[WorldWarCheese]

Synopsis: Chapter Two to "Untitled: Chapter One". Basically, Phil meets the girl who gives birth to Bob... sorta

The other story: http://www.storiesmania.net/communit...ad.php?t=11690

Meet the Mommy or
The First Flashback or
Conception of a Baby (Just puttin' it out there)

She was the most beautiful person, creature, thing, whatever he had ever seen in his entire life. Though at that moment no words could describe what he saw aside from “Bea-u-ti-ful” in later years and lives he would think back to that day and find a myriad of ways to describe both her and the feeling she caused inside of him when he saw her sitting on that tree-branch.

Just to name one of many:

Imagine a sunrise, for a sunset could not possibly capture the enormous potential and rising grace that could only grow, a sunrise so spectacular and bright it is hard to look straight at for if you did your eyes would burn with the intensity of the glow. A sunrise unlike any other. Not just the shining golden-yellow or blood red, or glowing orange of most, but one of purely unique beauty seen once in a lifetime that took all previous sunrises and perfected their shades and hues into a color so remarkable even the most studious of artists, painters and curtain-designers could not find its clerical definition.

Where the clouds, sky, earth and trees all acted to enhance the inner brilliance of the sun, instead of blocking it and managed to create such a perfect picture of natural glory that it seemed both as if it could never be taken away or destroyed and at the same time so ephemeral as a light summer’s breeze could blow it all away never to be seen on Earth again.

She was perfect. That he knew.

He had always known of romanticism, romantics, and romance itself and believed whole-heartedly in the entire collective that those three words come to symbolize, but he believed in it much in he same way he believed in Godly Miracles, in the Rare Chances, in the Red Sox winning the World Series: That it was always for someone else, and for some other time. And to a point he was, and is, still right on that issue. But the feeling of love at first sight, of the ultimate romantic’s cliché, of everything that’s ever comprised a Disney Cartoon to a Fairy Tale Bedtime Story hit him full tilt in the chest. It nearly knocked the breath from his lungs for good if he didn’t have youth and a healthy intercostals muscle system.

He loved her. That he knew.

But I am getting slightly ahead of myself. Where is he? Who is she? And what time and age are we even in at this very chapter, if this clustering of long words, alliterations and attempted humor and wit can be truly called a chapter. A footnote in a true story who, when done, would join the pantheon of stories around the world ever made. From Tolkein to King such an august companionship must scorn my pitiful tak-tak-ings of the keyboard and simple verbiage I vainly try to use to whatever abilities I may have once possessed. Well… at least I’m better than Nora Roberts. (I am better than Nora Robert right? RIGHT????)

Phil, for he still is the main character of this little travesty of ours, is sixteen, going on seventeen, and in a summer camp. No, the Sox still haven’t won the Series and Phil still hasn’t started his off-and-on battle with binge drinking quite yet. He’s a happier boy, innocent and still slightly fat but regular games of tennis with his father keep most of it off for the moment.

This camp is called Jesus Camp or at least that’s what everyone there called it, and to Phil’s knowledge it still exists and goes on happy as ever. He even thinks sometimes of returning and a counselor. It’s a camp for young Catholic boys and girls to get together and help the community. It will, and obviously just has, changed Phil’s life more than any single event, icon, or action ever has or will.

And before I go any further I will lay the general scenery of the locale on which Jesus Camp has made its headquarters.

It is a large and magnificent building. What once was white is still white, but frayed at the edges, each panel of the wooden shingling on the sides of this giant boxed behemoth and the two columns on either side of the front door, which itself is probably large enough to host an entire termite colony alone, date back to some Victorian Era when it was in fashion to make a wooden structure seem made of mortar and marble that would require such a prestigious form of holding up a roof. The roof itself was slanted more than one’s average Victorian Mansion, a throwback to the times and countryside where it is made for New England snows do not look kindly on the flat roof or the daintily built.

A long graveled driveway runs from what might once have been a busy highway straight to the front door.

All around there are gardens. Gardens hemmed by tall ad august pines. Pines protecting the inner sanctuary of peace, tranquility and faux-nature which the slightly slanted hill leading off the back patio of the Manor (for such is the name of the building just described) holds for all who make it inside. The “backyard” (larger than any yard I’ve ever seen) sloped down, with dotted smaller, gentler trees and bushes all the way to a long boxed building called aptly “The Servant’s Quarters” which was as bare as the decadent golden, red, and stained wood furnishings of the Manor were brilliant and overwhelming.

There is more to speak on that place, the Manor and Garden in particular, but I have neither the time nor patience to continue describing things versus people and plants versus mammals.

Phil had landed here by chance or fate as he would later call it, without the giggly half-disbelief in anything so surreal and serious that other teens and children might fall to when using the word, thrust by the whimsical nature of his boyhood freedom of summer, mother’s urging, and the fact that he was an Alter Server of the fine and able St Cecelia’s Parish and that all Alter Servers of the fine and able St Cecelia’s Parish came here of which, alter servers that is, he is the last, or rather, the only one of age to attend.

