Do You Think You Would Read This?

[litchic]

I have been writing a story and just wondered if anyone would read the first little bit and tell me what they think?

“Time to get up Ladies”
The voice woke me with a start and I groaned into my lumpy pillow before opening my eyes. I threw the thin blanket off myself and sat up, thumping my head on the bunk above me. “***!” I exclaimed and touched my tender head; I could feel a lump forming already. I heard Dani chuckle before jumping off her bunk, landing lightly on the floor beside me.
“Idiot!” she whispered to me. “Are you ever going to learn not to sit up so quickly?”
I scowled and kicked my leg out at her, trying to knock her off balance. She saw my plan and gracefully darted out of the way. I stuck my tongue out at her instead and she laughed before pulling on her pale grey tracksuit bottoms.
“Come on!” she complained. “I’m starving!”
I sighed and forced myself off the bunk and quickly pulled on my own tracksuit bottoms. Dani hopped impatiently from one foot to the other while I grabbed my plimsolls and forced my bare feet into them. Before I could even stand upright she snatched my wrist and pulled me after her. She half dragged me all the way to the canteen; there were only a handful of people there.
“See nothing to worry about!” I said smugly as we joined the short queue for breakfast. I glanced at the food being served up. “Porridge again?” I moaned, pulling a face. I hadn’t felt hungry before we came down here, but now the thought of eating anything repulsed me.
“I’ll meet you at the table” I said and left the queue. I slumped myself down on a hard bench at one of the tables in the canteen and rested my head on my hands. A few moments later Dani sat down opposite me and pushed a bowl of the slop, that this place had the nerve to call porridge at me. I made a disgusted face.
“You have to eat Charlie” she said to me.
“What are you? My mother?” I snapped at her, but I picked up the plastic spoon and started stirring my bowl of slop.
Dani had been my only real friend since I came here four years ago. We were forced together when we had become cell mates. In the beginning I had refused her offers of friendship, but I quickly learnt that in here you need at least one person to watch your back, even if it was Dani. She wasn’t like me, or most of the other people in here. She was well spoken and gentle and quite possibly the cleverest person I had ever met. She didn’t belong here. I belonged here, but Dani should never have been made to come to prison.
Dani had told me her story on my third day here. I had returned to our cell in a foul mood, with a cut lip and a swollen eye, after getting in my first prison fight. When she had seen me, she had got her towel and used it to help clean me up. I remember being suspicious of her and asking her why she was helping me. She had shrugged and smiled softly at me. It was at that point that I started to think I may be able to trust her. That is when she told me why she was here. She had been at a house party; she had driven there but was planning on staying over. She had had a lot to drink and was having a great time, when she got a phone call from her mum. Her dad had had a heart attack and was in hospital. She said she doesn’t know if it was the alcohol or the shock that made her not think clearly but before she knew it she was in her car and driving to the hospital as fast as she could. She doesn’t remember the accident, but she was told that she took out 3 cars before ploughing into a tree. Luckily nobody was killed, but 5 people were severely injured and she was put away for 6 years. I had stared at her in shock when she had told me. Only bad people should be in prison, I had thought to myself, she wasn’t a bad person.
“Hello?” Danis voice snapped me back to reality.
“You didn’t hear a word a said did you?” she asked.
“Erm…I guess not! Sorry!” I stuttered, feeling my cheeks turn pink.
l

[jno]

“Time to get up Ladies”

My first thought: put a comma after "up". Pedantic, but if readers stumble over the first line, it's not a great start.

[woofgang]

Not pedantic Jno, this particular line is open to the same misinterpretation as "Eats, shoots and leaves"