‘You know, these are going okay,’ said Tony during their next sewing session. ‘They’re really beginning to look like rats.’
‘As indeed they should,’ said Spike, ‘given the work you’ve put into them. Have you decided on the “insides” yet?’
‘I thought Al had sussed that one,’ said Jon. ‘You know! The mince?’
‘I been thinking about that,’ said Al, ‘and I’m not so sure now. When we did that mince last lesson, it got me thinking that maybe it didn’t look enough like rats’ guts.’
‘I disagree,’ said Spike. ‘I think it’s perfect. After all, we’re not looking for a portrayal of reality here, just the merest suggestion.’
‘And you think we can do that with mince? How?’
‘Well, as we saw, when one cooks mince, it turns from red to a kind of greyish-brown. It still looks meaty, it’s just the wrong colour for your purpose, that’s all.’
‘So what we’ve got to do is cook it then put the red back in—right?’
‘Right. Does anyone have any ideas?’
‘Why not just leave it raw?’ said Tony. ‘Tell Miss it’s the way the French eat mince.’
‘I hardly think so,’ said Spike. ‘I think even the French would draw the line at raw mince.’
‘Why? They eat snails.’
‘One species alone,’ Spike said patiently, ‘with lots of garlic. Now come on, we’re not here to discuss the eating habits of our European neighbours. Ideas, please, for putting the redness back into cooked mince.’
‘What about ketchup?’ said Jon. ‘That should do it. Add a bit of taste, too.’
‘Possible,’ Spike mused. ‘Very possible.’
‘Well, let’s go and find out,’ said Al. ‘Tony, has your mum got any mince?’
‘Are you serious?’ he said.
‘Why not? If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to do it properly. No use in trying it on the day only to find it don’t work.’
‘Indeed,’ said Spike. ‘A dummy run, as it were, would certainly prove rather useful at this juncture.’
Tony shrugged agreement. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see.’
They abandoned their rats and clattered downstairs to the kitchen, Tony glancing about furtively as they went.
‘Look in the fridge,’ he said quietly.
‘What are you whispering for?’ Al replied loudly.
‘Sssh! She’ll hear you!’
‘Who?’
‘Her!’
‘But she ain’t here!’
‘She will be. Home from school. Any minute now.’
‘Getting paranoid, you are. She’s only a sister.’ He yanked the fridge door open. ‘Now, where’s this mince?’
Between them, Al and Tony rummaged amongst the sausages, eggs, cheese and something faintly green in a plastic tub that they weren’t too sure about.
‘She should have some,’ Tony was saying, ‘she usually does.’
‘Does she always keep so much food?’ said Spike as he gazed ruefully into the fridge.
‘You wouldn’t know it! Me dad reckons she spends half her life an’ all his money in the supermarket. An’ you should see what she buys! Half of it we don’t eat.’
‘I don’t reckon you could eat it,’ said Al. ‘Like the stuff in that tub. What is it? I ain’t ever seen anything like that before.’
‘I think it’s a pate of some sort,’ said Spike, peering at it dubiously.
‘What, that colour?’
‘I think it’s a mouldy pate of some sort. And I think you should consider throwing it out before someone mistakes it for being edible.’
Tony stepped on the pedal-bin and tossed it in. Even as he did so, Al was yelling excitedly.
‘Got it!’
He pulled from the back of the fridge a cling-film covered plastic tray of something red and bloody that looked as though it had been half-chewed by someone and spat out in disgust. In this state, it looked perfect for their purpose. Unfortunately, it was also quite uneatable. Something would indeed need to be done with it.
‘Right,’ he said, taking charge, ‘frying pan.’
Someone thrust a frying pan into his outstretched hand.
‘Now a little oil.’
Someone handed him a plastic bottle of cooking oil.
‘Now we add some heat, wait for it to warm up a bit, then lob the mince in,’ said Tony triumphantly. ‘Nothing to it, really.’
‘I think you’ve forgotten something,’ said Al, remembering his lesson with Keren.
‘Like what?’
‘Onion, you fry some onion first?’
‘Oh, right. I wonder if me mum’s actually got onions.’
It was, of course, a stupid question. They found them in the larder, and while the oil was slowly warming over a low heat, they set about peeling and slicing half an onion, holding it under running water as they did so (An old trick, Spike had said, stops you crying), and soon, sliced and diced onion was sizzling gently in the pan.
‘How long do we cook it?’ said Eddie. ‘Anyone know?’
‘Until it’s soft,’ said Al. ‘About five or six minutes, and try not to let it brown.’
They waited until it was soft, Al prodding and turning it with a wooden spoon in just the way Keren had told him.
‘Hey, look at me!’ he said as he prodded. ‘I’m a chef!’
‘No you’re not,’ said Jon, ‘you don’t have the hat.’
‘Why do chefs wear them big hats?’ said Eddie.
No one seemed to know. Then Spike was saying tentatively, ‘It’s in case they turn out a duff meal.’
They stopped cooking, turned to look blankly at him.
