This is a short children's story, I suppose, anyway it was a prompt for October, I participated and here it is.
Peter, Peter.
Samantha had just moved to town and quickly became friends with her neighbor Ryan. Ryan walked beside Samantha on the way to her new high school, the autumn air was crisp and the wind blew cool. Samantha could not help but see the cat, the strange wild cat that sat on the porch of an abandoned home. Ryan shrugged his shoulders as he told the town’s story.
“The town calls him Peter.” Ryan settled his back pack on his shoulders and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Some even laugh, and tease him, call him ‘Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater’.”
“Well that’s just stupid, why would they do that?” Leaves traveled across them in an angry swirl, like a mini leaf tornado. Peter continued the story, he told Samantha the same way his mother told him, and his grandmother before her. A tale about Peter, and his wife named Hazel. Hazel was a most beautiful and free-spirited person, the people would say, but no one could make her stay, not even Peter. At some point, he had enough and decided if he couldn’t have his wife then no one could.
When Hazel vanished the town questioned her disappearance. Though some thought she’d run off again, others were certain it was Peter. Rumors were spread across the county but no one could prove, that Peter dug up the garden and laid down his spouse. As time went on the garden grew, and only one pumpkin came to harvest. For years and years, only one pumpkin would grow, and until Peter himself passed away, he would go out to his garden to tend to the pumpkin with care until it was ready. Every year when the pumpkin was ready, he would pull it up and cook it into a pie, every year he would sit there on his porch and eat the entire thing.
Peter grew to be very old before he died, and soon a cat began to sit on his porch. In no time the neighborhood was calling the cat “Peter” and the townspeople avoided the cat and the house. Ten years later, Samantha stood in front of her new school and was bent over laughing.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.”
“It’s true, someone took one of Peter’s pumpkins about five years ago, they still haven’t woken up from their coma.”
“Well I’m going to prove that it’s not true, you people are funny.”
“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife.” Laughter erupted as she slopped some of the pumpkin goop into a large bowl. “Had a wife and couldn’t keep her.”
The week of Halloween came and the pumpkin sat there bold and bright, when she was done with school Samantha walked past the cat named Peter and snatched up the pumpkin. The cat’s hair rose and he howled as she laughed and ran home. The night before Halloween she sang as she cut into the pumpkin and began making a pie.When the pie was cooked and cooled she wrapped it up and put a “Do Not Eat” note on the top. She planned to take it to the Halloween party, show them all that their rumors were dumb. The next evening when she walked into the kitchen dressed in her Halloween costume, she stumbled upon her Dad on the kitchen floor. A fork in his hand with a little pumpkin pie remaining, his eyes were open wide but there was nothing. He wouldn’t move and didn’t blink, Samantha was horrified and jumped up off the floor only to see Peter the cat sitting on the kitchen's window ledge.
To this day, Samantha's father still lays in a hospital bed, no one knows why but no one has touched Peter’s pumpkins since.
I hope enjoyed. Enjoy your pies, now, won't ya?
