“Please to be restful. It is only a few crazies who have from the crazy place outbroken.”
~ William S. Burroughs
I
We lived on a terribly dark street that wound for about a half a mile. On one side was the great big Puget Sound; and even when I was little some wealthy people owned vacation homes on the sound side; but those of us who lived there were poor. We wouldn’t have known we were so undesirable had it not been for those rich folk, and so most of us resented them even though we tried not to. We tried not to out of pride, out of respect, out of fear of our own jealousy, or because we just wanted to be good people like we assumed they were. We all had our own reasons I guess, mine was pride.
The road was shaped like the curly end of a question mark and I knew every person who ever lived on it, even the rich folks who only vacationed for one summer, even Mrs. Frank’s several lovers who came and went like the waves in the sound; Christ, I liked to think I knew everyone who ever set foot on Slack street. I really don’t feel like I ever walked past the end of the road until I was fourteen. It’s not true of course, I left a couple times, but really, there was no need to.
At the end of the road there was a small grocery store that sold everything a poor family needed, including sewing supplies and modest fabric for our mended hand-me-down clothes that we passed around the block like most neighbors share sugar. Mr. Murphy, who owned the store when I was young, was a good man who let all of the residents of Slack street buy on credit.
Next to the store was the post office. I always wondered why we had one; none of us received much mail. Mrs. Peacock, my neighbor, said it was so bill collectors could keep track of us, and I suspect she was right because people on Slack street were always being afflicted by some bill or another. One summer Mr. Bang, the only Chinese man who ever lived on Slack street, killed himself with a rope. When Mrs. Peacock went to check on him she found stacks of unpaid bills beneath his twirling body, and no note. Mr. Bang’s house stood next to the elementary school and was left empty for years. As those years went by many stories were developed about the haunting of Mr. Bang’s dilapidated home, and the young kids (and some of the old kids) were afraid to walk past it on their way home from school, so they ran.
Mrs. Peacock lived on the other side of Mr. Bang next to me. She tried to keep a charming garden. She kept the weeds out of the flower beds and added quaint decorations like and angel made of plaster-au-paris and a wind chime fashioned out of spoons. She always let my sister Myra and I come over for pies and other baked goods, but if she caught us in her garden she would’ve skinned us alive. Otherwise Mrs. Peacock was nice. Her husband died before I was born; Mrs. Peacock always said I would’ve liked him if I knew him. Shelby Peacock, Mrs. Peacock’s son lived far away. He was a traveling salesman of some sort and would come once a year for Christmas. Myra and I liked him because he’d always bring us some cheap toy that broke after a weeks use. Somehow the anticipation of the toy breaking made the playing with it all the more fun.
Myra and I did most of our playing with Susanna Pinkerton. I liked to think she was my best friend, but she and Myra did most of the talking. She was a year older than me and lived across the street and down a few houses towards the point. Her family was among three that lived permanently on the water side of Slack street. The other two were the Fishers, whose parents both taught at the school, and the Warshots, who were retired but had an army of grandchildren that visited year round. The Warshot’s grandchildren were great to play with and they had a rope swing that dropped into the sound. Even though Susanna’s house was on the water side, we rarely played there. Myra and I would always try to coax our way in but Susanne would think of something to drag us out. We thought it was because of her terrible older brother Michael, who would call us trash and spit on us or pull our hair. We’d tell Susanna we didn’t mind, but she’d think of a way out anyway.
There were plenty of people to avoid on Slack street. The road was full of drunks and recluses and mean boys. The house on the other side of mine was occupied by four men always on their front porch drinking. Two of them were brothers who inherited their momma’s house (whom I never knew but whom Mrs. Peacock said was a good lady who would be ashamed at the condition her house was in) after she died. The other two were cousins. They weren’t so bad as far as I could tell, but my momma told us to never speak to them, and so we never did, even though they called us over quite often to play cards or some other sort of game.
Next to the Oscar’s (the men who lived next to me) was Mrs. Crawford. She was a real recluse, but not the kind that wouldn’t talk, just the kind that wouldn’t come out of her house. At least not during the day. Her front yard was heavily overgrown and taken over by weeds and blackberry bushes, much to the dismay of Mrs. Peacock. However, this was well compensated for by her back yard which was a maze of neatly planted vegetables. Each row was five inches apart from the next, measured by a ruler. This was a shame Mrs. Peacock said, because no one ever saw it. I always wondered if Mrs. Peacock thought that the president was planning to drive down Slack street, until I realized she was trying to impress the vacationers.
One October afternoon when I was twelve, Susanna, Myra and I were playing in Mrs. Crawford’s yard. This was a common theme of ours, play in someone’s yard until they yell at you; if they don’t yell, it’s okay to play. Mrs. Crawford never yelled at us so her yard was fair game. We were crawling around in the weeds and overgrown bushes, pretending we were in the jungle when we heard noises that weren’t our own. Nor were they the familiar noises of our neighborhood: the clanking of bottles, the laughing of drunk men, boys kicking rocks down the street, a bicycle bell, somewhere in the distance a crying baby. They were whispers. Loud, forced “come here’s” ... “you, little girls” ... From the voice of an old woman.
“Stop. Did you hear that?” I said. The sound came again. “Yeah, I heard it. What is that?” Myra said with her ear to the wind. “Mrs. Crawford.” Susanna whispered and motioned us to follow her. We crawled on our arms and knees with our bellies dragging down the tall weeds. When we stood at the window where Mrs. Crawford was calling us, I looked back and we had created snake-like paths all through her yard. I hoped that’s not why she had called us. “I need some paint.” She said, in a plain voice. “What?” Myra said, baffled. “Paint,” she paused, “black or any dark color.” We stood there somewhat shocked. “Sure.” Susanna said. She held out her hand and Mrs. Crawford placed in it a twenty dollar bill. None of us had ever possessed that much money at one time. Mrs. Crawford disappeared inside her dark house, and we followed Susanne again as she walked towards the tangled bushes and sat down. “Some trust she has. What should we do with it?” Myra said as she sat. “With what?” Susanna looked at her. “The money stupid!” Myra was two year younger than Susanna but she talked to everybody like she owned them. “What do you think we’re gonna do with it, we’re gonna by paint, dummy.” Susanna punched Myra in the arm. “Hell no we ain’t.” Myra hit back and grabbed for the money, but Susanna was stronger. She pinned Myra with one hand and with the other she slipped the twenty into her back pocket. The whole time Myra was kicking and whining. “When you calm down I will get off you.” Myra stopped squirming and Susanna stood up next to me. “What do you think we should do with the money Jane?” I stood for a second with my mouth open, “uh, buy paint?” I said. “Good.” Susanna said smiling. “It’s two against one then.”
