Ratburger Salad



  RATBURGER SALAD

  David Elvar

  Copyright 2009 David Elvar

  ~oOo~

  ONE

  ‘…and keep whipping it until you end up with a light fluffy mixture.’

  ‘You mean like this, Miss?’

  She looked across at his mixing bowl. What she saw did not surprise her.

  ‘No, Jonathan Handley, I do not mean like that,’ she said wearily. ‘What have you done, boy? Put too much sugar in it, I suppose.’

  ‘No, Miss! Honest, Miss!’

  ‘That’s right, Miss! I saw him, Miss!’ said another voice.

  ‘Me too, Miss.’

  ‘And me, Miss.’

  They were doing it again, were closing up in a barrage of voices designed to defend and defeat. They usually succeeded, too.

  ‘Thank you!’ she said firmly. ‘I think Mr. Handley can speak for himself!’

  The barrage ceased, stilled into a wary silence. She looked down at them, at all four of them and their mixing bowls. The rest of the class looked on, as they always did when this sort of thing happened in this lesson, and this sort of thing often did happen in this lesson. They’d warned her at Teacher Training College there would be days like this, classes like this. An awkward age group you’ve chosen to specialise in, they’d said, a kind of limbo, no longer willing to be treated like children yet not quite ready to act like adults. Good luck. You’re going to need it. At the time, she’d laughed…

  ‘I know when someone’s put too much sugar in,’ she said as she moved amongst them, ‘so don’t try telling me otherwise. And you, Anthony Ryan, have used too much milk. And you, Edward Blunden, too much flour. And as for you, Alex Bristow, I can’t begin to think what you’ve done!’

  ‘Well, you did say to put two eggs in, Miss.’

  ‘Indeed I did,’ she said, dabbing at the strange mixture with a spoon, ‘but only the insides, not the shells as well.’

  ‘Really, Miss?’ said Al, eyes wide with affected innocence. ‘Wow! Good job you said before somebody tried eating it.’

  The rest of the class sniggered. Miss Palmer didn’t. She swung round, rapped out a single word—

  ‘Silence!’

  —then was turning back to the four of them, each of them by himself the bane of her professional life.

  ‘Now look, you four,’ she said, ‘if we’ve been through this once, we’ve been through it a thousand times: you are going to learn cookery.’

  ‘Aw, do we have to, Miss?’ said Al.

  ‘Yes, you do have to. It’s part of the curriculum.’

  There was a chorus of ‘Aw, Miss!’ and ‘Come on, Miss!’ and ‘Stuff the curriculum!’ and one lone voice pleading: ‘But cooking’s for girls, Miss!’

  ‘And that, Alex Bristow, is where you’re wrong,’ she retorted, turning on him. ‘What are you going to do for meals when you’ve grown up and left home?’

  ‘That’s easy. I’ll get me mum to send something over.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, boy! Do you think she’s got nothing better to do than to wait hand and foot on you for the rest of your life?’

  ‘Okay, I’ll send out for a pizza, then.’

  ‘Hey, order me one while you’re at it,’ said Jon.

  ‘And me!’ said Eddie.

  ‘Extra pepperoni for me,’ said Tony.

  ‘Or maybe a burger,’ said Al. ‘I like burgers.’

  The rest of the class sniggered again. It was going well. They could tell because now Miss Palmer was really shouting.

  ‘Stop that! All of you!’

  Silence, cold and watchful as before. She turned back to them.

  ‘If your attitude to life is anything like your attitude to cooking, Alex Bristow, I imagine your mother will be heartily glad to see the back of you. And as for a diet of pizzas and burgers, come back in ten years time when you’re bloated and your arteries are clogged with fat and you can’t climb the stairs without stopping for breath halfway up and see if you still feel the same way about them.’

  ‘But I like pizzas and burgers, Miss.’

  ‘Of that I have no doubt,’ she retorted. ‘But do they like you, that’s the question. Now, you four, you can start all over again. And this time, I want to see a cake that melts in the mouth and tastes divine. Understood?’

  ‘But we’ve used all our ingredients, Miss,’ said Al, knowing this to be true and knowing there to be no way round it. They’d planned it well, this time.

  ‘So you have,’ Miss Palmer observed dryly. ‘But what do you know, I just happen to have brought some extra along with me, just in case some careless individual suffered an unfortunate accident along the way.’

  ‘Oh, sh—’

  ‘Yes, Jonathan Handley, including sugar!’ she snapped. ‘Now, there isn’t enough for all of you so you’ll have to make the one cake between you. Go on! You know what to do so find a clean bowl and get cracking.’

  They glanced at each other, each face a mask of something between frustration and resentment. Beaten again. And after all that effort...

  TWO