Lonely, being dropped off by yourself from a priest who quickly leaves and where most people around you are grouped into cliques of friends from the same town or parish does not generally lend one to go instantly seeking friends, at least that is, if you’re Phil and very, very afraid, Phil sat on the white-stoned steps of the patio leading to the Garden with is chin in his hands, already wishing for the week to be over with.

He stared, nearly blankly out, over the blue, cloud-dotted sky, over the green, well kept grass, on the various clusters of what would come to be one of Jesus Camp’s largest groups (nearly 250 people), and finally on a tree.

Phil loved trees. He loved them a lot. He liked sitting under them, swinging from them, looking at them, drawing them, but most of all climbing on them. He could climb for hours if a slight fear of death didn’t keep him from reaching any section where the trunk is thinner than he is. He loved climbing to a shaded branch, hunkering down, and feeling tall and protected as the world passed by below, unaware of his heightened status and life-smelling (for a tree’s scent can only be described as the smell of life itself) situation.

This tree was perfect. So tall that it reached nearly two stories, his favorite height, and the branches were long and wide, with thick, dark foliage and an obvious borrow or animal hole of some-sort in the base that would make the perfect stepping block to the lowest branches.

He yearned to sit in that tree. To feel safe, to feel free and to feel like himself again. However, there was one problem. Phil was fearful of what people would think of a boy who climbed trees to feel free while barefoot. Phil hates shoes. He is, was, and most likely always will be afraid of ostracizing himself from society, from people for Phil knew he was different. From being barefoot 90% of the time outdoors to the types of music and activities he liked. He was a geek who was afraid of being one.

In any case, his personal misgivings about a leafy ascension were ended, then immediately wiped from his memory when he got closer to the tree.

For there, in the wedge of the two branches he felt were the best to try and sit on was her.

The description you already read, but to bring you back to that moment, without you having to go back a whole page and a half or so, you lazy jerks, I will just restate how seeing her sitting there (Barefoot, I might add) in his perfect spot, with her perfect everything suddenly made this the most beautiful day in the most beautiful age and the most beautiful spot in the world and all world’s histories. It was really all he could do to keep from running up to her, springing up the tree like a squirrel on steroids and giving her that first kiss that to this day he’s not yet given (and by this day, I do mean that cold, wintry, and somewhat pink day in Chapter Seconds).

He walked, slowly. Not quite stepping, but plodding. Not quite plodding, but simply dragging his feet. The bare tops of his toes, he was barefoot, brushed the black Earth beneath the green, healthy, almost shimmering grass leaving small trains of indented lawn in two perfect, parallel lines to the tree and to who he named “The Girl” for he knew not her name and she, being the most perfect girl he’d ever seen, became the being/entity/whatever with which that word now became associated with.

Slowly he made his progress, not wanting to draw attention to himself. Afraid of what she might say even though he already knew, and rightly so, that she had the sweetest voice and disposition of what he might say (something stupid, for shore) and what would ultimately happen he was not even halfway to the final destined point when:

“CAMPERS! Please direct your attention to the Manor!”

Phil turned and looked up to the top of the marble stairs with the rest of the teens on the green. Squinting slightly under the bright sun to see who had called his attention away from Girl and Tree and why they had chosen such a perfectly in-opportune time to do so.

He stood there in perfect black shirt and pants with the Faith’s own particular little white choke collar around his neck; a tall, broad man with wrinkled face, fatherly expression and receding and thinning gray hair was Father Jonathan.

“HELLO CAMPERS!”

“HELLO, FATHER!”

“MAY THE LORD BE WITH YOU!”

“AND ALSO WITH YOU”

I guess some people have been here before… Phil quietly thought to himself sarcastically as all of a sudden a feeling of lost and small, like a giant whale had just eaten him and he was stranded in its belly (purposeful religious analogy, or just pure chance? I’ll let you decide) about to be carried wherever it went and then crapped out at some unknown future destination swept over him.

“I am Father Jonathan! I am the camps director and spiritual leader. For the next two weeks-“

“Shit, that’s a long time.” Phil just realized-

“I’d like you to think of me as your friend, but also a guide through the world of modern Christianity and through the paths that will take us to our futures (A little heavy for a summer camp… but he does have to wear a choke collar all day so maybe his brain just needs more oxygen). We have gathered here to begin to help our fellow man, to learn about Jesus and most importantly, to begin out futures as the Next Generation of the Catholic Church.”

“For the next fourteen days you will be given various missions out into the surrounding towns to give aid to the missionaries, hospitals, charities and farms. You will learn to look inside yourself for spiritual depth and to deal with the changing times and lifestyles that we all must face.

“It looks like a good year and an even better group of campers and I hope we can all have a fun time and come out of this with something worthwhile (Oh, how telling those words will come to be…). You will now meet up with your assigned small groups by the stairs here and get to meet your individual group leaders and other members.”

