I observed my friend wolfing down his meal in the cafeteria. Sitting together with my friend Harry was nothing new, but despite that, I always found myself in wonder at his ability to eat. Only when the mysterious group of serial murders hunted him, did he not eat as much.

Recently, news of a group of students, and even a teacher, were imprisoned for serial murder. A kid called Neuire Moddes uncovered these mysteries, and worked himself hard to get them to be punished by the court. In that ordeal, Harry Ballman, my friend, was targeted, so he owed his life to Neuire.

Now, thanks to Neuire, I could put up with Harry’s sloppy eating habits again. Food flew from his plate, and nearly flew into my face. Who knew bread crumbs from a moist sandwich could fly so far?

“So then, you know,” Harry continued his story in between his vicious scarfing down of food, “I asked the guy about the time, but he pulled off that ridiculous line!”

Again, food flew towards my face, which I had to dodge. If only I had a reason to get away from this guy…

“He told me to get a watch, but I didn’t have the kind of money for that, you know?” Harry bit down on his food, and spoke with a full mouth, “Ab ich’s amouin’!”

I couldn’t even tell what he said with that last line, it sounded like a foreign language to me. Really, this guy didn’t know his manners. Desperately, I searched my brain for a reason to leave the table.

Just then, a memory came to me. A certain line from a specific friend replayed in my head, giving me both relief and fear.

“It’s okay,” she had said, “I’ll just take out some time from your lunch time later.”

My escape route has been planned! Though, seeing as she would be cramming in lessons from yesterday into our study session, the chance of me escaping this warzone into another, more threatening battlefield stood over me.

“And then,” Harry continued his story, spewing even more breadcrumbs onto the table, “the dude just left, leaving me not knowing the time.”

The decision had been decided, no more breadcrumbs for me, I’m leaving.

“Hey, so,” I interrupted, wrapping up my food, “I just realized that I needed to do something, I’ll see you in class later, all right?”

“Oh, I can come help you if you want,” Harry started standing as I did, “what did you need to do?”

Not wanting him to follow me into the library, I stopped him with, “Ah, it’s nothing, it’s nothing. You can keep eating, there’s no reason to follow.”

“Come on,” he replied, “I’m your friend, let me help.”

Harry’s kindness was the only quality that saved him from his poor eating habits. He had so much of it, that it outweighed his poor manners and made him a good friend. Still, I had a sneaky suspicion that he would misunderstand my relationship with Itra. She was just a friend, and a good tutor, but Harry’s personality suggested that he’d read our association in the wrong manner.

“It’s really okay,” I averted my gaze, “in fact, it’ll probably be easier if you didn’t come…”

“Well alright then,” Harry settled down, “I’ll just stay here then, have fun!”

“I sure hope I will,” I muttered back.

I quickly raced myself through the monotonously gray walls of the halls, bringing myself to the sealed away library of the school. I had my school bag slung over my shoulder, as I entered the quiet school library. I passed by the wooden shelves, treading upon the carpeted floor, and I arrived at the scene of our study area. There sat Itra, already prepared for my lesson.

“You’re late,” Itra scolded, “what took you so long?”

“I uh,” I looked to the side, “I may have forgotten about this…”

A sigh escaped Itra’s lips, as she gestured for me to sit, “we might need to bring you back in here for tomorrow’s lunch.”

As I sat down, I pointed out, “But tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“Oh right,” Itra deadpanned, “I guess we’ll just have to wait until Monday then…”

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“Actually,” I decided to suggest something, “how about we meet on the weekend?”

“The weekend?” Itra tilted her head, “I’m busy on Saturday, but if you’re willing to meet on Sunday…”

“Let’s do that,” I replied, “where should we meet?”

“Maybe the public library?” Itra offered, “It’ll be quiet like here.”

“How about the park,” I countered, “you could do more writing activities there.”

“Huh, I guess you’re right,” Itra considered the idea, “Okay, Taireah Public Park it is.”

“Good! So can I go now?” I asked.

“No,” Itra slid a couple of papers in front of me, “you’re not weaseling yourself out of your work.”

I groaned, as I looked at the new papers I would have to work on. One of these papers was the one Itra had me do yesterday, and I didn’t do the other one. While I made a show of my reluctance to work, the papers Itra prepared were still very easy to understand.

