This time it’s from good ole Plamil – and they’re shouting from the rooftops about its plastic-freeness 😀
Of course we wouldn’t be recommending it if it wasn’t also vegan, organic and fair trade, but it is, so we are 😀
We also wouldn’t be recommending it if it wasn’t absolutely scrummy. And it is 🙂 so we are!
Mmmmmm, this won’t last long 😉
Get some from your local health food shop now 😀
Here is a scrummy Easter Egg which ticks all the right boxes:
VEGAN
ORGANIC
FAIR TRADE
And it’s not wrapped in plastic!!! 😀
Just a cardboard box with a delicious, foil-wrapped, chocolate egg inside. Remember when they were all like that? Not so long ago.
It just goes to show, there’s no need to contaminate the planet, milk a cow or enslave a child to enjoy a yummy Easter egg 😀
Get over to Holland & Barrett for yours! 😀
Yum 😀
This is so easy and absolutely delicious 😀
No fat, no yeast, no gluten and no frying. Just oats and water. Baked.
You’ll need:
8 oz rolled oats
400 ml of water
parchment paper to line your baking trays so that you don’t need to oil them.
** For garlic bread version see bottom of post 🙂
First pre-heat your oven to 220°C (less if it’s a fan oven).
Then weigh out about 8 oz of rolled oats and mill it into a flour in your food processor (with the S blade).
Add 200ml of water, whiz to combine with the flour and then add another 200ml and whiz again so that you’ve got a runny, pour-able mixture.
Line two baking trays with parchment paper, and pour half the mixture onto each of them.
Then spread it thinly and evenly with the back of a spoon, and put the trays in the oven.
After about 20 minutes remove trays from the oven and turn the bread over. Turn the trays around so that they get evenly baked and return to the oven for another 6 or 7 minutes.
Remove and put on plates 😀
If you want them crispier, bake them for a little longer but keep a close eye on them because there is a very fine line between crisp and burnt.
Now do what you like with them. Add your favourite spreads, cover them with beans, use them as pizza bases, make sandwiches with them …. whatever you like.
** To make amazing garlic bread just add a few cloves of fresh garlic to the oats when you mill it into flour (I use 4 fat ones to this amount of oats but if you like your garlic stronger, add as much as you like). The garlic will be finely minced and combined with the oat flour. Then, instead of using parchment paper on the trays, generously grease them with vegetable oil and preheat the greased trays before adding the runny mixture. This will produce delicious crispy garlic bread ready to eat with no need for margarine.
For anyone determined to avoid plastic, non-essentials like crisps are the first to go. But now thanks to Walkers, they don’t have to be!
Walkers have brought out cardboard tubes of crisps without even a plastic lid! The top is cardboard which is easy to peel off, so absolutely no plastic required.
So, when you’re feeling snackish and want something crunchy and savoury, grab yourself a tube of Walkers Stax 😀
[ DISCLAIMER: These are not a health food 😉 ]
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Remember I wrote in my earlier plastic avoidance posts that it was impossible, in my experience, to get organic stuff (like sugar, lentils, dried fruit, nuts, pasta etc etc) that wasn’t wrapped in plastic? Remember I said that we’d decided we had to prioritise plastic avoidance even if that meant having to buy non-organic? Well, I’m absolutely delighted to tell you I was wrong!!!
Thanks to the Zero Waste Club (a new mail-order company in London) you can now buy all those wonderful staples organic and plastic-free 😀
In my first order I got sugar, salt, muesli and banana chips. In my second order I got popping corn, pitted dates, raisins, cashews, pasta, lentils and cinnamon, but they’ve got so much more! Nuts, pulses, dried fruit, muesli, oats, flour, cocoa, herbs and spices, seeds: check it out! They told me they’re going to get tea soon too!!!
The Zero Waste Club was set up by a couple of lads, Pawan Saunya & Rishi Gupta, who got so upset when they watched a documentary about plastic pollution in their A’level World Development lesson that they determined to do something about it. You can read their inspirational story here. Thanks to Pawan and Rishi, the rest of us ZERO WASTE WANNA BEs don’t have to miss out on pasta and dried fruit and nuts and salt etc etc in our efforts to boycott plastic, and we don’t have to compromise our organic principles either.
You can order by weight through their website and they will package up your goodies in tough, recycled paper bags (see picture at top) which you can in turn re-use, recycle and/or compost. I’m keeping mine for filling with fruit and veg peelings in the kitchen and then the whole lot can go in the compost bin. They despatch every Wednesday for a flat rate of £3.99 per order. I cannot recommend this site highly enough. It’s just so exciting when your goodies arrive!
Pop over to Pawan and Rishi’s and place your order now! 😀
2021 update:
The Zero Waste Club has stopped selling unpackaged food items and is instead concentrating on plastic-free, sustainable products like toothbrushes, razors, utensils, compostable bin liners and dog poo bags, toilet rolls, …. all sorts of things you need. They are completely transparent and show you how the items were made and by whom. Next time you need a new comb, hair band, coffee filter, tea strainer or who knows what – pop over to The Zero Waste Club and see if they’ve got one. If they haven’t, ask them to stock it in future – they’ll be eager to help you 😀
As for your zero waste food cupboard staples, I’m very glad to say that there are more and more zero waste shops springing up all over the place. Chances are there’s one near you. Google it! 😀
Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts two, three, four, five and six
When reading an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Advances in neuroscience imply that harmful experiments in dogs are unethical, by Jarrod Bailey and Shiranee Pereira, I was reminded of our George. The Open Access article explains that
“Functional MRI (fMRI) of fully awake and unrestrained dog ‘volunteers’ has been proven an effective tool to understand the neural circuitry and functioning of the canine brain. Although every dog owner would vouch that dogs are perceptive, cognitive, intuitive and capable of positive emotions/empathy, as indeed substantiated by ethological studies for some time, neurological investigations now corroborate this. These studies show that there exists a striking similarity between dogs and humans in the functioning of the caudate nucleus (associated with pleasure and emotion), and dogs experience positive emotions, empathic-like responses and demonstrate human bonding which, some scientists claim, may be at least comparable with human children. There exists an area analogous to the ‘voice area’ in the canine brain, enabling dogs to comprehend and respond to emotional cues/valence in human voices, and evidence of a region in the temporal cortex of dogs involved in the processing of faces, as also observed in humans and monkeys. We therefore contend that using dogs in invasive and/or harmful research, and toxicity testing, cannot be ethically justifiable.”
As soon as we got to know George we knew he was an especially thoughtful person. It was proved beyond doubt when I had a diabetic hypo (hypoglycemia: low blood sugar, causing brain to go to sleep) one afternoon a couple of years ago. I had been unconscious on the settee for a couple of hours and no one else was home except the two dogs. When I came round my brain woke up before my body did so when I tried to get up off the settee I just collapsed onto the floor. I was aware that both dogs, George and Jo Jo, were watching me closely. I was flat on my face and couldn’t even sit up so I needed my husband’s help. I knew he was somewhere in the garden (he’s the resident gardener of a six acre garden) so I tried to shout his name in the hope that he was nearby but I was unable to form words. I made a strange drunken sound which was beyond slurred but it wasn’t very loud and certainly not comprehensible. My arms were starting to work now so I managed to drag myself on my belly to the door and was just able to reach the waist-level handle to open it. Both boys followed me and when I’d got the door open wide enough I slurred “Git Sm’n” as best I could (I still couldn’t say Simon) before flopping back face-first on the doormat. Sweet Jo Jo stayed with me while George ran outside. Bear in mind he now had the freedom to roam six acres, but he didn’t. He stood at the end of the path to the gardener’s cottage and barked. He barked and barked until Simon came and then he ran back to the cottage ahead of him. Simon lifted me onto the bed, got me some orange juice and I made a fast recovery.
But if you think that was clever, wait ’til you hear what happened last week! I got my coat and wellies on, ready to take the boys for a walk. Jo Jo came running to have his coat and lead put on but George was at the other end of the living room guarding his food dish. He still had a bit of breakfast left and was worried someone might pinch it if it was left unattended. Well, I didn’t want to have to take off my muddy boots to traipse across the living room to fetch him so I kept calling him until he eventually reluctantly came. I attached his lead and the three of us left. When we were about thirty feet from the house I noticed George was limping quite heavily on his front left paw. I said, “Oh, darling, are you limping? What’s wrong?” and he stood still and gave me his paw when I reached for it. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it – he didn’t complain when I touched it and there was no thorn or stone or anything caught in it – so I attempted to resume our walk. George made an immediate U-turn and pulled back towards the house so I gave in and let him lead me back. When we got to the front door I opened it, took off his lead and he ran to his food dish – no sign of a limp whatsoever! He has not limped at all since. He is a liar! He pretended he’d hurt his foot so that he didn’t have to go!
He is a clever clever naughty boy 😀
Filmed at Wishing Well Sanctuary, Bradford, Ont. L3Z 3L3
For more great vegan music check out the Music Page 😀
and please let us know of any more good vegan songs 🙂
I lay in bed listening
To the mouse in the wall.
He doesn’t know I’m here,
I think I’ll call him Paul.
****
He always comes at bedtime
To find his winter stash.
He must be very hungry,
Scratch and scrape and bang and bash.
It sounds just like marbles
That he rolls above my head,
But I think it must be nuts,
They sound loud when I’m in bed.
****
I’m glad Paul won’t go hungry,
He works hard for every bite,
But I wish he’d work the day shift
So I could sleep at night.
I love this song, and we just saw the lead vocalist in Ghost Whisperer!!! (Season 2, episode 2). Greg Cipes is an actor, musician and professional surfer – now there’s a vegan who lives life to the full! 😀
For more great vegan music go to the Music Page 😀
Check out the Music Page for more great vegan music and let us know of any good stuff we’ve missed 😀
Toiletries
Update 23.11.21:
You can get vegan plastic-free toothpaste, mouthwash, floss, toothbrushes – everything your teeth could ever need from Georganics, including cardboard-packaged tooth soap and refills. Check it out! 😀
Toothbrushes
According to the Australian Environmental Toothbrush website, over 30 million toothbrushes are used and disposed of by Australians annually, amounting to approximately 1000 tonnes of landfill each year. The plastic they’re made of won’t break down in our lifetime. Nor within the lifetime of our children. Imagine that on a global scale. This is what inspired a Brisbane dentist to invent the wonderful Environmental toothbrush.
Thankfully they are easy to get hold of in this country too and you may well find them in your local health food store. If not you can get them from Living Naturally (the soapnut people) and of course they sell them on Amazon 🙂 I recommend ordering a few from Living Naturally when you get your soapnuts 😉
These toothbrushes are lovely and they come wrapped in nothing but a little cardboard box. Being made of bamboo they are safely compostable if you remove the bristles – they haven’t been able to find natural bristles yet so they’re made of a BPA-free polymer, as they explain here, but still this toothbrush is far superior to one made entirely of plastic.
We use our toothbrushes for cleaning the bathroom when our teeth have finished with them.
Toothpaste
Toothpaste is very difficult to find without plastic, so let us know if you find any. We’ve just discovered Remineralizing Tooth Salve, haven’t tried it yet but it looks very promising. It’s made by Ophir Naturals and we came across it at Living Naturally. These little tabs come in a glass jar (unfortunately it does have a plastic lid) and according to the manufacturer, they enable the teeth to re-propogate enamel through the process of remineralization (you can read the scientific details here). They’re vegan, sustainable and fair trade; and their customer testimonials are very impressive. It’s quite expensive but if it does as it claims it’ll be worth every penny for what you’ll save on dental work. I’m really looking forward to trying these – I’ll let you know how we get on 🙂
post script: 10.42pm – we’ve now tried them and, well, the soapy taste is gonna take some getting used to – Miranda ate a cake afterwards to get rid of the taste 😉 – but I’m so encouraged by the testimonials on their website that I have high-hopes for their effect on my teeth and I will continue using them 😀
pps: Just wanted to add that I’m now really enjoying Ophir Remineralizing tooth salve – it’s so soft on my teeth and I got used to the taste very quickly. Unlike conventional toothpaste, this tooth salve is not abrasive. It cleans your teeth like you clean the rest of your body – with soap. And it is genuinely effective at getting your teeth back to their natural pearly colour! It’s worth noting that it’s not actually a good idea to use abrasives on your teeth too often because if you grind down the enamel you’ll be able to see through to the dentine underneath which is yellow 😀
Update:
For those who prefer the more conventional minty white toothpaste, you can buy Denttabs!
According to their website, DENTTABS Toothpaste Tablets are THE sustainable alternative to toothpaste. They are 100% plastic-free, ecological and free from preservatives, artificial stabilizers and any other unnecessary ingredients! They do a lovely job polishing your teeth once a week (if you’re using the Ophir Naturals the rest of the time) or for every day use if you prefer. They’re available with fluoride or without. Find a zero waste shop near you and ask them to stock them, or google them to find out where you can buy them online. They come in a glass jar, with refills in paper bags.
