Short Stories by UICRC Student Authors

The Great Cake Debacle

by Dana Gottlieb

“The party starts at 6:00,” Ned said to Sally. “Don’t be late.  We want to make sure everyone is already at my house before Lucy gets there.  

“Is everything ready?” asked Sally.

           “I think so!” said Ned.  “Everything except the cake, that is.”

Sally and Ned had been planning a surprise birthday party for their friend Lucy for over a month now.  They had sent out secret invitations to all of their friends, bought fancy decorations, and had arranged for an artist to come over and teach everyone how to paint. All that was left to do before the big day was to figure out who was going to make their cake.  Sally and Ned were just about to decide who should be responsible for the cake when someone interrupted them.

“Did somebody say party?”  Sally and Ned didn’t recognize the strange voice coming from a few feet away.  They turned around and saw a man they didn’t recognize coming toward them.  He wore a red t-shirt that said, “No Work” in big black letters and he had a mouse sitting on top of his head.  Sally and Ned stared at each other, unsure whether to reply or run away.

“I love parties!  I call baking the cake!  Lazy Man is right at your side!”  Before Sally and Ned could protest, the strange man was off and running.

What were they going to do now?  Was this man really going to bake a cake for their party?  They didn’t even know him.  Even if he did bake the cake, how would he know where to bring it?  Did they even want this stranger at their party?  Sally and Ned decided that they should still ask one of their friends to bake a cake for Lucy, just in case this “Lazy Man” guy never showed up.  

“Ava is an excellent baker,” said Sally.  “We should ask her to make the cake for Lucy’s party.”  Ava and Lucy had been friends since kindergarten.  There was no way she was going to let them down.  When Ned called Ava and told her their predicament, Ava was very sympathetic.  

“That sounds like a very weird afternoon in the park,” she said.  “Unfortunately I will be out of town the entire week.  My flight lands just before the party starts so I will be lucky if I even make it in time for the surprise.”

    Time for a new plan.  “Which of our other friends can we ask?” Ned wondered.  

    “How about we ask Will,” suggested Sally.  “He isn’t the best cook but even if he uses a boxed mix it will be better than nothing.”

    Ned called Will to ask him if he could bake a cake for Lucy’s surprise party.

    “What party?” asked Will.  

    Sally and Ned looked at each other, horrified.  

    Ned fumbled for the right words.  “Ummmmmmmmmmmm...  Well you see… We are ummmmm…”

Sally quickly grabbed the phone from Ned.  “We are having a surprise party for Lucy this Saturday at my house.  Six o’clock.  Didn’t you get the invitation I sent out?”

“Nooooo…” said Will, suspiciously.

“Oh, well it must have gotten lost in the mail,” Sally lied.  “Anyhow, we need someone to bake a cake for the party.  Long story.  Can you do it?  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just some cake with a bit of frosting on top.”

Will had only ever baked a cake once when he was a kid, and his mom did most of the work, but he really liked Sally so he agreed to do it.  Sally and Ned were relieved.  

“That was a close one,” said Ned.

“Yeah, you almost ruined everything,” said Sally.

Sally and Ned felt much better about their plans for Lucy’s surprise party.  Everything seemed to have come together very nicely.  They had their decorations, the artist had called to confirm the date, and now they finally had a cake.

On the day of the party Sally and Ned were so busy setting up that they did not see the fifteen missed calls from Will on each of their phones.  

When the guests started arriving Will was nowhere in sight.  By the time 5:30 rolled around, Sally and Ned were getting worried.  

“You can’t have a birthday party without cake.  Everybody knows that,”  Sally hissed.  She decided to call Will to make sure he was on his way.  That’s when she saw all the missed calls.  Sally froze.  Her face turned red, her palms got clammy, and she felt like she was burning up.  Just as she reached for her phone, the slammed open.  Will came  bursting through the door carrying what appeared to be the cake.  It was hard to tell however, because all Sally could see was a big glob of frosting on top of a plate.  

“I tried calling you!” gasped Will, clearly out of breath.  “I got here as fast as I could.  I think I read the recipe wrong because the batter looked like play dough, and then my oven was set too high so the cake burned, and then when I tried to put the frosting on it melted all over the place so I had to keep putting more on until it stuck.  But, um, here is the cake for Lucy,” he said, holding out the plate toward Sally.

Sally stormed off, too irate to say anything.  Ned rushed over to Will and grabbed the cake.  “Thanks buddy.  We really appreciate you doing this for us,” he mumbled as he ran off to go find Sally.  She was sitting in the kitchen fighting back tears.  

