Bean Stalk

            I’m doing another fun writing prompt over at The World of My Imagination. It has to be under 500 words, use the picture below, and include the following words: Bet, Skyscraper, Reform, Balcony, and Surface.  Here’s mine.

BEAN STALK           

            “What the tarnation is it?” asked Jeb.  He gazed up at the large, yellow . . . thing.

            “It might be one of them U, F, Os,” said Hank. “Mebbe we should see if our livestock is alright. They could be experimenting on them.”

            Jeb sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous. That ain’t no flying saucer. It’s some sort of enormous plant.”

            Hank nudged his friend with an elbow and chuckled. “Good one. You expect me to believe that a tree grew that big over night?”

            Jeb shrugged. “That’s just the way in happened when old Jack planted them magic beans in his back yard. He grew a bean stalk bigger than the tallest skyscraper.”

            “You idjet. Jack and the Beanstalk is one of the phoney tales they teach the kids in school.”

            “I was in reform school six years and they never taught me no non-sense about giant bean stalks growing in your yard over night.”

            “Not reform school,” said Hank. “Regular school. You know, where they send you to read and write and do ciphers and all.”

            Jeb nodded as he pulled out a pipe and filled it with tobacco.    

            “I bet it’s a guverment experiment gone wild,” said Hank, with a gleam in his eyes. “Those federal boys are always poking their noses into things that aught not to be known. And this is what you get.”

            “What do you get?” asked Jeb. “A giant yellow feather duster?”

            Both men laughed.

            “I just don’t know,” said Jeb.

            “Mebbe we could find someone and ask.”

            “Like who?”

            “What about that funny looking fella what’s staying at the motel.”

            “The Professor?” Jeb asked. “Could be. He looks the type.”

             “Don’t he though. Him and his fancy talk about balcony seats at the opera and how he’s checking the surface temperature of the landscape to prove there’s some warm globs around here.”

            “He said, ‘global warming’ – not ‘warm globs’ you redneck.”

            “Oh,” said Jeb. “I suppose that makes a difference. Still. What in the tarnation is that thing?”