Enter the World of David Bagel!

OH MY GOODNESS! AS REQUESTED BY ‘CHRIS’ AND ANOTHER CHAP CALLED ‘DEREK PLUGGER’ I AM DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE THAT CHAPTER 3 HAS BEEN ADDED FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE!

CHAPTER 3 IS, ACCORDING TO LANCE DIBBLE OF ‘THE FOOD AND FUN DAILY’, “BETTER THAN YOUR AVERAGE CHEESBOARD, MUCH BETTER THAN FINDING A MOUSE IN YOUR CUPBOARD AND NEARLY AS GOOD AS FIVE WOMEN IN STOCKINGS”…

Hello chipper folk.

Sometimes you don’t necessarily need to know that McGurk has burped up a weasel, or Thomas G. Putty (my manager and a very good friend) has come in second in the annual ‘Fencing for a Pointless Charity’ competition, or even that my lovely housekeeper, Mrs Janet Fettiplace, has dropped cream cheese on the kitchen counter.

For those occasions I introduce your weekly dosage of David Bagel, an Oliver Twist for the contemporary reader. Here for the first time, exclusively available on Barry Carrot’s one-day-World-famous blog, is ‘THE TRAGEDY OF DAVID BAGEL’…

CHAPTER 1: (PROLOGUE TO FOLLOW AT SOME POINT BUT DON’T LET THAT WORRY YOU)

Five Davids were born on the same day in the same hospital during a particularly wet March and four of those Davids grew up on the Old Kent Road, near the Elephant and Castle in London, England. The other, and final, of those Davids was moved to Hendon, North London by his father, Saul, and his mother, Sabrina, who were of the opinion that the Old Kent Road was no place to raise a new born child. This solitary David ended up living in a road of several other Davids, twelve to be exact, all of different ages.

This David was David Bagel, born David Burgerman, and David Bagel, née Burgerman, was what is commonly known in medical terms as a ‘phenomenon’. In layman’s terms, and most probably in the vocabulary of the other four Davids and their contemporaries down the Old Kent Road, Saul and Sabrina’s David would be referred to as a ‘freak’. David Burgerman was born without any trouble at exactly the time predicted, he weighed a very healthy weight and had an excellent crop of hair. David, however, had one very odd characteristic; his body, below his neck and above his waist, was shaped like a bagel. The doctors were baffled. Had Saul or Sabrina been over-zealous users of narcotics they asked? No, replied Saul and Sabrina. Sabrina had, once, at college, inhaled from what was known to her as a ‘reefer’. Was this narcotics, she asked? Yes, replied one of the doctors, a ‘reefer’ is slang for marijuana he added. Sabrina pretended that this was news to her by puffing her cheeks out and saying ‘well, golly’ a couple of times but the doctors weren’t fooled and there was a great deal of eye-brow-raising and a little soupçon of note-making. Needless to say, at the end of the note-making, the doctors did not believe a bagel-shaped body would be a creditable result of one puff from a narcotic substance. Genetics was ruled out also since no one in either Saul or Sabrina’s families in the last two hundred years had ever suffered from ‘bagel-itis’, as David’s Uncle John rather cruelly called it. Can you think of any reason your son could have been born like this, asked the doctors, looking at David, then looking at their clipboards, then looking at the various charts that adorned the young baby’s hospital cot? Saul shook his head and the doctors looked at Sabrina. Sabrina nodded and the doctors looked back at Saul. Why are you looking at me, asked Saul, she’s the one that nodded? The doctors looked back at Sabrina who burst into hysterical tears. A rather large, matronly-looking nurse was asked in and she supplied Sabrina with hard, but legal, drugs and Sabrina fell into a very deep sleep for the next forty-eight hours, where she had a dream of a Romanian castle burned to the ground by an evil old crone.

“Sabrina? Sabrina? Are you ok?”

“It’s OK Mr. Burgerman, just give her a few minutes to re-adjust. She has been under some heavy medication so she may be a little hazy for a while and possibly not recognise any of us”

After a few minutes, as the smart doctor had stated, Sabrina sat up as her eyes began to focus on the various bodies that surrounded her bed. Saul she recognised obviously, and the nurse she remembered as the ‘rather large matronly-looking nurse who gave me that strong medication that I took just before I must have nodded off because I can’t remember anything since then’. The rather large matronly-looking nurse seemed rather put out at first but she didn’t stick around too long; presumably there were other hysterical patients in need of a strong dose of something in order to calm them down. The doctor she just could not recognise. I’m the doctor, said the doctor, whose turn it was now to look rather put out. Ah yes! The doctor! remarked Sabrina, whose memory was now returning to her, full flood. The doctor who was asking me whether I knew of any reason as to why my baby boy has a body in the shape of an ‘o’ (for at this time no reference to the word ‘bagel’ had been made). The doctor nodded. It is a curse, a family curse, announced Sabrina, sadly. Everyone in the family is afflicted, my father for instance had legs nearly twice as long as the average man. The doctor chortled in a way that annoyed Sabrina somewhat and she certainly didn’t appreciate the humorous question he posed as to why her father had not been the greatest basketball player of his age, ha ha? She told the doctor how her father had been a miner from the age of sixteen but the day his daughter (Sabrina) was born, when he was twenty-two, his legs just grew and grew and grew and he was no longer able to fit down the mines. Unqualified for anything else and ridiculed by the prejudiced minds of the mining community in which he lived Sabrina’s father Joseph joined the circus, billboarded as a caricature holding a baby with the caption below, ‘THE HUMAN DADDY LONGLEGS!!!’

“What, Sabrina, may I ask, is your cursed fault?”

“I’m not telling, it’s pretty horrible”

“It’s just one of those unfortunate things” interjected Saul

“It is not! It is the family curse pure and simple”

Saul harrumphed.

“Anyway, is it not a curse enough to give birth to a boy who is shaped like an ‘o’?” added Sabrina, a solitary tear rolling down her cheek.

