The Vengeful Tale of Samuel’s Lunchbox
In a lunchbox with your favourite imaginary characters printed on the front of it, an apple, a sandwich and three cookies were eagerly waiting to be taken to school by Samuel Pearce, a Year 3 student at Greenvale School. The five items had barely slept, mostly due to the excitement of the day ahead of them, but partly because the apple had been snoring whenever they did fall asleep. Morning came and Samuel took the lunchbox out of the fridge and all of the food items screeched with glee as he went to place them in his school bag. Unfortunately, this was not done with any care on Samuel’s part and so began the day that the contents of Samuel’s lunchbox got their revenge for being treated so poorly.
After the initial surprise of being carelessly thrown to the bottom of the bag had worn off, the sandwich attempted to rebuild morale. “I know we are all in shock, but we must stay strong and we must work together if we are going to get through this,” the sandwich announced. However, the situation didn’t get any better for the lunchbox items as Samuel shoved his school bag into the back seat of their car, squashing the apple and sandwich uncomfortably close together and breaking small pieces off the three cookies. The apple was clearly losing patience and the cookies had huddled together, whimpering in the corner. “Stay strong, my lunchbox friends! Calm will be restored!”
Once at school, however, the lunchbox items were not given immediate respite from the constant knocks and bumps as Samuel was late for class and decided running would get him there a lot faster. After a highly stressful morning, the sandwich, the apple and the three cookies were provided with some relief as Samuel placed his bag on the hooks outside his classroom. The sandwich took a moment to make sure everyone was safe. Speaking through his cellophane wrapping, the sandwich asked Apple if he was alright.
“Of course, I’m OK,” Apple replied. “It’s the cookies we should be worried about.”
Sandwich turned his attention to the three cookies. The three of them were stacked upon each other in a snap-lock bag and the two top cookies had received the most obvious damage, with some of their once deliciously doughy bodies now broken off and lying on the base of the bag.
“Cookies, tell me what’s going on,” Sandwich requested with authority.
All three cookies always spoke in unison. “We are damaged but not broken. Alert, but not alarmed,” they replied.
“Well, if we are all able and willing,” Sandwich began, “Then I call an emergency meeting to discuss how we are going to get our well-deserved revenge on Samuel Pearce.”
The cookies and Apple listened closely to Sandwich’s plan as he highlighted the fact that, for too long, foods from schools all over the world were sick of being treated in these terrible ways. Sandwich spoke of the simple desires that lunchbox items have, only ever wanting kids to have a great day at school or wherever they may be and that, although most children appreciate the hard work that lunchbox items do, on some days, children need to be taught this lesson. Today was one of those days.
Having rallied his troops, Sandwich asked who was ready to teach Samuel a lesson he would never forget. They all agreed, so Sandwich started putting them to work. “Apple, I need you to start squeezing some apple juice all over the inside of Samuel’s lunchbox, and I mean all over. Can you do that?”
“You know I can, sir!” Apple confidently responded.
“Excellent. Now, cookies, are you still with me?” Sandwich asked.
“Always with you, never without you,” the cookies responded together.
“Then I need you to push your way out of that bag and start spreading yourself around the lunchbox, using the apple juice to help you stick to the far corners of the lunchbox where no human will ever be able to reach you.” The cookies jumped up and down with excitement while Sandwich continued. “Meanwhile, I will be making sure that I am as sweaty and as smelly as possible.”
The team agreed to the plan and began their preparations for the upcoming break time.
The bell rang. The lunchbox items took their positions and could feel the lunchbox being dragged out of the school bag. They hung on tight as they were tossed onto a table and the zipper opened the lunchbox. They immediately saw the disgust on Samuel’s face, but stuck to their plan and remained as still as possible. Samuel went to throw his lunch in the bin, but, just as Sandwich had predicted, an adult told Samuel to sit down and eat every last bit of lunch or face a week of detention. Samuel sat down and, bite after excruciating bite, he ate the single giant ball of brown mush formed by all five lunchbox items coming together and using their power to teach Samuel a lesson.
Samuel made it through the extremely unpleasant ordeal without feeling too ill, but, from that day on, whenever he was given his lunchbox in the morning, he made sure that all of his lunch was treated with care, so that he could enjoy the unique taste and energy that each item was willing to offer him.