Eat my hat

I will eat my hat

Robbie loved his. Apples, pears, bananas, strawberries, anything; he loved the lot. He always took a fruit salad to school and waited with anticipation for lunch time. You could keep crisps, chocolate and pies as far as he was concerned.

But even he was blown away by what he inherited from his grandfather. In fact if he could make it work he would eat his trademark bobble hat. The one condition his grandfather set out was that the 16 year-old Robbie had to use the caravan purely to introduce people to the same wonders and loves they both shared for the delicacies of fruit.

To say he was bowled over by the challenge is to put it mildly; in fact he didn’t know where to start. Why in the name of god could he not have inherited a bike or a phone? The lovely old man had always been eccentric, but this really was the icing on the cake. In fact it was the beautiful, ripe strawberry perched on the top. Luckily, as our fruit-loving friend couldn’t drive, his grandfather had arranged for a local wholesaler to deliver fruit every morning. He had to admit the caravan he was going to use had been done out to perfection. It was spotless, well-lit and even had a kitchen. The walls were covered with pictures of every kind of fruit there was even a set of state-of-the-art weighing scales. It had been provided with love and care and deserved to be treated with love and respect.

He was at a loss as to what to do and spent a good week trying to figure it out. He could go down the traditional route but there was so much competition nowadays. And he was only 16; he needed fun as well. Then it came to him, a fruit only snack bar. He could sell his beloved fruit salad boxes, provide sandwiches and wraps all packed with fruit, he could skewer pineapples and pears, maybe even buy a smoothie maker and possibly, with his mother’s know-how, an ice-cream maker. Fruit doughnuts and flans, maybe dripping in a fruit sauce. The list was endless and Robbie found himself getting excited at the prospect.

The caravan had been left with all the equipment he would need, knives napkins, plastic boxes, even wooden forks. For a while he wondered if this was what the great man had in mind all along. When he found the chef’s apron with his name on he knew for certain. To his grandfather this was all a game, his last chance to keep his grandson on his toes.

So he got down to work. The first step was a chalkboard. People needed to know the menu and the prices. Next, our new-found business expert decided that he needed to produce some leaflets. People needed to know what was coming. He had thought of a name – “Bobby’s Blackberries and Bananas” seemed to sum it up. Then it was off to the printers, and with his trademark bobble hat, the leaflets were dispatched through letter boxes.

It was proving a simple enough task until disaster struck.  A Yorkshire terrier took offence to our friend’s bobble hat. In a few seconds the enraged animal had slipped its collar off and was chasing him, determined to make its point. A little old man was trying to keep up shouting “Biscuit come back here, there’s a good dog”. Good dog! It was wreaking havoc. The quicker he ran, the more the dog ran faster. Quite quickly the dog had caught up. It caused Robbie to fall and twist his ankle before it took a chunk out of his backside and destroyed a hundred leaflets. A window cleaner saw the problem and dispatched a bucket of water over the dog, and of course Robbie. He was saturated with a massive hole in his trouser knee where he had fallen and an even bigger, more revealing hole, somewhere on his backside.

Eventually the dog’s owner caught up.

“Poor Biscuit,” he began, “what an adventure! You’re soaked, come on, let’s get you home for your tea”.

Robbie stopped short of telling the man the dog had already eaten. At least the object of the dog’s desire, his beloved hat, remained uneaten.

It was raining by now, torrentially, so he made his way to the bus stop. He could have walked the short distance but he was limping badly, not only from his ankle, but from the pain in his backside.

He stood quietly in the corner of the bus-shelter and, as he had always been advised to by his father, looked for the humorous side of the situation. Unfortunately, in this instance there wasn’t one. He felt as though people were looking at him and laughing at his predicament, which bearing in mind he couldn’t sit down, was understandable.

On getting home his mother took one look at the situation and immediately took control. Within ten minutes the poor lad was wandering around the house with very few clothes on and horrible smelling antiseptic on his backside. How many 16 year-olds would let their mother do that. Still needs must. Eventually, with his ankle heavily strapped, he limped off to bed. Even this was difficult with his younger brother’s toys all over the floor and landing.

He gave a grateful sigh as he collapsed onto his lovely warm bed, only to fall on top of the cat who reacted with a sharp pair of claws across his arm. It was bleeding but he had been through quite enough tonight. It would be fine by the morning.

Exhausted, he was asleep in seconds. Unfortunately he was awaken by a massive crash as he fell out of bed landing right on his strapped up ankle. All over the floor lay a spilt glass of milk and two now soaked pieces of toast. He realised how hungry he was. Things really were at rock bottom just now.  All he wanted was to get rid of all this responsibility and become a normal teenager again.

Chasing the object of his desire, the vivacious Chloe, was enough to bring a smile even to his dejected face, until he remembered the one obstacle in all this – her boyfriend, big Stevie Watkins. He really wasn’t a guy to be messed with. But, one day, one day, he promised himself, for the thousandth time, he would get Chloe. Watkins wasn’t even that tough. He always walked away rather than help his friends.  Robbie remembered his grandfather’s favourite phrase; “Attack is the best form of defence”.

“Yeah, yeah whatever…” Robbie could be heard to say.

After a day of rest, it was time for the grand opening of “Bobby’s Blackberries and Bananas”. He loved that name. It was inspired, he told himself. With his smart chef’s apron and his trademark bobble hat for the first time in a long time he actually enjoyed having his photo taken. With a smile the shape of a curved banana, his work began.