“Yes, indeed”, agreed the doctor, “curse enough indeed”

Both Saul and Sabrina looked at the doctor, appalled. The doctor realised his error and retreated towards the doorway citing an ’emergency enema’ that needed to be performed on Mrs. Applegate in room 302. Immediately.

Three days later Saul, Sabrina and the baby David took their leave from the hospital. Despite the concerns of all the doctors there were no grounds on which to keep a healthy baby in for monitoring, despite the ungainly ‘o’ shape of his little body. The Burgermans decided to take a taxi home rather than use the public bus.

Over the first two years of David’s life Saul and Sabrina kept their son as sheltered from the public eye as much as possible. Even family visits were kept at a premium after evil Uncle John, when asked if he would like to hold his month-old nephew, replied, no I doughnut want to touch him, ha ha! Everything that David needed was available right there in their 1930s three-bedroom semi-detached house with large garden. Or so said Sabrina. What possible need could there be for him to leave the house, save perhaps an emergency operation or a visit to his long-legged grandfather, who was unsurprisingly tolerant of David’s slight bodily defect? But young David Burgerman, as scampish wee children often are, was an exploratory little thing who loved to stare out of the front windows at the children playing in the street, who ran around the garden without a care in the World, the happiest child alive, and who, bursting with an enthusiasm to seek out pastures new and wishing to unshackle himself from the cruel constraints of a 1930s three-bedroom semi-detached house with large garden, dug a hole. And he dug this hole in the farthest corner of the garden, behind the shed where his father kept the mower and spiders bred undisturbed, sheltered by the darkness of the over-hanging trees. And the hole got bigger and bigger until one day, aged four and a half, David had finally achieved his goal.

“’Ere, come and ‘ave a look at this dear” said Fred Dimple

“I am cooking the ‘addock dear. The ‘addock don’t cook itself” replied Sylvia Dimple

“Screw the ‘addock dear. Come and ‘ave a look at this freak o’ nature”

Sylvia, always one to stare and gawp at a freak, came to the window.

“Ooh my Lord, it can’t be more than five or six!”

“Oo cares how bloody old it is, look…it’s got a bloody great ‘ole in it’s body!”

“Try and keep it there Fred while I go and get the camera. Don’t let it run away now”

There was a rap at the front door of the Burgermans’.

“I am making falafels Saul, would you mind answering the door please?”

“Hello, how can I help…oh…”

“’E yours, is ‘e?” yelled some woman who looked like a fish / human hybrid, thought Saul, through her large, horrible-looking, over-lipsticked pink mouth.

Saul looked around at the crowd of at least forty people who had gathered close, but not too close, to the scene which was unfolding.

“Yes”, said Saul ever-so-quietly.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but I can’t ‘ear you. Is this…doughnut boy ‘ere, the one wiv the big old ‘ole in ‘is belly…” emphasised the fish woman, “…does ‘e belong to you, Mr Burgerman?”

“Looks more like a bagel to me”, commented a man whom Saul recognised as David Weinstein from number 57 (the house with all the pillars) a little louder than he had intended. Mrs. Weinstein gasped and collapsed to the ground. No one paid her any attention though, everyone was too caught up staring at this phenomenon, or rather freak, of a boy whose body was a hole, even Mr. Weinstein.

“May we come in” said the fish woman, “please?”

Saul just stood there, unable to speak, not knowing what to do. He looked around at the gawping faces.

“I think you should let us in” whispered the ghastly lips, “we wouldn’t want to conduct our business in front of all these folk, would we?”

“Business?” said Saul finally.

“’Ave you got a telly?” asked the bulbous man stood next to the woman who looked like a fish / human hybrid. “I can jus’ sit down in front o’ the box while you lot sort out what needs sortin’ out”

The woman gave the man a glare who looked at his feet with an embarrassed look on his face.

Saul let these strange people in and introduced them to a shell-shocked Sabrina who wept as she took David up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Hello? How can we help you?” asked Saul, who had recovered his composure somewhat.

“Well, my name is Sylvia Dimple and this is my husband, Fred. We are your next-door neighbours”

“’Ello”

“Yes, of course… We have seen you, through the window…”

“I just ‘appened to be ‘anging me washing out in the garden…”

“No you wasn’t…”

“Shut it! …when I got the biggest shock o’ me life”

“You was cookin’ ‘addock…”

“Shut it I said!”

“Well, which was it?” asked Saul, a little confused. “Were you putting the washing out or were you cooking haddock?”

“As I said, Mr Burgerman” snarled the lips of fishy evil, “I was puttin’ out the washing, and Mr. Dimple…”

“Fred, ‘ello again…”

“…Fred was cooking the ‘addock for our supper…” She seemed to give her husband a kick under the table.

“Oh!…Yes!…I was cookin’ the ‘addock, weren’t I?! I completely forgot!” said Fred, rather unconvincingly, rolling his eyes around and slapping his thigh for some reason or other.

“…and jus’ as I was ‘anging up me good dress, there ‘e was, your son, wiv the ‘ole in ‘is belly and ooh if ‘e didn’t give me an ‘eart attack!”

Saul remained silent for he now had suspicions as to where this was leading.

“Oh, ‘ow ‘e took me by surpise, so ‘e did. Made me drop me dress in shock, like” added Sylvia for good measure, “and ‘where’ I asked myself, ‘where did ‘e come from’?”

“Where did he come from then?” asked Saul

“Why, ‘e came from a giant ‘ole at the end of my garden”

Saul said nothing. Fred said nothing. Sabrina came into the kitchen, evidence of tears etched on her face.

“My prize lawn, ruined” whispered Sylvia, who seemed to give her husband another kick under the table.

“Oh, yeah!” piped up Fred. “Totally destroyed. Not to mention the…um…”

“Fence” chipped in Sylvia.

“Yes, the fence. Foundations must be ruined”. Fred slapped his thigh again for some reason.

