Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Ninjas of the 512
    Ninjas of the 512
    Ninjas of the 512
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Ninjas of the 512

    By Laura Roberts

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Good gals wear black

    Suzie Jimenez is a rabble-rousing Texas history teacher who's always taught her students to fight oppression. Teaching an alternative curriculum that celebrates nonviolent protest, methods of peaceful rebellion and the state's homegrown freedom fighters, Suzie encourages her students to question everything, including unjust state laws. But all of that is about to come to an end, thanks to Governor Nick Harry.

    A week before classes resume for the fall, Suzie and the rest of the teachers at Rebel Yell High School are laid off by the Governor's new budget cuts. Harry declares war on the teachers, cutting their jobs and confiscating their paychecks for his Rainy Day Fund. But Suzie won't back down from this fight.

    Instead of getting mad, she goes rogue.

    Joining a rebel band of ninjas Suzie starts a revolution in the state capital of Austin, but quickly discovers she's in over her head. Not only does Governor Harry have a secret weapon, but he's also employed a ship full of pirates to protect him as he launches a campaign for the Presidency! Suzie and the ninjas have to act fast to stop another arrogant Texan from taking the White House, but in the ultimate battle of good versus evil, it's every ninja for himself.

    Can one woman beat the system, or will Suzie's ideals betray her?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherButtontapper Press
    Release dateFeb 1, 2012
    ISBN9781519945099
    Ninjas of the 512
    Author

    Laura Roberts

    Laura Roberts can leg-press an average-sized sumo wrestler, has nearly been drowned off the coast of Hawaii, and tells lies for a living. She is the founding editor of Black Heart Magazine, the San Diego Chapter Leader for the Nonfiction Authors Association, and publishes whatever strikes her fancy at Buttontapper Press. She currently lives in an Apocalypse-proof bunker in sunny SoCal with her artist husband and their literary kitties, and can be found on Twitter @originaloflaura. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, Laura has penned the alphabetical travel guides Montreal from A to Z and San Diego from A to Z, offbeat writing guides A Cheater’s Guide to NaNoWriMo and Confessions of a 3-Day Novelist, and the satirical adventure tale, Ninjas of the 512. She is also the editor of the collection Haiku for Lovers, and the forthcoming anthology Everything I Need to Know About Love I Learned from Pop Songs (February 2016).

    Read more from Laura Roberts

    Related to Ninjas of the 512

    Related ebooks

    Action & Adventure Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Where Have All The Young Girls Gone?

      Sep 10, 2022

      The little fat man squirmed in his chair, sweat running down his red cheeks. I thought he was going to cry. Instead, he stared at me as though I had arrived from another planet, an alien being sent solely to torment him. I didn’t know why Professor H

      7 min read

    • Article

      Bearing Witness

      May 30, 2021

      Lauren Hough is unicorn-level rare: someone who strode on to Twitter cracking witty and street-wise, a sharp-tongued yet strikingly kind presence. She wrote a cracking essay that went, well, pandemic-level viral, was snapped up for a book deal, and h

      4 min read

    • Article

      Bad Dream

      Nov 1, 2019

      Bad Dream
      5 min read

    • Article

      Seedlings

      May 6, 2021

      Seedlings
      9 min read

    • Article

      Hell Is A City in Texas

      Jun 14, 2021

      Hell Is A City in Texas
      10 min read

    • Article

      Mourning a Stranger’s Suicide in Prison

      Aug 23, 2019

      It was an average Texas prison weekend when it happened. Chow had just finished, and the dorm was settling into its routine. The bolted-down metal tables in the dayroom were cluttered with bowls and commissary food as several women started cooking in

      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘We’re Two Grown-up Women Who Can Face Anything Together’

      Feb 1, 2024

      I’m astonished to look at the two fresh-faced girls smiling out of the photo with heady Crete in the background and realise that this picture is more than 30 years old. My best friend Lisa and I were living it up on a holiday we absolutely couldn’t a

      2 min read

    • Article

      Shame Is Ever-Present When You’re Sitting in a Cell

      Oct 23, 2020

      Between a strained relationship with my family and the death of a good friend, I’ve struggled to feel like I’m worth something.

