A potential submission to NPR's Fiction Writing Contest

This is quite possibly the worst entry I've ever written. In fact, this was actually a writing assignment given to a bunch of sixteen year-olds. They had to begin wtih "No one really believed the story at first" and end with "Like all good things, it came to an end." I was going to showcase their work, but decided to showcase my own instead. No, really. No need to thank me.

"By This Rulebook, I Rule"

A tale of danger, discipline and derring-do, straight from the bowels of a public school! Maybe even the one...your kids go to!

No one really believed the story at first. Least of all Dean of Students Hank Thumpkins. It was just too strange: a guy? And another guy? In the hallway? Fighting?

“Nobody fights in this here school!” Thumpkins declared. “My discipline is too stern! They’re too afraid to fight in this here school!”

Hall monitor Jesse Hueber thought to himself of palm trees and beach cabanas: where he would soon be taking his vacation and where he wouldn’t have to listen to the big, sweating, bull-necked idiot in front of him. But that was several hours in the future, and for now, he had the dean to persuade. Maybe this time, he could be persuaded with the facts.

“I saw the fight,” he said patiently. “I broke it up.”

“Stress, m’boy,” Thumpkins said, swiveling back in his office chair and blowing cigar smoke all over the room. “Nerves. Happens to the best of us. I remember when I was fighting in the war--“

“Sir, I broke the fight up, and I brought the two boys in here to get a referral.” Hueber gestured behind him, where the boys sat sulking, bleeding from their ears and spitting teeth into Thumpkins’ secretary’s coffee mug.

“They look like good young Christians to me,” declared Thumpkins. “Good-hearted, too. What do you want to go starting trouble for around in this here school?”

“This one,” Hueber said, gesturing to the taller boy with brass knuckles and a split lip, “wanted to beat up this one,” here gesturing at the shorter, muscled boy with the black belt in jujitsu and prison tattoos, “for taking his lunch money. He said if he didn’t give it up, he’d beat him up.”

“Uh huh. And then what happened?”

“Then he beat him up.”

“Well if he did give up the money, why would he want to go ahead and beat him up? It just doesn’t add up, Jenkins.”

“My name is Hueber.”

“Whatever.” Thumpkins waved a hand. “Now me, when I’m prosecutin’ a case, I like to make sure I have all the facts at hand.”

“I have all the facts, sir,” Hueber said grimly. “I was there. I saw it.”

“Doesn’t mean you have all the facts, does it, Jenkins?”

“Sir—“

“What’s that boy’s blood type?” Thumpkins asked abruptly.

Hueber blinked again. “Sir?”

“His astrological sign? Heritage? Opinions about the future of the gold market?”

Hueber stared, his jaw working soundlessly.

“You don’t know? Then how can you say you have all the facts?”

“I don’t…I…sir, he’s bleeding on me!”

“Pure speculation, my boy. Why, that blood could have come from anywhere before it started oozing out his veins. Now ain’t that so? Say that’s so, boy.”

“Sir…”

“Won’t have any of this nonsense in this here school, Jenkins. Go wash that boy’s blood off your face. You’re a disgrace to your uniform.”

Hueber started sweating. “I don’t wear a uniform, sir.”

“And you never will, not with that attitude. Shape up or ship out, that’s my motto.” Thumpkins looked at his watch. “Well, now, I think you boys have learned a valuable lesson, haven’t you?”

“Sure have, sir,” said the tall boy, cracking his knuckles and staring malevolently at the other.

“I have indeed,” responded the squat boy, drawing a line across his throat and flipping a pair of nunchuks across his chest expertly.

“Good.” The dean beamed triumphantly. “Now, Jenkins, I suggest you go start your vacation. Beginning right about now, isn’t it? You’ll feel better after you get some time away.”

And Jenkins—er, Hueber, did. He had a great vacation. But like all good things, it came to an end.