“Foundations? Of a fence?” Sabrina looked confused. “What’s going on Saul?”

“Well dear, I think these people, our neighbours are suggesting that David has dug a hole into their garden and as a result has rather ruined a rather expensive lawn and damaged the ‘foundations’ of the fence in the  process”

“Destroyed, I should say…” added Sylvia.

“Wait a minute…” Sabrina was trying to get her head around all of this. “…isn’t it our fence?”

“Absolutely not! And it’s ruined! The ‘ole fence shall need replacin’…”

“I think Sabrina” said Saul, solemnly, “that the Dimples are suggesting that we pay them for repair of the fence and lawn”.

“Not to mention my good dress. Ruined!” said Sylvia, sadly. She turned to Sabrina. “An Audrey ‘Epburn original you know. Irreplaceable”.

“So, how much do you feel we owe you for all this ‘damage’?”

“Five ‘undred pound…” suggested Fred, who got another kick.

“At the very least” interrupted Sylvia, “five thousand pound, I should say. At the very least”

Sabrina silently burst into tears again.

Saul mulled it over, silently. “No” he said, finally.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” said the fishy mouth aggressively.

“We shall hire a gardener of our choice and we shall have your lawn returned to it’s previous state” said Saul, very matter-of-factly, “but we have no reason to pay for repairs to our fence, if it even needs repairing at all”.

Sylvia seemed to turn a very dark shade of red. Fred was oblivious, staring at a painting of a unicorn on the kitchen wall.

“What about my dress?” she hissed.

“Well, we can come round to yours now and have a look at it”.

The fish pout twitched but said nothing.

“If we feel it is damaged beyond repair then we shall recompense you towards a new dress”.

“My husband is a solicitor” whispered Sabrina to Fred, who had now ceased his inspection of the kitchen artwork. He looked suitably impressed.

“If you can show me proof of it being an Audrey Hepburn original then we will without doubt pay you accordingly”.

The human fish stood up, grabbing her husband by the scruff of the neck. “You, Mr Burgerman, ‘ave made a very big mistake”.

“How’s that?” countered Saul.

It turned out that Mr. and Mrs. Dimple had photos of David, ‘the boy wiv the ‘ole in ‘is belly’ as they kept saying, on the camera that Mrs. Dimple took out of her handbag and waved around a great deal. The rest of the country would want to know about this freak o’ nature she said and it was ‘er duty to take it to one of them tabloids to reveal the truth, probably the Sun. The price for the photos, she said, had doubled to ten thousand pound she said because the Burgermans had decided to play ‘ardball. Saul doubted that the Sun would want to pay anymore than two thousand for pictures that may not even develop to which Mrs. Dimple replied that the Sun had already offered ‘er twelve thousand pound but she was a nice lady and so she would settle on ten thousand from the Burgermans on grounds of compassion. Saul thought that if Mrs. Dimple was a compassionate woman then she would have offered a tearful Sabrina a tissue by now. Mrs. Dimple thought it the ‘usband’s duty to ‘elp ‘is missus wiv the waterworks and wondered if they weren’t really them crocodile tears which ‘er sister Mavis put on when ‘er husband found out she’d been doin’ the dirty on ‘im. And besides, she wouldn’t offer that freak-bearer an ‘anky if she were the last person on earth. Saul asked Mrs. Dimple why the hell she thought he would pay her ten thousand pounds when he wasn’t even prepared to pay the money-grabbing witch five thousand in the first place and that if any photos appeared in the Sun newspaper or any other shitty tabloid for that matter that then she could expect to be paying a great deal in legal costs. Mrs. Dimple shouted legal costs! legal costs! a few times and then declared that ten thousand pound had been ‘er price for what she called freak costs and that the price were now twenty thousand pound, take it or leave it. Saul, who was very angry by now said he understood why she needed that much money since it would cost at least twenty thousand pounds for reconstructive surgery on her mouth at which Mrs. Dimple broke down into what Saul thought were crocodile tears. Mr. Dimple thought that Saul was out of order and e’ should apologise for ‘is unfair comments. After all, it weren’t Sylvia’s fault that she took after ‘er mum. Saul agreed and apologised to Mrs. Dimple who told him to piss off and ran out of the house pausing in the doorway only to say that David should be careful about diggin’ ‘oles because one day if ‘e ain’t careful ‘e’d dig an ‘ole in ‘imself, but oh my, oh dear, ‘e already ‘as, to which Saul slammed the door in her face. You ‘aven’t ‘eard the last of us she yelled back through the closed door.

And she was true to her word. Three months later pictures of David appeared in various tabloid newspapers over Great Britain; a startled-looking little boy wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, grubby feet and grubby hands and, of course, an ‘o’ for a body. The Sun went with the headline    ‘ ‘O’ Dear! ‘, while the Mirror offered up ‘ Freak ‘O’ Nature! ‘. As true as Sylvia Dimple was to her word, so was Saul Burgerman. He sued Mrs. Dimple over invasion of his son’s privacy to which Mrs. Dimple counter-sued over allegations of trespass, this in turn being counter-counter-sued by Mr. Burgerman with claims of defamation of character. Saul Burgerman, naturally triumphed although Mrs. Dimple’s ‘bad health’ due to ‘shock’ having seen such an example of ‘physical child neglect’ meant that only half the money she had made from the sale of the photos was paid over to the poor Burgermans, the other half being permitted to be used for her on-going ‘medical treatment’. Or a one-way ticket to Hawaii as it turned out.

