Old Fic!

[happydalek]

I recently came across a bunch of my old paperwork from elementary school and one particular item of interest was an old science fiction story I wrote sometime around fifth grade.  I've always been an aspiring writer, but I've never been any good at finishing things, so much was my surprise to find this little short story was actually completed!  A real rarity.  So, lacking any other projects at present, I typed it up (repairing only misspellings and grammatical errors) and decided to post it here, just for laughs.

A little background: when I was in fifth grade (about ten or eleven years old), the big literary craze was R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series.  They were the Harry Potter of the '90's.  So naturally, it became the prerogative of all us aspiring kid writers to write our own knock-off series.  I named mine Chills.  I knew I had completed the first book in my series and started a second, but until I found this little manuscript, I had no idea that I'd been motivated enough to actually finish it!  The title is My Teacher's Spaced Out, borrowing heavily from another childhood fave, My Teacher is an Alien. 

So, here it is.

I struggled to stay awake.  Mr. Thompson was the most boring teacher I ever had.  He seemed pretty bored, too, most of the time.  But he got pretty excited about space.  I personally was not too interested. 

“Robert!  Tell me what sun spots are!” he bellowed.

I sat straight up.  “Uh, sun spots are cooler spots on the sun,” I replied. 

“Good enough,” he grumbled. 

I glanced at Tommy, my best friend.  “Stingy!” he whispered.  That made no sense.  Tommy never made sense.

After school, Tommy and I were walking through the school parking lot.  “Did you see how excited he got?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah, he was almost about to explode!” I said.

Tommy stopped walking.  He stared out into the nowhere.

“Tommy are you okay?” I asked.

He looked at me, a devilish grin on his face.  “What if Mr. Thompson is from space?”

“Huh?” the question caught me by surprise.  “Tommy, you have really lost it!” I cried. 

“Really, Rob!  I’ll bet he’s from the planet Bored!  Here to bored us to death!” Tommy shouted. 

“And I bet you’re from the planet brainless!”

He shoved me playfully.  I stumbled back.  I hit something soft and warm.  I looked up and gasped.

“Mr. Thompson!” I cried out.  Mr. Thompson grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet.  I looked helplessly at Tommy.  Mr. Thompson also had Tommy in a tight grip. He squeezed my arm until I flinched.

Seated in a chair inf ront of his desk, I looked at Tommy.  He mouthed the word, “Busted.”

“And just what were you doing in the parking lot after school?” Mr. Thompson growled.

I didn’t say a word.  Neither did Timmy.  Mr. Thompson looked at us.  A tight frown plastered to his face.  Finally, I spoke up.  “W-We were walking home until Tommy asked me something,” I managed to choke out.

“Tommy, eh,” said Mr. Thompson thoughtfully.  “Well, Tommy, tell me just what you asked Robert here.”

“Something,” said Tommy.

Tommy, what do you think you’re doing!? I thought.

“Answer me, young man!” threatened Mr. Thompson.

“I did,” said Tommy calmly.  “Something.”

I looked worriedly at Tommy.  Mr. Thompson glared at Tommy.  “I’m giving you one last chance!  What did you ask Robert!?”

And before I knew what was happening, Tommy grabbed my arm and fled out of the school.  We didn’t stop running until the school was out of sight.

We stopped running, bent over, hands on knees, gasping for breath.  “What on Earth has gotten into you?” I shrieked.

Tommy smiled.  “I’ve always wanted to do that!” he cried.

“Well, you did it, alright!” I blurted out.  “You did it real good!  You know how much trouble we’re gonna be in?!” I shoved him real hard.  He stumbled back.

“I know! I just had to test it,” he said brushing off his shorts. 

“Test what?” I asked suspiciously.

“The escape plan!” he said.

“Escape plan?” I asked.

“Yeah, now we know how to avoid having our brains turned to slush by the alien,” he said.

“Man, Tommy, you watch too much TV,” I replied.  “Come on, my Mom must be wondering where we are.”

“Where have you boys been!?” my mom cried. 

“Running from an alien,” Tommy blurted out.

