Young Writers Society

Chapter 2
I plop down on my bed and let out a groan. A couple empty tapioca pudding cups tumble from my bed to the floor. Sadly, three and a half cups of my all time favorite food: tapioca pudding has only made me feel slightly better.
“Why?” I exclaim to the heavens. “Why me?”
“Come on now,” my best friend Bethany chimes in from her bed across the room. “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, it could have been worse.”

I sit up and whirl around to face her, the ends of my short mouse-brown hair whipping my face. “Oh really? How exactly could it have been worse? I exposed my Scooby Doo panties and my father’s tighty-whiteys to the entire school and flaunted my extreme dork upbringing by allowing my parents to enter the school dressed like a horse. A horse!”
“So, please, enlighten me.” I continue. “How could it have possibly been any worse?”

Bethany stares off, an intense thoughtful look on her face.
I look at her expectantly.
She still stares off.
I tap my foot impatiently and inspect an “empty” pudding cup for any tasty goodness still left inside.
She continues with the staring.
I whistle a bit as I scrape my spoon along the inside, effectively finishing off my fourth cup of tapioca pudding that evening.
“I can’t think of anything,” she finally says.
“Ah ha! See? I told you so.” I say, feeling triumphant.
“Why are you so excited about that?” She looks at me quizzically. “You still humiliated yourself in front of the entire school.”
I can only glare at her. “Thanks for reminding me after I had tried quite successfully to forget for a few moments.” I sigh and reach for another pudding cup. She looks sheepish.

“Sorry… Hey, I have an idea. To help, you know, get your mind off things. It’s a sort of mischievous thing…”
Suddenly, I am all ears. Putting down the half-opened pudding cup, I say “Please, do continue.”
“Well, okay, so I heard from Amanda who heard from Chelsea who heard from Brian who heard from his sister’s ex-boyfriend…” She pauses to breathe. “…that the Hardens have officially gone out of town and that Clint will be staying at college this weekend so their pool will be unguarded.”
“So?” I ask, skeptical. “It’s November in Maine. It’s not exactly the best time for swimming.”
“Wait, wait; allow me to finish before you critique my plan.”
“Fine, fine. Please continue.”
“Thanks for your permission. Now, as I was saying, this whole absence thing would mean nothing except that the Hardens have recently got their pool heated.”
“No way! Heated? That sounds amazing!” I squeal, and Bethany looks pleased with herself.
“Oh my peanut butter pretzels, this is so happening!” I exclaim, a plan already forming in my mind.

Which is how I end up standing outside Heath’s room in the freezing cold weather wearing nothing but a swimsuit and a thin cover-up dress.
“Heath!” I whisper, rapping on his window with one hand and holding onto the edge of the window with the other.
“Heath!” I whisper again, more loudly, pressing my face against the window. When I peer in, I can see him stirring in his bed. Is he deaf or something?
“Heath!” I practically shout. I flinch when I see Heath’s roommate Ryder move, but he simply rolls over and continues snoring. Heath, however, sits up in bed and rubs his eyes. He looks confused for a bit and then sees me at the window. His eyes go wide in alarm as he rushes over, throwing the window open.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” He says loudly, sounding annoyed.
“Shh!” I hiss, looking up at him. I’m not short in the least, so it always feels weird to look up at someone. Especially when that someone is Heath, who used to be a whole foot shorter than me when we were kids. “Do you want to wake up the whole school?”

He ignores me and instead pulls me inside his room.
“Inside your room, eh? Quite scandalous, don’t you think?” I chuckle to myself, as he scans outside, no doubt checking for Bethany. (Haha! He’ll never spot her in the bushes!)
He turns back to me, his face still disapproving. “Why is Bethany standing in a shrub?” he asks.
Darn it! “Oh, no reason. She’s just...just admiring the view.” I respond, trying to sound indifferent as his eyebrow rises skeptically.
“Uh-huh. And what were you doing outside my room?” He demands.
“Oh, I was just taking a walk and decided to pop in for a visit.” I say light-heartedly.
“On the second story?” He gets The Look. The Your-sarcasm-is-not-funny-so-just-shut-up-and-tell-me-the-truth Look.
“Yes, well, I might have gone a bit out of my way…”
I can see him trying not to smile as he continues to give me The Look.
“Alright, alright. Bethany and I had this idea…”
“Okay, stop right there. I am not going to partake in any more of your tom-foolery!” He whispers harshly.
“We’re just going swimming…” I say, trying to sound innocent.
“Please come?” I plead.
I can see him debating in his head, weighing the consequences like he always does. Then his face softens. Haha! I’ve won!
“Fine, but this is absolutely the LAST time,” he gives in.
“Yes!” I hug him. “This is why you are my very best friend.”
“Yeah, well, don’t remind me.”

