Mansfield Pork

Here's a story I submitted to NPR's "Three-Minute Fiction" contest, slightly altered here. Needless to say, I didn't win. The competition is steep: over 6,000 stories were submitted. They have to be under 600 words and there's always a "prompt" -- in this case, the first sentence, which I've revised a bit for this blog version.

She closed the book, Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door.

"Well, it's about time!" Ma screeched, shaking her nimbus of frizzy gray hair. "How many times do we have to call you to come and EAT!"

Linda slowly lowered her lanky teenaged body into her seat at the Formica table, placed a paper-towel napkin on her lap, and looked down at her plate. Pork chops again!

"Please forgive me for my tardiness, Mother," she said, trying to affect what she imagined to be the voice and cadence of Fanny Price, the heroine of the novel she'd been reading. "I shall endeavor to be more punctual when you call."

Ma glared at her.

"'Mother'? What's this 'Mother' crap?" Linda's father growled, wiping some stray pork grease from his double chin with the back of his hand. "We're Ma and Pop to you."

"Don't go all hoity-toity again," Ma said, "or those damn books are going out the window.”If you have to read something, I got a whole stack of People magazines on the back of the toilet." This comment produced a snicker from Tommy, Linda's chubby 14-year-old brother, two years younger than herself. Ma raised her hand, as if to strike him, but she put it down again when Tommy picked up his chop and began to gnaw on it.

Linda cut a tiny piece of meat and conveyed it to her mouth with her fork. "Pick it up and eat it for god sakes," Ma said. "It's gonna get cold."

Linda swallowed and gazed off toward the window. "I prefer to dine slowly and with a degree of refinement," she said. "It aids the digestion and makes for a more pleasant banquet, don't you think?"
Tommy burped and asked, "Where did you learn to talk funny like that?"

"From Miss Jane Austen," Linda replied. "She was a lady novelist whose family was part of the landed gentry in nineteenth-century England."

"Well, you aren't living in England in another century, and you sure aren't part of any landed gentry, whatever that is," Ma said. "Sounds like dirt farmers to me."

"They were the aristocracy," explained Linda. "They read books. They had manners."

"'They had manners,' repeated Ma sarcastically. "And what? We don't?"

Linda looked down at her plate, then lifted a forkful of mashed potatoes to her mouth. She hoped her silence would serve as an answer that neither insulted her family nor forced her to prevaricate.
"Well?" her father said. "These made-up people are so much better than us, huh? Is that what you're saying?"

“I haven't said any such thing," said Linda. "However, Father, I must point out that when one becomes accustomed to the finer things, as one often does when reading the classic literature of the nineteenth century, one can't help but make comparisons to our own rather ramshackle circumstances. And I'm afraid we do suffer greatly in comparison."

"Oh, that DOES it!" Ma said. "Leave the table. You can come back when you return to Earth, Lady Jane."

"Gladly, dear Mother," Linda said as she rose. "Please excuse me, everyone. I shan't disturb your dinner any further. Please enjoy your repast in my absence. I bid you good evening."

Ma, Pa, and Tommy all rolled their eyes in unison as Linda left the kitchen, retrieved her book from the living room, and climbed the stairs to Mansfield Park.