Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Magic Ring Part I

Thanks to Sarah and Maggie S (for whom I can't find a blog!) for following!! Wow, 67 is an insane number! You guys are so amazing :)

Anyway, the votes are in. After a measly 12 votes (haha, just kidding), the first partial story to be published in serial form is...

"THE MAGIC RING"!!

Lame title, I know. It's not a real title, just the working title. I only got a few thousand words into the story, so a title was kind of the last thing on my mind.

Stories to Come...
1st runner up: "A Spark of Strength" I'll do this one next; it will probably take a long time.
2nd runner up: "The Girl and the Ring" Same thing with this title; cruddy, I know.
3rd runner up: "The Strange Lives of Zillah and Ria" This is a pet story of mine; I love it :)
4th runner up: "Desirae Mayes" Poor Desirae, no one likes her. LOL, just kidding.

Alright, so now I have to decide how I want to do this. Weekly installments? Daily? If your care, leave a comment, otherwise I'll decide all on my own. >:D Mwahahaha :)

So, without further ado...

The Magic Ring
Written at age 12-13
Total number of words: 4,214

Personal Ratings (1-10):
Plot: 5.5
Style: 7

Part I:

“Katelyn!” Called Mrs. Mullen from the bottom of the steps. “Come downstairs. Your grandparents are here.” Katelyn looked up from her book with a faraway look. Slowly, her brain found its way back to Earth and she yelled,

“Coming, Mom!” Then, she grumbled to herself. “Why now? Why now at the most exciting place in the whole book?!” She sat up from laying on her stomach on her bed and snatched around on the floor for the first two dimensional object she could find. Her hand landed on a piece of wrapping paper from one of her birthday gifts from yesterday. She stuck it tightly in between the pages of the book to serve as a bookmark. Katelyn loved to read, but she could never find a real bookmark when she needed one. The book was a great, epic fantasy with dragons and evil and elves and magic—Katelyn’s favorite kind of book. The book had been a present from her fifteen year old sister Jamie on the occasion of Katelyn's long-awaited thirteenth birthday.

“Why at the best part? Why at the best part?” Katelyn kept muttering to herself. She would have rather read than eaten, much less eaten with her mother’s parents: Gram and Pap.

Gram wasn’t really the sort of person a teenage girl liked to have around. She had gray-ish black hair that would have come down to her waist if it hadn’t been tightly wound into a sensible-looking bun. She was very small and very thin and sort of shriveled-looking. Her nose was sharp and pointed and always seemed to be directed at you. Her thin, pursed lips seemed to just adore pointing out all of Katelyn's faults.

Pap was huge in every way conceived by man. He was tall and fat and loud. He was bald as a bowling ball with big ears and still went to the barber shop every month to chat with the barber and hear some gossip. He had a wide mouth that was always going—and twitching whenever it wasn’t—and he always laughed loudly at his own jokes—which were rarely humorous to anyone else. He was the kind of person who only heard himself and it was better just to smile and nod.

Katelyn slowly made her way down stairs. Gram and Pap had come for Katelyn’s birthday dinner. They and Katelyn’s best friend Caroline had been invited. Of course, Caroline would come on time. Gram and Pap were forty-five minutes early.

“There’s the teenager!” boomed Pap as Katelyn rounded the corner into the living room. Pap roared with laughter and his enormous stomach shook. Gram nodded curtly at Katelyn.

“How are you doing, Katelyn Elizabeth?” she asked rhetorically. Katelyn smiled perhaps a little too big and gave each of her grandparents a hug. It was four forty-five. Dinner would be at six… Katelyn tried to estimate how long it would be before she could get back to her book. Let’s see. An hour for dinner and an hour for talking…Eight o clock! Three hours and fifteen minutes till freedom and happiness! Katelyn’s smile froze on her lips.

Whatever happened to the pursuit of happiness?! She thought bitterly.

“Mom! Dad!” greeted Mrs. Mullen as she walked in from the kitchen. “Sit down. Roger will be here late, he had to work.” Roger was Katelyn’s dad. “Would you like anything to drink?” Pap laughed for no reason.

“I’ll have a glass of iced tea, thank ya muchly!” he said. Gram gave a small, insincere smiled.

“Nothing for me, Grace,” she said. Mrs. Mullen went to get the iced tea, leaving Katelyn alone with her grandparents. Katelyn sank into an armchair and looked around the room. A loud silence settled in the air. Katelyn stole a quick look at Gram. She was sort of smirking or something. Katelyn looked at Pap. His mouth was twitching and he looked almost like he was trying not to smile. Were they trying to make her uncomfortable?!

“Um. I like your necklace, Gram,” Katelyn complimented. She hated it.

“Thank you, dear,” Gram replied stiffly. Pap looked around the room.

“Have you folks redecorated for us?” he asked in a hokey voice.

No, and you know it, thought Katelyn. Instead she answered,

“No, Pap, I don’t think so.” More silence. Time ticked by so slowly. Katelyn felt like it had been hours. How long could it take to get iced tea, for heaven’s sake?!

“Gram! Pap!” said a smooth and beautiful impression of surprise and delight. Katelyn didn’t have to turn around to know it was Jamie, probably with eight year old Emily right behind her. Jamie glided over to her grandparents, silky brown hair swept back into a perfect, medium-length ponytail. Her blue eyes sparkled. Katelyn snickered inwardly. She knew Jamie dislike Gram and Pap as much as she did, but she was much better at hiding it.

Eight-year-old Emily was cute and sweet and loved by all. She had blonde pigtails 24/7 and perfect pink lips, reminding Katelyn disgustingly of Cindy Brady. Gram and Pap showered her with gifts, so she loved them back. Gram and Pap loved Jamie, too. Jamie was sweet and polite and always knew just what to say. Katelyn didn’t think she was so much worse than her two sisters, but she despised Gram and Pap anyway, so it didn’t really matter. Gram smiled.

“There they are!” she grinned as if they were the birthday girls instead of Katelyn.

“How are you?” asked Jamie politely.

"We’re both doing well, thank you, Jamie Michelle,” said Gram. Gram always used their full names. Emily skipped over to Gram in her cutesiest way possible and smiled.

“Hi, Grammy!” she giggled. Gram looked down at her.

“There you are, Emily Cassandra!” she cried, giving the tiny girl a hug. Mrs. Mullen came back with the tea.

"Here you go, Dad,” she said as she handed Pap the glass. Pap sipped and made a contented grunting noise.

“Delicious,” he complimented. Mrs. Mullen sat down and brought up things to talk about, and Katelyn kept wishing for a fast-forward button.

P.S. Scroll down past the Followers thing on the right and look at that awesome widget that shows all the different countries that have visited! Well, people from those countries...You know what I mean :) Actually, if you're reading this, you've already scrolled past it, so scroll up a little...a little more...a little more...THERE! ;)

2 comments:

Kyle Hendricks said...

FIRST COMMENT!
>_>

Anyway, even though you wrote it when you were 12-13, it was pretty good.

What's wrong with Cindy Brady!?

Einar said...

No kachinas;(
Oh well, at least it was the runner up.
This is good, she is a little hard on her grandparents though...