Phil, more than a little annoyed with all the pomp and circumstance that had to happen at that very moment (If there was a God, he sure enjoyed using his Thugs In Black to botch up chances of Phil ever going through life smoothly) had to double take when he turned back around. She wasn’t there! Sometime during that now labeled “Most Poorly Timed Thing On Planet” Tree Girl had snuck down from the branches of the tree and wandered off.
Phil looked frantically for her. Where could she have gone? Everyone’s still outside?

No longer dragging his feet, he left small indents in the Earth with his bare heels as he speed-walked his way in a small circle on the inside of the Garden. He had no time to look tho’, he was quickly becoming the last person wandering in circles looking like they were chickens with their heads cut off as the rest of the congregation gathered into their groups. The noise of teenage chatter, mixed with that of the more authoritative adult speech began again in earnest as parties formed up and ran through the little ritual of repeated “Hi! My name is's" until everyone could at least pretend to know the other people well enough to get through the day so they can collect their thoughts in privacy and quiet.

Finally, when the line of people who had been standing in the back was making it quickly passed him onto the steps, did Phil move with reluctance away from the tree. Not wanting to be the last and thus even lonelier, even lonely he was before, he jugged past the last dozen or so people to the gathering place.

Looking around again, both for Her and for his group, he found the latter first and made his way to a small section of kids next to two adults holding up a sign that read “Group POWER 9”. If he hadn’t been so distracted by the feeling of loss from not being able to find The Girl he would have found the sign uncontrollably funny and awesome. He later did find it so later when the group brought the sign back for other activities, so no reason to feel bad over lost comedy.

Even if it weren’t for the missing Girl, Phil would undoubtedly have been overwhelmed anyways by the magnitude of the speech, the booming yells, the mad rush to the steps and the crush of a hundred teens trying to find out where they should be in a place that was designed with the original intention of having maybe two dozen high class lords and ladies of old New England sip champagne and eat caviar while going over the later gossip about “The War”, The Civil War, and how ghastly the whole ordeal was. I mean, just last week one of The Company’s ships was assaulted off Virginia Bay and nearly all the new dressed for The Madam were wetted with salt water! Which we all know simply ruins the colors of Indian silk gowns. While the private orchestra quietly hummed and strummed the latest of overseas classic.

Actually, it was probably a good thing that Phil had found, then lost, his true love in those ten minutes for it allowed him a sort of single-minded focus and vision that kept him from completely panicking on where he was supposed to go, what to do, or any number of silly questions a rational teenage mind (oxymoron, I know) could answer quite easily and allowed him to find his group quickly in the throng and keep him from feeling utterly exhausted and broken during his new group leader’s own little speech.

Granted, with his mind elsewhere during the speech he had to be retold it later, but this speech was of such little consequence that the only reason I add it now is that I am on page THIRTEEN and as we all know, that is a very unlucky number and I can use all the verbal volume I can get to get it over with.

“Hello, campers I-“

“HELLO, SIR!”

Even Phil would have joined in that time if his mind wasn’t still somewhere near a tree… what do you expect after the first speech?

“Ha-ha, uh… yeah, ‘Hi’. Anyway, I’m John (aka Nameless Camp Leader who looks about 40 years old with short salt and peppered hair, tan docker shorts and a colorful yellow polo tee who looks like everyone’s dad and neighbor and who’s name Phil forgot with the times and figured he had to have a simple, likable, name like John) and I’m your Group Leader. This group is called POWER NINE. Why? Because we’re POWERFUL! We’re gunna be a close family for the next couple of weeks, we’ll be closer than any of the rest of the groups and probably closer to each other than you will be to your roommate (a new term for Phil he’d figure out later). We’re gunna work together on every project and meet back at the end of every day for group discussions and just plain fun.”

If I may interject before he continues: John isn’t a bad guy. He actually seems like a nice person, the bad jokes must just be his way of getting past the nervous stage of introducing yourself to who you really fucking hope isn’t a pack of wolves just waiting to tear you a new asshole and who you are expected to lead. He, at least, had obviously not done this before.

“To my right is Young, Pretty Looking Brunette who is somewhere in her twenties who used to come here has a high schooler, she’s in college now, with a kind face and who seems both at ease being another kid in the group as well as leader of the same group of youths whose name Phil also forgot (Of course he didn’t actually say those exact lines, but it fits. She’s gunna be called “Emily”) and to my left is Aged, Grandmotherly Looking Woman with gray, permed hair and business-like dress, blouse, and face that also has a hint of soft-caring and deep affection (This one he really said… JUST KIDDING! Gotcha. We’ll call her “Anne”). They’re my two helpers and, looking to Anne, sometimes surrogate mother/boss, ha-ha, and us three are here to help. So don’t just think of us as ‘The Leaders’ but rather ‘Older Friends who can Guide us… and tell us we’re going to bed without dinners for not listening to my speech today’, just kidding, ha-ha.”.

“Any questions?”