On the walk to the store to buy paint, through which Myra sulked and kicked rocks, Susanna started to describe what she called our new mission. “We have to make Mrs. Crawford our friend.” She said. “She obviously knows more secrets about Slack street than Mrs. Peacock because she only comes out at night. And she probably will tell us more. Plus, I think there is something cool about her and if we get to be her friends then we might find out what it is.” Susanna had some insane fascination with strange behavior. She loved the drunks and the recluses. She even loved old major who lived way at the bottom of the point by the hugs mansion. He used to walk up and down the street in an old army uniform singing military songs, and Susanna would walk right behind him.
When we bought the paint, Mr. Murphy gave us odd looks, but he wasn’t the type to question purchases, especially if you had cash. But when we pulled out the twenty dollar bill he had more than a strange look for us. “What’s going on here?” He said. “Mrs. Crawford gave us twenty dollars to buy black paint. I added a brush because I didn’t know if she had one, and a candy bar for, well for the trouble.” Susanna usually told the truth. “Mrs. Crawford?” Mr. Murphy looked as shocked as we did when we were solicited. “Yep.” Susanna said, and we shook our heads ‘yes’. Mr. Murphy’s face returned to the odd look, but he bagged up our goods and gave Susanna the mountain of change.
Outside the store Susanna broke the candy bar into uneven chunks. She gave the biggest piece to Myra, I guess because she thought that was fair. The walk back to Mrs. Crawford’s was silent. Susanna having already explained our mission, there wasn’t much more to say. We went to the same window and Susanna tapped on the glass. Mrs. Crawford appeared out of the darkness and opened the window. Her image approaching scared me; a ghost swimming through a sea of dead light. “Thank you.” She said in her plain voice. “What do we get?” “Myra!” Susanna screamed and elbowed her in the ribs. Mrs. Crawford almost smiled. “You can do whatever you want with my front yard.” She paused. noting Myra’s dissatisfaction. “And there are some boards around the side of the house.” She pointed and gave us a five dollar bill. All of our faces were smiling, Myra’s the brightest.
We spent the next couple weeks planning and building what was to become our dream clubhouse. We bought some more boards to add to the ones Mrs. Crawford donated, and some nails. We called Mrs. Crawford our primary investor, which made her almost smile again. Susanna convinced me to borrow the Warshot’s hammer. She said she was afraid they’d ask her what it was for and that people never question me. She was right. They gave me two hammers and only smiled and said thank you when I brought them back two weeks later, a little rusted from being left out in the rain.
In those two weeks we transformed tangled bushes that had grown ten feet tall into a tunneled layer equipped with benches. doors, ladders and lookouts. Mrs. Crawford let us have a puddle of her paint which we used to make a sign on the entrance that read: SLANT STREET GIRLS LAIR – NO BOYS ALLOWED!
II
I woke up one Sunday morning to Mrs. Peacock banging on my front door. When I went to answer it she had already let herself in. “Jane, where is your mother?” “She’s not here.” I rubbed my eyes. We didn’t know what my momma did for a living. We just knew that she walked a long way, took a bus a long way, and whenever she did come home, she was always tired. Mrs. Peacock was polite enough not to mention it any further. “Well that monstrosity in Mrs. Crawford’s yard has got to stop. What is all this nonsense?” She put her hands on her hip. “It’s a clubhouse. Mrs. Crawford said it’s perfectly alright.” “Well it’s not perfectly alright with me.” Mrs. Peacock began to stomp around like the house was her own, picking up blankets and folding them, organizing clutter into stacks. Myra was probably pretending to be asleep. She didn’t like Mrs. Peacock and she never understood why Susanna and I would put up with her bossiness just to hear old stories about Slack street. “I’m sure it will be fine Mrs. Peacock, it’s just a few boards.” I walked into the kitchen and sat watching Mrs. Peacock straighten my house, secretly thankful. “She shouldn’t have let you do that,” she paused,” it’s an eyesore.” “You can hardly see it.” Mrs. Peacock could tell I was trying to be assertive and I think she was a little proud of me. “Well, if you insist upon keeping it, we will have to make some changes.” Mrs. Peacock explained that if we were going to mess up part of Mrs. Crawford’s yard we were going to have to make the other part nice. Then she made me promise to come over with Myra and Susanna to get her lawn mover and other gardening utensils.
That is exactly what we did once Susanna showed up a couple hours later. Susanna said she thought it was a good idea, but of course Myra sulked and worked half-heartedly at weeding and mowing. It took us two days to get the weeds cleared and the lawn mowed to a manageable length. Mrs. Peacock thanked us and gave us seeds to plant sunflowers, which we put into small pots and set in our sun room.
That winter was glorious. It was always too cold to sleep in the clubhouse, but we played in it daily daydreaming of warm summer nights that were to come, wondering what Mrs. Crawford needed paint for, shooing away Mrs. Frank’s evil boys that were jealous of our lair, and letting in their little sister just to make them angry. The only people we let into the clubhouse were: Jessie Frank who was only six years old and shy, the Cox girls who were fifteen year old twins that lived next to old major, Mrs. Peacock, and Emily one of the Warshot’s granddaughters. We banned the Cox girls when they asked if they could bring their boyfriends. Myra pointed to the sign; when they read it they laughed and she immediately banned them. They walked away smiling and giggling at us. Myra was mad, but Susanna said they don’t have boyfriends anyway, they just wanted to sound grown up.
When spring came and our sunflowers sprouted, we transplanted them into Mrs. Crawford’s yard. We tied them to sticks so their heads wouldn’t weigh them down. Mrs. Peacock said to do so because sunflowers were like girls with too much brains, if you don’t tie them to something, they wont grow straight. She said we had too many brains and that we might grow crooked and weird, to which Myra replied ‘good’ and stormed off. But I didn’t want to grow crooked. “Susanna, what did Mrs. Peacock mean when she said we’d grow crooked?” I asked as we wed around the newly staked sunflowers. “She didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” “But what did she mean?” “I don’t know.” Susanna paused while she dug out a weed. “She told me it’s weird for girls our age not to like boys.” “When did she tell you that?” I asked as I stopped weeding. “A couple days ago.” Susanna stopped also, looked around, then continued talking. “I came by to see what you guys were doing, but instead of knocking I walked around the back. I don’t know why, I was going to try to scare you or something. I was looking through your window and I saw you changing into your pajamas.” My face suddenly looked shocked and Susanna stopped talking. She started again immediately, at a faster rate. “Well Mrs. Peacock saw me and called me over. She yelled at me a little, well the kind of way Mrs. Peacock yells, more like a lecture you know.” She paused again to gauge my reaction. “She called me unnatural. I guess she thought I was looking at you sexually or something.” Susanna started weeding again.
