Short Story Teasers

Kickoff (Or Never Trust a Girl with a Sandwich)

By: Alden R. Carter

Genre: Sports Mystery

It’s day three of Hell Week in ‘The Kickoff’. For Ken Bauer, a high school punter on his football team, the experience is overwhelming, but his troubles just keep piling up. His high-school sweetheart, Sarah Landwehr, finds a baffling story lodged deep inside his bag. On the football field, Big Chicago, the new starting middle linebacker who is rumored to be all-conference as a junior, roams over the vast football field with his wicked aura, waiting to punish Ken with his unremitting tackles. The seriousness of this comical short story crafts a perfect conglomeration that is an ideal read for both teenage and children audiences. 

Trashback

By: Alden R. Carter

Genre: Mystery

The class jokester and narrator in ‘Trashback’, Ken Bauer, has to write a letter that will get an elf fired, drive Santa to drink, and cause an investigation of Santa’s workshop. Being his normal, mischievous self, Ken, with the help of Rollin Acres, types a funny letter about ‘Fritz the Perverted Elf.’ After his other long-time friend, Sarah Landwehr sees this letter, she makes him delete it and rewrite an entirely new letter with a completely different storyline. Thinking about Sarah’s words about his naivety, Ken undergoes a thorough transformation into a more mature teenager, helping in elementary school plays. However, the ‘Fritz the Perverted Elf’ letter resurfaces and finds its way to the Principal’s desk.  Ken’s ironic predicament presents the true elements of a typical teenager’s school life in an epic mystery in both comical and realistic ways.

Pig Brains

By: Alden R. Carter

Genre: Suspense/Comedy

It is Shadis, Melinda, and Doughnut’s turn to bring food to school. Doughnut is bringing…well doughnuts, Melinda is bringing eggplant Parmesan, and Shadis is bringing fried brains, or so everyone thinks. Shadis, wanting to freak out his long-time nemesis, Doughnut, said he was bringing fried brains to school. The thing is, there aren’t any fried brains in central Wisconsin, maybe Albania, but not in Wisconsin. So he decides to make it out of spaghetti, but that is the easy part. Getting Doughnut and the entire class to actually believe that it is fried brains.  That is where it gets interesting.  In a hilarious example of David vs. Goliath, Shadis looks to triumph over his archrival by any means necessary, in both serious and witty ways.

Buck’s Head

By: Alden R. Carter

Genre: Suspense

Just as Ken Bauer figured, Rollin Acres was destined to be with someone just as special as his name.  Someone like Sandy Dunes, the ‘goddess in running shorts.’  Willing to do anything to be with her, Rollin sets his eyes on the perfect window of opportunity.  At the Argyle West Invitational, with reigning champion Kendra Mueller is returning and is ready to beat everyone again.  Sandy on the other hand, plans to embarrass, punish, and beat her at the race.  Under the commanding influence of love, Rollin, with the reluctant help of Ken, decides to ‘interfere’ with the race, only to stall Kendra for a few minutes.  In a masterful piece of literature, ‘Buck’s Head’ captures a vivid image of the genuine power of a teenager’s imaginative and endearing love.

Satyagraha

By: Alden R. Carter

Genre: Action

Satyagraha: To stand firmly for truth and love without ever resorting to force.

When a 200-pound, all-conference defensive end comes charging at full power, one is most likely to back off one way or another. But when it comes to saving your team trainer, football team captain Ken Bauer is willing to take the hit, one after the other. After a demoralizing loss, Bill Patchet takes his rage out on Ramdas Bahave, the team trainer. Ramdas, on the other hand, resorts to the Indian belief of satyagraha. After defending his point of view, Ramdas boldly states that he will never resort to violence. To save Ramdas from near certain death, Ken steps up to Patchet.  Ken’s audacious actions defend Ramdas in an extremely poignant story that shares fundamental, genuine values.

Pig Brains – Conflicts & Figurative Language

Plot Diagram

Conflicts 
Individual vs. Self (Don vs. Don)
As the day before the food presentation comes to an end, Don begins to doubt himself and whether he can actually trick everyone into thinking that he has cooked fried brains. You can see this throughout the entire story. In the beginning when he first lies to Doughnut, Don is confident and has no concerns about whether he can confuse Doughnut. However, when he gets home he begins to widen his view and think about every aspect of the brains. Such as what he would use to make it and whether or not he can trick the entire class, including the teacher. I believe this conflict was incorporated into the story because it shows the insight of the narrator and what is going on in his head while he overcomes other materialistic obstacles. This conflict also builds suspense during the rising action because it has the ability to increase tension during the story (Doubt can start off small but build as the Don begins to recognize other concerns)

Individual vs. Individual (Don vs. Doughnut)
This is the very first conflict that is seen in the story. In the beginning of the story, Don meets Doughnut, and they begin discussing the foods that they are bringing the next day. After taking years of bullying, Don naively decides to tell Doughnut that he is bringing brains to school the next day. Doughnut then threatens to beat him up if he is lying to him. Later that night, Don imagines the consequences of being caught by Doughnut. This conflict contributes to the conflict of individual vs. self.

