"Say What?" Assignment One Entries

Alrighty! I LOVED all the entries that everyone send in! Some of them made me laugh, they were so funny. This has been the toughest one to arrange into an order I thought to be appropriate, because all of them were great. :) Thanks for everyone who entered!

So the assignment was to write a story four hundred words or less off of this dialogue prompt:

“How can you be so ignorant?”

“I prefer the term ‘blissfully unaware.’”

Everyone had such a different idea on it. It was truly so much fun to read all the ideas. :) So, without further ado, the entries!

I labeled Megs as first because I thought it best depicted (in my mind) the prompt. So here’s Megs entry. Great job, Megs!

Megs

Beach Search

Ivy was closely inspecting the beach, scanning every shell she had come across. Yet, the one thing she

was searching for was nowhere to be found; a whole sand dollar. Behind her, her brother was grabbing

every shell within reach; stuffing all the treasures into his already-overfilled-bucket.

She glanced toward the sun that was sinking ever closer to the ocean.

“Hey Ivy, I think we should head in. My bucket is full, and my stomach is empty.”

Ivy turned and looked at him. “That’s not news, Aaron. You’re always hungry!”

He turned indignant. “Nuh-uh! Besides, I’m a growing boy. I need nourishment.”

“Growing? I hope not. You’re 16 and already 6 feet tall. I feel like a shrimp next to you already!”

He groaned. “Shrimp? Don’t say that. You’re making it worse...”

Grinning, Ivy returned to her searching. “Well, we’ll go in as soon as I find a whole sand dollar.”

Aaron sighed, and trudged along behind her. “you’ve been combing this beach for two whole hours.

You’ll never find one. In fact, I doubt there’s a whole sand dollar left in this entire ocean.”

Ivy stopped short and glared at him. “How can you be so...so…ignorant?”

Aaron also stopped, feigning shock. “Me? Ignorant? Oh no. I prefer the term “blissfully unaware”.

They glared at each other for about 20 seconds. Then Ivy burst out laughing.

“Okay Aaron. We can go in now. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Huzzah!” He yelled, scaring the wits out of about ten seagulls. “Let’s go eat!”

With that, he took off running for the beach house. Ivy, grinning, walked up behind him.

But as he ran, she saw a shell fly from his bucket. As she got closer, she gasped. Picking it up, she found

that it was a whole sand dollar. It was completely intact, and beautiful.

Looking up the sand dune, she saw that her brother had stopped, and was watching her. When he

caught her stare, he did an over exaggerated shrug, grinned, and took off for the house once more.

Oh! He’s been hiding this from me the whole time..  “You had one all the time. Just wait ‘til I catch you

Aaron Rochester!” She yelled as she took off after him. She knew she’d never catch him; he was too fast.

But she could always try…

Next we have Jesseca Dawn’s wonderful piece. This is my second favorite because I could totally see this conversation taking place. :) Great job, Jesseca!

Jesseca Dawn

Captive

No, no!  Eira fought against the hands that held her captive.

“There’s no getting away from me this time,” Henry assured her,  “Neither of your brothers or your friend is here to save you now.”

“They’ll come.”

“My dear Eira, In case you didn’t notice, they were all engaged in quite a struggle with Merek when I grabbed you and left. It will be quite some time before they notice you aren’t there.”

“Don’t you dare call me ‘dear’.”

“I’ll call you whatever I want,” Henry slowed the galloping horse they were riding to a trot and then stopped.

“We’ll rest here for a minute. We’re far enough away,” he vaulted down from the horse, but before he could managed to pull Eira off, she landed on the ground beside him.

Henry grinned, “I would have been more than happy to help you.”

Eira scoffed, “Sure, you’d do it in such a way I’d break my leg instead of only spraining my ankle.”

“Don’t talk to me that way!” Henry drew back his hand and smacked her in the face.

Eira fell back, her cheek stinging from the blow. “You’re no gentleman,” she spat.

“I never said I was,” He sat down next to her.

Realizing she wouldn’t get anywhere arguing with him, Eira tried a different approach.

“Why do you hate us O'Brien's so much?”

“Do I have to have a reason?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never had anything against Kevin. I simply took Merek’s word that he was spiteful.”

Eira glanced at him quizzically, “Don’t you even want to find out what happened?”

“I don’t really care.”

Eira shook her head in disbelief, “How can you choose to be so ignorant?”

“I prefer the term ‘blissfully unaware’.”

“What happened to you? What made you hate so much?”

Henry stood and paced the clearing, “When your father is killed by vikings and you watch your siblings being torn from your mother's arms before they kill her too, you learn that life is cruel,” He paused and leaned against the tree, “I was a coward. I did nothing. I was too afraid. I hid and did nothing to help.” His voice had dropped to a whisper.

