tsjbbblue
09-15-2010, 01:42 AM
Here is the first few chapters from my book that I am writing.. any pointers.. constructive criticism is greatly appreciated...
"Robert F. Kennedy once said ' Few will have the greatness to bend history itself: but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all of these acts will be written the history of this generation.' Finally remember that when you leave here today celebrate not only what you have accomplished, but look forward to what you can achieve."
"CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2010!"
It was early evening and the air was cool. I look around the football field at all of the faces and shook my head with amazement and resignation. By saying that I was going to miss this place was an understatement. I loved school and learning new things, not having to try hard to get good grades, it came naturally to me. Valedictorian for my senior class, and more than reluctant to say my last speech and hand the title to the next in line. The last day of High School and the beginning of life as an 'adult' was not as appealing to me as it was to most of my graduating class. My hometown, my friends and my parents were soon going to be a part of my past, and it frightened me in an odd kind of way to not know what to expect for my future. Having the normal expectations that life itself expects of you, like college, marriage, family. But there was nothing that was exciting or was going to make the pages of a history book. It was just all of the ordinary and traditional actions that the generations before me had done.
"Congratulations Tara, we are really going to miss you around here." My principal Mr. Bradshaw said as he gave me a hug. He was just one of the many that I was going to miss. After the hug I stood there and watched the crowd of new graduates disperse into the waiting arms of their proud family and friends.
Twain Harte California is a quaint little town that has been home for the last six years. It is a beautiful place that I love dearly. Going new places and meeting new people is not something that appeals to me. I like things that I know. Knowing that I could drive or hike almost anywhere in a fifty mile radius and I am as familiar with it as I am with my own home; every window that rattles and stair that creaks.
Always being different than other people and not fitting in. I don't remember ever being whatever classifies you as normal. I guess it was around five years old when I realized that the things that I had been seeing and hearing all my life was not like the other children in my kindergarten class. My parents, Cindy and Robert, seemed to accept it and thought it was cute when I was little, they never told me that I was different or treated me that way. We openly talked about what I heard and saw. Things like where my Mom put her sunglasses or my Dad was going to have a flat tire. They once asked me if I could see what the lottery numbers were going to be, and I tried so hard but I couldn't. They laughed and sometimes whispered, as if I couldn’t see the pictures or hear what they thought anyways. They were always just humoring me, and I knew it, but I could also tell that they loved me dearly, no matter what my flaws were.
When I was in sixth grade I stopped openly discussing my precognitions and the thoughts of others. I couldn’t handle it anymore when it seemed like daily I had things thrown at me and I came home numerous times with bloody noses or bruised ribs. My mom told me that it scared people, so I decided to pretend like it didn't exist. Pretending didn't make it go away of course, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, it was always there. I wished so many times that I was normal, that I was anything else, just not a freak. When everyone started treating our family differently because of my 'gift', we moved away from the town in Texas that I had been born in. It was a silent agreement between my parents and I that this was our chance to start fresh and I would not discuss my abilities at our new home.
Reading people's minds is not something that is as glamorous as it sounds. For the most part it is pretty boring. Most people are very mundane, and I try to not listen. Not listening is not as easy as it sounds either, you can't just put some ear plugs in. I still haven't gotten the hang of it, even after eighteen years. I don't have someone to teach me and although I have read about it on it on the internet, that is about as far as my schooling on the subject goes. Trial and error is how I have learned so far, and it seems error likes me and my little fault. As far as seeing the future, it is not like what you see on TV, or anything like Nostradamus saw. Just little things that really have no significance or real meaning. I can hear animals too, not in the eerie abnormal Dr. Doolittle way. Not that my way is normal by any measure, but I don't actually hear them like I hear people, they don't vocalize. I understand their feelings and sometime like I do with humans I will get pictures of what they are thinking. I wish that it was all an exact science and I had it perfected, but after years of trying there were still some pretty major glitches. I let my mind wander back to where I was standing today.
The football field was full of the unfamiliar faces of the loved ones that came to see the next in their family take the giant step towards a brighter future. I heard all of the congratulations and watched the tears of happiness, hugs, and nods of approval. I really had no idea what I was going to do or how I was going to do it. I had been hearing the voiced and silent plans of my classmates for months now and it thoroughly perturbed me that I was one of the only ones without a plan and a backup plan.