“Sexually?” I asked. “I guess.” Her hands were digging quickly. “Can that even happen?” “What?” “Can one girl look at another girl sexually?” I sounded so naïve. “Of course silly! Haven’t you ever heard of a lesbian?” “No. What is it?” “It’s when a girl has sex with a girl, instead of with a boy. I saw it in a movie once.” My face turned red. Susanna and I had never talked about sex before. In fact I knew what it was, but I had never talked about it with anyone before. “Oh.” That was all I could muster. I kept weeding, purposefully avoiding Susanna’s hands.
By the time summer had come the nights were warm enough to sleep in the clubhouse. The Cox girls had long since given up trying to get in, and Jessie Frank only ever came occasionally, to escape the wrath of her brothers. We let in any Warshot grandchild that came, even the boys because they were alright. We had plenty of water balloon fights, lemonade stands, and all nighters by the time August 12th (which was my birthday) came around. We decided to camp in the clubhouse and plan a mission to attack the Frank boys who were always taunting me knowing I wouldn’t defend myself like Myra or Susanna. But we didn’t end up planning a mission. It was too hot so we just ran through the sprinkler all day in Mrs. Crawford’s lawn. When even that wouldn’t bring us comfort, we’d sit in the shade of the clubhouse with out shirts off taking turns pouring water over each other. I would try not to look down at Susanna, but I would let the soft parts of my forearms graze her tan shoulders as I stood behind her slowly pouring a pitcher of cold hose water over her had as she sat smiling. And she would occasionally looked up at me through the valley that my two over-developed breasts created on the day that I turned thirteen.
Susanna sat in the lookout waiting for her fathers beat up station wagon to pull out of her driveway and leave Slack street. Once she saw this happen she climbed down and announced that she would be back shortly with presents. Myra and I waited in the clubhouse impatiently. After what felt like an hour, Susanna returned with a blanket that was wrapped around some goods. She set the blanket on the ground and it flapped open. It was carrying: a loaf of bread, a jar of mustard, some salami, two small bottles of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes.
“Alright!” Myra said. “Where’d you get that?” I asked. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s eat!” Susanna said, opening the bread. “You stole that from your dad.” I said. Susanna’s dad was a terribly secretive man who kept many of the rooms in his house locked with keys only he had. He had strict rules and severe forms of punishment. “If you don’t put it back, he’ll hurt you.” “He’ll hurt me anyway.” That was the most Susanna had ever said to us about her father, and we had known her all of our lives. Myra nor I had any prepared response so we just looked at her for a while. Then Myra grabbed the salami and ripped open the package.
After we ate our sandwiches the sun had set. The air was still amazingly warm so we lied on our back with full bellies, lazy to match the weather. Susanna grabbed the pack of cigarettes that was about half full and contained a book of matches. “Want one birthday girl?” She handed me a cigarette and lit it for me. “May I?” Myra said, tilting a bottle of whiskey in her hand. “Go ahead.” Susanna nodded. Myra opened the bottle and took a large gulp of cheap whiskey for the first time in her life. “Ugghhgh.” She said, and regurgitated in her mouth and swallowed/ “Eew Myra!” I said, taking a drag off the cigarette, trying not to cough. “You try it!” Myra thrust the bottle into my chest. I grabbed it and made sure to take a much deeper sip. It burned going down, but I forced the muscles in my face to stay still. “Like a pro.” Susanna said, reaching for the bottle. She took the biggest sip, but she allowed her face to form a grimace afterwards.
“Gimme that, lemme try again.” Myra, embarrassed, drank almost half the bottle. This time she didn’t puke. “God Myra, slow down. We don’t have a full bar.” Susanna laughed at her own joke. I laughed with her, and so did Myra, but only because she was proud of herself for drinking the most. We finished the whiskey and smoked more cigarettes. Susanna said we should tell stories and that I should go first because it was my birthday.
I told a stupid story about when Myra, my momma and I went to the movies for the first time. Myra was only seven and she was so excited. I thought it was stupid and that we should spend the money on something else, even though I was only eight. During the show, which actually featured a very pretty actress, Myra left to pee. Momma went with her. In the bathroom, Myra slipped on some water and knocked out her tooth. Momma spent the rest of the movie cleaning up the blood and wouldn’t let Myra go back by herself, so Myra missed the whole show. That’s why Myra had a missing front tooth for a couple years before the permanent one grew.
The story made Susanna laugh a little so Myra tried to tell an embarrassing one about me. It involved Andrew Frank pulling my pants down and giving me a black eye, but as she talked she was slurring her words so badly we could hardly understand her.
Susanna’s story was about her mother. Before she died when Susanna was nine, she took her to ride a horse and the state fair. It was a long story filled with details about the taste of the cotton candy, the smell of the hay in the cow barns, the color of the horses mane and bridal, but nothing much really happened. In the end of the story she rode a horse in a circle and every time she passed her mom she mouthed the words ‘I love you’.
By then Myra had fallen asleep. Susanna opened the second whiskey bottle and handed it to me. We drank in silence for a minute, listening to the night sounds. “Which boy do you like?” Susanna interrupted the sound of tree branches rubbing each other in the breeze. “Huh? I don’t like any of the boys.” “Not even the Warshots?” She paused. “I mean do you think any of them are cute?” “No. I mean I like them, but I don’t think any of them are cute.” Susanna took another drink of the whiskey. “I like Tommy. I mean, he’s the cutest.” She said. She set the whiskey bottle down and lied next to Myra. “Goodnight. I’m tired.” “Goodnight.” I said and lied next to her.
