The misadventures of a runaway pumpkin

Story by Elaine Parker with illustrations by Sue Clancy

I had written and illustrated a story called “The Pumpkin Patch” (you can see it here) and my friend Elaine Parker wrote a story sequel which I've illustrated below.

The Misadventures of a Runaway Pumpkin - by Elaine Parker

Some days after the visit to the pumpkin patch Grandpa said to his grandkids “A little bird told me what happened to the pumpkin who got away from us the other day. Would you like to know what the bird told me?”.

Of course, the kids said yes. So grandpa told this story:

Peter Pumpkin, after rolling away from the pumpkin patch to escape being picked, was having a lovely time rolling in the countryside when he came upon a village.  As he rolled through the village, a little boy caught sight of him and exclaimed, "That pumpkin would make an awesome jack-o-lantern". 

Not wanting to be a jack-o-lantern, Peter Pumpkin rolled faster but the little boy was gaining on him until Peter came to a hill.  He began to roll faster and faster and the little boy couldn't keep up.  "Whew!  What a close call!" thought Peter, "I am going to avoid villages in the future". 

He continued his journey through the countryside and found that he was passing a lot of farmland.  Suddenly, standing in the yard of one of the farmhouses he saw a lady and she was looking right at him.  Maisie MacDonald, the farmer's wife, was a champion baker and she just knew that the pumpkin she saw rolling down the dusty road would make several really delicious pumpkin pies so she gave chase. 

"Oh, no, not again", thought Peter, so, for the second time, he began rolling as fast as he possibly could.

Peter sees a cornfield and thinks “I can hide among the corn stalks!”  So he rolled heading for the cornfield.

As he entered the corn maze he fell into a depression in the maze trail. Well Maisie, having lost sight of the big glorious pie-ready pumpkin, gave up the chase and headed back home. 

“This is the pits!” cried Peter to himself. But he didn't give up and kept rocking and rolling back and forth hoping to get up over the edge of the hole he was in. Pretty soon, he heard some mice discussing how such a big pumpkin could be both home and food for capable mice. Peter thought, “Oh no! Not again!” and rock-rolled all the harder.

While Peter was rocking back and forth in the corn maze, a Good Fairy was also wandering though the corn stalks having a think. A corn maze late in the evening is a quiet place if you're a Fairy on the job of trying to think out how to get a young lady to a fancy dress ball and back home before midnight. The young lady had a difficult homelife, was very poor, not very well fed, probably couldn't walk far… and while a Fairy could magic-wand some suitable clothing a Fairy needs some material that could be magic-wanded into suitable transportation. What's a Fairy to do? Think. Think. Think.

The Fairy rounded a corner in the corn maze and movements caught her eye. There was a huge pumpkin rocking back and forth while 6 large mice edged closer, watching.

“Aha!” thought the Fairy.

Suddenly the Fairy had an idea for how to get Cinderella to the ball and back home!

After magic-wanding the pumpkin into a stagecoach and the mice into horses and stagecoach drivers… well, you know the story of Cinderella… So, after the fancy ball was finished, in deep gratitude to the hero pumpkin, the Fairy uses her wand and magic-poofs Peter into a long forgotten pumpkin patch. There Peter joins the Pumpkin Writers and Publishers Group and lived the rest of his life writing stories with heroic pumpkins in them.

"Granpa. What stories did Peter write?" asks one of the kids. "Oh, we'd have to go to a public library or a bookstore to see. Peter writes under many different names and writes whatever he can run away with."