“You’d better finish those paragraphs fast,” Itra told me, “you have ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?!” I shrieked, “How will I be able to do that so fast!?”

“Mind your tone,” Itra reprimanded, “we’re in a library.”

True, we were in a library, but no one else sat here but us. The empty corridors made the place look almost haunted, and the only signs of humanity within this labyrinth of books were Itra and me. Earlier, Itra informed me that the librarian took her leave, and only we were allowed in. I didn’t understand how she gained such favor with the teacher to be trusted in here alone, but it proved helpful for our study session.

“We might be in a library, but we’re all alone,” I pointed out, “whose work are we bothering by being too loud?”

“Yours,” Itra answered, “being quiet contributes to the calm atmosphere of studying.”

“Well, I guess,” I mumbled in response, “fine, I’ll be more quiet.”

“How tame of you,” Itra commented, “are you not going to argue more?”

“I’ve lost my fire,” I replied, “this one girl cut in front of me at lunch, and my fire’s burnt out since then.”

“That sounds interesting, why don’t you write about it here?” Itra slipped a paper in front of me, “Three more paragraphs, Illate, the clock is ticking, you have eight minutes and seventeen seconds left.”

“Wait, the countdown already started!?” I nearly jumped out of my seat, “Oh, right, my voice, I’ll keep it low.”

I snatched the paper Itra provided and reached to grab my pencil in haste. Meanwhile, Itra started to read through the other two paragraphs I had prepared beforehand. Her head nodded along pleasantly, meaning that I hadn’t done too poorly on them.

My hand began to ache in pain, as I held my pencil with an overabundance of pressure. Still that pressure did not match with the one Itra had put me under. Instead of quality, my detailed paragraphs were focused on quantity, which hurt the image of my skill.

With two minutes and twenty-five seconds remaining, I slammed my pencil down and shouted, “I’ve finished!”

Immediately, Itra went, “Shush,” in response to my obnoxious noise.

“Sorry,” I apologized, “but, I’m done, it’s all ready to check.”

“Okay, hand it here,” Itra instructed, “we’ll be going over your first paragraph.”

Obliging, I handed my three paragraphs to Itra. She then turned my laptop around to show the digital comments she made on it. Against my original expectations, Itra commented five times. I only readied myself to read one or two responses.

Itra rounded the table and positioned herself right beside me. She dragged back one of the chairs to my left and sat herself on it. Her light-brown hair swayed back and forth, revealing and concealing her blue eyes to me.

“First of all, let’s look at this,” Itra put my attention to the first comment she made, “It’s well made, but you should probably fix up the fact that you implied that the stars gave the sailors their position. Plus, you say, ‘only one,’ but that’s not specific, though I see where you were going..”

I reread my paragraph that stated: “In the starry sky, only one gave us the necessary position needed for us sailors to find our way. Though the many stars may act to drown out its light, a set of them act together in the effort to make our guiding star more noticeable. Because of its help, our guiding star will never be forgotten.”

Indeed, I really did make it sound like the star gave the sailors their “necessary position.” I also made the mistake of calling a star a “one.” So, I quickly began making changes. The first sentence transformed into “In the starry sky, only one star held the necessary position that us sailors used to find our way.”

Before I could even tell her I finished, Itra corrected, “‘we sailors,’ not ‘us,’ and make sure you change the set of stars to ‘acts,’ rather than ‘act,’ for the verb to match the noun.”

Defeated, I moved the cursor to correct my blunder.

The shame must have shown on my face, because Itra added, “It’s a common mistake, don’t worry.”

Still, that did little to lighten my mood. I still had comments to resolve, so I began working on the paragraph again. The comments I worked against stated, “distinguish the set of stars making the guiding star more noticeable,” and “watch out for redundant words, ‘stars’ is already plural, so the ‘many’ doesn’t do anything.” The other two comments informed me of the confusion of the last sentence and some ways to improve it.

Following that advice, I rewrote the paragraph into: “In the starry sky, only one star held the necessary position that we sailors used to find our way. Though the stars may act to drown our star’s light, another set of stars acts together in effort to make our guiding star even harder to lose track of. Because of those stars, our guiding star will never lose its noticeability.”

“Good,” Itra clicked to the next paragraph, “now this one.”

“For every second that passes, a mistake is made. Each and every day, mistakes happen all the time, yet still, I continue to press myself for even the smallest of my blunders. Again and again, like the waves that crash on the shore, I put myself down for my follies. Now, it’s time for me to put myself up for my successes.” my second paragraph said.

“My main problem with this, Illate, is that fact that it’s not what I asked for,” Itra reviewed, “This is inner dialogue, not a descriptive paragraph.”