I woke up a couple hours later with an empty spot between me and Myra, who was snoring like a dog. I turned on my back and saw Susanna up in the lookout so I decided to climb up. She had the bottle of whiskey with her; it was almost empty. “Here.” She said, and handed it to me. I took the last sip and felt the burn in my stomach. She looked at me and brushed my long bangs from my eyes. “Have you been crying?” I asked. “Only a little.” “Why?” I knew that Susanna didn’t like to answer those sorts of questions, but I asked them anyway, seldomly, knowing that she would give me a half truth answer. “Just talking about my mom makes me said sometimes.” “I’m sorry.” I scooted closer to her. She wiped her eyes and said, “do you wanna play a game?” “What game?” “Kiss me.” “What?” I jerked away from her. “Just do it.” She closed her eyes and puckered her lips. I allowed myself just three seconds to look at her like that, her face all bathed in pale light, and then I moved in and kissed her, just a peck. “Not like that.” She laughed. “That’s not how you do it. It’s like this.” She moved closer to me and grabbed my head with both of her hands. Her eyes were wide open, mine only half when she pulled my lips to hers, parted mine with her tongue and slid it into my mouth, in and out, gently. She kissed me like that for almost a minute, running her fingers through my hair and pulling it, then she moved her head away. My breathing increased and became shallow. My palms were sweaty and my head was spinning. I couldn’t tell if I was drunk or in love on my thirteenth birthday.
III
After that night, Susanna didn’t talk about kissing me. I guessed she was drunk and didn’t remember, or was pretending I was Tommy Warshot (who was now my worst enemy). He came to visit with his sister Anne right around the same time as some summer vacationers who had a place next to the Fishers. They were the Webbers. They had already come several times that summer, but without their children, who were at some sort of sailing camp. This was alright with me because they had a daughter Susanna’s age who always tried to play with us. IT was terribly annoying because there would always be some fight that would cause her to stomp home crying, which would usually be followed by her father forcing us to apologize. After one of those fights, Susanna refused to say sorry and we were banned from his property, which would’ve been okay had they not been planning a huge party that involved boat rides.
Susanna, Myra and I sat sulking in front of the grocery store with no money to buy ice cream when Susanna noticed something at the public beach across the street. “Hey there’s Tommy. Oh god, he’s with Louise Webber.” Susanna sighed dramatically. “C’mon, let’s spy on them.”
We followed at a safe distance and watched them walk onto the beach. We stayed above them, hidden in the trees tracing their path when they stopped and sat. We could hear them from the trees.
“I really like you Louise.” Tommy said. “Will we still be boyfriend and girlfriend when we both go away?” She looked up at him like a little girl. “Yeah, sure.” He said. “Okay, fine then.” Louise said and Tommy was on top of her scrambling about like a crab. Myra stuck her finger down her throat and I almost laughed, but Susanna grabbed my face and mouthed ‘watch’.
Tommy shoved his dirty hands up Louise’s tee-shirt and squeezed, which made her squeal. I felt weird watching but Susanna was holding my face so I couldn’t look away. Next, Tommy moved his hands down Louise’s jeans. He tried to unbutton them but he couldn’t. He got frustrated and thrust one hand down, holding up the seam of the pants with the other. He was down there for a few seconds before he put Louise’s hand down his pants. I was nervous for them, that someone would come and find them so compromised. Louise wiggled her hand for a bit until Tommy let out a funny noise and took her hand back out.
“You’re good at that.” He said. She smiled. He stood up and reached for her hand. He kissed her again and they started walking. We didn’t follow them. Once we knew that they were gone Susanna jumped from the bushes onto the beach and sat where they had been.
“Damn it.” She said. “What?” I asked. “Tommy. He’s such an asshole.” “Why do you care about him?” Myra asked, still in the dark about Susanna’s crush. “He did it with me last week.” “What? You did that with him?” Myra asked. I sat. “No. We did it.” “Did what?” It was Myra’s turn to showcase her naiveté. “We had sex.” “Eew.” “Oh Myra, don’t be so shocked. I’m just pissed he’s trying to do it with Louise now.” Susanna picked up a rock and tried to skip it across the water, but it fell in. “Do you have anything to say Jane?” “Like what?” “Like I’m sorry, your boyfriend is an asshole, anything?” “I’m sorry,” I paused, “I didn’t know he was your boyfriend.” “God Jane, you can be so stupid sometimes.” Susanna stood up and walked away. I could tell she was probably crying, but I didn’t follow her and neither did Myra, out of loyalty. We went home and ate dinner and didn’t say a word about what we had seen or heard.
Later that night, I heard tapping at my window; it was Susanna.
“Why are you knocking on the window?” I said, as I opened it. “I didn’t want Myra to know I was here.” She hoisted her body into the window frame and plopped through like a baby being brought into the world. “Are you mad at me?” She asked. “Why would I be?” “Because of what I did with Tommy?” I didn’t answer. I was mad, but I didn’t want her to know because then she would know that I loved her.
“Well?” She waited. “You aren’t gonna say anything?” “No. I’m not mad.” I said and she smiled. “Are you in love with Tommy?” I asked because I had to know. “No!” She laughed hard and sat on my bed, patting the place next to her. I sat where she told me to. “You don’t have to be in love to do it.” “Did it feel good?” I was suddenly curious. “Kinda.” She lied back on the bed and I did the same. She turned her face towards mine, our noses almost touched. “In five days we start school.” She brushed my hair out of my face again. “And I’m not going to Roosevelt this year so we can’t walk together.” “I know.” I said, secretly nervous about how Susanna would change once she got to high school. I could already tell things were spiraling downwards, but I was going to hold on all the way to the bottom.
“Do you want me to show you?” She asked. “Show me what?” “What Tommy did.” She paused. “I bet I can do it better.” “I don’t know Susanna.” My face blushed. It was so easy for her to embarrass me. To turn my insides into mush or slop or gruel. She just sat there looking at me. I rolled on my back to avoid her burning eye contact. She crawled on top of my and the burning traveled down towards my toes from my stomach, leaving a piece of itself everywhere.
“First he did this.” She stopped talking while she moved herself up and down my body rhythmically. “And then he said all kinds of stupid things like ‘I really like you Susanna’. I would have said something like I want you Jane. I want to be inside you.” When she whispered that hot in my ear, I shuddered. She kept grinding on me, and I thought I could do that forever, but then she slid her hand up my shirt. Her fingers were soft around my breasts. I thought I would explode, but she just smiled down at me, totally calm. “And then he took my pants off.” She copied his actions; I squirmed a little to help her ease me out of my pajamas. Then she put her hand on my underwear and started rubbing. I couldn’t help myself; little moans started jumping out of my mouth like people hurling themselves out of a falling building. “Shh.” She said, and continued to rub. My underwear was wet when she shimmied them off. “This is the finale.” She whispered, and pressed two fingers inside me. I could feel her filling me up like a canteen being replenished with fresh water. I stopped myself from making any sounds because she wanted me to be quiet, but everything inside me wanted to scream down to the last blood vessel. She moved her hand fast, and she could tell it was time to stop when my tense body relaxed, involuntarily. She put her wet hand on my breasts when she collapsed next to me, breathing heavily. “I love you Jane.” She said.