But the damage was done; everyone knew about poor little David. Nationally, David’s fame lasted less than twenty-four hours, mainly due to the sensational scoop that a dog called ‘Boris’ had bitten the Queen on the leg, but in Hendon and the surrounding parts of North London David was now celebrity. There were many knocks upon the door of the Burgermans’ home, not of local journalists pursuing further inroads into the life of the poor misshaped boy but of children and teenagers, come to see the local freak and shout abuse at Sabrina, who had grown tired of the attention (not that she had ever welcomed it) and was starting to show the premature greying hairs of her anguish. These nuisance youths had come to know Sabrina as the ‘Bagel-bearer’ (such was the popularity of such food around these northern reaches of London) and David had become the elusive ‘Bagel Boy’. They taunted and teased the poor woman, asking her if she had any plans to give birth to a falafel in the near future. We must move said Sabrina to Saul; how can we continue to live like this? Where should we move to Sabrina, asked Saul, do you really think it will be any different anywhere else? I don’t care said Sabrina, I can’t take it anymore. The conversation was the same every night but not once did they think about David, who was now due to start school.

CHAPTER TWO

“Here at St. Barnabus’ we believe everyone is equal and should be treated as such”

            “He’s very different Mrs. Reeves…”

“Different is the way we like it here at St. Barnabus’, Mr. Burgerman. Different, in our eyes is special. And different and special children should never follow convention, Mr. Burgerman, Mrs. Burgerman.

“He’s not special as such, Mrs. Reeves, he’s a very bright boy and we’re not sure his acceleration of learning would be as beneficial here as perhaps…”

“Mr. Burgerman! We are not running some kind of boorish establishment for children blighted by mental inferiority or behavioural disaffection! This is a pinnacle of educational excellence for the bright child who suffers as a result of the cruel finger that society decides to point at the physically outlandish!”

“Would he be learning at a rate equal to that of a standard comprehensive…?”

“Mr. Burgerman” whispered Mrs. Reeves, an unfortunately hirsute woman of fifty-five with one good eye and one of poor quality glass and of a colour different to the ‘original’, “the question is not whether we are good enough for David, it is whether he is good enough for us”.

“Do you mean he would have to take an exam?” asked Sabrina nervously.

“An exam of sorts, Mrs. Burgerman, of sorts” Mrs. Reeves stroked her hairy chin. “You may remember, Mrs. Burgerman, that I stated our belief here at St. Barnabus’ is that everyone is entitled to equality…hmm?”

“Yes Mrs. Reeves”

“Consider this; we have over three hundred children at this school, all of whom would be taunted and victimised at a school of, how shall we put it, conventional learning. These children would suffer, not just from the cruel insult of the churlish bully, but from the time spent in the office of the school psychiatrist as consequence of these degrading words. Children can be so cruel…” Mrs. Reeves paused for a brief moment and shook her head ever so slightly. “We have here, Mr. Burgerman, Mrs. Burgerman, children with overly-large heads, children with withered hands, one boy even has a crab-like claw on the end of his arm! We have Siamese twins and children who have their lips stuck together so they can only communicate by way of semiotics, well…when I say children I mean child…” She paused again. “But my point is, how would David react to these children?”

“I would imagine he would be delighted to…”

“Would he tease and taunt like the playground bully?”

“No, I rather think….”

“Would he mock the child that is more afflicted than he?”

“I don’t think so…”

“Would he be prepared to prove his moral worth in a behind-closed-doors interview with me, Mr. Burgerman, Mrs. Burgerman, to prove that he would fit in here, in this school of liberté, egalité, fraternité?!”

“Look Mrs. Reeves, he’s only just turned five. I don’t think it would be appropriate to leave a five year-old in such an environment on their own…”

“Do you want your son to be considered for this establishment or not!?”

“Yes, but…”

“GOOD! Then please direct him in and instruct him to close the door behind him!”

David’s parents came out of the room with the green door and the big brass handle and approached him with rather silly looks on their faces, he thought. His dad told him that he needed to have a little talk with a woman called Mrs. Reeves if he didn’t mind, but not to be put off by the fact that she talks very loudly and interrupts quite a lot. Oh, and definitely don’t mention anything about all the hair on her face. She was definitely a woman, said his dad. Not a man. David said he would be happy to see Mrs. Reeves and he definitely wouldn’t mention any hair on her face but could mummy come in with him? Could mummy come in with him please corrected Saul. David asked the question again, correctly this time, but was told no, mummy could not come in but she would wait just outside and she had x-ray vision so she could see through the door to check that he was ok and if he did this, just this once, and just to reiterate did not mention the hair on Mrs. Reeves face, then mummy and dad would buy him a toy dinosaur afterwards and make him falafels for tea. David said ok and then asked if Mrs. Reeves would know if there was a class for digging holes because he hoped there was a class for digging holes. Saul said not to ask Mrs. Reeves this question and gave him a hug and told him to knock on the door and go in when Mrs. Reeves told him to go in. David knocked on the green door with the big brass handle.

“ENTER!”

David pushed open the heavy door and disappeared inside the office of Mrs. Reeves.

“David?” said Saul, worried. “What happened? You could only have been in there for, what…?”

“Thirty seconds” said Sabrina, looking at her watch.

“She told me to leave” said David, not giving too much away emotionally.

“You didn’t ask her about the digging, did you?”

“No”

“Or about the hair on her face?”

“No”

“Then what happened?”

David sat down between them and held both their hands. “When I went in she was drinking tea because when she looked up at me she spitted it out and it looked like tea. And then she said sorry for spitting out her tea and then she said ‘oh my God’ two times and then I said ‘hello. My name is David’”

Saul and Sabrina looked at each other, fearing the worst. They asked David what happened next.

“And she looked at me a bit funny and then she said I was a freak and I can’t come to this school and then she said to tell my mummy and daddy that she was very sorry but there is a twenty year waiting list so I can’t come to this school”

David’s parents were a little shocked and did not say anything. They just sat there and held David’s little hands a little tighter.

“Can I still have a toy dinosaur?” asked David

“Can I still have a toy dinosaur please” corrected Saul

“Can I still have a toy dinosaur please?”

“Yes”

“Is there another school I can go to?”

“Is there another school I can go to please”

“Is there another school I can go to please?”