Plastic-free VEGAN floss
Georganics Charcoal Dental Floss is a natural floss made with bamboo charcoal fibre, candelilla wax and peppermint essential oil. This 30 metres floss clew is packed in a zero-waste and plastic-free glass container with a metal dispensing lid to allow you to easily cut the floss. When you’ve used up all the dental floss you buy refills to put in your little glass dispenser. We found this in Infinity Foods health food shop in Brighton so check out your local health food store and if you can’t find it there you can order it online 😀
Deodorant
We use natural volcanic alum stone instead of packaged deodorant and we get on very well with it. After washing and drying your skin, you just wet the stone, rub it under your arms and leave your skin to air dry. Rinse the stone, dry it and put it somewhere safe for next time. One stone will last for months. This really works!
Admittedly I don’t often do activities that make me sweat but when I occasionally do get hot and sweaty and have been a bit worried that I’m starting to smell, I notice a few minutes later that the smell has completely gone. It’s like the alum, which inhibits the growth of the microbes which cause the smell, takes a couple of minutes to neutralise them. So even if you get sweaty and start to notice an unwelcome odour, you’ll find that it disappears after a few minutes 😀 When this has happened to me I check my skin again at the end of the day and find it smells lovely and clean, not a suggestion of anything unpleasant. The only thing to be aware of is that your clothes may start to smell if they are in close contact with your armpits, so it’s best to wear things that are loose under your arms so that they don’t become contaminated if you do sweat. The stone will only keep your skin smelling sweet, not the fabric that sticks to it 😉
You can get the potassium alum stone from Natural Spa Supplies – and you’ll find a lot of other gorgeous stuff in their shop too. “Alum stone can also be used as a fantastic natural aftershave, ideal for sensitive skin, which reduces the appearance of shaving burn, and can help stem bleeding from nicks. Alum styptic have long been used by traditional barbers. In addition, Alum stone can also be used to relieve insect bites.” They send it to you wrapped in paper and an eco-friendly paper padded envelope 😀
For those who feel they need a little more protection, Miranda uses this in the summer when she’s cycling. She gets really sweaty and says this works brilliantly. It’s a lovely cream which goes a long way because you only need a very thin layer on your skin. Packaged in a glass jar with a metal lid, it is provided by the lovely people at Living Naturally. It comes in Rose & Lavender, Citrus & Ylang, or fragrance-free.
The curse
There’s no longer any need to use disposable products for your monthly curse – go to Earthwise Girls to get everything you need in terms of washable, reusable, organic, natural, eco-friendly alternatives 😀
Hand Creams and Moisturisers
This cream is gorgeous. It’s organic, it’s vegan and it’s the best moisturising cream I’ve found. It’s perfect for making dry skin (hands and body) silky smooth (I used it on my tattoo and it was perfect for the job), and it says on the tin you can also use it on your face. It smells heavenly and comes in a tin with a foil seal over the top. No plastic at all. You can get it from Holland & Barrett 😀
Alternatively, you can get a selection of soapnut moisturisers in glass jars from Living Naturally 🙂
Soap
For those who don’t want to wash their hair and bodies with soapnut water, Living Naturally provides lovely soap and shampoo bars. You can buy all sorts of varieties, singly or 5 at a time. If you buy one singly, it comes it a little drawstring linen bag; if you buy 5 for a little discount, they come wrapped together in a single sheet of paper.
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Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts two, three, four, five and seven 😀
Other things for cleanliness
It’s not difficult to buy recycled toilet roll and kitchen roll, but getting it without plastic wrapping is impossible. Or so I thought until I opened a wonderful Christmas gift from Miranda – toilet rolls: 100% recycled paper wrapped in nothing but 100% recycled paper! (She discovered them thanks to a post by The World According To Plumes) 
“Toilet roll so soft it’ll make your bottom smile” is the slogan of who gives a crap, a wonderful organisation which donates half of its profits to help build toilets for people who don’t have them (that’s about 40% of the world’s population).
They might seem, at first glance, rather more expensive than what you can get at the supermarket but there is actually very little in it. You see the rolls are double length (we have noticed a roll lasts twice as long in our bathroom than the ones from Waitrose) and the people at who gives a crap have already done the maths for you: a box of 48 double length rolls costs £36 which is 18.8p per 100 sheets. Compare that to Waitrose who say their recycled toilet tissue costs 16.9p per 100 sheets.
See? Not much in it. And just think what you get for your money: a clear environmental conscience and a warm glow derived from the knowledge that you’re helping people build much-needed toilets.
Each roll is beautifully wrapped in decorative recycled paper which you can save and re-use as wrapping paper. It really is gorgeous 😀
So what are you waiting for? Get over to who gives a crap and satisfy all your toilet roll and kitchen roll needs. Initiate a regular order (every 8 or 12 weeks) to get £5 off, and shipping is free in the UK if you spend over £20.
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Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts two, three, four, six and seven 😀
Personal and domestic hygiene
Soapnuts are fantastic!
You can find out all about soapnuts here 🙂 We love ’em and have used them for years. We started using them as a laundry detergent, as directed by the vendors at Living Naturally (soapnuts.co.uk) but soon found they could serve all our soap needs. We now use them to wash the dishes, to wash ourselves, and to wash our hair.
Living Naturally Soapnuts (dried fruit shells which contain natural saponin) are a natural, non-polluting, compostable, alternative to conventional laundry detergents and synthetic soaps. No fillers, foaming agents, bleach, phthlates, phosphates or parabens.
For the laundry:
Put about 6 soapnut shells (or 12 half shells) into the little linen bag provided when you order your soapnuts from Living Naturally, and bung it into the machine with your wash. That’s it. Oh, if you’re doing a cold wash, or a quick wash, it’s probably a good idea to put the little bag of shells into a glass of warm water and let them soak for twenty minutes first. Then put the bag and the soaking water into the machine and start the cycle. When the cycle is finished take the bag of shells out and use them again for your next load. You can usually use the same shells two or three times, unless you do a boil wash. I’ve found that if I do a boil wash it uses them up. Anyway, you can tell when they’re used up when they go soft and beige, and when that happens, just bung them in your compost bin. Oh, by the way, if you don’t have a little linen bag, you can put the shells in a sock and tie a knot in the open end.
For the washing up:
Put 4 soapnut shells in a clean jar and cover them with water. Leave to soak for at least an hour, but preferably several hours. Then tip the whole jar (water and shells) into your washing up bowl and add fast flowing hot water. Look what happens:
Do the washing up 🙂 Don’t worry if the bubbles disappear while you’re doing it because you know the soap is in the water. Artificial detergents add foaming agents to make it seem soapier – don’t let them fool you. You only need as much as the soapnuts provide. We’ve even found they’re great with greasy things. You shouldn’t put anything oily or greasy directly into your water for obvious reasons, but if you wipe off as much as you can with kitchen roll, then vigorously rub a single soapnut all over the greasy surface, it will cut through the remaining grease and will be lovely and clean when you rinse it with clean water. You can put that particular soapnut into the compost, but the others in your bowl can be put back into the soaking jar and covered with water to be used again tomorrow. You should be able to use them two or three times before they need composting and replacing.
For washing hands, bodies and hair:
For this you need a plastic bottle but you don’t have to buy one – just walk down any street and before long you’ll find a discarded plastic bottle (we found these on the beach). Bring them home, wash them and stab a few holes in the lid (you can use a sewing needle for this but it’s difficult and potentially painful. The most effective tool we found was a stitch ripper).
Now, you might be thinking that the lid on the bottle in the photo looks rather dirty and unpleasant. It isn’t, it’s just a bit brown from the soapnut liquid. You can see from the bottle on the left that the shells will turn the water brown. It’s not dirty, just soapy.
Okay, once you’ve got your clean bottle with holes in the lid, put a few shells in it. For these bottles (600ml) we put 4 to 6 whole shells in. Fill it with water and leave it to stand for at least 24 hours.
When they have soaked for at least a day they should be ready to use. Put your hand over the lid and turn the bottle upside down to mix the clear water with the brown and there you have it. Tip some of the soapnut liquid into your hand, rub your hands together, rinse and repeat. You’ll probably notice it’s a bit lathery when you rub your hands together the second time. Rinse and dry. Put some more shells to soak in another bottle so that you’ve got some ready when you’ve used up the first one. If you find your skin starts to become dry after washing with soapnut liquid, just put less shells in your bottle. Adjust to the right concentration for you.
We also use our soapnut liquid for showering and washing our hair. I used to wash my hair every day but now I only do it twice a week. Be aware it might take your hair a couple of weeks to get shampoo out of its system (those products make your hair very needy) and you might have to put up with it being a bit greasier than you’re used to at first, but after a couple of weeks of using soapnut water you’ll find your hair looks and feels as soft and clean as it ever did with shampoo and you might find, like me, that you don’t need to wash it so often. Oh, I should mention that your hair won’t lather up when you use soapnut water, but that doesn’t matter. Just massage it in like you would shampoo, leave it in for a couple of minutes while you continue with your shower, rinse and repeat. After the second rinse you’ll notice that your hair squeaks when you rub it, – it’s squeaky clean.
WARNING: WHEN WASHING YOUR HAIR WITH SOAPNUT WATER, TILT YOUR HEAD BACK AND KEEP YOUR EYES CLOSED. IF YOU GET IT IN YOUR EYES IT WILL STING!!!
Don’t worry, we’ve got it in our eyes more than once and the stinging subsides after a couple of hours and vision goes completely back to normal, but still, for your own comfort, it’s best avoided 😀
So there you have it – not only plastic-free, but completely compostable when finished with. It doesn’t get any greener than that.
We’ve bought soapnuts from a couple of places but Living Naturally are the best because they don’t use any plastic in their packaging. Well, if you do get plastic outer packaging in the post from them it’s only because they’ve re-used plastic that they’ve been sent, and they do give you the option to request no plastic when you order 🙂
Check them out, they’re brilliant 😀
Multi-surface cleaner
Vinegar makes a great multi-surface cleaner – for bathrooms, toilets, sinks, windows and paintwork, we’ve used it for years. Plus, if you’ve got any black mould trying to tattoo your walls and ceilings this winter, zap it with vinegar and scrub it off. Vinegar is mild acid which can kill 82% of mold species.
It’s easy to get organic vinegar in a glass bottle with metal lid, and if you’ve got an old plastic spray bottle from a previously-bought multi-surface cleaner, then you can just wash it out, fill it with vinegar and you’re all set. Cider vinegar is just as good, but we switched to white wine vinegar because cider vinegar can leave a yellowish discolouration on white paintwork 🙂
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Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts two, three, five, six and seven 😀
Real Food
Once you’ve accepted that you can’t always get organic, it’s not difficult to avoid plastic. If you can’t find enough loose produce at your usual supermarket, find out if there’s a good old fashioned market in your town. We’ve found one which is just a big fruit and veg stall in the town centre, once or twice a week. The guys who run it are really friendly, they sell quality seasonal fruit and vegetables, provide small (compostable) paper bags to fill, and it’s very good value for money – much better even than the supermarkets. Just take your own shopping bags and get them to weigh as much as you need. 
We bought a big 12.5 kg sack of Desiree potatoes from them for just £5!
We also have a health food shop not too far away which sells a small selection of loose organic produce which is great although we can’t get there every week.
Or you might be able to find a local organic produce grower who operates a veg box scheme whereby you order a weekly veg box from them and they deliver it to your door. They will be happy to leave the box in a designated safe place if you’re going to be out and you’ll get a great selection of whatever is in season. The soil Association will help you find a scheme near you 🙂
As for other necessary staples – you can probably get most of them in glass jars or tins. We used to buy lentils, sultanas, pasta, tofu, cereal etc etc in plastic packets because we thought we couldn’t avoid it, but now we’re getting our lentils in tins and we’ll manage without cereal, pasta and dried fruit. We buy organic oats in paper bags and I’ll mix them with fresh fruit for my breakfast instead of sultanas.
*Since writing this I have discovered the Zero Waste Club – a wonderful mail order company in London from whom you can order organic dried fruit, nuts, grains, pasta, sugar, pulses, seeds, cocoa, popcorn, herbs and spices and more! You order it by weight and they mail it to you wrapped in paper bags. See Plastic Avoidance: Part 7.
Things like vinegar, ketchup and oil are easy to get in glass bottles, although sadly I don’t think there’s any way of avoiding the plastic pouring spout they put in the oil bottles. But I always think, even if everything is not as perfect as you’d like it to be, the world would be a better place if everyone at least did this. Same goes for things like cocoa powder and gravy granules – they come in cardboard tubs with metal bottoms and a plastic lid. Sometimes mostly plastic-free is the best you can do.
Lots of other staples that have always been wrapped in paper, still are. You can get bread in paper bags from a bakery, or you can make your own. I haven’t been able to buy salt without plastic wrapping but if you buy things with salt already added – like the stock cubes above (paper-wrapped in a cardboard box) – then you can manage without it.
Something else to be aware of is that tea bags (which are supposed to be compostable) are actually made of 20% plastic. See here for a great post with more details about that and sign this petition aimed at getting Unilever to remove all plastic from their tea bags. Be aware though, it’s not just Unilever that does it, this is common practice. The only way to be sure you’re not getting plastic is to buy loose tea leaves 🙂 And if you check this out you’ll see that there are a lot more uses for tea leaves than just a relaxing drink.
Need a meal in a hurry? Well, you can’t buy hash browns or oven chips anymore, but look what you can buy! There are all sorts of delicious and convenient ready-prepared vegan goodies in cardboard containers in the freezer section of your supermarket.
So whadaya need plastic for?
