The Proud Pluot

By Nick O'Brien
7th Grade, Stanislaus County
St. Stanislaus Parish School - Judee Sani, Teacher
Illustrated by Sheldon High School

As I was getting tucked into my bed one night, I told my dad that some kids were teasing me at school. Every day they called me names and asked me what I really was because they said there was no such thing as a pluot. Pluots have no history. The apple is in the Bible with Adam and Eve. What has a pluot ever done? I am what they call an allogamy or a cross-pollination fruit. We have not been accepted as equals by the pure fruit. My parents are both pluots, but my Grandma Victoria was a plum and my Grandpa Gold Bar was an apricot. I was curious about who I am and so I asked my dad that night to tell me the story of the plums and the apricots. After setting me on my branch and covering me with my leaf, he began to tell the story.

My dad's mom, Grandma Victoria, was the czar of the Replumican Party. The party believed that the plums were the superior fruit. In 65 B.C., Pompey the Great grew the first plums in some beautiful orchards in Rome, Italy. Plums were also seen near the Caspian Sea 2,000 years ago. Eventually, there were more than 300 varieties of plums! Everybody loved the plums and admired their sweet and sour taste and the skin colors that changed during the season. Dad said that plums are a part of the Prunus family and are drupes. Drupes are fruits with a hard stone pit that covers the seed in the middle. Plums are served dried or fresh and make good juice and wine. The people also loved plums because they were nutritious.

My dad said that grandma and the plums were filled with vitamins such as A, B1, B2, and C and they were antioxidants.

"Antioxidant" was a big word I could not even say, and he had to explain what an antioxidant was and why people liked them. Basically, they help protect your body from bad things like cancer and illnesses; people like to eat things that benefit their health.

My Grandpa Gold Bar was an apricot and senator for the Demicot Party. The demicots thought the apricot was superior and better than the replumicans because they have been around since the prehistoric times and were tougher because they had survived so much. The apricot was there in China in 3000 B.C. and Alexander the Great brought it to Greece during his reign. Our apricot side of the family was also a Prunus and a drupe.

I was confused as my dad told me more and more about apricots. They sounded a lot like the plums on grandma's side of the family. They were both filled with antioxidants and both had similar vitamins in them. Why did the replumicans and demicots fight?

Dad said that the two parties fought so much about who was better and what their differences were that they did not see how much they had in common. It was easy for me to see how similar my grandparents were when my dad told me their history stories. I was wondering how they ever got married if the two parties fought all of the time.

As the party leaders, my grandparents noticed there was a problem between the two parties and they decided to try and talk about what could be done so decisions could be made to improve the Prunus society. My grandpa is a good listener and began agreeing with many of my grandma's ideas from the replumican view. After noticing how well my grandpa listened, my grandma asked to hear his views and those of the demicot party. Soon, they began to understand each other's political views and the two fruits, apricots and plums, lived together in harmony.

Meanwhile, my grandparents fell in love. It was forbidden to like another fruit at the time. Fruits had to stay with their own kind. Gold Bar and Victoria went to a farmer in Modesto, California, and asked him to do the unthinkable. How could two fruits marry and create a completely different fruit? The farmer figured it out and the rest is history... the proud pluot was born. That would be my dad!