Individual vs. Non-living objects (Don vs. Supplies)
Don must gather all the supplies necessary to make fried brains. However, no brains are sold in central Wisconsin. To solve this problem, he makes the ‘brains’ with fried spaghetti, dipped in oil. Over time, Don begins to second-guess himself and wonders if he can truly trick his entire class and teacher into believing that he actually fried real brains and not spaghetti. This conflict also adds tension to the conflict of individual vs. self.



Figurative Language 
“Well, she thinks you’re like a baboon!” (47)
In this simile, Carter compares Doughnut to a baboon. The comparison is intended to help readers grasp an understanding of what Doughnut is like in person. In this context, baboons are seen as annoying, ugly creatures that seem to be up to no good. This simile lets readers understand that Don insists Doughnut is an annoying bully that is no good to the world at all.  Since Don says, "she,"  it implies that another person thinks Doughnut is a bully.  


“He stared at me for a long minute, his hand slowly kneaded my shoulder.” (48)
In this dead metaphor, the action of Doughnut's hand is compared to the action of squeezing dough.  The comparison is intended to help readers understand what Doughnut's hand was doing to Don's shoulder.  The kneading of dough is like forcefully squeezing and pressing together to mix the dough.  This metaphor lets readers know that Doughnut's hand firmly pressed Don's shoulders to the point where it felt like Doughnut was 'mixing' Don's shoulder.  It also shows that Don's shoulder felt like it was slowly beginning to break apart under the tremendous pressure of Doughnut's hand.

“The metal resonated like a kettle drum…” (56)
In this simile, Carter compares the noise caused by Doughnut throwing up to the sound caused by the beating of a kettle drum. The comparison is intended to help readers recognize the intensity of the noise of throwing up. The noise of a kettle drum is loud and the sound reverberates off the walls. This simile lets readers know that the sound caused by Doughnut throwing up was very loud and that the sound vibrated against the walls, creating a stunning sound.  This simile is important because it also signified the turning point in the story, or the climax.

Pig Brains - Dust Jacket

Dust Jacket Explanation

In the title page that I made for 'Pig Brains' there is a pig, dressed as a waiter and chef, holding a purple towel and a silver platter.  In the background I drew a greenish-yellow vomit puddle.  I chose to draw the dust jacket as a cartoon because I thought this story was age-appropriate for 8-12 year olds.  This is because of the type of basic words that were used in the short story, such as "ugly" (48) and "nice" (48).  The first time you look at the dust jacket, the first thing you will notice is the pig, dressed as a chef and waiter, holding a silver platter.  The pig represents the fried brains, which was chosen to be the brains of pigs because Don said they were the "tastiest of all the brains" (49).  On the pig's head is a chef's hat.  The chef's hat represents the cooking process that Don had to go through to fry his fried brains (50-54).  The chef's hat was also chosen to signify the cooking process because it illustrates how imaginative Don was when he was thinking about which ingredients to include.  I believe the hat was perfect to portray this because I made the resemblance to of a chef's hat to a 'thinking cap.'  As an outfit, the pig is wearing a blue suit with a red tie and is holding a purple towel in his left arm and a covered platter in his other hand.  This outfit in the title page represents the process in which Don had to present his snack to the class as a project.  I chose the job of a waiter to symbolize this because the waiter is the person who presents the food to the diner.  I also decided to leave the platter covered because I wanted to leave the audience to ponder about what the brain looks like so they could think of their own gross image of the brain.  I believe the covering of the brain was a fundamental part of the title page because I think that the climatic part of the book, the unveiling of the brain, should be left to be imagined by the audience. Thus, I chose to let the reader imagine the textures and other visual aspects of the fried brain.  An accessory of the outfit is the pig's smile.  In the dust jacket, the pig seems to be overjoyed.  This smile shows the thrilled expression that I pictured Don would have when he saw Doughnut throwing-up in the trash can (56).  The last part of the picture that represents an aspect of the story is the vomit background.  This is a key part in the story as it signifies the eventual triumph of Don over Doughnut.  Since this was such a key part of the story I chose to make it the background so it could be big and wide and take up as much space as possible.  These are the reasons why I chose to make the dust jacket this way.

Works Cited