The Watermelon Seed


By Ava P. Gunn

This story is lovingly dedicated to my nephews,

Logan
born November 22, 1990
and

Todd Denson
born August 6, 1993
and

Austin Lee
born June 11, 1994

and my nieces,

Kaylee Jean
born July 14, 1996
and

Morgan Reilly
born January 15, 1999

The people in this story actually exist. The events of the story is fictional; however, the essence of the story and of its characters exist in memories of not long ago.

No part of this publication may be duplicated or printed without written permission of the author.

"Hey, Miss A, how about handing me that salt shaker when you get done with it," said Uncle Bill as he brought over his quarter piece of watermelon and dangled his feet over the edge of the front porch.

"OK," Ava gave one last shake of salt to her watermelon and handed the shaker to him. She then took her knife and care- fully cut up her melon. She cut it into three blocks high and eight blocks down the length of the watermelon. Ava liked to do things in a certain way all the time. She always cut her watermelon the same way each time and then speared each piece with her knife and put it in her mouth.

Uncle Bill, on the other hand, didn't care one way or the other how his melon was cut or even if it was cut -- he just brought the watermelon up to his mouth and ate and ate until he had juice running all down his chin. He only stopped to spit out the seeds.

Ava, her Mama and Daddy, and her two big brothers, Sammy and Tony were at their great grandmother's house along with their aunts and uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles, cousins, second cousins, and people she'd never even heard of before. They were celebrating Grandmother Great's 70th birthday. They had already had a huge potluck dinner at noon. Mama had brought marinated carrots, which Ava hated. She also brought Purple Durple Salad which Ava and Sammy both loved.

After dinner they had gone to Red Creek to go swimming. Sammy and Tony could jump off the rope into the water with all the big cousins. Ava wanted to do it, too, but Mama wouldn't let her, so she had to play in the shallow part of the creek with all the younger cousins.

Now they were all back at Grandmother's eating watermelon. Later they would have homemade ice cream and birthday cake.

Uncle Bill had just finished his slice of watermelon and Ava was halfway through her middle row of watermelon when Ava said, "Hey, Uncle Bill, look at all the watermelon seeds! Do you think I could plant them and grow watermelons?" Ava wasn't sure she could or not because one time she planted vanilla wafers when her Daddy was planting peas and butterbeans and corn and nothing came up.

"Yeah, you probably could. But you just take care you don't swallow any of them seeds. If you do, do you know what'll happen?" Uncle Bill had a serious look on his face, but his eyes were bright with mischievousness.

"No, what?" Ava was anxious to know what would happen, "What would happen?"

"Well, that watermelon seed would go down to your stomach and stay there and then grow until you had watermelon vines come out of your ears!"

Ava's eyes widened, her mouth dropped open, and she sat there thinking about what it would be like to have vines grow- ing out of her ears. She speared another block and slowly ate it. She counted three seeds in her mouth and decided that she would spit them out just as far as she could.

"Watch, Uncle Bill, I'm gonna spit these seeds clear out to the road!" She sucked in her breath and spit the first one out just as far as it would go. It landed in the ant bed in the middle of the yard and thousands of ants came out to in- spect the black oval invader.

"I bet they think that's some kind of meteorite, huh, Uncle Bill?" Ava laughed. Uncle Bill had his face in another slice of watermelon and could only manage a muffled "Um-hm."

She spit the next seed out and it landed just on the other side of the ant bed. "I'm gonna try to hit it again." Ava sucked in as much air as she could, closed one eye, and aimed her mouth directly at the ant bed.

POW! She felt something hit the back of her head and heard her brother, Tony, yell, "Get out of the way, you little brat!" as he lumbered past her down the steps. Ava yelled back, "You better quit, Tony Baloney Macaroni. That hurt! I'm gonna tell Mama!"

Then, with a start, she realized that she had just swal- lowed her third watermelon seed. "Oh, no," she thought, "Now I'm gonna have watermelon vines coming out of my ears!"

The next week was very busy because Ava, Sammy, and Tony had to get ready for school. Ava was going to be in the second grade. This year she would not have either of her brothers at her school because they were both in high school now.

One day they all went to Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to go shopping for new school clothes and school supplies. They were in the boys' clothes department at Sears when Ava's stomach began to rumble and grumble and make all kinds of noises. The boys were trying on jeans and Ava was hiding inside the circular belt rack pretending she was in a jungle. "Mama, I'm hungry. I want something to eat," she called out as she cut through the thick brush of the jungle and came back out into city.

"You're hungry already? You had two bowls of Fruit Loops and a banana for breakfast this morning. You must be getting ready to grow," Mama said.

"Nah, she probably got worms from playing with Boogedy and now they're eating up all the food in her stomach," Tony said while coming out of the dressing room.

"I do not have worms! And Boogedy doesn't have worms either!" Ava argued. Tony stuck out his tongue and waggled his face at her face and Mama said, "Y'all quit fighting. I'm going to go pay for these clothes. Y'all decide where you want to go eat."

