Sitting Alone and in Angst on Cascade Hall

Brett Hodges

February 23, 2007 10:16 AM

Sitting Alone and in Angst by Brett Hodges

The past few weeks, Brett had been doing some serious people watching. The people at this school were like whoa different than the kids he'd left behind -- and like whoa different from each other too -- Brett was only beginning to figure out how to act around them and he didn't like it. He couldn't be himself here and that was like his whole thing: being himself and making everyone else be like him because he was so awesome.

Brett stopped himself midway to kicking the table and pulled out his dogeared pocket dictionary and thesaurus. He needed a good word for what he was feeling. Words were like the total essense of essenseness. If he had a word he would be okay. If he didn't have a word it was going to drive him mad.

Some five minutes of ferocious page turning brought him no closer to the right word. Oh sure, there were lots of words that were sort of okay, but they weren't the one he was looking for. And that did it, it was going to drive him mad. No one had ever felt this way before him. He was alone. Lonely. A lone lonely loner. From this day forward, he, Brett Hodges, was misunderstood by all. He would stand alone or, uh, um, sit. And do stuff.

What sort of stuff did a loner do? He tried to think back to his public school where the loners were obvious, he was friends with one and all, and the social order made sense. There were a few loners there, like One-T Bret, who drew stuff all the time and wrote riddles in secret codes. Then there was Lyle Lyle Crocadile who lived and breathed computer games. There were also the poets they learned about in Mrs Cherry's class, like Edger Alan Poe and a bunch of girls.

Brett could be a poet. He took out a sheet of paper.

And stared at it.

Man, this was hard.\n\n

0 Brett Hodges Sitting Alone and in Angst 0 Brett Hodges 1 5

Derek Samonns

February 27, 2007 5:30 PM

My author tried to kill me, thats angst by Derek Samonns

Derek had been unusually quiet the first half of this year. So quiet, you would barely notice him. Expecially in the loud and energetic Pecari. Mainly, classes were hard for Derek. He spent most of his time in his room with the papers spread all over his bed. He bettted the guys in his dorm didn't even know who he was.

But now, Midterm was coming up. And Derek had a small break from schoolwork. And now had the time to write one letter to his father. He realized he'd missed Quidditch, but that was no big deal. Not like a first year was something important in Quidditch anyway. Derek could try out next year. His father could help teach him, and buy him a broom of something.

But now, Derek Sammons was able to hop into the Cascade Hall and stuff himself with food. He'd lost the baby chub he'd had at the beginning of the year. Basically it was from only eating a small breakfast lunch and barely dinner. He found the study thing more importent since he knew like nothing about magic. Even though his father was a Wizard, his father rathered teach him Quidditch and Creatures than Potions and Charms.

So, yeah, Derek was starving. He got a huge plate of steak and rice. He was so going to gain every pound he'd had before back. Even if he did look better without the small bit of chub. Who cared? He was eleven. And he was starving. Let him start worrying about looks when he actually started caring about girls.

The little boy looked around, and picked a seat by someone in his dorm. Not that Derek knew names. He was so busy. But he shoveled a scoop of rice into his mouth. He did need to actually talk to the guys in his dorm sometimes.

Once Derek swallowed down the bite, he looked at the concentrating boy. "What'cha doing?" he asked chirpily, happy to finally be eating more than some soup and bread. "Looks like you're thinking hard. Need any help?"\n\n

0 Derek Samonns My author tried to kill me, thats angst 0 Derek Samonns 0 5

Brett Hodges

March 07, 2007 12:33 PM

Yeah, man, that's like mad crazy weirdo angst by Brett Hodges

The blank page was quickly becoming the bane of Brett's existence -- it required thought and effort, which, with the exception of soccer and that Novelling Fury! thing Echo got him to do last year (and that wasn't like serious effort, that was like "meh, whatever" effort), he wasn't really accustomed to giving a lot of thought to stuff -- and so it was that Brett was pretty relieved when one of his roommates joined him.

It was the elusive Derek, a mysterious creature of academia who has eyes only for his textbooks. Brett didn't understand such people, but he was cool with it. And this kid was out for food like he'd been mad ill, and not in a mega uber cool sort of way that ill could sometimes mean.