At this time Phil had been looking out to the side of the group at the eight groups situated to the right of this one on the stairs. I’ll let you do the math to see how many groups of 9-10 make up 100 and thus what numbered groups he was looking at on a stairs ordered numerically smallest to largest going from right to left. Didn’t think you’d get a Math Word Problem in a story, did you? Well, you did, so suck it up you whiney readers and do the brainwork. Oh, and don’t feel cocky if you found this easy, the story’s early yet and Phil, in a flashback, has only had Middle School Math so far. So he didn’t notice when from the top of the stairs directly over the group came:

“Wait! Sorry! I missed that! Sorry, Hi, I was in the bathroom.”

Guess who?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[Jimbalaya]

Ok, Cheese. I gotta be honest with you again. I started to read this and then damn near fell asleep. That is not meant to be rude, but it's the truth. I didn't finish it. Couldn't really. I don't think there is anything in the beginning that catches the reader and makes him want to finish the story. This one is lacking where your others take off. The other stories have the hook in them, this one doesn't. I finally had to give it up.

My advice is to rework this from the beginning, make it hook me and I'll read it again and see what happens. Just my opinion, but I hope it helps.

[J. M. Hutson]

^agreed. I was lost from the first paragraph.

[WorldWarCheese]

First off: You two will rake in points.

Second: I thought the hook for this WAS the first chapter (The last line of it). This is Chapter Two an' all. I mean, if you can give a little more specific advice onto what you want and where you fell asleep I could rework it better, but "no hook" is a little vague to do anything about.

[Jimbalaya]

Originally Posted by WorldWarCheese

First off: You two will rake in points.

Second: I thought the hook for this WAS the first chapter (The last line of it). This is Chapter Two an' all. I mean, if you can give a little more specific advice onto what you want and where you fell asleep I could rework it better, but "no hook" is a little vague to do anything about.

I'll go through this with a fine tooth comb, and let you know what I've found...when I get the time. Hopefully Monday, and I'll get back to you.

[WorldWarCheese]

Take your time, and it's very appreciated (It took a loooooooong time for someone to get to it)

[creativeminds]

????????? I got lost half way through.. or just stopped reading on of the two. It kinda seem to jump around with nothing tieing it? anyways just my opion, but I was lost reading it, it kinda didn't go anywhere.

[jaziz69]

Hey cheese, you said you'd read my story "Missing Faces: Waiting for Eighteen" if i read this, so here i am.

I'm sorry to say i have to agree with the other guys on the part of their being nothing really in the beginning that grasped my interest and pushed me to read on; it became quite a hard read.
I realise your narrator is supposed to be kind of informal/jokey and...well....you, but i don't really think this works; you seem to lose yourself in yourself so to speak, i assume because the narrator is you. Sentences like Well… at least I’m better than Nora Roberts. (I am better than Nora Robert right? RIGHT????) may give a little giggle, but really doesn't do anything for your storytelling, and further takes the reader away from the story and the characters.

However, i think that you do have a good skill in writing, and you write really down to earth (i enjoyed the beginning bit about the sunset) however i think you have taken the narratorial voice and story construction in general here in the wrong direction; it doesn't really work. It's often disjointed and confusing which is why i think people lost interest.

It appears that you had a clear cut idea of this story in your head whilst writing it, but remember that not all readers will read with the same mind as your own (god help them if they have your mind! )

Maybe if you tried writing this story to,say, a specific genre, it may help it take shape and direction.
Never the less, you have the material here (and i don't mean from the fabric shop) to develop and work with; that's half the battle over.

Keep writing, jaziz.

P.S.I was told there would be points involved......

[WorldWarCheese]

I got lost half way through.. or just stopped reading on of the two. It kinda seem to jump around with nothing tieing it? anyways just my opion, but I was lost reading it, it kinda didn't go anywhere.

Minimum of 500 points because you really didn't give constructive criticism and noted on where I could improve, just criticized. (For shame)

Hey cheese, you said you'd read my story "Missing Faces: Waiting for Eighteen" if i read this, so here i am.

As soon as I make some more stories: Let's make this a lasting partnership for people with more focus than the jerks who can only read the short poetry sections.

I'm sorry

Don't be. If I put this on a forum for praise I'd do it in Elfwood (God I hate that circle-jerking website of goody-too-shoes-ness).

their being nothing really in the beginning that grasped my interest and pushed me to read on; it became quite a hard read.

Did you read Chapter One: Untitled? Because that's the "beginning" of sorts. This IS a chapter two after all, not a stand-alone work.

Well… at least I’m better than Nora Roberts. (I am better than Nora Robert right? RIGHT????) may give a little giggle, but really doesn't do anything for your storytelling, and further takes the reader away from the story and the characters.

THIS is what I need! THIS is why I post here! Specific advice that improves my overall writing! (Thank you, oh God thank you)

think that you do have a good skill in writing

Thanks

i enjoyed the beginning bit about the sunset)

Interesting note: My good friend used that to woo a girl he likes.

i think you have taken the narratorial voice and story construction in general here in the wrong direction; it doesn't really work. It's often disjointed and confusing which is why i think people lost interest.

