how is it going so far?

Well, I guess I just wanted to get a critique of what I've got so far here. This is a story that's been brewing in my head since I was 17 and while I originally intended for it to be a comic series, I've since had to rework it to fit a light novel type of approach since the person who was supposed to be my artist has been far too lazy and unmotivated for the past 2 years to do anything about it. anyway, here it is:

   Mornings fucking blow! These are the first thoughts that ring throughout her mind whenever she wakes up. She stood in bed, half asleep and half naked, winding through her rolodex of reasons of why she should be awake this early. Was it because she would be suspended from school for a week if she didn’t go to her classes again? Nah, that would just mean an early vacation for her. Was it because she had band practice today? No, that was at 3 o’clock, no reason to be up at 7 a.m there. Maybe it was because she stilled smelled like sweat thanks to her midnight rendezvous last night with Brian Westin? Showers can wait till later too. The sun was glowing brightly, greeting the world as if it had the best night of its life just a few hours ago but no natural light penetrated this girl’s room. Her blinds were closed shut leaving the only light present coming from a black-light bulb. The purplish glow irradiated her room casting an eerie light on everything in her peripheral vision, but this is what calmed her every day. This is what greeted her every day: the heavy metal and punk band posters, the skulls on her dresser with dried wax frozen on them, the stitched up teddy bears that look like extra characters from a Tim Burton movie, her black Gibson Les Paul. This was her world. She took a look around and drew in a deep breath, immediately followed by a hacking cough worthy of a man ailing from bronchitis. Whether it was this, or the sleep deprivation, in the end, this girl decided to say, Fuck it, and lied right back down into bed.

   It was at this moment that she heard a rapping at her door. No, no, no! she thought while turning her back at her door. She didn’t want to be up already, it was way too early. As a matter of fact, why was she awake at this hour anyway? She didn’t know, she didn’t care, she just wanted the knocking to stop.

“Big sister, your going to be late to school again!” yelled a voice from outside of her door.

“Go, away, Kyle.” she said plainly, but bluntly adding emphasis to each word. It was here that the door opened and the young boy stepped into the room. He was dressed in his uniform, a red blazer with black slacks and a black tie. The backpack with the X-Men insignia on it drove down the seriousness of his outfit a few notches and showed his age at the same time.

“Big sister, you heard what Sister Francis said last Friday. If you miss out on another day of classes, your going to be suspended.

“Oh no, I might actually get to sleep later, how terrible.” she said, sarcasm being one of her more familiar tongues. Kyle walked over to her window and opened her blinds, the dark room exploding in a supernova of light. She reacted like a classic horror movie monster and turned her back to the day, reaching for her pillow and covering her head with it. Whether this was to drown out the light, the sounds of her little brother, or to asphyxiate herself back to sleep, she could not decide.

“Ok so you’ll be able to sleep longer but do you remember what else she said dear sister?” he said, his finger pointing in the air and his eyes closed, the same smugness this kid always shows when it appears he’s about to win an argument. She recognized the tone in his voice and peeked out from underneath her pillow.

“Sister Francis said that if you end up being suspended for another week, you’ll have to repeat the year, which means you’ll have to spend 3 more years in high school instead of 2!” he said, laying on the victory bomb. The girl cringed. She hated school, she hated it when her brother was right, she hated mornings, and most of all, she hated school. Spending another year at the Sacred Heart Memorial Catholic High School would be nothing short of hell. She took her pillow off of her face and threw it hard at her little brother who ducked it and stuck her tongue at her while running for the door.

“See you later sis!” he said while running down the stairs and out the door. She sprang out of bed and slammed her door shut shaking the walls, knocking down a picture of herself, her mother and her brother that was hanging just outside in the hallway. She sat down in her bed, still wearing nothing but a thin white tank top and a black thong with a skull print on the front while rubbing the crust out from her eyes. She shook her head, stood up, stretched her back and trudged herself off to the shower. Stepping outside of her room, dower girl appeared to be a completely foreign element. The salmon colored walls, the green potted plants, the paintings and the family photos all made her purple highlighted hair and unruly attire stick out like Bobby Flay at a PETA convention. Looking to the right, our girl saw the photo that now lay down at the floor. She didn’t smile in that photo. She never smiled in any photo with her family. This was an issue that used to be brought up quite a lot but has since been dropped. Luckily for her though, her objective was to the left. Once in the shower, the streaming water added only a touch of life to our purple headed leading lady.

   She could not be any later to school and what’s more, she could not care any less. The way she figured it, she was already late and on her way to a reprimand. Being any later wasn’t going to change any of the other nuns or priests forced outrage of her delinquency. Same old speech heard by her a dozen times about not having the right attitude and that she is just a stones throw away from being suspended or worst. They paraphrased by our girl here usually just phased in and out of their nonsense by drowning out their speeches by thinking of a Misfits or Stabbing Westward song. A really loud or violent one tends to help. Torn Apart or We are 138 should help me get by this time she thought while she stopped by a local corner store to pick up some orange juice. She checked her side bag decked out in random band patches and buttons. Prominent among the buttons are those with the letters AGGP on them. The school did not approve of this bag until she added a crucifix shaped button to her bag’s flap which appeased the majority of the school’s staff, though some still believe that she only added the crucifix shaped button so that it would lay upside down while the bag remained closed. It wasn’t that our girl was sacrilegious, nor was she a Satanist of any kind. Her only goal is to offend and annoy and amongst the catholic school staff, this was an extremely easy thing to do. This was a gift to herself while she had to sit through yet another lecture about Matthew or Peter or John or Paul or Ringo or whoever had something to say over 2000 some odd years ago. Tiny skulls attached to a nylon string attached to a pair of black rubber bracelets dance up and down as she continues to walk to school, the cross adorning the clock tower now coming into view.

