Tentacle Treat

• Katrina Ng, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2013

The last thing I expected to see was……. A squid tentacle in my sandwich.
Last Monday I overslept. As a result, I missed the school bus and had to walk to school without breakfast. By lunch time, I was famished. The delicious aroma wafting from the tuckshop made me salivate uncontrollably and I swear the whole class heard my stomach rumble! I could have fainted if the lunch bell had not rung.
I dashed to the tuckshop as fast as lighting, hoping to be the first in the queue, but it was already a mile long. When it was finally my turn, I blindly grabbed a sandwich closest to me and took a savage bite as I tossed the money over the counter to pay for it.
When I finally sat down with my friends a minute later, my sandwich was nearly all gone. At that moment, I decided I should slow down to savour the last bit of my scrumptious lunch. That was when I noticed something looking like a squid tentacle dangling out of my sandwich.
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “What a treat! I got seafood in my ham sandwich! It must be my lucky day!”
Izzy, Bianca and Chelsea all leaned over and demanded, “Can we have some?”
Suddenly, Izzy cried, “That’s not a squid tentacle! It’s a lizard tail!!!!!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” All my friends shrieked and went hysterical. I felt a spontaneous regurgitating sensation in my throat and I threw up instinctively. A pungent smell of putrid vomit covered the whole school courtyard. A nurse came but I just raced to the nearest toilet sink and cleared my guts from top to bottom. After what it seemed like an eternity, I still was unable to get rid of the “lizardy” taste in my mouth. Eating became a phobia. I lost my appetite completely for three days after that and my trousers became as loose as a really wobbly tooth.
Now you know why I am always pulling food apart and examining them like a forensic expert at a crime scene before I consume them.