Hello good readers and fellow writers! Another week is drawing to a close. I wanted to share a sample chapter from one of my upcoming books, Louder!, which is the next book in the Our Lady of Righteous Rage series. A lot is going to happen in this book, and it’s going to be fun. In this chapter, Step aka Stephanie gets into a little scuffle at school. I hope you enjoy it. 🙂
My English teacher’s questions were coming like rapid fire. He barely gave any of us time to raise our hands before he’d just point to someone and call their name. Two seats behind me was a boy named Cunningham (that was his first name, not his last). Twice he’d been called on and twice he’d been wrong. Finally my teacher asked about prepositions.
“They left without their belongings,” Mr. Slade said. “Who can identify the preposition in that sentence?” He paused, then pointed to someone behind me. “Let’s hear it, Cunningham.”
“Belongings,” Cunningham replied.
Mr. Slade sighed. “No. Stephanie?”
“Without,” I said.
Mr. Slade gave me a little smile. “Yes! Thank you. And why is that?”
“Because without indicates the location of something,” I said. “In this case, They left without their belongings means the subjects of the sentence don’t have something, like their belongings.”
“Very good,” Mr. Slade said. “I’m glad someone is paying attention this morning.”
When class ended, everyone grabbed their stuff and flooded the hallway. I was about to head to my locker when I heard a voice call to me.
“Step thinks she’s so fucking smart!”
I paused and turned and saw Cunningham standing in the middle of the hallway. Other kids were backing away from him.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said. I turned to walk away. Seconds later I felt a hand on my shoulder, which spun me around. It was Cunningham. I snatched away from him.
“You fucking embarrassed me in class,” Cunningham said.
“You embarrassed yourself,” I said. I took a step away from him.
“Fucking bitch!” Cunningham said. Then he swung at me. I ducked, and he stumbled forward. A couple of kids in the hallway laughed. He got angry and shoved me, and I fell backwards. There was a chorus of oh’s and damns. I stood up and shoved him back. He tried to throw another punch and missed again. That’s when I decided I’d earned the right to hit that asshole. I drew my fist back and let my punch fly, and struck him in the face. He fell back and landed on the floor, and everyone in the hallway started cheering. As he stood up, a teacher approached us and stood between us. She demanded we stop fighting and said we needed to go to the principal’s office. As she escorted us down the hallway I wondered what my parents were going to say when they found out about my little fight.
I’m still working on Louder!, but I’ll keep you posted.
