Guest Post: A Platter of Live Turkey at Dinner!

This guest post comes from my daughter, who turned eight yesterday (she shares the day with old Jack Lewis) and wrote this short story for a 2nd grade writing assignment. Warning: some turkey bodily functions are mentioned, and some violence of a graphic nature is depicted, although no turkeys were actually harmed in the making of this story.

Lucy and Charlie were looking out the window on Thanksgiving. They were waiting for their aunt, uncle, grandma, and grandpa to show up at their house. They were going to have a Thanksgiving dinner together.

When the grandparents got there, they all sat down at the table to prepare the Thanksgiving dinner. When they opened the platter to get the turkey, the turkey was alive!

The turkey ran around the kitchen and pooped in the pudding. Then it sat in the pumpkin pie and while it sat in the pumpkin pie it peed! Then it got up and barfed on the floor! Lucy got up, carefully to avoid the barf, and grabbed a knife and slashed the turkey right in the head! The turkey flopped right over and then its head fell off.

They went to the store and got another turkey, and that turkey didn’t cause any trouble.

Comments

  1. We never celebrated Thanksgiving when I was a child, but once, when I would have been nine or even ten, a turkey turned up in the drive. I never liked chickens, but the turkey was great, and, remembering the turkey, which I’m fairly sure we didn’t kill, I’ll think more about becoming a vegetarian, although it’s difficult at home.

  2. Now you mention it, I think the turkey might have turned up on Thanksgiving.

  3. And at that age I was reading Katherine Mansfield; it was only later I discovered Peanuts.

  4. Ha, ha. Perhaps I became interested in Katherine Mansfield because of an earlier news story, but I also remember standing outside a window on the Tinakori Road and perhaps finding out about her then, although that might have been later.

  5. Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

    Mmmm… earthy!

    Looks like there’s hope for the future of Catholic letters. The last two sentences are positively Flanneresque.

    Thank you, Miss Potter, for writing; and thank you, Mr. Potter, for sharing.

  6. Cubeland Mystic says

    Five stars. Terse, direct, powerful.

  7. Miss Potter,

    “The turkey ran around the kitchen and pooped in the pudding. Then it sat in the pumpkin pie and while it sat in the pumpkin pie it peed!”

    An early grasp of the power behind the sound of words – and the comic potential of scatology (DON’T EVER BE AFRAID TO GO TO THAT WELL!) are essential to any writer intent on honing his gifts.

    I think “pooped in the pudding” is one of the most delightful images I’ve ever heard/read.

    Thank you – and I look forward to what happens to the Christmas Ham.

    JOB

    • I’m pretty sure “Turkey” is Potter’s daughter’s nickname for Potter when he’s one one too many “glasses of happy juice.”

      Ah, well. Write what you know, they always say.

      Congratulations!

  8. I’m thinking my fiction class students will need to hear this story.

  9. Jonathan Webb says

    I knew her back when.

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