The Cow Poo Treasure Hunt

by Theo Baker

  Other than the icky chicken, the rest of the meat department was very poorly stocked. There was a whole greenish-coloured fish that my grandpa Papa Pete must have fished out of the gutter last month. It was pretty slimy and it was looking at me. (Papa Pete doesn’t live with us, but he is always leaving things in our freezer.) We also had one old sausage that was pretty much the same colour as the fish.

  I did find a huge bag of rice in the cupboard, so I thought I’d start there. Get the rice going, you know, and build around it. It was hard to read the directions on the rice packet, because the writing was really small and my brain doesn’t like really small writing, but also because I’d sliced a hole in the bag right where the instructions were. I knew I needed water and a saucepan. And then I heard a tinkling sound and realized I’d been leaving a trail of rice across the kitchen.

  “You’re too complicated, rice,” I said and hurled the packet down.

  I had almost identical problems with a box of couscous, a box of bow-tie pasta and a bag of lentils.

  The fridge was, of course, overflowing with fresh veggies − carrots, aubergines, spinach, some sort of yellowish type thing – but washing and peeling and cutting up all those veggies seemed like a huge chore. Far too big a chore just to eat some veggies.

  If you want to know the truth, I was starting to feel pretty down in the dumps. Everything was either gross or too complicated. I was about ready to hang up my chef’s cap (shower cap) and go and watch the snoring gorilla video when I had a thought so horrible that I slumped to the floor. What if I never learned to take care of myself?

  I imagined being, like, twenty or something really old, with a moustache, of course, and walking hand-in-hand with my parents around Spitalfields shopping centre. Then, while my dad was tying my shoelace and my mum was wiping my nose, McKelty wafted by in his rigid airship and chucked a tomato at my head.

  I would never let that happen.

  Come on, Zipper Man, buck up. You’re wearing the hat, so be the chef. Don’t dishonour the chef’s profession. Give yourself a manly slap to the cheek and get cooking!

  I scanned the kitchen again, this time with fresh eyes. Now, keep it simple, I told myself, just like Ashley said. One thing we had plenty of was pickles. We always do. Because pickles are probably the perfect food. And they go with every meal. I popped the lid off a jar of beautiful kosher dill pickles and poured them in a bowl. Veggies: check!

  Then I looked around for other simple and delicious dinner ideas. We had three cans of baked beans and a whole loaf of sliced bread… Beans on toast! What could be easier? The recipe was in the name.

  I switched on the radio to the Latin jazz station, which is what Dad always listens to when he’s cooking, got the toast in the toaster, the beans in a pot, and lit the flame while I shimmied and rhumba-ed around the kitchen.

  I knew I wasn’t cooking up a gourmet dinner, but everyone knows dinner is just an appetizer for … dessert. And the only proper dessert is, of course, chocolate cake. I had that covered. I’d watched Mum make that a million times.

  I got out the flour and poured it into a mixing bowl before sliding over to the stove and stirring the beans. Then I tapped my way back to the mixing bowl and poured in the sugar. Then a little more sugar. And then all the sugar fell out of the box in one clump onto the worktop. Egad!

  The beans were bubbling, so there was no time to clean up properly. I had to improvise. I lowered my mouth to worktop level and shovelled most of the sugar right in. Then I tapped back to the beans before soft-shoeing over to the toaster.

  I turned up the tunes all the way. I was starting to feel pretty good. Cooking was a snap. This was going to work! I got the eggs out of the fridge, cracked one into the mixing bowl, tossed the shells over my shoulder, and soon I was singing.

  The front door slammed. It was Mum and Emily. They were bickering like mad.

  “I’m not being mean. I just don’t think you’re ready,” Mum said.

  “But, Mum, what you fail to understand is that—”

  “Is something burning? Hank, is that you? Haaannk!”

  Hearing my mum’s voice made me see the entire kitchen through “mum” eyes. All our food was out and opened. Much of it was on the floor, snaking around the kitchen in little trails. Smoke was billowing from the hob and the toaster. It was getting hard to breathe, and hot!

