The website for young adult author Kate Larkindale. A place for her musings on writing, publishing and a day job in the arts sector.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Warm Fuzzies 2
Saturday, October 29, 2011
New ideas
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Progress update
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Warm Fuzzies
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Under our noses
Friday, October 21, 2011
Leave Me Breathless Blogfest
Bianca bent her head and her lips settled upon mine. They were warm and soft, slippery with lipstick. I shivered and pressed my own lips more firmly agains hers. Her mouth opened a little, and I followed, admitting her inquisitive tongue. It tickled mine, darting in and out, waltzing across my tastebuds. The flavor of wine, exotic and sour at the same time, flooded my mouth.
My heart beat a rapid tattoo through my chest. This was wrong. I should not be doing this. But I remained mesmerized, nerves I’d never noticed before singing songs of ecstasy along my spine. Kissing Jesse had been nothing like this.
She pulled away, slowly, as if surfacing from a dive. She licked her lips, smiling in satisfaction. Her lipstick, smeared now, blurred her mouth into something unrecognizable. I ran my tongue across my lips and tasted her there, spikes of electricity igniting in my belly.
“Wow…” she breathed. “You’re good.”
“Am I?” I reached for her again, wanting nothing but her mouth on mine once more.
“Yeah, you are.” She pushed me against the wall and I lost myself in her kisses.
Time held no meaning. It could have been seconds or forever before I drew back. Nothing so good could be wrong, yet my stomach writhed with guilt. “I… I should get home.” My voice was unsteady.
Bianca glanced up at the star-speckled sky and nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”
It felt completely natural when, as we walked toward the bus stop two blocks away, she slipped her hand into mine.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Too Much Information....
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Life Beyond
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Fearless Leader
FEARLESS LEADER
By Kate Larkindale
He was royalty. Exiled maybe, but royalty nonetheless. His kingdom: the stretch of High Street between Lombard and Grainge. Here he could stride proudly in his worn leather jacket emblazoned with words that made many in the neighbourhood recoil in horror. His jeans were worn, almost threadbare in places and fit him almost too well. Young girls giggled and flushed as he passed, but could not look away. His name could be found scrawled on notebooks and inside shakily drawn hearts on the walls of the high school girls’ bathroom. Best friends had come to blows over an imagined wink as he passed and a cool, blue-eyed glance was enough to keep a girl at the top of the lunch table for a week.
The younger boys hanging outside the video store watched him go by. Slouching against the wall they talked more loudly, swearing and spitting as they smoked their stolen cigarettes and tried to catch his eye. Once in a while he would select one of these kids to run an errand for him and this would subtly shift the centre of power within the ranks. They all hoped to one day be in his gang; would follow him to the death if necessary. Older ladies clutched their purses tight to their chest as he passed. Mothers dragged their daughters to the far side of the street as he approached. These were the same daughters who sighed his name as they went to sleep at night and secretly scribbled his name with their own on hastily crumpled slips of paper.
He seemed all confidence, his proud swagger down High Street reflecting his belief in his ownership of this stretch of the city. But it had been a long battle and it showed. The piercing blue eyes were shadowed and suspicious. This was a man who trusted no one and allowed nobody to get close to him. Like ancient emperors he expected assassination to come from any direction. Even his gang, the chosen few, were kept at arms length. The tests he set for anyone foolhardy enough to want to be in his gang were gruelling and often dangerous. You could not be frivolous about your desire to be in his royal posse; many had tried and failed. Others wore scars proudly, their badges of honour, their medals, their decorations for services rendered.
So who was this local deity? Underneath the shabby leather jacket that labelled him leader he was nothing, a tall, skinny kid with greasy, too-long hair. He could not honestly be called handsome. His features were too large for that. Eyes too big and a little too close together, nose just slightly too pointed, his mouth overly generous. His shoulders were broad but the arms that hung from them were long and thin. His strength took enemies by surprise. He looked as if a strong breeze would snap him in two, but he was wiry and used his frail appearance to his advantage. He would hang back when fights broke out, let his henchmen enter the fray first as if they were there to protect him, then strike when the others were not expecting it. It was this strategy that had won him his little patch of turf.
He lounged fearlessly on the bench in front of the post office, some of his gang reclining on the grass nearby, soaking up the last of the autumn sun. A gaggle of high school girls straggled by, slowing their steps and flipping their hair to get his attention. One of them did, but only because she did not giggle or wink or toss her perfectly groomed hair in his direction. She walked with her head down, ignoring both the boys and the girls she appeared to be with. He slid off the bench in one cat-like motion and was walking beside her before the others even realised he’d moved. She glanced up as she saw the booted feet fall into step with her own. He grinned at her, a crooked, mischievous grin that she could not help but return. He leaned down and whispered something into her ear. Shaking her head she clutched her books closer to her chest and hurried to catch up with her friends. He laughed heartily as he sloped back to the bench and the congratulatory hand shakes of his gang.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Pay It Forward
But don't stop there! Certainly visit and follow all the blogs that are featured in people's posts the day of the blogfest, but those don't have to be the only blogs you visit. You can visit everyone who enters in on the fun, and signs up on the linky list. In the interest of time you don't even have to leave comment. You can just follow, and come back another time. After all, we all know we don't have time to visit every blog we enjoy every single day."