IV
The Next week went by too slowly. Susanna and I rarely saw each other. She went to the highs school and had to leave a half an hour earlier than me to catch the bus from Roosevelt. For the first couple of days I got up early and walked with her until one day out of the blue she threw a fit on the way home from school.
"You can't walk with me or wait for me anymore Jane." She kicked a rock up the street.
"Why not?" I stopped in front of Mr. Bangs.
"Don't stop here." She said, scurrying.
"C'mon, you're not afraid."
"Yeah but people might see us and think we're weird."
"Since when do you care?" I was pissed.
"Just keep walking." I followed her. "It's just that everyone thinks I'm stupid for hanging out with an 8th grader."
"Oh." I looked down at my feet that were moving like a kite caught in a heavy wind. Susanna let some time pass before she started talking again.
"Jane, don't take it so personally." She touched my arm and I pulled away. We were in front of my house so I started walking up the steps. Myra was on the front porch picking petals off of a dead flower, probably from Mrs. Peacock's garden.
"See ya I guess." I said with my back turned towards Susanna.
"Jane," she shouted and I stopped. Before I could turn around she had grabbed my shoulders and forced me to.
"What?" I said softly. Myra had stood and was walking in our direction.
"Please, can't you just try to understand this?" There was a long pause. Myra was standing next to me now with a fierce look in her eyes, so ready to defend me.
"Myra it's okay, we're just talking."
"Really?" Myra replied sarcastically.
"Jesus just leave us alone you little twerp." Susanna pushed Myra who almost fell back but caught herself. Myra could not stand being pushed. She flew at Susanna, knocking her down the few cement steps that led to our house. They were rolling around on the walkway yelling insults at each other when I pulled my sister up off the ground. I held her back while she kicked and clawed at the air, reaching for Susanna.
"God Jane, your sister's a maniac." Susanna said, brushing herself off.
"You better just go." I mumbled. Susanna turned to leave staring at me.
"And don't come back you stupid slut!" Myra had given up trying to escape my grasp but she was determined to get in one last insult. I didn't scold her. I wanted to say something similiar.
Susanna didn't come back. We only saw her walking home from school sometimes, talking with one of the Franks or the Cox twins. I pretended to care as little as Myra did, which was hard. Plenty of times I wanted to say 'What do you think Susanna is doing?' or "I wish Susanna was here' but I always bit my tongue and waited for the impulse to face. It never faded.
For Myra's birthday Momma took us to the hamburger shop by her bust stop. The women who worked there knew her pretty well and when she told them it was Myra's birthday they brought her a free chocolate milkshake with whip cream and a cherry. Myra drank it so fast she got a screaming headache. I wasn't too jealous because we all were sharing a huge plate of french fries. We never indulged in resteraunt food. When we were almost finished, Susanna's brother walked into the shop with a bunch of other jerky boys from the high school, including Andrew Frank. I didn't make eye contact with them, but Myra looked right at them, sourly.
"Myra stop it." I whispered, and kicked her shin under the table. Michael Pinkerton walked towards us.
"What are you looking at?" He said, placing both his hands on our table and hunching.
"A dummy." Myra said.
"Myra don't talk like that." Momma rarely told us how to behave. I assume she was trying to avoid trouble. "Sorry Michael." She said.
"That's right, slut. Keep your brats under control." Michael said in a quiet voice. He turned to walk awya when Myra grabbed his arm and twisted.
"Talk to my mom like that again and I'll kill you in your sleep!" She kicked between his legs and Michael buckled at the knees. His friends hurried to pull off Myra who was yanking his long brown hair and stomping on his arms. The women who waited tables rushed towards the commotion which was obviously bad for their business.
"What's going on here?" One of them said. She wore a messay apron and carried a pencil behind her ear.
"This brat just started kicking me." Michael said as he stood and flexed his muscles.
"We're gonna leave Cindy, I'm so sorry." Momma was putting money on the table when Myra started to shout.
"That's not true! He called my mom a slut right to her face!"
"Is that true?" For some reason Cindy was looking at me for the answer to her question. My face was hot and wet like it was composed of boiling water. Michael started to whine and she held up her hand, silencing him, waiting for me to speak.
"Yes." I said and looked down at the half eaten plate of french fries.
"Get out." Cindy let her hand dow to point Michael towards the door.
"But I swear miss," Michael was trying to defend himself but Cindy easily silenced him with another raise of her steady palm.
"Get out of here and don't come back."
Michael and the rest of the boys filed out of the resteraunt without getting what they had come for. As they were leaving he shouted something like 'we didn't want your nasty food anyway,' but it was easy to tell that the other boys were emberrased and annoyed. We stayed and finished our french fries, all quiet. The entire population of the hamburger shop stared at us; I could feel the entity of their collective gaze pierce through the air.
On the walk home, Momma stopped at Murphy's and bought us ice cream.
"Thanks Myra." She said as she handed over a cone full of cookies and cream.
"Don't worry about it Momma." Myra smiled and licked at the cone. Her movements were almost like a dog, she also did not care if what she ate was smeared on her face.
"To tell you the truth I am sorta worried." Momma said as she handed me a strawberry cone.
"What?" Myra stopped walking, offended at not being fully congratulated for defending Momma's honor.
"Well you can't just beat up everybody that makes you mad." We all stood in front of the post office, our ice cream beginning to soften in the warm spring air.
"I have to Momma. Who else will?" She licked again as calm as ever. "And you should see the way the boys pick on Jane. Hell, even the wimpy ones do, and she never says anything." We started to walk again, following our Momma who was trying not to smile.
From the steps of our house we could hear Old Major singing some repetitive army song. We couldn't see him but we knew he was walking towards us because the sound was floating in our direction.
"Wanna go follow him?" I asked.
"Sure." Myra and I walked back down the steps, sucking on our ice cream cones. "You coming Momma?" Myra asked.
"No honey I'm tired, you go ahead." She continued up the steps. "And happy birthday, you are one of the best things I've ever created." She winked at me and dissapeared inside the house. Even though she was never home, and didn't do things normal mommas do like pack us linches or brush our hair, we knew our momma loved us and thought we were the most perfect creatures on earth.
We walked away happy, following Old Major's tune. I hoped we would find Susanna trotting right behind him, humming. I longed to make peace with her, and thought she'd certainly be preforming her oldest ritual. Ic reated the scene in my mind as we slowly meanderd toward Old Major; She'd be there and rememeber it was Myra's birthday. She'd say sorry to Myra, and Myra would nod because that was the way she apologized. I'd give her the rest of my strawberry cone and every ill between us would be forgotten. But when we erached Old Major, Susanna was nowere to be found.