“What are we going to do?” she wailed.  “This whole party is ruined!”

“Well we are going to have to think of something quick, because it is almost 6:00.  We had better get all the guests in position so that we don’t also ruin the surprise.”

Sally and Ned walked back out into the main room and gathered the guests.  Everyone found a hiding spot while Ned turned off the lights.   Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

“Hello?  Ned?  Are you home?  I thought we were going to make dinner tonight,” called Lucy.

Ned ran toward the door and just as he opened it, Sally turned on the lights and all the guests jumped out from their hiding spots.  

“SURPRISE!!!!!!” they shouted.

Lucy was so shocked that she threw the package she was carrying straight up in the air.  It landed with a thud and a splat on the ground.  

“Oh no!” cried Lucy.  Everyone gathered around to see what had happened.  Lying on the floor in a huge, goopy mess, was the remains of a beautiful cake.  

“What was that?” asked Ned.  

“I brought a cake for dessert because you said we were cooking dinner,” replied Lucy, who was looking around the room, still not quite sure what was going on.

Sally and Ned looked at each other for a moment.  Sally cracked a smile first, and within seconds both she and Ned were hysterically laughing.  The rest of the guests looked around in confusion.

“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be,” said Ned, trying to suppress his laughter.  “Despite all our best efforts, I guess this party will just have to go on without any cake.”

    Lucy started laughing.  “You guys are really great friends,” she said.  “I appreciate all the effort you guys put into this party for me.  You all know how much I love cake, but I’m just so happy you all are here.”

    The rest of the evening all anyone could talk about was the great cake debacle.  At the end of the evening, as the number of guests was dwindling, Sally said to Ned, “Even though we ended up without a cake, I still think this party was a success.  Perhaps next time we should get that taken care of first?”

    “Absolutely!” agreed Ned.

The Unfortunate Truth: Macka’s Story

by Susan Preston

            She’s obsessed with me!  That’s the only way I can explain it.  I always catch her looking at me from across the room with this weird creepy look in her eyes.  Whenever I’m walking in the hallway with my best friend Susan, she’s always lurking behind.  When we laugh, she pretends to laugh.  I would say that she is just a loser without any friends, but the unfortunate truth is… she is friends with Susan!

            It all started about a month ago.  My family had just moved to the island; my father had been relocated for work yet again, and we were expected to just pick up and move at a moment’s notice.  Faced with yet another school of strangers staring down the new girl, I was surprised to find a friendly face my first day.  I was scanning the cafeteria looking for an empty table to eat my lunch when I met Susan.  She waved at me to come join her and it was instant friendship.  “Just a heads up, I only eat the cafeteria food when they have breadsticks,” she said to me and that was it.  From that moment on we were inseparable, except when she was hanging out with Maylo.

            I first met Maylo at Susan’s house.  Susan had invited me over to hang out after school.  She had also thought to extend the invitation to Maylo, a girl who can only be described as average: average height, average weight, average intelligence.  Her first words to me were a stimulating, “Hello.”  Not nearly as impressionable as Susan’s breadsticks comment.  “What could Susan see in this Maylo girl,” I wondered. 

            After that, I started to notice Maylo around school, peering at Susan and I from behind her locker, monitoring our conversations from the cafeteria line, and glaring at Susan and me as we walked home.  I tried to make things easy on Susan.  She should be allowed to associate with whomever she pleased.  There was just no way that I could be around her when she was hanging out with Maylo; it was a matter of safety. 

            So naturally when I came up with the brilliant idea to go to the movies one Friday afternoon, I asked Susan if it could be just the two of us.  “Come on, we need some best friend time and I know you’ve been dying to see the new Elvis movie,” I pleaded.  “I think Maylo mentioned wanting to go surfing, but she never said when… so I guess it’s ok.  I’ll meet you at the movie theater.” 

            “Over here Susan,” I called from the concession stand line.  As Susan made her way through the crowd, I noticed that her smile started to fade.  “What are they doing here?” she asked, nodding her head in Terra and Ano’s direction.  “Oh, I just happened to run into them and they’re going to see the same movie, so I thought we could all hang out.”  Susan looked unsure about this.  “But I told Maylo that it would just be you and I, and I… I … don’t want her to feel left out.”  “Well, she doesn’t need to know, and really it’s not our fault that Terra and Ano happened to be here.  Come on, Maylo doesn’t need to know.”  After some coaxing, Susan finally loosened up and even starting chatting and joking around.

