Mr. Oscar Cupcake Does Not Want A New Trick

Written for a Storytelling & Bookmaking field trip with Ms. Houshour's 3rd-grade class from PS 19

3/28/06

Once upon a time there was a family of talking pancakes. The mother's name was Mrs. Pancake. She was brown, but yellow around the edges. She wore clown shoes all the time because she was a clown. Oscar Cupcake, a talking bowl of rice, is Mrs. Pancake's biggest fan. He knows Mrs. Pancake because he takes care of Grandma Pancake in her gigantic mansion. They all live together in the mansion: Mrs. Pancake, Grandma Pancake, Mr. Oscar Cupcake, and Lil' Pancake, who is the littlest pancake of all.

Mrs. Pancake is an excellent clown. The clown trick she is most famous for is called The Silly Willie. The Silly Willie is when Mrs. Pancake wraps someone up in a cloth, waves her wand and says, "Presto!" and the person disappears. Then, when she waves her wand and says "Presto!" again, the person reappears on the stage dressed like a clown.

Oscar Cupcake loves to watch Mrs. Pancake do The Silly Willie, because he thinks the trick is amazing. But Mrs. Pancake was getting tired of The Silly Willie. She wanted to ride bicycles into pools full of sharks. One day she was talking to Oscar and she told him about her new idea.

"I'm going to try a new trick now, I think," said Mrs. Pancake.

"No! Please don't do that! I love the Silly Willie. It's my favorite thing in the world," Oscar Cupcake said. He cried tears of rice that dripped down the side of his bowl. "If you don't do The Silly Willie anymore, I won't take care of Grandma Pancake anymore!"

Mrs. Pancake thought, How can I start taking care of Grandma Pancake myself and still be a popular clown? She knew she couldn't take care of her mother without Oscar.

"Oscar, I need to try this trick! I'll just do it once, and then I'll return to The Silly Willie."

Oscar knew Mrs. Pancake was being stubborn and selfish, but he agreed to it anyway. "Okay," he said,
"just as long as you don't give up The Silly Willie."

The next night Mrs. Pancake tried her new trick in front of the entire circus. The sharks were nice sharks, so she knew she had nothing to worry about from them. It was all very safe.

But Oscar was still angry with her because he didn't like her new trick. He stood up in the middle of the audience and shouted, "Bring back The Silly Willie! Bring back the Silly Willie!" He got the entire audience chanting "SILLY WILLIE! SILLY WILLIE!"

And then...