We fell right in line behind him like a pair of cadets. FInally I let my impulses take over. "I wonder why Susanna's not here." We had caught up with old Major at Mrs. Frank's and we were approaching the clubhouse. Myra remained silent. "I mean this is her favorite thing to do." Quiet. "Myra?"
"You're not supposed to talk when you're following Old Major." Susanna wasn't even here and she was still following her rules. I shut up and just thought about the strangeness and the sadness. A small prtion of my brain told Susanna to go, but the rest held tightly.
As we passed Mrs. Peacock's she waved from her garden and Myra waved back. She must've been in a good mood because it was her birthday. We walked past Mr. Bangs, unafraid as usual, past the school and post office towards the store. I started to hum the proud tune. Myra and I were both smilling when we made the turn following Old Major's march at the end of the store to the other side of the street, adjacent to the public beach. I started thinking of the time we watched Tommy and Louise Weber from the trees when Simon, one of the Frank boys, popped out from behind a parked car.
"Hey freaks." He taunted. He jumped into the respectful place we left between ourselves and Old Major, who kept on marching.
"Shut up you dweeb. Don't make me beat you up like I did your brother earlier." Myra sneered and stepped around him. He stood in front of me like a tidal wave ready to break. "C'mon Jane, Myra grabbed my hand."
"Hey Susanna, get out here." SImon bellowed and Susanna opened the door of a bright red car, giggling like one of the Cox girls. "Aren't these your old friends?" He finished. Susanna's face went straight.
"Umm yeah." I don't think I had ever heard Susanna say umm in my life.
"Aren't they freaks?" He looked at us and scoffed. Myra rushed at him and he flinched. She didn't follow through, but laughed at scaring him.
"Simon." Susanna said, pleadingly.
"Wait a minute, I remember when you used to follow Old major like a dog, wanna go follow him now with you freak friends?" I looked at Susanna and hoped her answer was yes. For the first time in my life I stood up to one of the Frank boys, in my own way of course.
"Yes she does." I said and grabbed Susanna's hand with a firm grip. I jerked her towards me and was not letting go.
"It's much better than whatever lame thing you're doing anyway." Myra said in her most condescending voice and kicked a barrel full of small rocks and dirt into Simon's face.
As he coughed and shouted I immediately ran, gripping Susanna's hand which had become weak and willing. Myra followed us at a slower pace, making sure to let Simon know she was not afraid. When we were far enough away I slowed to a fast walk. Myra caught up and we were strolling again, three in a row.
"What are you doing?" Susanna asked.
"Catching up with Old Major." I said.
"Please tell me you do not want to hang out with those idiot boys." Myra said. I decided to let Myra do the talking.
"Well,"
"I mean it is my birthday." Myra looked at Susanna. I was still holding her hand.
"Simon's sorta my boyfriend." She let go.
"Simon Frank?" Don't you remember when he lit Jane's hair on fire?" Myra's face was turning red and a vein in her neck was throbbing. "Why would you be his girlfriend Susanna?" Myra looked at me. Susanna didn't look at anyone. She stood staring at her feet.
"Happy birthday." She said.
We caught up to old Major who finished one more round about the block, humming his proud tune a respectful distance behind him.
*more to come*
You need to log in to urbis or create an urbis account to review this writing.
Sort Reviews by Newest | Oldest | Highest Quality | Lowest Quality | Newest Comments |
This 82 word review has not been unlocked.
Hi friend, if they resented these rich people did they really assume they were nice? See it this is a contradiction.
“the only Chinese man who ever lived on Slack street, killed himself with a rope.” could you say he hung himself? The readers will get the idea. This is a much simpler way to say it.
Mrs. Peacock always said I would’ve liked him if I knew him”. I think, had i known him sounds better. What do you think?
On page 3 i was wondering if you couldn’t simplfy this by saying, Susanna and i loved to play on the rope swing, but since her older brother Michael called us trash and spit on us, we didn’t play on it much.
Did you all play cards with the brothers? You can’t tell from your description. Can you re-write so that the reader will know.
Page 7 “a ghost swimming through a sea of dead light. I love this description but what is dead light? What makes her look ghostly? Explain?
I asked as we “wed” around the newly staked sunflowers..” (weeded)
I kept weeding, purposefully avoiding Susanna’s hands.” This sounds a little off. You might say, trying not to get in Susanna’s already weeded path.
She said, and regurgitated in her mouth and swallowed” iwould replace regurgitates with “swished” Regurgitated means something comes up from your throat.
Laid next to Myra. “ Lie is not the right tense.
but I asked them anyway, seldomly.. i would replace seldomly with seldom.
She lied back on the bed and I did the same.” She lay back on the bed. Lied is the wrong tense.
She wore a messay apron” messy is the correct spelling.
“Put on some pants, Mrs. Crawford’s finally used the paint.” make this two seperate sentences.
What did the religious writing say? PAGE 30
This is a wonderful realistic story. If you keep up the good work it could be published. You do a splendid job with characterization. I can visualize each character and you show instead of tell. I am impressed. your descriptions and banter are not unlike reral teenagers. This is written in the vein of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I also like this because it deals with culture and two different classes of people. Like in to Kill A Mockingbird. If you haven’t read it please do. You will love it. You are this type of writer.
In case you don’t know, class and culture makes a story. So many writers here exclude it. You have mastered the importance of it and incorporated it here. I cannot say enough about this, really. The only criticism i have is that it needs to be tighter. You often go the long way around about saying things. Make your sentences simple. Be mindful of how you are expressing yourself. Ah what i couldn’t do if i could edit this. Please keep me informed. You are one of the few true writers. I enjoyed this very much. Sandi
Very good coming of age tale. The variety of characters and their individual personalities enhance and enrich the story. The friendship of the girls, the secret clubhouse, Mrs. Crawford the recluse, Mrs. Peacock the busy body, the major come to life like real people, even though they are archetypes.
The sexual element is interesting. It reminds me of the two girls in Peter Jackson’s film, Heavenly Creatures. Though what happens to Jane and Susanna is never found out, I found a sexual tension in some of their interactions, making it somewhat expected.
The story was very well written. Only a couple of punctuation mistakes. Good grammar and sentence structure. The story was very well told and very readable.
As a resident of Seattle, my only quarrel is the you referred to the “sound side” when there really is no such thing.