  My beans! My toast! They were ruined!

  And the cake mix looked like, well, you don’t really want to know what it looked like.

  I had approximately 1.4 seconds before Mum got here, which was not enough time to perfect my feast, or hide the evidence. So I shovelled the rest of the sugar into my mouth and hurled the cake bowl, still full of mixture, into the cupboard.

  “Oh, Hank. What have you done?” Mum cried.

  “Hi, Mama! You hungry?”

  She didn’t answer. She was too busy dashing around the kitchen, opening windows, fanning smoke, stepping on eggshells and sighing aggressively.

  And from across the flat came another voice. “Why were you in my room?” Emily yelled.

  I took off my chef’s cap, tossed it into the sink and flipped on the waste disposal.

  “Oh, Hank, for the love of…” cried my mum.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “It is a pretty good dinner, Hank,” Papa Pete said. “The pickles are very tasty.”

  “Thanks, Papa Pete!” I said.

  He smiled and took another bite of the pickle. “Mmm.” Then it was back to the dreadful silence of people eating burned toast and beans and breathing angrily.

  Mum took a bite of black toast. She choked it down with a gagging sound while glaring at me. Emily dragged her fork through charred beans and glared at Mum. Dad spent an eternity scraping the charred parts off his toast. When he finally took a bite, he erupted into a full-on coughing fit until the veins started popping out in his forehead.

  “Drink,” Papa Pete said, handing him a glass of water.

  Dad drank and stared at me, clearing his throat every few seconds to remind me that my food had almost literally killed him. No one apart from Papa Pete had talked the whole meal.

  Papa Pete took another huge chomp of the pickle, drank a huge gulp of water and said, “Ahhh. The water is very good, too, Hank.”

  Mum threw her fork down and sighed. “Don’t humour him. This dinner—”

  “—This dinner,” Dad interrupted, clearing his throat again, “perfectly illustrates why you aren’t ready to go to Spitalfields on your own, Hank.”

  I opened my mouth to say that I wouldn’t be cooking beans at Spitalfields, but Papa Pete spoke up for me.

  “It was his first time. A good try. Let him practise. Gain experience. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.”

  “But he almost burned it down in an evening,” my mum said.

  “Rome?” Papa Pete asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “This flat is my Rome. I am the empress of this flat, and in one evening, he destroyed all my food and nearly burned down my empire, not to mention what he did to my waste disposal.”

  “Your waste disposal?” My dad waved a hand that was wrapped in bloody bandages. “After I sacrificed my good hand fixing it, I would say that it was my—”

  Emily set her glass down with a thud and snorted.

  “Oh, what now?” my dad said.

  “For once, can the dinnertime conversation be about something other than Hank’s mental problems?”

  “Of course, sweetie,” Dad said. “It’s not like anyone ever wants to talk about my mental—”

  “Or the amount of smoke I inhaled,” Mum said.

  “Or the horrible injury to my hand,” Dad said. “But go ahead, Emily. What do you want to talk about?”

  “Three items, thank you.” She took a piece of paper from her lap, unfolded it carefully and laid it flat on the table next to her notebook. “One, why did Mum throw away this take-your-child-to-work letter?” She peeled a slice of tomato off the sheet of paper and chucked it at my e
ar.

  “Er…” My mum took a very long sip of water. “I told you that was a mix-up, sweetie. The letter must have fallen out—”

  Emily ignored her. “Two, why won’t Mum help me to complete my take-your-child-to-work assignment by letting me spend a day with her at the deli?” She opened her notebook to a very complicated-looking graph. “Aside from it being a compulsory piece of homework, I believe I can help you. I’ve noticed a number of inefficiencies that I could streamline. Look.” She tapped the graph.

  “I’d like to hear your ideas,” Papa Pete said.

  “No!” Mum said quickly. “Emily, you coming to work with me … just isn’t a good idea. Remember when Dad took Hank to cover the Olympics and Hank sunbathed on the beach volleyball court? Not to mention the sandcastle—”

  “Three, why do I have to suffer every time Hank does something stupid?” Emily prodded the pile of baked beans with her fork like she was dissecting a frog.