‘Because if it’s that bad,’ he went on, ‘they can just take it off and be sick in it.’
‘Is that right!’ said Eddie.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Al. ‘He’s having you on, aren’t you, Spike?’
‘A jest that somewhat missed its mark, I fear,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘I rather think my humour is lost on you, sometimes.’
‘Either that or we’re just plain thick.’ He peered down into the pan. ‘I think this is ready. Where’s that mince?’
Tony thrust it his way. He picked it up, carefully turned it out into the hot oil, making it sizzle and spit and send up heady wafts of fried onion.
‘Okay,’ said Tony, ‘how long for this?’
‘Brown it first,’ said Al, ‘then give it a good ten minutes on a medium heat. But first, a little seasoning.’
‘Seasoning!’ said Eddie. ‘What’s seasoning?’
‘Salt and pepper. Do we have any?’
It was, of course, another stupid question. Someone found some, and Al was soon shaking what he considered to be just the right amount into the pan.
‘Now we can cook it,’ he said.
‘Hope you make a better job of it than we did with ours yesterday,’ said Eddie glumly.
‘Yeah, I thought Miss didn’t seem too impressed. What did you do wrong?’
‘Just about everything,’ said Jon. ‘It weren’t cooked enough, that’s for sure. There were still some red bits on top.’
‘Didn’t you turn it?’
‘Uh…no. Nobody told us to.’
‘Well, that’s why,’ said Al. ‘You can’t cook the top from underneath so you have to turn it. Then when the red bits turn brown, you know it’s cooked.’
‘What about the insides?’ said Jon. ‘How do you cook the insides?’
‘You break up the mince with the spatula, check for any more red bits. If there are, just turn them into the oil and let them brown. Watch.’
He shovelled his spatula under the mince and flipped the whole bloody mass over. The underneath was browning nicely, just as it had done yesterday in the lesson. Then he was breaking it up, revealing more red just waiting to change colour. These could wait a while.
‘See?’ he said triumphantly. ‘It’s easy when you know how.’
‘You know,’ said Tony, ‘you’re rea
lly into this, aren’t you.’
‘Not really. It’s just a question of remembering what happened in the lesson.’
‘I’m surprised you managed it with Keren breathing down your neck like that,’ said Jon. ‘You know, you never did tell us how things went with her.’
‘Believe it or not, most of what I’m doing now is down to her. She didn’t know it at the time but she really taught me a lot about cooking.’
‘Yeah, we know, don’t we, guys?’ said Jon. ‘When teacher’s pretty, Al listens.’
‘It weren’t nothing like that,’ Al yelled above the jeers. ‘We was just doing something with mince an’ that’s what we most need to know just now.’
‘Coincidence, eh, Al?’ said Tony, nudging his arm knowingly.
‘Actually,’ said Spike, ‘you don’t know how right you could be about that.’
‘Yeah? How do you mean?’
‘Well, when you stop and think about it, I came along at just the right time.’
‘What, with all your knowledge about sewing and stuff,’ said Al. ‘Yeah, one heck of a coincidence, you’ve got to admit.’
‘But that’s how things seem to work out,’ said Spike. ‘You desperately want or need something and it usually turns up, in one form or another. You just have to be sufficiently vigilant to recognise it.’
‘Sounds a bit weird. But do you really think it’s like that, that it works that way?’
Spike shrugged. ‘It’s my experience, for what it’s worth. Every problem I’ve ever had, every unwanted situation I’ve ever been faced with, there’s always been some answer just sitting there waiting to be found.’
‘Still sounds weird.’ He peered at his friend sidelong. ‘Where do you get all this stuff from?’
‘School,’ Spike replied simply. ‘We’re encouraged to get out there and do a little digging around. In a nutshell, we’re taught to think for ourselves. Can be quite interesting, too, sometimes.’
‘Yeah? Like how?’
‘Learning the lessons of history, for one thing. Helps you stop making the same mistake twice…or more.’
‘You mean like in wars,’ said Eddie.
‘Got it in one.’ Spike paused, thoughtful. ‘It’s like I said, education shouldn’t just be about fitting you out for your place in industry after you leave school, it should also be about fitting you out for life.’
‘But that’s the problem with going to our sort of school,’ said Al. ‘All you get taught is how to add up and where to put the commas an’ full stops.’
‘Pity. I can’t help but feel you’re missing out on an awful lot.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe we’ll start studying all this stuff you’re talking about when we’ve left school.’
‘You wouldn’t be the first,’ Spike murmured. ‘You would not be the first.’ He looked down at the pan. ‘Is it ready yet?’
Al looked, checked. ‘It looks ready. Look at it this way, I can’t see any red bits.’
‘And it’s had a good few minutes,’ Jon added.
‘Then it must be,’ said Spike. ‘Do you have that plate ready, Anthony?’
‘Right here.’
‘Okay, Alex, let us see what we’ve managed to create between us.’
They turned it out on the plate. As it sat there steaming, it looked just as it was supposed to look—mince cooked with a little onion.
‘Don’t look very exciting, does it,’ said Jon.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Al, ‘and this is where we start doing things with it. Where’s the ketchup?’
