Arise chicken, chicken arise.

+10 for aqua teen reference.

Moar stories!!!! or the dog gets it!

Glad you got it ;)

Sorry I'm late!
Just so we're on the same page, I'm not looking to enter for a prize (other than that someone may enjoy the following read).
Good luck to all those that enter.

*ahem-hok*

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Once upon a time there was a little mouse named Harriet.

She had lovely long whiskers, coal-black eyes that shone like diamonds and a long tail that curled like a question mark. The apartment where she lived was warm and cozy, and situated in a wall inside a baker's shop. She had two good friends, Cayde, a large white raven and Bonnet, the doberman that lived with the Butcher next door.

One day, her door knocked to the rhythm of La Cucaracha. Curious, Harriet set down her newspaper to go see who it was.

Much to her surprise, a well-dressed cockroach tipped his top hat and rustled his mustache.

"Good evening, Miss Harriet Baker. I am Sir Mittens Alleytrash." He bowed with a flourish that had been honed like a signature, "It is with great pleasure to announce my presence to you."

Harriet obliged a smile, though she didn't know what his intents were. "Charmed. And what do I owe this pleasure?"

He held his hat close to his chest as he fidgeted, "I'm required by law to tell you I'm a registered sex offender. I live next a few doors down that way."

A thick air of silence wedged between them. Harriet clucked a bit and angled a whisker. Maybe she misheard him, "Pardon?"

Awkwardness coagulated as Sir Mittens wiped the sweat off his brow, "I uh. I'm a registered sex offender. And I'm here to tell you--because of what the law states--that I've moved to this apartment. I..." He cleared his throat, "I live down the hall, three doors that way."

A slow squint took to Harriet's eyes as she watched him nod. "I see. And may I be so bold as to ask what your crime was?"

"Oh. Uh." Sir Mittens let the steam out from under his collar, "I'd rather not--

A fluttering sound came from her window, where an eye of a white raven took up most of the glass. "Good morning, Harriet!" Cayde said in his usual sing-song tone, "Oh! Am I interrupting?"

"Not at all." Harriet turned back to her guest, "This is Sir Mittens Alleytrash, and he was just about to tell me why he's a registered sex offender."

The big eye at the window widened, questioning the intent of the cockroach, "Is that so? By all means, don't let me keep you."

Sir Mittens hung his head in defeat. Correcting his composure, he held up his chin and took in a deep breath. "When I was...Oh dear me, this is going to sound terrible...I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was, erm, relieving my baser instincts in some tall grass. I was under the impression that I was alone at the time, but I thought wrong."

Harriet and Cayde blinked.

"Much to my surprise, I was in the presence of a large dog who just so happened to be bathing. The dog eventually spotted me, screamed, and, well..." He chuckled nervously, "Here I am! That's my story."

It took a while for Harriet to digest the information. "Okay. Well thank you for sharing, Mister Mittens."

"Hey Cayde, what's going on?" An approaching voice from outside asked. "Why're you so quiet?"

A new eye peered through the window, this one belonging to a doberman.

"Hi Bonnet." Chimed Harriet, "How're you today?"

No response. The eye intensified on the cockroach, enveloping with murder. The look on Sir Mittens face said it all.

"You." Bonnet growled. "The hell is that pervert doing there?"

"Oh. Oh Dear." Sir Mittens immediately capped his head and ran away.

Harriet watched the cockroach scuttle off down the hall, disappearing behind the slam of a door. She wondered if his story was true or fabricated. Her sleuthing skills were more than adequate to get to the bottom of this. There wasn't a case yet that she couldn't crack.

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And that's all I'm going to write. Hope it was entertaining.

omg classic outer limits is great. May I also suggest the Alfred Hitchcock Hour? :)

hey! its black&white ... i'm not that old!

*puts on his oxygen cylinder and boards his scooter to chase crew

Original and creative giveaway! Thanks and +1! I'm in with this one :)

Immediately when I read the beginning of the story I remembered one very educational fable with unfortunately unknown author, so I'm going to retell her with little adjustments to fit the current setting :)

Once upon a time there was a little mouse named Harriet. She had lovely long whiskers, coal-black eyes that shone like diamonds and a long tail that curled like a question mark. The apartment where she lived was warm and cozy, and situated in a wall inside a baker's shop. She had two good friends: Cayde, a large white rooster and Bonnet, the bull that lived with the Butcher next door.

