Flying Mouse-Squirrel-Bird Thing

When I decide to write a flash story after spending the day grading papers, I end up writing stories inspired by cat toys. “Flying mouse-squirrel-bird Thing” is one of those. My cat has this crinkly, furry toy that is flattened like a flying squirrel but with the face and coloring of a mouse.  It has strings dangling of off its arms with bird feathers. Combine that with a Cracked Flash prompt and you get something like this*:

Flying Mouse-Squirrel-Bird Thing
by Sara Codair

“The princess claims it was the dumbest assassin she’d ever seen, but I find it quite brilliant,” said Marcy.

Her face was like a stone with a small frown etched into it. She glowered at the corpse of a flattened gray rodent, which was covered with both fur and feathers. It had the body of a flying squirrel but the head of the mouse.I had no clue how she had managed to look so serious. When I saw the flying mouse-squirrel-bird thing dive bomb the princess, I just double over laughing so hard I pissed my pants.

“And you are the dumbest bodyguard,” she continued. “It may have looked ridiculous, but its claws were sharp enough to pierce through skin and puncture an artery. Thankfully, it was dumber than you.”

I wanted to respond with something witty, but I could hardly breathe, let alone speak. Of course, Marcy hadn’t even cracked a smile. While I was laughing, she gallantly tacked the princess out of the thing’s way and crushed the doomed creature under her black combat boot.

“Gather your wits. We have an investigation to conduct!”

When I failed to gather my wits, Marcy’s steel-toed boot slammed into my gut. Now I had a more serious reason to gasp for air. She glared while I forced my oxygen deprived body into standing position.

“Alright, I admit it, I screwed up.” I finally managed a few steady breaths. “It’s pretty obvious who is behind this. The Gene Guild was furious when the Princess refused to remove the ban on cloning.”

“But we can’t prosecute a whole organization. It could have been one member acting alone.” Marcy’s eyebrows twitched on her outcrop of a forehead, eventually meeting over her nose.

I stared at the now flattened genetic mashup. “That really was the dumbest assassin. He left his name on the murder weapon.”

“Indeed, it appears he did.” A true smile cracked across Marcy’s boulder-like face as she stared at the initials branded onto the creatures ruptured gut. “I guess we’ll be paying Dr. Horrible a visit.”

Grimacing, I prayed I didn’t die laughing in the mad scientist’s lab.

Marcy rolled her eyes and walked towards our steeds while I chucked in her wake. This certainly was the most interesting case I’d work on in my three month stint in the princess’ secret service.

The End…or To be continued?

This seems to end a scene, not a whole story. Perhaps I will return it it one day soon.

*I will note that I made some revisions to this based on the comments I received from one of the Cracked Flash judges, Si.