I rolled my eyes.  “What?” my mom asked.

“It’s kinda a long story, Mom,” I said, glaring at Tommy.

“Well, you’re home now,” she said calmly.

The next day thing seemed to go rather normally.  But, it was at the end of the day when everything fell in place.  Mr. Thompson called us up to his desk.  “Boys,” he said, “I know what you’re up to,” he said kindly.  “And it won’t work.”

“What?” I stammered,  “What do you mean?”

“I can read your minds.  All aliens can.  I thought you that, Tommy,” said Mr. Thompson.

“What!?  I-I don’t understand,” said Tommy, suddenly blanketed with fear.

Mr. Thompson got up and ventured toward us.  I suddenly flung out my hand, grabbed Tommy and ran top speed down the hall, Mr. Thompson hot on my heels, shouting things like: “Get back here, you little worms!” 

I paid no attention to him, and ran all the faster despite the pain that had developed in my side.  I burst through the door, Tommy beside me.  At last we lost him.  After going a bit further, just to be safe, we stopped.  We rested a bit; I laughed nervously and patted Tommy on the back. 

“We did it!” I cried.  Tommy looked at me.  The poor guy was really shaken with fear. 

”He-he almost got us!” he shrieked.

“I know, but we did it!  We outran him!  The Escape Plan worked again!” I cried happily. 

Tommy looked at me and began to slump to the ground.  I grabbed him and woke him up and walked home after taking Tommy home. 

That night I drifted in and out of a troubled sleep.  Mr. Thompson had to be an alien!

The next day was Saturday.  Boy was I glad!  Around two pm., Tommy showed up.

“We have to plan a way to kill him!” he cried.

“Whoa, calm down.  Kill who?”

“The alien, dork!” shrieked Tommy. 

“Oh, right, well, in Aliens they kill it with electricity,” I reported.

“Yeah, well where will we get it?” asked Tommy.  Good question.  I hadn’t thought of that.  “Wait!” said Tommy, “I may have a big battery in my garage.”

“Good!” I said.  “I think I have some metal wire around here.”

“That ought to be enough to do it.  We’ll make a super battery and plug it into his sandwich, and when he takes a bit, ZAAPP!” thundered Tommy.  “Good plan!  It’s sure to work!”

By Monday, we had the trap set.  We got in school early, and got the plan straight.  I got stuck with the job of sneaking it in the alien’s lunch box.  I plugged the battery into his sandwich, and fled to my seat next to Tommy’s, and worked on my seatwork.  The rest of the morning, Mr. Thompson seemed like a normal sixth grade teacher.  Only Tommy and I knew the truth.  Strangely enough, Mr. Thompson totally avoided our eyes.  At long last, lunchtime rolled around.  While everyone we laughing and joking, Tommy and I remained silent, locked on Mr. Thompson.

Then suddenly, an ear-splitting ZAP! shook the room so much, every single person was silent.  I had taken my eyes off him the moment it happened.  I looked at Tommy.  He was frozen in horror.  Everyone had panicked and fled; only Tommy and I remained.  I followed his gaze to the figure stalking toward us.  I tried to scream.

No sound came out, my voice choked with terror.  Before us, stood the short, fat alien, breathing loud and heavily, his face charred black. It leaped at us.  Tommy was too horrified to move.  I shoved him out of his seat. 

“Go!  Get outta here!” I shouted.  He didn’t need to be told twice.  He bounded away.

“Silly boy!” came a strange, hissing voice from the alien.

“You don’t scare me!  You’re powerless!  You stupid old fat thing!” I cried shrilly.  I couldn’t believe my courage. 

“You’ve made a big mistake!” it said.  It went to grab me.  I raced to his desk and picked up the battery.  It was just about to get me, but instead, I jabbed the wire plugs into its mushy skin.  The creature let out a strange hissing noise as it fried.  Then it disappeared.

For the past week, I haven’t had school, for lack of a teacher.  I’m considered class rescuer for it.  It feels pretty cool to be popular.  I also have the battery handy in case another teacher starts acting weird.  Tommy is just as scared as me.  Or, as you could say, “Spaced out.”