I Always Wanted to Bring Something Like a Dinosaur for Show &Tell

Craig brought a severed head for show and tell.

When I was in third grade my best friend’s name was Craig Day. We were in Mrs. Nichols class and I had a crush on her and Craig and I were the teacher’s pets.

One day, Craig came over to my house and my dad and uncles were in the back yard butchering the deer they had killed during “the deer hunt”. (it used to be a pretty big to do in Utah, back in the day) They cut the feet off about a foot up the leg and they also cut off the heads of these beautiful but dead creatures. My uncle Val had bagged a doe, which was legal that year, and when he discarded the head, my friend Craig asked him if he could have it. My uncle said “sure” so Craig took it home. Craig’s mother had died, and he was the youngest of a lot of kids so I don’t think his dad even knew he brought the severed head home.

The following day in school, we had show and tell and Craig went up to the front of the class with a shoe box. When it got to his turn for show and tell, he opened the box and tilted it up so we could all see, and sure enough, there in the box, was a severed deer head. The eyes were all dark brown and starting to wrinkle for they were drying out and there was dried blood in the box and on a lot of the fur. Mrs. Nichols handled it so nonchalant and nobody even seemed freaked out by it. It wasn’t until years later that I even realized that it was a crazy thing to do.

About 3 years ago, Will Terry was doing a cute book project and the theme was Show and Tell at School, so he came up with this illustration.  I love how he chose to use something so uncommon like a monster, or a deer head. I brought a snake once. I was in fourth grade and we were having show and tell and I happened to have a snake in my pocket that day. I was actually not going to tell anyone but show and tell happened to be that day and I couldn’t resist showing off my long little friend. Mrs. Covey, my teacher, was a lot more freaked out by that than Mrs. Nichols was with the deer head. Makes you want to illustrate children’s books doesn’t it.