   The Sacred Heart Memorial Catholic High School was rather large nearly rivaling some community colleges. 1 main building which was 3 stories high with 2 basements below played center stage to the menagerie of buildings which included its own cathedral where weekly prayers were performed, an auditorium with a workshop attached backstage, a gym with a full basketball court on the ground floor, a standardized competition sized pool below and an entire track and field outside, as well as convents for the priests and nuns to live in as well as some students. There was another building on campus grounds; however this one never seemed to see any sort of use from either student or faculty. It was also quite rundown and in dire need of renovation, yet there seem to be no plans for any such facelifts for this one building. This was our not so fair maiden’s daily sight. To most, it was an awe inspiring vision, a proud landmark of the town of Keystone Valley. To her, it was a site of boredom, misery and entrapment which is about the only normal and typical of a teenager behavior seen so far from this girl.

                 ***
   It is 8:30 am now and English class is about to begin. All of the students sat down while being stared down by the hawk-like gaze of Sister Francis.

“Tuck in your shirt Mr. Samuels!” she yelled at one student.

“Straighten your tie Ms. Weathers!” she barked at another. There was almost never a day that she was not yelling at a student to improve his or her manner, and there was nearly no student left that she had not yet yelled at. There was one however that walked through her doors that she had no words for, even though a few could be raised. Sister Francis simply rolled her eyes and let out a sigh.

“Well there’s one of them.” she said as she scribbled a check mark in the present box next to the name of the student. The exasperation of Sister Francis was not unwarranted. There were a number of students who after no amount of punishment or threat simply refused to be moved regarding their manner of dress, however since these students maintained a consistent grade point average, there was no other reason for expelling them other than for simply not fitting in. In the past, this argument was good enough to toss any student who remained insubordinate about their dress, however a recent court settlement quashed this. How Sister Francis yearned for the old days of capital punishment. Our student and cause of Sister Francis’ ulcer irritation was wearing black and white striped socks to her knees, AGGP buttons all over her school shirt and one at the top of her tie, violet fingernail paint, elbow length fingerless fishnet gloves, and black dyed hair tips while the rest of her bob haircut head remained blonde. Her blue eyes scanned the room, but never landing on its target. She seemed to grow increasingly nervous as the seconds ticked away. At 8:35, English class had begun. Sister Francis picked up her text book and flipped to the bookmarked page.

“Today we will be covering Paradise Lost by John Milton. Turn to page 125 and…” she started when she was cut off with by a hand raise from the student that was such an eyesore to our dear Sister. “Yes Ms. Wilson.” she said in a sedated and jaded manner.

“Um, well, it’s just that, may I….?” the student fumbled with her words, not knowing what it is that her excuse should be this time. Sister Francis rubbed shut her eyes tight and massaged the bridge of her nose to reduce the pulsing that was beginning to build up in her head.

“Yes Ms. Wilson, you may go to the bathroom or the nurses office or wherever it is you have to go now, just bring her here and tell her that she will be seeing me after school…again.” said the exasperated teacher.

“Yes ma’am.” she said while standing up and bowing her head down. She grabbed her bag and ran out of the class.

Sister Francis watched her student leave her classroom and sighed thinking that at least that one knows how to show some respect. She then turned her icy gaze towards the rest of the students, her eyes seeming to glow a demonic red that paralyzed her pupils and glued them to her seats. “Anyone else wish to leave my classroom?” she asked. Everyone in the classroom either buried their noses in their text books or nervously shook their heads, all too afraid to raise a voice.

   The girl from the classroom nearly sprinted her way down the hall and while some priests or nuns roaming the halls would try and warn her about the no running policy, she would be nothing more than a blur in their eyes before they got off even a single syllable. She ran up the stairs, our slender girls surprisingly powerful legs carrying her up two or three steps at a time without breaking a single sweat drop. She reached the door to the roof of the school from her classroom in a minute and forty five seconds, a personal best for her, a time that other people would deem impossible. She looked through the window of the door and low and behold, there she was, the missing student of classroom 108, the purple stripes, the bag, the clothes, the way she held her cigarette in her left hand slumped low and by her hip as she stared out into the morning washed scenery of Keystone Valley, her town, whittling her time away. She stepped through the door and onto the roof of the school. She smiled as she approached the girl from behind, her hands holding each other behind her back as she joined her fellow student in a look-see of the landscape.

“Sister Francis looked like she was going to have a stroke when she saw you were late again Chelsea.” said Ms. Wilson.

“Too bad she didn’t just keel over. Eh, Tamara?” said Chelsea. She then took in deep drag of her cigarette and blew out a plume of smoke that soon dissipated into the air. Tamara waved away whatever cigarette smoke particles that wafted over in her direction and said “Those are going to kill you ya know?”

“Yeah but don’t worry, I’ve got a plan. It’s called the Cig, Steak and Juice plan.” Turning around to address her friend, Chelsea took out her pack of cigarettes and the bottle of orange juice she bought earlier. “See, I eat the steaks that build up my strength, I smoke the cigarettes so they can help me burn calories, and I drink the orange juice to prevent the oncoming cancer. It’s completely fool proof baby.” she said triumphantly. Tamara looked down at her friend trying to decide if she was actually serious about all of that. Tamara shook it off trying not to even think of the possibility that she was.

“Well, that’s great Chelsea but we really need to get to class. You remember what Sister Francis and the principal told you last week right?” she said. Chelsea put the cigarette back in her mouth and looked away pensively. Exactly how many people knew about that anyway?