Eira was silent, shocked at his story. God, please forgive me. Help me to show him You. He needs to know your love.

“And that,” he turned to her, “Is how I learned to hate. Did my answer satisfy you?”

In third place we have Lauren’s hilarious piece, The Proposal Problem. I laughed at this scene, I thought it was so funny! Great job, Lauren!

Lauren

The Proposal Problem

       “How could you be so ignorant?” Alana raved as she dragged me into the parlor.

       “I prefer the term ‘blissfully unaware,’” I said as my older sister pushed me down on the couch.

       “How could you do that to our brother?”

       “Do what?” I asked Alana.

       “Do you have any idea what you just did?!” Alana stared at me.

       “Nope. I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal about it.”

       Alana sighed, “Gustave asked the chef to specially make those cupcakes for today. When the chef served them to us, all the cupcakes had red flowers on them except one.”

       “Yeah, I know; I ate the one with the yellow flower.”

       “Exactly! The yellow one was meant for Lucy!”

       “Why?”

“Because the chef put an engagement ring in that cupcake so Gustave could propose to Lucy.” Alana pointed to the plate in my hand.

       I looked down at my half-eaten cupcake and saw a diamond ring peeking through my cupcake remains. My mouth parted in horror as I realized what I had done. “Ohhh….that’s why Gustave made those weird faces at me.”

       Alana gave me an exasperated look. “And now you ruined everything because you just had to have that cupcake because ‘it’s your favorite color’!” Alana mocked.

       “How can I fix it?” I looked desperately at Alana.

       “Well…” Alana looked around the room. She spied a vase of flowers and her face brightened. “Give me your hair ribbons.”

I untied the hair ribbons on my braids and handed them to Alana. She tied one ribbon around the bouquet of flowers and with the other ribbon, she tied the engagement ring to the bouquet.

       Alana and I walked back into the dining room and rejoined the family. I took the bouquet of flowers to Lucy.

       “These came for you,” I said thrusting the flowers at her.

       Lucy accepted the flowers and began admiring them.

       I turned to Gustave and gave him a wink.

       “Oh my goodness!” Lucy exclaimed. “Gustave?”

       Gustave glanced over at Lucy and saw her holding the ring. He glanced back at me and mouthed a grateful “thank-you” as he bent down on one knee in front of Lucy.

       “Lucy, will you marry me?”

       “Yes!”

       I sat back in my chair and sighed in relief.

And by no means last, we have F.L.’s intriguing and intense scene she wrote up. I found this one to be so interesting and really suspenseful. Great job, F.L!

F.L. Potts

Law Problem

Rachel stepped up to the desk. The sheriff's secretary looked up. Recognizing Rachel, she

huffed, "you again?"

When Rachel didn't answer, she sighed and pointed to a closed door. "Go ahead. Sheriff Owen

will see you. He always does. Don't know why." Most of this was muttered under her breath and

Rachel ignored it.

Striding into the office, Rachel shut the door behind her.

Sheriff Owen glanced up from a stack of papers strewn about in front of him. "Oh, great. Just

what I need this morning," he grumbled. He took a quick peek at the clock. "Alright, I have a few

minutes. What is it?"

"Good morning to you too, Sheriff," Rachel forced a smile.

"Yeah, whatever. Get on with it, will you? I haven't got all day."

Rachel pulled a paper bag from her purse and dumped it's contents onto his desk. Out tumbled

a cigarette butt and a pen with the address of a hotel in Los Angeles, California.

With an impatient sigh, Sheriff Owen flicked the cigarette butt into the waste basket. Picking up

the pen, he skimmed the writing and dropped it back to the desk.

"So, I see you've been collecting garbage again," the sheriff sneered tilting back in his large

office chair.

Rachel groaned. "You know exactly what this implies. Someone has been-"

"Creeping around my house," Sheriff Owen mimicked her in a squeaky voice. "When were all

found dead one morning you'll be to blame."

"Can't you see that I'm right?" Rachel nearly shouted. "How can you be so ignorant?"

"I prefer the term 'blissfully unaware'," Sheriff Owen smirked with a roll of his eyes.

"That's just it; you're not unaware! You know what's going on, you simply don't care." Rachel

leaned across the desk, eye to eye with the man and quietly added, "one day when something

really bad happens, you'll remember this conversation." With that she turned on her heel and

left.

Even Rachel didn't know then how right she would turn out to be.

So basically, everyone tied with this assignment. All the entries were done very well and are great. Thanks for entering, everyone! We’ll do another one of these soon! :)