It’s Thursday and time for a story challenge:
Can you tell a story in 41 words using the following words in it somewhere:
- BALLOON
- FANCY
- TRANCE
- SATCHEL
- MONKEY
Last week’s challenge was to write a story in 57 words using the following words in it somewhere:
- GAG
- CLIMB
- THRILLER
- FUSSY
- SCORPIO
- TOMBOLA
Here are your brilliantly crafted stories:
So this was the gag. After losing the last round of tombola, he had to climb the rock face while reading some thriller by James Ellroy; I can’t remember which. Anyway, like a typical fussy Scorpio he had no sense of humour and just stood around moaning that the hand-holds were dusted and the ropes all cleaned.
Nicola Daly:
There’s this fantastic thriller about a secret agent called 00-27. He’s fastidiously fussy about his gelled hair and white shirts. In his latest exploits he climbs up the side of a skyscraper and catches the baddie called Sidney Scorpio hiding in a tombola drum. 00-27 then gags him with his pristine hanky.
007 – eat your heart out!
‘The Dreyfus System’ was the last thriller to be released by Gag Halfrunt (yes, Zaphod’s brain care specialist), about a climber who attempts to reach the peak of Annapurna I in Nepal.
Trying to stop the protagonist (known as ‘The Climber’) is Tom Bolanski, a Polish Rivet Tycoon from Warszawa known as ‘The Skorpion’ (‘The Scorpion’)
Kate in Cornwall:
“Ursula’s doing the tombola.”
“Fussy old bag. Scorpio, I bet you.”
“Still need a talent show judge.”
“Spotty runts dancing to Thriller and an ancient biddy warbling Climb Ev’ry Mountain?”
“Vicar’s doing his comedy routine.”
“Folks’d pay to gag him.”
“Go on, pleeeeease.”
“Nope. I said I’d open the bloody fete, then I’m off to the pub.”
Pete:
Little Debbie was a very fussy Scorpio, though she had some ways about her that weren’t quite right. Still the very thought of a public thriller of any sort made her gag. But the fact that the Tarantella Tombola was for a good cause made her climb on board for what became the ride of her life.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller was playing and we were stunned when fussy old Mrs Potter began to climb onto the stage!
She literally kicked the tombola out of the way and executed a perfect Moon Walk.
Someone tried to gag her when she started singing, and laughing she said it was a trait of her Scorpio birth sign.
Murray Clarke:
“GAG” is an abbreviation of GLYCOSAMINOGLYAN. Not a lot of people know that – unless they’re a molecular biologist. Like me! Born in mid-November, I am a Scorpio who climbed to the top of my profession after devouring a particularly gripping thriller about a fussy scientist who spent his spare time on the tombola at the local fair.
At the Scorpio Club’s tombola night, fussy old Margaret won the “Mystery Thriller Climb” experience.
Gag gift, she assumed, until she was blindfolded, strapped in, and hoisted up a mountain at midnight. At the summit, a hooded guide whispered, “The real prize is survival.”
Margaret grinned. Finally, some excitement in her dull life. “Let the game begin.”
Little Debbie was a very fussy Scorpio, though she had some ways about her that weren’t quite right. Still the very thought of a public thriller of any sort made her gag. But the fact that the Tarantella Tombola was for a good cause made her climb on board for what became the ride of her life.
The tombola stopped. The fussy number caller reached in the cage. “Scorpio,” he yelled.
Folks were locked in a communal gag, like they had seen this thriller before.
“Scorpio, is mine,” a man called out. “You are the first to die. Scorpio. Climb up here.”
Some have called her a fussy Scorpio but ideally, she merely wants to climb the financial ladder with a sure footing. Simply because she refuses to rely on the spin of the tombola which seems more like a gag than a thriller of an opportunity. Of course, lately the stock market has not proved any more reliable…
Charlotte was a fussy mountain climber and always first in line for the Tombola thriller night held monthly. You never knew if you were going to get a gag gift or something useful. She liked gifts related to mountain climbing, although that was rare. Her astrological sign was Scorpio, and she read it every morning with coffee.
She was running the tombola today, she was fussy and wanted really good prizes. A Scorpio mug didn’t really seem good enough. She decided to climb upstairs and complain to the official committee. But like a cheap thriller, she ended up gagged, in a cupboard! Would she get out? Or was that the end of Betty’s stall?
I imagined the mountain view from my balcony. Hm, how people climb them is a thriller indeed. I’m too fussy to do so. If I saw Mr. Scorpio then I would do it and never come down. Our winters are for six months! That’s when a lot of us gag on a spoon and start playing tombola.
The school performance ‘Scorpio and the Next Generation in Hogwarts’ could have been a real thriller, but quite bluntly: it was not. While the stage designer must have been very fussy, a toddler that climbed up on the stage got more applause than the actors.
Gag the critic, but the tombola was the highlight of the evening.
“I won? But I never win the tombola!” I gasped, clutching my ticket. The prize: a ride on the infamous Thriller coaster. “How high does it climb?” I asked, suddenly fussy with nerves.
“400 feet,” the attendant grinned, eyeing my Scorpio tattoo.
My stomach twisted. I tried not to gag. This was going to be a terrifying ride.
The school tombola was a thriller. Miss Jenkins, a fussy Scorpio, wanted desperately to win the star prize – a Victorian embroidered muffler. She bought almost every ticket, surprisingly she won! However, a pupil played a gag, climbed up, and replaced it with a whoopee-cushion! The real thrill? The headmaster’s face when she let rip during assembly.
Sanny M:
The climb was steep but the loud rendition of Thriller pounding in her ear buds kept her going.
She’d never won a tombola before and was now regretting this win.
At the start she’d been gagged, thrown in with scorpions and was now being made to climb Mount Everest.
What kind of a club had she joined?
Her aging Scorpio, thriller personality always won out. She wasn’t fussy where she sat. The climb to the cheap seats would be worth it.
The screen lit up, a voice boomed. “Welcome to the historic awards for Tombola.”
Was this a gag? She was certain her ticket read, Historic Awards of Alberto Tomba, her teenage crush…Sigh.
A New Zodiac
Twelve of us, chained, gagged and tagged, squirm beneath a flickering bulb. My label: Scorpio. He knows us.
He spins a tombola machine, slow with fussy precision. A wannabe villain in a low-budget thriller; but real… too real. The sub-basement reeks of him: boiled eggs and sweat. I free my wrists and climb. A creak betrays me.
“Signore Scorpio! What an honor! Climb into the gondola, sir. Where are you headed this fine evening, signore?”
“Stop chattering! You’re too fussy! Take me to the tombola bar! Pronto!”
“Yes, sir! Right away, signore! The game is going to be a real thriller!”
“Just row, stupido, before I gag you and toss you into the canal!”
“Gag me with a spoon! Listen to what it says about Scorpios: ‘determined to win at all cost. Won’t climb down from a challenge. Loves thrillers and games of chance, especially tombolas. Never fussy about what other people think.’ Uh-oh!”
“What?”
“Aries is either a great partner or a deadly enemy.”
“Guess that’s why we’re getting divorced.”
***
Esther Chilton 
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