There are a couple of similar exchanges in my first chapter and I'm unsure how to punctuate them. He's talking to him and about him at the same time?
The back of Jack Sorenson’s head has been getting on my nerves all afternoon; he’s not done anything except sit there but there are times when it winds me up – today is one of them. Drumming a pen on the school desk, I let my mind go out the window and across the playing fields.
“Is (,)Scholar Angus (,)with us?”
My ears hear the words and I look up. However my brain is still over by the goal posts. “Huh? Soc?”
Chrispy has the commas right, and Mr Orange makes a good suggestion for reordering the sentence, if that is preferred.
So, I'll risk making 'frenemies' by weighing in on the part of the text you didn't ask about!
First, you need a comma after 'except sit there' because you need to separate the non-defining clause from the rest of the sentence.
Second, look at the hyphen after 'up'. Typically, you would use hyphens in narrative text in place of closed brackets, so there would usually be another one, but there is no room. (Commas can also be used this way if the sentence structure permits.) So, rather than a hyphen,* I would recommend considering a colon to indicate that you are moving into an explanation and/or concluding statement based on the idea you have already expounded. If you think, as a result, that having a colon and a semi-colon in the same sentence is too much (it's not, really, but it's a matter of opinion), then you can quite easily replace the semi-colon after 'afternoon' with a full stop without sacrificing any meaning. Doing so might even improve the pace and flow of the passage - try reading it out as Mr Palmer suggests.**
*did you see what I did, there?
I used commas in place of closed brackets.
**doh! Did you see what I did, there?
Third, are you writing in British English? If so, you would usually need to insert 'of' into 'let my mind go out the window'. If you leave it out, you've created a sub-clause that ends in 'of' and should, therefore, be delineated by a comma after 'go'. Any publishing house editor would query this, but as it stands I think you would get away with it on the grounds of artistic licence.
What am I saying? Leave it alone, but be aware that you've done this for artistic effect and that, strictly speaking, it breaks the rules.
Fourth, and final remark: there is a comma that you did miss. It comes after 'However'. Put it in. Don't argue.
Er... now that I've done that, can we still be friends?