“Oh, whoops,” I put my head down, in shame, “I guess I’ll need to make another paragraph…”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Itra soothed, “we can use it for our next topic. For now, we’ll focus on your third paragraph.”

Itra took the sheet I handed her earlier, “Hmm,” she hummed, “this would help with our new topic too, in fact, it kind of combines them since it’s more like a story.”

In my rush, I accidentally wrote the hastily put together paragraphs as I would have done with my recounting. Of course, I didn’t have the time to pay attention to what I actually wrote down, so its quality went down far.

“Not too long ago, a myriad of events took place. While in the large open cafeteria of Taireah High School, I patiently waited in line for the chance to receive my tray from the lunch ladies, when a short, blond-haired girl strode in front of me. Too much time had passed, and my hunger fueled a rage in me.”

To my horror, Itra read my first paragraph out loud, and moved on to the second, “Standing my ground, I gave it my all to show this girl how furious she made me, but her stubbornness prevailed. It hurt to be shot down so hard by a student, and I resigned in defeat. My lunch came to me seconds late.”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

For some reason, Itra became absorbed into reading the set of paragraphs I read, as she finished off reading, “To my surprise, another girl stepped in with kindness. After seeing my futile struggle against the bully, she offered to pay for my food. My heart lifted from its despair, and I strode back to my seat with pride, only to find the offender from earlier ready to pounce.”

Itra set the paper down, turned, and faced me. An unexpected look of concern occupied her face, with furrowed eyebrows and her lips pressed together acting in unison.

“First off…good job, you’ve got me engaged,” Itra offered, “now tell me, what exactly happened?”

“It’s a bit complicated,” I told her, “b-but it’s not important, let’s continue on with the lesson, please?”

“...As you wish,” Itra turned her attention back to my assignment, “first off, you say a myriad of events, but I only see three, maybe you have more to share?”

I peered over to the paper, making sure I knew what she commented on, and answered, “I guess you’re right, it wasn’t exactly a lot of events.”

“M-hm, and then,” Itra pointed to the next sentence, “isn’t this a bit too long? Maybe you can fit this first section into the first sentence?”

“I think you’re right,” I nodded, “then I can get rid of the ‘while.’”

“Also,” Itra moved my attention to the second sentence, “patiently is an adverb, and I may not have said this before, but try not to use adverbs too much and let the verbs speak for themselves. That way, your sentences are nicer to read.”

“Got it, reduce adverb usage,” I noted, “what next?”

“You used an emotion again,” Itra showed, “try and replace that with something better, like you did last time.”

“Okay, replace rage,” I repeated to myself, “what kind of things do enraged people do?”

“Well for me, my breathing gets shaky and I kind of tremble,” Itra answered, “but I don’t know about you, I’ve never seen you angry before.”

“For me…” I tried to imagine myself angry, “it’s either out of fear or a grudge,” I explained, “so I’m either shaking with tears in my eyes, or silently plotting my enemy’s demise…”

“Which type did you experience in the lunch line?” Itra asked, “Your fear one or your grudge one?”

“I think I felt more fear than anything else there,” I responded, “my knees were going weak, and I could barely stand my ground against Gentrei.”

“So the bully’s name is Gentrei, hm?” Itra took note of the name of my offender with a grim look in her eyes, “Well, anyways, you have your answer for what to replace that rage with. Now, let’s move on.”

“R-right,” I quickly glanced to the side, breaking away from the fearsome glint in Itra’s eyes, “what’s the next thing I should fix?”

Itra shifted my gaze to the second paragraph, “You used an emotion again, which can be okay, but avoid it, emotions aren’t pictures, they’re abstract.”

“I guess you’re right,” I mumbled, “they don’t exactly paint a good picture… unless you’re into abstract art…”

“Hey, watch what you say,” Itra warned, “don’t put your paragraph on the level of abstract art, some people might view that as an insult.”

“I-is that how bad using emotions in a paragraph is!?” I recoiled, “Even a splatter of paint is better than it…?”

“That’s correct,” Itra responded, “At least you see something when you look at abstract art, compared to you using a feeling as a descriptive word.”

“I’ve never thought about it that way,” I muttered, “I really have a long way to go…”

“Yes, and now tell me,” Itra continued, dissecting my first sentence in the second paragraph, “how can stubbornness prevail, and what can it prevail against? Your emotion of fury?”

“Oh, uh,” I couldn’t argue, “I guess I’ll need to work on that too…”

“Correct,” Itra agreed, “now taking a look at this second sentence, what’s the point of saying you resigned in defeat? Does ‘in defeat’ do anything in the sentence? And what hurt? How’d you get shot down?”

