Week 13 Story: The Aftermath of Johnny-Cake

Author’s Note: The original story that I based my story off of was based around a Johnny-Cake that escaped the oven and ran away from all the people chasing it. It ran away from the family of three cooking the cake, two well-diggers, two ditch-diggers, a bear, and a wolf until it eventually got caught by a fox that outwitted the Johnny-Cake rather than trying to chase after it. Based on the original characters, I made my story to be similar to interview statements from the perspective of some of the characters that Johnny-Cake outran. Therefore, I kept the same characters and end result of the people chasing Johnny-Cake but just changed how the story was seen through the perspectives of different characters. If you were not familiar with johnnycakes, a johnnycake is a cornmeal flatbread similar to a pancake. 

("Johnnycake" by Wanchen Tai via Flickr)

“Never in all my year would I have thought I would see a johnnycake up and running but there it went with my little boy chasing after it. Once I saw our little boy running, my wife and I dropped all we were doing and started chasing after it. Now I was already surprised to see the johnnycake running but even more surprising was how fast it was. All three of us were running at top speed, but none of us could catch it so we all just gave up” – A bewildered father


“I was just doing my job digging this well with my coworker for the village when all of the sudden I see a johnnycake running with a smile on its face. I asked what it was doing and then it started to taunt me saying that it had already outrun three people and it could outrun us too. I looked at the bank of the river we were by and I see three people sitting there out of breath and thought to myself that I was definitely faster than them. Therefore, my coworker and I decided to chase after the johnnycake, but we just couldn’t catch up and we eventually just gave up.” – A tired well-digger


“I was minding my business, looking for food when I saw a johnnycake sprinting through the forest. The first thought that came to mind was that the johnnycake looks like some easy food. I called out to the johnnycake to see why it was running when it said that it had already outran a bear, two ditch-diggers, two well-diggers, and a family of three and that it could outrun me too. Now, I have great pride in my speed, and I knew that I was much faster than any of the people that the johnnycake had listed so of course I started chasing after it. After all, I had to protect my pride and I was also hungry, so it was a win-win situation for me. However, I didn’t expect that johnnycake to be faster than me. It outran me to the point where the cake left my vision, so I just gave up losing not only my food but also my pride.” – A hungry fox

Bibliography: "Johnny-Cake" from English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1890). Web Source.