The Lesson Learned

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"What you send forth comes back to thee, so ever mind the law of three. A lesson to be learned, once learned you will be free. Another point of view is what you must see."

These words will change Marks life forever, for better or for worse is yet to be seen.

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"Mark! Get up now or you'll be late for school!" said Mark's mother, pulling the blankets down to get him out of bed. Mark groaned as the early morning light hit his face. "Get up!" his mother yelled once more before leaving the room.

The 16 year old Mark Brenan crawled out of bed and looked around his room. The room was a total mess: clothes were scattered all over the floor and hanging on the backs of chairs, soda cans were lying crushed here and there, the crust from last nights pizza laying on the bedside table. Not that Mark cared about any of this, it was exactly how he liked his room and set it apart from the overly clean nature of the rest of the house. He picked up a T-shirt and a pair of jeans from the floor near his closet, gave them a sniff and decided they were clean enough. He pulled them on over his boxers and headed downstairs for breakfast.

"What's for breakfast?" he asked his mother as he entered the kitchen and plopped down in the chair at the table. His mother came in buttoning up her coat, her purse slung over her shoulder.

"I'm sorry honey," she said. "I have to head into work early today, there's a very important client coming in and the boss wants us all to make a good impression. You're gonna have to make your own breakfast." Mrs. Brenan was a secretary at a law firm downtown that serviced all the richest people in the state of New York.

"Who could possibly be so important that you can't make me breakfast?" exclaimed Mark. "I shouldn't have to make my own breakfast, that's what you're here for!"

"Mark, please, not today. I have to get to work, I can't afford to be late. Eat some cereal and get to school." Mrs. Brenan walked out the door without another word and Mark could hear the car pulling out the driveway as he poured a bowl of cereal and grumbled under his breath about the lack of a good breakfast.

Mark finished his breakfast and headed to school. On the way there he ran into his 2 buddies Jeff and Steven.

All three of the boys were tall with Mark being the shortest 5'10''. Jeff Matthews and his brother Steven both had medium length jet black hair and green eyes. In contrast Mark had short-cropped blond hair that spiked near the front and blue eyes that captivated many girls.

The boys were walking to school together when they spotted a boy and girl walking on the other side of the street. The three boys ran to the other side of the street to intercept them. "Hey wimp! I thought I told you not to come down this street if you knew what was good for you," exclaimed Mark. Mark raised his hand as though to throw a punch and the boy, Sam, threw both hands over his face to protect himself. The three boys laughed at his attempts of self defense.

"Leave him alone Mark, he hasn't done anything to you." The girl, Stephanie, stepped between Mark and the cowering Sam, holding her books curled to her chest, a defiant look on her face.

"What's the matter Sam, you gonna let a girl try to fight your battles for you? Guess you're not man enough to fight us. I wouldn't blame you, I am pretty powerful. Get out of here before I beat the snot out of you." Stephanie quickly led Sam away around the corner while the three boys laughed like hyenas. They continued on to school, completely unaware that they were being watched.

After school Mark had to walk home alone as Jeff and Steven had detention. On the way home he stopped at the corner store down the street from his house and bought a 24 oz. bottle of Mountain Dew and a candy bar. On the way out the door he bumped into an old lady carrying her groceries. The old lady dropped her groceries and they scattered. "Watch where you're going," cried Mark and continued on grumbling under his breath. He stopped and looked back when he heard the old lady start to say something.

"What you send forth comes back to thee, so ever mind the law of three. A lesson to be learned, once learned you will be free. Another point of view is what you must see." The old lady then turned away and entered the store. Mark shook himself and headed back home, the ladies weird words floating in his head.

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since I can't figure out how

since I can't figure out how to edit what's already been posted I have something I would like to say to any of my readers. This is only chapter 1 and there is much more to come. I know I still have a lot to learn and I hope that as I grow my stories will get better and more detailed. The next chapter should be longer as this was just an introduction and I wanted to leave a bit of a cliff hanger. I hope you decide to stick around for the next chapter. See you then :)

Don't worry, you will learn.

Have patience with yourself. I do not know if you have editing priveleges or not, so I can not tell you how I do it. Erin can help you.

The story is off to a nice start.

Gwendolyn

thank you, I did manage to

thank you, I did manage to figure it out, I didn't know that I had to be given special permission but Erin has given me the proper permissions and everything is working.

Quite promising....

Ragtime Rachel's picture

Your story grabbed me from the very beginning, which (I believe, anyway) every good story should do. I definitely want to know more.

Livin' A Ragtime Life,
aufder.jpg

Rachel

Promising start. A bit of a

Gwendolyn's picture

Promising start. A bit of a trope for sure, but done very well. You have me curious what will happen next, and that is the mark of a good story.

As far as all the site specific editing goes, don't stress about it too much. You'll pick it up along the way, both the technical stuff, and accepted community guidelines. It's a learning curve.

I'm not sure what you mean by

I'm not sure what you mean by trope but I am glad you have enjoyed it :) I am working on chapter 2 right now so expect it shortly.

She means...

Ragtime Rachel's picture

...that you relied on a commonly-used theme, that of "bad boy to good girl." Which is not necessarily a bad thing, if the story holds the reader's interest.

Livin' A Ragtime Life,
aufder.jpg

Rachel

Trope

Gwendolyn's picture

All I mean by trope is a literary device that is a touch over used. The basic idea of a somewhat bad kid annoying a magic user and getting transformed as a punishment / lesson has been done a lot. Where the story can be interesting to read are the individual twists each author puts into the story.

ooooh okay I understand now.

ooooh okay I understand now. I didn't realize because I had only encountered a story like this one time and that's where I got the idea. the story that gave me the idea was severely lacking in details and had the grammar of a 5-year-old, it was abandoned as a hopeless project by the author so I picked it up and made it what it is now and plan on continuing it until i run out of ideas or until I find an appropriate ending. I hope I can do it justice :)

an excellent start!

This has the makings of a very good story. I am looking forward to more episodes.

Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?

Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm