Issue Eight - February 2005

Dinnertime

by Caleb Cunningham

There was a bad, bad kid. He usually threw his gourmet dinner on the floor. He also shoved his exotic lunches in his older sister’s face.

Until one day….

He threw his gourmet dinner on the floor and a pink tiger said, ‘Hey kid, can I have that?’

‘Sure,’ said the kid, ‘I don’t want it anyway.’

When the tiger was finished he said to the kid once again, ‘Can I have that?’, while he pointed at the kid’s face.

And the kid said, ‘No, no, that’s not food.’

But meat is food to tigers. So the kid ran with the tiger chasing after him until the kid saw some meat on the table. He grabbed the meat and threw it to the tiger and the tiger caught it in his mouth.

While he was snarfing his food, the kid ran to his dad and said, ‘Dad! Dad, there’s a pink tiger chasing after me in the house!! Dad, you must grab your rifle and shoot it!’

So the dad grabbed his rifle and went into the other room where he saw the tiger who was eating the meat.

The dad said, ‘Hey, that’s our dinner, not yours!’

The tiger looked up at him and ran toward him. So the dad shot the tiger.

After that the kid always ate his meals.

©by Caleb Cunningham

Caleb Cunningham wrote Dinnertime when he was 7. He is often described as having an amazing imagination and a great vocabulary. He became an aspiring writer when he first heard about “royalties.” He loves theatre, drama and music and is an avid skateboarder.

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