“I’m not sure…”

David sat on the floor, cross-legged in his little grey shorts, wearing a maroon and yellow striped tie and some very dapper-looking, polished black shoes. It was assembly time at St. Burgerman’s School for the Cursed and Enigmatic and the Head Mistress, Mrs. Burgerman was announcing the winner of the spelling competition.

“Could David…” she squinted at the hand-writing on the piece of card, “…Burgerman please come up here and collect his prize? Well done David!” She beamed and clapped as David made his way to the front of the hall. They shook hands and Mrs. Burgerman presented David with a his prize; a toy stegosaurus. For good measure Mrs. Burgerman asked David to spell ‘stegosaurus’. The victorious young boy returned to his place in the assembly hall and once more sat cross-legged between his two best friends, Mr. Bear the stuffed bear and Juggles the talking clown.

“Look at my prize!” said David to Juggles and pulled a chord in his back. Juggles laughed manically.

“It’s not funny! Why are you laughing at my prize?” asked David angrily and pulled the chord in Juggles back again.

“Time to throw some custard pies!” announced Juggles.

“David Burgerman!” said the head mistress very loudly, so that everyone in the hall could hear, “assembly is a time for dacorum, young man, not to argue or fraternise with one’s friends!”

“What does fraternise mean Mrs. Burgerman?” asked David, a keen learner and probably the school’s star pupil.

Just then the telephone went. “Sorry dear, I shall just be one minute…Oh, hello Brenda!…how are you?…how was Tenerife?…oh, very nice…not really, David’s just at school right now…oh, thank you!…yes, he’s doing very well…top of his class!…I can call you back at lunch…ok, great, speak to you then…bye!” Mrs. Burgerman hung up the phone just in time to see David pulling Juggles’ hair. “That is enough of that David Burgerman! You will be spending your lunch-time in detention with me!”

David was upset, and rightly so. “It’s not fair, Mrs. Burgerman, Juggles was laughing at my prize”.

“Sticks and stones, David, sticks and stones. We teach you at this school to rise above the taunts of the bully, do we not?”

“Yes Mrs. Burgerman” said David, meekly.

So, that lunch-time David followed Mrs. Burgerman to her office, where she put on the kettle and made a sandwich for herself and David. Usually David was allowed to spend lunch in the catering hall, where he sat at a big mahogany table with candlesticks and placemats with all his friends. Recently, Mrs. Burgerman had had a small television installed where the eager students could watch educational programs while they ate. Often these programs were of a scientific nature and explained how some people suffered from physical abnormalities such as overly large heads or withered hands. David liked these programs a great deal and so he was not very pleased to be spending his leisure time in Mrs. Burgerman’s office, especially since he was also being joined in detention by Ron the cuddly pirate. He had Ron had fallen out last week after Ron’s velcro hand failed to hold the fabric cutlass that David tried to put in it. Ron the cuddly pirate had been put in detention for flopping over during ‘story-telling’ but David was a little suspicious as to whether Mrs. Burgerman was just trying to get the boys to make up. Mrs. Burgerman, it turned out, had a call to make and so was going to leave the room for a few minutes but if she found out that David had got up to anything bad, such as leaving the room or playing unfairly with Ron the cuddly pirate or looking in the fridge for sugary snacks then there would be trouble alright. David promised Mrs. Burgerman that he would be well behaved and started to each his sandwich, which was chicken and sweetcorn and actually very nice.

“What did the bank say?” asked Sabrina to Saul, as he arrived back at the house.

“We could borrow a bit since we have the house and also that small amount of savings but the rates to pay it back would be very high…” Saul clearly didn’t want to take out a loan.

“You don’t think we should take out a loan?”

“No, not really. There must be another way of doing things…”

“But David’s doing so well at the moment…”

“I was thinking the other night…”

“Not the falafel thing again…”

“Well, why not?! You make the falafels, I sell them, business would be great around here…”

“But there’s so much competition…”

“I have the head for figures and the legal side…”

“I don’t want to smell of falafels the whole time…”

“You can teach me how to make falafels too…”

“How can we fit it in around David…”

“And we can take it in turns…”

“He needs so much dedication…”

“Selling falafels at lunch and dinner, morning to lunchtime for you, afternoon and dinnertimes for me, and then vice versa…”

“…attention…”

“He’s not a bloody pot plant!”

“Saul! Please! He’s our son!”

The looked at each other, in silence. Saul put his arms around his wife and she started to weep without sound. “I’m sorry” he said softly. “It’s just…”

Sabrina wiped her eyes and kissed her husband on the forehead. They would talk about it later, she said, but right now she had promised to call Brenda back and she needed to make sure David wasn’t misbehaving in the kitchen, she’d had a spot of trouble with him this morning but he was a good boy really. Had Saul had the chance to prepare something for his mathematics and Latin classes, she was wondering, since the meetings with the bank seemed to take quite a long time? Saul thought it was about time David sat a little test on his Latin nouns but maths…well, he wasn’t sure what they would do for that. Perhaps they could have double Latin today and then double up on the mathematics tomorrow… Or maybe a science video…? He wasn’t sure but he would definitely think of something.

Sabrina had a lovely chat with Brenda, which made her spirits soar and then she headed back to the kitchen to check on David. David and Ron the cuddly pirate appeared to be engaged deeply in conversation.

“David”

“Good afternoon Mrs. Burgerman”

“How have you two boys been getting on?” asked the head mistress, secretly very content with the reconciliatory work she had managed with the two in detention.

“Ron the cuddly pirate is my best friend now. And then Mr. Bear and then Juggles”

“What about Anthony Turtle?” asked Mrs. Burgerman

“Yes, I like Anthony Turtle too” said David, “probably the same as…Juggles”

“Very good David”. Mrs Burgerman nodded in approval. “I am glad you have resolved your differences, that takes courage.  I hope you have learned a lot from today about how to behave with your friends”

“Yes Mrs. Burgerman”

“And to never talk in assembly unless invited to by a teacher”

“Yes Mrs. Burgerman”

They smiled at each other.