‘Here,’ said Tony, sliding a red bottle along the table to him.
‘Thanks. Now, just a little, just to give it some colour.’
‘You gonna mix it in?’ said Eddie.
‘No,’ said Spike. ‘That would just turn it from brown to mucky orange.’
‘Just a few blobs here and there, then,’ said Al. ‘That’s what we need.’
‘Make it streaks,’ said Spike. ‘It’ll look even better with streaks.’
Al tried it, trailing thin curly streaks of red over the mince. It looked pretty good.
‘Now stir it ever so slightly,’ said Spike.
Al rummaged it gently with a fork, fusing mince and ketchup in little swirls. By the time he’d finished, it looked even better.
‘Looks okay, don’t it,’ he said.
‘Very realistic,’ Spike agreed. The others nodded approvingly. ‘So which of us is going to try it?’
They all looked at each other but no one seemed about to volunteer.
‘Come on,’ he went on. ‘The idea is to get Miss Palmer to take few mouthfuls of what turns out to be cooked rat. And the more mouthfuls she takes, the better. So it has to taste right and that means one of us has to—’
He never finished. The kitchen door slammed open. A figure appeared in its frame. Long blonde hair. Short black skirt. For some reason known only to himself, Tony started shaking.
‘What’s going on here?’ it demanded.
No one answered. She looked them all up and down, as though trying to decide what to do with them, then her gaze fell on Spike.
‘Who are you?’
‘He’s a friend of ours,’ said Al, jumping in before he could reply. ‘He’s on an exchange visit from Chapworthy College.’
‘Is he now? So what’s he doing hanging around with a bunch of losers like you?’
‘Learning ten good reasons for not having a big sister,’ murmured Tony.
‘I heard that!’
‘Actually,’ Spike broke in, ‘I’m sort of helping them with a little project. The name’s Pike, by the way. Sebastian Pike—though everyone calls me Spike. I’m delighted to make your acquaintance.’
He held out his hand. She took it. Hesitantly. But she took it.
‘Well, at least you know how to treat a lady,’ she said, tossing a warning glance at her brother. ‘So what’s this project you’re involved in?’
‘Just a little cookery practice. We thought we’d try a little something at home before our next lesson. The result you see before you.’
She looked down at the steaming plate. ‘You made this?’
‘Well, not me alone. Bit of a joint effort, really.’
She sniffed at it, her face lighting up in surprised appreciation. ‘You know, it actually smells quite good. What’s in it?’
‘Just mince and onion, a little seasoning and some tomato ketchup to give it a bit of an unusual slant. We were just discussing who was going to try it when you appeared.’
‘So who lost?’
‘No one yet.’ He hesitated, glanced curiously at her. ‘I don’t suppose you’d care to…’
‘Me!’
‘Why not? You look like a lady of refined taste and I’m sure we all would be delighted to defer to your opinion. Besides which, if only one person were to try it, it would only be fair if it were not one of us.’
She looked at him, then at the others, then at her brother. ‘Is what he said is in this really in this?’ she asked coldly.
He nodded quickly.
‘No hidden extras?’
He shook his head just as quickly.
‘Well,’ she said, looking down again at the tempting plate, ‘I am hungry. Oh…okay, I’ll try it. Fork!’
Someone produced a fork as she sat down at the table. Spike and Al glanced at each other: if it passed a test like this then they were home and dry. If not, they’d better think about leaving town.
She picked up the fork, dug it gently into the mince, then raised it to her mouth.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘here goes.’
The first forkful passed her lips. She sat there chewing for a moment, then nodded slowly.
‘You know,’ she said, digging the fork in for a second time, ‘this isn’t at all bad. In fact, it’s really rather good.’
Al and Spike glanced at each other a second time, both thinking the same thing: YES!
‘Flavoursome without being overwhelming?’ said
Spike.
‘You bet!’ she said going for a third mouthful. ‘God, what did you put in this?’
‘Only what we said, just in unusual proportions.’
‘Well, take it from me, it works. You can cook for me any time.’
‘Thank you!’ said Spike. ‘Well, I suggest we leave you in peace to finish your meal. We’ll be back down later to do the dishes. See you then, perhaps.’
She didn’t answer, her mouth full, just waved her fork in their general direction and actually smiled.
Back in Tony’s bedroom, they could hardly believe their luck.
‘We did it!’ Jon was saying. ‘We actually did it!’
‘She turned up at just the right time,’ said Eddie, faintly amazed. ‘Coincidence or what!’
‘Coincidence nothing! said Spike. ‘It’s like I was saying: when you need something badly enough, it always seems to just turn up out of the blue.’
‘She was quite reasonable about it, too,’ said Al. ‘Must be the way we treated her.’
‘That’s a new one,’ said Tony, ‘being nice to a big sister. It’ll never catch on.’
They fell about laughing. Spike turned to Al.
‘I think we’re ready,’ he said simply. ‘What say you?’
Al smiled. ‘I think we are, too.’
THIRTEEN