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uh...... sweatdrop so, okay Zeta was over, and for some reason we were looking at some of my old stories and we came across this one and started reading.....and well, she said she liked it and I was even surprised that I started getting into it, cause when I wrote it I thought it sucked.....so anyone, I'd love for you guys to read it and tell me what you think. I have a lot lot more written, just there's only so much you can post....


My dad has always been a quiet person. Sensitive, thoughtful, and quiet. Sometimes I wonder why he married Mom. See, Dad was an actor, and I think that might be why he cares so much for other people. He’s spent most of his life putting himself in their positions, pretending to be them, learning to understand them. And of course, he loves theatre…maybe even more than me. But he doesn’t know that I’m in one of the theatre classes for my elective this year, sophomore year, or at least that I will be when August twenty-second comes around, the first day of school. I think I know how he would react, thinking I didn’t know enough about it, that I was starting too late to make anything of it, that since I go to a school with the best of everything, particularly theatre and the arts, I would never have a chance. Of course, I can’t be sure that he would think that…I guess I don’t really know him. He prefers to stay in his room, writing plays that he won’t send in for publishing. Or at least he used to. Mom thinks they are stupid, thinks theatre is stupid and unimportant, so she tells him he would be crazy to think it would get published. He sort of gave up, I guess. Her criticism…he stopped writing. Sometimes, she is a little cruel. When Dad’s not in his study, he goes to his job painting houses, the one Mom told him to get because he wasn’t getting any money acting, and she was sick of being the one making the money. She says she wants him to be making the money for retirement.
Mom manages a restaurant, but she thinks that Dad needs to be more of a man, and support his family. She seems to think the same of me, and barely tried to hide her disgust when I told her I wanted to try acting. That was four years ago, when I first mentioned it, and I was only twelve. I didn’t bring it up again, not last year, when I first joined the class at my high school. She signed the papers for electives, but I’m not even sure if she noticed what I had signed up for. I didn’t ask.
Jenny doesn’t have any clue what goes on in my life, and I don’t know anything about her life. Every so often I see one of thirteen-year-old friends around the house, and once I heard one of them whispering to Jenny, ”Oh my God, your brother is so cute.” I kind of walked away at that point, feeling a little awkward, I guess. Jenny and I don’t talk much, really. Actually, earlier today we talked more than we have for days.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You want some noodles?”
“No, thanks. Stacey gave me some of hers that she had at lunch today.”
“Stacey… is one of your friends, right?”
“Uh…yeah.” A that point she looked down, her face a little white. I thought I saw a glimmer of a tear. Something about the hesitant way she said yes to my question had made me wonder about the kindness of this kid Stacey.
“Are you okay? You look a little…I dunno.”
“I’m fine, Joey. I gotta go do homework.”
“Okay…see ya.”
She left me in the kitchen, for the first time in years wondering a little about her life. Stacey was the one who had been talking about me, I realized, the name coming back to me. I’m starting to get a little curious about who Jenny is friends with. I always assumed they were like me and Matt, normal kids, good friends, pretty nice and always friendly. Not exactly the most popular kid, but doing okay. But Stacey had seemed…I couldn’t find a way to describe it. Controlling. Insecure, maybe. Like kids had been when I was in middle school, and even a bit in high school.
Things are better for me in high school. There are so many kids, that everyone fits in somewhere. And no one is really that cruel like I see in movies, except maybe a little bit freshmen year. But some kids in high school are really more like adults, maybe going on to college next year, so nasty, immature and insecure behavior really just isn’t…tolerated, I guess. People don’t accept it like they did in middle school.
It’s nice. I’ve got my group of friends, Jeremy, Mollie, Danny and Alexandra, who we call Alex, mostly. But really, my best friend would be Matt. We’ve been friends since we were eight. He is the one who introduced me to Alex, and Jeremy. I guess Danny and Mollie sort of introduced themselves. Matt is an incredible trombone player, I come to see all his concerts. His light brown hair flops around on his head as he plays, just as my black hair does when I run in gym class. He pretty much worships his band teacher, Mr. Jameson. He’s this young guy with blue eyes and blonde, hair, from England. Mollie is in love with his accent. Well, more like she always talks about how much she’s in love with him. I mean, she is just joking, because I can see how a girl might think he is good-looking or something. Mollie’s got black hair, like me, but her’s is curly, and she has freckles, not like me. She looks a little bit like the person who plays Jackie on That 70’s Show. But she’s not selfish, she’s just crazy, funny, likes to laugh. She is constantly making jokes. Somehow I think it’s her way of dealing with her mom’s death. For about six months she barely talked, barely ate. The rest of us didn’t know what to do. The school psychologist said she was suffering from post-traumatic stress. No, duh. But then, Mollie got into the dance class that we’d all been telling her to try out for, and things started getting better for her. I know she still feels pain, like when I see her in those moments where she doesn’t think anyone is watching. She might put her head down on her desk for a moment, or get a tear in her eye that she quickly brushes away. She always looks like she has just been hit in the stomach, like it hurts too much. I never know what to say, so I just let her be.
Alexandra is a different kind of girl entirely. She has a bit of a sick mind, she’s always chatting about something or other. Her straight blonde hair goes down to her waist and she plays soccer. Danny once told me he thinks she looks hot when she plays, but I think he is just admiring, sort of, not like he likes her romantically or anything. Alex plays on the school travel team, and every so often she goes to New York or Germany or someplace, bringing back pictures of the famous churches or artwork or whatever the city has to offer. She dyes her hair sometimes, just for fun. Not exactly main stream, I guess.
Jeremy is on the debate team, really smart guy, good with computers and stuff. But not nerdy at all. No glasses or anything, no spewing technical terminology into casual conversations. He’s a pretty nice kid, easy-going and really energetic. He likes to get his two-sense in, sometimes he makes fun of me when I zone out or am too quiet. He always seems carefree, like Mollie in that way, but he is real concerned with world issues and always goes to rallies to stop the genocide in Darfur or promote gay rights. He’s not gay, that I know of at least, but he is really into promoting tolerance and all that equal rights stuff. Mollie likes to do that stuff too, so somehow we all end up coming along for the ride.
Then there’s Danny. He is really nice to us, but he grew up in a tough area. He is always ready for a fight, not really used to the suburbia thing. He’s soft, though, really. Once I saw him give this little girl the ice cream cone he was about to eat because her dad told her they couldn’t afford it. He acted all gruff about it, like, “I didn’t want it anyway,” but we all exchanged glances, knowing he was sweet. But sometimes he gets a little tough, a little mean to people. He doesn’t want to be hurt again, like how he was when his dad left his mom. He was only twelve, but he still doesn’t like people taking advantage of his weaknesses, or lying to him like his dad did, saying he would never leave Danny’s mother. He likes being the leader, deciding things, working out at the gym and feeling strong. His hair is brown, darker than Matt’s. The guy is tall, about six foot. His hobby is art. Well, drawing. He makes these awesome black and white charcoal drawings of all the things in the world. Except he never draws anything personal. It’s always about a political issue, or kids at school or teachers we don’t like, or a book we read in English.