“Mrs. Burgerman?”

“Yes David?”

“Where was Mr. Burgerman today, in assembly?”

“We say ‘during assembly’, David. ‘During’ describes the passage of time. If you want to use the word ‘in’ you could say, ‘Where was Mr. Burgerman in the assembly hall’? To which I could reply, ‘Mr. Burgerman was hiding under the table’.”

“Was Mr. Burgerman hiding under the table, Mrs. Burgerman?”

“No David”

“Where was Mr. Burgerman during assembly then”

“He was out, David, buying educational paraphernalia for your future classes”

“What’s ‘paraphernalia’?”

“Lunchtime is to relax, my dear, lessons are for learning. Now, run along and enjoy the last ten minutes of your lunch break”

David had a pretty boring afternoon of lessons, even as a keen scholar he could admit that much. Mr. Burgerman got him to do a test. Mr. Burgerman always got him to do tests and he didn’t like them very much. Tests were dull. And to make things worse the tests were on Latin nouns and David wasn’t much of a fan of Latin. For a start he was six years old and was still learning English, so to try and learn another language, well… He had tried telling Mrs. Burgerman but she wasn’t interested about which subjects he liked and which subjects he didn’t like. They were all important, she said, and if he did well in his Latin this year then St. Burgerman’s School for the Cursed and Enigmatic would allow him to enrol, next year, in a beginners’ course in hole digging. David considered himself to be above a beginners’ course really but was elated at the thought nonetheless. School finished with a science video about people who lose their hair, during which David was sure he overheard Mr. Burgerman mutter something about ‘your mother’ and ‘going to lose her hair soon’ and then something about ‘cooking a good falafel’ and ‘why can’t she see it’s better for all of us this way’. Mr. Burgerman rang the bell to signal the end of the day’s lessons and David was allowed to go and play in his bedroom. Anthony Turtle was coming round for tea today although David would rather it could have been Ron the cuddly pirate, who David knew was not doing anything after school.

Anthony Turtle disappeared without word, which David thought was a bit rude, although it turned out that he had just been hiding under the bed. David went downstairs to get some milk before he went to sleep. He wanted to get an early night because he knew he had double maths tomorrow with Mr. Burgerman which would probably mean another test. As he reached the door to the kitchen he heard his parents talking.

“…he’s such a smart boy, it’s not fair that he has to pretend to be friends with all these stuffed toys. He should have real friends Sabrina, you know…interaction…”

“Oh yes, and he gets a lot of interaction in your lessons, doesn’t he?! Test, test, test. Do you know bored they make him?”

“Not as bored as playing on his own…”

“He’s not on his own…

“Oh sorry! Not as bored then as playing with ‘Ron the cuddly pirate’…”

David thought that was a little bit unfair since Ron the cuddly pirate was quite good fun and he knew some rude words too!

“Oh Saul, stop it! I know what you’re saying…”

“We can’t keep him locked up like this, it’s not fair on him. Or us…”

“Forget us…”

“Forget us?! I love us spending all this time together, with our son, teaching our son…”

“But?!”

“But?! But?! But we can’t afford to live like this! We can’t afford to live in this house…”

“Well, we’ll move then?”

“Move? Where? What will we do when the new neighbours see him? Lock him up again?! Hide him in a cupboard? Or just pretend we don’t have a child like we do now?!”

“Brenda knows about David…”

“Brenda?! Brenda only knows about David because she has a freak of a child herself…”

“Our child is not a freak!…”

“He’s not normal though, is he?…”

“He is not a freak!!”

It went silent for a minute. David tried to weigh up in his mind whether or not now was a good time to nip in and ask for some milk.

“You’re right. I’m sorry”. Saul sounded exhausted; like he had just finished a very long game of swingball in the back garden, thought David.

“Oh Saul…” Sabrina broken down in tears. And then it went quiet again. David put his hand on the door, ready to go and get his milk.

“Brenda wants us to teach Jennifer” said Sabrina, very quietly.

David stopped where he was, feeling tired and extremely thirsty.

“We can’t teach Jennifer too. It would take up even more of our time”

“But it would be some interaction…a friend, a proper friend for David”

“I don’t know…”

“Brenda said she would pay us some money towards…”

“How is Brenda going to pay us Sabrina?!” Saul was raising his voice again. “She’s been living off benefits ever since Raymond left her”

“And why was that Saul?! Doesn’t it make you realise how lucky we are? How wonderful it must be for David, having two parents who love him so much?!”

“However wonderful it is, it still doesn’t pay our mortgage or buy us our food!”

“Fine I’ll do it! I’ll do it Saul! Whatever you think is right, Saul, I’ll do it! Not for you but for David!”

Saul and Sabrina found David about twenty minutes later lying fast asleep on the first floor of the stairs. He was dreaming he was in a castle. He was very poor and dirty and very thirsty indeed and the King and Queen had a big glass of milk and he asked the King if he could have some milk because he was very poor and thirsty and the King asked the Queen why everyone kept complaining about being poor and thirsty and the Queen told the King to drink all the milk himself and not give it to David or any other poor people because if he did then they would expect milk all the time and then there wouldn’t be enough milk for the King and Queen and all the rich people and that wouldn’t be very fair for them at all…

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

It was assembly time once again at St. Burgerman’s School for the Cursed and Enigmatic and Mrs. Burgerman was introducing a new face to the students.

“Boys and girls…” announced the head mistress. David raised his hand high in the air. “Yes David, what do you want?”

“It’s just boys Mrs. Burgerman, there aren’t any girls here” he said, incredulously.

“What about Rosie Rattlesnake?”

“Rosie Rattlesnake is a boy of course!”

Mrs. Burgerman was about to say something but thought better of it.