Thank you for the candid advice. I won't change this story because doing so would change the story itself and make it something else, but I will "test the waters" of other narration styles to see if they like me. I won't promise change, as I fear of writing like others and not my own "style" but that does not mean your advice is not valued and will be a factor in the way my writing shapes itself later on.

It appears that you had a clear cut idea of this story in your head whilst writing it, but remember that not all readers will read with the same mind as your own

You could... say that, yes.

(god help them if they have your mind!

hehhehheh... HEH HEH HEH.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!! !

A-hem, moving on.

Maybe if you tried writing this story to,say, a specific genre, it may help it take shape and direction

What does that mean? Specific genre? Do you mean audience?

Never the less, you have the material here (and i don't mean from the fabric shop) to develop and work with; that's half the battle over.

Phew! And I was running out of ammo here.

Keep writing

Will do

P.S.I was told there would be points involved......

Normally, anything over 2,000 is restricted to First Post but this was the First Actually Helpful Post so you get 2,500

[Jimbalaya]

Ok, Cheese. I told you I would, so here goes. I'm going to give it to you how I see it because that is how I want it in my stories, and I believe you do too. Otherwise, how are we to improve?

Here we go...

Originally Posted by WorldWarCheese

Meet the Mommy or
The First Flashback or
Conception of a Baby (Just puttin' it out there) (Why is this here? This confused me, I think it is a series of titles. I recomend picking one and going with it. If people don't like you're title, tough shit. Don't give an option.)

She was the most beautiful person, creature, thing, whatever he had ever seen in his entire life. (It is obvious that she is a she and not a creature, thing, or a whatever. Listing these throws the reader off. I was thinking "Well what the hell is she?" Just a thought.)Though at that moment no words could describe what he saw aside from “Bea-u-ti-ful” (I took it that this is what the character is thinking, or his voice. Would it now be easier just to state that she was "Beautiful" whithout all the theatrics?) in later years and lives (later years and later lives? What does that mean?) he would think back to that day and find a myriad of ways to describe both her and the feeling she caused inside of him when he saw her sitting on that tree-branch.

Just to name one of many:

Imagine a sunrise, for a sunset could not possibly capture the enormous potential and rising grace that could only grow, a sunrise so spectacular and bright it is hard to look straight at for if you did your eyes would burn with the intensity of the glow. A sunrise unlike any other. Not just the shining golden-yellow or blood red, or glowing orange of most, but one of purely unique beauty seen once in a lifetime that took all previous sunrises and perfected their shades and hues into a color so remarkable even the most studious of artists, painters and curtain-designers could not find its clerical definition.

Where the clouds, sky, earth and trees all acted to enhance the inner brilliance of the sun, instead of blocking it and managed to create such a perfect picture of natural glory that it seemed both as if it could never be taken away or destroyed and at the same time so ephemeral as a light summer’s breeze could blow it all away never to be seen on Earth again.
( I think that the previous two paragraphs could be put into the same paragraph because you are continuing to describe the same subject. Also, this is where I started to go "Wha?". This is so needlessly wordy that I found myself thinking about the tuna sandwich that I had for dinner. While you are very good at describing things, the ammount of words used to do it actually takes away from it. A lot. My attention went wandering and I had to re-read it three times and actually make an effort to read it. Just saying.)
She was perfect. That he knew. (Why was she perfect? Rather than have these two lones sentences, this would be an excellent spot to introduce the "she" that you are talking about. Give me a description of her, if she is perfect, why is she so? This will help to solidify the readers stance in you're story. Give the reader a wall to cling to, something to hold them upright and make them want to keep reading.)

He had always known of romanticism, romantics, and romance itself and believed whole-heartedly in the entire collective that those three words (used in this context these words mean the same thing, no? I think this is you being wordy again.) come to symbolize, (symbolize what?) but he believed in it much in (t)he ("in the" really doesn't need to be here, the sentence reads fine without them.) same way he believed in Godly Miracles, in the Rare Chances, in the Red Sox winning the World Series: That it was always for someone else, and for some other time. And to a point he was, and is, still right on that issue. But the feeling of love at first sight, of the ultimate romantic’s cliché, of everything that’s ever comprised a Disney Cartoon to a Fairy Tale Bedtime Story hit him full tilt in the chest. It nearly knocked the breath from his lungs for good if he didn’t have youth and a healthy intercostals muscle system.

He loved her. That he knew. (I think I understand that he loved her from the very busy paragraph above. For me, it would have read just as well saying "she was perfect and he loved her.)

But I am getting slightly ahead of myself. Where is he? Who is she? And what time and age are we even in at this very chapter, if this clustering of long words, alliterations and attempted humor and wit can be truly called a chapter. (This line only serves to throw the reader again.) A footnote in a true story who (this word should be changed to "that", I think.), when done, would join the pantheon of stories around the world ever made. From Tolkein to King such an august companionship must scorn my pitiful tak-tak-ings of the keyboard and simple verbiage I vainly try to use to whatever abilities I may have once possessed. Well… at least I’m better than Nora Roberts. (I am better than Nora Robert right? RIGHT????) (The whole narration thing is ok, I guess. It is you're story, but I feel like I'm reading two seperate stories, or a screen play,in the same story, and it's mostly about the narrator to this point. You have a habit of putting things in that have no relevance to the story, or the narration. Like the last two lines of this paragraph.)

