Let me tell you some about my project:
The name of the tale is The Disillusioned Life of Frankie Blanchard. The story follows Frankie, a fifteen year old girl in the town of Paloma Hills. Her main goal of the story is to plan her sweet 16, which is a month away. Along the way, there are issues of family, societal views, teen angst, suicide, and addiction. Some of that I didn't decide until this second. Basically, though, as I described it to a friend earlier: She's got a single dad who's been single her whole life and now he's starting to date, and that's stressing her out. She's got average teenage outcast problems. She has a crush on her best friend, but she doesn't know that part yet even though she's hinted at it. She finds out she has all this family her dad never told her about and now she's worried that not knowing her history means she doesn't know herself. Oh, and on top of that, she's turning 16 and wants the best party ever.
And now I'm going to treat you with a random excerpt from Chapter One:
Steven handed us our passes and Jamie and I were off to class. First period, we both had Mr. Peretti for biology, and we both hated him. Well, we both hated biology. It's hard and neither one of us understood why we'd need it in the real world, outside of the reproduction chapters. Sex is important to the real world, yes. The rest of it is just pure not important to me.
“Late again, Mr. Hapschatt, Miss Blanchard?” Mr. Peretti greeted us as we entered his classroom. We handed him our passes and silently took our seats. Another reason Jamie and I hated Mr. Peretti was because he went out of his way to never call us Jamie or Frankie. It was either always James and Francine or Mr. Hapschatt and Miss Blanchard.
“Did that same crazy lady bug you?” Natalia Sokolov leaned in and whispered to Jamie and I. Natalia is on the cheer squad with Jamie, and Jamie (and the whole rest of the straight male student body) had a huge crush on the Russian-American hottie.
“As always,” Jamie answered.
“Emergency cheer practice after school,” Natalia told Jamie. “You don't mind, do you Frankie?”
Natalia was referring to the fact that I always waited for Jamie to get out of school. I had recon work to do after school; I had this grandmother I never knew about to research, and this projectionist I had to look into. Then I realized that Steven might be able to help me with said recon work. “Slight inconvenience, but I can deal,” I answered.
“Francine, is there something to share with the class?” Mr. Peretti asked me.
I don't know why, but I have to make the class laugh at these moments. I'm not even a class clown; I like learning. But, seriously, it's obvious my whispered conversation had nothing to do with the class, so why point it out? “I didn't know we were having show and tell today. I'm afraid I'm not prepared.”
My classmates chuckled. I admit, it wasn't my strongest work, but the red of Mr. Peretti's face was almost worth it. “Principal's office.”
Teachers need to advertise when they're PMS-ing, seriously. I grabbed my things and walked out of the classroom and off to the principal's office.