“Boys…” Sabrina greeted her congregation articulately, “…I would like to introduce a new student to our school, and it would appear the first girl ever to walk through our hallowed gates…please welcome Jennifer Bright. I hope you will all help her settle in and treat her with the same cordial nature you treat each other”. She clapped and then so did David. No one else seemed to follow their lead and David felt a little embarrassed at how unwelcoming his friends were being. He reprimanded Juggles on his lack of amiability, who in turn responded by telling David it was time to throw some custard pies. David decided to take Jennifer under his wing and try and keep her away from Juggles as much as possible, for her own safety.

 

Jennifer had sat down next to David during the assembly. There had been no prize-giving today despite the fact that David had won the ‘Painting of the Week’ competition but he didn’t mind too much because he probably would have been a touch embarrassed about receiving his reward in front of the new girl. During playtime they got talking and although David was a little worried he might have annoyed Ron the cuddly pirate with his defection he was also pleased to escape from that funny clique they seemed to have formed.

“They’re talking about us” said David in a clandestine whisper.

“Who is?” Jennifer returned the whisper.

David pointed at the huddled coterie of Ron the cuddly pirate, Juggles the clown and Mr. Bear the stuffed bear. Anthony Turtle had not been seen since last night and had been replaced in the gang by Rosie Rattlesnake.

“What? The stuffed toys are talking about us?!”

David nodded at her and then put his finger to his lips, telling her to hush. Jennifer raised an eyebrow.

“Mrs. Burgerman smells like falafels” stated Jennifer, wanting to steer the conversation towards a subject she felt less confused by.

“She always smells of falafels these days” said David. “Usually she takes assembly and then goes to cook falafels and then sells them while Mr. Burgerman teaches us things like mathematics and Latin and science. And then she teaches us in the afternoon while Mr. Burgerman makes falafels”

“What’s Latin?” asked Jennifer.

“I don’t really know. But Mr. Burgerman says I need to know it if I ever want to become a solicitor”

“What’s a solicitor?”

“I don’t really know”

Jennifer proceeded to tell David how she wanted to become a nurse when she growed up because all the nurses she had meeted were all very nice and they had nice hair too apart from one old one who was not very nice. David wasn’t sure if he had met a nurse before and asked Jennifer what a nurse was and Jennifer said that you meet them in the hopital and they have nice hair apart from one of them. David wanted to know if Jennifer meant the hospital, which he had seen in the science programs Mr. Burgerman sometimes showed in class but Jennifer said, no, she meant the hopital because that’s where the nurses all went. They all smelled of cigarettes too, like her mummy. David asked Jennifer why she went to the hopital so much to which she replied she had two medical problems. Her mummy told her that she had a problem called ‘ricketts’ and her her daddy had told her she was a ‘frick’, before he had left, well over four years ago. David remembered that a hairy woman called Mrs. Reeves had once called him a ‘freak’ and he wondered if they were the same thing. Maybe, thought Jennifer and then asked why Mrs. Reeves would think he was a ‘frick’? David wasn’t sure and Jennifer asked if it was because he had a big ring for a body. David didn’t understand and went quiet for a minute but then Jennifer hugged him and said it was nice that they were both ‘fricks’ and maybe they could be ‘fricks’ together all the time. David liked the sound of that and asked what ‘ricketts’ was? Jennifer didn’t know and said maybe Mrs. Burgerman or Mr. Burgerman would know and that she could ask them, although she did know that it meant her legs were a very funny shape and she couldn’t walk very easily. David thought that science class would be a very good time to ask. Jennifer didn’t know what science was but when David told her it was about learning about people who lose their hair and have funny hands Jennifer thought that would probably be her favourite class.

 

David and Jennifer grew closer and closer together and Jennifer had become the most popular person at school, even Ron the cuddly pirate was being nice to her now. David was distraught when the summer holidays came and Jennifer went off to stay with her Granny. David wanted to know why she couldn’t come round to play and Sabrina told David that she had to stay with her Granny while Brenda, sorry, Mrs. Bright went on holiday to Tenerife with someone called Barry whom she had met at a tango class. David thought it was unfair that Brenda could go to Tenerife but Jennifer couldn’t go. Mrs. Bright, corrected Sabrina, needed a holiday because looking after Jennifer was like a full-time job for her and that Jennifer probably had as nice a time at her Granny’s house as he had with Grandad. Grandad Long-legs, corrected David, who was given a slap on the wrist by his mother and told not to say that again.

 

As term flew by David found himself more and more bored and he no longer found Ron, Juggles or Mr. Bear particularly interesting. He asked his father if he could help sell falafels in the shop, which is what the sitting room at the front of their house had now become. Business was, at best, average and Saul had been very quiet over the last few weeks. He seemed to be quite sad thought David but was glad that it meant his mum gave his dad a lot of hugs. Saul didn’t really give David much of a reply, he just gave him a falafel and told him not to spill any crumbs anywhere, especially in the shop. David put the falafel in his pocket because, in all honesty, he was starting to get a bit bored of eating them all the time.

 

That afternoon went so slowly for poor David who, now aged seven, was beginning to understand the meaning of the word ‘boredom’. He probably wouldn’t see his best friend, Jennifer, for a few more weeks and none of his other friends really did very much. They were after all, his best friend Jennifer had told him, just cuddly toys. Even so, there was nothing else to do so he thought he would bring Mr. Bear down to the shop and see if he fancied some food.

“Dad? Daddy?!” shouted David as he came through the back of the falafel shop. But Saul wasn’t there. There was no one there. Dad (he was more of a dad than a daddy now) surely wouldn’t mind if Mr. Bear had a little snack, would he? wondered David to himself. He fished the pocket-warmed falafel from his shorts and handed it over to Mr. Bear who, to be fair, looked famished. David was just going to have a look for Dad, he told Mr. Bear, and not to feel like he had to wait, he could start without him and if he was still hungry after that falafel then there were plenty more behind the counter, just help himself. He disappeared to look for Saul. It did not take long for David to find his father who was crying in the cupboard under the stairs. He couldn’t see him but unless there was someone else in the house who cried exactly like his dad did and had somehow managed to sneak in then it was definitely him. The door was locked. He fished around in his pockets for a key but all he managed to find was a giant, red, plastic key and an even bigger, yellow, plastic key in his right pocket (which unlocked the top of his toy chest) and a great many falafel crumbs in his left.

