~Chapter 1~

NaNoWriMo 2011

~

“April!” someone yelled, grabbing the thick book out of her hands.

“Britt, not now,” said April, reaching for her poetry book.

“Now.”

“What do you want?”

Brittany glared at April. She walked around her, and put her hands on her shoulders.

“You know what would be great?”

“I’m not doing your math homework for you again,” April grumbled, and started to head to her first period class. Brittany quickly pushed her back down.

The lobby was full of half-asleep students ready for another grueling day at high school. April sat on a bench, completely absorbed in writing in her poetry book. This was how she spent her mornings, when she wasn’t hanging out with the clique.

“I’ll go ask the twins then… Meet us in the cafeteria before you go to your first class,” said Brittany.

“Sure.”

“And by the way, your shirt is wrinkled.”

Brittany left the lobby with a trail of kids following her. April shook her head, and picked up her book from the floor.

When she got to the cafeteria, Brittany already had the twins busy with her geometry textbook.

“Hey guys,” April announced as she walked into the room.

The twins, Phoebe and Serena, didn’t even look up from Brittany’s textbook. Today they were wearing matching dresses, with their damp, brown hair pulled into high ponytails.

“They’re a bit dis-discom- oh, what’s that word?”

“Discombobulated,” said Phoebe.

“Thank you. They’re a bit discombobulated today, because Serena is grounded and isn’t allowed to sleep at Phoebe’s house for a whole week,” said Brittany.

As if on cue, Serena let out a loud sniffling noise. This prompted Phoebe to fling herself on top on Serena and start sobbing.

“Geez, come on you two!” said April, “It’ll be good for you. Isn’t it annoying to have someone constantly with you? That would suck. Right?”

Phoebe and Serena looked up at her, tightly clutched in each other’s arms. April rolled her eyes.

“Speaking of having someone with you all the time, Brittany, where’s David?”

“David?” said Brittany, a look of confusion in her eyes.

“Your boyfriend?!”

“Oh yeah. He has math club in the morning before school starts. Nerd…”

Brittany returned her attention to what the twins were trying to teach her. She could not care less about her relationships. Most of them were just for popularity.

“Well, I’m heading  off to gym, I’ll see you guys later.”

“Okay! Love you April!” said Phoebe and Serena in unison.

“Love you too!” April yelled, already halfway down the hallway.

“What are we going to do with her, girls?” Brittany said sarcastically.

The twins giggled, and continued with her homework. The paper was full of smudges and erase marks from their giggly behavior.

“Britt, you know you’re gonna fail this test,” said Phoebe.

“Yeah, I know. No biggie. It will only bring my average down a few points. And I’m not anywhere near failing this quarter, so I should be good.”

“Okay, whatever you say. You should be a bit more concerned about your grades though,” said Serena.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” she snapped, “I bet you fail at all your classes, stupid.”

Serena ignored this remark, as if this happened every day. It did. They continued working in silence, until the bell rang.

In the hallway, Brittany found David and they quickly linked arms. They always did this, with Brittany marching him around the school like a new puppy.

After their morning classes, the clique reunited in the lunchroom.

“Oh my god, you should have heard what Ben said to Dahlia in geometry!”  April raved, walking into the lunchroom with the twins.

“Ooh, what?!” said Phoebe.

“He said-”

Brittany walked into the scene, dragging poor David behind her.

“Hmm? Who said what? Speak up, honey,” she purred.

“Nothing.  I was just talking to the twins,” said April.

“Of course.”

They quickly found a spot to sit, because who did not want to sit with them? The cafeteria was small, and everyone was packed together. The food was not great, but that didn’t matter when you were the most popular kids in the school. Some kind soul would sacrifice the cookie their mom made them to be on the clique’s good side for the day.

April noticed a boy sitting in the corner of the room by himself, listening to his iPod.

“I’m going to go sit with someone else for the rest of lunch. Bye for now!” April said.

She walked over to the other side of the lunch room, throwing away her cardboard lunch tray in the process.

“Chance!” she called out, pulling up a chair at the table he was sitting at.

He looked up from his empty tray, eyes thickly outlined with eyeliner. His face briefly lit up at the sight of her.

“Oh, hi April.”

“How are you?” she asked, pulling out her own iPod.

He shrugged, and shook his iPod to change the track. His shaggy, black hair had a newly 

added neon green streak in it. He was wearing a slightly dirty My Chemical Romance shirt, with his usual skinny jeans.

“So, whatcha listening too?” she said, trying to start an impossible conversation.

He flashed April his iPod screen: The Sharpest Lives by My Chemical Romance. He had been listening to that song a lot lately.

“Cool. I’m listening to some Lady Gaga song.”

He slowly nodded, his gaze never leaving his lunch tray.

“Any good gossip lately?” she asked.

Chance was the local gossiper. Yeah, I bet you did not guess that either. He was a pro at staying undercover. People sometimes even paid him to hear their secrets. Everyone trusted him.

“Actually, yes.”

“Ooh, who?”

“No one in general, but there’s been a rumor going around that there’s a new boy 

coming in the next few days,” he said.

“Does Brittany know?” said April, already knowing the answer was ‘yes’.

“Of course she does! I’m surprised she hadn’t told you yet,”

“She probably wanted to keep him all to herself,” April laughed. Chance smiled, and started picking at an old blink-182 sticker on the back of his iPod.

