Which sentence would be the most effective and clear opening of a short story?
a) jackson crept down the hall with a baseball bat in his hand.
b) she put the letters on the construction paper, making sure to spell everything correctly.
c) after all had been said and done, stephanie knew that she had done her best in everything.
d) when nick woke up for his first day of sixth grade smelling pancakes and bacon from downstairs, he knew that today was going to be a big day of change in his life.

Which line in this excerpt from the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald contains a simile? about half way between west egg and new york the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. this is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.