Feels like a great day for a contest, doesn’t it? And we all love stories, right? So let’s smash ’em together! I give you my Story with a Thousand Comments Contest.
Here’s how it will work: I’ll begin a story at the bottom of this post. The first player will then continue that story in the comments WHEREVER I LEFT OFF. And the second player will continue where the first player left off, and so on. Once the contest closes, I’ll finish off the story and pick a random comment, the writer of which will be the winner.
The Rules
1. Your story comment must be PG-rated.
2. Anyone may story-comment once. If you’re a follower, you may story-comment again. If you mention this contest on another blog, forum, or Twitter, you may story-comment again, for a total of three possible entries. (Just be sure to include the link at the end of that last comment.)
3. Your story comment must be (around) 100 words. (Not that I plan to count--unless someone clearly violates this rule. In that case, the someone will be disqualified, although I’ll leave the someone’s comment for the story’s sake.)
The Prize The random winner will win one of the books I’ve recommended on the blog. (He or she will get to pick.) Here’s the list, in alphabetical order:
ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTIN’ by Rick Bragg
THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak
THE FIRE IN FICTION (Plus a Really Long Subtitle) by Donald Maass
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET by Jamie Ford
LEVIATHAN by Scott Westerfeld
THE LIGHTNING THIEF by Rick Riordan
OUTLIERS: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead
You got all that? You ready? All right, here’s the story:
The Story High school was hard, but dead school was harder. Being dead, it turned out, wasn’t nearly as easy as it looked.
“Rule number two hundred and ninety-one,” Mr. Biggs droned. “Avoid cows at all costs, as they’re fluent in dead-speak. And the living never quite know how to respond to a one-sided conversation with a cow.”
Maia sighed and clunked her forehead on the desk, narrowly missing her shiny new copy of William Shakespeare’s collected works (which had cost her an arm and a leg, literally, in registration fees--good old Willy was still collecting royalties in Dead Man’s Land). According to the pamphlet, they only had three hundred and twenty-two more rules to go.
Contest closes on Monday, May 17, at 11:59 p.m. PDT. The winner will be announced the following Tuesday, May 18. Thanks for playing!
15 comments:
Sometime after rule four hundred and sitxy three, Don't worry about worms, the intercom system crackled to life. Mr Biggs, please send Maia Eyemieye to the office with her things.
Maia sat up, blinking slowly. Her eyes had never been this dry when she'd been alive. The girl at the next table, Marisa, hissed, "Hurry up stupid. Somebody must have prayed you out of purgatory." the group around her snickered until Mr Biggs rapps his finger bone on the desk and Maia wondered how long ago it'd fallen off.
"Ms. Eyemieye will needs an escort." Mr. Biggs scanned the class, now filled with upright and alert students. "Jackson, you're it."
Maia caught the other girl's scornful looks as she stuffed her books in her desk and wobbled to her foot. With her one arm she grabbed her crutch from where she'd leaned it against the back of her chair.
Although Jackson Pilfry only had one eye (he'd poked it out last year in football practice), all the girls in seventh grade had a crush on him. The waxy pallor of death complimented his blue eye and crunchy blond hair. Something about his lopsided smile made Maia's usually-still heart flip-flop, almost as if she were still alive. There was no doubt about it, Jackson was drop-dead gorgeous.
Maia's heart beat wildly as he walked through the school. She was too shy to approach him, never mind talk to him. Jamie March stepped up to him, and started chattering to him about, well, Maia couldn't hear. She did catch Jamie's scornful look at her. She flushed red. She hastily grabbed her crutch but it was too late. Jackson caught her just in time. His magical voice seemed to float abut her, saying, "You okay?" Jamie's envious look made her fell triumphant. She nodded and he helped her up. As he walked off with Jamie, she felt like a princess. Beaming away, she practically danced off.
Oops, I'll rewrite that sentence.
Jamie's envious look made her feel,(Not fell) triumphant.
When they reached the office, Jackson waved goodbye as the principal pulled her into the office.
She didn't know what Mr. Beagle had looked like alive, but he was one ugly dead man. His lips had fallen off, so he had this permanent grin that made it difficult to read his expression. He stood and faced Maia. She tried to ignore the mouth full of teeth and concentrated on his eyebrows. They were pressed down.
"Maia, it seems there's been an accident."
"Accident?" She hadn't been in the dead world long enough to know what that meant.
"Your Father it seems, has died. You now have a legal guardian in the dead world."