            Around this same time, I started to get a weird feeling.  You know the feeling when you feel like someone is watching you.  I couldn’t shake it.  I scanned the entire lobby, no one.  Feeling a little silly, I followed the others into the theater.  We found seats in the perfect row, the first row of the upper level where we can put our feet up on the bars.  I was just settling into my seat, when that same feeling came back.  I looked around as people started filing into the theater and taking their seats, again no one.  “Hey Macka!  Earth to Macka!  You there?”

            “What?  Oh, yeah, sorry I just have a weird feeling, but I’m good, what’s up?”  The girls started giggling, clearly enjoying my confused state.  I was just getting ready to admit my feelings, when the dancing popcorn and sodas lit up the screen.  Never mind, it was probably nothing, except now this obnoxious kid behind me is kicking my seat.  As I turned around to address the kicking, something caught my eye.  There, two rows behind us, was Maylo!

            Quickly, I turned around.  “She didn’t see me,” I told myself.  But that explains why I was feeling watched.  I decided to keep my body turned partially in her direction so I could watch her every move, make sure she didn’t try to harm me.  I could barely focus on Elvis in his little beach outfit playing the guitar.

            As the movie came to an end there was movement!  Maylo got up and left the theater abruptly.  This was my chance to confront her.  Let her know that I saw her stalking me, and call her out on it.  “Gotta pee,” I whispered to Susan and fled the theater after Maylo.

            I ran through the crowd of people and spotted Maylo in the distance, throwing away her popcorn.  Out of breath, I got to the garbage can in time and made eye contact with Maylo.  She looked surprised and a little sheepish.  I was just getting ready to hurl an insult her way, when Susan came up behind me.

            Oh, great, stay positive or fake, same thing.  “Hey Maylo,” I said, forcing a smile.  I was still catching my breath and taking control over this rush of emotions, when I heard Susan inviting my stalker to come over to her house.  Without knowing it, my head just started shaking no.

            Susan and Maylo stared at me, obviously waiting for an explanation to my vigorous head shaking.  I was trying to come up with a good excuse, when I heard someone behind me let out a loud shriek, before I could turn to see the commotion, I felt Maylo grab my arms and shove me out of the way.  And that’s when I saw it: a shower of Coca Cola raining down on Maylo’s average outfit. 

            That could have been my brand new WHITE sundress!  Then a second realization popped into my head: Maylo just saved my life!  Well, my clothes anyways.

            And that’s how it happened.  I became friends with my stalker.

Échappé 

by Grace Pigozzi

My story begins with a commitment to friends; a debt come due in the social contract, one that could be easily paid in the cozy, half-empty matinee. Cecilia and I sat in the theater, smiling at the chatter of little ballerinas as they watched their heroes step through the wardrobe into the winter kingdom.

At intermission, I slipped into the lobby, surprised to find it fairly empty. I glanced at my car in the overfull lot, and out of nowhere, was greeted with a hug from an old friend. She returned with me to my seat to laugh with Cecilia, to talk of daughters, and share a joke of bonfires. Once this had been Cecilia's milieu, but competing interests and abilities had taken her far from ballet. Although she is no longer close with them, she still takes dance classes with the same girls, and we both feel obligated to support them and see their beautiful productions--from the velvet seats of the audience.

As the final curtain fell, we were out of the auditorium, coats on, and effortlessly outside.  Cecilia walked quickly, urging me along. With a glance behind us  to the door, she broke into a run, scampered up the ramp, and then across the aisle to the car.

The fresh night air was intoxicating. I filled my lungs slowly as I jogged. I acquiesced to the irresistible urge to spit the gum I'd been chewing. I watched it arc and land deep in the bushes. I felt liberated. Satisfied.

“Run!” Cecilia yelled with a wave of her arm. She smiled nervously at my wobbling gait in too-big, high-heeled shoes.

A chill breeze swept swiftly off the lake. I shuddered. Behind us, I finally saw what she'd seen, the man who ran towards us, closing the space between.

Sprinting the stairs, the ballet master appeared as he had in countless, fragmented dreams. Huge eyes, ferocious, silent. His wordless expression was masked by the darkness. I leapt into the car, safe. With a glance into the mirror as I started the engine, I laughed at my luck and hair blown wild in the cold wind. 

I was backing out when he barreled up to us, nearly launching himself onto the hood of the car. Cecilia and I gasped in unison to see him gracefully, suddenly stop mid-air, plant his feet on the asphalt, press his palms together, and bow.

Trembling, I drove away, watching him in the rearview mirror while he calmly walked back to his car.

Only later, alone, did I realize that it suits me to have a secret. It gives me power over him.