Fryaway Dream: Part 3

To know what happened previously on Fryaway Dream go to part 1 and part 2.

The sun rose and so did Penji the Potato's worries. Being as nervous as he was, Penji went to his friends to get some friendly words of advice. They were Blue the eggplant and Pat the peanut (who also happened to be what his mother called 'a distant cousin'. Penji thought it meant that he lived very far away). Blue would keep reading and reading all day and all night, which left him with blue circles under his eyes. Penji never saw him go out to play with his friends. Pat the Peanut was very, very popular but unlike Charlie, he would never pat himself on the back for it. It was to these people that Penji went for help. Among various other points, some of them silly and some of them even sillier, one thing all three of them agreed upon was that Penji should never beg Lace to love him. They were really good friends and by the time Penji left, he was in very good spirits.

Their advice made Penji the Potato very happy.

It was a Sunday, and on most Sundays, the vegetables would lay aside all work and dry themselves under the Sun. Penji found Lace in her usual seat at Central Park, carefully sitting in a manner, fit for a Lady finger of a high standing. As he walked up to her, she looked at him with a questioning look in her haughty eyes.

He was sweating and stammering

But, brave at heart as he was, Penji professed his love blushing and going hot like he was in an oven, stammering at times, sweating like an ice about to melt, trying to find the right words. Lace listened to it with her eyebrows raised so high that they would almost rise past her face and the grasshopper's pout, which she always liked to do.

When he was done speaking, Penji looked hopefully with his large eyes into her face. Lace simply rose up, her eyebrows now back to their normal place, took a deep breath and let out all those words which Penji was ever afraid of hearing.  In her usual proud and haughty manner, Lace mocked Penji's spotted face and said that he should go and drown himself in some stew (curry would have been great too!)

Now, Penji was very, very hurt. He could feel his eyes slowly welling up tears. His ears went as red as a tomato.
"I... I thought you might like me," Penji stammered, his voice teary,"I didn't mean to   ."
And before Penji could speak any further,  Lace shamed him again for his very round figure and spoke haughtily of her boyfriend, Charlie and his very lean figure. She went so far as to compare him to an ugly spot in this beautiful world .

"Now go away and drown yourself in a stew."

"You can never be as good or as beautiful or as oh-so-hot as Charlie," she said to him,"Now, out of my sight!"
Penji, stood there in the Park, alone. Two of the many eyes on his body, were brimming with tears. He hated himself more than ever. 'Why?', he thought, 'Why am I cursed to being a Potato?'
'Why, why, why?'
'If I were a Fwench fwy," he sniffed,"wif skin as smooth as silk and as oily as... as..."
(It's difficult to think of similes when you are disappointed, and our friend Penji wasn't a very bright tuber either).
With that Penji burst into a flood of tears. Lace was right, he was drowning. Drowning in his tears.

In this land of vegetables, French fries were something of a legend. The potatoes who disappeared behind the horizon, never reappeared. They, as the legend said, had become French fries. So, to young Penji, being a French fry was a dream.

Now, he was determined to become a French fry. Whatever the cost. He would walk a thousand miles and climb a thousand mountains and sail all the seven seas seven times over to get to France. He thought he would be able to win her heart if he was beautiful.  And so, when he went home, Penji once again shut himself into his room, making Mother Potato once again sad, and worrisome about her son. Once he had stopped crying, he set about gathering as much information as Varth had with the help of the splinternet. So ashamed was he of his body, that he threw his bedsheet over his mirror to never see himself again, and young Penji once again started his prayers to become a French fry.

... And then Penji the Potato's nightmares started.

To find out what happened next, stay tuned for the next instalment of Fryaway Dream! Don't forget to Share and follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

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