[2:]

Karen’s face did end up swelling from the make-up, but only a little at first. Her face was relatively fine, but her lips had swollen up to make her look like a fish. Luckily, the housemates of Kuro manor also all had the same 4th period class together; Creative Writing. So, none of the other students in school, whose opinions might have mattered, would see her in this humiliating state.

It was a 3rd Grade class, but every year, all nine of the housemates fail, and have since been forced to take the class over and over again every year.

The reason can be explained in four simple words: “Mai Dam Weasel.”

Yes, you shall ignore the fact that the author of this story cannot count and focus instead on the woman in question. She was a frail, old thing, with short bright pink hair and enormous eyes. She was very tall and very thin and was always, ALWAYS shaking. She also spoke frequently with herself, if not the wall, and had a tendency to frantically chew on anything that got too close to her mouth, which explains why twenty third-graders enter her class at the beginning of the year, and only nineteen make it out on the last day.

At the moment, Mai Dam Weasel was standing at the chalkboard in the front of her dilapidated classroom, attempting to write on it with a piece of chalk what was about the length of this author’s pinky nail. However, due to her never-ending shaking, the words she was try to write, “Good Morning, Class” looked more like the frantic escape attempt of a schizophrenic chicken with A.D.D.

Yuki loved fourth period. She loved to ask Mai Dam Weasel complicated questions like “How are you feeling today?” and “What did you have for breakfast this morning?” Questions that would keep Mai Dam Weasel talking for the entire period. Yuki also loved to play pranks on teachers, and Dammy (as she called her) was Yuki’s favorite victim. Last week she actually managed to convince the old woman that the turtle-shaped sandbox in the playground was out to kill her. The sandbox disappeared shortly after that.

As Mai Dam Weasel struggled to put coherent words on the chalkboard, Yuki spat a few dozen spitballs, rapid-fire, at the back of her head. Karen was trying to hide her swollen lips my pretending to be eating something. Rika was breastfeeding Benito the plant. Tsurugi was in the back row, sleeping. Stacie and Alfredo were writing on a desk, leaving each other cute little love notes and drawing hippos. Tai was picking his nose. Chelsea was strangely very quiet.

After several more minutes of dull scraping, Dammy finally gave up on the chalk and wrote her message in the chalk dust with spit instead. Her task finally complete, she clasped her hands together excitedly and whirled around to face the class.

“Good morning, class!”

Stacie was the only one to reply.
“Good morning, ma’am! You look nice today. Is that a new sweater?”

Actually, Mai Dam Weasel wore the same old red sweater every day of her life, but every morning she claimed that it was brand new.

“Why yes it is! Now class, who can guess why tomorrow is such a very special day to Ms. Weasel?”

No response.

“Well, tomorrow is the day that I get to go back to the special place, with all the nice men in coats who are all very kind to me and make me feel so special. Now, because our school is too poor to hire substitute teachers, which makes very little since seeing as your parents are all paying very much money to come here, I’ve left Principal Reno in charge of the class.”

All nine of them rolled their eyes.

“Now, I’ll only be gone for a little while. At least, that’s what the nice doctor man said. But, while I’m gone, I’m leaving you all with a very special assignment. I noticed yesterday that, although this is a creative writing class, we haven’t written anything at all in the six years that you’ve all been in my class…”

“Because you never assign us anything,” Yuki mumbled under her breath.

“So,” Mai Dam Weasel continued, not hearing Yuki’s comment, “I’m going to ask you all to write a little something. It’s going to be a poem, you see. A poem about that which is most important to you, whatever that may be. The thing that is most important to me is my friend Sam. He’s such a nice boy. You’ve all met Sam, remember?”

They remembered. It was a calm autumn day, three years ago, when Dammy brought a coat rack with a red hat on it to class one day and introduced it as Sam, her adopted son. They all nodded in unison, however, hoping to prevent her from talking anymore.

Karen ruined it for them, however, by raising her hand.

“Um…Mithiz Weethel, how long doeth ith hath to be?” she asked, her words muffled by the size of her make-up allergic lips.

“Oh…let’s see. I’ll make it short because I just ADORE YOU ALL TO PIECES!! How about, say, 47,000 words?”

“THE FUCK?!” was Yuki’s response.

“Right. Very well then. I’ll expect those papers by the end of the week. Except you,“ she said to Tai, “Because you’re pretty to look at. Now, I should be back by Friday...I hope. Yes. Ok. Well then, it really is time I take my medicine. The room is spinning. My, what crazy things with those architects come up with next?”

Yuki’s head hit her desk.

**********

“Dammit,” she mumbled to herself, “I was born for this. I’ve slain dragons; Dragon GODS. Trolls, vampires, sea monsters…You name it, I’ve killed it. And yet, here I am, defeated by a stupid freaking washing machine.”

The Evil Washing Machine of Doom did not respond well to being called “stupid” fired a beam of lightning from its mouth, effectively disintegrating the couch.

“Wait, lightning?!” Yukei cried out in disbelief. “Evil washing machines that come to life and eat people are one thing, but lightning? Come on! That‘s just plain weird!!”

She knelt and took aim, firing the bazooka at the Evil Washing Machine of Doom. The shell exploded, destroying another wall, along with Alfredo’s secret stash of half-eaten hotdogs, but only denting the Evil Washing Machine of Doom’s almost-invincible metal plating.

Using the smoke as cover, Yukei and Puu escaped into the main hallway and ran upstairs like naked construction workers in a gay bar, to take refuge in one of the bathrooms.

“We should be safe in here for a while,” Yukei said before she slumped to the floor, “these bathrooms are almost indestructible. After all, Chelsea and Rika have to use them.”

She was proven wrong when she noticed the crater where the shower use to be.

“Well, at least we’ll be safe from the washing machine.“

She swallowed her words, however, when there was a horrible bubbling scream from the other side of the door. She leapt up and turned to face the door, which began to quiver as the Evil Washing Machine of Doom began to pound on hit mercilessly from the other side.

“Damn! That door wont hold for long.”

“Puu puu,” Puu agreed.

“Yes, I know it’s fast. I’m more concerned with how the hell it got up the stairs in the first place.” She quickly scanned her surroundings for anything that might be used as a weapon. An exploding rubber ducky, a very sharp nail file, a few dozen bottles of Chelsea’s homemade Highly Toxic Flammable Perfume, and a conveniently placed bundle of dynamite.”

Nope; nothing. Yukei was having a rare moment of oblivious stupidity, because it makes this scene funnier in the author’s opinion.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of Puu calling out excitedly. She turned to find that he was bouncing up and down frantically, pointing to the toilet

“Didn‘t you just go like five times already?! Now is not the time to take a poop, Puu!”

Puu shook his head fiercely. He jumped into the toilet bowl and pulled the handle. He began to spin around and around until he finally disappeared with an audible sploosh.

“Oh yeah!” Yukei exclaimed, smacking herself in the forehead for being so stupid, “I can’t believe I forgot. All the toilets on the second floor have escape tunnels that lead to Shiro’s lab just in case Rika starts sleep-walking and finds the flamethrower again! Duh!”

With that, she hopped in, and was flushed away to safety.