Feedback Request

The author of the opening featured in New Beginning 1029 would like feedback on the following revision:



The trees didn’t say a word. They never did. They watched.

Well today, I watched them right back. I stood in the middle of the dog park, staring at the woods in the distance. The sun roasted my shoulders right through my Green Lantern t-shirt, but I didn’t move.

Every day those freaky trees huddled along the back of the dog park like giant green aliens studying me for some crazy experiment. But today, their leaves flickered in the breeze as if a million green fingers were reaching out, begging me to come inside.

What were those trees hiding in there?

Of course Mom’s warning blared in my brain. I mean it, Cody, she’d said a bazillion times. It’s too dangerous. Gangs and drug addicts hang out in those woods. I don’t care what the other boys do. You’re never to go in there. Understand, Cody? Never.

Never? C’mon. Is never supposed to mean not ever for the rest of my life?


Notes

I'm not crazy about the trees as aliens simile. Why would the trees behind the dog park look any more like aliens than the trees he sees hundreds of other places?

Cody is probably smart enough to know that even if "never" doesn't mean for eternity, it also doesn't mean he can go in right now.

You don't lose much of anything if you start:

I stood in the middle of the dog park, staring at the trees in the distance. Mom’s warning blared in my brain: I mean it, Cody. It’s too dangerous. Gangs and drug addicts hang out in those woods. I don’t care what the other boys do. You’re never to go in there. Understand, Cody? Never.

Never? Come on. "Never," I decided, didn't mean never. It's just a word grownups say when they mean "not today."