Not much!
ps I’ve just found out you can even buy plastic-free crisps 😀
Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts two, four, five, six and seven
PS:
Now you can get frozen ORGANIC veg that’s just packaged in a cardboard box – no plastic bag inside! 😀
Look for it at your local health food shop and if they don’t have it, ask them to stock it 😀
Update 23.11.21:
You can now buy Vego hazelnut chocolate bars (yum yum yum) in compostable wrappers:
And Plamil Cocoa Bites – chocolate chunks (yummy yummy) in paper bags:
Sweet Treats
Doing without plastic doesn’t have to mean doing without.
Let’s get our priorities straight and start with chocolate 😀
The chocolates pictured above tick all the right boxes:
1. They’re vegan
2. They’re fair trade (included on the ethical chocolate list)
3. They’re organic
and
4. They’re not wrapped in plastic 😀
In fact, as far as we can tell, there is only one downside to these particular chocolates – they don’t last long! 😉
Vivani is new to us and we’re so glad we found them. Their chocolate is absolutely gorgeous – I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate over the years and I think I can confidently say that this is the best ever! My favourite is the White Nougat Crisp, no, the Mandel Orange Rice Choc, no no, it’s the Crispy Corn Flakes Rice Choc …. no, I can’t choose between them, their entire vegan range is completely amazing (be aware that sadly not all their products are vegan, but a lot of them are). Check out their whole range here 🙂
The Ombars are gorgeous too – especially for those who like their chocolate rich and dark and nutritious, coz it’s raw 🙂 Everything is wonderfully vegan and look what they say about their packaging:
“Like you, we believe in recycling. So we wrap our bars in recyclable aluminium foil and paper, and ship them in fully-recyclable cardboard. Did you know our button bags are fully compostable? Just throw them in your compost bin with vegetable peelings – within a few weeks the bag will have completely broken down and returned to nature.” (see their FAQs)
We got all these treats from our local Health Food Shop, and we’ve seen Ombars in Waitrose, but if you can’t find them near you, you can buy Ombars online here and Vivani lists their worldwide stockists here 🙂 And of course you can probably find them on Amazon 😉
Ask whoever mails them to you not to use plastic wrapping 😮
***
If you want more than just chocolate in your plastic-free sweet treat artillery, you can make cakes and biscuits yourself. Vegan recipes use oil instead of margarine, which can be bought organic in glass bottles; flour comes in paper bags, and sugar … well, I have in recent years felt compelled to buy sugar in plastic bags because I wanted organic fair trade. However, in prioritising plastic avoidance, I have discovered that I can buy paper-wrapped sugar that is pretty ethical 🙂 I had mistakenly believed that all white sugar had been whitened with bone-char. However, it seems that’s just cane sugar, not sugar beet. Sugar from sugar beet is vegan!
Silver Spoon proudly state their commitment to eco-friendliness on their packets:
“Sustainability is nothing new to us – we’ve been working on it for 30 years. Our sugar beet is homegrown and our bags are recyclable, made with paper from certified forests. We send nothing to landfill and our excess production energy helps to power British homes.”
They work directly with 1200 British farmers in East Anglia who grow the beets which are then transported just a short distance to the factory in Bury St Edmunds (also in East Anglia 😀 )
Not bad eh?
So far so plastic-free good.
Click for PLASTIC AVOIDANCE parts three, four, five , six and seven
We have for many years tried to keep our plastic consumption to a minimum but have found it very difficult when also trying to incorporate other ethics into our shopping habits. For example – it’s pretty easy to buy loose, unpackaged fruit and vegetables if you take your own bags to the market with you, but if you want organic produce, it’s usually wrapped in plastic.
We always recycled it of course but we know that a plastic food container, because of its low melting point, cannot be recycled into another plastic food container. It can really only be downcycled into things like plastic lumber which cannot be recycled again. Glass, paper and tin cans on the other hand, can be recycled ad infinitum. Bottles will become bottles again and again; drinks cans and baked beans tins will become cans and tins again and again; paper can be recycled again and again, and eventually composted.
So, even though we were recycling, we felt very bad about the plastic in our bins. Add to that the worry that maybe the plastic being collected by the council recycling lorry wasn’t even being recycled and … well, let me explain:
I had an email a couple of weeks ago from Avaaz campaigning group saying that studies had shown that most (about 80%) of the plastic in the ocean gyres was coming from rivers in Asia and Africa. Finding it very hard to believe that people in Asia and Africa consume more plastic than people in Europe and America, I was reminded of an email conversation I’d had with someone at Waitrose supermarket. They told me that there was no facility to recycle their plastic bags in this country so they sent them to Asia for recycling.
Well – if Waitrose does it, you can bet a lot of other companies do it too, maybe even councils? And if the UK sends plastic to Asia for recycling, you can bet other countries do too. If the same is happening in Africa that would explain why 80% of the plastic in the oceans arrives there from those continents. The plastic that I diligently put out for recycling might be ending up in the ocean!
It’s all speculation but it makes a lot of sense and the only way I can be sure that I’m not part of the problem is to take control of it myself.
We now realise that the good done for the Earth in growing organic, is compromised if they wrap the organic produce in plastic. Plastic not only litters and pollutes when it’s disposed of, the very production of it is toxic since it is (usually) made from oil.
So we’re not going to pay in to that any more.
We have to prioritise plastic avoidance and hopefully these ethical companies will respond with ethical packaging. In the meantime, we’ll show you our plastic avoidance tactics.
Starting tomorrow 😀
See all our Plastic Avoidance Tactics here
You know plastic’s not fantastic
And it might seem rather drastic
But the obvious solution
Is a New Year’s resolution
To give unfantastic plastic the heave-ho.
So that’s what we’ve decided,
We’re determined to be guided
By the needs of Earth and Earthlings
To be free of all plastic things,
So to all new things of plastic we say NO!
Check out our Plastic Avoidance Tactics 😀
For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 🙂
Chapter 16 continues from yesterday:
Mum opened the bedroom door.
“Luke, don’t you want to help decorate the tree?”
“erm, no thanks,” he said without looking at her.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure? You haven’t been yourself since we went to the Maybury Centre.”
Luke didn’t say anything. Mum tried again.
“What happened to upset you? I thought you’d like it there.”
Luke let go of his trains, sat back and looked at her.
“I’m fed up.”
“Why?”
“Coz I’m fed up of grown ups not doin’ what they say.”
Mrs Walker waited for more.
“Maybury is a animal sanctry wot says it teaches people to be kind to animals. A man from Maybury even came to give a talk at school to tell us not to keep animals in small cages, or let them have puppies.”
“Okay,”
“So why do people whose whole job is lookin’ after animals and teachin’ other people to look after ’em prop’ly, still let animals be killed for food? Why don’t they care about them animals? Why do they on’y care about some animals?”
“What makes you think …”
“They sell dead animals in their cafe.”
“Really? That does surprise me.”
“If I can’t trust people whose job is lookin’ after animals then I can’t trust nobody. ‘cept myself!”
“Ooh, that’s hard. No wonder you’re fed up,” said Mum sympathetically.
“And Joe,” he admitted.
“Well, that’s something. But you know Luke, you shouldn’t give up. You should tell them how you feel. You should tell them you are offended by their decision to sell meat in their cafe.”
“I did tell ’em.”
“Good. And what did they say?”
“Nothin’ sensible. Jus’ said it was okay coz it was rangin’ and stainable. Rubbish!”
“Tell them again. Write them a letter.”
“What’s the point? They won’t take no notice o’ me.”
Mrs Walker was sorry her son felt so discouraged. It was a terrible thing to lose your faith in humanity at such a young age.
“The thing is,” she told him, “you never know when someone might listen. The only thing you can be sure of is that if you don’t say anything, they definitely won’t get the message.”
Luke looked at her and didn’t say anything.
“Come with me, come and help decorate the tree,” she said.
When they got to the living room Jared and Dad already had things well underway. The tree was gleaming with glittery gold and silver tinsel and different coloured shiny baubles.
“Mm, pretty good,” said Mum, “but it’s missing something.”
“The star for the top,” said Jared, “I’m just about to do it.”
“Something else,” said Mum and she left the room.
A moment later she was back with a small box from the kitchen. She handed it to Luke.
“No Christmas tree is complete without a few sweet treats,” she said, smiling.
Luke looked in the box. It was full of chocolate Santas. On the wrappers were the words:
Moo Free Organic Chocolate,
DAIRY FREE, GLUTEN FREE, VEGAN
Luke’s jaw dropped and his eyes lit up.
“Are these for me?” he asked.
“No, greedy boy, they’re for all of us! Why don’t you hang them on the tree?”
“But, … how come …?”
“I found your leaflets,” Mum explained.
“What leaflets?”
“The ones stuffed in the back pocket of your black cords; the black cords you shoved under the bed and forgot about I don’t know how long ago.”
“Oh, I wondered where they were.”
“Well I found them and I checked the pockets before putting them in the wash, and there were these leaflets. One with a picture of a cow on the front entitled ‘The Dark Side of Dairy’ and one with a cute little brown and white piglet on the front entitled ‘Think Before You Eat’.”
“And you read them?”
“And I read them.”
“And that’s why …?”
“Yes it is,” she paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “Luke,” she went on, “you have good instincts. When you started this crusade for animals you did it on instinct. You hadn’t been told any of the shocking facts and figures that are in those leaflets, you just knew it wasn’t right. And you did something about it. You spoke out bravely and you acted. You broke the rules when you felt you had to and you endured punishments, but you never wavered; you never stopped fighting.”
Luke nodded. He wasn’t sure why his mum was explaining something that she must have known he already knew, but he waited. It would become clear eventually. She continued.
“So I don’t want you to give up hope now. I want you to know that if you keep trying, you will make a difference. You have already made a difference for Curly and Little Squirt and the rabb.., er, the damsons, but even more than that, you’re a good influence on other people.”
Now, those were words Luke never thought he’d hear from his mother.
“You have been a good influence on us.”
At this point she took his hand, led him into the kitchen and opened the freezer.
“What d’you fancy for Christmas dinner?” she asked.
Luke looked in the freezer. It was full – Mum always did a big shop for the Christmas holidays – and there were quite a few unfamiliar boxes and cartons. He lifted them out one at a time to read the descriptions:
Cauldron Wholefood Burgers
Made with Chickpeas, Cauliflower, Aduki Beans, Broad Beans, Spinach, Onions, Garlic & Potatoes
Cauldron Wholefood Sausages
Made with Grilled Vegetables (Peppers, Courgette, Onion), Beans & Wheat
Cauldron Aduki Bean Melt
“The combination of aduki beans, spinach and mushrooms deliciously filled with mango chutney and carefully coated in breadcrumbs gives a satisfyingly moreish taste.”
Biona Red Lentil Sun Seed Burger
A flavoursome vegan burger made with red lentils, pumpkin and sunflower seeds with a subtle hint of spice. Made using all natural, organic ingredients and free from artificial colours or flavours. Perfect loaded with your favourite burger toppings, added to salads or dipped in sweet chilli sauce as a tasty and nutritious snack.
Can be eaten hot or cold.
Dee’s 6 Leek & Onion Vegan Sausages
The perfect partner to velvety mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, our Leek and Onion Sausages will become an instant family favourite on your weekly menu.
Dragonfly Organic Bubble & Squeak Tatty
Our Tatty is a vegetarian burger that has a real bubble & squeak feel about it, made using locally sourced cabbage and onions
Linda McCartney Vegetarian Country Pies
Vegetarian pie made from a shortcrust pastry base, filled with rehydrated textured soya protein in a rich onion and beef-style gravy, topped with a puff pastry lid.
Linda McCartney Vegetarian Sausage Rolls
Vegetarian Cumberland sausage-style filling wrapped in puff pastry.
And there were three flavours of luxury organic vegan ice cream:
Booja Booja Hazelnut Chocolate Truffle, Booja Booja Raspberry Ripple and Booja Booja Caramel Pecan Praline.
Luke was no longer fed up. He smiled broadly at his mum.
“Are these for all of us?”
“Yes they are. For all of us,” she said happily, “and I got them from Besco’s. They sell them in mainstream supermarkets Luke and that just shows how much progress you’re making. That’s what happens when you speak out and you keep speaking out.”
Mrs Walker was treated to a rare hug which lasted a good half minute, and then Luke ran from the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” she called after him.
“I’ve got some letters to write!” he said.
Happy Christmas everybody!
We hope you have a good one!
❤ ❤ We’ll see you in the New Year! 😀 ❤ ❤
*******************************************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children, veggie kids, animals, animal sanctuary, Christmas, children’s story, vegan children’s story, children’s book, vegan children’s book, juvenile fiction, hope
For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 🙂
Chapter 16 continues from yesterday:
“Luke! There you are!” called Mum, “you do have a penchant for wandering off.”
Luke had no idea what a ponshon was but decided to take her word for it.
“Look what I’ve got!” she said. She sounded excited. “I won it! Well, I bought so many tickets I almost bought it!”
Luke looked at the slightly torn, slightly scratched, slightly coming apart at one end, box she was carrying. He could hardly believe it.
“Is that the same as ..?” he asked her.
“Exactly the same!” she said. She sounded so happy. “Here you are darling, this is yours.”
