lessons in love || chaennie

chapter twenty-six

"Hey Jennie," Lisa greeted the brunette, sitting beside her in the library.

"Hey Lisa," Jennie said back, looking up with a smile, "Free period too?"

"Yep. Social studies teacher left the room for coffee and never came back. It's a shame, really, I could've used the catch-up on sleep."

"If you wanna sleep here, I'll make sure one of my books covers you," Jennie chuckled, "Librarian will never know."

"Thanks for the assist, but, uh, do you think you could maybe help me with some English?" Lisa asked with puppy dog eyes and a sheepish smile.

"Did you and Chaeyoung practice those eyes when you were growing up?"

"Yes. In between making mud pies and falling out of trees."

"Of course I'll help Lis," Jennie chuckled again, "What's causing you problems?"

"All this...punctuation stuff. Colons, semicolons, commas, ellipses... isn't that that thing that happens in the with the moon and sun and...stuff?"

Jennie pushed her books to the side and took out a piece of paper from her notebook with a pen.

"Okay, first off, that's an eclipse , when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, blocking the sun or the moon passes behind the Earth, blocking the sun's rays from the moon."

"Ohh...that does make more sense."

"So as for your English stuff...here, lets write a few examples, okay?"

"Sounds good."

"Okay, so first off, commas. Commas have a lot of uses, but mainly it's for separating a sentence or items in a list," Jennie started, then began writing the sentence as she spoke it out loud, "I like cookies, doughnuts, candy and popcorn."

Lisa nodded in understanding, so Jennie continued.

"Colons. You use those to explain or like, give details of something you've just said. For example, I like food: cookies, doughnuts, candy and popcorn especially. Semicolons. They're used for breaks in sentences or lists...or if you're combining two joining sentences... like: I tried to buy food today; the market was closed."

"If my teacher used these food examples I think I would've gotten this a lot sooner," Lisa said, surprised that she actually understood what the brunette was saying, "What about those ellipses?"

"Oh those are easy. They're just three full stops in a row...sometimes they're in different forms, but rarely so we'll just stick with the periods. It shows if you've intentionally left a word or phrase out, like if you're quoting something and you want just the first and last part of the quote. And if you're writing in speech, it shows an unfinished thought or if someone trails off. Like... 'Lisa looked through the shop window at the variety of food available. "Cookies...doughnuts...candy...popcorn..." she trailed off as she sighed dreamily, "How will I ever choose?"' See how they work?"

"I actually do...Wow, thanks Jennie! Can I keep this sheet? To like... reference if I need to?"

"Of course."

"Hey maybe if we have another free class together sometime you could teach me about apostrophes? I feel like they'd take longer than the time we have left."

Jennie laughed.

"You're probably right. If you ever need help though, just ask. Unless it's math, then Chaeyoung's your girl. She's raised me from a D to a B since I've been here."

"Ah, I've given up on math. Far too many...numbers," he shuddered as he thought of it and Tara grinned, "But thanks for helping with this. I could maybe even write a semi-legible essay if I have to now. You want to be an English teacher, right?"