Each criticism Itra shot pierced a hole into my chest. She had me under fire, and me over a burning fire as well. Perhaps not literally, but each correction stung; like alcohol to a wound, it only hurts with the intention to heal.

Deciding that I had nothing to say to that, Itra went on, “Next you used ‘kindness’ in your third paragraph, but I think that it can stay. Lifting your heart from despair uses an emotion, but your heart’s not actually lifting anyways, so that could also stay...now in the last part, you use another emotion, pride, which you might want to replace.”

I groaned, with all of the different modifications Itra threw at me. There was just too much to work with, and an unsettling fuzzy feeling buzzed in my stomach. My head met with the table, in my exhaustion, I placed it there.

Itra’s voice softened, as she regulated her tone to match my response, “Take it one step at a time, there’s nothing wrong with doing bad, okay? We’re here to learn, not dwell on failures.”

“R-right,” I peeked up from the desk to gaze upon Itra, who resembled the image of a caring mother, “Okay, I’m ready to start editing it then.”

“Good,” Itra flashed me a brief smile, “Now get working.”

Motivated to do more, energy flowed throughout my body. I grabbed the paper and began rewriting the paper with Itra’s advice in mind. This time, I didn’t have a time limit, but I still flowed through the paper hastily.

As I acted as a scribe for my thoughts, I caught a glimpse of Itra placing her elbow on the table, leaning her cheek against her palm. Her move almost distracted me, but I quickly averted my attention to my work.

My first paragraph morphed into “Not too long ago, a dissatisfying set of events took place in the large, open cafeteria of Taireah High School. I patiently waited in line for the chance to receive my tray of food from the lunch ladies, when a short, blond-haired girl strode in front of me. With all the time I spent in that line, combined with the many minutes I spent standing around, and the hunger that ramped up with time, I felt myself beginning to shake in anger.”

“You’re doing well,” Itra observed, “keep it going.”

Itra fueled my inspiration, and I finished the second paragraph in record time with: “Standing my ground, I gave it my all to expose the blond-haired girl’s rudeness, but she remained stubborn, and stayed unmoving at my defense. She then shot me down with her words, causing me to resign the conflict between us. My lunch came to me later than originally planned.”

This time, Itra stayed silent when I finished. I didn’t know what to think of that, but I assumed that she either had a correction, or that she became drawn in by my writing. Of course, I seriously doubted the latter, so I prepared my mind for the former choice.

“Against my expectations, another girl stepped in with an uplifting proposal. After seeing my struggle against the bully from earlier, she offered to pay for my lunch. At first I refused, but she persisted, and I ended up gaining a debt to her. Still, my heart lifted from its gloom, and I strode back to my seat, only to find the offender there, ready to pounce.”

Instead of knowledgeable remarks, only silence came from my left. I’d expected for Itra to begin moving on with the lesson like usual, but she remained quiet. Only her breathing sounded from her mouth, and when I turned to face her, I learned why.

Itra fell asleep!

Quickly, my heart rate spiked, but I remembered that I had experience in this situation now. The last time Itra slept like this, she told me to wake her up next time. When I didn’t, she got angry at me and even scheduled a lunch meeting out of spite. Then, we had to go to the park because I worked too slowly, but that offer hinged more on her kindness rather than a grievance from me.

So, I decided that I would do as she told me before. I’d wake her up this time, this way, I wouldn’t get in trouble. She wouldn’t get angry again, nope, she’d be thankful. Or, that’s what I thought. Apparently...Itra gets cranky.

“Ugh…” Itra groaned, “So tired…”

Itra’s demeanor inspired fear from the depths of my heart. I had the desperate urge to flee, but I still had to get our study session finished.

“Illate…” Itra then moved her gaze directly onto me, “are you done?”

Surprisingly, Itra’s facial expression morphed into a milky calm. The dangerous dark look in her eyes mysteriously disappeared, leaving only the Itra I knew.

“Ah, okay, this is good,” Itra drowsily looked over my paper, “I think we’ll continue more tomorrow…”

A yawn escaped Itra’s mouth, and she circled back to her spot at the table to pick up her stuff. She moved like a sloth, picking up her stuff and slowly slipping them into her bag. I too began stuffing my belongings into my own bag, but I finished before her by an astounding amount of time.

Watching her take her time with her things made me want to get her to pick up her pace, so I offered to help her with, “Here, allow me,” and I proceeded to quickly gather things together and hand her one stack of items.

“Oh, thanks,” Itra retrieved the stack from me, then placed it in her bag, “I’ll see you tomorrow now, I need to lock the library up.”

“Okay then,” I waved to her, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Then, we went our separate ways for the day.