Guest article by David Snell.
This article was inspired by my last article, "Food Glorious Food." David, a former ABC News Correspondent, is now the principal of Snell Communications, and wrote this story for his grandchildren.
Marjorie and I were mad.
Mother said we had to eat the Eggplant, but it tasted terrible. How terrible? So terrible we were ready to run away from home if we had to eat it. Usually we liked what mother cooked, and when we didn’t, we knew the rule. We could just sit there until we liked it. If there was cake or pie for desert, that usually helped to change my mind, but tonight there wasn’t any desert and, besides, the Eggplant was terrible. Did I already say that? Well, it was.
I sat at the table looking at the Eggplant, then looking at Marjorie looking at the Eggplant. This time was different. This time, we would stand up for our rights. How do you do that when you are six years old? I didn’t know, but Marjorie was nine-and-a-half. She was so old she’d already lost her baby teeth and got most of her new ones. That’s pretty old, right? So, when Mother and Daddy left the kitchen, Marjorie said, “Let’s run away from home.”
That sounded like a good idea to me. Both of us hated the Eggplant. Mother said we had to eat it. Running away from home was the only answer.
“I'm sorry you feel that way," said Mother. "We'll really miss you," said Daddy.
They did seem sorry and I thought about changing my mind, but then Daddy got out his billfold and gave each of us brand new dollar bill. Wow! A whole dollar. It was more money than I’d ever had in my whole life.
Mother and Daddy waved goodbye from the front porch. Marjorie held my hand and we walked off down the street right through the middle of our town. As we passed the grocery store and the drug store, I looked back to see if they were still watching us. They were.
I had never been downtown without Mother or Daddy. Now, I held tight to Marjorie’s hand as we crossed the street and walked another block toward the edge of town. “Village limits,” said Marjorie, reading the sign on the side of the road just past the Skinner house.
Now, when I looked back, I couldn’t even see our house. Now, when I looked past the sign all I saw was a field of corn – that Daddy told me a week ago was “knee high by the 4th of July” – and a long, empty road. I looked up at Marjorie. She was looking at the long, empty road, too.
“It’s getting kinda dark,” I said. “Maybe it’s too late to start running away from home tonight,” she said. She was right. I knew she was right. So, right then, we turned around and walked past the sign and past the Skinner house and back into town. That was when Marjorie had a great idea. “Why don’t we go to the drug store and get a milkshake and talk it over,” she said. So that’s what we did. We drank our milkshakes and we talked it over. I don’t remember what I said, but I do remember what we decided. Running away from home was the right thing to do (The Eggplant tasted terrible), but we should go home, get a good sleep, and start out in the morning.
There were hugs and kisses when we got home, but our happiness didn’t last. “You can stay the night,” said Daddy, “and we’ll only charge you a dollar each.” My heart stopped beating. I felt a lump in my throat. Our grand plan wouldn’t work after all. Those wonderful milkshakes (mine was chocolate) cost us more than we knew. On our way home from the drug store I had jingled three silver coins in my pocket, enjoying the sound. Now, I felt my mouth start to quiver.
“I only have these,” I said. “Marjorie said we should get a milkshake. “Well,” said Daddy, “I don’t know…” “Clair,” said Mother, in that kidding tone of hers. “I think we can make an exception.” I didn’t know what “make an exception” meant, but her hug made my stomach feel better. “We’ll only charge seventy-five cents for tonight.”
Is that what I have? What a relief. After I got my jammies on and said my regular “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer, I fell asleep, happy to be in my own bed and no longer sure about running away from home. I woke up to the sounds of morning, feeling great after a long night’s sleep. I stretched and looked out the window at my favorite climbing-tree, the one Marjorie and I had been climbing before supper last night--- BEFORE---The thought hit me like the stomach ache I got when I ate too much Christmas candy. Running away from home? We were RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME.
I walked downstairs slowly, trying to delay what was about to happen. Marjorie was already sitting at the kitchen table and Mother was standing by the stove “Are you hungry for pancakes?” she said.
Was I ever!
David Snell (Snell Communications)