"What'cha doing?" Derek asked. He was responding, maybe, to the perplexed goings on between Brett and his empty notebook. "Looks like you're thinking hard. Need any help?"

"Nah," Brett replied, drawing out the vowel sound to show his coolness. He closed his notebook, and tossed it and the pen on the table, out of the way. "I was trying to write but... wasn't coming anyway. You like it here?"\n\n

0 Brett Hodges Yeah, man, that's like mad crazy weirdo angst 0 Brett Hodges 0 5

Derek

March 13, 2007 5:35 PM

That's bad... I think by Derek

Derek shrugged slightly when Brett mentioned he didn't need any help. It was with wide grin and a shuffle of his light brown hair though. "Writing is hard?" Derek asked. "It should just come out, shouldn't it? Isn't that what most authors say?" He took a smaller bite of his food so he could talk easily without choking, and jumped up on his chair.

"'I don't know why I wrote this. It's amazing it even got published. I mean it just came out,'" he grinned, "quoting" whatever author in the world. Since most he'd seen on TV at home normally said things like that. He sat back down, and made an effort to shrug at Brett's question next. Derek couldn't say he hated it here. But it wasn't the fun he wanted. Especially with him normally cooped up in his room, sucking the fun out of himself studying.

Next year Derek wouldn't care. He'd try out for Quidditch and play games with people, and maybe even make friends. It didn't even have to be next year, it could be after Midterm. Derek could go home, show dad his grades were phenominal, then go back and not give a single care about school. Well, not a single, but not as much.

"It's pretty cool here," Derek stated nonchalantly. "I was bored though, thinking classes were gonna be hard I studied til I dropped. I'm sure you noticed, but after Midterm," Derek shook his head. "Well, I'm going to go outside once and a while." Another bote of his food and he looked up, speaking with a full mouth. "You?" he asked.\n\n

0 Derek That's bad... I think 0 Derek 0 5

Brett Hodges

March 15, 2007 3:20 PM

Maybe by Brett Hodges

Suddenly -- for no reason -- Derek jumped up on his chair. Jumped on the chair, like feet on chair, standing like way tall in the middle of Cascade Hall. There was no need. Brett glanced around, uncertain how he should be responding to this, but grinning widely just the same. He'd never seen anyone do that in here. Never! And now here was Derek -- studious Samonns -- jumping on his chair for no reason!

"'I don't know why I wrote this. It's amazing it even got published. I mean it just came out,'" Derek quoted in an obvious quoting voice and sat back down.

Last year in February Echo had got him to join the Novelling Fury! movement his friend had started here at Sonora. Brett never really finished his story, but he knew a couple things from the experience about writing. For example, "Ha, no. Writing is a sick lot of work. Sick. Like, even if you know what you're going to say, you still gotta nitpick over wording and scrib it out, you know?" Brett made a mental note to ask Derek to join Novelling Fury! when they came back from midterms and started recruiting participants. Assuming, of course, Echo was going to do it again this year -- kid had got pretty upset when his protagonist died last time. Brett'd be willing to give it another go, but only if there was some crowd following going on. He wasn't going to do it alone.

"It's pretty cool here," Derek said. "I was bored though, thinking classes were gonna be hard I studied til I dropped. I'm sure you noticed, but after Midterm... Well, I'm going to go outside once and a while. You?"

Brett was caught between the false positive, Yeah, Sonora rocks the monster socks, and the more honest (at least for the moment), Observe: this is me not digging this whole whacked out magic thing. "I don't know," he said instead, "I mean, classes are way cooler than back home and flying is awesome, but there's other stuff ... like, there's no soccer. What's up with that? This is going to sound way weirdo, but that creeps me out. So, you have like a wizarding famiy right?" Brett didn't wait for his answer because if he was wrong it wasn't a big deal, "So it must be like crazy for you that all these people, like me, come in here and don't know what Quidditch is. But while we're getting all learned up about wizard stuff, the wizard people aren't really getting muggle savvy so it's like we're supposed to just forget about our muggleness. I never really thought about it until just now but, man, isn't that creepy? That's way creepy."\n\n

0 Brett Hodges Maybe 0 Brett Hodges 0 5