Templeton's Rathole: Charlotte's Web Reimagined for the Book-Banning Set
Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, who by all appearances is the actual president of the United States, took her kids to a public library and was appalled by all of the wokeness she encountered. We've all been there, overwhelmed by the woke.
Which got me thinking: It's not enough to ban books. We need to replace them with better books. We could even blow up old favorites to tell the stories that need to be told. To get this initiative rolling, I propose we start with a complete reworking of Charlotte's Web.
What in the world is wrong with Charlotte's Web, you ask? To which I answer: Come on, sheeple, you're not thinking bigly enough. Charlotte’s Web is the Rosetta Stone of wokeness, and if you can't see that, you're blind to the scope of the problem. Talking animals? A snowflake pig named Wilbur? Are you kidding me? First, he's saved from the ax by Fern, an eight-year-old girl, then he's saved from the ax by Charlotte, a girl spider, and the entire time the entire barnyard of animals spends the entirety of their short lives sucked into this ridiculous plot, and all of it for a slab of bacon who can't take care of himself. All he can do is cry about how he doesn't want to die. I mean, come on. Meanwhile, the rat Templeton, one of the only animals in the entire book who demonstrates a modicum of self-sufficiency, is portrayed as some kind of amoral creep.
Nope. We're not doing this anymore. Enough is enough. Here's what we're going to do: We're getting rid of the pig, the girl, the spider, the goose, the gander, the sheep, all of them. That’s right. Our story is going to be about Templeton. Yep, Templeton the rat. Our book will be called Templeton's Rathole, and we're going to tell the real story of the barnyard, 1000% woke-free.
Chapter 1
Mr. Zuckerman takes an ax to the runt pig Wilbur, and the squealing is deafening as blood spatters against the barn walls, because you've got to kill the runts. Everyone knows that if you want a society to function, you’ve got to kill the runts. There's no Fern Arable to save Wilbur, no sir. Mr. Arable sold Wilbur at a deep discount to Mr. Zuckerman due to his small size, and Mr. Zuckerman decides to kill him because it's obvious he's never going to amount to anything. No, there's no Fern wandering aimlessly in the barnyard to help Wilbur. She's back at the Arables in the farmhouse where she's supposed to be, doing chores with Mrs. Arable.
Chapter 2
Some of the pig gore from slaughtering Wilbur has fallen to the barn floor. In the corner we see a pair of eyes reflecting moonlight. Watching. Blinking. It's Templeton. Out of the corner he crawls, massive, muscly, silent, deadly. He silently drags bits of pig back to his rathole. The chapter closes with him eating pig bits. Silently. There is no dialogue in this book because animals don't talk.
Chapter 3
The sun rises over the farm. It's a beautiful summer morning. There's a haze hanging over the fields, dew in the grass. In the barn, the goose's eggs hatch. Out wiggle seven goslings. Out of the corner scurries Templeton, who attacks the newborns, killing three of them in a matter of seconds, tearing their heads from their necks, smearing their blood all over his face. He is purified by the gosling blood. He is made holy by this, the fruit of his labor. The goose looks on with indifference, as this is the way of the barn. Templeton drags the gosling bodies back to his rathole and eats them.
Chapter 4
Templeton goes down to the dump on the Zuckerman property and picks out some random stuff to drag back to his rathole — barbed wire, an empty shotgun shell and a rusty nail. He arranges his new finds in his rathole, but he's not weird about interior design or anything. His rathole looks pretty sweet.
Chapter 5
Templeton eats some pig slops and then poops.
Chapter 6
A pig poops.
Chapter 7
A horse poops.
Chapter 8
Everything smells like manure, like there's just this heavy, damp, manure smell that hangs over everything.
Chapter 9
A sheep riddled with cancer collapses in the barnyard. Mr. Zuckerman comes out with his .22 and shoots it between the eyes. The other sheep look on with indifference. From a shady spot in the barn, Templeton watches the killing, and thinks to himself, It's about time Zuck killed that old fool. He thinks it in a rat kind of way, not like in human language because that's obviously not realistic, but however you say "old fool" in rat.
Chapter 10
A bird flies into the barn, plucks a small gray spider from its web and eats it. That spider won't be writing anything stupid in its web. Nope. It just got eaten.
Chapter 11
Mr. Zuckerman fires the farmhand Lurvy because it's just time. Lurvy is getting older and isn't as productive as he used to be. Lurvy starts to cry and says he needs the money. Mr. Zuckerman is a generous man and says he'll pay him for another week, but that's it. It's a nice offer from Mr. Zuckerman. The farm isn't a charity. Production is down and labor costs are up, and it can't continue. We can all understand that.
Chapter 12
Fern's brother Avery visits the Zuckerman farm and finds a dead possum by the apple tree. He takes a stick and digs it into the possum's head, which is teeming with maggots. Bored with that, he shoots a couple of farm cats with his BB gun.
Chapter 13
From his spot in the barn, Templeton watches it all, the omniscient observer. The seasons change. Animals are born. Animals die. Animals are killed, particularly the pigs, for Zuckerman Bacon is popular with the county folk. Pig after pig are led into the barn by the new farmhand who replaced the farmhand who was fired after the farmhand who was fired after Mr. Zuckerman fired Lurvy. Pig after pig has its throat slit and collapses in a puddle of blood on the floor. Yes, Templeton thinks in rat. Yes, this is the way of the barn.
Chapter 14
A girl rat from a neighboring farm appears. She and Templeton sniff each other and they both know immediately where this thing is going. That night, a full moon rises over the farm in a clear sky. Templeton mounts the girl rat by moonlight and deposits his seed, satisfied in the knowledge that his barnyard reign will continue after he is gone. The girl rat is definitely pregnant.
THE END
That’s how you do it. No talking pig. No talking at all. No tears. No fair. No Ferris wheel. No backflips or trophies or ribbons or buttermilk baths. No spider web signs. No baby spiders. No joy. No fear. What do we want to teach our children? That this is the way of the barn, that's what. It's not anything about seasons changing or life or loss or friendship or gratitude, I can tell you that with certainty. No, it's that this is the way of the barn. You want to cozy up with your little ones and read them something before bed? You teach them that this is the way of the barn. Stop it with all of this coddling nonsense. The pig's a helpless runt? The pig dies. That's how it works. Do you understand that, kids? No one is coming to rescue that pig. No one. Certainly not a talking spider with a charitable streak. All of this ridiculousness has got to stop. You want to succeed in life? Be a rat.