Tony wanted to go to Ward's because he liked their chili burgers. Ava wanted to go to McDonald's because she liked the free toy she got with each Happy Meal (and besides she hated chili burgers). Sammy didn't care as long as he got a couple of hamburgers with nothing on it except bread and meat. Mama finally decided that they would go to the chicken place and get a huge bucket of 15 pieces of extra-crispy, spicy chicken along with mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and rolls. That way, Daddy could eat what was left over. Mama had two pieces of chicken, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, and a roll. Sammy had three pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes, and two rolls. Tony had three pieces of chicken and three rolls. Ava normally would eat just two chicken legs and a roll, but this time she ate two chicken legs, a chicken wing, two rolls, and the crispy skin off of one of Sammy's piece of chicken (which he did not appreciate). Mama was quite pleased with her appetite because she normally ate like a bird. Tony, on the other hand, continued to aggravate her and suggested that she go to the vet with Boogedy and get her worm shots before school started. Other- wise she would be the cause of a schoolwide epidemic of worms.

Ava didn't have to go to the vet even though her appetite continued to increase. School started and Ava was happy to find out that she was still in the advanced reading group and the advanced math group. She was also in Brownies which met on Fridays after school.

The day after Labor Day, Ava was playing "The Indian Dance" on the piano. She loved this song and often played it loud and fast even though it drove everybody crazy at home. She especially liked to play it when Tony was doing his Algebra homework. She played it so often that she had it memorized.

She had barely started playing when Mama came by and said, "What is that noise?"

Ava said indignantly, "This isn't noise. This is 'The Indian Dance'."

Mama said, "No, not that. I mean what is that rustling noise? Do you hear it?" Ava kinda shrugged her shoulders. She had heard it. In fact, she had been hearing that noise since last week. She had already been questioned by her brothers and even her teacher at school. But even before that, she had felt the rustling -- in her stomach! It felt like a lot of paper moving around. At first she thought maybe she had the flu, but she'd never had the flu before, so she really wasn't sure. She was getting kind of hungry though, so she looked up at Mama and said, "I think it's my stomach growling." She then finished playing "The Indian Dance" and went to the kitchen to get a snack.

Even though Ava tried to keep as still as she could, the rustling noises continued. Ava was glad when fall came and the leaves on the trees turned colors and fell off because then she could blame the rustling noises on the leaves on the ground.

One morning, Ava and the boys were eating breakfast before going to school. Ava was eating Fruit Loops which is her favorite cereal, and, all of a sudden, Tony popped her on the shoulder. Ava looked up and said, "Mama, he hit me and I didn't do nothing!"

Mama said, "I was talking to you and called your name three times and you didn't answer." Ava said, "Oh. I guess I didn't hear you -- but he didn't have to hit me!"

Sammy said, "You haven't been hearing a lot of stuff lately. Maybe you need to get your ears checked."

Ava stuck her finger in her ear and said, "My ears are fine except they itch like crazy. Mama, you need to clean my ears for me. I think I have too much wax in my ears."

Mama said, "Get your finger out of your ear! You're not supposed to ever put anything in your ear except your elbow!"

Tony jumped up and said, "No time now -- the bus is here!" They all jumped up, got their school books and ran out to get on the bus. Ava was kinda quiet on the bus ride. She was worried -- she had not even heard the huge bus coming down the road.

As the week went on, her ears continued to itch and one day she put her finger in her ear (she forgot what Mama said) and to her surprise, she could barely feel something in her ear. A couple of days later she could actually scrape it out with her fingernail. When she looked under her nail, there was green stuff there (and no, it wasn't boogers).

It wasn't long before the green stuff could be seen coming out of her ears. Naturally, her family found out and took her to the doctor to be examined. Dr. Clark took an x-ray and showed it to Ava and Mama. "It appears that Ava has a plant growing in her stomach and the stems are growing out of her ears. Do you have any idea what could have caused this?"

Ava stared bug-eyed at the x-ray and said, "I know what it is -- it's watermelon vines. I swallowed a watermelon seed and it grew in my stomach, just like Uncle Bill said it would!"

Dr. Clark and Mama were surprised. They decided to let the plant grow until it could grow no more and let it die because winter was coming and surely the plant would not survive in the cold weather. Dr. Clark assured Ava that she would be alright as the watermelon plant grew and died.

By the time the end of October came around, Ava had her halloween costume ready. she was going to be a Fruit Lady. Mama had made a hat with all kinds of plastic fruit sewed on it and a dress that also had plastic fruit sewed on it. For earrings, she had two real live watermelons that dangled all the way down to her shoulders. It would not be long before they would be ripe and could be picked and eaten. At her school's Halloween Carnival, she won first prize for her costume and got her picture in the Hattiesburg American. Her watermelon vines were bringing her a lot of attention!

"Get up! It's time to go!" Ava's brother's voice shouted in her ear. Ava opened her eyes, stretched her arms out and looked around her. She saw her mother gathering up left-over Purple Durple Salad and empty dishes in Grand- mother's kitchen. Uncle Bill was turning on the evening news across the room. Tony had bounced out the door toward the car and Sammy was following close behind. Ava called out, "Sammy, Sammy, come here."

Sammy turned and came over and said, "What is it, Doll?"

"I swallowed a watermelon seed. Uncle Bill said that if I did that I'd have watermelon vines growing out of my ears!" she whispered urgently.

Sammy cracked a smile and said, "No, you won't have vines coming out your ears."

"Are you sure? How do you know?" Ava still wasn't sure.

"I'm positive. I learned in school that plants have to have sunshine to grow. It's dark in your stomach and the light can't get inside, so the seed won't grow into a plant."

Ava sighed with relief, "Oh, good! I'm glad. Don't tell Tony, ok? He'd say I'd have to get worm shots!"


© 2000, 1999, 1998 Ava Gunn
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