William Tell-ish

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.


The prompts: This story must contain the words: pencil, apple and gigantic


William Tell-ish

The pencil buried itself in the tree trunk with a dull “thunk.”

Just for show, Evan scowled at the miss. Inwardly, he was basking in variations of “Wow that was cool!” and “Holy shit, dude!” coming from his audience of fifteen-year-old pimple machines.

They crowded around to get a better look at the rather ingenious crossbow Evan had built during third period shop. He’d told the instructor it was a spice rack. The old fart had bought it. Mr. Bench was way more interested in making time with the cafeteria lady and her gigantic breasts than supervising a bunch of emerging testosterone packages with power-drills and table-saws.

As he worked to remove his “arrow” from the tree, a small voice from below said, “Can I go now? I don’t want to be late to class.”

“Look Eddie, I just want to take one more shot. I think I know what I did wrong.”

“But why can’t one of the other guys take a turn? Suppose you miss and take out one of my eyes?”

He began to hyperventilate.

“Hold still and don’t be such a whiner. The shop goggles will protect your eyes. Besides, you’re the only one with a head flat enough to hold the apple steady.” That last part wasn’t really true. Several of the other boys also had flat heads, but Eddie was the easiest to bully.

Evan’s last shot had gone high. He mentally adjusted for that by aiming his next shot directly between Eddie’s eyes.

All at once, the bell rang, Eddie fainted, Evan pulled the trigger and a teacher yelled.

A moment later, Eddie was on the ground with a teacher tending to him. As for the apple, it had dropped four inches before being nailed to the tree by a number two Ticonderoga.

Word count 300