Saturday's Storyteller: "Really, that's the best you can come up with?"
by Belinda Roddie
"Really, that's the best you can come up with?" asked Mrs. Timber sourly.
The tapping of her red pen against her desk was like the unwanted ticking of a doomsday clock. Grace was frozen. She had told the truth, and it was as if she had offered a sloppy saga instead. She wasn't sure how to respond to her teacher except, "But that's what happened. I'm not joking."
Mrs. Timber was not amused. "Miss Farraway," she murmured, "I do not tolerate lies. Especially not elaborate lies. If I had a doctor's note, a parent's e-mail, then perhaps this conversation would be going differently. But as it is, I am not going to accept this far-fetched tale as an excuse to turn your essay in late."
This was not good. The paper was worth thirty percent of the grade, and Grace only had it half-finished. She didn't know what else to do. At this rate, she could have easily said, "The dog ate my computer," and it may have been better than actually explaining what happened. Simultaneously, she couldn't blame her teacher for being skeptical. Her story wasn't exactly logical. But it did happen.
"Look," Grace tried to reason with her. "Maybe I didn't give you enough details. If you let me finish my essay, I'll also turn in the entire story of what happened. I'll have people sign off on it, witnesses give their testimony, whatever you need. But I seriously would've had my paper to you if this weren't the truth."
"Miss Farraway..."
"Besides," added Grace, "have I ever turned in an assignment late before?"
It was a rhetorical question - she hadn't. This seemed to catch Mrs. Timber off-guard. The teacher set down her pen and let her long, blue nails do the clicking on the desk instead, the dark skin around her lips crinkled as she pulled her entire face into a contemplative frown. Outside, the rest of the students were heading home for spring break. If this wasn't settled now, then Grace would miss her bus.
"All right," Mrs. Timber finally caved. "If you bring me the essay and the story after spring break, and you get some 'witness testimony,' then I will score your essay without any markdowns. But it better be good, because if I'm not impressed, you get an F."
It was all Grace could get out of her. When she got home, she started work immediately. The story, in full, read like this:
Grace Farraway
Honors English
4th Period
I had been waiting for the bus to home after school, a week ago, when I saw a red car plow right into a traffic light pole without even slowing down. Then, it erupted in flames. I have provided the newspaper article about the accident, which I am lucky my father saved.
You might be wondering why a car accident, no matter how dreadful, could have involved me. As it turned out, that car was no ordinary car, and when the firemen came and the police asked me questions because I had witnessed the whole thing, everyone was shocked to find no signs of life in the car. There were no charred corpses, no bones, no blood, no nothing. Again, the article says as much.
I live a modest life, in a one-story home, with two brothers and one other sister. My father, a car dealer, takes care of us, while his girlfriend visits. My mother died quite some time ago, but one thing she always told me was to tell the truth. When the police officers asked me if I knew anything else, I was honest and said that I didn't. Then one of the officers, a woman with black hair and tan skin, volunteered to drive me home, since I had missed my bus.
I couldn't refuse the offer. It was that, waiting another hour for another bus, or walking thirty miles home. I got into the police car and was only somewhat perturbed at the sound of the doors locking. I was even more alarmed when the officer seemed to ignore my directions and drive on a completely different route than I was used to. It took longer than I like to admit to realize that she wasn't driving me home.
"Um, excuse me," I tried to say, buried in the backseat.
But the officer shushed me. I noticed that her radio wasn't on, and her movements were somewhat jerky and almost not human. She began to slow down once she drove onto a bumpy dirt road that I didn't even know existed near my town until then. Then, I saw a small cabin appear, like a brown blister against a yellow landscape, and thought for sure that I was being kidnapped.
I wasn't far off. By the time the officer had pulled us into the driveway of Nowhere Cabin in Eerieland, I was ready to start screaming for help. When I couldn't get the sound out, all I could do was sit frozen as the police officer - or maybe something else entirely - opened the back door and pulled me out.
"Get in the house. Now."
It turned out that the police officer was not a police officer at all, but some sort of undercover detective who knew more about the car accident than what met the eye. She sat me down in a large living room with a lot of red furniture, and I mean a lot of it. Red couches, red chairs, red curtains, red tablecloths on tables. I wouldn't have been surprised if she had wanted the walls painted red as well but decided against it. It turned out there were already two other girls here who had also witnessed similar events. I managed to contact one of them, who's given me a brief statement for you to peruse.
The officer's name was Sue Ginn, which I imagined was a fake name, and told us that we had each witnessed a supernatural phenomenon called ghost driving. Naturally, I thought she was crazy. We all did. We were all willing to tackle her to the floor and call the authorities. However, there was no phone, nor computer, and none of us knew how to drive the police car - even though we all wondered how she had snagged one.
"These ghost driving incidents are things I've been investigating for years. Years," Sue emphasized, "and I need you guys to help me out. Something evil's afoot. Demons, vampires, whatever. You can't fight 'em alone." And to prove it, she equipped us all with light body armor, a couple of stakes each, a long sword each, and a crucifix to share.
The other girls' names were Terry and Ilsa. They were from a neighboring school, and they had both seen a similar event of a car breezing past without any noticeable passerby. We were all scared out of our minds by this point, but we obviously couldn't do much else. We all stayed in the cabin for five days before Sue set us out, she claimed, to "hunt."
We went out into the plains one night and found
*REDACTED*
This paper has been picked up from one Gretchen Timber's household and is now stored as an important document in our files. We retain the strictest confidentiality about this testimony and are keeping all three girls on close watch.
No one is safe.
Do not dig any further.
You are already in too deep.