"Tara! O.M.G! ... can you believe that we made it? This is so crazy." Shi was one of my best friends. She had struggled all through school and was always looking to me for help. She had moved from Ireland the same year that I had moved here. Shi was tiny and petite, with bright red hair and green eyes, just as you would imagine an Irish girl to look. She was like a fairy and leprechaun mix, and she always made me smile with her funny faces and sometimes bad attitude.
"Hey Shi. Still going to have a big barbeque with the plane full of family that came to see you?" I smiled and leaned down to give her a hug. I looked tall next to Shi, even with her platform shoes on she was pushing five foot, and my five seven seemed to tower above her. "Your family took up half of the football field. You weren't kidding when you said that a bunch of your family was coming."
"I know, right? And some of them are complete fruitcakes. But that's ok, as long as they brought me some great gifts." She giggled. "Not really, I am really glad to see all of them." But I do hope that they brought me some good gifts. I wanted to tell her that I heard that, but I had never told any of my friends and I just shook my head and smiled.
"Well the barbecue sounds like fun,” I winked. I wanted so bad to tell my friends, but I had promised myself that I wouldn't tell anyone; no matter how much I trusted them. I was afraid of rejection and of history repeating itself. I did not want to lose the people that were closest to me.
"Yep, a blast.” She rolled her eyes. “Wish you could come over, it would be so much more fun with you guys." OH NO. There is Mamo, ugh, my cheeks hurt already.
"I wish that I could too, but we are going to Modesto to have dinner. My parents made reservations weeks ago, so I can't cancel." I said as I looked in the direction that Shi's Grandma was coming from. She was not unlike Shi, just older and very wrinkled. When she got close enough she pinched Shi's cheeks and then kissed them as if to make the red welts all better. Shi grimaced a smile.
"Hòigh banua, ye look so lovely. Oy, ow me has missed ye." She looks just as he muthur did. so beutuful. It had taken me awhile to differentiate between thoughts and out loud speaking, finally figuring out that thoughts were more muffled and dreamy sounding.
"Hi Mamò, thank you for coming all this way to see me graduate. I haven't seen you in years, yet you haven't changed one bit!" Shi had not lost her accent, but she did not speak the slang anymore. "Mamo, I want you to meet one of my best friends, Tara."
"Aye, Tara." She nodded and stepped towards me. "I 'ave been waitin to meet ya." She reached towards me and I half expected her to pinch my cheeks. She reached up over my shoulders and pushed her hand into my hair and started rubbing the nape of my neck. She closed her eyes and whispered something. I got chills all over my body and shivered. I was a little alarmed by this, but I was not sure what the traditions in Ireland were, and although I thought that the handshake was universal, I stood still. I listened to her mind and her thoughts were scrambled. 'Ahh this tis thee one. Is all that I got that was clear enough.
"Nice to meet you....... “Confused I looked to Shi for her Grandmothers name.
"Oh, umm.. Mamo, just call her Mamo." Shi said as she gave me a funny look and shrugged her shoulders at her grandma's behavior. I think that Mamo is losing it.
I gently pulled out of the old woman's grasp and held my hand out to her. "Nice to meet you Mamo." She looked at my hand and grunted.
"Ay, tis nice to meet 'ou." She shuffled away with use of her crude wooden cane and disappeared into the crowd of people.
"That was weird." I looked at Shi and she nodded her head.
"Ya it was, and I thought that Mamo was one of the most sane out of my family." We both laughed. "Here come Aiden and Troy." I looked in the direction that Shi was looking, when I turned my head my hair pulled where her grandma had shoved her hands in. I started letting my dark hair out of its bindings, and piece by piece my thick, waist length hair fell between my shoulder blades. Aiden pulled it as he walked up.
"Ouch," I said even though it didn't hurt. Aiden was another of my best friends, he was the only one out of the four of us that had lived in Twain Harte all of his life. Aiden was around six foot tall, lanky with big ears and dimples to match. He could melt a room with his smile and was always the funny one. Aiden could make me smile even on the worst day.
