fix those but, you did pretty good when it came to writing now as a reading I believe your writing was excellent . It was all very interesting you can just tell the boy will have a story to tell within this book . Wonderful job and keep it up and remember their is always room for improvement my teacher tells me.

[Short.Nerd]

Interesting start so far :)

[Kanattas Atir Enomo]

Hmm, this seems like an interesting read, so i shall continue. I feel the characters were developed okay, but...(and what happened to less work on my end?) GRAMMAR! SPELLING! PUNCTUATION! WORD USAGE!!! C'mon dude, you're killing me here. Important words weren't capitalized, then others were that didn't need to be. You have commas instead of semi-colons and periods where commas could be. Run it through Word, then either manually go through again (or have a Grammar Nazi/English nerd) to make sure you get the errors Word doesn't get.
However, I LOVE the "summer=total water" comment. I'm gonna have to tell that to my friends some time. Your dialogue was good and overall, with some more editing, this could be a really great story. *hits 'submit review' then 'next chapter'*