Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

by Jeanette Winterson

So we cut a cardboard box to set the scene, Elsie doing the back-drop, me doing the rocks out of half-egg shells. We stayed up all night on the dramatis personae, because of the detail. We had chosen the most exciting bit, ‘Brunhilda Confronts Her Father’. I did Brunhilda, and Elsie did Wodin. Brunhilda had a helmet made out of a thimble with little feather wings from Elsie’s pillow. ‘She needs a spear,’ said Elsie, ‘I’ll give you a cocktail stick only don’t tell anyone what I use it for.’ As a final touch I cut off some of my own hair and made it into Brunhilda’s hair. Wodin was a masterpiece, a double-yoker brown egg, with a Ritz cracker shield and a drawn-on eye-patch. We made him a match-box chariot that was just too small. ‘Dramatic emphasis,’ said Elsie. The next day I took it to school and placed it beside the others; there was no comparison. Imagine my horror when it didn’t win. I was not a selfish child and, understanding the nature of genius, would have happily bowed to another’s talent, but not to three eggs covered in cotton wool, entitled ‘Easter Bunnies’. ‘It’s not fair,’ I told Elsie, later that same evening at the Sisterhood meeting. ‘You’ll get used to it.’ ‘And anyway,’ butted in Mrs White, who had heard the story, ‘they’re not holy.’

Yeah, shoulda won. But, of course, even the adults probably didn't get the reference.