Answers.com Creative Writing Challenge Entry

So, I decided it was time for an exercise in creative writing, and what better incentive than a competition with a prize at stake! So, here's my entry in the Answers.com Creative Writing Challenge ... Not-So-Plain Jane:

Jane was no fool. She hadn’t become Constable in Belmopan, Belize by being a pansy, either. This was not a job to undertake in a perfunctory manner. Belmopan was on the rise, and efforts to abrogate the drug trade throughout the city were of utmost importance. Drug trade and tourists do not mix in the type of utopian society the government of Belmopan envisioned.

The ubiquitous tourists must be protected at all costs according to the Prime Minister. Jane’s undertaking of this mission was what became her undoing. One day she was at the top of her game; the next she was, for all intents and purposes, down and out -- a yo-yo without a string. Her undoing? Bees.

No one could have guessed that this tough talking, no nonsense, hardball-playing broad could be reduced to a blithering idiot by the seemingly innocuous sound of a bee. No one, that is, besides Hugo Maron, the Minister of Agriculture and Jane’s ex-lover.

Jane’s and Hugo’s relationship was doomed from the day they met. When Jane fell in love with Hugo, she was a romantic. She believed in soul mates and love at first sight, but her relationship with Hugo destroyed her quixotic nature and replaced it with a hard, cold, seemingly unshakable façade. She closed off her feelings and traded them for a life where nothing and no one would ever reach her heart again. This made her the perfect candidate for Constable in Belmopan. They needed someone who could stand up to the drug czars who had set up business in Belize.

But Jane had a secret. There was only one person besides Jane who knew this secret, and that was Hugo. Hugo was the only person alive that knew that a swarm of bees, for Jane, meant a mental breakdown of the critical kind. Jane had melissophobia.

Hugo couldn’t have been more thrilled to discover this fear. It fit perfectly into his plans. It fit even more perfectly than his serendipitous appointment to the office of Minister of Agriculture. A position in government offered him protection and allowed him to use his authority to further his goal of setting up a drug operation in the jungles of Belize.

Most people couldn’t tell that Hugo was not a nice man. He was as much “not nice” as Jane was a romantic, and this is why he chose her. What Hugo didn’t know, though, was that despite her romanticism, Jane had an underlying intuition that came to her aid at the most unlikely times. This intuition is what opened her eyes to Hugo’s evil nature.

She didn’t have anything to base her feelings on when she started to suspect Hugo wasn’t what he pretended to be, but she trusted her intuition. She began to clandestinely dig into his background, and what she uncovered was ugly.

Once she discovered what Hugo was up to, she realized she was in grave danger. She began to devise a plan to get away from him. He never suspected a thing until she was appointed Constable. He then realized that her plan was to use this role to bring him down, and at the same time become a hero in the eyes of the citizens of Belize.

Unfortunately, Hugo knew bees. Lots of bees. His family was famous in Belize for their honey farms, and honey farms in Belize had unwelcome visitors: African killer bees. Not only would they bring Jane to her knees emotionally, but, if necessary, they would do away with Jane entirely.

Hugo used the threat of the bees to come to a quid pro quo agreement with Jane. If she left behind her position as Constable – left the country altogether – he would stop his plans to turn Belmopan into a mecca for honey farmers, a move that made him appear a savior to the economy.

Jane had no choice but to consent to the agreement.

And Jane had no choice but to put Plan B into operation. Hugo underestimated her. Hugo didn’t do his homework. Hugo didn’t read arachnology journals, either. He missed the articles written by one J. Villette, PhD the prominent expert on Loxoceles reclusa, more commonly known as the brown recluse spider, and it’s deadly relative L. laeta. Hugo also missed seeing a scurrying movement under his sheets one night as he crawled into bed. Hugo also missed the sunrise the next morning. Jane didn’t miss Hugo.