Soon, the three of us are running across the grounds, the cold wind whipping across our faces and turning them pink. A few snowflakes fall around us, but they melt when they hit the ground. I wrap my arms around myself.
We cut through the forest. It’s almost pitch-black, but we know the way by heart. Not long after we pass the pond, the fence comes in sight, looming over us, looking foreboding.
“Here, give me a leg up,” I say. Heath obliges, grunting a bit with my weight (so I’m not the skinniest girl around; sue me why don’t ya?). When I’m high enough, I peer over the top of the fence. The coast is clear, so I drop down to the other side and walk around to the gate, opening it from the inside. Heath and Bethany are waiting.
Bethany is grinning from ear to ear, bouncing on the balls of her feet, making her dark curls spring about her face and Heath is looking around like at any moment we could get caught.

Then we’re by the edge of the pool. I can feel the heat radiating from it as I strip, shivering in my bathing suit.
“To whom shall we give the honor of going first?” asks Bethany, grinning slyly.
“Hmm… I don’t know…” I reply, moving to stand behind Heath.
“How about… HEATH!” I yell, pushing him in. It would have worked perfectly, only he grabbed me at the last moment and pulled him in with him.
“Eep!” I scream as I hit the water. For a few moments, I am suspended in the water with Heath, and then we are both shooting up to the surface.
As my head clears the water, I hear him laughing.
“This is amazing! It’s so… warm!” He exclaims, water dripping from his brown hair.
I just smile. “I knew you would like it.”
“I like it too,” says another voice, another voice that’s not Bethany’s. Unless Bethany’s voice dropped two octaves while I was under the water. When I look, I see someone who is most definitely not Bethany.

Bethany is short and thin with olive skin and dark green eyes and long curly dark hair. She’s rather pretty in an exotic sort of way.
What she is not is a man.
And this is a male someone, about six feet tall and HOT. Like very hot. He’s shirtless (in winter?! How strange, but, man, that is one nice six-pack…) and in swim trunks…

Oh.
Crap.
It’s Clint.
How do I explain this away?
Why hello, is this your private pool? I had no idea, even though I had to climb over a huge and imposing fence to get in.
Or maybe we can just claim to be from the insane asylum down the road…? Oh, wait… I think that closed last year. Yeah, yeah it did. I remember reading about that…

“I made one with vodka beca--” a second unfamiliar voice interrupts my mad mental ramblings, only this voice is female.
I look up to see a blonde girl in a skimpy bikini come out of the house carrying two drinks. She looks startled when she sees Heath and me in the pool and Bethany standing by the edge. The blonde’s mouth hangs open like she’s permanently aghast. Really, she should close it. She looks like a codfish.
“Clint?” comes the blonde’s voice. “What’s this?”
“Er…” All those great excuses and that is the only thing that comes out of my mouth. God, we are SO dead.
But Heath is in action. He grabs my hand and leads me out of the pool, a torrent of words coming from his mouth. He is really quite good with authority types.
“I’m so sorry about all this, sir.” He says, actually sounding apologetic. “It has been a long, sad day. We were just trying to cheer up Penelope here because she has been cursed with a rather unfortunate turn in her life.” As Clint turns his gaze on me, I try to look like I have an unfortunate life.
Sadly, it’s not that hard.
“We thought you were away, so we didn’t think it would hurt if we borrowed your pool.” Heath continues. “We are quite sorry. It won’t happen again, and we will gladly leave you and the nice lady in peace now.” He nods in the blonde’s direction. “Good day, madam.”
We grab our clothes and I hastily wrap myself in a towel as we walk speedily back to the gate.

