Second Snippet. First Draft.
[Set up: Owen and Hugh notice the brother and sister who have just moved into the house next door. Both step brothers are instantly besotted with her beauty, her brother is not impressed.]

He stood against the fence and coldly observed the two brothers. His left hand occasionally and flagrantly raising a spliff to his overtly sensuous lips. The look in his eye was enigmatic, caught somewhere between contempt and fascination. One plucked eyebrow raised ever so slightly more than the other. He resembled a malevolent James Dean...just less dead.

The moment was ruined as his mother roared at him to put his smoke out on the street. His only reaction was an infinitesimal further raising of his eyebrow and a deliberately long drag on the offending drug. Eventually Owen and Hugh noticed their audience in the midst of their rapture, for as one they turned to his arched appraising gaze.

Hugh didn't bother to conceal his instant dislike, an almost feral sneer crept onto his face almost without his awareness of it...almost. Owen gave a bashful smile like one does when caught in the act. Just as unconscious as Hughs sneer, he shrugged his broad shoulders in a "can you blame me?" expression and then returned his adoring gaze to the boys flaxen haired sister. Hugh did not. He noted the barely concealed challenge in the boys eyes and Hugh never, ever backed down from a challenge...ever. He stared back into the insouciant boys almond shaped eyes. His look turning from automatic repugnance to recognition of a challenge to resolve within mere eyeblinks. Adam finally looked down, pretending to be concerned about the amount of ash at the end of his smoke. Hugh smiled wolfishly and clapped Owen on the back startling him from his reverie.

 

Notes:

Ambrosius: The main players before the arrival of the old man.
(The following are notes for the creation of a story set in London in the 1980's.  This will be one story set within the larger contained fictional universe of Weirdworld.  All characters stories and names copyright of myself, Robert Elsmore 1995)
Owen Drake, a seventeen year old, rugby loving London teen, is the only son of Ted Drake. When Owen was still an infant, Ted Drake married a divorcee named Vivian Goring, mother to Caleb, Hugh and the triplets Meggan, Morgan and Margaret, and insisted upon their all taking his surname, something that has soured Caleb all his life. The oldest of the children at nineteen, he used to bully Owen, until Owen inherited his fathers bull like strength on the rugby field. Caleb has finished school and coaches girls soccer, when not getting into drunken brawls at the pub. The triplets tend to keep to themselves and are fascinated with modern wicca and being wannabee vampires, they tend to dress in black makeup and torn tights and smoke cheap fags when they're skipping class. Owen and Hugh, both the same age are as close as any "blood" brothers ever could be and a good deal closer than some. Owen has the slow, placid easy going nature and large build, while Hugh is mercurial, quick witted and a tad over sensitive, he is however a consummate athlete, able to outrun, out wrestle and out play virtually everyone at their school, Orpington Kingsway College. Owen and Hugh are very tight with all their school/rugby chums, Gary and Adrian Fisher, Gavin Chase, Ian Collins, Brian, Paul, Percy, Boris and Sanje. Ian Collins is infatuated with Isabella Olwen, who in turn adores him and finds herself also in the unfortunate situation of being hit upon on a regular basis by her lecherous thirty three year old teacher Martin Cornwell. Brother and sister, Adam and Gwen Troy have just moved in next door to the Drake residence, with their parents. Adam is in the year below all the other boys, and he quickly gravitates towards the schools pariah Matthew, an evil minded troublemaker much like himself. And such is the scene of this dreary, painfully normal little corner of London in 1988. But old patterns have begun to emerge...and an old man just fell out of a tree...