Outrageous Fortune

The time is out of joint- oh, cursed spite!

That ever I was born to set it right! --Hamlet

Act One, Scene One- The Curtain Rises

"Hey! Neil!" Charlie shouted across the quad, running towards the sprawl of boys working on their trig on the parched August grass.

"Charlie, what is it?" Neil asked, exasperated. The other boys looked up, too, now too distracted from their sines and arctangents to return to them without fuss.

"Look what I have found." Charlie said, brandishing a piece of paper in Neil's face. He took it away before Neil might snatch it, and read it aloud in a pompous tone. " The Gentlemen of Welton Academy- see, look, they're calling us gentlemen, what a laugh- would be pleased and honored to accept the invitation granted them by the Henley Hall School for young ladies to attend their formal mixer the last week in September!"

"You mean we got invited to a dance?" Cameron asked with his trademark sneer.

"You, me, them, the whole school! Isn't it great? They'll be girls…" Charlie looked off towards the lake and sighed. "A whole school full of girls."

"Oh, come off it, Charlie, they'll be teachers there. Dozens." Meeks stated obviously.

"Who cares?" Charlie shouted, dancing around the lawn. "Who fucking cares? GIRLS. Do I need to say it again to pound it into your thick skull? Here's my chance to get some of this…emotion out!"

"Oh, is that what they're calling it now?" Meeks asked. "Emotion?"

"Meeks, you wouldn't know the meaning of the word!" Charlie said grandly. "Now if you'll all excuse me, I have to go clean up my dress duds."

"It's not for another two weeks, Dalton!" Cameron cried after him. But Charlie was too far gone to listen.

My new muse needs to be hit over the head.

Ian: He does?

Guys, meet Neil, my newly adopted muse and the reason why I've been stuck in 1959 for the past three days. But you all know Neil Perry, and if you don't…

Neil: Why on earth are you reading this, anyway?

He hijacked my brain, my computer, and made me start work again on a story I hadn't touched in nearly three years. THREE YEARS. A story that, heretofore, had not seen the light of day on this site.

And now here it is, thirty five more pages later, finished. I don't remember where it was going when I started it, but seeing as how I only had a half a page then, I think I did it justice by going somewhere good.

So there's that first half page, the beginnings of an exercise in

OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE.

The next scene will be up presently, dear readers...