Reba the Evil Chipmunk and the Gold Star

Reba The Evil Chipmunk and the Gold Star

The following story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead  is entirely co-incidental.

Once upon a time, there lived an evil little chipmunk called Reba. Reba spent her days frolicking in the enchanted forest, pulling the wings off fairies and clubbing baby seals to death with her claw hammer.

Then, one day, while eviscerating a passing squirrel, she saw a poster on a tree that advertised a story competition, with the first prize being a gold star. Reba was very excited, and rushed home to work on her story at once, leaving the half-dead squirrel to die a slow and painful death on the footpath.

Reba worked very hard for the rest of that day on her story and was very proud of it when she finished. “I’m certain to win with this,” she said to herself.

But then a worrying thought occurred to her. While her story was undoubtedly the best thing ever written, there still remained a small chance that one of the other stories might be better. Reba decided that she couldn’t take the risk. The shiny gold star was more important to her than anything, and she was going to fuck anyone up that came between it and her.

So, Reba handed in her story, and spent the rest of the day pretending to be nice to people. She offered to help Mr Badger count the entries and make sure that none of them accidentally fell into the paper shredder, handing out copies of her story to everyone she could, along with a note that simply said. “I hope that you like my story. Vote for me or I’ll burn your fucking house down.”

The days passed, and more stories arrived. Reba felt no small amount of satisfaction as she watched all of the votes come in for her story. Yes, she’d had to commit some atrocities to get them, but it didn’t really matter. It looked like she was going to win by a landslide.

However, she couldn’t help but worry that, despite her best efforts; her smiles, her cheerful public persona that she worked so hard to perfect, and the couple of kneecappings that she’d administered, some people still had the nerve to vote for stories other than her own. And worse, while she had  more votes than everyone else, she couldn’t help but notice that people were picking up many more copies of the other stories. In fact, it was starting to look as if people hadn’t even read her story, and were just voting for her because she asked them to, or because she had their children locked away in a dungeon somewhere.

This vexed Reba greatly, and she decided that something needed to be done. If there were no other stories, the surely everyone would have to read hers.

Harriet the hare met with an unfortunate accident involving a wood-chipper. Gertie the Goose spontaneously combusted (with the assistance of a large quantity of petrol and a box of matches from Reba’s kitchen), and Percy the Pig’s heart-warming tale of friendship, on closer examination, seemed to have a chapter inserted in the middle (in different hand writing) that described an obscene series of deviant sexual acts involving underage bunnies, and he was promptly arrested.

George the Bear, in an attempt to avoid a similar fate to his friends, made the following announcement on his Forestbook page. “Fuck this. I’m withdrawing my story in the hope that it keeps that crazy bitch the hell away from me. It’s not worth it!”

Reba was furious at this. She’d had such plans for George, and now he’d spoiled them by refusing to play the game. Worse, he’d actually had the nerve to call her a crazy bitch!

There was only one thing that she could do. Reba went onto Forestbook and posted “George is picking on me!”

George responded with, “Huh? What? No I’m not. Stay the hell away from me, you psycho!”

To which Reba responded again, with a selfie showing her most sad face, “George is still picking on me!”

Reba couldn’t believe that she’d not thought of this earlier. People in the forest tutted and the votes rolled in. George barricaded himself and his family inside of his cottage in the hope that it would keep him safe. So Reba cut down the old oak tree in his garden and flattened the little house. There were no survivors.

One by one, the forest creatures met with unfortunate accidents, and when the day of the competition finally arrived, only one story was left. And that story, of course, was Reba’s.

As she stepped up onto the stage, to claim her gold star from Mr Badger, she noticed the pile of paper next to the voting box. Her stories! Almost all of them were still there. It seemed that no-one at all had read them.

She turned to Mr Badger with a frown on her face. “Why are all of my stories lying there, unread?” she asked.

Mr Badger looked uncomfortable. “Well, a few of us tried to…it’s just that…”

“It’s just what?”

“Well, it’s just that it wasn’t actually very good. But this obviously meant so much to you…”

Reba turned to the assembled audience, her hands tightening around her gold star. “Did any of you read it all the way through?”

Billy the Goat exchanged a nervous glance with Audrey the Alpaca. Brian the Beaver began to slowly edge his way to the rear of the auditorium. An uneasy murmur of conversation broke out among the other animals.

Reba strode to the front of the stage, her eyes blazing with fury. “None of you? Not one of you actually read my story?”

***

Reba sat on the sofa and admired her gold star. It looked wonderful on her mantelpiece, next to the severed heads of Billy the Goat and Audrey the Alpaca. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t a real gold star, just a dead chocolate starfish that someone had dipped in gold paint, and that it had become quite rotten. It twinkled nicely in the reflected light from the burning forest outside, and that was all that mattered.

Reba leaned back and smiled. She loved her award, and was overjoyed that everyone thought that her story was the best. It was a shame that they all had to die before they understood that. Still, she was already looking forward to next year’s competition.