Writing: Fiction, Assignment 1

While I'm waiting to get my confirmation email from NYC Midnight, I thought I'd share a piece of 'sudden fiction' that I wrote for my Writing:Fiction class I am taking this semester. The assignment was to write a story, around 500 words, about "how I cheated to win the debate competition." I went a little over on the word-count, but I really don't think he's going to be counting. It turned out less than 2 pages double-spaced, so that should be good enough. Well, here it is. Enjoy.

Serious Business

I'm in the nurse's office, waiting for my mom to come get me. They think I have a broken nose. That's not so bad, because Mikey is in the principal's office. It all started last week. I thought third grade was going great until our teacher, Mrs. Goldsmith told us we were going to have a class debate.

"The class will be split into two teams," she said. "Gregory, you'll be spokesperson for the platypus, and Michael, you'll be spokesperson for the giraffe. You'll have some class time each day to work as a team and come up with all the reasons you think your animal is the most interesting." Why did she pick me? Didn't she know how scared I am to be in front of people? My class has at least twenty kids!

I thought we had good reasons why platypuses were better than giraffes, but every time I looked at Mikey, my stomach hurt. He's the biggest bully in school. When I saw him looking back at me, it made my heart thump so loud I was sure I would get sent into the hallway for making too much noise.

At lunch I watched Mikey drink his carton of chocolate milk. I always have plain milk, and I wondered why my mom couldn't put another ten cents in the envelope so I could have chocolate milk, too. I hated Mikey. All the boys were his friend, and he picked on all the girls. And he drank chocolate milk. Every day.

I woke up this morning feeling awful about the debate, but then a great idea popped in my head. Mom was yelling, but I ran back into the house to grab some medicine out of the bathroom. She sometimes gives me some when my stomach is hurting really bad, and I then I have to use the bathroom a lot. But it makes my stomach feel better.

At lunch when Mikey got up to get a napkin, I poured half the bottle into his chocolate milk. It was chocolate-flavored so I knew he wouldn't notice. I never moved so fast in my life, but I did it without him seeing!

After lunch, the debate started. I felt so nervous, but then I looked at Mikey and saw him doing a funny wiggle behind his desk. He talked good, and everyone was clapping and cheering, but then all of a sudden he ran out, saying something about not being able to wait. I saw Mrs. Goldsmith shake her head and she told Katie that she would have to take Mikey's place. It looked like Katie was more nervous than me.

I won by a landslide. But then Mikey came back in, walked right up to me and said, "You are gonna get it!" He started to make that "I have to run out of here real quick" face again, but before he did, I was on the ground and my whole face hurt.

There was lots of yelling and people running around after that, and Mrs. Goldsmith pushed a tissue on my nose. "I always knew that boy was trouble," I heard her say while she helped me to the nurse's office.

Mom is gonna keep me home for three days, and I got the prize for winning the debate. A broken nose was totally worth it.