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Critique or Glowing Praise?
Monday, October 10, 2011
Coincidence or awareness?
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Disappointment
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Revision update
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Things that make me smile
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Hated Lunch
HATED LUNCH
“I hate celery!” Maggie stated. “Loathe it. Detest it! Abhor it!”
Her mother sighed, not even turning around to look at her. “You’re always so dramatic, Maggie.” She continued packing her daughter’s lunchbox, ignoring the impassioned outburst against that particular vegetable. Maggie’s likes and dislikes changed almost daily, and she’d given up trying to keep track of them. If Maggie was hungry, she’d eat her lunch.
“I won’t eat it,” Maggie declared, stamping her foot on the scratched linoleum.
“Fine. Don’t.” The lunchbox slammed shut with a metallic clang.
All the way to school, Maggie fumed. Didn’t her mother care about her? If she cared she wouldn’t be filling her lunchbox with such poison. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled the offending lunchbox from her backpack. She opened it and saw the package of celery sticks wrapped in plastic just sitting there, in between the ham sandwich and the tiny package of rice crackers. Maggie made a face as she pulled the offending vegetables from the box, ready to fling them into the bushes and out of sight.
Maggie hesitated, her arm still raised to toss the plastic-wrapped things away. She turned and found no one in sight. Pursing her lips suspiciously, she gave another quick glance around then chucked her celery into the holly at the side of the road. She shoved her lunchbox back into her bag and ran, hoping she wouldn’t be late.
When the bell rang, signalling morning break, Maggie dove into her lunchbox. Without looking she rummaged around, hand closing over a small plastic-wrapped parcel. Her face crumpled in confusion as she pulled out the same package of celery sticks she’d thrown into the bushes on her way to school.
“How…?” she muttered to herself. Checking that nobody saw her, she buried the celery in the nearest trashcan before running out to play in the playground.
How had the celery gotten into her lunchbox again? That was the question that whirled around Maggie’s head throughout the rest of the morning. She barely heard the teacher as she explained the intricacies of dividing fractions. Maybe she hadn’t really thrown them away at all. Perhaps she’d imagined that, had some kind of vivid daydream. But Maggie knew this wasn’t true. She could remember tossing the package into the bushes, recalled hearing the swishing sound it made as it tumbled through the branches before becoming lodged somewhere deep in the prickly plant. Thoughts whirled through her mind, nothing to do with division or fractions, but no answers were forthcoming.
At lunch, Maggie was slow to open her lunchbox. And when she did, an unpleasant surprise awaited her. There, entombed neatly in plastic wrap, were the celery sticks. They were back where they had always been: nestled between sandwich and crackers, seeming to smile innocently up at her.
“What!” Maggie shoved her chair back from her desk and stood up, staring at her lunch in horror. “How…?”
She ran to the back of the room and dug through the trash in the trashcan, certain she’d uncover the celery she’d thrown away at break time. But there was nothing but crumpled tissues, several plastic sandwich bags and a few browning apple cores. After washing her hands in the sink, Maggie returned to her seat where she glared at the vegetables, hatred burning from her dark blue eyes. Pointedly ignoring them, she ate the rest of her lunch, then took the package of celery out to the playground.
Behind the jungle gym was a small stand of pine trees. Using her yellow plastic ruler to help dig, Maggie scratched a small hole into the soft soil under the tallest tree. When it was about five inches deep, she deposited the celery into the hole and hurriedly covered it with dirt, stamping it firmly down and scattering pine needles on top of it.
“There!” she said defiantly. “Let’s see you get out of that!”
Maggie walked home slowly, stopping at the holly-hedge to see if she could see the celery still suspended somewhere in its length. She was not surprised when she didn’t and trudged the rest of the way home.
“Maggie?” her mother’s voice drifted down the stairs to her, “Is that you?”
“Yes, Mom. It’s me.” Maggie tossed her backpack into a corner and kicked off her shoes as her mother came into the hallway.
“How was school?”
“Okay, I guess.” Maggie shrugged and sloped off towards the kitchen. Her mother followed, finding her in front of the fridge, searching for a snack.
“Did you eat your lunch?” she asked, shaking the lunchbox that she’d excavated from Maggie’s backpack.
“Yes,” was Maggie’s sullen reply.
“I don’t think so….” Maggies mother heard something rattling within the lunchbox and opened it, pulling out the celery sticks. “Here, eat these. Then you can have something else if you’re still hungry.”
Maggie threw herself down into a chair at the kitchen table, a look of defeat crossing her face as she unwrapped the plastic and bit into the first of six celery sticks.
835 words
Let me know what you think, okay?