short story

The Funny, Little Elf and The Ghost

It’s story cube time again in school, my friends. If you enjoy a good tale made up of random ideas drawn from 9 picture die and told by an 11 year old and an 8 year old (with the help of their clever mother), then this is the story for you.

I now present to you: The Funny, Little Elf and The Ghost

Once upon a time, there was a mysterious lock… on a door… in a house. No one knew what the lock went to.  It was magical.  Now, there was a funny little elf.  This elf would take his funny little elf bike and ride around the neighborhood until one day he saw a new house.  It was mysterious and weird to him because he knew all the houses in the neighborhood, he knew everyone in the neighborhood and he knew everything about the neighborhood.  He went up to this mysterious, new house and knocked on the door.  When no one answered right away, he tapped his foot loudly and huffed then knocked impatiently, even louder.  Suddenly, a ghost answered the door and went “Bbblllllbblblblbllll!!!”  The elf jumped practically out of his skin!  He was confused by all this and annoyed but mostly confused.

He went home to ponder the meaning of it all.  He pulled out this lucky abacus.  It always gave him the correct answers to the most difficult math questions so he was sure it could help him solve the mystery of the new house with the magical lock.  He stared at the abacus for days.  Finally, he knew what to do.  The abacus told him to fly a rocket up into space and look down on the earth and say, “What’s wrong with you world?”  He had to do this because the abacus told him to.

When he came back down to earth from space, he landed on his house (with a mouse in it) and crushed both the house and the mouse.  (It was a sad day for the mouse’s family.)  He was extremely mad about all this so he found a tree with a large tree trunk, big enough carve an entirely new house out of the trunk.  He decided to live in the tree from then on.

However, while all this was fun, it still hadn’t helped him solve the mystery of the house with the magical lock.  He knew he needed to look for clues.  So he dressed in his very best Sherlock Holmes costume and began to search the neighborhood for clues that would tell him the secret of the house.

First, he talked with a tree that had a face.  The tree said, “Bblbllblblblblblbl!”  The elf replied, “Oogie, oogie, oogie.”  To which the tree said, “Well, sir, I don’t know anything about the house other than that there is an old man living in the house that died yesterday!”  At this the tree used his mighty branches to push the elf down into a mud puddle.  Now, the elf’s feet were ever so dirty, as well as the rest of him, but mostly his feet.  He went to go wash off his dirty feet and happened to find some footprints… covered in gold!  He picked up the golden footprints and made millions of dollars.

With his newfound wealth, he hired the world’s best living detective, Batman.  Batman called the Justice League and they all went over to the mysterious house to solve the mystery.  What they found has astounded everyone who has heard this tale. They found a….

And then the funny little elf, grew to be an old man.  He never told anyone what they found.  But he did move into the house and had lots of girly tea parties with the ghost.

The End.

The Very Sad, Fat Sheep

Recently, I bought a game called “Story Cubes” for us to use as a creative writing tool during school.  We used them for the first time yesterday.  There are 9 dice with a different picture on each of the 6 sides.  You roll all 9 of the dice and then try to construct a story from whatever pictures you get.  Here is the story the three of us came up with after our first roll.

The Very Sad, Fat Sheep

Once upon a time there was a really fat sheep.  The sheep ate so much he was really unhappy with his figure.  The sheep was sad.  He was so sad he ate 50 gallons of ice cream and weighed himself.  And then he was sadder.  But what he didn’t know was that the scale he used was enchanted and it spoke to him.

It said, “Hey, fatty, what do you think I am, the Golden Gate Bridge?”

He was so sad that he jumped into a hot air balloon and tried to fly away but he sunk down to the ground and broke the scale.  He wanted to learn math so he could measure how fat he was so he bought an abacus.  The abacus he wanted to buy was very expensive so he sold his house in order to pay for it.  Now he was fat, sad and homeless.

He decided to eat a bunch of fruit to lose weight.  One of the apples he ate was actually poisoned but he was so fat he survived.  He looked around, he thought he was going to die.  But then something caught his eye.  It was a very rare beetle renowned for its healing properties.  He quickly ate the beetle and it made him all better and even helped him lose all the weight.  He decided to get a job as an accountant because he was so good at math now.

The end.

By Meghan, Sammee and Mommy

Maggie and Joseph

*Disclaimer: this is a short story I wrote as a writing exercise at like 2 a.m.  There are bound to be grammatical errors, etc.  Don’t be so judgy.*

Maggie carefully wedged her journal back into its hiding place, between her mattress and box spring. Joseph would be home any moment. She glanced into the small compact mirror she always kept within reach; her make-up was spot on, her hair perfectly coiffed. She placed the mirror back on the nightstand and sat in bed listening for the front door, the signal that Joseph was home. Nothing but crickets and the hum of the fan. She picked up the magazine she’d purchased that day while waiting in the drug store checkout line and tried to read it. It was useless. She was too nervous, too on edge, she tossed the magazine to the side and smoothed out the wrinkles in the bed covers.

A moment later, just when she was about to give up and start pacing the floor, she heard the familiar sound of the front door opening and closing, followed by heavy work boots stamping across the living room floor to the kitchen. Cabinet doors opened and closed, the refrigerator door opened, something was poured, then it closed again. Finally, the heavy work boots stamped out of the kitchen and down the hall. They stopped just short of the bedroom door. Maggie’s heart nearly leapt out of her rib cage. Her eyes riveted to the door knob, she sat holding her breath.

The knob turned slowly, the door crept open and Joseph, seeing Maggie staring at him, stopped in the doorway, beer in hand.

“Maggie,” he started in surprise, “I didn’t think you’d be up, darlin’.” Maggie had always loved Joseph’s quiet southern drawl.

“Surprised?” she managed, somewhat breathlessly.

“Well, yah,” relaxing a bit, he started walking into the room again, “it’s awful late, darlin’. I told ya I’d be home late tonight. Didn’t need to wait up.”

Maggie reached for something she’d wedged between the mattress and box spring.

“How else could I have given you this, dear?” she asked, her heart exploding in her chest as she raised the .22 caliber revolver into the air and aimed it at Joseph’s heart.

Paralyzed, his beer glass hit the floor, the foamy brown liquid splashing over his boots and soaking into the carpet. Maggie gripped the gun in both hands, steadying her aim and steeling her nerves. She gently squeezed the trigger before Joseph had time to get out, “Now, Maggie, darlin’.” Then he was dead, his blood mixing with the beer in the carpet.

It took Maggie a few moments to realize the gun had actually gone off and Joseph was actually dead. Once she did, she dropped the gun onto the shag carpeting in disgust. She shook all over for a moment but eventually managed to calm herself, breathing in deeply, meditatively.

She picked up her little mirror and checked her hair and make-up again. Perfection. She breathed a sigh of relief and put the mirror away.

Dear Journal, she wrote a moment later. Well, I did it. I finally killed that cheating bastard…

The End.

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Short stories

I’m going to start writing short stories as a writing exercise.  I don’t know how often but I’ll try to post some of them on here.  My next post will be the short story I wrote tonight.  Enjoy!