“Writes longhand, ‘e does, with a pink pen,” the beggar said, one hand over his mouth as if to prevent the words from escaping. He looked up and down the street nervously, then added, “‘Twas his secret to victory last time, or so they say.”

The Challenger scoffed loudly, with none of the beggar’s discretion. “If the King writes with a pink pen,” he pronounced with a thick Cambridge accent, “then I’m a stillborn child!”

The beggar leaned forward, tapped his finger against the Challenger’s suit of armour. “Is tha’ why yer wearing the tinnies then?”

The Challenger knocked his hand away. “No, you fool! I’m hoping to intimidate him with this authentic eighteenth century armour. Took me an hour to get it on.” He said the last sentence as if it were something of which to be proud.

The beggar just stared at him expectantly, pulling his coat open to reveal the inside pocket, jam-packed with pink pens. “Whaddya say?”

“I suppose it would not to do go into battle poorly armed….” The Challenger sighed. “Fine, give one to me.”

“Tha’ll be a tenner.”

“What?! You quoted three pounds ten minutes ago!”

The beggar shrugged, unrepentant. “Need to make up for the time you spent thinking.”

“My thoughts are not worth seven pounds,” the Challenger replied hotly. “I’ll give you five.”

“Deal.” They furtively exchanged goods. Then, business concluded, the beggar scurried off, vanishing as quickly as a sideshow fable.

“Right,” said the Challenger, speaking aloud for no reason. “On to claim my crown. Those bellowing bastard brothers won’t know what has hit them.”

He marched proudly down the street, his metal feet loud against the pavement, until he reached house number 72, which had a green door and a gold lion-shaped knocker. He ignored the knocker and pressed down hard on the hastily-installed doorbell, a yellowed plastic rectangle that tilted to the left as if drunk.

A tired-looking woman opened the door, her hair pulled back into a messy gray bun, her neatly-pressed clothes already wrinkled. Over her shoulder, the Challenger could see that the living room was already teeming with other challengers, eager to take the crown.

“Mrs. H,” the Challenger said formally, bowing as best he could.

“Is that you Edward?” She readjusted her glasses, frowning. “Come for a spot of bingo?”

“Indeed I have.”

She stood aside to let him pass. “Between you and me, I hope you win. I’m fed up of having a dirty house.”

Inspired by Ergofiction’s old Search Term Challenge.

The cat warily poked her head out of the washing machine. The coast was clear. She put her paws up on the rim, tensed her legs to spring.

Then — a flash of movement in the corner of the kitchen! Sparkles hissed, ducked back into the safety of the washing machine. Her tail lashed back and forth within the limited confines of the metal drum.

She could hear it, snuffling around the kitchen, moving close to the washing machine. Its claws scraped against the tiled floor, making her skin prickle. If only her owners would come home and get rid of it, set down more traps….

When Sparkles heard it began to chew on a wire, she shook her head and curled up to wait for back up. Mice had always been a problem in London, but this was getting ridiculous.

******

Yet another ABC Challenge-inspired story. Slight cop-out by using lots of odd names, but oh well!

Zero. Yet again, a non-human customer had ignored the notice on his website stating that zebras only came in two sizes: large, or extra large. Xavier stared at the order form and wondered whether it was someone’s idea of a joke. What did size zero even mean?

Vanity was the bane of these newly rich types, he thought, staring glumly at the seven-figure sum on offer. Unless he sold eight regular-sized zebras by the end of the month, his business was going under, and he’d be thrown out onto the street with nowhere to live. This job alone — if he could somehow manage to fulfil it — would fix him up for the rest of his life. Stress-free lazing on the beach of a human-only resort for the rest of his life!

Really, he would have given anything to go back to his old life, to the days when gargoyles stayed fixed to cathedrals and medusas were hardly remembered, to the days when he’d been a simple butcher serving bog-standard cuts of meat to real down-to-earth Spaniards. Quail had been the most exotic meat he’d served, with none of these zebras and crocodiles cluttering up the aisles. Pity that humans no longer had the money to spend on meat, and he was forced to cater to the demands of these ever-hungry monsters.

Only now the monsters were demanding more and more, and expecting to pay less, using threats and blackmail as their preferred currency. Nevermind that Xavier could not pay for rent or food with those threats, and that he was slowly going out of business. Money had no meaning to creatures like these, trapped in the mindset of centuries past when they hadn’t been legal members of society.

Lately the situation had begun spiralling even further out of control with Xavier’s savings all but gone, and now this, this order that could save his shop if only he could fulfill it. Key word being ‘if’ — how he’d locate a size zero zebra was beyond him.

“Joder,” he cursed, making his way over to the cold room at the back, order form still clutched tightly in his hand. “Imposible, es imposible.”

Hands on his hips, he surveyed the latest delivery of zebras, chewing his lip as he took in their unsurprisingly large size. Good quality meat, all of it, imported live from Africa and butchered at the slaughterhouse down the road. Fashion now dictated, though, that the gourmet feeders — vampires and the like — consume only dainty portions of meat in public. Eating entire animals, which had been popular only a few months previous, was now outdated.

Dire action was called for. Calculating rapidly in his head, Xavier grabbed a knife and set to work one of of the zebras, cutting out the ribs, the back molars–anything to make the zebra look skinnier than it actually was. By the time he was finished, all that was left was a husk of the once proud zebra, a ghost of itself, bones protruding, skin stretched thin, a ghoulish grin answering Xavier’s smile.

And then he walked out of the room, wiped his blood-streaked hands on the front of his trousers, and decided fashion wasn’t so bad after all.

******

Continuing my ABC Challenge inspired #fridayflash stories, I decided to shake things up a little this week by doing the alphabet in reverse! (Although I’ll admit, I wrote the ‘A’ sentence first.) But overall it was a lot more fun to tackle the tricky letters first.