“Well, she’s probably wondering where I am. See ya later Chance!”

“Bye.”

April made her way across the lunch room again, tripping over several backpacks.

“April! Over here!” yelled Brittany.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hanging out with the emo kid again?” Brittany asked, sticking her tongue out at Chance.

“Hey, be nice.”

“Just don’t hang out with him too much. You’ll ruin yourself.”

“Whatever. By the way, what do you think about the new boy who’s coming soon?”

Suddenly, April had the whole table’s attention.

“What new boy?!” said Phoebe and Serena.

“Haven’t you heard?” said Brittany.

“Obviously not,” David mumbled, receiving a sharp elbow from Brittany.

“Shut up, no one asked you.”

Maybe it was not the best idea that Brittany knew about the new boy coming. She would probably just treat him like any other boy she has ever gotten her hands on. That would be a great welcome to school, April thought, being instantly claimed by the most popular, bossy girl in the whole high school.

As if she could read minds, Brittany shot April a dirty look. The group was soon saved by the bell.

After school, April met up with Chance again.

Making sure that Brittany couldn’t see her, she joined Chance at his locker.

“Hey Chance, do you have any more information about the new kid?”

“Umm…” he paused while finishing his locker combination, “No. I’ve just heard stuff from people.”

“Okay. Thanks,” said April, “Have a good afternoon.”

“Mmhmm.”

April walked outside, just in time to catch her bus before it left. Phoebe and Serena also took the same bus as her.

“Wait up!” she called to them, slipping in just before the bus driver closed the doors.

“Whoa, April! Almost missed the bus again sweetie! Stop talking to all of your little friends!” said Andy, their bus driver.

April laughed, and took her regular seat in the very back of the bus.

“So, are you excited for the new boy or what?!” Serena squealed when she sat down.

“Duh! I’m sick of all of these gross high school boys already. I need some new material!” April said, laughing.

“I bet Brittany is double excited!” said Phoebe.

“Triple excited!”

“Quadruple excited!”

The girls doubled over from laughing.

“Girls in the back!” Andy yelled, smiling.

“Sorry Andy!” they replied in chorus.

The bus soon arrived at Phoebe’s house, then April’s, and finally Serena’s.

When April got home, she dumped her stuff in the living room, and ran into the kitchen to see what her mom was making for dinner.

“Mom! I’m home!” she yelled, her voice echoing through the hallway.

“I’m upstairs honey, help yourself to the chips and salsa on the table!”

“Okay, thanks mom!”

On the sparkling granite table, there was a small plate of chips with a bowl of homemade salsa. Digging into her favorite treat, April thought about the new boy that was coming to school. Was he going to be cute? They needed some new cute boys.

April knew in her heart that she would stand no chance against Brittany to get this boy. Why was she even thinking about it? Grabbing an apple, she went up to her room to ponder the matter.  

Her bedroom was your average teen bedroom. Walls painted soft pastel colors, covered from floor to ceiling with posters. Shelves of books also lined the walls, April’s secret pastime.  If Brittany or the twins knew about her obsession with books, she would be rejected from the clique immediately. They only knew about her poetry book, but none of them had actually read it.

April’s poetry book was her life within a nutshell. Everything that she felt went into a poem. She wrote poems about her dreams, and about basically anything you could ever think of. She was a writer at heart. If only everyone would see that in her.

Feeling disheartened, she grabbed her hot pink laptop off of her desk and brought it over to her bed. She quickly turned it on, and dismissed all of the messages from school about extra credit and homework. She typed her username and password into her email with lightning fast muscle memory. It was taking an unusually long time to load.

A message popped up on her screen: WARNING �" 5217 New Messages.

“What the heck…?!” April exclaimed, and quickly looked to see who had messaged her so many times.

They were all from Brittany.

~

Author's Note

I'm in the process of editing this, and I was wondering if it's any good. There are probably a ton of errors... Oh well.
Please leave an honest review!!

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good chapter. A lot of conversation. I like the internal thoughts and the way you ended the chapter. Thank you for the excellent opening chapter.
Coyote

[DearSweetAgony]

WOW! This story is really REALLY good! The only problems are that the story doesn't really stay on one person, it shifts rapidly without any warning. Also I think that maybe you should tell more about the 'twins'. Because I thought that they were really twins...like siblings, but it caught me off guard when it said something about different households. But other than those few problems this story really is FANTASTIC!

[Lemontine]

that was really REALLY good! honest!

[realmwriter]

Well lets see here. I noticed some grammatical issues as well as syntax problems, but overall I think you captured the drama that is high school very well. I might be far from there now but I assure you, I remember well, the drama that went on all the time.

I would develop the characters a bit more as the story progresses though. You don't want to get to far away from them in plot points and such before your readers forget who the main characters are.

It doesn't hurt to develop the secondary characters a bit as well, just to give some wait to them, but I wouldn't go into great detail on them unless you plan to make one of or several of them primary characters.

Your story already has an antagonist in Brittany and a protagonist in April so you have a built in kind of conflict that will add further interest to your story line. I can see where your going, so far anyway, with the plot and it works for the setting.
Should you change settings it might be a good place to thicken the plot.

That's about all I've got for now. Look forward to reading what comes next...

realmwriter