watermelon man
Simone’s big sister was the first one to warn her about watermelon seeds.
“Careful,” she tsk’ed on a scalding late August afternoon, pausing between mouthfuls to spit a kernel out of the side of her mouth. “If you swallow one of these babies by accident, you might grow a watermelon in your belly.”
“Whoa,” said Simone. “Does that hurt?”
“Dunno,” answered her sister, twitching her head to get her bangs out of her face. “But then again, I always make sure to spit the seeds out. You’re gonna have to ask someone who’s swallowed a seed before.”
Simone kept her eyes peeled, but for the next several months she didn’t see anyone who looked like they’d swallowed a watermelon seed, especially not in her second grade class. But then one day at the end of the school year she saw a mustachioed man in a baseball cap enter her school’s front doors and stroll down the hallway, his thick, protruding belly perched like a beach ball on top of his utility belt.
“Excuse me, sir!” Simone shouted down the hall after him as he waddled by. The man turned slowly until he found the source of the shrill little voice. His eyes catching Simone’s, he winked and smiled, bending forwards until his hands caught the tops of his knees. His round belly peeked through the tunnel created by his arms.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Have you ever swallowed a watermelon seed before?” asked Simone.
The man chortled, surprised. “Not that I know of,” he said. “At least not intentionally. But maybe once or twice by accident, yeah, I could see it. Why do you ask anyway?”
“No reason!” Simone called out, then took off running down the hall in the opposite direction, her heart aflutter. She couldn’t wait to tell her sister about the watermelon man.
adorable!!
Ooooo I do adore your fiction!