She was holding a Hornby R.793 King Size Electric train set. It was exactly the same as Grandad Pete’s. Grandad Pete was Mum’s dad and he loved trains. He was a volunteer fireman at his local steam railway and he used to let Luke ride the engine with him when they visited at Easter and August bank holiday. His Hornby train set had three locomotives – a King Henry VIII, a Class 29 (type 2) Bo-Bo, and a Class 3F Jinty Tank. Plus it had coaches, wagons, trackside accessories and buildings. It was brilliant.
Whenever they went to visit Grandad Pete, Luke and Grandad went up to the loft and played with the train set for hours. It was always set up. Always ready to play.
Grandad died the day after Luke’s seventh birthday. He left Luke the train set in his will because he wanted it to go to someone who loved it as much as he had.
Sadly, Mum, because of an unfortunate series of events which were of no interest to Luke, accidentally backed over it with the car. Luke had been devastated. Mum equally so. She couldn’t replace it because they didn’t make them like that any more. And Luke didn’t want just any train set. But now she’d found one. And it really was exactly the same as Grandad’s. Luke was momentarily lost for words. He looked up at Mum’s glowing face.
“Thank you,” he tried to say but the words caught in his throat. He was overwhelmed. “Can we go home and set it up?” he asked.
“Now?” she asked, “are we done here?”
“I’m done here,” he replied.
***
On Christmas Eve, Luke pulled down the peak of his blue engine driver’s cap, blew his whistle and called,
“All aboard!”
The train pulled out of the station. It picked up speed and smoothly rode the tracks through Lego town, across the Scarf-River bridge, under the Bed-Tunnel through Bed-Mountain, and onto the Blue Pillowcase Coast. When it got to Seaside station it stopped to pick up Batman, Spiderman and a couple of soldiers on leave, before continuing on its journey to the end of the line. There was a near accident when a giant brown and white dog stepped onto the track but tragedy was averted when a quick-thinking observer lured the animal out of harm’s way with a Digestive.
Outside, a car door slammed.
“Luke, Jared – Dad’s home. He’s got the tree!” Mum called from downstairs, “come down and help me decorate it.”
Jared thundered down the stairs. Luke was too busy. Batman was late for a job interview – the train must keep going. As it sped towards the old suspension bridge, the driver noticed two of the shoe lace suspenders had snapped, and the others looked like they’d struggle to take the strain. He applied the brake but it was too late, the train was going too fast, it wouldn’t be able to stop in time. Suddenly Spiderman climbed out of the window and ran along the roof of the train to the front. He spun his web and ….
Mum opened the bedroom door.
“Luke, don’t you want to help decorate the tree?”
****************************
Story concludes tomorrow 🙂 or you can read the whole chapter right now 😉
************************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children, veggie kids, animals, animal sanctuary, Christmas, children’s story, vegan children’s story, children’s book, vegan children’s book, juvenile fiction
For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 🙂
Chapter 16 continues from yesterday:
When he got to the cafe he decided to pop in. He knew that 87p wouldn’t ordinarily get him a cupcake but, since the end of the day was approaching, they might have made them half price. Or maybe there was a squashed one that nobody else wanted. It was worth a look. He stepped inside and picked up a menu. That was somewhat disturbing.
This animal sanctuary, this place of love and compassion, of respite and rescue; this place whose slogan, “We care about the well being of every animal”, was written across every sign and above every doorway, was selling dead animals in its cafe.
Luke spoke to the lady behind the till.
“Why are you selling meat?”
“Erm, well, it’s on the menu,” she replied.
“But why is it on the menu?”
“Because it’s a cafe,” she said, not knowing why he was confused.
“It’s a animal sanct’ry cafe,” Luke pointed out, “and meat is dead animals.”
“Ahh,” she replied, finally understanding where he was coming from. “All of our meat is from local, free range farms.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s sustainable.”
“What does that mean?”
By this time a queue had formed behind Luke and when the manager saw that it wasn’t moving, he came over.
“Is everything okay over here?” he asked the lady on the till.
“Oh, yes, erm, this young man has a question about the menu,” she told him.
The manager steered Luke away from the counter.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
Luke started again.
“Why do you sell meat here?”
“Because people want to eat it,” the manager answered.
“But what about the animals who get killed for your meat?”
“Well, …”
“And your eggs?”
“Ah, the eggs …”
“And cheese and milk and ice cream?” Luke was getting louder and people were starting to look.
The manager spoke quietly in an effort to diffuse the situation.
“I assure you that all the meat, eggs, fish, and dairy sold here comes from local free range farms with sustainable practices.”
Luke was exasperated.
“That’s what she said!”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that it doesn’t come from factory farms where animals are kept in small cages. The animals are well looked after and are free to walk around.”
“Until they’re killed,” said Luke.
“Er, yes,” said the manager.
“And are the killin’ sheds free range?”
“Er, no,” the manager admitted.
“Are they special killin’ sheds or are they the same killin’ sheds what the factory farm animals go to?”
The manager knew a lot of eyes were on him and for a few moments he didn’t say anything. Luke, however, had plenty more to say.
“They’re the same horrible killin’ sheds aren’t they? And them animals is the same as the animals who you look after here; who you say you love; who you say should be treated kindly.”
At this the manager felt he had a good come-back. He answered with confidence.
“Ah, no, we don’t sell the meat of any of the species who live at the sanctuary. Only beef and pork and fish.”
Luke looked at him with disdain.
“And,” the manager added with a smile, “we do have vegetarian and vegan options on the menu. We’ve got something for everyone.”
Luke was bitterly disappointed in what he had thought was a wonderful place. That this was happening made absolutely no sense to him. He was so sick and tired of adults saying one thing and doing another. The manager, taking his silence as an end to their debate, turned to walk away. Luke touched his arm and said,
“So, you know about veggietareun food, you know there’s no need to eat animals, but you still have ’em killed because some people like eatin’ ’em. And Maybury says it wants to teach people how to be kind to animals but it doesn’t set a good example of not eatin’ ’em. It lets people think it’s okay to eat ’em. It pretends it’s not cruel to eat ’em so people keep on doin’ it. So it’s your fault when people keep on doin’ it coz you could ‘ave told ’em not to and you didn’t.”
He turned and walked out. He didn’t want a cake any more.
**************************************
Story continues tomorrow 🙂 or you can read the whole chapter right now, no waiting 😉
************************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children, veggie kids, animals, animal sanctuary, Christmas, children’s story, vegan children’s story, children’s book, vegan children’s book, juvenile fiction
For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 🙂
And here is the beginning of Chapter 16, the final chapter of the second book, More Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er:
Luke Walker and the Maybury Christmas Fayre
Luke reached for it at the exact same time as Jared. They scowled at each other.
“Let me have it. I saw it first,” Luke insisted.
“We saw it at the same time,” Jared argued, “and I’m the oldest so you have to do what I say.”
“I do not,” said Luke emphatically.
“Boys!” Mr Walker halted their squabbling, “what’s the trouble now?”
“I want to get this for Mum,” explained Luke, “I saw it first.”
“No he didn’t!” argued his brother, “I saw it first and I want to get it for Mum.”
The item in question was a dainty ceramic ornament depicting Little Bo Peep with a lamb – an ideal Christmas gift for anyone’s mother. Dad took it off them and asked the lady how much it was.
“All the small ornaments are 50p,” she told him.
Dad looked at Jared and appealed to his better nature.
“Luke doesn’t have much money Jared, so this is all he can afford. You’ve got your paper round money so you’ll be able to find something else. Let your brother have this one.”
Jared shrugged.
“Okay,” he agreed and wandered off to the home-made jam stall.
Luke pulled a sticky fifty pence piece out of his pocket and handed it to the lady. She wrapped the ornament in tissue paper for him. Dad smiled.
“Your mum’ll love that Luke, nice find.”
“Where is Mum?” Luke asked.
“Where d’you think?” said Dad, grinning.
“Tombola!” they both said at the same time.
This was the first time they’d been to the Maybury Christmas Fayre and it was pretty good. There were lots of stalls where you could buy Christmas presents for reasonable prices – some things were second hand, some were home-made. There were games, like Mum’s favourite, the Tombola, where you had to get a ticket ending in 5 or 0 to win a prize, and some which had a prize every time like the lucky dip or Luke’s favourite where you paid 50p for a jar wrapped in Christmas paper without knowing what was in it. If you were lucky it might be a jar full of sweets or marbles; if you were unlucky it might be full of tea bags. But even that wasn’t a complete loss because it could be a Christmas present for someone. Nan liked tea. There was also a cake stall, a raffle, and a dog show to see who was the prettiest dog and who was the cleverest dog and who was the most obedient dog. Luke knew that Dudley wouldn’t enjoy that because he was the type of dog who had no interest in performing. He was clever, but didn’t feel it necessary to prove that to anyone. He was his own dog and Luke respected that.
The other good thing about the Christmas Fayre was that it was in aid of helping animals. Maybury Centre for Animal Welfare was a sanctuary where they looked after horses and donkeys and sheep and chickens and tortoises and anyone else who needed help and came their way. They also rescued dogs and cats and rabbits and guinea pigs who’d been abandoned or neglected or cruelly treated, and they found happy new homes for them. Luke was very glad that his Christmas shopping money was going to such a good cause.
By three o’clock Luke had done all his shopping and was very happy with what he’d got for everyone: Little Bo-Peep for Mum; gloves for Dad; football book for Jared; jar of tea for Nan; bowling DVD for Grandad; and a jar of marbles for Joe. Plus he’d been lucky enough to score a jar of gobstoppers and a really cool stainless steel whistle for himself.
Luke had 87p left so while Dad went to find Mum, he decided to have a final look round. In doing so he came across a man wearing climbing gear standing behind a table with a pen and a long list of names and numbers.
“Sponsor me to abseil down the clock tower?” he solicited.
“What’s that?” asked Luke.
“Abseil means to descend down the side of a building on a rope.”
Luke looked confused.
The man tried again to explain.
“So, I’ll stand on the top of the tower wearing this harness attached to a rope which will be doubled through a loop. And I’ll jump off the top and bounce my feet on the side of the tower, going down bit by bit, sliding the rope through my hands until I get the bottom.”
“Yeah, I get what you mean, but why would you do that?”
“To raise money for Maybury.”
“But why don’t you get sponsored to do somethin’ useful, instead of abstainin’.”
“Abseiling,” he corrected. “Raising money is useful for Maybury. They can do a lot of good things with it.”
“Yes, but if the thing you got sponsored for doin’ was useful as well, like you could get sponsored for pickin’ up litter, then you would get money and at the same time you would have done somethin’ really useful.”
The man looked over Luke’s head at the elderly couple approaching his table.
“Sponsor me to abseil down the clock tower?” he asked them.
Luke moved on.
*********************************
Story continues tomorrow 🙂 or you can read the whole chapter right now, no waiting 😉
************************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children, veggie kids, animals, animal sanctuary, Christmas, children’s story, vegan children’s story, children’s book, vegan children’s book, juvenile fiction
For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 🙂
Chapter 15, the denouement :
At ten forty-five on Tuesday morning, Luke and Joe climbed aboard the school minibus and grabbed two of the back seats. Tania and Isabel grabbed the other two.
“This should be good,” said Isabel.
“Yeah, I need to get something for my mum and something for my grandad,” Tania replied.
“Is that all?” Isabel was impressed, “I’ve still got to do all mine.”
The engine started.
“Okay everybody,” Thomas shouted from the front, “seatbelts on. Off we go!”
Luke and Joe pulled their lunch boxes out of their bags. Isabel laughed.
“We’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said, “you shouldn’t spoil your appetites – I bet there’ll be some delicious Christmas food at the market.”
“Nah, we’d rather eat now,” said Luke as he bit into his blueberry muffin.
Tania looked over at their lunches and it reminded her of something she’d been meaning to tell them.
“Thomas is a veggie.”
“Is he?” said Joe.
“I think so. I saw Mrs Tebbut offer him one of her homemade mince pies yesterday and he asked if they had vegetable suet in them. She said she wasn’t sure so he said no thank you.”
“He’s cool,” said Luke approvingly.
“Yeah,” Joe agreed, “it’s good he works in our class and dint stay with Ms Robinson.”
***
The Christmas market was really crowded. It stretched the whole length of Fish Street which had been closed to traffic. Mr Beardsley told everyone to make sure they were always in sight of himself or Thomas. They were not to go off anywhere by themselves.
There was a Christmas tree at the car park end of the street, huge and covered in twinkling white lights. Next to it the Salvation Army band played Christmas carols and the whole atmosphere was happy and festive. The first stall sold reindeer food at a pound a bag, for anyone who wanted to leave a treat for Santa’s friends on Christmas Eve.
At the second stall, if you weren’t short of cash, you could buy a hand-calved Buddha.
The third stall looked more fun – they were selling robots playing snooker. Luke thought he wanted one but forgot about it as soon as he saw the bird whistles on the next stall. He’d always wanted to be able to communicate with birds.
The fifth stall sold snake-length marshmallows; the sixth sold Turkish Delight; the seventh had models of owls and elephants in jars; the eighth sold rock crystal lamps; the ninth had reindeer-shaped planters. Before long the market lost its charm for two boys with no money.
“Let’s go over there,” Luke suggested, pointing to an empty bandstand on the lawn behind the stalls.
“Mr Beardsley said we’re s’posed to stay in sight,” said Joe.
