Raid of the Lunchboxes

Felix Wall

A dainty little flower only about the size of my pinky finger was minding his own business in his special little plant pot. He had only been planted the day before by eager children in the bustling school, he had nice pretty white flowers, his stem was lime green and he had already sprouted his first bud!

There he was sitting in the stinky classroom when suddenly a little boy knocked over a jug of radioactive expired orange juice sitting on the window sill and some of it dripped onto the poor little flower. The mix of freshly planted soil and radioactive orange juice gives the flower enhanced strength, speed, stamina but worst of all…an evil mindset. The little flower tugs at his roots pulling them out of the soil. He clambers out of his pot scurrying on his roots across the floor then he begins his raid.

The bell rings for the end of lunch and the kids pour back into the classrooms while the sneaky little flower uses his leafy hands to open the kids’ lunchboxes and guzzles the sugary remains of lunch.

All kids are unaware of the happenings apart from just one, me, I peer out of the grimy window and see (if I can believe my eyes) a little stubby flower raiding the kids’ lunchboxes! My head is spinning, a flower raiding lunchboxes! This must be what happens when you start to die of boredom. I slap myself across the face. I bang my head on the table, but the flower is still there!

I excuse myself to go to the toilet but instead try to see if I’m actually going insane. I see it opening my best friend's lunchbox and gulping down the remains of his yogurt.

I take one whiff of the scene and crinkle my nose, it smells awful! It smells like expired oranges crossed with dirt, and the stench of children’s feet tops it off horribly! I cover my nose and I make a whistling noise at the flower, he looks up and appears to have some sort of ears made out of leaves but I can’t tell if he is listening to me at all. So I'm not going insane, that's good but there is still a flower raiding the school! I make a decision to try and take down this vile little flower.

I try to make a compromise, to tempt the little flower with the promise of a VIP plant pot, special views of the sun, new roots and boots and the new type of soil. I keep trying but the wicked little flower is having none of it and just chooses to continue his plundering.

Then I realise that by each lunchbox treat he guzzles he seems to grow bigger and bigger then in what seemed like a heartbeat he had already doubled my height! A cat bounds down from across the street wondering what all the commotion is about and for a second I believe that this animal might be my saviour, but my thoughts are blown away as soon as the poor little cat lays eyes on the flower, the poor midget nearly gets a heart attack and scampers up a tree!

This cause seems hopeless. This battle is unfair. A superhero in flower clothing vs a school boy with dirty knees and a useless cat stuck in a tree.

I back away in terror then I bump into something, it’s the garbage chute that leads to the sewers! The opening is about two metres wide and my head quickly forms a plan. I sprint to the remaining lunchboxes and take out some of the remaining treats left over from lunch and I form a line of them leading to the garbage chute.

The (now giant) flower towers over me as I just finish the trail of treats. He stomps over to the start of the trail and bends down and gobbles up the first part of the line, then the second, then the third and it goes on. Finally the tremendous flower finishes the second to last and is staring (or I think he is staring because his eyes are little black dots) at the last one in the line.

He seems to uncomfortably shuffle on his leafy feet, then for a very tense second I worry that my plan is shattering before my eyes. But then he takes one step forward and plunges down the chute. I hear a massive splash as the flower makes an impact with the sewer water, then I raise my hands in victory, why I celebrated my victory I don’t know, because there is no audience chanting my name, or news reporters crowding me. The only witness is a black cat stuck in a tree that meows appreciatively at me.

After a moment of celebrating my victory I run back to rejoin my class but as I start running back to my class out strides the principal he takes a long glance around the scene, Then his face seems to glow red with anger and he yells, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, LOOK AT THIS MESS, YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!”

I take a quick glance around. He isn't wrong, there are lunchboxes scattered all around me and food scraps hanging from every nook and cranny, also most of the lunchboxes have been ripped in half.

“It wasn't me sir,” I replied.

“Oh really who was it then?” He said in a mocking tone.

I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth so I took the blame, “Fine fine it was me!”

“Good you lied to a principal! You stole the kids’ lunches! You broke all their lunchboxes and you skipped all your classes at the same time!”

I could write another 500 pages explaining what he said to me and how angry he got and what he looked like but I only have another 94 words. So to make a long story short, he yelled “YOU'RE EXPELLED!”