The Porridge of Knowledge

by Archie Kimpton

  And really, that’s all it was; a silly experiment. What was she expecting? To make porridge and become super-brainy? Even so, as Alfred and Irene said their goodbyes, Milk couldn’t help wishing that something extraordinary might just happen. Whatever that something was, she had no idea. After all, it was just a wish.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE MOST TERRIBLE SMELL IN THE WORLD

  Jarvis tipped the dandruff into the pot and stirred. It was sticky before, but now, with added dandruff, the texture was like glue.

  ‘You try,’ puffed Jarvis, passing the wooden spoon to Milk.

  With two hands, she did her best, churning the mixture around the pot.

  ‘How long do we have to cook it for?’ asked Jarvis.

  ‘It doesn’t say. Let’s get it simmering first and then …’

  All of a sudden, the Most Terrible Smell in the World wafted up out of the pot and into her nostrils. Imagine putting your head into a bucket of used kitty litter. Well, it was nothing like that. It was worse. Seriously.

  Milk gagged, pulling her jumper up over her nose. ‘Oh my giddy aunt,’ she exclaimed, using one of Grandad’s expressions. ‘It’s disgusting.’

  ‘What does it smell like?’ asked Jarvis.

  But Milk didn’t need to answer. Her face, which was rapidly turning a shade of green, said it all.

  The malodorous lump of gooey porridge began to bubble; plop, plop, plop, like lava splurting out of a sleepy volcano. Spirals of thick, foul smoke rose up, permeating throughout the kitchen. It was almost as if the contents of the pot had taken on a life of its own: a malevolent presence, a hideous cauldron of slop.

  ‘This can’t be right,’ insisted Milk. ‘We must have done something wrong. Look at it!’

  The pig’s kidney, which had shrivelled into a gelatinous, black blob, bobbed sluggishly on the surface of the porridge. Jarvis saw limpets clinging to the side of the pot as if they were trying to escape the stinking mixture beneath them. Though he couldn’t smell a thing, Jarvis’s useless nose somehow sent a signal to his brain that whatever was inside this pot was to be avoided at all costs. He looked at Milk. ‘But we followed the recipe exactly as it was written. I don’t understand.’

  But Milk had had enough. ‘It’s a joke, Jarvis. And we fell for it.’ She was annoyed with herself. ‘Whoever wrote this recipe, if they could see us now they’d be laughing their heads off. I knew it was a joke the first time I saw it. I should have listened to myself. What a waste of time. I’m sorry, Jarvis.’

  She pulled the apron over her head, flung it on the floor and marched out of the kitchen.

  Milk sat in silence, skidding a large plastic tomato from hand to hand, back and forth across the table. It was bright red and had a green spout on the top for squirting out ketchup.

  ‘Why don’t we go and take a look at the new café?’ suggested Jarvis. It was his turn to try and cheer up his friend. ‘There’s free sausages,’ he added.

  ‘Half sausages,’ corrected Milk, grumpily.

  Jarvis sat down at the table opposite her. ‘If Carp’s Café’s going to survive, I want to know what I’m up against.’

  ‘Do you really want to go?’ asked Milk.

  ‘Have you got a better idea?’

  Milk looked towards the kitchen where the so-called Porridge of Knowledge lay festering. ‘No. I don’t suppose I do.’

  Jarvis took the plastic tomato out of her hand and put it on the next table. ‘Shall we go, then?’ he asked, getting to his feet.

  Milk sighed. ‘OK, but we’ll just look from the outside. I’m not going in. I don’t want Grease Blanket seeing me there.’

  ‘Who’s Grease Blanket?’

  ‘Nobody,’ replied Milk, putting on her coat. ‘He’s nobody.’

  CHAPTER 9

  LAUNCH

  The Café Smoooth launch party was already in full swing. Revolving spotlights shot brilliant beams up into the night sky and a three-piece band, all decked out in red-and-white-striped suits, played razzmatazz jazz, luring the people of Slopp onto the pier. Beside them stood a stilt-walker, as tall as a house, wearing a frothy-cup-of-coffee costume. His arms protruded from the sides of the giant coffee cup, patting passing children on their heads.

  Milk and Jarvis stood on the other side of the road, in the shadows, watching the happy crowd thronging outside Café Smoooth.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it,’ Jarvis said flatly.

  ‘Nor me,’ replied Milk. ‘Look at that boat.’