“We will be,” Luke assured him, “we’ll be able to see everybody from up there.”
The boys squeezed between the chocolate scissors stall and the cannabis incense stall and climbed onto the raised platform of the bandstand. They sat comfortably with their feet dangling and tucked into their sandwiches while they watched the merry throng.
“This is good,” said Luke smiling, “I don’t mind shoppin’ if I don’t have to actually shop.”
By the time they’d finished their lunches their classmates were out of sight and Joe felt they should try to catch up. Luke disagreed.
“No, we might get lost. We should wait coz they’ll have to come back this way. Look, I can see the minibus from here.”
“That’s not our minibus. Ours doesn’t have a green stripe down the side.”
“Doesn’t it?” said Luke, a little thrown. “Oh, well, they’ll still have to come back this way. I think we should wait.”
They only had to wait for another quarter of an hour before they saw a couple of familiar faces. Tania and Isabel were hurrying across the lawn towards them.
“There you are!” said Isabel, gasping for breath.
“Luke! – You’ve got to come! They’re selling reindeer skins!” said Tania.
“And reindeer burgers!”
Luke and Joe, crestfallen, climbed down from the bandstand and followed the girls to the far end of Fish Street, where all the food stalls were. Luke was sad but not surprised to see what looked like hundreds of people eager to indulge in deep fried flesh foods, jostling to hold their positions in the queues.
“Say something!” Tania implored.
“What d’you want me to say?” Luke asked.
“Tell them they’re despicable to kill reindeer! Tell them it’s sick to sell reindeer burgers at Christmas!”
In addition to the stalls selling reindeer, there was one selling inferno cheddar (cheese laced with chillies); another was selling turkey sausages spiced with chilli and paprika; another was using a cute-looking model pig to sell pork scratchings.
“You can tell ’em that if you want,” Luke said, loud enough to be heard by anyone who wanted to listen, “an’ I agree with you, but it won’t do any good. Not while there’s so many stupid people who want to buy this stuff.”
“Who’s stupid?” said a large man in the spicy sausage queue.
“You lot,” said Luke unapologetically, “all you lot in these queues.”
“Is that right?” he said slowly, turning to face Luke with eyes narrowed.
Tania and Isabel blushed and took a step back. Joe looked at his feet. Luke didn’t move.
“Yeah,” said Luke, “Don’t you think it’s stupid to pay for somethin’ what’s killin’ the planet?”
A few more people turned to listen. Luke went on.
“Well, I call it stupid coz animal farmin’ kills the sea and the rainforests and makes more greenhouse gases than cars an’ planes an’ all transport put together!”
“Says who?” asked the man sceptically.
“Said the United Nations. Over ten years ago.” He paused briefly to let them absorb it before concluding. “Yeah, it’s pretty stupid to spend your money on killin’ the planet you live on. You’re killin’ yourselves. An’ your children. An’ your children’s children.”
Luke was surprised and disappointed to get almost no reaction to his shocking revelation, but he didn’t give up. He had more.
“An’ I should say it’s pretty stupid to let people starve coz you paid for their food to be given to seventy billion farm animals, just so you can eat meat an’ cheese. Yeah, anyone who pays for that is pretty stupid alright. And selfish.”
The large man laughed stupidly.
“But it tastes so good!” he scoffed and turned back to wait for his sausage.
In the silence before the conversational hubbub rose again, three or four people walked away from the food stalls. Luke turned back to Tania and Isabel.
“See, there’s no point tellin’ people they’re horrible for sellin’ horrible things. They don’t care. They’ll sell anythin’ if people’ll pay ’em for it. It’s the people what pay for it who make it happen. If they didn’t buy it, no one would sell it.”
The girls nodded. Isabel looked guiltily at the half-eaten bag of pork scratchings in her hand and quickly tossed it in the bin. All four children walked back to the bandstand to look out for the rest of their class returning to the minibus. When they were back in their seats on the bus, Tania made a declaration.
“I’m going to make an early new year’s resolution,” she paused for effect before announcing, “I’m going vegan!”
“Me too,” said Isabel, smiling.
Luke looked wonderingly at Joe. Joe nodded.
“D’you want to join our secret society?” they asked.
******************************
Christmas is just around the corner, for Luke as well. Join us tomorrow for the beginning of a Christmassy final chapter of the second Luke Walker book 😀
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For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 🙂
Chapter 15 continues from yesterday:
The chairs were turned upside down on the desks; the bins were empty and the paint pots were washed up and stacked on the draining board. Everything except Mr Beardsley’s desk was swept and dusted and tidy.
Mr Beardsley’s desk was always a mess – he said it was the only way he knew where to find anything. Luke decided to see if there was anything worth finding. There were post-it notes, pencils, pens, two coffee mugs, a pencil sharpener, a stopwatch, a calculator – a calculator?!
“One rule for them, another rule for us!” thought Luke.
There were two piles of exercise books – blue maths ones and yellow history ones. Luke sought out his own for a sneak preview of his grades.
“He hasn’t even marked ’em yet!” he grumbled, exasperated, “what’s the point of makin’ us hand ’em in on Friday if you’re not gonna mark ’em ’til next week?!”
There was nothing else of interest on top of the desk so Luke tried the drawer. It was unlocked.
“Aha!” He lifted out a large hardback diary, “let’s see what you’re gonna make us do next week.”
He dropped the dog-eared book onto the desk and opened it to the first week of December.
Monday was left blank so Luke, cleverly imitating Mr Beardsley’s handwriting, wrote:
On the Tuesday page was a barely legible scribble which seemed promising:
The Wednesday page foretold a spelling test and a fire drill.
The Thursday page confirmed what Luke already knew: there would be a full dress rehearsal of the Christmas concert in front of the rest of the school and the senior citizens from the village. He smiled, knowing that meant no lessons.
The Friday page contained a still more glorious statement:
“Yo ho there! Ebenezer!”
Luke flinched at Kenny’s very loud portrayal of Fezziwig and knocked over one of the mugs which was still a quarter full of cold coffee. Thankfully, his reflexes were second to none and in slamming the diary shut he ensured the rest of the desk stayed more or less dry. He carefully placed the book back where he’d found it and rejoined his fellow Thespians.
***
“Will you check on Curly ‘n’ Squirt for me after school?” Luke asked Joe on Monday afternoon as the credits rolled at the end of Roald Dahl’s Matilda.
“Yeah, why? Another rehearsal?”
“Yeah. I’ll be glad when it’s over an’ done with.”
“Not long now.”
“Thank goodness!” said Luke with relief, “I think it was a mean trick them tellin’ us we can be in the play without tellin’ us we wunt be doin’ the practices in lesson time.”
“It was,” Joe agreed, having had to give up a lot of his own free time to paint the scenery.
Mr Beardsley switched on the lights and clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Wakey wakey everybody, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. It’s nearly half past three, so let me just remind you to bring your Christmas shopping money tomorrow. Full school uniform is compulsory – we don’t want to lose anybody.”
The bell rang loud and long, precipitating a riot of excited voices and chair legs scraping the floor.
“Exit quietly please,” he requested, “see you tomorrow.”
“I haven’t got any money,” said Joe to Luke confidentially.
“Me neither,” Luke replied, “but that doesn’t matter. It’ll still be good to get out of school for a few hours.”
Luke and Joe went their separate ways.
“See ya.”
“See ya.”
***
Luke made himself comfortable in the middle of the row of chairs at the back of the hall. He put his bag on the chair to his left, his coat on the chair to his right and his feet on the chair in front of him. He took out his reading book and his notebook, popped his gobstopper back in his mouth and, keeping one ear open for the approach of his cue, read.
After reading page 71 he wrote:
After reading page 78 he wrote:
After re-reading page 69 he wrote:
“Remove me! I cannot bear it!”
After reading page 80 he wrote:
“… but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
Luke swiftly returned his books and his gobstopper to his bag and hurried to stage left. It was time for the Third Spirit.
*********************************
See you Monday for the next instalment 😉
But if you don’t want to wait, you can read the whole of chapter 15 now 😀
*******************************************
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Are you sitting comfortably?
Then we will begin chapter 15: Luke Walker and the school play
“I am here today …”
“Tonight.”
“I am here tonight to warn you, that you ‘ave yet a chance and hope of escapin’ my fate. A chance and hope of my procturin’, Ebenezer.”
“of my procuring.”
“Of my procurin’ Ebenezer.”
“You were always a good friend to me, thank’ee!”
“You will be haunted by three spirits.”
“Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?”
“It is.”
“I—I think I’d rather not.”
“Without the visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One.”
“Couldn’t I take ’em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?”
“Don’t move that, it’s mine!”
“Luke! It’s your line.”
“Expect the second on the next night… hey! Leave it I said!”
“Luke!”
“That’s my bag!”
“She’s only putting it in the cloakroom, it’s in the way out here, someone might trip over it.”
“Oh.”
“Can we please finish this scene! Go from ‘Couldn’t I take ’em all at once’.”
Butler pulled a face at Luke who reciprocated.
“Couldn’t I take ’em all at once and have it over Jacob?”
“Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!”
Ms Robinson breathed a sigh of relief.
“Okay, that’ll do. Well done for getting the lines memorised both of you, but try to put a bit more feeling into it. Simon, remember you’re really scared, and Luke, don’t forget to rattle your chains and try to make your voice sound more ominous.”
Simon laughed.
“I don’t think Luke knows what ominous means,” he said with a smirk.
“Yes I do!” Luke replied indignantly.
Ms Robinson elaborated.
“Try to sound menacing, sinister. Make your voice deeper if you can.”
“I knew what you meant!” Luke lied, flashing Butler his most withering scowl.
“Okay Luke, take a break,” said Ms Robinson, “Simon, get in position for scene 3. First Spirit – where are you?”
Luke went to the cloakroom to find his bag. He didn’t trust anyone else with it – there was important stuff inside. He was relieved to find it safe on his peg, looking as though it hadn’t been tampered with. He confirmed this with the retrieval and measurement of his gobstopper – it was the same size it had been an hour and a half earlier when he’d put it in the zip pocket. He put the large sweet back into his mouth, took an orange plastic chair from the stack in the corner, and sat down to read his book. It wasn’t really his book, he’d borrowed it from the library, but it was so good that he thought he’d get his own copy if he got any book tokens for Christmas. The funny thing was, if Mr Beardsley hadn’t given them the book report assignment, he might never have picked it up. Its cover, a boring photograph of a corn field with a mountain behind it, would not normally have caught his attention, but its title – The Sustainability Secret – was intriguing. The word ‘secret’ had made him think of spies, secret agents, action and adventure, so he’d put the book on his ‘maybe’ pile and checked it out. He checked out seven books that day and after first trying and giving up on the other six, he decided, unequivocally, that The Sustainability Secret would be the subject of his book report. It turned out not to be about spies or secret agents but it was engrossing. He read it, and re-read it, every chance he got. Even when he was supposed to be watching rehearsals.
Participation in the school play had annoyingly failed to get him out of lessons because rehearsals were scheduled for after school and at weekends. On top of that Luke had had to spend an enormous amount of his free time learning his lines. Well, not an enormous amount, but some. As it turned out Luke was very good at memorising lines. Not only his own but those of everyone else in the scene. This was a very valuable skill to have and he determined to put it to more productive use in future. For example, there were lots of important facts in The Sustainability Secret that he wanted to commit to memory. A lot of it was scientific stuff which was harder to memorise but he wrote things down, over and over, until they stuck.
After reading page ten he wrote in his secret society notebook:
After reading page eleven he wrote:
“Good Heaven! I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!”
Butler’s voice could really carry.
Finding it difficult to concentrate, Luke closed his book and put it away.
“If they’ve on’y jus’ got to ‘I was a boy here’ it’s gonna be ages ’til I’m on again.”
He considered popping out to see Curly and Squirt but since time passed quicker when not at school he knew it was too risky. If he missed his cue again everyone would moan at him. He decided instead to hang out in the classroom. Pupils weren’t really allowed in the classrooms without adult supervision, not since the “mindless vandalism” of class 6, but Luke felt that since he wasn’t a mindless vandal, the rule didn’t apply to him.
*************************************
Story continues tomorrow 😀
Enjoy your weekend 😀
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To read the rest of the Luke Walker stories, click here 😀
Chapter 14 continues from yesterday:
A noisy, activity-filled party with only two adults in attendance was easy to sneak away from. It hadn’t even been difficult to get the matches from Mr Beardsley’s desk drawer. Fortunately there had been no rain for a couple of weeks so it didn’t take long to find ample dry twigs and fir cones in the churchyard over the road. Now all they needed was a big stone each and that would be no problem either because Luke remembered seeing some different coloured pebbles, curiously arranged in the shape of a fish, close to the church entrance. They’d just been left there. No one was using them.
It was just after nine o’clock and very dark in the churchyard. Two owls hooted back and forth. Every so often bats flew overhead between the bell tower and the vicarage. Now it really felt like Halloween. The children made themselves comfortable on the ground near the oldest gravestones they could find. Covered in lichen, the writing on them was almost illegible.
Making sure there was nothing flammable nearby, Luke built a small fire with the twigs and fir cones on the crumbling horizontal stone base of one of the graves. He had no trouble getting it going with the few scraps of paper found in Mr Beardsley’s desk drawer earlier.
