Title: Suzy Gets A Fish
Word: banana
Challenger: Ben Aaronovitch
Length: 200 words exactly
She was furious with me, of course. The journey back had been unpleasant, to put it mildly, and the moody silences punctuated by sullen looks did nothing to improve either of our moods.
As so often between parents and children, it came down to one of us wanting something the other wouldn’t allow. Whether it was a present, a hug or some peace on a Sunday morning, desire didn’t guarantee satisfaction. Suzy had wanted something other than what she’d come home with, and to her that was unacceptable, as was her behaviour to me. She seemed to take a perverse joy in my upset.
I offered her a banana, arguably several thousand years old by now, but she just turned away from me and the two hour old fruit. The company had made it perfectly clear before we travelled: you were allowed to bring back to present day certain types of fruit, but no animals whatsoever. They had a fishtank in the vistors’ shop to allow for fauna requests; that mollified most children, but definitely not Suzy.
I kept telling her: we don’t have room for a dodo, it’s only a small apartment. She just cried. And ignored the fish.
© Lee Barnett, 2013
This is the nineteenth story in The Twenty-Four Hour Fast Fiction Challenge. There will be five more stories… Sponsor me to complete them!
budgie's perch 