Between Fact and Fiction

Natalie Whipple is holding a contest. It's a fun contest, you don't have to remember to comment on her blog every day and blog about her and tweet about her and refer people. You just write, which is what writers do anyway? Well, actually we procrastinate, but if anyone wants to hold a procrastination contest, save yourself trouble and just send me the prize.

Anyway,

Objective: People say never to open with the weather, but I want you to do just that—make the weather opener interesting. It doesn't have to be entirely about the weather, but weather's gotta be somewhere in your 250 word limit.

Prizes:
First Place: Choice of 30-page crit, query/synopsis crit, or a full color drawing.

Second Place: Choice of 20-page crit, query/synopsis crit, or full color drawing

Third Place: Choice of 10-page crit, query crit, or black and white drawing.

My entry was sent in very late at night, so I didn't get distracted and miss the deadline while tinkering with it, so it's not perfect or polished, but it still makes me smile:

It was raining cats and dogs.

Cats anyway, though only one puppy, plus the water. Two cats jumped nimbly from a flooded second story window box. Despite a moment of shock, I managed to catch the black, white, and brown puppy before it hit the pavement. It was very wet, but I had no regrets, even when the wind stole the umbrella I had just dropped. I backed into a doorway to plot my next move.

Surely nobody could have been cruel enough to throw the puppy from one of the windows above me. Could they?