"Hey guys, I want you all to meet my mom." Troy said as he walked up behind Aiden. Troy moved here from New York our freshman year. When Troy came he introduced himself to us, and we were all best friends in no time. He was not as tall as Aiden, but by saying that Troy was tall dark and handsome was putting it mildly. He has black hair with eyelashes that any girl would kill for, thick, long and dark. He is suck-in-your-belly-push-out-your-boobs-and-and-bat-your-eyelashes gorgeous. At least that is what all of the girls that see him do, but of course he is just a great friend to me, like a brother. Nothing more. But that still doesn't mean that I can't enjoy the way he looks.
"Your mom is here from New York?" Shi said as Aiden picked her up in a bear hug. "Aiden I am wearing a skirt! Put me down!" She laughed as she yelled it. Aiden put her down and came after me. I laughed and ran, I didn't make it far before he caught me and I couldn't use the skirt excuse.
"Okay! You won." I punched him in the arm and he feigned pain as he put me down.
"I always do," Aiden showed his dimples and we walked back over to Troy and Shi.
"So your Mom finally came here, huh?" I asked because His mom had not been here in the last four years. Troy didn't get to see his mom very often. He went every year for about two weeks and that was as much as he had seen her since he had moved here with his dad.
"Ya, she really wants to meet you guys. She is over here." Troy said as he pointed towards the parking lot. "She doesn't like crowds." He said, answering us because we were all thinking the same thing. Why is she in the parking lot?
We walked to the edge of the parking lot where there were a couple of picnic tables for the students that wanted to have lunch away from everyone else, we usually always sat at these tables. There sitting on one of the tables was what I could only describe as a Goddess. I now knew where Troy got his looks from. His dad was not ugly, but Troy did not look anything like him. I had never seen any pictures of his mom, and I often wondered where he got his looks from. She was olive skinned with long black hair that was loosely pulled back from her face and the most brilliant blue eyes that I had ever seen. I had always thought that my eyes were the prettiest eyes that I had ever seen; an ocean green, not blue, but not green either. But her eyes were shocking, I could easily describe them as electrifying. Her eyes seemed as if they could see straight through you, glowing against her flawless skin. I felt intimidated, and so did Shi. Aiden on the other hand was thinking things that he shouldn't about his best friend’s mom.
"Thank you for coming to meet me. I very happy to finally meet my son’s best friends." She smiled and that added more to her affect. The bright white of her straight teeth against her flawless skin and her perfectly shaped lips was mesmerizing.
"Guys this is my Mom Dorinda." Troy said as he stepped to the side as his mom stepped closer to us. Instantly having a sudden urge to step back, like her presence demanded space and I was an invasion to that space.
"I would like for you to call me Dori." She said as she walked toward me. I tried very hard to read her mind, but I couldn't. There were times that people just weren't thinking, but with her it was more like I was at a door that was locked and I didn't have the key. I knew that something was behind the door, but I couldn't get it. I had never had this happen to me before. I had never not been able to read people's minds before. Sometimes there were no thoughts because they had a mental illness or they were scrambled, but I had never been at the thoughts and not be able to open them. Troy seemed to sometimes cover up his real thoughts, but not lock all of them altogether.
"You must be Tara. I am so glad to see you again." She hugged me and a she did she put her hands on the nape of my neck just as Shi's Grandma had. She mumbled the same thing also, and the chills raced through my body. I was so confused, something was going on and I wanted to know what it was. She was glad to see me again? And why did these people keep grabbing me and rubbing the back of my neck?
"It is ok to be confused. You will not be confused soon enough and you will get the answers that you have had all your life finally answered." She said as she let me go.
"Wh... What did you say? You can? You heard me?" I had never had anyone read my mind. "What is going on here?"
"Don't be alarmed. And yes I heard you." Dorinda then walked over to Shi and hugged her as she rubbed the back of her neck. She did the same to Aiden. We all looked at Troy and he gave us a puzzled look. Troy was obviously confused too, but he knew more than we did. He was hiding something from us.
"What the heck is going on?" Shi repeated my question.
"All of you will find out soon enough. I would like to extend an invitation to you to come to Troy's house for a Ceremony. We have much to do, so you three have a good night and congratulations on your graduation." She smiled and turned away.
Troy gave us all reassuring looks as he turned away to go with his mom. For a moment as they were walking away I could unlock the door to Dorinda's thoughts. I turned back to look at her and she was staring at me with her blue eyes. But the only word that came through was.... Witch.
