Crooked Smile (WINNER of the MJFA'S 2017)

Chapter 19 - ~Untitled Chapter~

Welcome back to my little story!!! :") It's been a long time!
Other than usually, I want to say a few things a the beginning of this rather than at the end. please do read it. It's IMPORTANT!

First, it's always this way, isn't it? Writing something turns out to take a lot longer than you think. At least for me that's usually true.  So despite wanting to finish this chapter on this weekend - as you can tell from the missing title - I didn't. Shame! But I wanted to stay true to my word of publishing on this weekend, and one COULD end this chapter where this ends, so I thought I'm just going to publish this as it is now, and later take it down again, add the rest ( plus a title XD) and publish it again. <3 As a result, this is a little shorter than usual, only 1,986 words.

Second... About Michael. I've asked at the bottom of the last chapter if it bothers you that he's not in all the chapters, and a handful of readers have told me that, yes, indeed, it does bother them.

When I first published this story, it was categorised as "ChickLit" not as "FanFiction".  Because it's about Marilyn, and how she and her life change because of Michael. The change in category was later forcefully made by Wattpad. Because Michael Jackson is in it. And if a real person is in it, it is by their definition a FanFiction. Now, FanFiction readers have a very different definition. They feel that if it's a FanFiction, it should be mainly about Michael Jackson. Do you see my predicament?

Yes, I admit it. I write stories in a border area. I believe that you can read this story as a Michael Jackson fan, but I think that you can read and enjoy it, too, if you're not a fan. Because I hope that there's more to it than just the possibility to coo over a star. Hopefully, there's a story, too. (He does appear in 14, 15 if you count the first one, out of 19 chapters, by the way.)

I'm truly sorry, if it annoys and tires you that Michael doesn't appear in all the chapters. Really, I am! The storyline isn't designed so he could be in every chapter. The only option would be to stop telling this story. And that doesn't seem fair to the people who weren't bothered. Please understand. :)

Kisses and Cookies,
Birdie <33

~~~~~

When Marilyn went to her locker after second period to put some books away and get her things for her next class, Brian, Peter and Thomas were in the same hallway, actually right opposite her locker, playing a game. With a foot they had drawn a smeared line in the dirt on the floor and from there were throwing pennies against the wall. The one, whose penny came to lie closest to the wall got to keep all pennies in the game, if none of the players wanted to risk another coin to challenge the penny closest to the wall. And then the game started over until the bell rang or they ran out of small coins or a teacher came and put an end to it. The game was considered gambling for money, and was thus not allowed, but change was always available, and so all efforts to supress or punish the habit had yet to show any effect. It was a common pastime among guys at school.

Marilyn hated the fact that they were out in the hall in front of what she believed was Brian's and Thomas' next class. She didn't know why Peter was hanging around there as well and wondered, if he had no class to go to and no other place to be. But there he was almost every day hanging around a classroom he had no lesson in – hanging around Brian and Thomas, as always – and close to her locker.

It was a shame that it was just outside that particular classroom. The school was big. Couldn't it have been somewhere else? But this hallway was considered practical for her, because she could pass through it a couple of times a day going from one class to another and so it had been assigned to her. But why did Brian and Thomas have to have class right opposite it? Could they not have been given a class on the other end of the building – on the moon, for all Marilyn cared?