Oh crap, Maia thought. Her father was going to kill her for being dead. He would be furious that she'd chased the Robinson's crazy cat into the road. She only wanted to scare it after it attacked her for no good reason.
She hadn't done the dishes or her homework before that big truck made road meat out of her. There had still been wet clothes in the dryer. And, to make matters worse, her father was afraid of death. What would he think of this place?
She wondered if she could be punished in this place. Like...actually grounded and stuff? Since she was already 6 or 100 feet under the ground, she didn't really know.
"How did he die?" she asked.
"He fell of the a ladder. Something about a cat jumping off the roof."
She laughed. She couldn't help it. Dad was always mean to that little terror.
Mr. Beagle's glare looked wrong with his permanent grin. Maia stopped laughing. If any cat could reach beyond the grave to cause trouble, Lucy could. Maia had wondered more than once if the cat were possessed.
"Care to share the joke, Maia?" he asked, not looking like he really cared to hear.
"No, it's not funny anymore."
Holding a pen between what was left of his finger bone, Mr. Beagle wrote out an address for her. "He's being processed, but you're to meet him at Dante's Workshop right after school. I'd hurry, if I were you, or there won't be much left."
Maia hobbled out of Dead School towards the streets of Codswallop, the local town.
The constant fog swirled around the ramshackle buildings towering above her, their chimneys jutting at odd angles. She glanced at the the slip of paper Mr. Beagle had handed her.
Seriously, his handwriting is awful. Is that 1237 Doornail Ave or 1234?
Being new in town sucked. She’d never been to Doornail Avenue, and it was dangerous to get lost in a place like Codswallop. A cloaked figure leaning against a lamppost caught her eye.
"Excuse me," she said. "Could you point me towards Dante's Workshop off Doornail Avenue?"
The light from the lamppost disappeared as a hood descended over her head.
Maia felt bony hands grab her neck. The smell of rotting flesh filled her nose. Before she could scream the hood had lifted and she found herself in a throne room, surrounded by chanting zombies. Flames rose from behind the throne, dancing toward the ceiling with a burning ferocity. A familiar figure walked down the gilded staircase toward her.
"Dad?"
"Maia. I'm so glad you could join me here."
He looked the same as he always had after he came home from the office. The expensive suit had been changed out for a cashmere sweater and khakis. He was wearing brown loafers in Purgatory, for heaven’s sake. Maia’s hand left the crutch and rose to pick at the hem on her rumpled t-shirt, the only one she had. She looked up from beneath wet lashes, waiting for that weary, familiar sigh of disapproval. Instead, eternally-dour Pascal Eyemieye, was smiling.
“Oh Maia,” he said, pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger, “don’t tell me you haven’t learned to regenerate.”
"I don't think they teach that until next semester," she mumbled, jerking her chin from his well-manicured but fishbelly-white hands.
"I'm disappointed in you, sweetheart," he said with a chuckle. "Did I always teach you to read ahead?"
Maia looked around the room, which was just one dessicated toe over the line to Gaucheville. Where had her father found the Interior Decorator of the Damned?
"But that doesn't matter," her father said, holding his hand out to his perpetually disappointing daughter. "Because this ring is going to change your life. Or death, really."
She took the ring. "Uh, thanks, Dad."
He looked so different with that smile on his face. She couldn't get used to it.
"What does it do?" she asked, staring at the heavy circlet, gleaming dully in the firelight.
She noticed a green gem, imbedded in the metal. As she stared at it, it seemed to glow independently of the light in the room.
"Wishes," her father whispered, glancing over his shoulder at the zombies swaying hypnotically behind him, like back-up dancers in an eighties music video. "Have anything you desire. You may have three wishes in all. Then the ring must be passed on."
"Where'd you get this thing?" Maia still felt a vague sense of distrust. But maybe it was just the zombies.
“Never mind where I got it,” he snapped. “Just make your wishes, Maia.”
He leaned toward her in his eagerness. The zombies seemed to mirror his actions, right down to his grim smile.
Maia’s gaze returned magnetically to the ring. She couldn’t seem look away from the gem for more than a moment. It beckoned to her like a siren. Just as her lips parted to murmur her first wish, the ring flew her grasp, unexpectedly knocked from her fingers. She jerked out of her haze.
“Jackson!”
“Maia,” he said, pulling her toward the door. “We have to go. Now.”
“But, my father –”
“That’s not your father.”
See what happens when you blog tired? Typos. Shame on me!
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