An excerpt? You like?

[Emily Mead]

The door swings open and my teacher is standing on the other side. ‘Mr Helmsley?’ I ask him hopefully.

                ‘Oh, you must be the new girl,’ he says, smiling. He has glasses, but they’re on top of his bald head instead of his face. ‘Come on in.’

                The New Girl. Great.

                ‘What’s your name?’ he says to me. I tell him. ‘Okay, this is Rain, everyone. Rain, welcome to ninth grade geography. We are doing…well, I’ll ask the class that. What are we doing, class?’

                They all call out different answers. ‘Your mum!’ says one guy from up the back.

                Mr Helmsley rolls his eyes. ‘Well, which one of you fine people is going to show Rain around the school for me? Just so she knows where she’s going.’

                ‘Oooooooh, me!’ yells one girl, standing up. She’s pointing a long stick in the air. ‘I know this school so well I can go around it with my eyes shut!’

                The rest of the class laughs, but I don’t get the joke until she stands up. That’s when I realise that the stick she was holding up in the air is a blind person’s cane. She wears big sunglasses over her face, maybe to make people feel more at ease. She’s a pretty girl, tall with black curly hair. She’s got a gorgeous smile, too; such a big smile you can only really call it a grin.

                ‘Alright, but take someone else with you,’ says Mr Helmsley. He doesn’t look concerned, though. ‘In case you fall down and go blind or something.’

                ‘Good one, Mr Helmsley,’ says the girl. She looks at the boy next to her. ‘Chris! Minion! You’re coming on a journey with me and Storm Cloud.’

                ‘Rain,’ I say, but I laugh anyway.

                ‘Whatever.’ She tugs on Chris’s arm. ‘Come on, Chris. You can flirt with your teddy bear later.’

                The class laughs again as Chris and the girl come up the front. Chris is a bit shorter than her, but taller than me; he’s got kind of sandy hair and he’s stick-thin. Not anorexic-thin, but high-school-boy thin.

                The three of us head out the door, the girl swinging her cane from side to side as we go. I can’t help but look at her, and I feel really awful about it.

                ‘Is she looking at me?’ the girl says as we walk. ‘She’s looking at me, I can tell.’

                ‘Nah, she’s wondering why you’ve got carrot stuck in your teeth,’ Chris says, winking at me.

                ‘Um, yeah,’ I say, going along with it. But I keep looking at her, just wondering. Was she born blind? Did she turn blind? That would suck.

                ‘Don’t worry about that,’ says the girl. ‘That’s the Oompa Loompa I ate yesterday. Saving him for later.’

                Seriously, that’s what she actually says; not even hesitating or anything. ‘So what’s your name?’

                ‘Oh, the name,’ says Chris, shaking his head.

                ‘What? Is it a bad name?’

                ‘Nah, brilliant name,’ says Chris. ‘Just – ’

                ‘Nah-uh!’ the girl says, whacking Chris with her cane as we exit the B block. ‘I tell the name story. Okay, Stormy, my name…is Thea. Know who Thea is?’

                ‘You?’

                ‘God, you are a genius. No, Thea is the Greek goddess of sight.’

                Chris is already laughing his head off. ‘Goddess of sight.’

                ‘Yup,’ says Thea, going doing some stairs carefully. ‘Seriously. The blind girl got given the name of the goddess of sight. How’s that for a name, huh? Sure beats Storm Cloud.’

                ‘Rain,’ I say, smiling. ‘Maybe fate has a funny sense of humour.’

                ‘Pretty funny,’ she says. She tips her head back. ‘HEY FATE? THAT’S REALLY AMUSING! GOOD JOB!’

                A teacher walks by. ‘Thea, seriously?’

                ‘Sorry, miss. Just showing young Lightning Bolt here around the school.’ The teacher keeps walking. ‘Okay, Thunderstruck, where do you want me to take you?’

[Suzie Nyman]

I liked it! (And I'm slightly ashamed to say that I snorted more than once while reading this.) The dialogue was funny, there weren't any typos that I could see, and you described the characters enough that I could picture them but not so much that I got bored. The only issue I have is that the characters seem a lot more outgoing/gregarious than anyone that I know in real life, but then again I've got a pretty quiet group of friends. Also, and this is a microscopically tiny problem, if Thea is blind, then how does she know where Chris's arm is when she tugs it? Still, overall, good job. 

[Emily Mead]

Thanks :) I had to make Thea outgoing because Rain (the main character) is the complete opposite. Trust me, there ARE people as crazy as this! I'm one of them :) Yeah, sometimes I forget that Thea's blind, so thanks for pointing that out. I really have to watch out with her. Sometimes she tricks me into thinking she's not blind.

Thanks for your comment :)