My littlest brother graduated college this past weekend. For my mom, this means that she is child-free for the first time since she was 20 years old. Though I know she loved teaching us and watching us grow, she is also thoroughly enjoying the chance to focus on herself for once. She finally has time for art, one of her biggest passions, and plans to turn it into a flourishing career. She’s also decided that the middle of the woods is no place for her anymore, so she and my step-dad have decided to move to Portland (Maine, not Oregon).
Since they’ll need a whole lot less space, they’ve been going through all the things that got shoved under the stairs over the last 20 years. That means that I have to make room in my basement for a lot of my childhood things. A few weeks ago, my mother gave me a box of dolls, toys and papers. I love going through this kind of stuff – it makes me so happy to remember what it was like to be a kid.
In that box I found a story that I wrote when I was 13, at a time before computers, when we handwrote our assignments (and drew the covers with colored pencil). I thoroughly expected it to be horrible, but found myself laughing out loud and impressed with how creative I was at that age.
So, without further adieu, I give you “Rapunzel”, written by Sarah Leahy, Period 3.
RAPUNZEL
By: Sarah Leahy, Period 3
I’m not bad, I’m not a witch, and I didn’t steal Rapunzel!
They gave her to me, I swear. In fact, they begged me to take her. Actually, it was more of a trade. Perhaps you would like to hear the tale? It begins on a dark night, where a dark man waits with a dark purpose…
He was waiting by the fence. I could hear him as he tiptoed through my lettuce patch. I knew what he wanted and what he was waiting for – my burritos. I always set them on the windowsill to cool. Who could resist such a delicious, mouth-watering Mexican dish? I couldn’t blame him for trying to take them. I mean, I probably would have done the same thing if my wife was having cravings. I set them out on the windowsill and quietly waited behind the counter for him.
He immediately ran to the window and grabbed one of the hot burritos. As he turned to run away, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him close to my face. When I asked him why he was trying to take my burritos he told me the whole story about how his wife was pregnant again for the 9th time since they’d been married. I understood, and told him I was willing to make a trade for that burrito. I was shocked when he suggested that I take the baby as soon as it was born. I wasn’t so sure at first, but after a few hours of him begging me, I finally gave in. I’d always wanted to be a mother.
I named her Rapunzel after my great-grandmother. Overall she was a very healthy girl, except that time she caught the measles. I didn’t know what to do, so I put her up in a high tower to keep the disease from spreading to me and anyone else she may come in contact with. It turns out she really loved being in that quiet little tower where she’d have time to play her harp. She decided it would be her new home. There was only one problem – no one could get up or down to visit her now that our only ladder broke while carrying her luggage up. We discussed it and came to the conclusion that I would make her a giant burrito ladder.
It turned out that the burrito worked well, except the occasional hamburger or tomato slides. Until one day when I went to the bottom of the tower and said, as usual, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down you’re golden burrito!” and discovered she wasn’t alone. A prince was in the tower with her. When they heard me, they knew if I caught them I would ground Rapunzel for life.
Thinking quickly, the prince slid down the burrito, landing on the ground next to his horse. Looking up to say a quick “goodbye” to his love before he rode back to his castle, he noticed he had caused an avalanche of bean dip and hot peppers on the way down. SPLAT! It oozed all over his body and his eyes. It turned out that the prince was allergic to bean dip, and he swelled up like a Bull Frog. And what’s worse, the hot peppers caused him to go blind. When Rapunzel saw what had happened to him and how hideous he looked, she decided never to date again.
And now you see I was telling the truth all along. I’m now a World Famous Mexican chef, and Rapunzel waits tables part-time. And as for the prince, no one really knows what happened to him, but some say they’ve seen him driving a taxi in Tennessee.
Leave a Reply