Writer A

“Hey, Katrina!” Manager Ned’s voice said from above the cubicle wall. “Do you have an extra one of those reports you handed out at the meeting this morning?”

Katrina looked up at Manager Ned’s dimples, and blushed as though he had asked her what her plans were for Friday evening.

“Yep! Right here!” she said overly cheerfully, looking at the mess on her desk and having no idea where she’d plopped the extra reports. She started moving papers around and then blinked helplessly at her file cabinet, trying to remember where the reports were but unable to think, because of Manager Ned’s dimples.

“Great!” said Manager Ned’s robust voice. “Can you just run that into my office when you find it?” And he strode away, with the stride of a man who is in excellent shape.

Katrina stood up, watching him go. Mindy in the next cubicle stood up to watch him go too. They sighed together.

“What if I walked into his office with this report, tossed it onto his desk, grabbed his tie and—“ Katrina mimed having a tie in her fist, pulling it toward her face—“kissed him right then and there.”

“That would be scandalous!” Mindy cooed delightedly. Mindy was short and plump with a cute face and perfect fashion sense. She had large, very red lips, and a paperback romance novel on her desk.

Katrina looked like the woman on the cover of the paperback romance novel, except dressed more professionally, and not making that face.

Becklin popped up from his cubicle, which was on the other side of Katrina’s. “You shouldn’t waste your time pining for Ned. He’s what Jane Austen would call a rake!”

Becklin had a beautiful sister who loved Jane Austen, and his sister had a beautiful best friend who loved Jane Austen, and a beautiful girl he knew in college loved Jane Austen, and Becklin was under the impression that all beautiful girls loved Jane Austen. He had also calculated that Jane-Austen-loving girls would swoon if they heard a man make a casual Jane Austen reference.

Katrina and Mindy barely moved. Katrina’s eyes flicked to Becklin. She looked somewhere between totally uninterested and annoyed.

Becklin realized that his words did not have their intended effect. “I’m not gay!” he blurted out, for the benefit of quite a few more cubicles than Katrina’s. Then he added, disastrously, “Although … has anyone ever wondered whether Ned is?”

He said this to plant a seed of suspicion in Katrina about Ned. But he knew at once that it did not help his case.

“Just kidding! Ha ha! No really, I’m not interested in Ned. I’m actually not. I’m interested in women. I’m sitting down now.”

“Becklin!” came Sarah’s voice from the cubicle on the other side of Becklin’s.

Becklin was too mortified to raise his face above the wall again, so he slid his chair to the opening and peeked around the partition into Sarah’s cubicle.

“Becklin, stop.” Sarah said scoldingly. “Katrina is like a model. Dating a model is overrated.”

Becklin looked at her blankly. What could she mean?

“I’m saying, Katrina is not the only woman in the office,” Sarah barked, and spun her chair around, turning her back to him.

Becklin slid his chair back to his desk and stared at the dusty part beneath the monitor.

“I like Jane Austen,” Sarah added through the partition.

Writer C

“This is a remarkable dinner, Harold,” Ethel commented to her husband. “You always know how to prepare the most tender newspaper. “

Harold blushed, “Happy anniversary, Dear.”

The two old worms held tails over their dinner table made out of a tiny sliced pine branch.

“Ethel,” said Harold, with a certain gleam in his eye. “It’s raining. Why don’t we go to The Top like we used to when we were kids?”

“Oh Harold,” said Ethel, her tiny rings twitching as she giggled. “The top?! How scandalous of you!”

“C’mon, it’d be fun!” Harold coaxed his wife.

“Oh my. I don’t know – “

But before she could finish her sentence, Harold had taken her tail in his  (or was it her head? One can never quite tell) and off they went up the winding dirt halls of their tiny underground home.

As they neared the top, the scent of dampened grass and leaves wafted into their pores. Harold looked at his dear wife with wonder. She looked more young and beautiful than he had ever seen her before. Even younger than when they had met as kids in the cafeteria, just last week.

As Harold finally summited, he reached in and gathered Ethel up to The Top. The rain bounced off their pink skin, as they sunk in and out of the fresh mud.

Ethel gazed and Harold in gratitude, “Oh Harold, thank you for this. This is one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time.”

“I’m so glad dear,” said Harold. But as he said the words, his dreamy expression suddenly turned to fear.

“What is it dear?” said Ethel.

As if the wind had been knocked out of him, Harold choked on his breath, his wild gaze fixed on something just past his wife.

“Harold?!” Ethel squawked. “What is it?”

Harold, catching his breath, mustered up all of his voice and yelled, “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!”

Ethel whipped around, and saw the giant claw, scraping at the ground just behind her.

“Squirm!” Harold yelled.

And with all their might, the two little worms wriggled as quickly as they could back to the entrance of their home. Harold ushered Ethel in first, and he came right behind.

They had made it in without a scrape, but were both terribly shaken up, as they made their way back down the dirt corridor, to their cozy, dining table. They sat, huffing and puffing, staring at one another. Without a word, they both began to giggle, their giggles turned to uninhibited laughter.

