Friday, August 27, 2010

Teddy Roosevelt is a Ninja

This is a little partial story I wrote for a kid at work. The prompt was "Write a biography." What my student should have said was, "Write an accurate biography." Enjoy.

Theodore Roosevelt was a president of the United States of America. What most people don't know about him is that he was also President of the International Association of Ninjas. Teddy, as he was known in the dojo, was an expert in hand to hand combat. In fact, most of the "animals" he killed while hunting were actually other ninjas. His public relations manager later disguised each fallen ninja as a bear or mountain lion so that no one would know about Teddy's ninja secret.

On a Spring day in May, Teddy Roosevelt rode his horse, Samurai, into the woods. He was thinking about the latest IAN meeting, and how his friend, Robert Hope, had talked about possibly learning to use swords.

"The future is in armed combat!" Robert had yelled at the group of ninjas. "The enemy will be armed, and we need to be ready."

"The enemy" Robert spoke of was a secret group of assassins called The Death Machine. The Death Machine wasn't really as secret as its members liked to think. Teddy knew The Death Machine met inside the Baltimore Community Center on the first Friday of every month.

Before Robert had ranted about swords, the IAN had debated about the best time to attack The Death Machine's headquarters. Andy Rockefeller thought they should attack on July 4th, Independence Day. He thought ridding the world of The Death Machine on that day would be appropriate. But most of the IAN thought The Death Machine would expect that, so they'd picked a random date, August 23rd, for the attack.

Teddy was pondering whether swords would be a good idea for the attack on The Death Machine when a heavy something hit him from the side and knocked him off of Samurai.

Teddy sprung up from the ground and yelled, "Haai-yah!" at his assailant.

No one was there. Teddy spun around, expecting to see a member of The Death machine holding throwing knives.

No one was there...

(To possibly be continued)

As you can see, adjectives (like accurate) are important.

1 comment:

nhspanish said...

Bob Hope, huh...I caught that!
Mommy