"irony"
~~
It was the beginning of another semester at Central High School. All of the students were ready to see each other after a long winter break. Mr. Baker's class had a special assignment over the break. Each student was assigned to bring something that could contribute to the map of the United States being painted for the school art fair that year. Some of the supplies included were paint, brushes and stencils. As the students filtered in the classroom, they placed their supplies at the table in front of the board. Mr. Baker: Good morning, class! I see you all remembered the project I assigned to you over the break. Except... where is the stencil of Oklahoma?
Mr. Baker fumbled through the list of students and the requirements given to each one.
Mr. Baker: Let's see who... had... Oklahoma... hmm... Ah! Cody and Jake! Why did you boys not bring your stencil?
Now, Cody and Jake were not the most well-behaved students in the school. Their father was a very wealthy businessman and the largest donor for the school. That being said, the students felt entitled and did not follow the rules. They also cared little for what teachers had to say to them.
Cody: Ha! I forgot about the dumb project. You expect me to remember that while I have more important things to do over the break like play video games?
Jake: Yeah! We were too busy with more important things. Not this dumb project!
Mr. Baker was infuriated, but he remembered who the children's father was and had to bite his own tongue. After the rude conversation with the boys, Mr. Baker thought it might be best if he left the classroom to retrieve the stencil the boys did not bring. He opened the door and headed down the hallway to the school store in hopes they would have it in stock. Before he left, Mr. Baker clearly stated that no one was allowed to touch the materials on the desk and everyone must stay in their seat.
As soon as Mr. Baker left the room, Cody and Jake caused a ruckus. They got out of their seats and poured the paint all over the floor, broke the brushes, and threw the stencils. Their fellow students were appalled. Ed, a top notch student, got out of his seat to stop the boys.
Ed: Stop it! Didn't you hear what Mr. Baker said? Go sit down!
The boys were so busy destroying the materials that they did not hear Ed at all. The rest of the class soon joined in and yelled at the boys to stop and get back to their seats. At this point, the whole class was standing up out of their seats in hopes of getting the two boys to sit back down.
At this moment, the boys realized everyone was out of their seats and quickly returned to their desks. Unfortunately, right as the boys sat down Mr. Baker returned. He found the class a mess and every student out of their seat except Cody and Jake. Enraged, Mr. Baker assigned everyone who was out of their seat a week's worth of detention. All of the students were shocked, but there was nothing they could do because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ed, being the good student he is, could not stand for this. He went straight to the principla's office to fight for his fellow classmates and himself.
The principal's name is Mr. Harkins. Mr. Harkins, unlike many of the teachers at the school, is a no BS man. He does not answer to anyone. He believes what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong.
Ed: Mr. Harkins, please, you have to believe me! None of us made the mess in our classroom! It was Cody and Jake!
Mr. Harkins: Do you have any proof of this, young man?
Ed: Well... um... sadly no.
Mr. Harkins: Well... how about we find out together if you're telling the truth. Right now.
Ed: What do you mean?
Mr. Harkins was aware of some specific upgrades to the school that no other faculty member knew about. The school had recent renovations to the classroom which included cameras for added security measures. All of the updates were thanks to the father of Jake and Cody. How ironic...
Mr. Harkins reviewed the tape and found Ed to be telling the truth. Being the no BS man Mr. Harkins is, he assigned the two boys to detention and cleared Ed and his classmates from the punishment.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This story was based off of Inayat's tale about the guilty dogs. In the original, there were two dogs who lived among royalty. They were considered royal dogs. Rather than keeping these characters dogs, I thought changing them to two spoiled, entitled students would suffice. The two dogs ate a saddle that was on one of the royal horses. Once the king found out he ordered that every dog in the city be executed, but this only applied to normal dogs, not royalty. I changed the dogs into the students of a classroom and instead of being executed, which would be a very dark story, I made them go to detention. After finding out the news, one of the dogs went to the king to defend himself, his fellow dogs and claim their innocence. The king found out that the royal dogs were the ones who committed the act and relived the normal dogs of the punishment. I thought I would make the brave dog into a person that everyone liked and is also a top notch student. Also, I made the king into the principal of the school. I felt that in a high school the 'king' of the school could be considered a principal.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Inayat. Twenty Jataka Tales
Wow, I really enjoyed reading your story. My favorite part had to be how you recreated the setting from the original, and made it seems so much more relatable by having the characters be students, and the kind the principal. I could just imagine the disaster after pouring paint all over the floor. The imagery was great in this story. I know their father was a wealthy businessman, but I wanted to know about their mother in this story. What if you added her in the story as someone who comes to the school, and is in shock of what her children had done? I think it would add a bit more drama into the story, but wouldn’t take away from the relatable aspect of your story. In the end I did see the irony, and in my head I was thinking that the two boys probably thought they could do whatever they desired since their father owns the school.
ReplyDeleteI like how you updated the story to make it relevant to all readers. I like how you chose to make the story less morbid by not killing the children; however, I think that it would be more interesting and mysterious to depict the children as adults and to have them executed instead. This "execution" could be through burning at the stake or a sleeping potion of some sort.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting story. A cautionary tale about being spoiled. I think the interesting part of the story is that all the dogs in an entire village were facing execution. What if you helped us to hate the two spoiled kids and then gave us a sense of justice after all the kids were falsely accused and then latter acquitted for the crime only to see the real culprits being thrown into detention. Perhaps you could tell us about how the two spoiled children laughed at the other children or maybe told the whole class that they could not be brought to justice because of their father. Then when they get theirs, we all get to cheer. Cool story though. Sounds like the original was a bit dark.
ReplyDeleteTyler, your story for week 11 was so so interesting to read. You made the characters so relatable to each reader. Something that I think is extremely important is making sure the reader has something to relate too, that is what really hooks the reader to the story. I thought it was interesting that you adapted the two dogs into spoiled children, that was such a creative take on the original story.
ReplyDeleteHey Tyler, I really enjoyed your story this week. It was definitely unique and unlike most stories I have read so far. The imagination and creativity you put into the narrative really paid off. This is the first story I have seen where the entire thing is almost all dialogue between characters. Overall I think this turned out really well. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHi, Tyler! I really like this human adaptation to Inayat’s guilty dog tale. Just like all of your stories I’ve read, this one was very well-written and every character did their part justice. I could definitely imagine all of them and this entire situation happening in real life! Great job, and I can’t wait to read your what other stories you come up with next!
ReplyDelete