      5 min read

    • Article

      100-WORD-STORY COMPETITION Winners

      Aug 16, 2022

      We’ve been delighted by the huge response to our 100-word-story competition. The entries have flooded in thick and fast during the past few months, but while we’ve enjoyed reading every story, only a few can come out on top! You, our readers, voted t

      5 min read

    • Article

      Writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths: ‘There’s A Strength You Don’t Realise You Have Access To’

      Jun 17, 2023

      Rachel Eliza Griffiths arrives at the Observer’s offices and I tell her at once, as I greet her, that I recognise her from the striking publicity photo at the back of the proof copy of her debut novel Promise – our reason for meeting. Lady Rushdie, k

      5 min read

    • Article

      What A Childhood Prank Taught Me About People

      Sep 16, 2021

      As a child, my prank-loving self collided with my compulsively honest one. I learned that even the strictest teachers can laugh at a joke – sometimes.

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Care-Giver

      Mar 1, 2020

      The Care-Giver
      13 min read

    • Article

      Foxes

      Jun 15, 2019

      What’s worth happening happens in deep woods. Or so my daughter tells me. Her plotlines: In the deep woods someone is chasing, someone else is getting hacked. Hatchets are lifted, brought downdowndown. Men stutter blood onto snow. A cast of animals—s

      17 min read

    • Article

      Lindsay Hunter Is Redrawing the Boundaries of Crime Fiction

      Jan 18, 2024

      "I believe in breaks, in fallow periods, in getting one’s bearings. But reading is my constant. I feel bereft in those brief moments between books." The post Lindsay Hunter Is Redrawing the Boundaries of Crime Fiction appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Death by Civilization

      Mar 8, 2019

      Death by Civilization
      9 min read

    • Article

      Why We Love Our Teachers

      May 2, 2023

      Why We Love Our Teachers
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Space Between Us

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Space Between Us
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Ninjas of the 512

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Ninjas of the 512 - Laura Roberts

      Cover image designed by PixelStudio

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.

      —David Davy Crockett, disillusioned politician

      It was just another 105-degree Tuesday morning in Austin, Texas for Suzie Jimenez. Around 10 o'clock in the morning, the radio was already announcing the 27th straight day of 100+ degree weather for the capital city, hollering about margarita specials at an assortment of local bars and the importance of keeping your air-conditioning set at an absurd 80 degrees to prevent rolling blackouts. Seated at her computer, sipping a cold-pressed coffee and listening to the purr of the ceiling fan (as well as the whir of the smaller electric fan trained directly at her face), Suzie was busy prepping for another back-to-school season at Rebel Yell High School. As the fans cooled her face, she searched the internet, trying to find out whether the Texas School Board had recently changed History yet again by removing such un-American characters as César Chávez from the curriculum. She was poring over the latest news in her RSS feeds, wondering how she could shoehorn a few new exercises in public dissent into her yearly agenda, when there was a loud Ping! from her inbox.

      This better not be another round of school lunch menus, she muttered. The previous school year's big PR fiasco had occurred when a group of vegetarian students went on strike, refusing to attend classes until the cafeteria's menu included anti-meat-lover's options like deep-fried Tofurky sticks and black-bean burritos slathered in queso. Never mind the fact that the school's queso was quite obviously thickened with gelatin, which was created by melting down horse's hooves and pig's feet. Suzie shook her head, marveling both at her students' ignorance and their tenacity; even if they didn't have all the facts straight, she was glad they were questioning authority.

      As some of her fellow teachers occasionally pointed out, You might could change a few things 'round here, but you can't take no queso away from a central Texan. She took that to mean that no matter how committed to a vegetarian lifestyle certain Austinites might be, queso was just a matter of course. A former damn Yank, Suzie still wasn't sure what all the fuss was about when it came to queso; it seemed mostly to consist of melted Velveeta cheese, and was frequently mixed with the New York City! affront to Tex-Mex, Pace Picante Sauce. She was sure she'd had far more authentically Mexican dishes served to her from taco dives in New York City, but she knew enough to keep her mouth shut when she saw the gallons of queso the school bought every week. It was one of those peculiar Texas pride topics that people figured you shouldn't question too deeply if you wanted to get along in polite society.