One day in this nice little baker's shop located in rural countryside, the baker was able to glimpse the beautiful Harriet just before she was able to hide in her cozy apartment in the wall. After that he decided to put a mouse trap with a nice tasty cheese in it. When Harriet saw the trap she felt the need to tell her friends and asks for help in removing it. Unfortunately the rooster and the bull wasn't very helpful - they replied that the mouse trap wasn't their problem and Harriet has to deal with it on herself (Not a friendliest response, one might say, but it was a mouse trap after all, they though). On the next day a snake cough up in the trap and the unthinkable happened the next door butcher's wife was bitten by it and fell ill on the bed. In order to get well the butcher decided to cook her a chicken soup, so he cached Cayde and made him in to the soup, but to no avail. The butcher's wife passed away. In order to feast the guests at the funeral the butcher had to cook his favorite Bonnet... And there was little Harriet looking thru the crack in the wall and thinking about the problems that are not initially yours but eventually might become yours.

And here's the original.

Don't forget to submit your story!

GA ENDS: Oct 2 @ 11:59 PM EST.
-Late entries will not be allowed
-Edited entries after 11:59 PM EST will be disqualified.
I made up the intro to this story so that all entries would be original. I cannot read this yet, as per my rules, but if I deem it to be plagiarized from this folk tale, I will not count your entry. You still have time to make an original story and submit it. :)

I mean this in the nicest way possible, if you want to chat with me about it, that's fine too :)

For others reading this:

These are large prizes, so I don't feel it's asking too much for some effort to be put into it (original story). Also, I know for most people English is not their first language, so I'm obviously not holding that against anyone.

What do you mean we can't plagiarise the story? That is not fair! Do you know how long it has taken me to alter The Secret of NIMH and replace all the entries of Mrs. Brisby with Mrs. Harriet, and to change the title to The Secret of Harriet? I was sure I was gonna win with that story. :-)

But on a serious note, I am sorry I am unable to submit a story for your lovely giveaway, but with my health the way it is I have just not been able to concentrate on it properly. It doesn't help that I am not a writer by any means, but at the moment I just can't seem to concentrate on things too well. I do have a note pad with a dozen or so half complete stories in made up of attempts I was going to type up submit, but I was not really happy with any of them and they were all over the place, and probably not that enjoyable to read. It was like reading something by Mark Twain :-p.

One had Harriet go on a grand adventure, then get into peril and have to struggle to get home to Cayde and Bonnet. Then when she finally got home, just about to enter the door, a giant foot of a Bunnysaurus came down and crushes her just as she is about to hug Bonnet. The Bunnysaurus then walked off, stopping only briefly to scratch her big dinosaur butt with a back scratcher, unaware what she had just done. :-)

Anther was set in France at the start of the First World War. It followed the baker getting called up and an inquisitive Harriet sneaking in his luggage and accompanying the baker through boot camp and onto the train on their way to his first battle. The baker and Harriet built up a friendship, as the baker was a bit of an outcast and had always been kind to Harriet at the bakery, giving her scraps of food etc. The story progressed to the mouse and the baker in the trenches, ready to go over the top and charge at the Germans. The story ended with an explosion as the French soldiers were shouting their war cries and charging over the top of the trench, and Harriet regaining conciseness a little time later to find the field covered in fallen soldiers, quite and eerie, and then seeing the lifeless body of her dear baker. But that one was a little too dark I thought.

Anyway, I did try, but my health at the moment just prevented me finishing anything with any degree of quality, especially these last few weeks as things have not been going to well in the health department. But thank you again for the lovely giveaway, and a big than you to apehater for entering on my behalf, that is so very sweet of you, so a big thank you to you as well.

Good luck to all those who did enter a story, which have been very nice to read so far.

I might have enjoyed reading that. I recently enjoyed listening (on audiobook) to Michael Morpurgo's War Horse.

Feel well.

I love history, and with it been the centenary of the First World War not too long ago, I have been reading a lot about that. Originally I had thought of a story with an English soldier, for obvious reasons, but I decided to do it based on a French solder during the early parts of the war. It was packed with quite a few historical facts and references, but I just can't compose things too well at the moment, and I thought that the story was a little too dark for Crew's lovely giveaway anyway.

I can't say I have read War Horse, but I have read quite a few factual books on animals during the Great War, which has been quite fascinating, despite the setting and the more horrific events of the war.

Mine is pretty dark (but I haven't posted it for others to read). War Horse wasn't too dark, IMO. Sure it has deaths (of both people and horses), but it also shows a human side of the war.

I read that you hope to publicise your story, that must be an exciting thing. Have you had your work publicised before, or will this be your first time? I have never been too good with writing stories. I can often come up with plot ideas and the outlines, but piecing it all together is not something I seem to be good at.

I wish you luck with getting your story published, and in winning the prize.