Phil, for he still is the main character of this little travesty of ours, is sixteen, going on seventeen, and in a summer camp. No, the Sox still haven’t won the Series and Phil still hasn’t started his off-and-on battle with binge drinking quite yet. He’s a happier boy, innocent and still slightly fat but regular games of tennis with his father keep most of it off for the moment. (In this paragraph, you switch to present tense, from past tense. If you did it on purpose, well done but you need to clarify that because it disrupts the flow of the reading. Or maybe the first few paragraphs of this story are a flashback of Phil's? I didn't really read it that way so if it is, again, clarify.)

This camp is called Jesus Camp or at least that’s what everyone there called it, and to Phil’s knowledge it still exists and goes on happy as ever. He even thinks sometimes of returning and a counselor. It’s a camp for young Catholic boys and girls to get together and help the community. It will, and obviously just has, changed (has it? I don't see anywhere explaining why it has changed Phil's life. If you are going to explain this later in the story, give us a "hook", something to keep us going, something that says you will explain yourself later on.) Phil’s life more than any single event, icon, or action ever has or will.

And before I go any further I will lay the general scenery of the locale on which Jesus Camp has made its headquarters. (This sentence is useless, Cheese. This only helps to tell the Narrator's story, not Phil's. It would flow better just to launch into the description of Jesus Camp. Essentially, what you are doing here is giving away to the reader what comes next. I don't think you want that because it eliminates the whole "keep the reader interested" ploy, and the reader throws his hands up and says "He's ruined it! What do I have to keep reading for?)

It is a large and magnificent building. What once was white is still white, but frayed at the edges, each panel of the wooden shingling on the sides of this giant boxed behemoth and the two columns on either side of the front door, which itself is probably large enough to host an entire termite colony alone, date back to some Victorian Era when it was in fashion to make a wooden structure seem made of mortar and marble that would require such a prestigious form of holding up a roof. The roof itself was slanted more than one’s average Victorian Mansion, a throwback to the times and countryside where it is made for New England snows do not look kindly on the flat roof or the daintily built. (A pretty good description but I think you have what it takes to make a clearer immage in the readers mind.)

A long graveled driveway runs from what might once have been a busy highway straight to the front door. (This lone sentence could probably become a part of the next paragraph.)

All around there are gardens. Gardens hemmed by tall ad august pines. Pines protecting the inner sanctuary of peace, tranquility and faux-nature which the slightly slanted hill leading off the back patio of the Manor (for such is the name of the building just described) holds for all who make it inside. The “backyard” (larger than any yard I’ve ever seen) sloped down, with dotted smaller, gentler trees and bushes all the way to a long boxed building called aptly “The Servant’s Quarters” which was as bare as the decadent golden, red, and stained wood furnishings of the Manor were brilliant and overwhelming. (Narrator, again, poking his nose in where it doesn't belong.)

There is more to speak on that place, the Manor and Garden in particular, but I have neither the time nor patience to continue describing things versus people and plants versus mammals. (No time or patience to enhance the readers enjoyment? The way this read, it's like you are telling me to stop reading, because you've stopped writing.)

Phil had landed here by chance or fate as he would later call it, without the giggly half-disbelief in anything so surreal and serious that other teens and children might fall to when using the word, thrust by the whimsical nature of his boyhood freedom of summer, mother’s urging, and the fact that he was an Alter Server of the fine and able St Cecelia’s Parish and that all Alter Servers of the fine and able St Cecelia’s Parish came here of which, alter servers that is, he is the last, or rather, the only one of age to attend.

Lonely, being dropped off by yourself from a priest who quickly leaves and where most people around you are grouped into cliques of friends from the same town or parish does not generally lend one to go instantly seeking friends, at least that is, if you’re Phil (could probably add a period here and make two sentences.) and very, very afraid, Phil (the double "very" really does nothing to enhance the readers knowledge that Phill was afraid. Maybe rework this if you make it it's own sentence: Afraid, Phill sat...) sat on the white-stoned steps of the patio leading to the Garden with is chin in his hands, already wishing for the week to be over with.

He stared, nearly (omit 'nearly' and I thing it would read better here without taking away from the scene) blankly out, (comma not needed here) over the blue, cloud-dotted sky, over the green, well kept grass, on the various clusters of what would come to be one of Jesus Camp’s largest groups (nearly 250 people), and finally on a tree.

Phil loved trees. He loved them a lot. He liked sitting under them, swinging from them, looking at them, drawing them, but most of all climbing on them. He could climb for hours if a slight fear of death didn’t keep him from reaching any section where the trunk is thinner than he is. He loved climbing to a shaded branch, hunkering down, and feeling tall and protected as the world passed by below, unaware of his heightened status and life-smelling (for a tree’s scent can only be described as the smell of life itself) situation.

