an enchanting and humorous story written by Camille Cigognini from our Middle School Writers’ Corner!
I don’t understand . I know I’m not a human. But even some animals get treated with more care. But then there’s me, a spoon, a sweet teaspoon. Not a big spoon, but a cute little spoon that is used for yummy desserts and still people like to throw me, bend me, even break me! They never even think about how it feels! “OH let me throw the spoon at my friend,” “Oh let me put the spoon in the bin where THE FOOD GOES.” I mean, yuck! I don’t belong there, I belong with the fork and the knife. Not all spoons are treated badly. If you’re lucky enough, you could be a spoon in a house WITH NO KIDS! And it’s mostly the spoon that gets bent, and sometimes the forks and knives, but oh! never the plates, the lovely royal plates. Occasionally they break, but the kids run off crying, or everyone claps like the plates put on a show. It’s not fair! I want to have everyone clap for me, and cry for me.
This is a typical day for little old spoony me. I wake up in my little metal box with all the other spoons. I try to relax but it’s so squished in there. Every morning before the humans come we all go to different boxes and do things like putting makeup on, doing our hair or even boxing, or in my case, desperately trying to sleep. I hop over to the other box, the knives one, I duck as a fork goes flying over my head and realize I’m in between a fork and a knife boxing. I move away then hear a “click” look over the wall and see the handle pushing down. “ THE HUMANS ARE HERE!!!!!” screams a fork. Everyone rushes to their box, well almost everyone – I don’t do running, it makes my leg ache. Those lucky forks with their four legs (don’t tell them I call those legs, they don’t like it when other utensils say that ) but I mean, it’s useless if they don’t even use them! I wish I had four legs. The baby forks use them for one. I say LISTEN TO THE BABY UTENSILS !
When I get back I lie down and relax; this is the only moment when I have some peace and quiet. It can get a bit boring, so I play cards with my friend, but it’s MUCH better than when the dreadful horrible outrageous kids come. The older kids are always there, but the younger ones all come together twice a day, the most dreadful parts of my day. The first time they come around….. Who am I kidding? I don’t know how to read time. Whenever they come they crowd around like a swarm of bees, they don’t usually take us, some of the children do, but the main thing is they are SO loud! If I had arms I would cover my non-existent ears. But even without ears I can still hear things.
Then the worst of all. The most tremendous time of my day. Lunch. People run in shoving each other, grabbing the utensils and putting them back when they grab too many, or drop them in the wrong tin and then you get spiked by the forks. Then when you do get picked, you might think it’s fun ( it isn’t ) – people put you in their mouths, which first of all is disgusting, and second of all when they hold you, they just let you dangle around and I get very dizzy. Afterwards when they are putting you away, if they are careless they throw you out with the food (as I said before) – I MEAN YOU JUST PUT ME IN EVERY LAST BIN EXCEPT THE RIGHT ONE! Sorry, I got a little carried away there. Then we just wait there until someone comes to get us. If you end up in the tissue bin, or the bin of terror as we call it, you might be left there for the whole night since they don’t need to empty it if it’s not full, and then the next day more things pile on top of you and then you’re gone. Forever. But that doesn’t happen that often and if it does, just hope that someone finds you and that you don’t get thrown in the bin like all the broken and lost spoons do!
When they come to get you, assuming you’re in the right box, which mostly happens, then you get dumped in a huge, and when I say huge I mean HUGE swimming pool and you just float there; until the cooks turn their back and then we take out all the pool toys. After we get put in a swirly whirly slide thing. The people call them “dishwashers” but I don’t think that’s right. We go up and down left and right, and get all soapy. It’s so much fun! Then when we come out they put us in this towel together and shake us about and then we go back in our boxes. And then the same thing happens again and again and again. Until the WEEKEND. And then we just play when it’s the weekend, and then we start the routine for another week. But the best thing in the whole wide world, when there’s no kids at all for sooooo long, is …
The Holidays !