Project For Class on Wendsday

Max Oxford traced over his thoughts while waiting for his turn to board the bus.  The bell had just rung signaling the completion of Tuesdays school day.  While all of Mr. Howe’s students shrugged on their back packs and began to file out of his fifth grade room, he shouted out an assignment that was due promptly tomorrow, forcing everyone to make dissatisfying noises.  The spontaneous assignment was to write a short story about something they find interesting.  He found his father’s endless collection of toy race cars pretty interesting.  How his mother made his favorite apple pie so perfectly was quite interesting he thought.  Or perhaps his favorite tv show that included space ships and questionable cartoon characters.  

    Just then, he positioned his foot to climb up the stairs to the bus when Prudence Lapell ran her fist into his ribs making him grunt.  She laughed loudly and annoyingly, then jumped onto the yellow children train.  Max rolled his eyes while letting out a sigh and continued forward.  

    One thing everyone could agree on was that Prudence Lapell was an ugly girl.  Inside and out she was revolting.  Her frizzy brown hair flapped around her chubby red face and her thick pimpled nose was always raised a little too high.  She was also the only other person at Max Oxford’s bus stop.  She enjoyed arriving at their corner extra early in the mornings and kicking pebbles at Max as he wanders towards her.  Then, she will either proceed to punch him in various parts of his body, or yell profanities at him until the bus rolled up to collect them.  

    As he stared out the grummy bus window, he joked with the thought about basing his story around Prudence.  Then he thought, why not?  He pulled out his notebook and began to scribble on it.  He glanced over his shoulder once to see if she was paying attention or could intentionally see what he was writing.  Seeing her scream with her friends satisfied him enough to continue writing.  

    The next morning, everyone in Max’s class piled in, hung their bags, and begin the day.  At exactly 11:23 that day, Mr. Howe asked everyone to get out their projects.  Then he asked for volunteers to read.  No one volunteered.  He threatened the class to pull names from the name jar.  After a few more minutes of silence he walked over to his desk and reached into a wide, circular glass .  He fumbled around and then pulled out a folded piece of paper.

    “Max Oxford.” he bellowed looking over his glasses. “You can start us off.”

   

    Max’s face turned bright red.  He didn’t anticipate having to read his story out loud.  Prudence was the star of his story and he didn’t say very nice things.  He considered making a whole new story up on the spot, but then decided against it.  He was going to read what he wrote and not feel bad for it at all. So he cleared his throat, and began to read.

    “My story is about a girl named Prudence.” There were shrieking laughter coming from where Prudence and her friends sat.  He quickly looked over to see her laughing and whispering with her other ugly friends.  He continued anyway. “Prudence was not nice.  Prudence was scary, and mentally questionable. All adults treated her nicely anyways.  Because they didn’t know she was ugly.  She would make cupcakes and dress like a princess for halloween to disguise her monster inside.”

    “Mr. Howe!” she screeched. “He’s talking about me! I was Cinderella last year!”  All that Mr.Howe did was shush her though. He wanted to hear what Max Oxford’s point was. Like he was in a trance.  

    “One day, Prudence got a spell cast on her for being more wicked than a witch.  She didn’t know it. But soon, horrible things would start to happen to her.” He glanced over his paper to see her eyes grow very big and very alarmed.  “Without warning, things will began to make her world turn upside down.  The most awful things she’s ever done will now be justified.

    “When she was in 1st grade, she bit a hole into Lacy Kelly’s arm that had to be treated by many doctors.  To this day, Lacy has two tiny scars marking what Prudence did.  For that, She will lose her two front teeth.  They will never grow back.”  Everyone turned to look at Prudence then.  They watched her face turn pink, then red, then violet.  She shakily moved her hand to her mouth, and slip it inside.  When she brought her hand back out, she was holding two pearly white teeth.  The girls around her gasped and quickly slide their chairs far away from here.  Max continued.

    “For pouring her milk all over Jimmy’s brand new shoes, just because she was jealous, her shoes will always be full of milk.  No matter what shoes she wears, they will fill with sour smelling milk. They’ll overflow and squeak when she walks.  And her socks will be a soggy mess forever.”  Prudence reluctantly looked down at her feet.  Slowly milk started to pour out the seems and onto the floor.  

    “In Kindergarten,  she cut off all of Grace’s hair during nap time, just because it was more curly and blonder than her own. So now, all of Prudence’s will fall out. until she becomes completely bald.” She tugs at the ends of her hair and watch a clump fall out into her palm.  Tears began streaming down her face and she let out a scream so loud it gave everyone an instant headache.  

    “Then, In fourth grade-”

    “Make him stop! Somebody make him stop!” She yelled while pushing out of her seat.  She started to walk towards him but her wet shoes made her slip. She reached for the desk only to let more strands of hair fall from her head.  Max Stood up to match his new found power.  His voice boomed deeper, and he lifted himself to look bigger.  

    “In fourth grade, Prudence purposely killed the class mouse by dropping a dictionary on it when no one was looking.  This behavior is not just terrifying but also resulted into her now growing a mouse tail.  No matter how hard she will try to pull it off, or how much money her parents spend on surgeries, the tail can never be removed.” She stood straight up to stare at Max.  There was a loud rip and the back of Prudence’s pants showed a sliver of a gray tail.  She was crying uncontrollably now.  She just watched Max now in terror. Unable to say anything.  

    “Finally, from all the times Prudence shoved him into the stairs, and yelled horribly mean things at him, she will never be happy.  Anything that is supposed to be joyful in her life, will only bring her dread.  Whenever she feels like smiling, she’ll find it impossible.  These, are the things that she will now have to deal with for the rest of her life.”

   

    Max silently sat back down resting his paper on his desk.  He did not look at Prudence, or Mr. Howe, or any of his other classmates.  

    The next morning he walked to the bus stop expecting to see Prudence standing there.  Waiting to see her kick rocks or do anything else to harm him in some way.  But she wasn’t there.  He glared at the spot that she should be in.  Then he smiled a little smile and kicked pebbles at where her shadow would have been.