As we’re almost there, I hear Clint’s voice again. “An unfortunate turn, you say?” I stop and turn.
“Yes sir.” I gulp.
Clint looks at me, expecting me to say more. I can’t. Then Heath takes over. “Yes sir. She’s had quite the day. If anyone could use a fun night off, it’s her. First, her parents—well, I’ll let her tell the story.” With this he nudges me forward.
“Well,” I begin. “What had happened was…”
In no time, I have told the whole story and we are all sitting around the outside table, laughing and drinking spiked hot chocolate like old friends.
“…and the string said ‘No, I’m a-frayed knot!’” Heath finishes his joke.
“Oh, that was a great one. Really, just terrific!” Rachel—the blonde says, chuckling.
Clint looks down at his watch, still chuckling. “Oh my gosh, it’s almost five! You guys should really be heading back.”
“We should indeed.” Heath agrees, standing. “Thanks so much for having us, Clint,” he says as they shake hands.
“The pleasure was all ours.” Clint smiles, putting his arm around Rachel. (Yes, he really is taken. They are engaged. I know; I wanted to cry too.)
“Come back any time.” Rachel says. Bethany and I hug them both, and after lengthy good-byes, the three of us are, once again, running through the woods.
Only this time, we are still wet, so it’s a heck of a lot colder.

Ah, second chapter.

“So, please, enlighten me,” I continue. “How could it have possibly been any worse?”

I sit up and whirl around to face her, the ends of my short mouse-brown hair whipping my face.

This is just personal preference, but in first-person POV, it seems a little odd for the narrator to think about her own hair color when her mind is occupied by something else.

“Ah ha! See? I told you so,” I say triumphantly.

Instead of 'say triumpantly,' consider using something like 'crow' or 'exclaim.'

She looks at me sheepishly.

This should be on the same line as Bethany's dialogue.

“Oh, no reason... just admiring the view,” I respond casually as his eyebrow rises skeptically.

Again, there are a lot of '-ly' words here.

I say light-heartedly.

You could probably omit this, since we can tell from her dialogue that she's trying to be light-hearted.

in winter?!

Omit the exclamation point.

He is really quite good with adults.

You said earlier that Clint is in college, so this seems kind of odd, to call him an adult. Feel free to ignore this; just personal preference.


I liked it. Heath and Bethany seem like interesting characters. I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with this.