He was soon buttering bread and chopping strawberries as fast as he could. He seemed to spend his time clearing peelings and generally tidying up. But the customers seemed to be enjoying their lunches so he be doing something right.

Until disaster struck again. Maybe it was partly his fault. He might not have done his research well enough. What he may have failed to realise was that his main rival’s fruit shop was owned by Steve Watkins’s uncle Stan who was not a happy man. The first time that our fruit man Robbie was aware was when a rotten pear hit him on the head.  He looked up, in shock, only to see the full weight of the Watkins’ gang, and what seemed like a dozen hangers, on all marching towards him. He had to think quicker than ever before. Within a few seconds the front shutter had come down and the fruit mobile was locked up and very dark.

He sat in tears at the thud of rotten fruit being wasted as the thugs bombarded him. Heaven only knows what else they were doing; to be honest he didn’t want to know. All he knew was his beautiful, new brightly-coloured, much-loved caravan was being ruined. And he was sitting there and letting it happen. But what could he do?  It was him against what seemed like at least twenty people, all of them after his scalp. Each of them wanting to say they fired the ultimate shot, whatever that maybe.

It couldn’t go on. He picked up his phone and carefully typed in a number. A long five minutes later, a minibus belonging to his elder brother’s football team pulled up. They all jumped out shouting and cheering and an array of footballs was fired into the crowd. It was carnage but, in truth, very exciting. Instantly our hero was outside helping his friends; the Watkins’ gang were fighting a losing battle. True to form, Watkins himself was nowhere to be seen.

“Once a coward, always a coward”, Robbie sneered to himself.

The other traders were out cheering and clapping. They had been plagued by those scumbags for far too long. But of course in the fruit-man’s life nothing was ever straightforward. He found himself launching the biggest, oldest, most rotten pineapple ever seen at the dispersing crowd. Unfortunately it hit an innocent bystander. In all this melee was, the apple of his eye, the ever glamorous Chloe.  It hit her right on the head, splattering all over her recently done hair and sending her glasses headlong into a bucket of rotten fruit peelings. He ran over to apologise but she was long gone. She could never let herself be seen like that. He and the other traders and well-wishers soon had the van cleaned up and looking good as new. There were no remains of the battle on the floor. It was all swept up and tidily tied up in rubbish bags. It was true to say he had arrived and was now one of the traders. At a price though, remember - Chloe!

A new day dawned for our fruit-throwing hero, although it’s fair to say his mind was elsewhere. It was all very well being a principled, hard-working fruit man but surely he deserved at least one stroke of fortune. He had encountered a vicious dog, literally a dressing down from his mother, a bump on the head from falling out of bed and also a large dollop of gang warfare. But what does he get? The dubious pleasure of hitting the kindest, nicest person he knew smack on the head with a rotten pineapple. Life sucks sometimes.

But he had decided it was time to put it all to the back of his mind; he had work to do. He had sandwiches to get ready, smoothies to make and fruit boxes to prepare. It was fair to say his idea had really taken off and people were loving the fresh fruit.

He sang along with the radio as he opened a box of his beloved bananas. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks; instantly he aged ten years. Out of the box crawled two spiders. They were the ugliest, most frightening things he had ever seen. They advanced out of the box menacingly looking for their target. Just the thought of them would have most people screaming and running for cover. He had to protect people but most of all he needed to think. Like most people he hated spiders they freaked him out. He had no time to trawl the internet seeing out how dangerous they were, the creatures were giving him the hard stare. Then he had an idea. He needed to be brave, and he had fruit to feed them on, and a Tupperware box with a snap top lid - maybe, just maybe…

He set about preparing a feast fit for a spider. It wasn’t easy when his hands were still trembling with fear. He shut all the doors and windows and the stake out began.

“Please, oh please don’t tell me there is another one”, he said to himself.

His two prisoners, still awaiting capture continued to give him the hard stare. It was in danger of becoming a stand-off.  Who was the most frightened?

Robbie thought he knew the answer, but they mustn’t know it. His prey had no intention of moving. They were quite happy just staring him out until he did something.

The fruit wasn’t working. Then he had another thought. Would a can of fly and wasp killer work. He would need to be brave enough to get close enough to spray, but it could be a solution to the problem.

However, in all the excitement he couldn’t hear the sound of something under the fruit caravan. Suddenly there was a knock on the door and a shout from a local trader.

“Robbie, come quickly, there’s a young lady stuck under your caravan”.

He couldn’t believe his ears. Why do these things always happen to him? He had to find out what was going on. His two leggy companions, however, were still rooted to the spot; they had never moved. Slowly he edged out of the door, but as he stepped outside he fell over in surprise. Under the caravan was the top half of Chloe, struggling to free herself.

“I’m not sure I want to hear the answer, but why are you under my caravan?”, Robbie spluttered.

Chloe had, by this time, managed to struggle free and stood in front of Robbie with her top torn, mud and scratches all over her face, and her hair in a worse state than he had ever seen. This was the beautiful, radiant Chloe. What had happened? She looked like Worzel Gummidge. She had even lost a shoe.

To cut a long story short, she began,

“I have lost Pixie and Trixie, my two spiders. I was cleaning them out,  turned my back and they were gone. They are so tame and harmless; they can’t hurt anyone. Normally they come back when I call them. They must’ve got trapped somewhere.

“Like in a box of bananas”, he smiled.

Ten minutes later, with the spiders safely returned, the two sat on the caravan stairs drinking tea, eating biscuits and laughing about the previous few days. Robbie couldn’t help thinking that this was the start of better times. If not he would eat his hat.