TEA Time Story # 5 Sheriff Pritchett

Hey there, and welcome to T.E.A. Time with Tayvin Bayless. In this episode, I will be reading a story. The name of the story is “Sheriff Pritchett” by Maren Hansen.  This story has a lot of good dialog,  and I’m excited to share it with you. So, let’s get started. 

Mandy Pritchett ran through the front door, angry tears rushing down her cheeks. Mom looked up from her book. She opened her mouth to speak, but Mandy passed her without a word. She did not want to talk to her mom right now. She ran up the stairs to her room and slammed the door. Then she dumped her backpack on the floor and dropped onto her bed.

Stupid Carol, she thought. Stupid Carol with her perfect hair and perfect grades and perfect life! She grabbed a pillow from her bed and punched it with every word. Stupid. Stupid, STUPID!

There were footsteps on the stairs and then a knock at the door.

“Mandy?” came her mother’s voice. “Are you okay?”

“Go away,” Mandy said. 

“Honey, tell me what’s wrong,” her mother insisted.

“Go away!” Mandy shouted.

If she wasn’t so angry, she would have felt bad, but she was angry that mom had pushed her towards this in the first place. If mom hadn’t told her to audition for the school play, Mandy wouldn’t have done so and then she wouldn’t be feeling like trash like she did right now.

That’s not true, said a little voice in her head. You wanted to audition. You would have done it even if mom hadn’t encouraged you to.

So Mandy growled and wrenched open her backpack. Homework would take her mind off of her self-pity.

When her father knocked on her door a couple of hours later, he found her working through a tough math assignment. She looked up as he handed her a donut then sat on the edge of her bed next to her. 

“Mom said you were upset when you got home from school today,” he said.

Mandy sighed. Most of the anger had left her over the past couple of hours, bleeding out like air in a leaky balloon. “Yeah,” she said. “I feel better now.”

“The audition didn’t go as planned?” 

After a pause, Mandy nodded. “The first round was awful. I was so nervous, I could barely sing. I made callbacks, but I don’t think I’ll get Annie.” Her school was performing Annie Get Your Gun for the spring musical, a classic that Mandy had deeply underestimated the popularity of. It seemed half the school had turned up for the first round of auditions. She was certain that her dream of playing the lead role would be crushed.

“That’s not like you to give up when the going’s tough,” her dad said. “Where’s that Pritchett pride?” He grinned, then began to sing: “Anything you can do, I can do better…”

“But there’s so many other amazing theater kids who auditioned!” Mandy blurted out. “And Carol King is going to get the lead role. That’s just how it’s going to be. She’s perfect.”

Her dad took a bite from his own donut, chewed for a moment, and looked thoughtful. “Well, auditions aren’t over yet. You made callbacks, didn’t you? Tomorrow’s a new day.”

Mandy puffed out her cheeks. “Yeah, but I don’t even have a chance. Why should I even try? She’s going to get Annie and I’ll be shunted to the side. I’ll play one of the sisters who doesn’t even have a speaking part!”

Her dad nodded, but then smiled. “Have I ever told you the story about Sheriff Pritchett, my great-grandfather?”

Mandy rolled her eyes. “Dad, you’ve told me those stories a million times.”

“Yes,” he said with a laugh. “But I know I haven’t told you this one. It’s how he became the Sheriff. ‘Cause before this, he was just a big nobody, a farmer from the outskirts of town. I think his story could help you.”

Mandy pulled her legs towards her chest, sighed, and took a bite from her donut. “All right, then.”

Her father cleared his throat and began his story. “In 1877, your great-great-grandpa Jedidiah Pritchett was a humble wheat farmer living in the plains of Colorado. He led a simple life with his wife and his children. He raised wheat and sold it and had good relations with all his neighbor farmers. He was a proud man with a rebellious streak that came out in the most peculiar ways. Some say that’s why he named his horse Bootleg. Not because he ever did anything illegal, but just so he could have the pride of owning something that sounded illegal.”

Mandy snorted into her donut. That sounded like the Sheriff Pritchett from her father’s stories. Rebellious and silly.

“Well, one day his neighbor came running to him to say that all his seed grain had been stolen right from out of his shed. They investigated, and the neighbor was right. The shed was empty. Not a grain sack in sight. Well, they went to the town office and reported it, but the mayor was too busy dealing with an infestation of moles that had tunneled under every garden in the town and eaten every vegetable. So they went home.

“The next day, another neighbor lost his grain. And the day after that, Grandpa Pritchett’s grain was gone. He and all of the neighbors were furious.

“’There’s a grain thief in town!’ they all agreed.

“They went to the mayor for the third time, but the mayor was too distressed about the missing vegetables to worry about missing grain as well.

“’Just grow more grain!’ he shouted at them.

“’Just grow more vegetables,’ Grandpa Pritchett shouted back. 

“When Grandpa Pritchett returned home, he determined that no one else was going to lose their grain. He and his neighbors concluded that the neighbor lady Mrs. Morgen would be next on the thief’s list of victims. So he saddled up Bootleg and together waited in the stable for the thief. 

“That night around midnight, the stable doors opened. The thief came in, but was entirely surprised to find someone waiting for him. Grandpa Pritchett grabbed him and Bootleg made lots of noise for distraction. Then Grandpa Pritchett lit a lantern to discover the thief who had been stealing everyone’s grain. 

“It was…” he paused for dramatic effect, “the mayor.”

His eyes sparkled as Mandy gave a chuckle. “He was upset with his missing vegetables and so he stole the grain to make up for it?”

“Yep,” her dad said. “Well, Grandpa Pritchett and the rest of the neighbors didn’t like that much. They rode him out on the train the next day and elected a new mayor. And that new mayor, who was one of Grandpa Pritchett’s neighbors, decided that he was the best choice for sheriff that their county could offer. So he made Grandpa Pritchett the first sheriff of their town. The End.”

Mandy leaned back. “And that story was supposed to help me…how?”

Her father chuckled. “Well, the moral doesn’t completely match with your life, but just keep sticking with it, Mandy. Nobody expected Grandpa Pritchett to be anything more than a wheat farmer for the rest of his life. Not even his own wife! But look what he became.”

Mandy pondered for a moment. “I suppose,” she said thoughtfully. Then she straightened her shoulders. “I’m going to get that lead role,” she said, looking at her dad with renewed energy and excitement. “I’m going to be Annie and no one is going to tell me no.”

“Well, even if it doesn’t work out quite how you expect it,” her dad said. “We always need good backup singers and wheat farmers.”

Mandy punched her dad playfully in the arm and together they went downstairs for dinner.

Well, there you have it. What did you think about the story? Let me know by commenting or sending me a message. If you’d like to read along with the audio of this podcast you can find a link to my website in the description. I have uploaded the transcripts for all of the episodes of this podcast to my website and will continue to post them there in the future. If you have any English questions, or just want to have a fun conversation, feel free to schedule a lesson with me on iTalki! I look forward to talking with you. Until next time. Have a wonderful day.