--- Nugar <nugar@tds.net> wrote:

      "This is a series of similarly themed
vignettes with little
in the way of continuing plot and no unified title,"
Chiyo-chan
adds.

Much like the AD episodes themselves.  I assume this
was deliberate.  You did manage to capture their
flavor.

      Her jaw dropped as she saw Yukari undressing
the mannequin
and keeping an irate store clerk away with one foot.

Not sure why the clerk would object if, as it seems,
the display model really is the last of their
inventory.

      "Twenty thousand yen?!" Yukari screeched as
she waved the
dress in front of the cashier's face.     "No way!"

That's only about US$200.  (A bit less at current
exchange rates, but 100/1 has been the approximate
ratio for a long time; think of yen as pennies.)  Even
Yukari would seem able to afford that if she really
wanted to - though it might be a high enough price
that she'd object to paying that much for anything.

Still, bumping it to thirty or even forty thousand
might be a little better.

      "Yeah," Yukari groused as she turned away from
the vacantly
smiling cashier, "but there's no way I can afford
that.  Unless
you were to buy it and let me borrow it?"  She gave
her very
bestest friend in the whole world a hopeful smile.

Buy, yes.  Borrow?  No.  This is Nyamo we're talking
about.

      A thought occurred to her as she stepped out
the exit into
the mall proper, and she stuck her head back in. 
"Hey, Minamo,
where do you want to meet back-  The dress!" she
cried as she saw
her friend rather guiltily paying for it at the cash
register.

This seems a bit OOC, somehow.  Nyamo, guilty over
something like that?  She wants it for herself.  She
might even make a point of wearing it the next time
it's appropriate when she's with Yukari, just to rub
it in.  (Unless she thinks Yukari might try to tear it
off her like she tried to remove it from the
mannequin, and I don't mean in the sense of getting at
what's inside.)

      "So which is it?" Osaka asked intently. 
"Let's say I'm
writin' in english and I accidentally spell angry
'a-g-r-y'. 
Would I say I had accidentally left an 'N' out of
the word, or
would I say I accidentally left a 'N' out of the
word?"

Not that uncommon a question among those learning
English and trying to "do it right" (as opposed to
learning English just for the sake of using it to
communicate), actually.

(And not that it matters, but for the record, it's "an
N".  It sounds wrong because it sounds like "enn", and
it would be "an enn" if that was what you were saying
- but "enn" is not a word in and of itself.  Neither
is "N", technically, though it's being used as a word
in this case, and the rule looks at the written form
of what you're saying.  This comes up when one is
using acronyms, like "an F.F.M.L. post".)

      Chiyo blinked.  She'd never thought of that. 
"I'm not sure,
I mean, maybe we should ask Miss Yukari."
 
      "I did," Osaka replied.  "But she hit me with
a book and
told me not to poke holes in that ridiculous
language."

Eh?  Any English teacher competent in teaching said
language - and Yukari seems to be competent in that,
at least - would know about that situation.  Yukari
might warn against poking holes, but she'd also know
that particular "hole" is covered, and would likely
point it out.

      "Oh, well, I'm failing English anyway," Osaka
said sadly,
and walked away.

She knows enough to ask questions like that and she's
failing?  Even for Osaka, that seems a bit of a
stretch.  (Tomo, perhaps, since her low performance is
largely due to deliberate neglect.  But Osaka's trying
to succeed.)

     "Oooh," came the collective sigh from her
friends, except
Osaka, who pointed at Kaorin and said, "Kaorin's
did!"

>From the text later on, it seems as if Kaorin's had a
computer for quite some time - enough to become
proficient at editing images.  Maybe she got a
replacement/upgrade computer?

     "It came with a CD full of cute animal
pictures," Tomo
added smugly.
 
     "!" said Sakaki.

Heh.  Sakaki might just cuddle up with the CD and
pretend she could read the images directly.  Or treat
the CD itself as cute, especially if in a jewel case.

     "Ah hah, I uh, I also got a copy of
Counterstrike last
night and I was so busy playing it I forgot to do my
homework,"
Tomo said sheepishly.  "I got fragged so many times
by this guy
with a rocket launcher...."

For a moment, I thought Yomi was going to rib Tomo
about having a new boyfriend.

     "Oh, I get it now," Osaka said in awe.  "So
that's why you
love spicy food."

Osaka sees all.  Understand it all, maybe not, but she
sees it.

     Tomo did a little happy dance.  "It means she's
not a l33t
h4xx0r like me, and I wasted her like the n00b she
is last night
in Cstrike!" she exclaimed, shortly before Yomi
decked her.

