Three days a week I work with a small group of fourth graders in their writing workshop.  This past week I was conferencing with one child who read his current writing project aloud to me.  The story was about his family reunion.  I was on automated listening as he read his story about grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, food and games.  Then . . .

“I was taking a bath and my mama told me to stay in the bathroom because my granny had died in the other room.  She told me, ‘She wouldn’t want you to see her like that.’”

What?  ”Oh, I’m so sorry!” I replied. ”Your granny died and you had to wait in the bathroom.  What happened?”

He looked up from his reading and said, “There was a man who was going to kill Pappy unless someone sacrificed themself.”

My automated listening mode screeched completely to a halt. Granny died? Someone had to be sacrificed?   ”A man was going to kill your Pappy unless someone sacrificed themself?  What do you mean?”

He looked at me and repeated slowly as if to a not-so-bright child: “Somebody in the family had to jump off the tallest building or the man would kill pappy.  So my cousin did it.”

“Your cousin sacrificed himself?”

“Yes. He jumped off the tallest building.”

“What happened? Did it kill him?”

“No, he used a bungee so we could fool the man into thinking he had sacrificed himself.”

What on earth?  Granny died? A man threatened to kill Pappy?  Someone had to be sacrificed?  A bungee fooled the man?  This was certainly more action packed than any family reunion I’ve ever attended.  This was a personal narrative run amuck!  Was this story the unlikely truth or the product of an active imagination coupled with too much crime television? 

I was certain of the answer, but the story was too big to ignore, and it was also a classic CYA case.  After the children returned to their classrooms, I walked down the hall to the guidance counselor’s office.  She looked up from her desk.  “Sit back and relax,” I said.  “Have I got a story to tell you!”   

The guidance counselor talked with the student later that day.  The story was the result of a vivid imagination and too much tv.  In other words - it was NOT true.  The part about the granny dying might be true.  However, no sacrifices - fake or real - were made to keep the man from killing pappy.  The child has a future in writing crime drama, though.

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