"Robert F. Kennedy once said ' Few will have the greatness to bend history itself: but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all of these acts will be written the history of this generation.' Finally remember that when you leave here today celebrate not only what you have accomplished, but look forward to what you can achieve."
"CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2010!"
It was early evening and the air was cool. I look around the football field at all of the faces and shook my head with amazement and resignation. By saying that I was going to miss this place was an understatement. I loved school and learning new things, not having to try hard to get good grades, it came naturally to me. Valedictorian for my senior class, and more than reluctant to say my last speech and hand the title to the next in line. The last day of High School and the beginning of life as an 'adult' was not as appealing to me as it was to most of my graduating class. My hometown, my friends and my parents were soon going to be a part of my past, and it frightened me in an odd kind of way to not know what to expect for my future. Having the normal expectations that life itself expects of you, like college, marriage, family. But there was nothing that was exciting or was going to make the pages of a history book. It was just all of the ordinary and traditional actions that the generations before me had done.
"Congratulations Tara, we are really going to miss you around here." My principal Mr. Bradshaw said as he gave me a hug. He was just one of the many that I was going to miss. After the hug I stood there and watched the crowd of new graduates disperse into the waiting arms of their proud family and friends.
Twain Harte California is a quaint little town that has been home for the last six years. It is a beautiful place that I love dearly. Going new places and meeting new people is not something that appeals to me. I like things that I know. Knowing that I could drive or hike almost anywhere in a fifty mile radius and I am as familiar with it as I am with my own home; every window that rattles and stair that creaks.
Always being different than other people and not fitting in. I don't remember ever being whatever classifies you as normal. I guess it was around five years old when I realized that the things that I had been seeing and hearing all my life was not like the other children in my kindergarten class. My parents, Cindy and Robert, seemed to accept it and thought it was cute when I was little, they never told me that I was different or treated me that way. We openly talked about what I heard and saw. Things like where my Mom put her sunglasses or my Dad was going to have a flat tire. They once asked me if I could see what the lottery numbers were going to be, and I tried so hard but I couldn't. They laughed and sometimes whispered, as if I couldn’t see the pictures or hear what they thought anyways. They were always just humoring me, and I knew it, but I could also tell that they loved me dearly, no matter what my flaws were.
When I was in sixth grade I stopped openly discussing my precognitions and the thoughts of others. I couldn’t handle it anymore when it seemed like daily I had things thrown at me and I came home numerous times with bloody noses or bruised ribs. My mom told me that it scared people, so I decided to pretend like it didn't exist. Pretending didn't make it go away of course, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, it was always there. I wished so many times that I was normal, that I was anything else, just not a freak. When everyone started treating our family differently because of my 'gift', we moved away from the town in Texas that I had been born in. It was a silent agreement between my parents and I that this was our chance to start fresh and I would not discuss my abilities at our new home.
Reading people's minds is not something that is as glamorous as it sounds. For the most part it is pretty boring. Most people are very mundane, and I try to not listen. Not listening is not as easy as it sounds either, you can't just put some ear plugs in. I still haven't gotten the hang of it, even after eighteen years. I don't have someone to teach me and although I have read about it on it on the internet, that is about as far as my schooling on the subject goes. Trial and error is how I have learned so far, and it seems error likes me and my little fault. As far as seeing the future, it is not like what you see on TV, or anything like Nostradamus saw. Just little things that really have no significance or real meaning. I can hear animals too, not in the eerie abnormal Dr. Doolittle way. Not that my way is normal by any measure, but I don't actually hear them like I hear people, they don't vocalize. I understand their feelings and sometime like I do with humans I will get pictures of what they are thinking. I wish that it was all an exact science and I had it perfected, but after years of trying there were still some pretty major glitches. I let my mind wander back to where I was standing today.
The football field was full of the unfamiliar faces of the loved ones that came to see the next in their family take the giant step towards a brighter future. I heard all of the congratulations and watched the tears of happiness, hugs, and nods of approval. I really had no idea what I was going to do or how I was going to do it. I had been hearing the voiced and silent plans of my classmates for months now and it thoroughly perturbed me that I was one of the only ones without a plan and a backup plan.