  Dad picked up a charcoaled crust of toast with his injured hand, gasping to show that he was in great pain. After gagging the toast down, he said, “Everyone is suffering tonight, Em.”

  “But no one has answered any of my questions.”

  “Stan, Rosa, can I say something?” Papa Pete asked, and then went on even though no one had said he could. “The kids need to learn about life from life. See the real world and how it works. When I was a boy, I could make a wild boar into salami with my bare hands. They want this too. Maybe not the wild boar, but you know what I mean, eh?”

  “No,” my dad said, trying to grip his fork in his bad hand. “What do you mean?”

  “You are both too … over-protective.”

  My mum’s nostrils were seriously flaring. “Over-protective?!”

  “Maybe that’s too strong a word.”

  “No more words from anyone,” Mum said. “Your empress has spoken.” She sliced her knife through the charred toast, cutting it for what seemed like five minutes. When she finally put a slice in her mouth and chewed, it sounded like exploding fire crackers.

  Dad went on eating with his bad hand and looking worriedly at the bandages, while Emily sat with her arms folded, flaring her nostrils just like Mum. Papa Pete kept looking around at everyone, trying to catch someone’s eye to soften the awkwardness.

  It was unbearable. I just lowered my head and tried to pretend that my beans were edible. They were not. They were unedible. They weren’t even beans any more. They were unbeanable. But I would have eaten everyone’s beans and had seconds if it meant that I didn’t have to sit at that table a second longer.

  Somewhere, on a balcony in the distance, a dog was howling into the night. I kind of wanted to be out there with that dog. Not with that dog. Or on a balcony. But I kind of wanted to be out in the wild with wild dogs. Normally, living with my brain is like clicking through all the TV channels, rapid fire. But for a few moments while I listened to that dog, a single channel was coming through, clear and direct.

  I knew why my cooking-for-freedom plan had failed. I had tried to prove to my parents that I was capable. And that was the problem. What I needed to do was prove it to myself. I also had a pretty good idea of how to do that. But that idea was more horrific than my baked beans. It was so horrific that I took a huge bite of beans just to flush it from my brain.

  Papa Pete took another swig from his glass and said, “It really is very good water, Hank.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You don’t look good,” Ashley said to me the next morning as she and Frankie met me at my front door.

  “I don’t feel good, either.”

  We got in the lift.

  “You’re all greasy,” she said, “and paler than normal, and your eyes … are all bloodshot.”

  “I had a sugar vision last night.”

  “A what?” Ashley felt my forehead and checked my pulse. “I think you need a doctor. Let’s go back and I’ll get my medic’s kit.”

  “I’m fine, Ash,” I said. “I just ate, like, a kilo of sugar, so I was kicking and squirming all night. Plus, I was having all these weird dreams about giant slugs because I ate a load of charred baked beans.”

  “Baked beans? You put sugar in baked beans? What happened to the cinnamon toast?” Frankie asked.

  “It’s complicated, Frankie,” I said. “Let’s just say the cooking-for-freedom plan was a complete disaster. But late last night, I had a moment of − whaddyacallit? − clarity. I know what I have to do. I heard the wolf’s call, and I must answer it, even though I don’t want to. A part of me has already answered it. The wild, you see, I must go yonder into the—”

  “He’s talking gibberish,” Ashley said to Frankie as we got out of the lift. “Get him to lie down here while I get my kit.”

  “Nah, he’s all right,” Frankie said. “Now, I’m talking to Regular Hank. Nod your head if you can hear me, Regular Hank?”

  I nodded.

  “Regular Hank, are you coming with us to Spitalfields tomorrow or not?”

  “Not tomorrow, my oldest and truest friends. But if I live, and I will, I’ll be there in two weeks.”

  They tried to talk me out of it the whole walk to school. I also tried to talk myself out of it, which made Ashley uncomfortable. She was worried I was feverish and kept asking me if I needed to stop and have a rest. But I didn’t stop walking until we were standing in front of the school noticeboard.

