Number 20 works every time!

1. What essay?

2. I did it, but I tore it up

3. I don't have any hands!

4. I'm dead

5. A burglar took it!

6. The Times Literary Supplement wanted to see it first

7.  Up yours, four-eyes!

8. We're too poor to afford toilet paper and my father has dysentery

9. I was in a plane crash, and we had to eat each other's essays to survive

10. The police confiscated it

11. I know it all, what's the point in writing it down?

12. My desk caught fire

13. I'm undergoing a personality crisis

14. I posted it to you -- Huh, The Post Office these days...

15. I made this cool bookmark instead!

16. Everyone says you're pregnant so I thought you wouldn't be here today

17. You must be mad, I already gave it to you and you marked it -- i got an A

18. Look, just get off my back, will you?

19. Oh God, I think I'm gonna be sick all over you

20. Did you say you wanted me to take all my clothes off!?

21. I was busy sending a list of escuses to a friend