Habeus Corpus

They had their place to party. The parents were going to be gone from Thursday through Monday; another work and play four day. Though they had been planning the moment they found out, the concrete details and official invites were finished Thursday morning at school.  Immediately after school they converged on 1509 Mountain Circle like vultures. They barged into the house like morning workers with umpteen cases of beer and 2 fifths each of vodka and rum. Immediately after entering the kitchen, a foul stench blew them all back and curled their noses. “Oh my god, what the fuck is that smell?” Kyle said, covering his mouth. Kelly ran to the sink and threw up while Levi opened the sliding door to the deck and ran out. Kelly and Kyle bolted after him for the fresh air but not Burns. Maybe it was because it was his house but something came over Burns; he was calm and seemed not as affected by the horrible smell. He lifted up his shirt and pulled it over his mouth, then jabbed his nose up and down in the air with quick succession to get a bead on the root of the smell. It led him to the oven. He slowly bent over and squinted while he looked through the glass door. He let go his shirt and said “What the fuck? What the fuck is that in there?” The others were staring from the deck with their eyes as wide as could be. Burns used his right hand to grab the bottom of his shirt and hold it over his mouth and nose, with his left hand he reached and pulled the oven door down. A blast of stench sent Burns reeling and retreating to the deck. That’s when they all saw it, resting on the silver steel racks.

We had our place to party. Burnsies parents were going to be gone from Thursday through Monday; another work and play four day. Though we had been planning the moment we found out, the concrete details and official invites were finished that Thursday morning at school.  Immediately after school, we converged on 1509 Mountain Circle like vultures. We barged into the house like eager morning workers with umpteen cases of beer and 2 fifths each of vodka and rum. Immediately after entering the kitchen, a foul stench blew us all back and curled our noses. “Oh my god, what the fuck is that smell?” Kyle said, covering his mouth. Kelly ran to the sink and threw up while I opened the sliding door to the deck and ran out. Kelly and Kyle bolted after me for the fresh air but not Burnsie. Maybe it was because it was his house but something came over Burnsie; he was calm and seemed not as affected by the horrible smell. He lifted up his t-shirt and pulled it over his mouth, then jabbed his nose up and down in the air with quick succession to get a bead on the root of the smell. It led him to the oven. He slowly bent over and squinted while he looked through the glass door. He let go his shirt and said “What the fuck? What the fuck is that in there?” We were staring from the deck with our eyes as wide as could be. Burnsie used his right hand to grab the bottom of his shirt and hold it over his mouth and nose, and with his left hand he reached and pulled the oven door down. A blast of stench sent Burns reeling and retreating to the deck. That’s when we all saw it, resting on the silver steel racks.

They were walking, practically skipping home from school, giddy from the last bell. “Do you know about the short cut?” Ronnie said. Tal began to jiggle with excitement. “What shortcut? Are you talking about through Niccolino’s yard? I know that one.” Ronnie seemed to crouch a little and whispered “no, this is a different one, through Sotanath‘s yard, but you have to get through his fence.” Tal stopped jiggling, fear gripping him at the sound of Sotanath. “I don’t know” he said, “maybe we should just go the usual way.” “Oh, c’mon,” Ronnie tested, “I did it last week with Kevin when you were sick, it’s awesome.” Tal didn’t fare well with pressure, especially from Ronnie. He looked around quickly but the word slowly spilled from his mouth, “ok.” Ronnie sprinted toward Elmwood, tightening his backpack as he flew, with Tal chasing after. At the corner of Elmwood and Oakwood they stopped, and set their eyes on the fence. The fence was old and ugly with paint chipping away. It was nothing but tall, wide, grey boards over and over and over. Fearless, Ronnie stormed for it with Tal sloppily soldiering behind. Ronnie immediately began shimmying one of the boards while Tal played the look out. “Here, this is the one,” he said. Ronnie pushed it forward and squeezed himself through the gap. When he did paint chipped away from the fence and on to the ground. Tal watched and did as his friend did. On stepping through the gap Tal noticed something squishy under his feet. Rotten crab Apples. He looked down at the squished apple then up to the branches above. They were under the tree in the back corner of the yard. Ronnie was already peeking out from behind the trunk of the tree; he motioned for Tal to get behind him. He pointed right next to the back porch and whispered, “That is where we have to go.” Instead of bolting off this time Ronnie hesitated. Tal noticed. “What, what is it?” Tal said. “Nothing, I just want to make sure the coast is clear is all.” Tal peeked out over Ronnie’s shoulder at the back porch and he saw it. He went to grab Ronnie but before he could Ronnie was off. “No wait!” Tal blurted. Ronnie stopped in a heartbeat and that is when he saw it too. In the shade of the porch was old man Sotanath sitting in a rocking chair. Both boys froze in front of him. “We’re really sorry” Tal squealed from the apple tree. The old man didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Just when Tal was about to blast back out through the fence board, Ronnie said “so can we go through or what?” Tal couldn’t believe it, he just wanted to be out of there and get home. He was going to sprint the whole way after this. He looked back from behind the tree to see Ronnie inching closer to the porch. “What are you doing, let’s just go, I want to go home” Tal begged but Ronnie just kept inching closer to old man Sotanath. Tal gripped the apple tree and felt more apples squishing under his feet as Ronnie kept getting closer and closer. Ronnie was practically at the back door when he stopped. He looked back at Tal and Tal could see that Ronnie was shaking. 

The Exercise from Gardner's Book: Write the paragraph that would appear in a piece of fiction just before the discovery of a body. The purpose of the exercise is to develop the technique of at once attracting the reader to the next paragraph, making him want to skip ahead, and holding him on this paragraph by virtue of its interest.