As their teacher had told them, the game was simple. On Halloween night, participants made a fire and when the fire burnt out they placed a ring of stones in the ashes, one for each person. The following morning they would check the circle and if they found any stone displaced, it was said that the person it represented would die before the year ended.
Luke drew a circle in the ash with another stick. Their pebbles were easy to distinguish from each other. Luke’s was the biggest and the darkest. He put it in the twelve o’clock position, closest to the gravestone. Joe’s was a little smaller and had a notch on one side. He placed it at nine o’clock. Isabel’s looked like it had a nose, hers was placed at six o’clock and Tania’s, the smallest of them all, was placed at three o’clock.
“What was that?” Isabel turned suddenly to look behind her.
“Just a rabbit prob’ly,” said Luke, “or a badger.”
“Or a fox,” added Joe.
The boys looked around eagerly, hoping to see some majestic nocturnal wildlife. They weren’t so lucky.
“We’d better get back,” said Tania, looking at her watch, “it’s nearly five to ten.”
“Wait!” whispered Luke as he ducked behind a tree, “that’s my dad!”
The churchyard was a short-cut between the school and Luke’s road so he might have known his dad would come this way to meet him. Everyone laid low until he’d passed.
“My mum’s probably at the school by now too,” said Tania.
“They’ll all be there, waiting outside the classroom for us,” said Isabel anxiously, “how will we get back in without them seeing us?”
Luke and Joe smiled at each other. For seasoned outlaws like them, this wasn’t going to be a problem.
“Follow us,” said Joe, and they led the girls to a little known entrance to the school which was always left open when the caretaker was around so that he could duck out quickly for a smoke without going past the kitchens or the offices. The door led to the school hall which had a connecting door to Mrs Tebbut’s classroom which shared a cloakroom with Class 5A.
“Don’t tell anyone about this,” Joe added as an afterthought.
Without raising suspicion all four of them rejoined the rest of their class as they emerged from the party. They parted with a secret promise to meet early Saturday morning and check on the fire circle. Each agreed to wait until they were all together before they looked.
When all children had been collected Mr Beardsley and Thomas returned to the classroom to clear up the mess. They were tired but it had been fun; they were glad they’d done it.
“Excuse me,” Mrs Butler put her head round the door.
“Oh, hello,” said Mr Beardsley, “are you looking for your plate? It’s in a stack in the sink. I’ll wash it up and send it home with Simon on Monday.”
“Er, thank you, no, I’m looking for Simon. Did he leave with someone else?”
Mr Beardsley’s jaw dropped. Filled with dread he looked at Thomas. Thomas shook his head. At that moment the classroom door opened again and Simon walked in.
“Simon! Where have you been?” his mum asked, awash with relief.
“Looking for you,” he lied, “shall we go?”
********************************************************
Chapter 15 starts tomorrow 😉
***************
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Chapter 14 continues from yesterday:
“Hey! They can’t have them on Halloween! Who brought them?” he asked, pointing with disgust at the flesh food and surveying the faces around the table.
“What’s wrong?” asked Isabel.
Luke didn’t hear her. He angrily snatched the plate from the buffet, intending to dispose of the offending items.
“Mr Beardsley said it’s a Halloween tradition to be vegetarian,” Joe explained to Isabel, “so Luke is cross that somebody’s not doin’ it right.”
“So I see,” said Isabel as she watched Luke trying to move through the crowd holding the large plate of Scotch eggs above his head with both hands.
“Hey! Where you going with those?” Butler asked as Luke passed the music centre on his way to the toilets.
“Gettin’ rid of ’em!” said Luke, “they’re not Halloween.”
“Hey! Bring them back! My mum made them! Bring them back!”
Luke hurried through the cloakroom door with Butler close behind him. The music stopped and everyone could hear the two boys arguing loudly on the other side of the door.
Mr Beardsley hurried after them.
“Don’t come any nearer or I’ll drop ’em,” Luke threatened, forcing Butler to back off.
“You’ve got no right to throw away other people’s stuff!” he shouted angrily, “you think you’re better than everybody else! You think you’re so good but you’re not – you’re a thief! Give them back!”
“It’s no meat for Halloween!” Luke asserted, “dint your teacher tell you that?!”
“We don’t have to do what you say! Some of us want to eat meat – most of us actually – coz it tastes good! Mmm, I’d love a nice bacon buttie right now, or a nice bit of fish and chips, or a big juicy burger.”
His infuriating smirk pushed Luke to the limit and he lunged for the toilet door.
“Stop!” The boom of Mr Beardsley’s voice did not encourage disobedience.
Luke froze, plate in hand, his back to his teacher and his adversary.
“Could someone please tell me what on Earth is going on here?” Mr Beardsley asked more calmly.
Both boys talked at once: “He’s throwing my mum’s food in the toilet” / “Meat’s not allowed on Halloween!”
“Stop!” their teacher said again, “Luke, what are you doing out here with that plate of Scotch eggs?”
“They shouldn’t be here! You said people dint eat meat on Halloween! It’s tradition!”
“Yes, that’s true, I did, it is traditional not to eat meat on All Hallows’ Eve.”
“But my mum made them! He’s got no right to throw them away!”
“Simon!” Mr Beardsley quieted him, “no one’s going to throw away your mother’s food. Go back in to the party please and get the music going again.”
Simon reluctantly did as he was told and Mr Beardsley turned back to Luke.
“Give me the plate please,” he instructed.
“But they’re not …”
“Luke, now please.”
Luke handed him the plate.
“But you’re not gonna put ’em back on the table are you? They’re not s’posed to be …”
“Luke, I know you feel strongly about this and I respect that but you can’t force your beliefs on other people. Everyone has to be free to make their own choices.”
“Yeah right! Tell that to the chickens and pigs they’re made out of! If they’d had free choice they would’ve said NO THANK YOU VERY MUCH, I DON’T WANT TO BE A SCOTCH EGG!”
“Yes, alright Luke you’ve made your point. Now kindly return to the party and stay away from Simon Butler.”
Back in the classroom Luke found his plate and his friends and told them the whole story.
“You’re right,” said Tania, “Simon knew he was supposed to make something from the traditional vegetarian recipes Mr Beardsley gave us. He should’ve been reprimanded for not doing it right.”
“Typical!” added Isabel, “look at that, Beardsley’s just putting the scotch eggs back on the table. That flies in the face of everything he taught us! What’s the point of teaching us about historical tradition and saying you want to have a traditional party if you’re just going to let people be inauthentic?”
“Yeah! It’s fraudulent!” Tania concurred.
Luke hungrily polished off his sweetcorn while he listened to the impressive but unfamiliar vocabulary being employed by the girls and was in no doubt that they agreed with him.
“I think we should boycott this party!” Isabel declared.
“Whaddaya mean?” asked Joe.
“On the grounds that it’s a sham.”
“What?” said Luke and Joe at the same time.
“She means it’s bogus,” Tania explained, “spurious, phoney, false, fake.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s fake alright,” said Luke, catching up, “he’s ruined it. It’s not thentick at all now!”
“If we want a truly educational, authentic, realistic, traditional Halloween experience, we’ll have to do it ourselves,” Isabel went on, “we should go now and play the other game he told us about. The one he said we couldn’t play.”
The others gasped and then grinned.
“That’s ezzactly what we should do,” said Luke.
*************************
story concludes tomorrow 🙂
but if you can’t wait you can read the whole of Chapter 14 now 😉
*********************************
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To read the rest of the Luke Walker stories, click here 😀
Chapter 14 continues from yesterday:
Luke decided to change the subject.
“Where shall we put these then?” he asked.
“Not here,” said Mr Beardsley, “or they might get eaten. Put them on my desk behind the screen.”
The boys did as they were told and made their way through small huddles of various royalty, warriors and poets, a couple of Shakespeares and a Jesus. No sooner had they placed the food on the desk than Mr Beardsley asked Joe to give him the treacle scones and string so that he could set up the game. They would be starting in about ten minutes he told them. Music was already playing and a few people danced self-consciously in the middle of the room.
“This one’s for you Joe,” came a familiar voice through the speaker when the record changed.
Luke and Joe looked around to see Simon Butler behind a turntable across the room, dressed in a short blonde beard; a gold fitted jacket zipped up to his neck; short gold trousers fastened below the knee; long socks and large-buckled shoes. He thought he was so cool because Mr Beardsley had let him be the DJ. The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum by Fun Boy Three filled the room and Butler laughed excessively at his own joke. Luke and Joe paid him a visit.
“So glad you took my advice Joe,” he said privately, “you look even more like a loon than usual!”
“I’m Pythagoras,” said Joe, holding up the right-angled triangle he’d made out of three rulers.
“Oh, yeah, I know you think so, lunatics often think they’re somebody famous,” he chuckled smugly.
“I’m not a lunatic! I am Pythag…”
“What are you s’posed to be anyway?” Luke interrupted their pointless argument to draw attention to Butler’s ridiculous ensemble.
“Sir Walter Raleigh,” Butler confessed without shame.
Luke cast his best contemptuous glance at his arch enemy and said nothing.
“Okay, switch the music off now Simon, it’s time for the games to begin,” Mr Beardsley called across the room.
Mr Beardsley and Thomas had put out four small tables at intervals around the room. They were set up with different traditional Halloween games.
“Take it in turns to play the games at each table,” Blackbeard instructed, “have fun!” He was the kind of teacher who didn’t believe in too much control. He liked to give the children enough room to find their own way and, since he’d already explained the games in class, he chose not to recap. “You can put the music back on now Simon,” he added.
“This table is for apple bobbing,” said Thomas who, unlike his colleague, preferred to make sure things were being done properly. “One at a time. Katia – you go first.”
Luke and Joe decided to come back later for apples and wandered over to see what was on the next table. Joe’s treacle-covered scones, with long lengths of string tied to them, were suspended above the table and dangled at different heights. Queen Elizabeth I and Boudicca were already tucking in. With hands held behind their backs, Tania and Isabel tried to bite the scones and every time they got a nibble, the sticky pendulums swung away and then back, bumping their noses, their chins, their cheeks and their hair. Boudicca, being less concerned about her appearance than the Queen, finished her scone first and bowed her grinning, sticky head in gratitude for the applause of her peers. Queen Liz, dignified in defeat, shook her opponent’s hand and went to the sink to wash her face.
“Us next!” said Luke, standing beside the table and leaning forward. “Go!” he shouted before Joe was ready, and tried to grab an untouched scone in his teeth.
Joe hurried to join in but found himself at a disadvantage when one scone stuck to his thick beard, just below his bottom lip, and prevented him from getting close to any other. Thomas laughed and reminded Joe that he couldn’t use his hands but he needn’t have said anything because Joe was not a cheater. Luke was the clear victor, finishing his scone in just four bites, and afterwards Joe was allowed to manually detach his scone from his beard and eat it normally. There were less hairs on it than one might expect.
At the next table were small plates with chunks of barm brack on them, cut from the fruit breads that Luke and a couple of other people had made.
“I’ve got a coin!” said Isabel as she broke up her piece with a fork, “that means I’m going to be rich!”
“I think you’re s’posed to just bite it,” said Joe, “it might not work if you pull it apart like that.”
“I don’t wanna risk choking!” Isabel explained sensibly.
“Plus it’s dirty,” added Tania, “money’s really dirty you know. Just think how many people have touched it without washing their hands.”
Joe had already bitten into his chunk of barmbrack and discovered that he too had a coin. He spat it quickly into his hand.
“It’s not dirty,” Luke assured him, “don’t ya think I washed ’em before I put ’em in?”
“Is this the one that you made?” Joe asked, a little relieved.
“Yeah,” said Luke confidently, “well, it looks …, yeah, definitely.”
Luke bit into his piece of bread and found only currants and orange peel.
At the next table were three large dishes of colcannon, accompanied by a stack of small bowls and spoons. The game was the same. If you found a coin it meant you would be rich; if you found a ring it meant you would find true love. Luke hadn’t had any rings to put into his baking, and he’d put all his spare coins into his barm brack, so he loaded his bowl from the colcannon he’d made himself, knowing that the only thing he was in danger of finding was a pile of delicious grub. Thoughtful as always, he didn’t spoil the game for the others by telling them that.
A few minutes later, Luke, Joe, Tania and Isabel, all happy in spite of finding nothing but cabbage in their mash, found their newly stimulated appetites craved more and made their way to the long table. It was a good job they hadn’t left it any longer as many of the other children were already digging in and the good stuff was going fast. Luke took a large paper plate from the pile and filled it with roasted sweetcorn, monkey nuts, roasted pumpkin seeds, bonfire toffee and … oh no, Joe got the last toffee apple.
“Oh, do you want it?” Joe offered when his hand reached it just before Luke’s.
“Nah,” said Luke, trying to sound casual, “it’s yours.”
“We’ll share it,” Joe decided.
Luke smiled.
“Okay.” This was a good party.
Then he noticed something bad on the table. Something not in keeping with the celebration. Something odious. Something which was in shockingly bad taste: Scotch eggs.
*********************************************
story continues tomorrow 🙂
but if you can’t wait you can read the whole of Chapter 14 now 😉
*********************************
vegan children’s story, children’s book, children’s stories, juvenile fiction, vegan children, veggie kids, vegan, vegetarian, Halloween, humor, humour, comedy, funny, vegan children’s books
To read the rest of the Luke Walker stories, click here 😀
Chapter 14 continues from yesterday:
“Not Mr Darcy! Mr Wilberforce!” Luke insisted. “I don’t want to look like some posh bloke from Priden Precipice!”
