Writers Digest Flash Fiction Day 12: I’m a pretty big foodie, but I wasn’t always. Today, let’s write about a food you (or your characters) hate.
Mrs. Casey drove two hours before she pulled into the parking lot of a huge red barn with a large sign proclaiming, “Bubba’s Best Burgers and Fries!” Her friend Jackie was all excited and Leah was drooling at the thought of a good hamburger. Leah didn’t eat much after arriving at her friend’s house last night for her ninth birthday sleepover. The Casey family sure ate the strangest things.
“We’ll eat in the car so we don’t have to wait too long.” Mrs. Casey looked at her husband Daryl and added, “Honey, I’ll stay with the girls if you go in and get the burgers. Leah, do you want a burger or a hot dog?”
“A hamburger please?”
It seemed like forever. Leah imagined that yummy beef patty with extra pickles and mustard and her tummy growled. When the burgers finally arrived, Leah tore open the foil. Her hands froze. Her face froze. Her whole body froze. There was no way she could eat that thing in front of her.
Her initial, paralyzing fear gone, she looked at her friend. Jackie was stuffing the burger into her mouth. White stuff was dripping down her chin. It was oozing from under the bun over her fingertips.
Mr. Casey was sitting in the passenger seat. Leah watched him pull the lid off his burger. He poured more white stuff out of little rectangular packets. The stuff dropped onto his already smothered burger in big, white, blobs.
Leah gingerly lifted the bun off the burger in her lap. It stared at her, mocking her. “What’s w’ong wif you, hav’n you seen a boogah befo?”
It took Leah a minute to realize it wasn’t the burger talking. It was Jackie, spewing out pieces of lettuce and tomato while mumbling with her mouth full.
Leah looked at the burger which didn’t even have the decency to have pickles on it. She pointed at the offensive white goo which muddied the nasty lettuce and tomato on the half cooked slab of meat, “What’s that white stuff?”
“Mayonnaise, aint it the best?
Leah had never seen it before. She scrunched her nose, she couldn’t help it.
“Mom.” Jackie said, “I don’t think Leah likes the burger. Can we get her something else?”
Mrs. Casey stretched her face around to look in the back seat. “We paid six dollars for that burger. Just pull off the stuff and eat it plain. We got to go.” Mrs. Casey turned back around and started the engine.
Leah was ashamed. She gathered her courage and picked up the burger. She gagged with every bite, but ate it all. Never again, did she eat Mayonnaise.
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