This tree was perfect. So tall that it reached nearly two stories, his favorite height, and the branches were long and wide, with thick, dark foliage and an obvious borrow or animal hole of some-sort in the base that would make the perfect stepping block to the lowest branches.

He yearned to sit in that tree. To feel safe, to feel free and to feel like himself again. However, there was one problem. Phil was fearful of what people would think of a boy who climbed trees to feel free while barefoot. Phil hates shoes. He is, was, and most likely always (present, past and future tense here confuses a bit. Is this a story of Phill's past, present, or future? 'He was, and probably always would be... Something like that reads better, no?) will be afraid of ostracizing himself from society, from people for Phil knew he was different. From being barefoot 90% of the time outdoors to the types of music and activities he liked. He was a geek who was afraid of being one. (I liked this last line a lot.)

In any case, his personal misgivings about a leafy ascension were ended, then immediately wiped from his memory when he got closer to the tree.

For there, in the wedge of the two branches he felt were the best to try and sit on(,) was her. (I don't think 'her' is appropriate here, it's awkward. Might read better if you put her name in here instead, or rework the sentence a bit.)

The description you already read, but to bring you back to that moment, without you having to go back a whole page and a half or so, you lazy jerks, I will just restate how seeing her sitting there (Barefoot, I might add) in his perfect spot, with her perfect everything suddenly made this the most beautiful day in the most beautiful age and the most beautiful spot in the world and all world’s histories. It was really all he could do to keep from running up to her, springing up the tree like a squirrel on steroids and giving her that first kiss that to this day he’s not yet given (and by this day, I do mean that cold, wintry, and somewhat pink day in Chapter Seconds).

He walked, slowly. Not quite stepping, but plodding. Not quite plodding, but simply dragging his feet. The bare tops of his toes, he was barefoot, brushed the black Earth beneath the green, healthy, almost shimmering grass leaving small trains of indented lawn in two perfect, parallel lines to the tree and to who he named “The Girl” for he knew not her name and she, being the most perfect girl he’d ever seen, became the being/entity/whatever with which that word now became associated with.

Slowly he made his progress, not wanting to draw attention to himself. Afraid of what she might say even though he already knew, and rightly so, that she had the sweetest voice and disposition of what he might say (something stupid, for shore) and what would ultimately happen he was not even halfway to the final destined point when:

“CAMPERS! Please direct your attention to the Manor!”

Phil turned and looked up to the top of the marble stairs with the rest of the teens on the green. Squinting slightly under the bright sun to see who had called his attention away from Girl and Tree and why they had chosen such a perfectly in-opportune time to do so.

He stood there in perfect black shirt and pants with the Faith’s own particular little white choke collar around his neck; a tall, broad man with wrinkled face, fatherly expression and receding and thinning gray hair was Father Jonathan.

“HELLO CAMPERS!”

“HELLO, FATHER!”

“MAY THE LORD BE WITH YOU!”

“AND ALSO WITH YOU”

I guess some people have been here before… Phil quietly thought to himself sarcastically as all of a sudden a feeling of lost and small, like a giant whale had just eaten him and he was stranded in its belly (purposeful religious analogy, or just pure chance? I’ll let you decide) about to be carried wherever it went and then crapped out at some unknown future destination swept over him.

“I am Father Jonathan! I am the camps director and spiritual leader. For the next two weeks-“

“Shit, that’s a long time.” Phil just realized-

“I’d like you to think of me as your friend, but also a guide through the world of modern Christianity and through the paths that will take us to our futures (A little heavy for a summer camp… but he does have to wear a choke collar all day so maybe his brain just needs more oxygen). We have gathered here to begin to help our fellow man, to learn about Jesus and most importantly, to begin out futures as the Next Generation of the Catholic Church.”

“For the next fourteen days you will be given various missions out into the surrounding towns to give aid to the missionaries, hospitals, charities and farms. You will learn to look inside yourself for spiritual depth and to deal with the changing times and lifestyles that we all must face.

“It looks like a good year and an even better group of campers and I hope we can all have a fun time and come out of this with something worthwhile (Oh, how telling those words will come to be…). You will now meet up with your assigned small groups by the stairs here and get to meet your individual group leaders and other members.”

Phil, more than a little annoyed with all the pomp and circumstance that had to happen at that very moment (If there was a God, he sure enjoyed using his Thugs In Black to botch up chances of Phil ever going through life smoothly) had to double take when he turned back around. She wasn’t there! Sometime during that now labeled “Most Poorly Timed Thing On Planet” Tree Girl had snuck down from the branches of the tree and wandered off.
Phil looked frantically for her. Where could she have gone? Everyone’s still outside?