  “There’s got to be another way,” Ashley said.

  “Think about it,” I said. “If I can survive a weekend in the wild with Miss Adolf, my parents will see that I can survive an afternoon at the shopping centre.”

  “What good is a shopping centre if you’re a corpse?” Frankie said as I wrote my name on the list. “You’ll never make it, mate. Or you’ll be horribly injured. Or dead and horribly injured.”

  “You think there’ll be horrible injuries?” Ashley asked.

  “It’s Miss Adolf’s Survival Camp. There are always horrible injuries. Remember Ryan Springflower’s neck-brace last year?”

  “Oh, I do. I do remember that.” Ashley seemed to be glowing. She grabbed the pencil out of my hand and wrote her name below mine on the sign-up sheet. “Now it’s your turn, Frankie.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re both sick. You said it yourself, Ash. Hank is sick. And now you’re sick. You’ve got that disease where the doctor thinks he’s got the patient’s disease. What’s that disease called?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” I said to him. “Come on − you can’t let us go without you.”

  “Watch me.”

  “Come on, old buddy, old pal. You want to go.”

  “Um, no.”

  “You want to go. You must go. You feel your arm moving—”

  “Stop using the Force on me. It won’t work.”

  “But it’s working already. See for yourself.”

  And his arm really was moving!

  “You want to write your name,” I said.

  “I don’t.”

  “You will write your name. You will write your name and then you will join us.”

  “Never!”

  “Join us!”

  “This is the Dark Side,” Frankie said. He was writing his name while practically in tears. “You’ve changed, Hank! You’ve changed!”

  Just then the school bell rang, and it sounded so loud and shrill that we all took off in a sprint for class, hearts racing. But it also broke the spell, and I cried out, “What have we done?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  My mum asked pretty much the same thing when she found the permission slip in my bag and realized what it was for. She’s always looking through my bag without asking … and always finding disciplinary letters in there. Mostly because I don’t show her the disciplinary letters. So, I don’t really blame her for looking through my bag without asking.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this. Are you mad?” she said, clearly in shock.

  “It’ll prove I can look after myself.”

&nb
sp; “There are kids still in therapy from last year’s trip. And what about that boy, that boy who just looks at his fish tank all day?”

  “Allan Kelley? Oh, that’s a legend.”

  “Right here.” She pointed to a line of the slip. “It says in bold letters, ‘All pupils will be injured in some capacity.’ That’s not a legend. That’s a binding contract. I’m not signing it.”

  “Ah, let him go,” Papa Pete said from the kitchen. He was cooking tonight, and thank goodness for that. With his cooking knife, he sliced a tomato into a million pieces in two seconds. “When I was his age, I—”

  “When you were his age, it was a different world.”

  “Yes, it was,” Papa Pete said. “If you wanted to be somebody, you had to prove yourself. You had to go outside and build a fire. My father taught me how to be a man!”

  My mum looked over at my dad, who was sitting at the table, hunched over his laptop. “Care to join us, Stan?”

  He was mumbling words into his screen. “‘… But I don’t mean to trouble you, of course. So if you have a moment, could you kindly forward me the ‘Hubolt’ file, but only if you have it handy. Please don’t bother if it isn’t handy. It’s not very important at all, and I’m sure I can manage without it. In fact, forget I even mentioned it. Just pretend you never got this email. Kindest regards, Stan.’ Aaaa−nd send.”

  “Stan!”

  “Oh, right. I give him plenty of lessons on how to be a man, right, Hank?”

  “What do you teach him?” Papa Pete asked. He was now pounding out some dough. “How to write a friendly email? How to use a Satnav?” He pointed the knife at Dad. “That is not a man.”

  Dad bristled. “Last week I showed him how to unclog the printer. And the week before that I showed him how to sort the recycling…” Dad closed his laptop with a sheepish grin. “Right, yes, OK. Maybe he should go to camp. It’ll help him learn about, you know, man things…”

  Mum crossed her arms. “You men and your ‘man things’.”

  “Yes, man things, like nature and self-reliance,” Dad said.