Saturday's Storyteller: "She wasn't sure what was more offensive: the notion that he thought she needed rescuing, or that he had only thought to arm himself with a crescent wrench."

by Belinda Roddie

She wasn't sure what was more offensive: the notion that he thought she needed rescuing, or that he had only thought to arm himself with a crescent wrench. Either way, the Soviets were closing in, and she had her semi-automatic ready to go.

"I am egregiously ill-equipped, aren't I?" Jason asked, unable to reduce the quivering in his voice.

"Stand back," Sara growled, lifting the cold snout of her firearm and pointing it at the nearest KGB officer. "I'll handle this."

***

"And she gave you a D for it?"

Hannah laughed. She snapped open a can of sodaand drank it warm. " 'Grossly historically inaccurate and asinine,'" she announced. "Her words exactly."

"I thought this was a creative writing class? Not a control freak workshop?"

"Hey, she liked the scene with the dictator, at least."

Hannah had written an alternate reality story about a prevalent Soviet Union and an English female assassin who had been assigned, alongside a male idiot, to deal with the supreme leaders of the country. Diana, on the other hand, had gone with a softer, sweeter plot, and gotten an A for it. It was no secret that their teacher was an overly sentimental, heinously picky reader, which seemed to undermine the entire premise of the class to begin with. One classmate had written an incredible saga about mutated capybaras fighting in a post-apocalyptic Portland, Oregon and been told to rewrite it entirely, or he would receive a failing grade.

"Sometimes," Diana sighed, perusing the scribblings in her spiral notebook, "I'd like us to jointly write our greatest work yet. 'How Mrs. Dunfiss Wound Up Trapped on an Ice Floe, and Nobody Missed Her.'"

"It'll win all the awards."

"Only maybe we can change her last name to 'Dumbface,'" Diane added. "You know, to protect the innocent."

Hannah snorted. "Dunfiss is not innocent."

She had had a story in mind, though, one slightly more based in reality, for next week's assignment. Having gotten pretty annoyed with her poor grades in the class, Hannah had made an effort to find as many weaknesses and secrets about her teacher as possible. And she had found one. Lucinda Dunfiss, every day after school, would drive in the direction of the ice cream shop, and by the time Hannah got out of karate class three hours later, only then would she see her teacher leaving. The possibilities were endless: A torrid love affair with one of the sundae boys? A secret hatch leading to a dungeon or sex lair? A hidden drug cartel behind the rainbow colors vomited across the walls of the shop? There was only one way to find out.

"Okay, Diane," said Hannah. "Let's have some fun. Next Monday, we head to the ice cream shop and see if we really can write a masterpiece about Dunfiss."

"Dumbface," corrected Diane.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll deal with that in the editing process."

***

Jason swung his crescent wrench forward and, surprisingly, caught a bullet off the end of it. Of course, that didn't stop the tool from exploding like shrapnel in his hand, and with a shriek he threw himself to the ground to avoid the brunt of it. Around him, the crunch of falling bodies was like hearing someone jump into a pile of wet leaves. Sara never seemed to run out of bullets.

When it was over, Sara adjusted her eyepatch and smiled. Jason felt his breath catch in his throat.

"You've got good aim for having only one eye," he tried to compliment her. Of course, to her, it sounded like asshole talk.

"You're pretty useful, for having no balls," retorted Sara.

This week's prompt was provided by José García.