The Purple Potato Moon

Amelia found a potato that was purple, bumpy, and shaped like the moon.

"Look, Grandpa," she said. "It has craters."

Grandpa put it on the kitchen table. The kitchen clock ticked, five minutes ahead, as it always was on market day. "Dinner is a moon potato," he said. "And you are the first to try it."

Amelia wanted to try it. She really did. She wanted to be brave like the people in her books. But the potato looked like something from far away.

She poked it with a fork. Poke, poke. "It is too strange," she said.

"Hmm," said Grandpa. He went to feed the hens, because the hens had their own supper to get.

Amelia tried the first thing. She shut her eyes and lifted a bite to her mouth. Her mouth would not open. It stayed shut like a drawer.

She tried the second thing. She hid the bite under her peas. But then the peas looked strange too.

Then Amelia noticed something. The steam from the potato smelled like warm bread. And when she squished a bit with her fork, it was soft, soft, soft, like the inside of a pillow.

"That is not far away," she whispered. "That is just soft."

She cut a tiny piece. She cut it even tinier. Then she put it on her tongue.

It was warm. It was a little sweet. It tasted like a hug from a blanket.

"Oh!" said Amelia. She ate another piece, and then one more. The clock ticked. The purple turned her fork a little bit purple, too.

Grandpa came back in with the egg basket. "Well?"

Amelia grinned. Her teeth were purple. "Moon potato," she said, and held up her fork.

Outside, a hen went bawk. Inside, the clock ticked on, and Amelia scraped her plate, scritch, scritch, until the last purple crumb was gone.