SHORT STORY
2009 SECOND PLACE

The Banana-Potato War
Emily Council
14 years old, Virginia

The bananas stirred restlessly, turning and twisting as if a high wind was blowing through the Mualdas’ large humid kitchen.  They whispered to each other in their high, soft voices.  There were only four bananas, but they made quite a noise.  Kamau, listening to the other bananas, was glad that the Mualdases were asleep upstairs.  The Cuban immigrants would have been terrified had they heard their bananas talking.

In the basket a few inches away from t he bananas’ bowl, the potatoes muttered to themselves, staring at the bananas with piggy eyes.  Kamau looked at them angrily, wishing that he and Kusuma, his partner, were back in the rainforest, where potatoes stayed underground.  “What’s their problem, anyway?” he said finally.

“They just want our bowl.  Same old story about how they were here first and had to crowd into a basket to make room for us.  But if we leave our bowl, we’ll have to go on the floor,” said Flavia, a violently yellow banana to Kamau’s left.

“And, if we go on the floor,” rumbled Daiki, a large banana who was Flavia’s devoted shadow, ‘Muggsy will eat us.”  All of the bananas shook their stems uneasily.  Muggsy, the Rottweiler, had developed an alarming appetite for bananas.

“Hey, you!” screeched a potato.  “Stemhead!”

The bananas stiffened.  “Excuse me?” said Flavia ominously.

“Move out of that bowl!  Or else!” shrieked another tuber.

‘Or else what?” asked Kusuma warily.

In answer, the potato flung a peanut at the bananas.  “This! he screamed, and all of the potatoes began hurling nuts from the Mixed Nuts jars beside their basket.

Kamau was wondering how root vegetables had such good aim when a macadamia struck him on the side of the head and Flavia yelled, “Fight back!” throwing the macadamia at a potato.

All-out warfare commenced, with each side tossing nuts and insults indiscriminately.  Suddenly, Kusuma stood up.  “STOP!” she shouted, her small voice piercing the mayhem.  “Stop,” she repeated, and the hail of missiles abated.  “Why are we hurting each other?  How is this helping?”

“We want our bowl,” grumbled a potato, but he didn’t sound so sure anymore.

“But you have a basket, and we don’t have anything else,” said Kusuma.

“Don’t care,” muttered a tuber.

“We care,” said Kusuma calmly.  “Remember what was in the newspaper?  Hundreds of humans hurt, over a bowl.”

“It wasn’t a bowl,” said a potato.  “It was Cuba.”

“Come on, now.”

The potato said nothing.

“Can we just agree to leave each other alone?  All you’ve got to do is sign on the dotted line.”

“Fine!’ he roared suddenly.  “We’ll sign, but it better be fair and you better sign too.”

“Of course, of course,” said Kusuma pacifically.

When Anita Mualdas came downstairs  that morning, she danced around the kitchen, waving the newspaper in the air.  The Spanish-American War was over.  And so was the Banana-Potato one.  Anita sat with a happy sigh and began to debate breakfast: banana or potato?