[Jade]

That’s very kind of you thank you 😊And yes. brilliant. In the meantime, enjoy the festive period 

[Jade]

Sorry if it’s a bit long for here. And if anyone else reads this and would be able to give feedback it’d be much appreciated. I really value peoples opinion on whether they think this has viability as a children’s book…or if you think it’s shite, say that too so I know if I need to up my game. I don’t get offended 👍

Chapter 3 – 

The classroom hummed under the strip lights. A poster of the solar system curled above the whiteboard, the colours so washed out it looked more like a load of dishwater circles than planets. Typical Carter — he’d leave it there until it fell off the wall on its own.

Jack Furey leaned back on his chair, balancing dangerously. He was twelve, tall for it, broad across the shoulders, already built like he belonged in the year above. Dark hair never sat right on his head. Brown eyes didn’t give much away. He wasn’t bad-looking.  A couple of girls said he looked “interesting”, but that usually changed five minutes after he opened his mouth. Fine by him.

“Science,” droned Mr Carter, tapping the sad-looking planets, “is the pursuit of truth. Facts. Evidence. Certainty. Unlike myths, stories, or—”
His gaze locked onto Jack.
“—conspiracies.”

Jack twirled his pen. Same Carter routine. The man thought reading the textbook in a monotone voice would magically make everyone trust him.

“Facts change though, don’t they Sir?” Jack said. “People used to say the Earth was flat. Or that cigarettes were good for you. So science isn’t truth — it’s just today’s best guess.”

A ripple of laughter skittered across the room. Jack didn’t smile. He wasn’t trying to be funny.

Carter’s mouth tightened. “Science isn’t a guessing game, Furey. It is proof. It is trust. You would do well to remember that.”

Jack dropped the chair legs forward with a bang and met his gaze. “And all I’m saying is — question everything. Especially people who tell you not to question anything.”

The room buzzed. A couple of girls whispered by the window. Emily — always posing like the world was her mirror — rolled her eyes.

“Here we go,” she sighed. “Jack’s Daily Doom Hour.”

Jack ignored her.

“It’s like the Titanic,” he said. “Everyone remembers the film and the love story — which, by the way, never happened — but nobody talks about the weird bits. Like how a bunch of important rich guys —who complained about government banks— all ended up on that ship at the same time and then — splash — gone. But sure. Total coincidence.”

Emily folded her arms. “It did happen. Or they wouldn’t have made a film about it.”

Jack stared at her. “Emily, they made films about talking penguins. That doesn’t make them real.”

Someone at the back couldn’t help a laugh.

“And the moon landings?” Jack continued. “Flag waving perfectly in space, no stars, no crater under the rocket. But yeah, science.”

“You watch too many weird videos,” Emily muttered.

Someone groaned. “He’s on one again.”

Jack pressed on.

“Think about history lessons. Half the big fights started because someone claimed someone else started it. Same as the playground. You shove someone, pretend they shoved you first, boom — instant excuse for chaos. People in charge use fancier words.”

That actually landed. A few kids nodded — you couldn’t survive Year Seven without learning the art of the fake shove.

“Whatever, Jack,” Emily said. “You’d argue black was white if it annoyed someone.”

Jack didn’t rise to it. He wasn’t after anyone’s approval.

Mr Carter cleared his throat sharply. “Furey. Perhaps you’d like to test your scientific theories after school,” he said. “In my classroom. With a mop.”

Jack let the silence stretch.
Then:
“Wow. Practical science. Finally.”

Laughter burst around them. Carter slammed the register shut.

Then the doorway darkened.

A man stood there — crisp suit, shiny shoes, expression carved out of ice. His eyes swept the room, paused on Jack, held.

Jack’s stomach dipped.

Principal Starmore. The ghost in the corridors. The replacement for Mr Goode. The one nobody had officially met yet.

“Just looking around,” Starmore said, voice calm and empty. “Continue.”

He walked on.

But something cold stayed behind.

