TumbleDweeeb

The Woman Who Couldn’t Frown
By: Emmitt Owens
A whimsical tale…
(Index #06042026)

Miss Tia P. Puckle had one simple plan:
“Today I shall frown like a serious gran.”
She marched to her mirror and planted her feet,
Then ordered her face to look gloomy and beat.

She lowered her eyebrows and tightened her nose,
She wrinkled it up like a wiltable rose.
But somehow her face made a curious grin,
As if all the sunshine got trapped underneath skin.

She puffed out her cheeks like a pair of balloons,
Then narrowed her eyes like the spoons in her room.
She squashed up her lips till they looked like a knot,
But a frown nor a pout they were not.

She stretched her mouth sideways and pointed her chin,
She tucked both her lips and she pulled them back in.
She looked like a walrus who’d swallowed a pea,
But she didn’t look frowny—not even a wee.

She practiced while hopping on one striped shoe,
She practiced while stirring bright peppermint stew.
She practiced while balancing books on her head,
Yet every attempt made her cheerful instead.

She looked shocked as thunder.
She looked bored as bread.
She looked like a turnip with socks on its head.
She looked like a goose who was learning to dance,
But never a frown showed its face by mere chance.

At last Tia sighed and she flopped in a chair,
With hands in her lap and a stare at the air.
“I’m simply unfrownable, that’s what I am.
A smile-stuck potato. A joy-covered yam.”

But then came a hiccup, a snort, and a squeak,
A wobble that started way down in her cheek.
She spotted herself and burst into delight—
And laughed so hard she giggled all night.

So if you meet Tia on Thursday or noon,
Or Tuesday in April, or sometime in June,
Don’t ask for a frown, don’t wait, don’t insist—
Her face never learned how to make one exist.