"Tara! O.M.G! ... can you believe that we made it? This is so crazy." Shi was one of my best friends. She had struggled all through school and was always looking to me for help. She had moved from Ireland the same year that I had moved here. Shi was tiny and petite, with bright red hair and green eyes, just as you would imagine an Irish girl to look. She was like a fairy and leprechaun mix, and she always made me smile with her funny faces and sometimes bad attitude.
"Hey Shi. Still going to have a big barbeque with the plane full of family that came to see you?" I smiled and leaned down to give her a hug. I looked tall next to Shi, even with her platform shoes on she was pushing five foot, and my five seven seemed to tower above her. "Your family took up half of the football field. You weren't kidding when you said that a bunch of your family was coming."
"I know, right? And some of them are complete fruitcakes. But that's ok, as long as they brought me some great gifts." She giggled. "Not really, I am really glad to see all of them." But I do hope that they brought me some good gifts. I wanted to tell her that I heard that, but I had never told any of my friends and I just shook my head and smiled.
"Well the barbecue sounds like fun,” I winked. I wanted so bad to tell my friends, but I had promised myself that I wouldn't tell anyone; no matter how much I trusted them. I was afraid of rejection and of history repeating itself. I did not want to lose the people that were closest to me.
"Yep, a blast.” She rolled her eyes. “Wish you could come over, it would be so much more fun with you guys." OH NO. There is Mamo, ugh, my cheeks hurt already.
"I wish that I could too, but we are going to Modesto to have dinner. My parents made reservations weeks ago, so I can't cancel." I said as I looked in the direction that Shi's Grandma was coming from. She was not unlike Shi, just older and very wrinkled. When she got close enough she pinched Shi's cheeks and then kissed them as if to make the red welts all better. Shi grimaced a smile.
"Hòigh banua, ye look so lovely. Oy, ow me has missed ye." She looks just as he muthur did. so beutuful. It had taken me awhile to differentiate between thoughts and out loud speaking, finally figuring out that thoughts were more muffled and dreamy sounding.
"Hi Mamò, thank you for coming all this way to see me graduate. I haven't seen you in years, yet you haven't changed one bit!" Shi had not lost her accent, but she did not speak the slang anymore. "Mamo, I want you to meet one of my best friends, Tara."
"Aye, Tara." She nodded and stepped towards me. "I 'ave been waitin to meet ya." She reached towards me and I half expected her to pinch my cheeks. She reached up over my shoulders and pushed her hand into my hair and started rubbing the nape of my neck. She closed her eyes and whispered something. I got chills all over my body and shivered. I was a little alarmed by this, but I was not sure what the traditions in Ireland were, and although I thought that the handshake was universal, I stood still. I listened to her mind and her thoughts were scrambled. 'Ahh this tis thee one. Is all that I got that was clear enough.
"Nice to meet you....... “Confused I looked to Shi for her Grandmothers name.
"Oh, umm.. Mamo, just call her Mamo." Shi said as she gave me a funny look and shrugged her shoulders at her grandma's behavior. I think that Mamo is losing it.
I gently pulled out of the old woman's grasp and held my hand out to her. "Nice to meet you Mamo." She looked at my hand and grunted.
"Ay, tis nice to meet 'ou." She shuffled away with use of her crude wooden cane and disappeared into the crowd of people.
"That was weird." I looked at Shi and she nodded her head.
"Ya it was, and I thought that Mamo was one of the most sane out of my family." We both laughed. "Here come Aiden and Troy." I looked in the direction that Shi was looking, when I turned my head my hair pulled where her grandma had shoved her hands in. I started letting my dark hair out of its bindings, and piece by piece my thick, waist length hair fell between my shoulder blades. Aiden pulled it as he walked up.
"Ouch," I said even though it didn't hurt. Aiden was another of my best friends, he was the only one out of the four of us that had lived in Twain Harte all of his life. Aiden was around six foot tall, lanky with big ears and dimples to match. He could melt a room with his smile and was always the funny one. Aiden could make me smile even on the worst day.