“Who was that?” someone whispered.

“The new principal,” Carter replied quickly. “Expect… changes.”

Jack tapped his pen on the desk.

Behind him, whispers swirled.

“They said Goode jumped.”
“No, my mum reckons he had a heart attack.”
“In the middle of a storm?”

Jack spoke without looking up.
“Or maybe it wasn’t an accident. Window wide open, storm raging… bit convenient, don’t you think?”

Silence.
Then louder whispers.

Carter barked, too quickly, “Don’t be ridiculous! Tragic accident. Nothing more.”

But Jack saw it — Carter’s hand tightening around the marker. His eyes flicking — just once — toward the window Goode fell from.

Whatever Carter believed…
it wasn’t the official story.

And that was all Jack needed.

[Jade]

Oh wow. That sounds like a great idea for your grandchild. I like the idea of using a fictional character in place of yourself, feels very Bukowski like with the Hank Chinaski character. Allows you to write your life story without admitting culpability to any misdemeanours 😜

My nan wanted me to write her memoirs when she was dying (cancer). I knew she’d had a pretty colourful life, and as a child she’d suffered cruelty at the hands of nuns in some kind of care institution. But she was rambling that much about stuff I didn’t believe in at the time that I thought the meds had done something to her brain, so I brushed it off. She was talking about things she’d experienced such as criminal exploits (which I knew she had plenty), witchcraft, rituals, cults  etc—and had I have known then what I know now, regarding how the world actually works, I’d have actually listened. But as it was, I thought she was talking jibberish. I feel like such an idiot, it would’ve been illuminating to say the least.

You sound like you’ve had a lot of eye opening experiences throughout your life too. I love listening to how peoples experiences shape their perspective and world view.  Makes for great storytelling. I would be happy to help you in any form I could.

I don’t have professional book writing experience (I learned screenplay). However, I’ve outlined a 12 book series, nearly finished 1^st draft of 2^nd book, which is part of my 1^st trilogy about reptilian infiltration and mind control.  

I’ll post a chapter to give you the flavour as the description doesn’t sound MG/YA friendly at all, but I think I’ve made it work. It’s a bit rough atm though. No point trying to rewrite or edit until I complete the whole trilogy. But you can grasp my style….hopefully. 

 

[Jade]

Hi Sarah. Thanks for the reply.

I’m in West Midlands/Staffordshire. It does seem like there’s a bit of a theme in all the schools. This is ranging from high school down to nursery. I’ve got 5 children, 1 in year 8, then yrs 3 and reception, 2 in nursery. Nursery told me they had been told they couldn’t ask a child if they were a boy or a girl 🙄 the headmaster at the primary school suddenly implemented a strict uniform policy in September, school crested jumpers/shirts (not polo)/ties etc. But then strangely, he worded it in the newsletter to suggest that it had always been this way – and it never has. There were queue’s of parents waiting on the playground to lynch him because he’d waited until the day of the new school year to relay this message, after everyone had already bought uniforms. He’s always been very relaxed and there’s a definite change in the way he acts with parents and kids now. It’s quite bizarre.  

But definitely the biggest change is my eldest daughters high school. Its a Catholic school. It’s very dated, it looks like something out of grange hill in the 90s. Yet since September, there’s a new ‘safety’ camera system installed, the entrance has a had big gates and metal fences erected so no one can get ‘unauthorised access’, there’s locks between all corridors on doors – there’s obviously been a lot of money thrown at it when there’s none available for other renovations to the school. Then the ridiculous toilet policy. My daughter actually got locked in the toilet by a staff member, it took15 minutes before another member of staff went looking for her. The CCTV conveniently didn’t pick up which staff member locked her in. Strange that. The only fortunate thing is that they are not mixed gender toilets (yet), as I’ve heard of local schools that have implemented this. Its simply humiliating for young girls to have to endure this when they are on their period. 