Very good job.
Though it’s still a bit rough, I loved this piece. It need to be gone over a couple more times with particular attention paid to rewording sentences into a more active voice. I hope you have plans for these young women. They are truly likeable.
I thought the first sentence was little flat by itself. You might combine the first two in a compound.
We wouldn’t have known we were (delete so) undesirable. The extent has not been established.
...not been for those rich folk. Most of us resented…
like neighbors, I have seen elsewhere, share sugar.
went by(,) many stories were (Delete developed) told about
like an(d) angel made of plaster Delete the d
and other baked goods you could delete this.
Otherwise(,) Mrs. Peacock
Somehow the anticipation of the toy breaking You could lose this.
Suggest – and lived a few houses closer to the point across the street.
play with(,) and they
This bit is a bit rough. Suggest – The house next to ours was occupied by four men who were always out drinking on their front porch. Two of them were brothers who had inherited the house from their mother. I never knew her, but Mrs. Peacock said she was a good woman who would be ashamed at the condition her house.
and, even though they called us over quite often to play cards or some other sort of game, we never did.
Next to them was Mrs. Crawford.
You could delete up to Her yard was heavily overgrown.
Delete – much to the dismay of Mrs. Peacock. However, this was well compensated for by her back yard which – start again with ,but her back yard
I always wondered if Mrs. Peacock This makes no sense if her garden was in the back yard and surrounded by brambles.
It was a common tactic of ours to play in someone’s yard until they yelled at us. If they didn’t yell, then it was okay to play there.
jungle when we heard clanking bottles and laughing men. the boys and the baby don’t pull their weight.
There were whispers from an old woman that were loud and forced.
cool about her(,) and(,) if we get her to be friends with us(,) we might
Susanna was fascinated with strange behavior.
loved (the)old major who
lived (delete way) at the bottom
“What’s going on here?” He said. “Mrs. Crawford gave us Dialog need to follow proper format with new paragraphs for each speaker.
The walk back to Mrs. Crawford’s was silent. This is another example of passive voice. It wasn’t the walk. We walked back to Mrs. Crawford’s in silence.
and Emily – one of the Warshot granddaughters
when they read it and laughed, she immediately banned them.
plan an attack on the Frank boys who
Neither Myra, nor I had any response so we just looked at her.
By the time we ate our sandwiches, the sun had set.
took a large gulp This doesn’t quite ring true.
we lay on our backs
but I forced (delete the muscles in) my face to stay still
which (delete actually) featured
ride a horse (at) the state fair.
anyway, seldom, knowing that
me sa(i)d sometimes delete the i
sorry(,) and we were banned
of m(e) and the
canteen being (Delete replenished with use) filled with fresh water or find something better.
the impulse to fade, but it never did.
For Myra’s birthday(,) Momma
by her bus(delete the t) stop
That’s not true! He called my mom a slut right to her face!” This whole bit in the restraunt is really wonderful.
Suggest Everyone in the hamburger shop stared at us; I could feel the entity of their collective gaze pierce through the air.
This is rough. Her movements were almost… Suggest; She looked like a dog lapping at her cone and not caring that she was wearing it on her face. Not much better.
following (delete our) Momma who was
see him(,) but
about an hour(,) Momma
All around, this piece is really polished and nicely written, with clearly developed characters (you can particularly see Myra!) and a good pace. You have effectively created the closed environment of Slack Street, ready with all of its inhabitants, for literary adventure.
I’m really not going to make a list of typos (everyone has them), so I’ll just nitpick on a few other things:
“Nor were they the familiar noises of our neighborhood: the clanking of bottles, the laughing of drunk men, boys kicking rocks down the street, a bicycle bell, somewhere in the distance a crying baby.”
Perhaps you should write “a baby crying in the distance”
The following passage is a bit unclear…
“Thank you.” She said in her plain voice. “What do we get?” “Myra!” Susanna screamed and elbowed her in the ribs. Mrs. Crawford almost smiled. “You can do whatever you want with my front yard.”
What is Myra doing? I got the impression she was doing something with the front yard, but I wasn’t really sure what it was or why it caused such a reaction from Susanna.
The part in the story where Susanna is suddenly integrated back into the threesome after their estrangement is a bit short and could be drawn out a bit longer. It seems too forced.
Other than that, I only have praise for you. Even your sex scene turned out well; the phrase:
“little moans started jumping out of my mouth like people hurling themselves out of a falling building”
is very original. Loved it.
You have definitely succeeded in creating a world I want to know more about! Please continue!
I think you have a wonderful story here, but there are some changes that would make it better.
I don’t know about starting this story with all the explanations of everything about Slack Street. It all sounds interesting, but its tedious when you group it all together like that. Try dispersing it all throughout the story in-between the action that moves the story along. There isn’t an actual scene in the story until the part about them playing in Mrs. Crawford’s yard.
Another thing, in the beginning, you bunch whole conversations into one paragraph. You should always put characters’ quotations in separate paragraphs so that we know which character is saying what. You did it well near the end of the story.
The characters seemed very realistic. You did a good job on them. I also got a perspective on how girls could become lesbians. You told the story very well. Kudos.
The beginning is rather weak. It doesn’t grab readers’ attention.
Put, for example “When I think about my childhood, it’s always Slack street that comes to my mind.”
And then, on new line continue with your story.
“Puget Sound; and even when ” – I think beter delete “and”
“sewing supplies and modest fabric for our mended hand-me-down clothes that we passed around the block”—what exactly did you passed around? Clothes? Or did you mean sewing supplies?
“As those years went by many stories”—without a comma after by, I thought you said “went by many stories”.
“She always let my sister Myra and I”—should be “me” like in “let me” not “let I”.
“Hell no we ain’t.”—I think a comma after “no” will be good.
“This time she didn’t puke”—I lokked many lines before t6his to find the place where she puked, but didn’t find. So, “again” is wrong.
“or was pretending I was Tommy Warshot (who was now my worst enemy).”—in this sentence, I should like to know why Tommy was youyrs enemy. Was it sommething he did or because you believed Susane thought about him?
“Cindy let her hand dow to point Michael towards the door”—I think you meant “down to point”
Your passages, especially those in the begiinning are too long. Try to make them on avereage 4-5 lines.
I liked your story. Or many stories put into the story, to be precise.
Continue like this.
So far, I like the first page, but you need to take another look at the opening line. You first line needs to grab hold of the reader’s attention. It needs to spark interest-infuriate, laugh, cry, or just make them out right think.
Also, watch the use of rich folks. I know that it is in here at least twice and you want to be careful of the repetition.
