Story Ideas

Idea #4

I'm not one to often end up in detention, but here I amsitting silently in a room under the watchful eye of Mr Houdi. I could shorten my reason for getting detention to three words: My Best Friend, but I'd rather give you the lengthy version seeing as I have all the time in the the world.

Let's start at yesterday. Penelope, also known as P, came over to my house to 'study'. Trying to look the part we actually studied in silence for about five minutes before the we gave up on our farce.

"Val, do you ever think about what we're going to do after high school? I mean yeah sure we feel awesome now but what about after, we can't reminisce about high school all our lives. You know."

I nodded in response to her unexpected question, P was the laid back kind. That's why we were best friends, my over seriousness was perfectly balanced out with her complete I-don't-care attitude. Where she would wear jeans and a t-shirt, I would wear a semi-formal blouse with jeans and depending on the weather maybe a cardigan. So as you'd assume the question she had just posed to me was somewhat unusual.
"I guess I do sometimes, but not really. After high school is college then work then probably kids, you know, the cliché. Whatever adventures happen will probably be by chance." I shrugged.

"And that's where my idea comes in," she took the book off her lap, sat up and looked at me. "What if we take a gap year and fulfill our bucket list?" She wiggled get eyebrows trying to convince me her idea was ideal.

To me the proposition didn't seem to bad, I was faced with one problem though - the gap year. I'd always seen it as a waste of time. Think about it, a whole year of your life wasted, I could have been done with freshman year. Taking a gap year for me was like adding an unnecessary year to my time of studying.

"I...don't know."

"Okay, what's on your bucket list?"

I hesitated, " nothing."

Penelope laughed, her laughter filling up the silent room and echoing of the walls. "Oh my god, you're serious," she had a straight face now. "How can you not have a bucket list? Don't you ever imagine all the insane thing you'd want to do? They don't have to be completely realistic, but you can dream. Okay, we're making one now."

And that's the first half of the story, we sat there stating ridiculous adventures, half of which we could probably die on, the other half however was fairly doable.

And number one on the list - get a detention. This one was mainly aimed at me seeing as P had received an unimaginable amount of detentions. I don't know how, but she did. And now it was my turn.

Today it happened, the first step to fulfilling my bucket list. With just a week of high school remaining I figured a detention wouldn't really affect my reputation. I broke the rules in the easiest way I knew how, being 20 minutes late for class.

The looks I got walking into that class made me regret my decision. Maybe advanced calculus wasn't the ideal class to be late for. Ms Bentley had her eyes wide with bewilderment.

"Valerie McDermott, I can not believe this. I assume you have a valid excuse for being late?" She asked.

"Well I....actually no I don't. I just...I um..." be tough, I thought to myself. Here goes nothing. "I simply didn't care for showing up on time for your class."

I had my bitch face on, the one I had practiced the day before with Penelope. I strolled over to a seat and sat down. Gasps and whispers could be heard filling the classroom.

"Valerie, I do not expect not accept this behavior from you or any student for that matter. Detention young lady. I hope you're proud of yourself." She huffed then continued with the class.
That was the first thing I had accomplished on my bucket .

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I apologize, this sucked a ton.

Suggested title: The Bucket List
Genre: Teen Fiction
Possible spin-offs: I think it would be a great idea if Val agrees to take a gap year, and then maybe Penelope has family somewhere. I'm thinking like a beach-y area. Also, maybe Val could meet someone ( I love love stories!), but if you don't want a romance you could have Val and P end up in trouble and then somehow get out of it.

I'm assuming a lot of you are wondering how any of my ideas a are going to work. Say three people fall for one idea, it will be like they're copying each other. But it won't, I believe many stories have the same basic plot, what's important is the way the plot is presented. Take the basic boy meets girl plot, it's an over used cliche but it still works because people find different ways to portray it. Every author has their personal touch and personality, that's what will make your story different and not the skeleton of it.

Back to the thinking room
-M