“Oh Harold I haven’t had so much fun! Thank you for taking me to The Top. But I have to say, I NEVER want to go there again. I’m getting too old for this!”

“Eh,” said Harold.” The Top is overrated. I’d rather be here with you dear, in the safety of our hole, enjoying our newspaper supper.” He closed his little worm eyes and leaned in to kiss Ethel who quickly shifted her weight so that he would kiss her lips, and not her rump.

Writer B

Tabitha peered out the kitchen window at her husband, who was bent over his work in the garden. She had been finishing up the dishes, and was now absently toweling off a plate that had already been dry for some minutes.

In her mind she was again reading the letter she had just received from her sister Winnie, letting Tabitha know that she was going to be married. Unlike Tabitha and Philip, who had lived on their comfortable but modest farm in Pennsylvania since they wed, Winnie lived in New York City. Tabitha and Winnie had grown up in Pennsylvania, not far from the farm where Tabitha now lived. But after finishing school, Winnie had become a governess for the children of a local doctor, a doctor who moved to New York City to join a practice there only a few months later, taking his family and Winnie with him.

Tabitha missed her sister terribly, but was resigned to the distance between them, never believing she would make a trip to visit that bustling, beautiful, frightening city. But then the letter came, and she began to dream.

She and Philip had had a modest wedding, a simple ceremony at their little church, some refreshments afterwards, then back to life as normal. It was typical for the people in her town, but evidently that was not typical everywhere. Winnie’s letter communicated that she and her fiance Richard planned on making their wedding a big affair, and she wanted Tabitha to come.

After mulling the letter over for a few more minutes, she stepped hesitantly outside. She approached her husband, too absorbed in his work to hear her footsteps, and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. He straightened up and turned to face her, leaning against the rake in his hands.

“Philip, I have a question for you, and I don’t want you to brush it off…” She looked at his quiet face, not sure how he would respond. He was so solemn, and considered luxurious living as something not just extravagant but downright scandalous. She couldn’t bear to have him think of her sister that way.

“Winnie is getting married, Philip. To that doctor she wrote us about, Richard.” Still the quiet expression. “It’s next month, and it sounds like they’re throwing quite the party.” She chuckled awkwardly and waited for a reaction to this statement. Nothing. “Philip darling, she’s asked me to come. Well, she’s asked both of us, actually.” Still quiet. “I know how you don’t go in for parties and extravagance, Philip dear, how you think parties are overrated at any time, and I understand if you don’t want to come. But Philip,” and here her voice caught in her throat, and she paused a moment to get control of it. “Philip, I want to go. I want to see my sister be married. Please, Philip, is it alright if I go?”

He continued to look at her with that quiet, inscrutable expression. She waited, her spirit floundering. He turned around and began to rake once more. She continued to wait, wondering what thoughts were going through his quiet head, but no answer came.

Dejectedly, she walked back into the house, worrying that she had upset him, and feeling upset herself at his lack of response. When he came in for supper later that evening, neither of them mentioned the topic.

In the days that followed, Tabitha kept giving him sideways glances, wondering if it was possible that he had somehow forgotten the conversation. How could something so important to her be so unimportant to him? He had always been a quiet man, but as the world around them seemed to be steadily moving towards a more modern and fast-paced future, his discomfort and quietness seemed to increase, as though he weren’t sure of his place in the world. She wished he felt sure of his place with her, at the very least.

The week of the wedding arrived. Tabitha was at her writing desk, composing a letter to Winnie, letting her know of her deep regret at not being able to attend the wedding, when Philip appeared in the door. Not in his work clothes, though it was the middle of the day, but in one of the only two suits he owned, the brown one. In each hand was a suitcase. Her eyes traveled from his suit to the bags, and a sudden joyful thought began to dawn on her…..(ran out of time!!)

Writer D

“Scandalous!” Darcy smiled at Tony, chewing on her pen cap, flirting with her eyes.

“Yeah, I know!” Tony brushed the hair from his eyes then crammed his hands in his pockets. “We were just trying to rake their leaves. No one can believe that teenage boys would want to do something nice for someone.”

“So what were you really expecting?” Darcy spun around in her chair, ponytail bouncing, like someone half her age. She felt like she might lose her head. Tony Hanson was sitting in her bedroom!

“We thought they would be thankful and pay us!” Tony laughed, nervously.

“Ha!” Darcy said, much louder than she had wanted to. “My grandparents wouldn’t pay me to rake their lawn!” She stood up and looked out the window at her grandparents’ house across the yard. “They’re way too stingy.” Darcy popped a bubble with her gum then made herself turn and look at Tony. “They might farm me out to rake yours though.”

Tony laughed. He looked at Darcy standing there before him, with her windblown ponytail and rosy cheeks. He liked what he saw.  “Maybe we should do that,” he said slowly.

“Do what?” Darcy asked.

“Rake my leaves.” His smile said ten times as much.

“What do you mean?” Darcy’s heart was pounding so loud she hoped he couldn’t hear it.

“You and me. Let’s go. Maybe helping others is overrated.”

This was our prompt:

Write a story or story fragment containing all three of the words: 

• Scandalous
• Rake
• Overrated

20 minute challenge