Marathon items

Story #3

For the genre, I decided to write an Animal Story.
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Cassandra's Last Curse

Jason was working on his homework when his ST. BERNARD, YELLER, suddenly said "I remember, now."

Jason turned and looked around. "Who said that?"

"I did," said Yeller in a throaty feminine voice.

"What the--? Are you talking."

"Indeed, I am," said Yeller.

"But that's like too WEIRD, said Jason, "a dog can't talk."

"I suppose," said Yeller, "except that I am a dog and I clearly can talk. I think back in Greece, the philosophers would argue through some kind of syllogism that if a dog talks then it clearly proves that a dog can talk."

"But I've had you since you were a puppy. You never talked before."

"True, but I think the reason for that is that before now, I didn't really know who I was. I think the memory of that also gave me the ability to talk."

Jason sighed and tried to figure this out. "What do you mean who you are? You're my dog, Yeller."

"Well. . .no. You just called me 'Yeller'. In reality," said Yeller with a bit of pride, "I am the reincarnation of Cassandra, the princess of Troy, who famously predicted the fate of the ATREIDES household."

"Whoah. . .The Atreides household? I remember them from that miniseries on the Sci-Fi channel."

"No," said Yeller putting her paw over her eyes in disgust. "That was fiction, you classically inept fool. The real Atreides household fell several millenia ago in Greece." The dog cleared her throat and went on. "When I was just a girl in Troy, I was quite beautiful, if I do say so myself. I was so beautiful that I was loved by the god, Apollo."

"Apollo? Isn't he a dude on the other Sci-fi channel show?"

"No! You really are something else, Jason. Apollo was the god of prohecy. He loved me so much that he came to me one night and said that from henceforth, I would have the ability to see the future."

"You can see the future?" asked Jason doubtfully.

"Sure, right now I can see that you have band practice tomorrow."

"Is that all?"

"No, I can also see that during the practice, a MOUSE, will crawl into ONE of the TUBAS and be blown out."

Jason looked at Yeller over the tops of his glasses. "That is just plain ridiculous. There's no way it's going to happen."

"Ahh," said Cassandra sadly, "that is the other part of my story. You see when Apollo declared his love for me, I rebuffed him."

"You what him?"

"Oh for Pete's sake! I said I didn't love him back. Is that simple enough for you? Well, anyway, to punish me for that, he pronounced a curse upon me that no matter how true my predictions were, no one would ever believe me."

And he was right. I predicted that we would lose the war. That Troy would fall, that the guy who led the conquest, Agamemnon would have serious problems with his family when he got home, but no one ever believed me. I must say, it got depressing after a while. So naturally, you don't believe me when I say that a mouse will get into a tuba at band practice tomorrow."

Jason shrugged, "No offense, but when Apollo put that curse on you, was it really necessary? I mean, I'm not so sure I would believe you anyway."

Yeller sniffed proudly. "Perhaps not. But just the same, my predictions always come true. You will find out tomorrow at band practice.

* * *

The next day, Jason came racing home from school. "Mom! Mom! You're not going to believe what happened at band practice today."

"What?" said his mother who was sitting in the kitchen reading the newspaper.

"A mouse crawled into Jimmy Gordon's tuba and when he blew it, the mouse went flying through the air and landed on Mrs Adler's head which made her scream and everyone in the class was either laughing or screaming and jumping on chairs. It was totally crazy."

"Well, what next?" said Mother rolling her eyes.

"Look, Mom," said Jason as he opened the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of orange juice, "Have you seen Yeller?"

"I think that old dog is upstairs in your room."

"Thanks, you haven't heard anything from her have you?"

"Heard? Like what? A bark or a howl? She's actually been pretty quiet."

"Uhh. . .right," said Jason. He took the glass and ran up to his room.

His dog was sitting on the floor, looking at a copy of the Wall Street Journal.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"I told you," she said. "I have the gift of prophesy."

"Wow, can you predict other things? Will Obama be reelectd in 2012."

"Nope."

"Will the he lose to Sarah Palin?"

"Nope. The Republican candidate will be a tea party member from BLAINE, MINNESOTA."

"Will the Red Sox win the World Series this year?"

"No way!" said the dog.

Jason thought about that. "Can You tell me about the big Chemistry test tomorrow? What will the questions be?"

"Ahh," said the dog. "That's kind of interesting. It turns out that the test will be cancelled tomorrow."

"What? Are you sure?"

"Yes, you see during the period that you have Chemistry, a man will come SKYDIVING onto the school grounds claiming to be God's little brother, Howie."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. The school will call the police and have him taken away, but with all the excitement they won't be able to hold your Chemistry test."

Jason lit up. "That is so cool. I don't have to study. Wait'll I go tell my friends." And he ran out of the house.

The dog, Yeller, watched him go and tried not to laugh.

"Don't you think that was getting kind of mean," said a very small voice. Yeller looked and saw the mouse which she had made friends with not too long ago.

"Oh hi," said Yeller. I hope you didn't get hurt too badly when you were blown out of the tuba."

"Nah. It was fun," said the mouse. Then she admitted, "I can't wait to be there tomorrow when that boy and his friends start looking into the sky for a skydiver who claims to be God's little brother, Howie. Too bad he might fail the test."

"Anyone who would believe that a dog is the reincarnation of an ancient Greek prophetess deserves to get a bad grade on a test," said Yeller.

"I suppose. When did you first learn about Cassandra, anyway."

"When I first learned to read. I actually read the books of Greek mythology which Jason is assigned to read for his English class."

"And when did you first come up with this prank?"

"When I first learned to talk."