  She pointed at an expensive-looking yacht that was moored alongside the pier. It was huge; large enough to house a swimming pool.

  ‘It’s like the whole village has turned up.’

  ‘But they’ll turn up to anything,’ insisted Milk, trying to make things a little better for Jarvis.

  She was right. Any event, however trivial, and the people of Slopp-on-Sea would turn up to have a look. Even a new road sign could draw a reasonable crowd. What else was there to do in Slopp? There was no cinema, no library; even the playground had recently closed down following a series of unfortunate accidents. (When the wooden see-saw collapsed, Fenella Frat was so badly splintered she couldn’t sit down for a week.) ‘Don’t worry,’ continued Milk, ‘the fuss will die down soon enough.’

  Jarvis smiled, but both of them knew that this was very bad news for Carp’s Café.

  Suddenly, from behind, a hand slapped down onto each of their shoulders.

  ‘So nice of you to come,’ smirked Reece Blanket, pushing himself in between them. ‘I was beginning to think you might not make it. Have you seen our yacht? It’s called the Wet Blanket. My daddy bought it two weeks ago. We live on it. I bet it’s bigger than your house.’

  With one arm firmly around each of their backs he began pushing them across the road towards the pier. For a ten-year-old boy, he was surprisingly strong.

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t have any pineapple soup on the menu today, but I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll like.’

  ‘What are you doing, Reece? Get off me,’ snapped Milk.

  But Reece just tightened his grip and kept pushing. He wheeled them past the band, onto the pier, and before they knew it they were inside Café Smoooth.

  It was packed. Every table was full of excited customers tucking into ice creams, biscuits, cakes, hot chocolates with marshmallows and, of course, the complimentary half sausages. A queue snaked all around the sides of the café right up to a glistening stainless-steel counter, where six uniformed staff hurried back and forth, pouring tea, serving cake and expertly swirling patterns into the milky tops of frothy coffee. Everything was decorated in red and white stripes: the tables and chairs and walls and the ceiling and the coffee cups and the aprons and hats of the grinning staff. It was as if a giant tube of toothpaste had exploded and perfectly splattered the whole of the interior. There was even a massive fish tank at one end with a sad-looking dolphin swimming about inside. Just like everything else, the dolphin had been painted in red and white stripes.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Reece.

  ‘It’s like toothpaste,’ said Milk, deadpan.

  ‘That’s it!’ beamed Reece. ‘That’s how Daddy made his money. Toothpaste! He made a fortune. And now he’s branching out into cafés. This place is just the first. He’s planning to build hundreds of Café Smoooths all over the country. He reckons that if people eat enough sweet stuff in his cafés, then they’ll need to buy more of his toothpaste. Double your money. Brilliant, don’t you think?’

  Just then an enormous woman with a fountain of yellow hair stood up and bellowed across the café, ‘Cooeee! Reecey, honey!’ She wore a shimmering green and red dress that made her look like a plump watermelon. ‘We’re over here. Bring your little friends.’

  ‘Coming, Mummy,’ bleated Reece, pushing Milk and Jarvis through the crowds.

  ‘Isn’t it all wonderful!’ exclaimed Mrs Blanket, clapping her hands together like a blubbery circus seal. ‘So exciting. I’m already on my
fourth slice of cakey-wake. And is this who you’ve been telling me about? Is this my Reecey’s new girlfriend? Do you love my Reecey? Not as much as Mummy loves Reecey.’

  Milk was horrified. What had Reece been saying?

  Just then Mrs Blanket grabbed Milk by the waist and dragged her onto her lap. ‘Now, let’s take a proper look at you.’ She clamped her hand around Milk’s chin and yanked her head from side to side, examining her like a judge at a dog show. ‘Well, for starters, we’ll have to do something about your hair. Reecey likes long hair, don’t you, Reecey? Extensions. That should do it. Lovely long hair, just like mine.’ Mrs Blanket poked a fat finger into Milk’s ribs. ‘And she’s a bit scrawny, but we can work on that. No time like the present.’ And with that she scooped up a fistful of cake from her plate and shoved it into Milk’s mouth. ‘Other than that, you could be quite pretty. Don’t you want to be pretty?’

  Mrs Blanket wrapped her plump arms so tight around Milk’s waist she could hardly breathe. ‘Do you want a horsey ride, young lady? My Reecey loves horsey rides, don’t you, Reecey?’

