Deagon777

Mike stared out the window, trying to gather his thoughts. The rain pelted the window of the overcrowded noisy school bus he was forced into everyday. He hated all the people in his school, on the bus, and everywhere else. His life was so boring....

But today he had to think of something, and fast. He forgot to do his homework again, and Mike had to make up a good excuse before 1st period. He was good at that. One time his father had said, "Making up good excuses seems to run in our family. In one week my house burned down, my great-grandmother died, we were robbed, the tent we were forced to live in got flooded, and my mom slipped in the grocery store. And that was a slow week!"

Mike adored his Dad. He was always so carefree, and he was a natural-born troublemaker. Mike always managed to outdo himself when it came to excuses, but then his dad would make up a better one at work. Mike loved the challenge!

So at first period he told Mrs. Lennor, his teacher, in a sad tone of voice, "My Dad had a stroke. We were with him all night, and he, with what little memory and ability he had left, kept asking for me, and whenever I tried to finish my homework, he would moan and groan, so I stopped."

She bought it. And he outdid Dad. There was no way he'd be able to top this!

When Mike told Dad at dinner tonight he was speechless. He kept his fork still halfway between the plate and his mouth, I thought he really had a stroke, but then he said: "Wow. Now I have to outdo that?" His voice was layered with disbeleif. He was truly shocked.

The next day Mike's morning went normally, catching that fleeting glimpse of Mom going out the door to her job, when he saw Dad. He should have left two hours ago!

"Why are you still here?" Mike said, mimickng the disbeleif Dad was in last night. And it was painfully obvious Dad had heard my shocked tone as well for he said, "What, don't want me here?" in a fake hurt tone.

"N-n-no," Mike stammered, trying to find the words, "How'd you get outta work?"

"Work?" Dad asked in a confused tone, "How could I even think about work two days after a stroke?"

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HawYanPie

I like the story here , i am in no way a critic and probally not even qaulified to say something, but for me the average guy reading this Mike was used to many times. Great job.

Aloha
Pie

StephenP2003

I do like this story, though it's more of a build up to a punch-line. Is that what you were going for?

My biggest issue is sentence structure, and perhaps a little variance would ease the choppiness of the story. Still, it's short enough to where it's not a burden to have plain structure.

The overuse of "Mike" might be part of the structure issue. It's hard to figure out how often a character's name should be mentioned to prevent confusion or ambiguity.

Great little short though! Keep up the good work!

LoneWolf

Hey,

Good story, I was kind of disappointed with the ending. He didn't really outdo him, his Dad just stole his idea to get out of work. A couple things...

Slipped into 1st person here

The sentence structure is a bit off here. Maybe if you separated this into 2 sentences it would run more smoothly.

mimickng=mimicking
disbeleif=disbelief
Slipped into 1st person again

I agree with the others. A bit of tweaking and maybe a more dramatic ending would give the reader more of a shock. It was a cool story, though, keep up the good work. Thanks for the read!

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Zorell

It was a funny little narrative. I liked it.

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and more fulfilled when you strengthen your roots.