I’d not heard anything about extremist groups targeting schools. We were told via email that the planned lockdown practises were ‘standard health and safety procedure’ and would be used ‘when there is a threat to the safety of pupils or staff’. My favourite example of a threat they gave was ‘a potentially dangerous animal on school grounds’. Like they were expecting a tiger or big foot to hop the fences. I mean, it’s so obvious a ruse that it just takes the piss. It also stated that details of the event must not be discussed or circulated on social media as this may spread false information or spread panic… Because making kids hide under desks, locking the doors and turning the lights off won’t create panic, but talking about it might.  

Then there’s these new interim reports, assessing children’s academic performance which fair enough, its school you’d expect that. But there’s bits on the report about how many ‘positivity points’ they’ve earned for behaviour and effort, as well as the negative points, detentions etc. Kids are also scored on attendance, records with below 90% attendance (19 school days absent) are deemed unacceptable. Personally, I think the idea behind it is actually a lot more sinister than what it appears on surface level. 

I agree with you that some teachers and parents naively believe this is in the interests of safety. I’m not quite sure how much it takes to manipulate people into believing this tripe, but clearly many do. I think there’s also many more who don’t agree with it, but let it slide because they are not yet aware of the wider implications of it all. For example, the wellbeing and schools bill, I saw something about it being used to tackle child neglect by giving the local authority more powers to intervene in situations where they think a child is at risk of harm. But then that made me think about the seemingly trivial uniform policies. What if sending your child in in the wrong shirt for example, constitutes an instance of neglect? Then what if your child’s interim report scores low on positivity points and attendance is below recommendations. Would you then be seen as an unfit parent? And what measures would the LA be allowed to take against you under the new legislation bought in via the schools bill? 

Honestly I find it very disturbing. Clearly this isn’t about the wellbeing and safety of children and I’ve seen a lot (some of it on iconic) about what dreadful things these people in authority do to children- especially those in care. I just hope people start to wake up and challenge what’s happening in the schools before things take a sinister turn. Its incredibly frustrating. Parent’s are blindly handing over their parental rights to the state – and I dread to think what the plan is if they gain full control over them. 

[Jade]

Hi. I was gonna ask something similar about beta readers for an upper MG/YA fiction series I’m writing — different style to yours, but same intention: planting those little seeds of critical thinking.

I’m not a professional or anything, but I’ve got a BA in English & Media and an MA in Screenwriting, and I’ve done some work on spectatorship studies. So this might be helpful… or you might think I’m talking rubbish (hopefully not). The first thing I’d ask is: who are you actually trying to reach? Different people respond to different tones and levels of detail. For example, my readers are 10–14, so I have to sneak the ‘truth bombs’ in through story, humour, and character. If I preached facts at them, they’re gonna bin it — feels too much like school.

You mentioned wanting to reach people who struggle with concentration or aren’t into reading or current events. That’s great, because publishing (and most media) mainly targets the educated, urban, middle-class crowd. That leaves out a massive chunk of people — shop workers, tradesmen, drivers, care workers, etc. I don’t think they’re disinterested. It’s that books rarely reflect their language, humour, or worldview. A lot of writing also comes across as talking down to them, intellectually or morally. So you’d have to relay your message in a way that feels more entertaining, natural, and light-hearted (if this is the audience you’re talking about).

This is partly why Tommy Robinson-type voices have grown. Whatever you think of him (full of shit stooge or not), he sounds like a normal person and doesn’t mock working-class perspectives. There aren’t many people filling that gap, so people gravitate to the ones who do. So you have potential there to pitch in that kind of direction. 

Anyway, I’m rambling. But I do think you’ve got a good idea — the key now is figuring out which demographic you’re aiming for, so you can speak to them in a way they’ll actually engage with. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but it’s definitely worth exploring different ways of getting the message out there. There are plenty of open-minded people willing to question things — you just need to speak to them in their own language, so to speak. Easier said than done, I know, but I’m sure the outcome will be worth it 😀

[Author]

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