Mrs Walker pulled the black trousers, white ruffled shirt and long black coat from The Village Players’ costume trunk.
“William Wilberforce would have dressed like Mr Darcy Luke, these will be just the thing,” she assured him, “I’ll just give them an iron.”
“Okay,” Luke tentatively agreed, “but what about Joe? Is there anythin’ in there that Joe can wear?”
Luke’s mum set up the board and plugged in the iron.
“Who’s he going as?” she asked.
“Depends what costumes you’ve got,” said Luke, keeping an open mind.
Mum had only recently joined the local amateur dramatics group so she wasn’t sure what costumes they’d got. Most of them were a bit worse for wear but they were lucky to be allowed to use them.
“See for yourself,” she suggested, “have a rummage and see if anything captures your imagination.”
Luke rummaged. Pink tights, brown tights, knickerbockers, caterpillar costume, spider costume, Cheshire Cat costume, blue dress with white pinafore. So far not so good. Red ball gown, green ball gown, yellow ball gown, purple tutu, red clown shoes. Really not good.
“Rubbish!” said Luke ungratefully, “it’s all rubbish!”
Mum sighed and switched off the iron.
“Luke – don’t just throw them around like that! You’re lucky we’ve been allowed to borrow these,” she said, exasperated.
Luke was sorry. He just wanted to find something good for Joe to shut Butler up. He helped Mum pick up the costumes and re-fold them.
“Sorry,” he said.
She pressed her lips tight together and looked him in the eye.
“That’s alright,” she said. Then, just as she was about to put the folded pile back in the trunk, she noticed a couple of things Luke had missed.
“What about these?” she said.
“A nightgown and a Father Christmas beard?” said Luke, unimpressed.
“Not a nightgown, a robe,” she explained, “men used to wear these in the olden days, especially in hot countries.”
Luke’s blank expression indicated he needed another clue.
“Who’s that maths guy you like?”
Still blank.
“Vegetarian? Triangles?”
“Pythagoras!”
“Yes!” Mum smiled, “I bet he would have worn something like this. And he probably had a long white beard when he got old.”
“Yeah!” Now Luke was excited, “We’ll both be veggietareun people from history! Joe can be Pythagoras and I’ll be William Wilberforce’s ghost!”
“Why not just William Wilberforce? Why do you have to be his ghost?”
“Coz it’s a Halloween party. Ya know: Ha-llow-een. It’s all about ghosts and scary stuff.” He thought his mum would have known that.
“Yes, but you’re all going as people from history.”
“Yes.”
“So they’re all dead.”
“Yeah.” There really was nothing confusing here.
“So why doesn’t Joe go as Pythagoras’s ghost?”
“It’s supposed to be someone who’s dead. So he’s Pythagoras. The man.”
“Yes, I see, so why aren’t you the man?”
“I’m going to be William Wilberforce’s ghost.”
“Not man?”
“No.”
“But if you’re a ghost why isn’t Joe going to be a ghost. Or if he’s the man, why aren’t you the man…?” She caught sight of her own reflection in the mirror and paused, wondering why she kept asking questions to which there could be no satisfactory answer.
“Can you iron this one as well please?” her son asked, handing back the white robe, “I’m goin’ to phone Joe and tell ‘im.”
***
On Friday 31st of October at 7.08 pm, Luke and Joe said goodbye to Luke’s dad at the school gate and walked towards the classroom carrying their contributions to the party food. Luke had followed the Halloween recipes given to him by Mr Beardsley for barm brack (a kind of fruit bread) and colcannon (mashed potatoes mixed with cabbage). Mum had helped a bit. Joe brought the treacle-covered scones he’d made with Janet’s assistance, using another of their teacher’s traditional recipes. He’d also remembered the string.
Mr Beardsley’s classroom was almost unrecognisable.
Hanging from the ceiling were two large imitation crystal chandeliers, covered in cobwebs and emitting a very dim, creamy light. Long dark-purple velvet curtains replaced the Venetian blinds that usually hung in the windows, the bottoms of which sat in folds on the floor around large pumpkins carved with grotesque gargoyle faces.
The boys approached a long table at one end of the room. It was draped in a ragged, dark red table cloth whose dusty hem skimmed the dusty parquet. On it fifteen white candles stood tall on three candelabra, complete with realistic-looking orange and yellow tissue paper flames and untidily littered with long drips of dry wax. Various plates and bowls of food, brought by the children, were set upon the table. Luke and Joe added theirs.
“No, not on there boys,” Mr Beardsley startled them, suddenly appearing as he did. “Those are for the games, remember?”
Luke and Joe looked at their teacher and then at each other and laughed. Mr Beardsley had really pulled out all the stops for this party. His already lofty frame appeared even taller than usual, and his apparently-severed head rested in front of his chest, supported by his left arm. Atop the severed head sat an enviable black hat, with wide upturned brim and a sinister-looking white skull and cross-bones on the front.
“Who are you supposed to be?” asked Luke.
“Can’t you guess?” teased his teacher, rubbing his brand new coal-black beard.
“No,” said Luke. Joe also shook his head.
Mr Beardsley tutted.
“Boys, boys boys,” he said, shaking his head, “don’t you ever listen to my lessons?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m Blackbeard. Remember? The famous pirate who was beheaded in 1718?”
“Pirate?” said Joe, looking daggers at Luke.
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story continues tomorrow 🙂
but if you can’t wait you can read the whole of Chapter 14 now 😉
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For all the Luke Walker chapters so far click here 😀
Here begins Chapter 14: Luke Walker and the Halloween Party
Luke, Joe, Isabel and Tania looked at the circle and gasped. They hadn’t believed it could happen. Now that it had, they were scared.
“That’s it then,” said Luke eventually, “I’ll prob’ly be dead by Christmas.”
***
Three days earlier everything had seemed so ordinary. Boringly so. Class 5A were doing History. History was sometimes interesting, sometimes exciting and often-times boring. This particular lesson seemed like it was going to fit into the last category. Mr Beardsley was talking whilst writing on the board, which meant he had his back to the class, which meant very few people were even pretending to listen.
“… historians believe that many of these traditions originate from Celtic harvest festivals, but others are of the opinion that it has always been a Christian ….”
“T,” whispered Luke.
“No,” said Joe, as he drew a diagonal support on the gallows.
“F,”
“Yes,” said Joe and filled in the Fs.
“Ooh, two Fs! Is it coffee?”
“No,” and he drew the noose.
Mr Beardsley rambled on and Luke found it disturbed his concentration. He felt sure he was close. There couldn’t be that many words with double F. Then the teacher said something that caught his attention.
“… Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows’ Eve, which is why it was traditional to eat certain vegetarian foods on this special day. In particular they ate apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.”
“What’s he talkin’ about?” Luke asked Joe. Joe looked at him blankly. Isabel Jessop tapped him on the shoulder and passed him a note which said ‘Halloween’.
Luke nodded a thank you to her. He pushed the note across to Joe.
“Halloween is a veggietareun day! We’d better listen coz he might want us to explain things to the others.”
Joe nodded and smiled uncomfortably. He’d never been called upon to explain anything to anyone and the idea didn’t appeal to him. However, realising that if any explanations were needed his friend would certainly provide them, he regained his composure. The boys watched their teacher and listened.
“All Hallows’ Eve, otherwise known as All Saints Eve, Allhalloween or, nowadays, just Halloween, begins the three days of Allhallowtide during which people remembered saints and martyrs and other dead people.”
“Oh my gosh!” thought Luke, “it seemed like it was gettin’ int’restin’ so we stopped playin’ an’ now it’s borin’ again!”
“… such as roasted sweetcorn, roasted pumpkin seeds, toffee apples,…”
“Toffee! Is it toffee?”
“No,” said Joe, drawing the condemned man’s circular head.
“… and they would enjoy these foods at Halloween parties where they’d also play some fun games.”
Mr Beardsley had their attention again.
“So I thought we could have a Year 5 Halloween party. We’ll invite class 5B and play some of these traditional games.”
A buzz of excitement filled the room.
“When?” someone shouted.
“On the 31st of October of course. The day after tomorrow. Friday.”
“Where?”
“Here. At seven o’clock ’til ten. I’ll send a note home to your parents today.”
Mr Beardsley was so disorganised. Luke liked that about him.
“Will it be fancy dress?”
“Indeed it will, but stop shouting out and let me finish. I’ll answer any questions you still have at the end of the lesson.”
***
Friday’s party was eagerly anticipated by everyone. It was going to be historical. They were going to play traditional games and eat traditional food – which they would have to make from scratch over the next couple of days. Mr Beardsley had given them recipes to take home. And they needed costumes. There was a lot to do and very little time in which to do it. Luke and Joe talked about it while they put on their coats and boots at the end of the day.
“I’m going to be a pirate,” said Joe.
“You can’t be a pirate, it’s not historical.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, it’s made up. Like in Peter Pan.”
“Pirates are real,” Isabel couldn’t help pointing out when she overheard their conversation.
“Not Long John Silver, or Captain Hook, or someone with a parrot on ‘is shoulder,” Luke clarified.
“What are you comin’ as then?” asked Joe.
“William Wilberforce’s ghost,” said Luke proudly.
“Ooh, good one,” said Tania as she returned to Isabel the scarf she’d borrowed.
“I’m coming as Queen Elizabeth I,” she added, shaking her auburn curls.
“Who can I be?” Isabel wondered aloud. The girls walked away in deep discussion. Luke and Joe were not far behind. Joe was disappointed that he couldn’t go as a pirate.
“What can I go as then?” he asked his friend.
“Go as a lunatic from one of those old asylums,” suggested Simon Butler who’d appeared from nowhere, “then you wouldn’t need a costume!” And he laughed so loud on his way out that Mrs Tebbut shouted ‘PIPE DOWN OUT THERE!’ from the classroom next door.
Luke scowled.
“Idiot Butler! Not even s’posed to be in this cloakroom,” he hissed under his breath. “Don’t worry,” he told Joe, “you’ll be somethin’ better’n ‘im!”
*************************************************
Don’t go far away, the story continues tomorrow 😀
*******************************************************
vegan children, vegan children’s story, veggie kids, vegan children’s books, Halloween, vegan, vegetarian, fancy dress, school, juvenile fiction, humour, comedy, funny
For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 😀
To read the whole of Chapter 13 click here 🙂
Story continues from yesterday:
In the Sunday School room Luke was unsurprised to find quaint and colourful cardboard fishing boats stuck to a massive collage that covered a whole wall. The boats were manned by friendly fishermen pulling up nets by hand. The water beneath them was gleaming turquoise and filled with colourful fish who looked only too eager to swim into the welcoming nets. A golden beach was pictured behind with market stalls where smiling fishmongers sold fish to happy villagers under a soft blue sky. A red and white striped lighthouse kindly warned the fishermen to stay away from the rocks. And across the sky large paper letters spelled out the words:
“Typical!” said Luke with contempt and uncharacteristic brevity. There was no time for lengthy verbal condemnations. They just got on with it.
Forty-six minutes later Joe was on his way home with gratitude as Luke dropped the last armful of tinned fish into the wheelie bin behind the building. Tomorrow there’d be no Joe. Tomorrow Luke would be on his own. Which wasn’t a problem, because he wasn’t a coward.
***
Luke was quiet at breakfast on Sunday and Mum sympathised.
“You’re very preoccupied this morning Luke, are you worried about talking to Eric?”
“Er, kind of,” Luke admitted.
“Mm, it’s never easy to tell someone something they don’t want to hear but it’s better to be honest.”
“Yeah,” said Luke, enlivened by a slight resurgence in confidence, “it’s better if they know the truth.”
At ten to ten, Luke and his mum approached the chapel gate. Mrs Walker wondered what was going on. People were standing around on the lawn outside and the village bobby was there, talking to the minister.
“What’s going on?” she asked Gordon.
“Vandalism,” he said, flatly, “a horrible mess.”
“Oh no! How awful!” she said and rushed in. Luke followed at a cautious distance. Mabel, standing in the doorway, advised Mum not to enter.
“All our work yesterday – ruined!” she mourned, “it’s a horror show in there!”
When Mrs Walker stepped forward the first thing to strike her was the awful smell. She shielded her nose with her hand. Draped over the pulpit was a huge, orange, fishing net, tangled, filthy and stinking with rotten seaweed and the small fish and crustacean victims who’d been trapped and strangled by it long after the fleet had left it to drift untethered. The communion table and the floor around it exhibited a collection of old lobster pots and traps, a mess of wire and barbed hooks, a couple of rusty knives and a matching set of hooks, pliers and other fishmonger blades that looked hardly used.
These were set off to best advantage by numerous anchovy and sardine corpses variously strewn and interwoven throughout. The whole ensemble was liberally splattered with what looked like blood.
Eric emerged from the Sunday School room.
“There’s more in here,” he told her.
Mrs Walker had a bad feeling.