  Milk tried to say, no thank you, she really, really didn’t want a horsey ride, but her mouth was so stuffed full of cake she couldn’t speak.

  ‘Off we go then,’ said Mrs Blanket cheerfully. She began jigging her legs up and down, singing, ‘This is how the lady rides, clippity clop, clippity clop …’

  Milk bounced up and down, her head flopping about like some loose-necked rag doll.

  ‘This is how the gentleman rides, clippity clop, clippity clop …’

  It was getting faster. Milk’s stomach churned. She began to feel sick. She wanted to scream for help but only cake sprayed out of her mouth. Worst of all she knew what was coming next …

  ‘This is how the farmer rides, clippity clop, clippity clop …’

  She felt like a jumbled-up bag of bones riding a rickety rollercoaster that went on and on and on … until, with an enormous ‘Weeeeeeeeee!’ Mrs Blanket opened her legs and dropped Milk onto the red-and-white-striped floor.

  ‘Wasn’t that fun! Do you want another go?’ giggled Mrs Blanket, scooping Milk back up onto her lap.

  And then Mrs Blanket noticed Jarvis. ‘And who is this handsome man? I’m Mrs Blanket. Lavinia. But you can call me Vinnie.’ She extended a puffy, bejewelled hand towards him. ‘And you are?’

  Jarvis looked terrified. ‘I’m J-Jar—’

  ‘Speak up. I’m a trifle deaf,’ trilled Mrs Blanket. ‘Sponge in one ear. Custard in the other.’ She roared with laughter at her terrible joke.

  ‘I’m Jarvis,’ spluttered Jarvis.

  ‘Oh, how wonderful!’ exclaimed Mrs Blanket. ‘I used to have a dog called Jarvis. It died of obesity, poor sausage. And what do you do, Jarvis?’

  ‘He runs that café on the promenade,’ said Reece, butting in. ‘The one I was telling you about.’

  Mrs Blanket looked puzzled, puckering her lips like a bloated fish.

  ‘You remember, Mummy. Pineapple soup!’

  Mrs Blanket roared with laughter yet again. ‘Oh, that’s you! The pineapple soup man. How wonderful! What a hoot!’

  Mrs Blanket grabbed hold of Jarvis’s hand and held on tight. ‘You must meet my husband,’ she squealed. ‘Seeing as you’re in the same line of business. Malcolm! Malcolm! Look at what I’ve got here.’

  She elbowed the man sat next to her, who was passing a bulging envelope to the mayor.

  ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ he snarled, with his back still turned.

  ‘But Malcolm. This delightful man here is Jarvis.’

  Reluctantly, Malcolm Blanket turned and glared at Jarvis. He had a thin, oval-shaped face, over which he wore a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles. Without moving his head he looked Jarvis up and down. Eventually, he said, in a quiet, nasal voice, ‘And why might this man be of interest to me?’

  ‘He runs the other café on the promenade,’ explained Mrs Blanket, still holding onto Jarvis’s hand. ‘And he has a very firm handshake too. You’d better be careful, Malcolm; I think Jarvis here has a crush on me.’

  Apart from a slight twitch in his left eye, Mr Blanket didn’t move a muscle. He just stared. And then, ever so slowly, his lips began to curl back to reveal the most incredible set of brilliant, pearly-white teeth. In his mind, he was smiling. But in all of Malcolm Blanket’s life he had never once smiled naturally. He didn’t see the point of it. Smiling was for idiots. It was only at his wife’s insistence that he had learnt how to smile. ‘It might be good for business,’ she had told him. ‘Put people at ease.’ So he practised; for hours on end in front of a mirror, straining and gurning until he achieved what he thought to be the perfect smile. The actual result was … well, rather toothy and just a little bit frightening.

  ‘You must be Carp,’ he said eventually, still brandishing his teeth like an angry dog. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’

  Jarvis squirmed. It certainly didn’t look as though Mr Blanket was pleased to meet him at all.

  ‘How do you like my new place?’ continued Mr Blanket. ‘Did you know it can seat one hundred and twenty people at any one time? We can make over three hundred cups of coffee in an hour. And my team of bakers can produce six hundred cupcakes in one night, all light and fluffy for the holidaymakers the next day. And the mayor here has just agreed to allow coaches to park right outside Café Smoooth. Haven’t you, Mr Mayor?’