This week's prompt was provided by Arden Kilzer.
"Really, that's the best you can come up with?" asked Mrs. Timber sourly.
The tapping of her red pen against her desk was like the unwanted ticking of a doomsday clock. Grace was frozen. She had told the truth, and it was as if she had offered a sloppy saga instead. She wasn't sure how to respond to her teacher except, "But that's what happened. I'm not joking."
Mrs. Timber was not amused. "Miss Farraway," she murmured, "I do not tolerate lies. Especially not elaborate lies. If I had a doctor's note, a parent's e-mail, then perhaps this conversation would be going differently. But as it is, I am not going to accept this far-fetched tale as an excuse to turn your essay in late."
This was not good. The paper was worth thirty percent of the grade, and Grace only had it half-finished. She didn't know what else to do. At this rate, she could have easily said, "The dog ate my computer," and it may have been better than actually explaining what happened. Simultaneously, she couldn't blame her teacher for being skeptical. Her story wasn't exactly logical. But it did happen.
"Look," Grace tried to reason with her. "Maybe I didn't give you enough details. If you let me finish my essay, I'll also turn in the entire story of what happened. I'll have people sign off on it, witnesses give their testimony, whatever you need. But I seriously would've had my paper to you if this weren't the truth."
"Miss Farraway..."
"Besides," added Grace, "have I ever turned in an assignment late before?"
It was a rhetorical question - she hadn't. This seemed to catch Mrs. Timber off-guard. The teacher set down her pen and let her long, blue nails do the clicking on the desk instead, the dark skin around her lips crinkled as she pulled her entire face into a contemplative frown. Outside, the rest of the students were heading home for spring break. If this wasn't settled now, then Grace would miss her bus.
"All right," Mrs. Timber finally caved. "If you bring me the essay and the story after spring break, and you get some 'witness testimony,' then I will score your essay without any markdowns. But it better be good, because if I'm not impressed, you get an F."
It was all Grace could get out of her. When she got home, she started work immediately. The story, in full, read like this:
Grace Farraway
Honors English
4th Period
I had been waiting for the bus to home after school, a week ago, when I saw a red car plow right into a traffic light pole without even slowing down. Then, it erupted in flames. I have provided the newspaper article about the accident, which I am lucky my father saved.
You might be wondering why a car accident, no matter how dreadful, could have involved me. As it turned out, that car was no ordinary car, and when the firemen came and the police asked me questions because I had witnessed the whole thing, everyone was shocked to find no signs of life in the car. There were no charred corpses, no bones, no blood, no nothing. Again, the article says as much.
I live a modest life, in a one-story home, with two brothers and one other sister. My father, a car dealer, takes care of us, while his girlfriend visits. My mother died quite some time ago, but one thing she always told me was to tell the truth. When the police officers asked me if I knew anything else, I was honest and said that I didn't. Then one of the officers, a woman with black hair and tan skin, volunteered to drive me home, since I had missed my bus.
I couldn't refuse the offer. It was that, waiting another hour for another bus, or walking thirty miles home. I got into the police car and was only somewhat perturbed at the sound of the doors locking. I was even more alarmed when the officer seemed to ignore my directions and drive on a completely different route than I was used to. It took longer than I like to admit to realize that she wasn't driving me home.
"Um, excuse me," I tried to say, buried in the backseat.
But the officer shushed me. I noticed that her radio wasn't on, and her movements were somewhat jerky and almost not human. She began to slow down once she drove onto a bumpy dirt road that I didn't even know existed near my town until then. Then, I saw a small cabin appear, like a brown blister against a yellow landscape, and thought for sure that I was being kidnapped.
I wasn't far off. By the time the officer had pulled us into the driveway of Nowhere Cabin in Eerieland, I was ready to start screaming for help. When I couldn't get the sound out, all I could do was sit frozen as the police officer - or maybe something else entirely - opened the back door and pulled me out.
"Get in the house. Now."
It turned out that the police officer was not a police officer at all, but some sort of undercover detective who knew more about the car accident than what met the eye. She sat me down in a large living room with a lot of red furniture, and I mean a lot of it. Red couches, red chairs, red curtains, red tablecloths on tables. I wouldn't have been surprised if she had wanted the walls painted red as well but decided against it. It turned out there were already two other girls here who had also witnessed similar events. I managed to contact one of them, who's given me a brief statement for you to peruse.
The officer's name was Sue Ginn, which I imagined was a fake name, and told us that we had each witnessed a supernatural phenomenon called ghost driving. Naturally, I thought she was crazy. We all did. We were all willing to tackle her to the floor and call the authorities. However, there was no phone, nor computer, and none of us knew how to drive the police car - even though we all wondered how she had snagged one.
"These ghost driving incidents are things I've been investigating for years. Years," Sue emphasized, "and I need you guys to help me out. Something evil's afoot. Demons, vampires, whatever. You can't fight 'em alone." And to prove it, she equipped us all with light body armor, a couple of stakes each, a long sword each, and a crucifix to share.
The other girls' names were Terry and Ilsa. They were from a neighboring school, and they had both seen a similar event of a car breezing past without any noticeable passerby. We were all scared out of our minds by this point, but we obviously couldn't do much else. We all stayed in the cabin for five days before Sue set us out, she claimed, to "hunt."
We went out into the plains one night and found
*REDACTED*
This paper has been picked up from one Gretchen Timber's household and is now stored as an important document in our files. We retain the strictest confidentiality about this testimony and are keeping all three girls on close watch.
No one is safe.
Do not dig any further.
You are already in too deep.
This week's prompt was provided by Arden Kilzer.
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