Chapter 2
I plop down on my bed and let out a groan.
“Why?” I exclaim to the heavens. “Why me?”
“Come on now,” my best friend Bethany chimes in from her bed across the room. “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, it could have been worse.”
I sit up and whirl around to face her, the ends of my short mouse-brown hair whipping my face. “Oh really? How exactly could it have been worse? I exposed my panties and my father’s tighty-whiteys to the entire school and flaunted my extreme dork upbringing by allowing my parents to enter the school dressed like a horse. A horse!”
“So, please, enlighten me.” I continue. “How could it have possibly been any worse?”
Bethany stares off, an intense thoughtful look on her face.
I look at her expectantly.
She still stares off.
I tap my foot impatiently.
She continues with the staring.
I whistle a bit.
“I can’t think of anything,” she finally says.
“Ah ha! See? I told you so.” I say triumphantly.
“Why are you so excited about that?” She looks at me quizzically. “You still humiliated yourself in front of the entire school.”
I can only glare at her. “Thanks for reminding me after I had tried quite successfully to forget for a few moments.” She looks at me sheepishly. you need to be careful with your overuse of adverbs, because it’s the only thing slowing down your pace. In the past few lines you’ve slipped in four of them.
“Sorry… Hey, I have an idea. To help, you know, get your mind off things. It’s a sort of mischievous thing…”
Suddenly, I am all ears. “Please, do continue.”
“Well, okay, so I heard from Amanda who heard from Chelsea who heard from Brian who heard from his sister’s ex-boyfriend…” She pauses to breathe. “…that the Hardens have officially gone out of town and that Clint will be staying at college this weekend so their pool will be unguarded.”
“So?” I ask skeptically. “It’s November in Maine. It’s not exactly the best time for swimming.”
“Wait, wait; allow me to finish before you critique my plan.”
“Fine, fine. Please continue.”
“Thanks for your permission. Now, as I was saying, this whole absence thing would mean nothing except that the Hardens have recently got their pool heated.”
“No way! Heated? That sounds amazing!” I squeal, and Bethany looks pleased with herself.
“Oh my peanut butter pretzels, this is so happening!” I exclaim, a plan already forming in my mind.
Which is how I end up standing outside Heath’s room in the freezing cold weather wearing nothing but a swimsuit and a thin cover-up dress.
“Heath!” I whisper, rapping on his window with one hand and holding onto the edge of the window with the other.
“Heath!” I whisper again, more loudly, pressing my face against the window. When I peer in, I can see him stirring in his bed. Is he deaf or something?
“Heath!” I practically shout. I flinch when I see Heath’s roommate Ryder move, but he simply rolls over and continues snoring. Heath, however, sits up in bed and rubs his eyes. He looks confused for a bit and then sees me at the window. His eyes go wide in alarm as he rushes over, throwing the window open.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” He says loudly, sounding annoyed.
“Shh!” I hiss, looking up at him. I’m not short in the least, so it always feels weird to look up at someone. Especially when that someone is Heath, who used to be a whole foot shorter than me when we were kids. “Do you want to wake up the whole school?”
He ignores me and instead pulls me inside his room.
“Inside your room, eh? Quite scandalous, don’t you think?” I chuckle to myself, as he scans outside, no doubt checking for Bethany. (Haha! He’ll never spot her in the bushes!)
He turns back to me, his face still disapproving. “Why is Bethany standing in a shrub?” he asks.
Darn it! “Oh, no reason... just admiring the view.” I respond casually as his eyebrow rises skeptically.
“Uh-huh. And what were you doing outside my room?” He demands.
“Oh, I was just taking a walk and decided to pop in for a visit.” I say light-heartedly.
“On the second story?” He gets The Look. The Your-sarcasm-is-not-funny-so-just-shut-up-and-tell-me-the-truth Look.
“Yes, well, I might have gone a bit out of my way…”
I can see him trying not to smile as he continues to give me The Look.
“Alright, alright. Bethany and I had this idea…”
“Okay, stop right there. I am not going to partake in any more of your tom-foolery!” He whispers harshly.
“We’re just going swimming…” I say, trying to sound innocent.
“Please come?” I plead.
I can see him debating in his head, weighing the consequences like he always does. Then his face softens. Haha! I’ve won!
“Fine, but this is absolutely the LAST time,” he gives in.
“Yes!” I hug him. “This is why you are my very best friend.”
“Yeah, well, don’t remind me.”
Soon, the three of us are running across the grounds, the cold wind whipping across our faces and turning them pink. A few snowflakes fall around us, but they melt when they hit the ground. I wrap my arms around myself.
We cut through the forest. It’s almost pitch-black, but we know the way by heart. Not long after we pass the pond, the fence comes in sight, looming over us, looking foreboding.
“Here, give me a leg up,” I say. Heath obliges, grunting a bit with my weight (so I’m not the skinniest girl around; sue me why don’t ya?). When I’m high enough, I peer over the top of the fence. The coast is clear, so I drop down to the other side and walk around to the gate, opening it from the inside. Heath and Bethany are waiting.
