Storytelling, Week 10: The Slap-Fish Pregnancy

 

(siblings) 

Michael snuggled up next to his father on the leather sofa, his eyes glued to their television screen.

“Scoot over, Michael!” His little sister Olivia groaned. She had her head on their father’s lap as well, and Michael’s hand was now covering her view of the movie.

“You scoot over!” Michael flung his teddy bear toward his sister’s face before his father snatched it out of his hand. “Hey!”

“Both of you, hush,” their father said. “Watch the movie.”

The children turned their heads reluctantly back to the screen, where a cartoon woman with yellow hair rubbed her round belly affectionately.

“I can’t wait to meet my little sister!” The cartoon boy squeaked. “I’m gonna teach her how to play baseball, and she can do my chores, and…”

The cartoon rambled on as Olivia squinted up at her father. “Is there really a baby in her belly?”

He ran a hand through his graying hair and chuckled. “Yep. You and Michael were once in Mommy’s tummy, too.”

“Really?” she asked. “I wish I remembered what it looked like in there…I would take all the spaghetti she ate and swirl it around—I could go swimming in Jell-O!”

Their father laughed. “That’s not quite now it works, Olivia. Plus, your mother’s never liked Jell-O.”

Olivia stuck out her bottom lip.

“I remember it!” Michael said.

“You do not!” Olivia reached out to hit her brother with her stuffed rabbit, but her father stopped her.

“Cut it out, you two. What’s with all the hitting lately?”

Michael sat up and glared at his sister. “I meant, I remember when you were in Mommy’s tummy. You made her fat.”

“I did not!” Olivia said.

“Michael, it’s not nice to call people fat. And your mother wasn’t fat, she had a baby in her belly. And if I remember correctly, you were very excited to meet your little sister.”

Michael pouted as he crossed his arms.

“How did I get in there?” Olivia asked. “How would I fit?”

Their father chuckled nervously. “Well, you weren’t as big as you are now. You started small, and you grew inside.”

“But how did I get there the first time, the little part?” Olivia asked, sitting up.

Their father coughed and scratched his head. “Well…”

“Yeah!” Michael turned to his father, gazing up at him with more curiosity than his father had ever seen. “How did we get in there?”

Their father froze, scrambling for words. Just then, a cartoon cat on the screen snatched the family goldfish from the bowl and slapped the pet beagle across the face, making an animated SLAP sound smack through the speakers.

His children’s petty arguments and hitting, their squabbles and now their overly-inquisitive questions suddenly hit him in a rush of panic. “Her brother smacked her with a fish!” he said.

Both children were silent for several seconds. Then Michael piped up.

“Really?”

The father looked at each of his children, who gazed intently up at him in awe. Had he expected them to believe him? He wasn’t sure.

“Yes,” he decided, nodding. “Yes, that’s how it happened.” He sighed, plastering mock ruefulness on his face. “Both times, unfortunately. That’s why you should never, ever hit your brother or sister. You never know what’ll come from it. Sometimes a red cheek—sometimes a baby.”

Michael and Olivia looked at each other with wide eyes, then nodded slowly. They each sat back against the couch and leaned their heads against their father’s shoulders, vowing silently to never ever slap each other with a fish.



Bibliography: Myths of the Cherokee: How the World Was Made, by James Mooney (1900)

Author’s Note: This story is ridiculous, I know. But I based it on one line of the Cherokee myth about the creation of the world, where man was created. After describing clever (though slightly more sensible) ways that plants and animals were created, the storyteller says, “Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was.” Then the woman has a baby a week later. When I first read this, I just thought… “What?” It’s so weird! And I really can’t help but laugh to myself when I picture it! I’m imagining these two young kids, almost like South Park cartoons, just sitting around, and suddenly the brother pulls a fish out of nowhere and smacks his sister with it—then, boom! She’s pregnant.

I thought maybe that’s what I could tell my kids when they ask where babies come from, so that’s basically what I wrote my story about. I also had to include a little explanation for why a father would say that to his children, so I had them squabbling and hitting each other in the beginning. This is also loosely based on an incident with my seven-year-old sister, who after watching a movie with a pregnant woman, kept asking us, “But how does the baby get in there?” She’s too smart for her own good. I think we explained as much as we could about the womb itself, but then told her she’d have to hear the rest when she was older.