Short Story Wednesday...again

The Insecure Writers' Support Group Contest News

Dear Readers,

Another Wednesday is upon us. I have Part One of a serialized short story to offer. Premeditated Cat was published in an anthology, but I’ve edited it since, so it’s not the original version. My first IWSG post for 2025 is here today as well, along with information about a great writing competition! I hope you like this week’s Substack.

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PREMEDITATED CAT

C. Lee McKenzie

When Nikki stepped into the classroom, Lysol and polish and just a hint of last semester scented the air. Luckily, someone had opened a window, so the smells of summer were already filtering inside.

She wouldn’t be here on this beautiful day if Clark didn’t pound on her mom all the time—if he would move out—if this were any other class but art. Art was her only refuge in summer.

Like last June, Brent was seated at the back, and her friend, Clarise, had taken a desk along the windows. These two could draw better than most, but Nikki was still the best. They knew it. She knew it. The only one who ignored her talent was her stepfather because he didn’t want to pay for art school. That and the fact he’d do anything to make her life miserable, including telling her to get rid of Panther.

Since Clark moved in she kept the cat hidden in her closet when she was gone.

She glanced around the classroom and recognized a few other juniors and a couple of freshmen boys. The teacher hadn’t arrived, so she took a desk next to the window, one just in front of Clarise, and set her bag on the floor. Leaning down to rifle through it, she was making sure she’d brought all the required art supplies when an unfamiliar voice startled her.

“Good morning, my dear artists.”

Nikki snapped upright. The man who’d said that hadn’t been in front of the room a second ago. If she didn’t know better, she would have said he materialized rather than entered through the door. But there he was, his dark eyes darting from one student to the next until they stopped at her. It was as if he’d found who he’d been looking for.

Unsettled by the man’s sudden appearance, Nikki fiddled with her pencils, pretending she was choosing among them and avoiding the man’s stare.

“You are all so wonderful to be here on this bright summer day with your art pads and pencils, your talent waiting to spring forth.” The man whirled like a dancer and faced the class with a thunderclap of his hands. “Welcome to Mr. Cigam’s Summer Art Program.”

Someone giggled at the back of the room. Everyone else stared in shocked silence, waiting to see what other strange things he might do.

“Who is he?” Clarise said in a low voice over Nikki’s shoulder.

“What happened to Miss Lockheart?” Brent asked from the back of the room.

Mr. Cigam ignored Clarise’s whispered question and didn’t even glance in Brent’s direction.

Last summer, when Miss Lockheart taught, they worked a lot with clay and finger paints. It had been fun, but Nikki hadn’t learned much except that clay stuck like mud between her fingers, and she couldn’t get black paint from under her nails.

Now, with the very unusual Mr. Cigam as the teacher, her hopes for learning new drawing techniques slipped away with each of his peculiar moves. He adjusted the thick glasses on the end of his nose then twirled wisps of gray hair that stuck out from under his visor cap. It was itself odd, stitched together from pieces of shiny material cut in the shapes of stars, circles, and lightning bolts. With every turn of his head, the classroom walls came alive with tiny reflections.

He paced the front of the room, staring at the floor as if measuring the distance and checking for accuracy on his return trip. He crouched low on the balls of his feet and swiveled slowly, eyeing the students until they all pressed back against their seats as if fearing he might pounce.

“A different perspective!” he shouted, leaping to his full height and making everyone flinch. Clarise yelped.

“Now that I have your attention, take out your paper and something to draw with. I want to see just what kind of artists we have here today.”

From the back of the room came Bret’s muffled “Nut case.”

“Draw! Create!” Mr. Cigam commanded, again ignoring Brent. The teacher, his arms raised and his fingers spread wide as if casting a spell on them, walked the aisles. “I want to see your natural, untutored strokes.”

Besides Mr. Cigam’s light footsteps, the rustle of papers and the clatter of pens and pencils scratching on desks were the only sounds.

Nikki searched the room. What could she choose? Why didn’t he do what Miss Lockheart had done and put something out for everyone to draw? She looked toward the windows. Maybe there would be something outside.

A fly, dozing in the sunlight, clung to one of the panes. She bent over her art pad, glanced up at the fly, then lost herself in her work as she captured the iridescent wings, then the bulbous eyes she remembered from her science text.

“Hmmm.”

Nikki dropped her pencil and stared up into Mr. Cigam’s dark gaze.

“Talent here,” he said loudly and walked to the next aisle to hover over a girl whose nose almost touched the paper she was drawing on. “Tsk, tsk. What is that?” the teacher asked.

The girl stammered, “A butter…fly.”

Mr. Cigam shook his head from side to side, frowning. The girl slammed her art pad closed and fled the room as the teacher continued to the next student and leaned over her shoulder. “Easy on the outlining, my dear artist.”

When Mr. Cigam stopped at Brent’s desk, Brent was brushing art gum bits onto the floor. He looked up into the teacher’s intense, dark eyes.

“You are wasting your time here, my boy. Why are you in an art class?”

Brent flushed red, grabbed his art pad and pencils, and jammed them into his satchel. On his way out the door he gave the class—or Mr. Cigam, it was hard to tell which—a creative one-fingered salute.

End of Part One

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And now for…

Join us today!

The awesome co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Beth Camp, Liza @ Middle Passages, and Natalie @ Literary Rambles!

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional!

January 8 question - Describe someone you admired when you were a child. Did your opinion of that person change when you grew up?

I’m skipping this month’s question and going straight to the BIG NEWS!

If one of your New Year's resolutions for 2025 is to write more, join our “Great Expectations” contest here. Using one of the five prompts that we've created, write a short story between 1,000 and 3,000 words for the chance to win $250! The contest will run from January 3 to January 10.

We hope you’ll join the contest!

Because No One Noticed has some excellent reviews: “At first, I believed that this would simply be another surface level high school drama akin to Mean Girls, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how wrong I was.”