If there is one thing in the world that I hate more than teachers, it’s creative writing. If there is one thing more that teachers hate more than school, it’s me, Josh Jetsky, student with the worst grades in the school and . So you can imagine that I would hate it when the teacher assigned a creative writing assignment, especially sitting in a stuffy classroom meant for 2nd graders, not 8th. It’s kinda hard to concentrate when it has the alphabet and numbers plastered on the sickly peach walls, “helping us learn”. It’s not working. The teacher is not any better. “Anything not real, but it can include things that are realistic,” she tells us with the voice that matches the room. Right. I don’t care about my grades, and I hate writing. So I decided to give the teacher what she wanted: unrealistic.
I know I will get a bad grade. I always do. The teachers hate me and the work I do, which I don’t like so they don’t like so I get a bad grade. It’s a complicated process. My parents care but I don’t and my teachers don’t which makes me care even less. If they don’t care then why should I? Did I mention that it’s complicated? So why should I care if I get a bad grade on a creative writing assignment? That’s what I thought. If the teacher wanted creative, I would give them just that. My story’s something about zombies and aliens taking over Dallas, Texas. After almost everyone is dead, the city explodes. Ha ha.
The class watches as the teacher’s pen scribble on our papers. No one is reading like we are supposed to. At one paper, the teacher actually starts to tear up and marks a big letter that is most definitely and A. That paper probably belongs to Albert Frenzky, the teacher’s pet. Always getting A’s.
When I get the assignment back, the teacher grins at me and hands me back ... and A+. “Great job, Josh,” she beams. “I have never been so proud in my life! This is the best paper I have ever seen! And very realistic!” From across the room, Albert glared viciously at the back of my head.
While I stare after her with my jaw on the ground, the speaker in the corner of the room crackles to life. “Good morning, students,” drawls the principal, assuredly spraying spit onto the microphone as he spoke. No one knew what he was going to say. He never made any announcements, he just didn’t care enough. “Sorry for the interruption--” again, something he never did: apologize. “--but the city next to us, Dallas, has exploded after being invaded by what is believed to be zombies and aliens. We need to evacuate. Thanks and have a good day.”
Even in a state of panic, students who usually ignored me came up to pat me on the back and offer me their congratulations. Though they ignored me, they knew about how I felt about my grades.
I was too much in shock to make the connection of recent events to my story, a mistake I would later regret.
You would not believe the excitement bubbling over in my house when I showed my parents my grade. They were ecstatic, jumping all around, my mom snuffling with joy. Only my sister wasn’t overjoyed. She sat on the couch with her iPod blasting in her ears while she read pre-teen magazines. Wish that’s what my parents would do. I bet the Jones’s next door could hear them, along with the Foster’s on the other side. They wouldn’t leave me alone for the next weeks, buying me stuff and pampering me to no end.
I figured it out. I write and I get good grades and I am popular. I want to keep writing, creative writing. I write about a guy named Josh (coincidence) who becomes popular overnight. I write about how the bullies of a school disappear in a collapsed building. I get more popular. I become cool and I keep writing.
My favorite story is about the class bullies. There’s a party and the building collapses, burying everything and everyone in it alive, never again to see the light of day. I was too blind to realize that the next day, none of the bullies showed up. The principal, spitting all the while, announced that they had died in a collapsed building. I didn’t care, they were mean, and I was popular.
I saw them when I was coming home. It was 3:30am on a Sunday in mid-October. I had come from a party and was falling asleep as I was walking. A rustle of bushes and a thud and squelch. I woke up and gripped a knife in my pocket I never left the house without. All was silent.
Then they came back. Rotting corpses, bloody and muddy, crawling through the night. They came. They surround me, forcing me into a corner of my bedroom. They are terrifying. They are dead, but they’re not. They want me dead.
They all crawl onto me, moaning and shrieking. They are crawling. They are crawling toward the one who caused them pain. They are crawling towards me.
The knife falls from my frozen hand. It’s not frozen from cold. It’s frozen from fear, shock that it’s happening. Something in my head clicks, but something snaps. I wrote this, and now I will pay.
A hand closes around my throat. I bite back a scream.
I know I will get a bad grade. I always do. The teachers hate me and the work I do, which I don’t like so they don’t like so I get a bad grade. It’s a complicated process. My parents care but I don’t and my teachers don’t which makes me care even less. If they don’t care then why should I? Did I mention that it’s complicated? So why should I care if I get a bad grade on a creative writing assignment? That’s what I thought. If the teacher wanted creative, I would give them just that. My story’s something about zombies and aliens taking over Dallas, Texas. After almost everyone is dead, the city explodes. Ha ha.
The class watches as the teacher’s pen scribble on our papers. No one is reading like we are supposed to. At one paper, the teacher actually starts to tear up and marks a big letter that is most definitely and A. That paper probably belongs to Albert Frenzky, the teacher’s pet. Always getting A’s.
When I get the assignment back, the teacher grins at me and hands me back ... and A+. “Great job, Josh,” she beams. “I have never been so proud in my life! This is the best paper I have ever seen! And very realistic!” From across the room, Albert glared viciously at the back of my head.
While I stare after her with my jaw on the ground, the speaker in the corner of the room crackles to life. “Good morning, students,” drawls the principal, assuredly spraying spit onto the microphone as he spoke. No one knew what he was going to say. He never made any announcements, he just didn’t care enough. “Sorry for the interruption--” again, something he never did: apologize. “--but the city next to us, Dallas, has exploded after being invaded by what is believed to be zombies and aliens. We need to evacuate. Thanks and have a good day.”
Even in a state of panic, students who usually ignored me came up to pat me on the back and offer me their congratulations. Though they ignored me, they knew about how I felt about my grades.
I was too much in shock to make the connection of recent events to my story, a mistake I would later regret.
You would not believe the excitement bubbling over in my house when I showed my parents my grade. They were ecstatic, jumping all around, my mom snuffling with joy. Only my sister wasn’t overjoyed. She sat on the couch with her iPod blasting in her ears while she read pre-teen magazines. Wish that’s what my parents would do. I bet the Jones’s next door could hear them, along with the Foster’s on the other side. They wouldn’t leave me alone for the next weeks, buying me stuff and pampering me to no end.
I figured it out. I write and I get good grades and I am popular. I want to keep writing, creative writing. I write about a guy named Josh (coincidence) who becomes popular overnight. I write about how the bullies of a school disappear in a collapsed building. I get more popular. I become cool and I keep writing.
My favorite story is about the class bullies. There’s a party and the building collapses, burying everything and everyone in it alive, never again to see the light of day. I was too blind to realize that the next day, none of the bullies showed up. The principal, spitting all the while, announced that they had died in a collapsed building. I didn’t care, they were mean, and I was popular.
I saw them when I was coming home. It was 3:30am on a Sunday in mid-October. I had come from a party and was falling asleep as I was walking. A rustle of bushes and a thud and squelch. I woke up and gripped a knife in my pocket I never left the house without. All was silent.
Then they came back. Rotting corpses, bloody and muddy, crawling through the night. They came. They surround me, forcing me into a corner of my bedroom. They are terrifying. They are dead, but they’re not. They want me dead.
They all crawl onto me, moaning and shrieking. They are crawling. They are crawling toward the one who caused them pain. They are crawling towards me.
The knife falls from my frozen hand. It’s not frozen from cold. It’s frozen from fear, shock that it’s happening. Something in my head clicks, but something snaps. I wrote this, and now I will pay.
A hand closes around my throat. I bite back a scream.