“As you know, we finished off yesterday with you recreating the sentences,” Itra recounted, “now, we’ll be recreating paragraphs. I made sure to separate the sentences for you, so you can focus on one sentence at a time.”

Corresponding with her words, the paper she prepared had more sentences structured together. True to her word, the sentences that made up the paragraph were put in boxes.

“Feel free to use your work from yesterday to help you out,” Itra added, “that’s why I gave them to you.”

“Um, quick question, miss teacher,” I raised my hand in a joking manner, “Will I make my own paragraph too, like I made my own sentences yesterday?”

“We’ll save making your own paragraph tomorrow,” Itra answered, “then you can use the park as you wish.”

“Oh, all right,” I responded, then turned to the paragraph.

I counted five sentences in the paragraph, and it took up four lines. Two of the sentences were very short, and one sentence spanned two of the lines. Since that one sentence had a lot of info already, I decided to leave it alone to focus on the others.

The paragraph stated: “It was night. I attended a ball. That night, I danced with my dance partner, and we were dancing very hard, which made people notice us more, and made us very happy, which also made us think that we were on top of the world. While we danced, I got a good look at my partner’s face. She was smiling very much, and that made me happy.”

First off, I started from the beginning, the shortest sentence of the few. I corrected it to “It was a shrouded night.” Then, I rephrased the second sentence to, “I casually attended a glamorous ball.” With that, I ignored the third sentence and moved to the fourth sentence and turned it into, “As we danced, I got a good view of my partner’s pretty face.” And finally, I replaced the fifth sentence with, “She smiled very much, and that filled my heart with happiness.”

Finished with my work, I smugly passed the corrected paragraph to Itra, who read over it. A wincing look plastered over her face, as she looked through my paper before passing it back. My heart began to drop, fearing the major criticisms that were about to come.

“There’s a lot wrong with this,” Itra told me, “redo it with the idea that it’s okay to rearrange and combine sentences, then I’ll tell you more.”

Again, I began slaving away on the paragraph. The first and second sentences were very similar in my mind, so I decided to combine them into “It was a shrouded night, when I casually attended a glamorous ball.” I left the third sentence alone again due to its already large size, then I moved onto the fourth which I combined with the fifth into “As we danced, I got a good view of my partner smiling very much, and that filled my heart with happiness.”

I confidently returned the paper to Itra for her to dishearten me by saying, “...No.”

She slid the paper back to me, and gave me more advice, “You need to focus on that big sentence,” she pointed out, “just looking at it makes me annoyed and bothered.”

“R-right,” I responded, “uh, what makes it so bad?”

Itra tilted her head, “isn’t it obvious?”

As an answer, I shook my head to indicate, “no.”

Itra sighed disapprovingly, “It’s long. That’s what’s wrong.”

“Ohh,” I just barely caught on, “Now I see.”

“Good, now separate it into different sentences,” Itra instructed, “and then work with that.”

Using Itra’s advice, I turned the paragraph from its state into: “It was a shrouded night, when I casually attended a glamorous ball. That night, I danced with my dance partner. The night was intense, as we put in a lot of energy in our dance. People noticed our energy, and we basked in their attention. As we danced, I got a good view of my partner smiling very much, and that filled my heart with happiness.”

“What do I need to do now,” I asked as I slipped the paper back to Itra.

“So you acknowledge your weakness at this, good,” Itra looked over the paper, “it’s getting better, but why don’t you stop mentioning the night in separate sentences and make it into one?”

“All right, then,” I responded, “then how about…”

I took the paper back and struggled on the first sentence. After some thought, I decided to weaken the shrouded night, and I instead focused on the other sentence’s intensity, making it “One shrouded, intense night, I attended a glamorous ball with my dance partner.” Then, I decided that I would rename the dance partner, calling her “Octavia.”

“It’s looking better,” Itra commented, appearing behind me without me noticing, “Don’t use emotions to describe emotions, oh, and try to make it...transition a little bit more.”

Now the paragraph, along with the new changes, looked like this: “One shrouded, intense night, I attended a glamorous ball with Octavia. People began to notice our energetic selves, and we basked under their gazes. The image of Octavia’s jubilant face seeped into the depths of my existence, filling my heart with warm blood.”

“I like it,” Itra told me, and the bell, signalling the end of lunch, rang, “we’ll wrap it up here.”

I felt triumphant.

No, Itra told me not to use emotions to express emotion. Instead, let’s say that I walked with a pep in my step.