The Art of Sandwich Snatching

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This is for the Big Story Contest. My story is about a teacher at a desk attacking penguins.


"Alright class, we shall resume after lunch and recess. You may go out now," the teacher said, setting down her chalk. There was a loud noise of shuffling papers, and then the students cheered and ran out the door. Their footsteps faded down the hall, as the teacher erased the board.

Content with the day so far, the teacher took her lunch and went to her desk. After piling a large stack of papers up and putting away pens, she laid out her napkin to eat. Her square sandwich took up half of the napkin and her apple took up at third. She set out one star shaped sugar cookie for later. She grabbed her apple and took a big bite. Crunch! The door slammed open against the wall. She looked over, but nobody was there.

Must have been the wind, she thought to herself. She continued eating the apple and pulled out a book to read. When the apple was nothing more but a core and seeds, she began on her veggie sandwich.

Padded footsteps echoed out in the hall. There was a short squalling sound followed by another door slamming. The soft footsteps grew closer. The teacher focused on her book. Nails clicked on the tile floor nearby. The teacher glanced up, a tiny bit aggravated at being disturbed. A black and white face with a huge beak stared inches away from her. The teacher yelped and thrust her wheeled chair backwards. The penguin waddled closer, eyeing her food.

"Back you, monster!" she cried to it. The animal tilted its head at her and jumped for the sandwich. The teacher grabbed a ruler from her desk and began smacking the penguin on the head. It squawked and stepped sideways. She continued to hit it, all the while staying seated at her desk.

To her surprise, another penguin entered the room. This one went to the back of the room and began jabbing at the students' desks. The teacher screamed, and it turned to look at her. It peered at her with its beady eyes and wobbled over. It snatched her sugar cookie and gobbled down. She smashed the ruler on to its beak, and it yelped. Then it nipped her arm, which caused another round of ruler smacking.

The principal walked by the room. He saw her attacking the penguins and came in.

"Uh, ma'am... those animals are from the zoo exhibit coming today." His voice was drowned out by the squawking and whacking and the occasional grunt from the teacher. "You may want to stop hitting them. After all they're very rare types of penguin..."

There was still no response from the teacher. The principal scratched the back of his neck. He was positive Mr. Popper would not be happy with this. He stepped forward to intervene. "Ma'am... the penguins, they are very special. And their owner, Mr. Popper, will be unhappy with your... ruler hitting."

The teacher looked up at the man, her arm frozen inches above the penguins' beaks. Their beady, black eyes sparkled. The first one leaped towards the sandwich. It grabbed and gobbled it down. Satisfied, the pair waddled over to the principal, one snipped at his pant legs while the other pecked his shoe, and they tottered out the door. The principal and teacher were left speechless.




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Hai!

The prompt's kind of an obvious one, so there wasn't so much that you could do with it except take it literally, I guess. :mrgreen: This was cute and I like the reference to Mr Popper with the penguins.

However, I did feel that there wasn't a whole lot to this. I mean, yeah, considering the prompt, you couldn't put a whole lot else into it, except for penguins and the teacher and all, but I'd have liked something to take away with me afterwards; some image or message or thought or whatever. I've no suggestions for suggestions how to do this, though. >_<

What you could do, though, is make the characters more dimensional. I mean, the teacher is the main person here, and you don't even give her a name. I'd like to know more about her. What is her name? Why does she react so strongly to the presence of the penguins? If I saw penguins waddle into my classroom, I'd be more inclined to coo, "Awwww, so cuuuute!" and make mushy noises. Why is she antagonistic towards them? Did she have a traumatic experience with penguins when she was younger? Doesn't she care that she's hurting them?

Anyhoo, I hope this was somewhat helpful... feel free to yell at me if it wasn't.

-twit
"TV makes sense. It has logic, structure, rules, and likeable leading men. In life, we have this. We have you." -Abed Nadir




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I think this story is amazing. I mean it's just hilarious that the perfectly normal teacher sees the penguins and then starts attacking them with the ruler--I don't know, I'm not condoning humor by violence but it's just the breaking of the routine that makes it funny, and the ending has a sort of subtle punchline haha.




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I like this. It's cute :) Made me laugh at the irony in it. A perfectly normal teacher in a perfectly normal school when all of the sudden..BAM! Here comes penguins. And yet, that is followed by a perfectly normal reflect action- hitting them with a ruler. :D

Good luck with this one,
-Brie
"None but ourselves can free our minds." ~Bob Marley



Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.
— Madeleine L'Engle, Author