Prompt 310-Revenge

Have you ever plotted revenge on someone? Was it sweet and what did it entail?

The day has finally come. I lean casually against my locker, though mentally I am sprinting up and down the tight corridor. Months of planning have brought me to this moment. Mandy would be here any second.

It wasn’t that she was an insufferable, bossy, know-it-all. I could handle those types just fine. It wasn’t the fact that she sucked up to the teachers and talked down to her classmates as if she were a teacher herself. Plenty of kids were on good terms with different teachers, she wasn’t special in that regard. I didn’t even mind the messy way she wore her hair. Other kids could pick on her for that, but I never saw what it had to do with anything.

No, her transgression had nothing to do with her appearance or her personality. She had crossed a very dangerous line I would not soon forgive.

I am a generous person. Charitable. I will lend you the shirt off my back. But I am not a doormat. If I lend you something, I expect it back in a timely manner and in much the same condition as I gave it to you.

Mandy had no regard for this unspoken law of the land. Last year, she had borrowed one of my favorite pens to take a test. I never saw Cole again.

Some people name their cars. I name my pens. Cole was by far my favorite. He wasn’t fancy, a simple Bic ballpoint my mom had brought home from the bank one day, but my handwriting was beautiful with Cole. Words flowed out of his tip and he glided across the paper. Math equations looked flawless. Doodles came to life. I loved to write with Cole.

Mandy must have loved writing with him too, because she never returned him home. Today was her day of reckoning. Pen-geance will be mine!

I could see her jostling through the crowd of students to reach her locker three spaces up from mine. “Hey Emmy!” she smiled at me. I smiled back. She had no idea what was about to befall her. I watched with bated breath as she spun her combination lock. Three spins right to 35. Two to the left to 19. A slow turn back to the right and 23. Click.

She opened the locker and began pulling textbooks from her bag to swap them with those in her locker. “Huh. That’s weird,” she said.

“Hmm?” I could barely contain my amusement.

“Well someone broke into my locker and put three boxes of red pens in here. I don’t even use red pens,” she muttered.

I peered over her shoulder looking as innocent as could be. The boxes were prominently propped on top of her notebooks. “Weird,” I agreed. Any minute now she should get angry about them.

But Mandy just shrugged and finished swapping out her books. “Oh well. Maybe my sister can use them.” I tried not to grind my teeth. How could I have forgotten that her sister was a student teacher? “You alright? You look like you just smelled something rank.”

I shook my head and shifted my own heavy bag. “Just wishing we didn’t have to go to math before lunch. I’m starving.”

Mandy laughed. “I’m sure if you asked Mr. Adams politely, he’d let you have a snack to hold you over.”

I nodded as I fell in step with her to class. It would seem my revenge plan still needed work, but there was still plenty of time before graduation.

Notes: Revenge is a fairly common theme in stories and I decided I didn’t feel like going heavy handed tonight. I am a full-on petty-grudge-holder when it comes to my favorite pens being taken. There’s a woman in HR who has my eternal ire because she “borrowed” a pen from me a year and change ago and never gave it back. I’d lost that pen once already and had only just found it again a month before. I didn’t have a name for that one, though I did used to name my pens when I was in high school.

This week has been a weird one for stories, but I think there was at least a bit of a story every night. Thanks for writing with me this week! I’ll have another set of prompts for you sometime on Sunday so check back then! Have a great weekend!

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