Conceptual Fruit by Thaisa Frank (Detailed Summary) Plus One

 Conceptual Fruit

                                                                                                           Thaisa Frank

Detailed Summary

           ‘Conceptual Fruit ’ is a short story by Thaisa Frank. When the story begins, the family is eating artichokes. Greta’s father is telling his family about a website on the Internet where one can create a virtual street. In that virtual street, one can create a virtual house where one can have many virtual rooms which can be decorated with fruits and a library. But his wife and son, Joel, pay the least interest in this. Though Joel, who is eleven years old, knows computer programming, he loves to do karate. His wife is a working woman who loves to sit in the garden every evening rather than spending time on the computer. Only Greta shows interest in this website.

             Greta is a differently abled and blue-eyed blonde girl of sixteen who has an IQ of a fifth-grade student. She is a hardworking girl. Through her relentless practice, she was able to tie shoes at the age of ten. Also, she is learning to type. So soon she will get a word processing job. She is studying in a special school which is meant for differently abled children. Whenever she hears something, she repeats it which shows how careful she is.

               Seeing Greta’s interest, her father starts to tell about the website where one can make virtual streets, virtual houses, virtual library, etc. He shows Sam’s virtual library. Sam, who is living in Illinois, has made an incredible library of classical works.

              Through this website, Greta’s father has created a virtual street named “Greta’s Street” and a virtual house named “Greta’s House”. For that virtual house, Greta decides to have eleven windows with “sheer” white curtains. She wants to put peaches in blue bowls everywhere.

            Greta's father and Greta decide to put peaches in the kitchen at first. For that, her father makes a virtual kitchen which is named as “Greta's Kitchen”. He asks her to click a bowl. When she clicks the bowl, the word, 'peaches', and its picture have appeared. But Greta is disappointed. She wants real peaches. The father consoles him.

          Then Greta's father makes a virtual kitchen, a virtual dining room, a virtual living room, a virtual bedroom, a virtual room for a cat and a virtual bathroom according to Greta's taste. Suddenly she tells that she does not need a bathroom because it is not a real house. The father tells that Greta can decorate her rooms with apples, pears and flowers.

              As the story ends, the writer tells that Greta cannot have a house of her own because she may live in a “group house” with differently-abled children like her. The father hopes that the house will have everything which Greta has wished for.