Chapter 1. Storm

John and his best mates Moana and Flynn were walking home from school.  It had become very windy and dark clouds were gathering, getting blacker and more sodden looking with each passing minute.  “Its gonna rain,” said John to his friends as they got to the quiet intersection where they separated to head home, “I’m gonna run the rest of the way, see ya!”

“Me too, see ya” said Moana.

“See ya” called Flynn and with that they all ran the rest of the way to beat getting wet by the rain.

 

Moana lived about three streets away from John, and Flynn was two streets in the other direction, the intersection was a good meeting point for the three friends.  There was also a playground with a small skateboard and scooter park which was where they had all met as much smaller children.  At the back of the park a small wood stretched up and over the hill behind the playground, they had played hide and seek there when they were young. As they got older the trees got larger and the undergrowth more dense, hide and seek made-way for practicing tricks on their scooters and skateboards.

 

John ran down the street away from the playground. He glanced to his right as he ran past the overgrown dusty track with the sagging old metal gates chained together, a faded “Keep out” sign hung awkwardly, rattling in the wind. He had often wondered what was down that track, and why everyone had to ‘keep out’.  No time for that today, he had to get home before the storm broke and he got soaked by the rain.  A few minutes later he’d turned the last corner and was only 50 metres or so from his driveway when the first few drops of rain splattered into his face and left dark splotches on the front of his t-shirt.  Just as he ran up the stairs and in through the front door the first clap of thunder crashed and rumbled loudly, and the rain started falling faster and harder, gusts of wind whipping it against the windows. 

“Phew, made it,  hi Mum” he called as he took off his shoes and emptied his schoolbag. 

“Hullo Darling,” said Mum “Yes just in time, looks like it’s going to be a big one.  You get started on your homework and I’ll get you a snack”. 

Homework sucked, but Mum’s snacks didn’t, it made it bearable and eventually he finished the last task.  Yes! Now he could watch a little TV.  He took the plate with only crumbs left of his snack into the kitchen and put it into the dishwasher.  Before he could escape to the lounge and the TV Mum asked him to give her a hand with dinner.

“Aw Mum” he began, but she said “Come on John, the sooner you peel the carrots the sooner you’ll get to watch TV”. So they turned it into a race; Mum peeling the potatoes and John peeling the carrots.  John won by about five seconds and Mum grinned as he threw the peeler down and did a victory dance before running to the lounge, flopping into a chair and turning on the TV. 

 

John flicked through a few channels until he got to his favourite programme “Make Something” where teams of kids about his own age had to build things out of junk, each team had one adult “Expert” to help with the tricky things, and it was always interesting, sometimes they even got to use small motors.  Today’s challenge was a good one; the teams had to find a way to attach a small motor to an old pram and see if they could ride it down a short course.

 

The show ended and it was time for dinner, John and Mum found it hard to have a conversation at times; the noise from the storm outside was so loud. After they’d finished dinner and tidied up, Mum made herself a coffee and John settled at the computer to play a few games when there was another loud boom of thunder followed immediately by a bright flash of lightning “Crikey that was close” said Mum,  no sooner had she finished her sentence when all the lights went out and the computer screen went dark. “Power cut” said John in disappointment.

“I’ll get the torch” said Mum and she rattled around in the junk drawer in the kitchen.  

“I’ll get the other one” said John and slowly made his way in the dark to the large bookcase in the lounge where all sorts of things were kept along with books. “Found it” he said as he turned it on, and the beam of light lit up all the old books that Mum had stacked neatly on the bottom shelf “I guess we’ll have to read tonight instead of watching TV” John said to Mum

“Good idea” said Mum as she came into the lounge with the other torch “Let’s see, oh look, all Granddad’s old DIY and project books, you might find something interesting in there”.

John grabbed a handful of old magazines “I think I’ll read these in bed, g‘night Mum” said John.

“Night Darling, don’t forget to brush your teeth” said Mum.

 

Teeth brushed and face washed, John sat in bed with the torch propped on the pillow and looked through the slightly musty smelling magazines that had belonged to his Granddad.  There were articles about how to ease sticky wooden drawers, boxing-up for concrete, and building fences.  The fourth magazine was a little newer than the others and halfway through was an article on how to build a ‘soap-box derby racer’. John grinned at the old way some things were described, but studied the pictures of how to attach the axles to the chassis, and the wheels to the axle.  There were also diagrams of the steering cables and where to put the seat. ‘Man, if only I had all that stuff, I could make myself a derby car’, he thought to himself 'and Moana and Flynn could too, and then we could all race’.  John yawned a huge yawn and put down the magazine, switched off the torch and began to drift off to sleep.  The storm was starting to die down a little and it wasn’t long before he was dreaming.

Reviews

[JD Rowe]

All righty then. First off, well done. It is scary to place work on a site for every one to read and takes further courage to accept the good and the bad that comes with. I'm so proud (sniff).
Have read said chapter and here is my humble opinion. Feel free to disregard anything I write here and remember, I live too far away for you to hurt me...
BEGINNING: Too many 'it's' in first three sentences. Maybe chop the first one off-"It was a normal day' (this part is not necessary for your story).
Ok, so punctuation-I'm sure when you redraft this, you'll fix up the commas etc, but about writing with dialogue: tricky, depending on your publisher and your market, BUT- write your dialogue with punctuation. For example in your sentence "Its gonna rain" you need to have a comma after rain because dialogue is still part of a sentence. So that sentence should read "It's gonna rain,(COMMA)" John said to his friends...as they separated for home,(COMMA) "I'm gonna run the rest of the way.(FULL STOP)"

Run is a better word than jogged for kids. Only us poor unfit adults understand the true meaning of jog...sad but true.

Second paragraph and any other time-I'm pretty sure you have to spell out numbers under ten, except when using dates, and even then when you use dates in dialogue you use letters. (Double check this as I'm not too sure).

Third paragraph, opening sentence too long. Take out 'and' and replace it with a full stop. Your lungs will thank me for it-ha! I think you probably don't need to mention the parents at the playground-just saying that they met there when they were little implies parents? Your call. Hide and seek when they were young requires a ; after it.
Loved the dark splotches, very vivid.
Get rid of any and all exclaimation marks. If you have the tone of voice right people will hear the shout.
Was wondering if you could mention a clap of thunder or some such earlier, maybe to give rise to more tension-will he make it before he gets frizzled by a lightening bolt?
Loved homework sucked.
Again, during the dialogue about dinner, check your punctuation.
I know you are writing this for semi-serious fun, but you want to be able to cut down on unnecessary words. For example when he turns the tv on with the remote, we don't actually need to know that, since we (and yes, I mean me too) are such slackers that we wouldn't (nowadays anyway) even think of turning the tv on without one...
Maybe during the watching we could see some reference to the storm-John turning up the tv or the lights or the sound of rain on the window etc.
Get rid of the dashes and use ; instead (in most places; there are of course exceptions to every rule). Nice sentence starting with teeth brushed... I liked the way John was reading the mags. It felt very boyish and something I could see a young boy doing (not mine of course. Just saying). Wanna give grandad a name...Stanley or, dare I say, Colin? On the word old, take off the quotation marks, put it in italics instead.
So, there you have it. I haven't read any more, but will try at a later stage. Remember, I'm no expert and I can only pass on what I've learnt over the years. I think the story has potential. A soap-box car sounds like fun and would capture the imagination of young boys. I liked the link to grandad about this too, as I'm sure most young boys will have pottered about with their grandad at some stage in a garage or shed. It should appeal to them.
Jx