How the English Language Met Its Demise

Handwritten newspapers started being circulated in the following days with no T.V. or Internet to upstage them. (Those scribes must have been paid a lot.) The headline on Thursday, in huge letters: "DICTIONARIES IN DANGER!" The story said that many people who tried to use their stiff, ancient dictionaries got an unpleasant surprise when they disintegrated in their hands. I paid David another visit as soon as I read the article.

"Look at this," I said urgently, waving the newspaper in his face.

"Stop moving it, dummy..." He grabbed it from my hand and read it over.

"Well?" I questioned after a few minutes.

David shrugged. "I guess we have the only English dictionary in the world," he said solemnly. "Do you think anyone will try to take it from us?"

"I sure hope not. Professor Metzger would be mad."

We decided to simply enjoy our dictionary and other textbooks and try to write our essays. David even brought out a jar of peanut butter for us to snack on while we worked. But as we were about to begin, someone knocked on the door. Cussing, David got up from his seat to go see who it was.

"Do you happen to know how to spell anonymity?" the short, blonde student at the door asked. "I really need to know because I'm rewriting my essay and I don't know how to spell it."

"We have a dictionary," I called proudly from the kitchen.

"A dictionary!"

The blonde lady rushed past David and went to the kitchen. I handed it over, and she quickly flipped through it until she found the word she was looking for. She copied it down on a scratch piece of paper.

"Thanks!" she said as she went out the door.

When he came back into the kitchen, David seemed kind of miffed.

"Don't invite weird people into my apartment," he muttered. "Okay, let's continue. . ."

In a matter of hours, the two of us had formed our thesis statements and had finished some very fine-looking introduction paragraphs. We thought we were so cool. But as the two of us were going to start the body paragraphs, we heard what sounded like a low roll of thunder. The floor shook under our chairs.

"What's happening?" I yelled over the sound of the coming stampede.

David jumped up on his feet. "I don't know! Maybe word spread that we have the last dictionary!"

The thunder stopped at David's apartment, and a thousand hands began pounding on his door. I could hear voices shouting things like, "I need to use your dictionary!"

"Maybe the other students really want a good grade on their essays," I suggested, "and they're bad spellers!"

"That's probably it!"

I hid the dictionary under my shirt as David opened the window of his living room. I had to protect the very important book from rabid college students! Plus, I still needed it for my own essay. As my friend rushed to his bedroom for something with which to climb down to the street from the window, the door cracked down the middle. I nearly peed my pants.

David returned with a thick rope—why he owned a rope like that, I do not know—and tied it to the curtain pole.

"You got the dictionary, Jeremy?" he asked.

"Yeah! Let's go!"

So we hung onto the rope and jumped out the window. I heard the door bust open as we slid down.

"They're gone, and so is the dictionary!" someone screamed.

"They escaped out the window! Cut the rope!" another bellowed.

David and I jumped down as soon as we were five feet off the ground and sprinted down the sidewalk. We knew Professor Metzger would be in the lecture hall, so we headed for the university. Perhaps he would know what to do. But as we were halfway to the building, my cell phone rang in my pocket. I did not recognize the number.

"What are you stopping for?" David panted, slowing down as I stopped in front of the building where the dorms were.

"This might be important," I said. I opened the front door. "C'mon, we can hide in my dorm while I take this call."

We ran inside and entered my dorm room, which was close to the entrance of the building. I flipped open my phone.

"Hello. This is President Herman Cain," came a voice I had heard many times on T.V.

My whole body went numb. "Mr. President?" I squeaked, sitting down on my bed. David's eyebrows rose.

"I have been told that you have the last English dictionary in the world," he said. "I have sent the F.B.I. to come retrieve it from you. They are outside the university in a shiny black car."

"We voted for you!" David yelled into the receiver. I jerked the phone away from him and continued listening.

"The government has decided to start making dictionaries again, since they are very needed, and we need yours so the federal scribes can make copies," the president of the United States continued. "You must understand that if no dictionaries get to the people, there will be dire consequences."

I gulped. "Like what?"

"Without any rules governing definitions, spellings, and pronunciations of words, the English language will rapidly evolve over the decades in the various countries and regions of the English-speaking world until entirely new languages emerge. We will be reduced to uncivilized tribalism, each with individual languages and cultures, and our fragmented countries will explode with violence. It will be a long time before the non-English-speaking populations can decipher the new languages and help us. It could be too late before assistance arrives."

David and I were silent. All that turmoil would happen just because there would be no dictionary?

"Understand that you hold the English language in your hands, young Jeremy," President Cain said with somberness in his voice. "Now save the dictionary and bring it to me."

"Yes, Mr. President," I whispered hoarsely. I hung up my cell phone as I heard the crowd of students flooding the hallway.