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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are inventions of the author. Any resemblance to actual events, people, or turnips, alive, dead, or somewhere in between, is entirely coincidental.
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* * *
Our story begins in Shmorgasbord Heights
On the very last night before Halloween Night.
The moon hangs low in the darkening sky,
Dropping a wink like a big sleepy eye.
The dark streets titter with chittering leaves.
Corn stands in the fields in tall silent sheaves.
On fence posts and porch steps sit pumpkins agleam,
Alight with bright fright and grim pumpkin dreams.
Young Tommy Tigby passes them warily,
Aware of the eyes that stare at him scarily.
He’s helped set up for his school’s harvest dance.
Now he’s nervous and he feels like he’s got ants in his pants.
As he makes his way home through the deepening dark,
A chilly wind blows and a hidden dog barks.
So his legs are swinging, his footsteps are fast;
Ahead is the farm he wants to be past,
The one that consistently gives him the creeps,
The creepy old farm of Old Farmer Freep.
Freep’s let the failing barn grow quite decrepit.
His efforts at up-keep are thoroughly tepid.
His fields lay barren, fallow and drear.
Everything’s harvested this time of year.
Freep’s only got turnips growing this late
In a sad little plot behind an old wooden gate.
They’d been there that morning and afternoon too,
Growing the way turnips usually do.
But as young Tommy passes he sees with a fright
That the turnips are gone; they are nowhere in sight.
This isn’t, of course, any oddness at all.
Freep harvests his produce every fall.
But no footprints mark the farmer’s toil,
Only holes like tiny graves dug in the soil.
Did the turnips wrench themselves from the dust?
Freep had to have pulled them! He had to! He must!
Young Tommy walks faster, his feet light and fleet,
Desperate for home, to be off this dark street.
As he walks, though, a question burns inside his head
And fills his heart and mind with cold dread.
Who dug the turnips if it wasn’t Old Freep?
This question will keep young Tommy from sleep.
He’ll twist and turn in his sheets that night,
Blood pounding in his veins from fright.
Sleep will elude him until just before dawn
When finally he’ll drop with a groan and a yawn.
Still, in his dreams, ugly thoughts chase him ‘round.
Who pulled the turnips out of the ground?
* * *
Freep stands at a window and sees the boy flee,
His sour old soul burning with glee.
It is slightly too early for people to know
But the boy can tell no one; to whom would he go?
His parents? A sibling or friend? A teacher?
No one would believe him, not counselor or preacher.
They’d laugh and they’d send him away with a shoo.
Such stories, they’d say. Just listen to you!
They’d regret that mistake later on, wait and see,
When they see the vile turnips that Freep has set free.
At last they will know, these dumb country bumpkins,
The mistake that they make when they choose to use pumpkins
Instead of the turnips decreed by tradition.
To punish these bumpkins is his life’s long mission.
The turnip had always been Jack’s lantern, you see,
In the old days in Ireland across the cold sea.
But settlers found the pumpkin easy to handle,
Simpler to hollow and carve for the candle.
So the turnip found itself forgotten,
Tossed aside and regrettably rotten.
The pumpkin held reign on Halloween night
While the now lowly turnip slipped from Jack’s sight.