“Dad?” he asked gently. Even at aged seven he had watched enough television to know how you approached people in precarious, emotional situations.

No response.

“Dad? Why are you crying?”

Still no response.

David thought back to the last time he had cried. “Are you crying because mum has bought you new shoes?” David hadn’t liked his new shoes; he wasn’t too sure about the laces.

“No! Just…just bugger off David!” came a muffled reply. David wasn’t too sure what buggering off meant but from the tone of voice it suggested not to ask any more stupid questions about shoes. What could cheer up his father, thought the confused boy? A toy dinosaur always worked for him but…no, he couldn’t really see his father going for that. Maybe a falafel? Possibly… Back in the day, before David had become sick to death of falafels, he had always been delighted by the gift of  edible utopia, especially after heavy loss at swingball. And, David mused, hadn’t his father given up his job as a solicitor in order to make falafels? He must absolutely love them! Right! That was it! He would get his dad a falafel! No! Wait! He would get him a whole tray of falafels! He would be the happiest man alive! David set off back to the shop with a vim and vigour he never knew he had.

 

This fervent passion that had enthused David so was gone though, as expeditiously as it had arrived; a scene of purest consternation awaited his return to Mr. Bear. Surrounding the poor creature was the detritus of a comestible catastrophe; Mr. Bear had dropped his falafel! What have we always been told, David scolded Mr. Bear rhetorically, what does dad always tell us? Never make a mess on the shop floor! It sends out a message of neglect to the customers! David was sure he heard Mr. Bear mumble that there weren’t any customers so what did it matter, but when he asked him what he had said, Mr. Bear just sat there looking as blank and innocent as he could. David gave up. We’ll have to clear this up before we get my dad his falafels, he said. Just look what you’ve gone and done, he added, just as means of emotional blackmail.

 

The emotional blackmail seemed to have no effect on the impassive Mr. Bear. David was doing all the work to clear up the mess on the floor, although to the naked eye of Saul, who was returning from his moment of tearful solitude, it had appeared that David was in the process of making a mess, such was his inefficacy at cleaning.

“What’s this?”

David couldn’t tell whether Saul was angry or not. “Mr. Bear…”

“Mr. Bear?!” Saul was evidently angry.

“I went to look for you and Mr. Bear was hungry and…”

“Mr. Bear is not bloody real! He is a STUFFED ANIMAL!”

“…and I heard you crying in the cupboard and I went to get you some falafels to make you happy because you like falafels and…

“I hate falafels!”

“…and then I came back and Mr. Bear had dropped his…”

“MR. BEAR IS NOT REAL. HE CANNOT DROP A FALAFEL BECAUSE HE IS A STUFFED TOY. STOP MAKING BLOODY EXCUSES AND TIDY THIS BLOODY MESS UP!”

David had never, ever heard his father talk like this and was too shocked to be tearful. He just sat back down on the floor and tried to tidy the debris as best he could. Saul filled up a bucket with warm soapy water and put it down, rather violently, next to his scared son. Some of the water splashed onto David, who didn’t think now was a good time to complain about something like that. A cloth landed next to his feet.

 

Conversation between father and son over the next thirty minutes or so was non-existent; every now and again David heard a sigh of exasperation from his father, usually as he was spreading a selection of crumbs around the floor rather than getting rid of them. David was just about to finish his punitive task when a customer walked in.

“Oh shit” were the first words to come out of Saul’s mouth in over half an hour.

“Oh, hello!” said the customer, mistaking Saul’s words as a greeting.

“David! Get back in the house!” hissed Saul.

“Why?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions!”

“What outrageous advertising!” said the customer, a theatrical man in a big, floppy hat and bright green trousers, pointing at David. “Simply fabulous!”

Saul looked confused.

“Well, I shall have a bag of your bagels please kind man” the customer projected, his smiling gaze still fixed upon a frozen David. “Five to a bag , is it sir?” he asked, not really waiting for a reply. “And I feel I shall be desiring a half-dozen of those delightful falafels which I find so satisfying yet my wife finds a touch…” He paused dramatically, as if playing Lear or Ceasar. “…fluffy”.

“Bagels?” Saul looked apprehensive.

“Why, sir, indeed! Five of your finest!”

“And a half-dozen falafels…?” stuttered the shop owner.

“Six of your finest!” came the reply.

Saul picked out the six best-looking falafels and bagged them up for his energetic customer. “Oh dear. Oh dear me…” he feigned concern.

“What is it my dear fellow?” The customer took off his hat and held it to his chest.

“What a busy morning we have had. We appear to have run out of bagels…”

“Oh woe!” cried the customer, raising a hand to his sweaty brow.

“Sir…” said Saul, tentatively, “…do you think there is a possibility…”

The customer raised his eyebrow, as would a pantomime dame. “Yes…?”

“Sir, do you think you might possibly return in an hour or two when I have had a chance to bake some more, fresh, bagels?”

“Oh, my good man!” elaborated the over-joyed customer. “Would you think it a possibility? I don’t think I could bring myself to eat anything but a bagel today. Oh, praise to the Gods!” He placed his hat back on his head with a flourish and set off on his way. “What a delightful costume!” he said, as he looked back at David. “So…real! What advertising! How wonderful!” And he was gone.

David looked at his father, shell-shocked, the ‘o’ of his surprised mouth nearly as big as that of his body.

“Stop gawping David” said his dad, “and go and find me a recipe for bagels”.