Mrs. Salgado's Third Grade Show and Tell:
By Sage Tyrtle
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Assignment 1, August, 1982: My Bedroom
The bed is so big, bigger than a car or a dinosaur or a mountain! The bed has a Star Trek bedspread and Captain Kirk is in a golden shirt made of gold maybe. It is the most comfortable pillow, soft, soft, soft, soft and with feathers inside.
On the floor is a green carpet that is really good for playing cars, it has stripey parts that can be roads and vroom vroom the cars go around the corner screeech, and there's Triscuits in some of the parts of the carpet that can be GLASS on the ROAD for the cars, oh noooo! The window is so small, smaller than a backpack or a binder or a slice of bread. There is a pink, UGH, hot pink, UGH, valencey thingie at the top and then not curtains but cut off curtains because if you stand on the bed you can reach with scissors and they are not there anymore. The bookshelf is wooden and it came from a garage sale and it's painted bright green with big! Purple! Dots! and has eleven million books on it with Ramona the Brave on the top. Assignment 2, February, 1983: My Bedroom
The bed is so big, big enough to hide a person underneath, big enough to hide if they're breathing fast or trying not to cry, big enough to roll back against the wall, in the dark. There's a Star Trek bedspread and maybe Captain Kirk keeps not just the Starship Enterprise safe, maybe he keeps anyone safe, and you don't even have to be a member of the Federation. The pillow would be good to hug because it is soft, there are feathers inside, the pillow would be good to hug but don't move it. Don't move it. The bed should have a pillow where a pillow should be.
On the floor is a green carpet with Hotwheels cars on it, which would hurt if you were sneaking into the room, if you were trying to hurt people and sneak and sneak, they would hurt your feet so much that maybe you would go away. The window is so small, too small to open, too small to crawl out of, even if you're little, even if you need to go, to go, it's too small. The curtains are cut off and anyone in the room trying to find a place to hide is easy to see without even trying it's so easy to see them. The bookshelf is painted bright green with big! Purple! Dots! and if you tipped it over, if the books fell out, you might be able to block the door. For a little while anyway. If you were Ramona. If you were brave.  Sage Tyrtle's work is available or upcoming in X-R-A-Y, The Offing, and Apex among others. She's told stories on stages all over the world and her words have been featured on NPR, CBC, and PBS. She runs a free online writing group open to everyone. Twitter: @sagetyrtle
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