Chiyo: Why isn't Tomo moving?  What did you plug into
her?

Yomi: A cyberdeck with a wireless uplink.  I kind of
disabled the internal off switch, so unless someone
unplugs her, she'll be *in* the game, all the time,
and it'll hurt every time she gets fragged.

Osaka: Ain't that crossing genres?

Yukari: Hey, if it gets that little discipline problem
out of my hair, I'm not going to complain.  It's not
like her grades were that hot to begin with.

     Yukari whistled a happy little song as she
entered the
school copy room, glad that it was finally payday
again.  She
needed some folders to organize the tests she'd just
inflicted on
her class, and there they were, sitting in a box on
a shelf right
above one of the big copy machines.

Putting these two sentences in the same paragraph
makes it appear that these are linked, as if Yukari
would have to pay for the folders she took.  That
would imply some kind of signing out procedure at
least, which would mean someone would be there to
witness (and guard against) her folly.  I suspect
that's not what you meant to imply, though.

     Embossed.

     Official memorandum.

It seems like these could be combined into one, given
the shortness of the first one (dramatically different
length than most of the scenes).

Hello
Kitty in coveralls, a pail and shovel at his feet

Isn't Hello Kitty a "her"?

     Tomo snatched the paper from his hand while he
spluttered,
walking away without a second glance as she studied
the paper.

     Her jaw dropped in shock. 

     "Here you go... there's enough for
everyone...." said one
boy in a sing song voice as he breezed through and
dropped a
short stack of copies in front of Yomi.

It seems like quite a coincidence that Tomo would grab
one just before copies got distributed to the girls,
if copies were going to be distributed to them.  If
the girls got some because of Tomo's actions, it would
seem to flow a bit better if boy gave a brief
acknowledgement he did not know they were interested
while giving them their copies.  (And for a bit extra
from this scene, perhaps wonder about their
inclinations, with subsequent denials - or not from
some of them, with the others' reactions to said lack
of denial.)

     Chiyo blushed and turned hers over.

Chiyo would seem more likely to wonder what people
found so unusual about it.  People pass right by
pictures of shirts, shoes, and other items of clothing
being worn; what's so different about panties?

     "I can't believe those boys were passing these
out!" Yomi
says, scandalized, looking at her copy as they all
walked down
the hall to their next class.

"as they all milled around the classroom while waiting
for their next teacher."

One difference between American and Japanese high
schools: in Japan, students stay in the same room and
the teachers go from class to class.  (P.E. is an
exception, mainly due to physical necessity.)

Likewise:

A few minutes later, when they were out of sight,
Kaorin scuttled
back and fished hers out, tucking it carefully in
her folder
before hurrying to keep up with the others.

"A few minutes later, when they were not looking,
Kaorin fished hers out, tucking it carefully in her
folder."

     "Ah."  Minamo digested this in silence for a
moment, then,
improbably, her eyebrow rose higher.  "You were
looking at the
stationary?"

Boy: I read Playgirl for the articles, honest!

Other Boy: You mean Playboy.

Boy: Well, Miss Kurosawa showed me this picture of
what I might grow up to be if I did well in her class,
and I couldn't help but notice the name of the
magazine it was in...

      "Who knew there was a teacher at this school
as crazy as I
am?" Tomo said with a chuckle.

     "I did."

     "I did."

     "I did."

     "I did."

There are five other girls with Tomo.  One of them
could have stayed silent, but you seem to imply that
they all replied.

     "Who?  No one could be as wild as I am!" Tomo
insisted.

     "Yukari."

     "Yukari."

     "Yukari."

     "Yukari."

     "Yukari."

     Yukari, Sakaki thought.

Same error, other way: Sakaki would have had to both
say and think it, unless someone said it twice.

     "See you in the morning, Chiyo-chan," Sakaki
said as she
broke into a run, visions of cute kitties holding
days of the
week signs in her head.

"holding day of the week signs"

Each sign only indicates one day.

     A few more clicks later, Tomo went back to
Google to
redefine her search parameters.

And here I thought you were going to have Tomo
stumble across Kaorin's
not-as-protected-as-she-thought project, uploaded to
her personal Web space.  (Kaorin's photo label
certainly seems to as if she intends to share it with
someone else.  Perhaps she meant to share the PGP key
with her friends, but left it in a place where Tomo
could find it, or perhaps she had already shared it
with Tomo for something else?  Or even, she used a
passphrase that Tomo could guess.)

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