No longer dragging his feet, he left small indents in the Earth with his bare heels as he speed-walked his way in a small circle on the inside of the Garden. He had no time to look tho’, he was quickly becoming the last person wandering in circles looking like they were chickens with their heads cut off as the rest of the congregation gathered into their groups. The noise of teenage chatter, mixed with that of the more authoritative adult speech began again in earnest as parties formed up and ran through the little ritual of repeated “Hi! My name is's" until everyone could at least pretend to know the other people well enough to get through the day so they can collect their thoughts in privacy and quiet.

Finally, when the line of people who had been standing in the back was making it quickly passed him onto the steps, did Phil move with reluctance away from the tree. Not wanting to be the last and thus even lonelier, even lonely he was before, he jugged past the last dozen or so people to the gathering place.

Looking around again, both for Her and for his group, he found the latter first and made his way to a small section of kids next to two adults holding up a sign that read “Group POWER 9”. If he hadn’t been so distracted by the feeling of loss from not being able to find The Girl he would have found the sign uncontrollably funny and awesome. He later did find it so later when the group brought the sign back for other activities, so no reason to feel bad over lost comedy.

Even if it weren’t for the missing Girl, Phil would undoubtedly have been overwhelmed anyways by the magnitude of the speech, the booming yells, the mad rush to the steps and the crush of a hundred teens trying to find out where they should be in a place that was designed with the original intention of having maybe two dozen high class lords and ladies of old New England sip champagne and eat caviar while going over the later gossip about “The War”, The Civil War, and how ghastly the whole ordeal was. I mean, just last week one of The Company’s ships was assaulted off Virginia Bay and nearly all the new dressed for The Madam were wetted with salt water! Which we all know simply ruins the colors of Indian silk gowns. While the private orchestra quietly hummed and strummed the latest of overseas classic.

Actually, it was probably a good thing that Phil had found, then lost, his true love in those ten minutes for it allowed him a sort of single-minded focus and vision that kept him from completely panicking on where he was supposed to go, what to do, or any number of silly questions a rational teenage mind (oxymoron, I know) could answer quite easily and allowed him to find his group quickly in the throng and keep him from feeling utterly exhausted and broken during his new group leader’s own little speech.

Granted, with his mind elsewhere during the speech he had to be retold it later, but this speech was of such little consequence that the only reason I add it now is that I am on page THIRTEEN and as we all know, that is a very unlucky number and I can use all the verbal volume I can get to get it over with.

“Hello, campers I-“

“HELLO, SIR!”

Even Phil would have joined in that time if his mind wasn’t still somewhere near a tree… what do you expect after the first speech?

“Ha-ha, uh… yeah, ‘Hi’. Anyway, I’m John (aka Nameless Camp Leader who looks about 40 years old with short salt and peppered hair, tan docker shorts and a colorful yellow polo tee who looks like everyone’s dad and neighbor and who’s name Phil forgot with the times and figured he had to have a simple, likable, name like John) and I’m your Group Leader. This group is called POWER NINE. Why? Because we’re POWERFUL! We’re gunna be a close family for the next couple of weeks, we’ll be closer than any of the rest of the groups and probably closer to each other than you will be to your roommate (a new term for Phil he’d figure out later). We’re gunna work together on every project and meet back at the end of every day for group discussions and just plain fun.”

If I may interject before he continues: John isn’t a bad guy. He actually seems like a nice person, the bad jokes must just be his way of getting past the nervous stage of introducing yourself to who you really fucking hope isn’t a pack of wolves just waiting to tear you a new asshole and who you are expected to lead. He, at least, had obviously not done this before.

“To my right is Young, Pretty Looking Brunette who is somewhere in her twenties who used to come here has a high schooler, she’s in college now, with a kind face and who seems both at ease being another kid in the group as well as leader of the same group of youths whose name Phil also forgot (Of course he didn’t actually say those exact lines, but it fits. She’s gunna be called “Emily”) and to my left is Aged, Grandmotherly Looking Woman with gray, permed hair and business-like dress, blouse, and face that also has a hint of soft-caring and deep affection (This one he really said… JUST KIDDING! Gotcha. We’ll call her “Anne”). They’re my two helpers and, looking to Anne, sometimes surrogate mother/boss, ha-ha, and us three are here to help. So don’t just think of us as ‘The Leaders’ but rather ‘Older Friends who can Guide us… and tell us we’re going to bed without dinners for not listening to my speech today’, just kidding, ha-ha.”.

“Any questions?”

At this time Phil had been looking out to the side of the group at the eight groups situated to the right of this one on the stairs. I’ll let you do the math to see how many groups of 9-10 make up 100 and thus what numbered groups he was looking at on a stairs ordered numerically smallest to largest going from right to left. Didn’t think you’d get a Math Word Problem in a story, did you? Well, you did, so suck it up you whiney readers and do the brainwork. Oh, and don’t feel cocky if you found this easy, the story’s early yet and Phil, in a flashback, has only had Middle School Math so far. So he didn’t notice when from the top of the stairs directly over the group came:

“Wait! Sorry! I missed that! Sorry, Hi, I was in the bathroom.”

Guess who?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!