Bethany is grinning from ear to ear, bouncing on the balls of her feet, making her dark curls spring about her face and Heath is looking around like at any moment we could get caught.
Soon, we’re by the edge of the pool. I can feel the heat radiating from it as I strip, shivering in my bathing suit.
“To whom shall we give the honor of going first?” asks Bethany, grinning slyly.
“Hmm… I don’t know…” I reply, moving to stand behind Heath.
“How about… HEATH!” I yell, pushing him in. It would have worked perfectly, only he grabbed me at the last moment and pulled him in with him.
“Eep!” I scream as I hit the water. For a few moments, I am suspended in the water with Heath, and then we are both shooting up to the surface.
As my head clears the water, I hear him laughing.
“This is amazing! It’s so… warm!” He exclaims, water dripping from his brown hair.
I just smile. “I knew you would like it.”
“I like it too,” says another voice, another voice that’s not Bethany’s. Unless Bethany’s voice dropped two octaves while I was under the water. When I look, I see someone who is most definitely not Bethany.
Bethany is short and thin with olive skin and dark green eyes and long curly dark hair. She’s rather pretty in an exotic sort of way.
What she is not is a man.
And this is a male someone, about six feet tall and HOT. Like very hot. He’s shirtless (in winter?! How strange, but, man, that is one nice six-pack…) and in swim trunks…
Oh.
Crap.
It’s Clint.
How do I explain this away?
Why hello, is this your private pool? I had no idea, even though I had to climb over a huge and imposing fence to get in.
Or maybe we can just claim to be from the insane asylum down the road…? Oh, wait… I think that closed last year. Yeah, yeah it did. I remember reading about that…
“I made one with vodka beca--” a second unfamiliar voice interrupts my mad mental ramblings, only this voice is female.
I look up to see a blonde girl in a skimpy bikini come out of the house carrying two drinks. She looks startled when she sees Heath and me in the pool and Bethany standing by the edge. The blonde’s mouth hangs open like she’s permanently aghast. Really, she should close it. She looks like a codfish.
“Clint?” comes the blonde’s voice. “What’s this?”
“Er…” That is the only word that comes out of my mouth. God, we are SO dead.
But Heath is in action. He grabs my hand and leads me out of the pool, a torrent of words coming from his mouth. He is really quite good with adults.
“I’m so sorry about all this, sir.” He says, actually sounding apologetic. “It has been a long, sad day. We were just trying to cheer up Penelope here because she has been cursed with a rather unfortunate turn in her life.” As Clint turns his gaze on me, I try to look like I have an unfortunate life.
Sadly, it’s not that hard.
“We thought you were away, so we didn’t think it would hurt if we borrowed your pool.” Heath continues. “We are quite sorry. It won’t happen again, and we will gladly leave you and the nice lady in peace now.” He nods in the blonde’s direction. “Good day, madam.”
We grab our clothes and I hastily wrap myself in a towel as we walk speedily back to the gate.
As we’re almost there, I hear Clint’s voice again. “An unfortunate turn, you say?” I stop and turn.
“Yes, sir.” I gulp.
Clint looks at me, expecting me to say more. I can’t. Then Heath takes over. “Yes, sir. She’s had quite the day. If anyone could use a fun night off, it’s her. First, her parents—well, I’ll let her tell the story.” With this he nudges me forward.
“Well,” I begin. “What had happened was…”
In no time, I have told the whole story and we are all sitting around the outside table, laughing and drinking spiked hot chocolate like old friends.
“…and the string said ‘No, I’m a-frayed knot!’” Heath finishes his joke.
“Oh, that was a great one. Really, just terrific!” Rachel—the blonde says, chuckling.
Clint looks down at his watch, still chuckling. “Oh my gosh, it’s almost five! You guys should really be heading back.”
“We should indeed.” Heath agrees, standing. “Thanks so much for having us, Clint,” he says as they shake hands.
“The pleasure was all ours.” Clint smiles, putting his arm around Rachel. (Yes, he really is taken. They are engaged. I know; I wanted to cry too.)
“Come back any time.” Rachel says. Bethany and I hug them both, and after lengthy good-byes, the three of us are, once again, running through the woods.
Only this time, we are still wet, so it’s a heck of a lot colder.

For me, I enjoyed this more than your last chapter, which was also pretty fun. I actually started smiling to myself over what was going on and I found myself really warming up to the characters. I think I like Penelope more when she’s around her friends than with her family. I like Heath and Bethany a lot, too.

So I still think that this is all just a bunch of silliness, and I’m not even sure if there’s any kind of plot, but it’s entertaining enough for me to want to keep reading more x) Let me know when the next chapter’s up?

If you want a better review of this or if you’ve got any questions just let me know x) Whatever I had to say was pretty much covered by Payne, and besides that you had good grammar.