  The mayor quickly put the bulging envelope inside his mayoral robes. ‘Nothing like a bit of competition, eh Jarvis?’ he murmured sheepishly.

  ‘My thoughts precisely,’ hissed Mr Blanket. ‘Nothing like a bit of competition to get the blood pumping. And may the best café win. Though I feel you might have an unfair advantage with your specialist menu. I hear your pineapple soup is, err, breathtaking.’ A strange gargling noise emanated from the back of his throat, like a weasel being strangled. This was the closest Malcolm Blanket ever came to laughter.

  Jarvis looked close to tears. He didn’t know what to say. He felt as helpless as a small, scared child arriving at a big, new school.

  At last, Milk extracted herself from Mrs Blanket’s clasp, took Jarvis’s hand and led him towards the exit.

  ‘Come over any time you like,’ boomed Mrs Blanket. ‘We can start on those hair extensions. Tomorrow, if you like. Oh, you’re going to look so pretty for my Reecey.’

  CHAPTER 10

  ADVANCED MATHS FOR REALLY CLEVER PEOPLE

  The following morning, on her way to school, Milk knocked on the door of Carp’s Café. The blinds were down and no light came from inside.

  She knocked again, harder this time.

  Nothing.

  Milk stepped back onto the road and shouted towards the upstairs window. ‘Jarvis! Are you there? It’s me, Milk!’

  Her voice echoed along the empty seafront, but Jarvis’s face didn’t appear at the window and the curtains remained tightly closed.

  Milk ducked down the alleyway and tried the kitchen back door. It was locked. She banged on it. Nobody answered. She heard a faint scratching and scuttling coming from inside – but it was nothing really. She banged again, calling out Jarvis’s name. A seagull, scavenging near the bins, flew up and hovered, waiting for her to go away. But otherwise everything was quiet.

  At school, Ms Cerise was wearing her best dress, the one she had once stolen from a department store.

  ‘You look nice today,’ greased Reece Blanket.

  ‘Thank you, Reece.’ You would have seen her blush if it wasn’t for the layers of white make-up caked across her face.

  ‘Is it a special occasion?’ asked Melanie Spoons.

  ‘Well, for starters, it’s Friday, which means tomorrow is the weekend and I won’t have to see you lot for a couple of days.’ She wasn’t joking. ‘And, if you must know, I’ve been invited for tea and cake by Reece’s mother, after school today.’

  Apparently, as Ms Cerise explained, she had gone to the Café Smoooth opening the previous evening. There she met Reece’s m
other and father.

  ‘It’s not hard to see where Reece gets his manners from. Delightful people, the Blankets. And Mrs Blanket has such wonderful style. If only my teacher’s salary allowed it, I would dress just like her.’

  Milk couldn’t care less what Ms Cerise was wearing or where she’d been invited. Her mind was elsewhere. She looked out of the classroom window and tried to think what might have happened to Jarvis. He always opened Carp’s Café in the morning, whatever had gone wrong the previous day. For instance, there was the time he accidentally put super-spicy chillies in a child’s birthday cake. Or the time his pet hamster, Bernie, climbed into the oven. Mistaking it for a baked potato, he served cooked Bernie, with baked beans, to a German vegetarian. Every time these disasters happened, Jarvis would close the café there and then, vowing never to reopen. However, come the next day, without fail, he would always reopen, full of enthusiasm to make things better. This was what Milk most admired about Jarvis. His resilience. He was like a plateful of jelly; when he was shaken he could have a bit of a worry-wobble, but the next day he would always bounce back to his normal happy self.

  ‘Am I boring you, Milk?’ asked Ms Cerise, rudely interrupting her thoughts.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Milk, without thinking.

  Instantly, Ms Cerise’s face went deep purple, the colour of her hideous dress. ‘You are a nasty little girl,’ she snapped. ‘After everything I do for you. For all of you! I am a woman of the world, a teacher. My job is to make you into better human beings, but you just spit it back in my poor, poor face.’ Theatrically she collapsed into her chair, covered her face with her hands and pretended to cry.

  Ms Cerise regularly put on performances like this. The class was used to it. Before she became a teacher, Ms Cerise wanted to be an actress. The four days she spent in drama school were the happiest of her life; at last she could show off as much as she wanted. However, on the fifth day she was caught, red-handed, stealing six Seven Dwarfs costumes from the drama school storeroom and was promptly kicked out.