"Hey guys, I want you all to meet my mom." Troy said as he walked up behind Aiden. Troy moved here from New York our freshman year. When Troy came he introduced himself to us, and we were all best friends in no time. He was not as tall as Aiden, but by saying that Troy was tall dark and handsome was putting it mildly. He has black hair with eyelashes that any girl would kill for, thick, long and dark. He is suck-in-your-belly-push-out-your-boobs-and-and-bat-your-eyelashes gorgeous. At least that is what all of the girls that see him do, but of course he is just a great friend to me, like a brother. Nothing more. But that still doesn't mean that I can't enjoy the way he looks.
"Your mom is here from New York?" Shi said as Aiden picked her up in a bear hug. "Aiden I am wearing a skirt! Put me down!" She laughed as she yelled it. Aiden put her down and came after me. I laughed and ran, I didn't make it far before he caught me and I couldn't use the skirt excuse.
"Okay! You won." I punched him in the arm and he feigned pain as he put me down.
"I always do," Aiden showed his dimples and we walked back over to Troy and Shi.
"So your Mom finally came here, huh?" I asked because His mom had not been here in the last four years. Troy didn't get to see his mom very often. He went every year for about two weeks and that was as much as he had seen her since he had moved here with his dad.
"Ya, she really wants to meet you guys. She is over here." Troy said as he pointed towards the parking lot. "She doesn't like crowds." He said, answering us because we were all thinking the same thing. Why is she in the parking lot?
We walked to the edge of the parking lot where there were a couple of picnic tables for the students that wanted to have lunch away from everyone else, we usually always sat at these tables. There sitting on one of the tables was what I could only describe as a Goddess. I now knew where Troy got his looks from. His dad was not ugly, but Troy did not look anything like him. I had never seen any pictures of his mom, and I often wondered where he got his looks from. She was olive skinned with long black hair that was loosely pulled back from her face and the most brilliant blue eyes that I had ever seen. I had always thought that my eyes were the prettiest eyes that I had ever seen; an ocean green, not blue, but not green either. But her eyes were shocking, I could easily describe them as electrifying. Her eyes seemed as if they could see straight through you, glowing against her flawless skin. I felt intimidated, and so did Shi. Aiden on the other hand was thinking things that he shouldn't about his best friend’s mom.
"Thank you for coming to meet me. I very happy to finally meet my son’s best friends." She smiled and that added more to her affect. The bright white of her straight teeth against her flawless skin and her perfectly shaped lips was mesmerizing.
"Guys this is my Mom Dorinda." Troy said as he stepped to the side as his mom stepped closer to us. Instantly having a sudden urge to step back, like her presence demanded space and I was an invasion to that space.
"I would like for you to call me Dori." She said as she walked toward me. I tried very hard to read her mind, but I couldn't. There were times that people just weren't thinking, but with her it was more like I was at a door that was locked and I didn't have the key. I knew that something was behind the door, but I couldn't get it. I had never had this happen to me before. I had never not been able to read people's minds before. Sometimes there were no thoughts because they had a mental illness or they were scrambled, but I had never been at the thoughts and not be able to open them. Troy seemed to sometimes cover up his real thoughts, but not lock all of them altogether.
"You must be Tara. I am so glad to see you again." She hugged me and a she did she put her hands on the nape of my neck just as Shi's Grandma had. She mumbled the same thing also, and the chills raced through my body. I was so confused, something was going on and I wanted to know what it was. She was glad to see me again? And why did these people keep grabbing me and rubbing the back of my neck?
"It is ok to be confused. You will not be confused soon enough and you will get the answers that you have had all your life finally answered." She said as she let me go.
"Wh... What did you say? You can? You heard me?" I had never had anyone read my mind. "What is going on here?"
"Don't be alarmed. And yes I heard you." Dorinda then walked over to Shi and hugged her as she rubbed the back of her neck. She did the same to Aiden. We all looked at Troy and he gave us a puzzled look. Troy was obviously confused too, but he knew more than we did. He was hiding something from us.
"What the heck is going on?" Shi repeated my question.
"All of you will find out soon enough. I would like to extend an invitation to you to come to Troy's house for a Ceremony. We have much to do, so you three have a good night and congratulations on your graduation." She smiled and turned away.
Troy gave us all reassuring looks as he turned away to go with his mom. For a moment as they were walking away I could unlock the door to Dorinda's thoughts. I turned back to look at her and she was staring at me with her blue eyes. But the only word that came through was.... Witch.