      Suzie eyeballed the jumping icon of her email program for a few seconds, trying to fathom what item of interest it could possibly contain, and finally clicked over to find out. Scanning over the short note, her jaw dropped.

      Dear Teachers of Rebel Yell High School, it read. As per Governor Nick Harry's latest round of budget cuts, our school will be closing its doors indefinitely. We deeply regret the loss of our excellent teaching staff, and will be in touch with further details as events progress. Sincerely, Principal Mylene Leroux.

      Holy hot sauce, did I just get fired by email?!

      Suzie spun into action, grabbing her cell phone and calling the school's direct line. The phone rang and rang, but no one answered. She wouldn't take no for an answer. Somebody had to be there, sending these cryptic emails. She jumped into a pair of cowboy boots parked at the front door and marched the two blocks from her house over to Rebel Yell High, determined to get to the bottom of things.

      As she approached the front doors of the high school, a security guard spoke into his walkie-talkie and motioned for Suzie to step back.

      What's going on here? she demanded.

      Funding's been cut by Governor Harry. This school is officially closed, the burly guard informed her, crossing his arms over his barrel chest.

      Where's the principal? I'm a teacher here. I need to speak to Mylene.

      Ms. Leroux has informed all teaching staff via email about the situation. I am authorized to remove any troublemakers from the property, he said. The walkie-talkie crackled, and someone on the other end barked 10-4!

      Troublemakers? I just told you, I'm a teacher here. I need more information. Let me in! She tried to dodge the security guard, who pushed her back with both arms.

      Ma'am, if you don't step back, I'm going to have to escort you off the premises, he warned. I have authorization to use all necessary force.

      Suzie noticed his hand on his hip, one fist curling around the end of a revolver. She stepped back a pace, her gaze moving from the guard's impassive mirrored glasses down to his leather holster. She narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her own arms over her chest. You wouldn't dare shoot a schoolteacher—a fellow employee of the state of Texas.

      Watch me, he grinned. His yellow teeth glinted maliciously in the late-morning sun, and Suzie could smell the odors of cheap coffee and breakfast tacos wafting on his breath. This guy obviously got off on screwing with people's minds, and he began to pull the gun from its holster to further illustrate his threat.

      You know you'd go to jail for the rest of your life, she growled.

      For killing some spic teacher? Not likely.

      You bastard. She spit on the ground, hitting the guard's polished black boot.

      She heard the click of the gun's safety being taken off, and leapt to one side, hitting the dead, yellow grass of the school's lawn as the cop fired three times in quick succession. The bullets buried themselves in the trunk of an enormous oak tree in the front of the schoolyard, and the guard swung his weapon toward Suzie, towering over her with his gun pointed directly at her head. Two more security guards rushed toward them from behind the school, yelling Hold your fire! and were able to subdue their co-worker as Suzie scrambled to her feet and took off running.

      I'll get you, you fucking spic! she heard the guard screaming as she rounded the corner. She pressed herself up against a neighbor's tree, breathing hard as she tried to restrain her wildly beating heart.

      What the hell was that all about? I thought I heard shots. Suzie's neighbor, Bill, poked his head out of the front door, which was cracked just wide enough for him to see her crouching in the yard.

      You did, Suzie said. She peered around the tree trunk, and saw the two security guards cuffing the one who'd shot at her. One had his knees on the guy's back, while the other shouted What the hell do you think you're doing shooting at civilians? next to the psychotic guard's face. They all looked equally dangerous to Suzie, their faces red and their voices raised in angry confrontation. If each had a state-issued gun, that made everything twice as scary.

      Come inside, Bill hissed.

      I'm okay, Suzie whispered. But those rent-a-cops are out of control.

      What happened?

      All the teachers have been laid off. Governor Harry cut our funding.

      What? How can he do that?

      He's the Governor. He can do whatever the hell he wants, apparently.

      "Well, I didn't vote for him, and I certainly didn't vote for that, Bill said. What should we do?"

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1