A/N: My entry for the ninth grade state benchmark thing. Hopefully funny, although it's pretty short (the limit was two pages). The prompt was to write a story that you would tell to young kids you were babysitting. I have to confess that this whole thing was inspired by the Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction writing contest, which you can find on the web by typing in "fiction contest" on Google and then hitting "I'm Feeling Lucky". Have fun reading!

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God, today has just taken like forever. I just want to get the idiot kids in bed and then get home. Like I had a party I wanted to go to today, and my boyfriend's all pissed at me because I couldn't go with him to get ice cream, I swear I like told my mom but she was all "Rebecca, you said you would," really like strict and all. I haven't even had a chance to go outside and have one of my, like, two smuggled cigs or call my boyfriend because these kids have been keeping me so busy. Also I keep like fantasizing about how I want to check my Myspace when I get home but I can't leave, or my mom will have a tantrum. Sometimes life is like just so unfair.

"I'm listening to Ludacris," says Jake all mean and frustrated when I go check up on him. "Go away." He's just in a sulk because I wouldn't let him melt his plastic car in the oven, so he's hanging out in his room alone. God, how old is he, like nine? He scowls and hides behind the car track he's making, like he thinks it's a shield or something. What a snot. As for Annabel, I checked on her a few minutes ago, and I bet she's still clutching her blanket like a lifesaver, dwarfed by it as she sits strangely still on the couch in the living room. I remember she was looking warily up at me, a mouse trapped under the cat's gaze. (Wow, if I was in English I would so get extra points for that! It's like descriptive language or whatever.) Annabel is such a weird kid. I hate little kids—they're whiny and annoying, and they always small kind of funny, but babysitting does pay.

So suddenly I recall my goal of having the kids in bed and I have a brilliant idea. It's like a brainwave or something.

I race down the stairs, yelling at Jake, "Get down here!" and beckoning for Annabel to follow me. The stairs are so drab and beige flashing past me, like my own family's stairs, except less fuzzy, like the fur of my cat Sunny, who died six years ago of food poisoning. I think of it and almost weep of discontent. I hurry to their bedroom and I'm sitting angelically on Jake's bed by the time they both get there, looking at me a little strangely, like I'm an alien. It's mostly Jake doing that, actually. Annabel isn't like looking at me at all.

"Get off my bed," says Jake disgustedly.

"Shut up," I say, "I'm going to tell you guys a story. Get in bed, now." Besides a muttered "dumbass" under Jake's breath, they do what I say. Where do I start? It's not like I tell stories all the time or anything, and telling them some normal story will just bore them. I decide to just like make one up.

"Once upon a time, on a dark and stormy might not unlike the night outside this very house," I begin, "there was like a band of merry adventurers whose only like goal, the deepest dream of their hearts, was to rescue the fair princess Alicia Rapunzel.

"Alicia Rapunzel was the fairest of all the land, especially since she had her father brutally murder all others in the land even close to being as fair as she, although there weren't that many to begin with. So like basically she was really pretty." Oh my god. I should like totally be a writer when I grow up. I'm so like artistic and creative. This story is so totally coming along. "So like Alicia Rapunzel was kidnapped by like an evil wizard—no, wait, an evil waiter that snuck into her father's kitchens pretending to be like a normal waiter, only he was actually all weird and obsessed with Alicia Rapunzel because she was the fairest in the land, even though she killed all other fair people in the land so she was actually like a murderer and stuff."

"Boring," says Jake, scratching his elbow spasmodically. "Can I have some whipped cream?"

"No!" I say. "You've already had a whole can! Now, back to the story." I like collect my thoughts. What would my English teacher want me to write? I clear my throat. "The adventurers traveled far and wide, until they came upon a poor peasants' hovel that smelt like… the bathroom after your dad leaves it without turning the fan on." Ignoring the cry of "hey!", I continue: "So like one adventurer, whose name was Clyde, roared throatily, 'I bet the princess is in there! Men, let's go investigate!' So they're all like, 'Yeah, sure man, whatever.' So they go in the hovel, and like, ta-da! She's there. The only problem is, Alicia Rapunzel is like, all wrapped up in ropes and stuff, like an adventurer in the jungle being like constricted by a boa constrictor and wishing he could say goodbye to his wife who knew that going in the jungle without wearing boa constrictor repellent was unsafe, but couldn't do anything about it. And like there's the waiter," I finish with a bored glance at the clock. "So they like beat him up. And Clyde marries the princess."

Annabell starts crying. "I hate you," she wails. "I want my mommy."