Give us a good visual of Mr. Bangs home. Talk to us about the color of the chipping paint, the cracked glass of the windows, or the torn shingles of the roof.
Also, show us Mrs. Peacock. Are her eyes brown or blue. Is she healthy and spry or is she old and frail? Let us see her.
The main thing that I see here is a need for pictures. You tell us about everything really well, but we need to see these things. Show us the images that you have in your mind. One the best opportunities for this is the part about the drunks on the porch. Show us these drunks and their porch. Allow us to walk the street with the characters.
This was a shame Mrs. Peacock said, – Put ‘this was a shame’ in quotations, with a comma.
a ghost swimming through a sea of dead light. – This is a great line, but it really leaves open the chance to expand and make this character special.
I really loved the portrayal of Mrs. Peacock in the opening of II. Her personality really came across well.
sunflowers were like girls with too much brains, if you don’t tie them to something, they wont grow straight. – another great line.
Consider separating the dialogue from the narrative. It helps to distinguish who is talking during longer conversations.
Okay, first you have her avoiding Susanna during the talk of lesbians and then, she is casually touching and looking at her. This needs to be worked gradually with some thought about her feelings first.
Susanna interrupted the sound of tree branches rubbing each other in the breeze. – this is a nice description here. You need a lot more of this.
Drinking whiskey would make thirteen-year-old girls puke their guts up and you have these girls drinking quite a bit. This needs to be looked at. I like the idea, but you need to keep it believable.
She hoisted her body into the window frame and plopped through like a baby being brought into the world. – you really are good these one liners.
In the scene where Myra beat up the boy in the burger place, you really need to expand on that. Mention the other patrons earlier in the scene. Show us their expressions. We need to be able to see these scenes.
I really like this story and your style of telling it, but there are a lot of gaps. This should be more. You need to expand in a lot of areas here-especially in your descriptions. Remember, work on showing us and not so much on telling us.
First I’ll get the grammatical mistakes and typos I noticed out of the way.
“cheap toy that broke after a weeks use.” should be either after a week’s use or a week of use.
Loud, forced “come here’s”. I’m not completely sure about this one, but it doesn’t seem like there should be an apostrophe, as it is neither a contraction nor possessive. Spell check doesn’t like “come heres”, and I’m not quite sure of the proper way to express plurality in this case. Maybe something like: A loud, forced “come here” and then something to the effect of it being
repeated.
“equipped with benches. doors, ladders and lookouts.” The period after benches should be a comma.
“bottom of the point by the hugs mansion” Should it have been huge? Or Hug’s?
We’d sit in the shade of the clubhouse with out shirts off” was confusing. Should it have been “with our shirts off”? It’s not clear if they are inside of the clubhouse.
“as we wed around the newly staked sunflowers.” I think you’re trying to use the past tense of the verb weed, which is weeded.
“waiting for her fathers beat up station wagon” – father’s.
“Once she saw this happen she climbed down” – Once she saw this happen, she
climbed down
“I asked them anyway, seldomly,” – I asked them anyway occasionally,. Seldom does not have the ly ending as occasional and rare do. I’m not sure if the comma after anyway was incorrect, but it felt a bit clunky.
“IT was terribly annoying because there would always be some fight” I’m guessing this is a typo.
“She crawled on top of my and” - She crawled on top of me and
You seem to have difficulty with apostrophes. This may help.
http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/acct/writing/samples/improving_grammar/Possessives_and_Plurals.PDF
To the story I don’t have much criticism, only things I would like to see elaborated on more. Mr. Bang seemed like he had an interesting story, I would have liked to know what it was. I very much liked his suicide note. Mrs. Crawford is the other character I really would have liked to know more about. It was quite odd that Jane and Myra didn’t know what their mother did. Why they didn’t know was something I would have liked explained more. I didn’t have a good picture of the clubhouse, so more details on that would have been nice. How big was it, what were the lookouts like, how were the bushes incorporated? (I know it’s not finished, so these are the things I would like to see when it is).
The sex scene was very well done. I’ve seen many people here try to do sex scenes and they usually come off creepy and vulgar.
This is a story I would very much like to see finished. I found the characters and the story interesting. No need to beg anyone to read the whole thing.
Well done.
“There is Lesbian sex, if that makes you more excited to get to the end.”
Good advertising! Sorry, guy moment….had to be said ;)
Okay, onto the story…..Here are the things I’m thinking as I’m reading this (yes, a real-time review)
“Mrs. Frank’s several lovers who came and went like the waves in the sound”
Did you mean “sand” here?
I love that you named the Chinese guy who killed himself “Mr. Bang”. That’s classic!
Commas are your friend, call upon them often. Or, at least more often than you have here. In particular, on page 2:
When Mrs. Peacock went to check on him,
As those years went by,
Mrs. Peacock lived on the other side of Mr. Bang, .
Otherwise,
Shelby Peacock, Mrs. Peacock’s son, lived far away.
There’s many more missing in other parts of the story, but I’ll spare you the credits by just saying this is something you’ll want to be cognizant of.
“The Warshot’s grandchildren were great to play with and they had a rope swing that dropped into the sound.”
Sound? Huh?
As I’m reading the description of the block, I’m getting the impression that you’re giving us a lot more detail than is vital to the story. Unless you plan to use each and every one of the characters that you introduce, this would qualify as filler.
“What do you think we’re gonna do with it, we’re gonna by paint, dummy.”
Substitute “by” for “buy”
“Myra!” Susanna screamed
I would go with “reproached”, “scolded” or “rebuked”
I liked the Sunflower analogy from Mrs. Crawford. This is exactly the sort of thing an older woman would say and exactly the way she would say it. Nice work!
“And she would occasionally looked up at me through the valley that my two over-developed breasts created on the day that I turned thirteen.”
First, change “looked” to “look.” Then, realize that the way this sentence reads, it sounds like you only grew breasts on the day you turned thirteen. Like they just popped up overnight and hadn’t been there the day before.
“Just talking about my mom makes me said sometimes.”
Change “said” to “sad.”
Overall, good story. I gotta tell you, I was starting to feel a little uneasy about reading a story involving 13 year old girls having sex, however you manage to do so in such a way that didn’t come off as crass or exploitative. So, big points for you there.
You obviously have alot of talent and the ability to connect with your characters. Make the changes suggested above and I think you’ll be well on your way.
Good luck and I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.
Be Well,
Semper
Showing 1 - 10 of 14
Next →
Ratings & Rankings
Review item
Add to faves