Apprehensively she followed Eric into the Sunday School room and discovered the picturesque fishing village scene was no more. There were no fish, no happy villagers and no fishmongers; the lighthouse had fallen into the sea and the colourful fishing boats had crashed into the rocks. Some of the paper letters had been rearranged across the sky to spell
“I told you we should have done the normal fruit and vegetable display!” Mrs Kirby chimed in authoritatively, “I said to the minister last week – people want a traditional harvest festival with fruits and vegetables and golden sheaves of wheat. Genesis 1, verse 29: I have provided all kinds of grain and fruit for you to eat,” she quoted, “This is a message from God!”
Mabel was irritated.
“God didn’t do this!”
“Whoever did it was sent by Him!” retorted Mrs Kirby, and no one dared disagree.
***
Mrs Walker kept her anger buttoned down. She didn’t say anything until they were well out of earshot of the other church-goers. It would be too shameful if anyone else knew what she suspected. Not to mention Luke might get a criminal record. Eventually, when they were almost home, she asked coldly,
“Who do you think did it Luke?”
“I’m with Mrs Kirby,” he answered honestly, “whoever did it was sent by God.”
Have a lovely weekend 😀
Join us on Monday for the beginning of Chapter 14:
Luke Walker and the Halloween Party
************************
For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 🙂
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Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er (the first eight chapters);
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vegan, vegetarian, harvest festival, veggie kids, vegan children, fish, animals, vegan children’s story, vegan children’s book, children’s stories, humour, creative writing, illustration
For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 😀
To read the whole of Chapter 13 click here 🙂
Story continues from yesterday:
At 3.47pm Luke and Joe stood in Curly and Squirt’s shed. There was a big old wooden ottoman at the back. Joe had never noticed it before because ordinarily Luke kept a bale of hay on top of it and the whole lot was usually covered with a tatty blue tarpaulin. Luke started to lift the lid and then hesitated, looking over his shoulder to make sure the shed door was shut. It was.
“This is where I keep the stuff I’ve constigated on holiday,” he told his trusted friend, confidentially.
Joe looked puzzled. Luke put him in the picture.
“Remember me Nan and Grandad’s got a caravan at the seaside where there’s fishing boats on the beach? Remember I told you?”
Joe nodded.
“Well,” Luke went on, “whenever we go there I look out for things on the beach wot need takin’ outer circle-ation. Dangerous things.”
“And you constigate them?” Joe asked with the appearance of comprehension.
“Mm. Well, some I jus’ find, abandoned. Some I constigate from people wot are doin’ horrible things with ’em.”
Joe peered inside the trunk but wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking at. It was a miscellaneous jumble of what looked like rubbish – bits of plastic, rope, cord, wood, wire. All very unpleasant and dirty. It stank.
“And now you want to move it somewhere else?” Joe tried hard to make sense of the little Luke had told him so far.
“Yeah. On’y it’s too much stuff for one trip with just me. Your mum’s got one o’ them shopping trolley-bag things, and mine’s got two, an old one and a new one – I reckon we could fit all this stuff into them and move it without anyone bein’ able to see what we’ve got. They’ll just think we’ve done the shoppin’ for our mums.”
Joe nodded.
“Okaaay.”
“And,” Luke went on, “can you get any left over paint off your dad? Somethin’ he wun’t miss? Somethin’ he’s finished with and wun’t mind you havin’. Somethin’ he would rather you dint bother ‘im by askin’ for. Somethin’ he’d be pleased you took off ‘is hands without botherin’ ‘im. Somethin’ reddish.”
Joe wondered.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
***
Saturday was the day that Luke always helped Dad on the allotment and today, more than ever before, he was very glad of it. It gave him the perfect excuse not to help decorate the Sunday school room for the Harvest Festival. He remembered they were meeting at 10 o’clock and imagined that it wouldn’t take them more than an hour or two so they’d be done by lunch time. Then the ladies on the cleaning and flowers rota were going to decorate the chapel. Mum was one of those ladies and she got home at twenty past four.
“Put the kettle on love,” she called to her husband, “and if you look in the pantry I’ve a feeling you might find a packet of chocolate hobnobs behind the teabags.”
“Well, half a packet anyway,” Luke’s dad grinned as he nodded towards the dining table where six or seven of them adorned a small plate. Mrs Walker dropped exhausted into a chair.
“I knew there was a reason I married you,” she smiled as he handed her a hot cup of tea and sat down with one himself. “Thank you love,” she said, “that whole afternoon was an uphill struggle. Mrs Kirby was complaining the whole time that she thought we should be doing the traditional Harvest Festival display of fruits and breads and stuff, and Mabel was arguing that change was good and we should embrace change and move with the times. What’s modern about fishing I do not know! And then every time they stopped arguing Gordon would get them going again with ‘I suppose we have to do what the committee decides, never mind what the rest of the congregation wants!’ I don’t know what was more exhausting – scrubbing the kitchen floor or listening to ….”
“Shhh,” Mr Walker interrupted, “forget about all that now, it’s done. Drink your tea.”
“Don’t shush me!” Mum snapped. She hated it when he did that.
“I was just saying don’t worry about it, calm down ….” He never learned.
“I am calm! I’m not worried, I was just telling you what happened! I don’t like being shushed!”
“I’m with Mrs Kirby,” thought Luke as he took advantage of his parents bickering and swiped the chapel keys from Mum’s bag before heading for the front door.
“Jus’ goin’ to check on Curly and Squirt,” he called.
“Home by six!” Mum called after him.
“Six?!” he thought, grabbing the shoppers from the hall cupboard and hurrying out.
It was just after five when Joe and Luke arrived at the chapel gate. Luckily no one was around to hear its metal hinges squeal. They slunk across the lawn past the large wooden crucifix with the spikes on top to stop pigeons landing on it, and Luke unlocked the heavy door.
***********************************
Story concludes tomorrow, so don’t miss it 😉
Or you could read the whole story here now 😀
***************************************
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For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 😀
To read the whole of Chapter 13 click here 🙂
Story continues from yesterday:
“What?!” Luke could hardly believe it. “They’re proud of killin’ sea animals are they? They want to show off about killin’ God’s creatures do they? That’s very Christian – I don’t think!”
“Well, Luke,” Mum tried to calm him down, “I know you don’t like it sweetheart but Jesus ate fish didn’t he? Some of his disciples were fishermen.”
Luke was unconvinced.
“How do we know that? Just coz someone wrote it in a book thousands of years ago in a diff’rent language. P’rhaps they din’t translate it right. P’rhaps they din’t tell the truth. Prob’ly whoever wrote it wasn’t even there at the time so they wouldn’t even know!” He was gaining momentum. “And, Jesus was perfect,” he went on, “so he wun’t ‘ave done somethin’ that hurt someone else on purpose. And he told them disciples to stop bein’ fishermen din’t he? And he wun’t ‘ave done that if he thought they were doin’ a good thing. And Jesus said God cares about every sparrow so if he cares about every sparrow then he definitely cares about every fish and he said ‘thou shalt not kill’ so he couldn’t be clearer than that!”
Red in the face from talking so fast without taking a breath and satisfied he’d settled the point, Luke stomped out of the room. Mrs Walker winced as the hall door slammed and Luke’s heavy footsteps pounded the stairs. She held her breath until all was quiet and then, just as she relaxed back into scrubbing potatoes, her son’s face re-appeared around the door.
“Oh!” she gasped, “you made me jump.”
“Don’t get any fish,” he entreated, “please.”
The following morning at breakfast Luke was distracted. He made no argument when Jared consumed the last of the frosted flakes; he didn’t defend himself when Dad told him off for knocking over the sugar bowl even though it was actually Jared who’d done it in his haste to grab the frosted flakes. The rest of the family were too busy to notice, but Luke was not himself. Eventually, when Jared and Dad had left for the day and Luke was left alone with Mum he told her,
“I’ve decided I don’t want to go to Sunday School any more.”
“Well I know you don’t want to go Luke, but you’re going. It’s good for you. I want you to learn good values, to be a good boy,” she responded firmly.
“I’ve got good values!” said Luke, indignant. “What do you mean values?” he added.
Mum sighed.
“Oh Luke, being a Christian means being good and kind and respecting your father and mother and not stealing and not lying, things like that,” she explained, “doing as you’re told,” she added.
“And not killin’,” said Luke.
“Of course not killing Luke, that goes without saying,”
“But they’re killin’! They’re celebratin’ killin’ fish and if that’s Christian I don’t want to be it!”
“Oh Luke why do you have to get so angry over these things? You might not want them to eat fish but they do. People do. People always have. And so do bears and cats and birds, and even other fish Luke. It’s the way of the world and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I don’t want to go! I’m not going!” he insisted. Mum inhaled deeply and counted to ten.
“Fine. But you are not going to just disappear like a coward without telling them why. You’ve got to be grown up about it and make it clear to Eric why this sea harvest upsets you.”
Luke sulked. He was not a coward. He wasn’t afraid of anything. They walked to school in silence, Luke was deep in thought. When they entered the school gates they were almost run over by Simon Butler racing across their path on his new bike and then, when he knew he’d got their attention, he pulled a wheelie.
“He’s a bit of a show-off that one,” said Mum, amused.
Luke snorted.
“A bit?!” he scoffed, “more like a lot! He’s a lot of a show-off. He’s pretty much all show-off! There’s nothing else to ‘im. ‘cept idiot. And creep. He’s a idiot creep show-off!” Luke concluded decisively.
Mum chuckled.
“Boys will be boys,” she said, “he’s just making a point. He’s just making it clear to everyone watching that he’s good at that.”
***
All morning, while Mr Beardsley was talking about the ancient Greeks, Luke was thinking about what Mum had told him to do. He considered very carefully exactly what she’d said and by the time Dionysus had whisked Ariadne away from Theseus he was satisfied that he could do as he was told without compromising his prince pauls. He’d need Joe’s help.
********************************
Sounds like Luke’s got a plan 😉
Join us tomorrow to find out what it is,
or just read the whole story now 😀
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For all the Luke Walker chapters click here 😀
Chapter 13: Luke Walker and the Harvest Festival begins here:
“And then what happened? Luke?”
“Erm,”
“Weren’t you listening? What happened in the end?”
“Oh, um, in the end she saved ’em all, and then they saw she was a girl, coz they thought she was a man before, but they didn’t kill ‘er because she’d saved China.”
Eric, the Sunday School teacher, looked at Luke blankly, as if he wasn’t there.
“Mulan? Are you talking about Mulan?” he asked after a long pause.
Luke wondered, not for the first time, why his mum insisted he came to Sunday School to listen to a man who seemed unable to remember, from one minute to the next, what he was supposed to be teaching them.
“Yeah. Mulan. Who saved China from invaders. Remember? Who you’ve bin tellin’ us about.”
“Okay Luke, well, you are clearly capable of paying attention – to Disney films anyway – but you’ve obviously not heard a word I’ve said today. I’ve actually been talking about Miriam, Moses’s sister, who hid him in the bulrushes as a baby, and later helped her brother lead the Jews out of Egypt.”
Luke frowned in deep thought.
“Oh,” he responded at last.
Eric turned to the other seven children in his charge and continued. Luke resented the ‘I give up’ look that Eric’s features expressed before they withdrew. He’d seen it many times. It was uncalled for.
“Mulan. Miriam. They’re both ancient. They’re both women. They both saved a whole country. They’re both heroes. They both start with an M. Anyone could easily get them mixed up,” he thought as he leafed through the parish magazine.
At last he heard the final hymn being sung by the grown-ups in the room next door and he unhooked his jacket from its peg.
“Hold your horses Luke,” Eric recalled him to the group. “You can go when your parents come for you but remember that next week is Harvest Festival so I’d like all of you to be here at ten o’clock on Saturday to help me decorate the Sunday School room. The church secretary told me that the committee has decided to do things differently this year… blah blah blah …”
“Saturday? Not likely!” thought Luke. He could hear the scraping back of chairs and the hubbub of grown-ups talking, getting gradually louder. Any minute now the blue door would swing open and Mum would effect his release. Any minute now.
Eric finished whatever he was saying, Luke slipped his arms into his jacket sleeves, the door opened, and he hurried towards it.
“Bye Luke,” Eric called after him, “See you Saturday.”
“Bye,” he replied without looking back.
***
At school on Monday Luke noticed a familiar theme. Mr Beardsley had written on the board:
He concluded that either Mr Beardsley had copied his project idea from Eric or Eric got it from him. This was no bad thing. He could get two for one. Score points with the same work twice.
Mr Beardsley explained that they should all bring in donations of food this week to make a Harvest Festival display in the school hall. Then they would have a special afternoon assembly on Friday to thank God for the harvest. As the food would later be donated to the homeless shelter in town he requested no perishables, only tins and packeted dry goods please.
So Luke went home that afternoon and explained to Mum what he needed for the Harvest Festivals.
“Looks like I won’t be able to do it once and hand it in twice though, coz they’re givin’ all the school festival food to the homeless shelter so I’ll need another lot for Sunday School. Tins and dry stuff he said. Have we got any of that?”
Mum looked in the pantry. “Yes, we’ve got some dried lentils and pasta, and some tinned beans you can have. I’ll get something for the church harvest when I go shopping. Tins again I think, otherwise it’ll smell.”
“What will?”
“The fish.”
“Whaddaya mean fish? Why are you gettin’ fish?”
“Didn’t Eric tell you? The chapel committee want to do a different kind of Harvest Festival this year. Instead of the usual fruits, vegetables, grains and bread etcetera etcetera, they want to do a display of the harvest of the sea.”
*********************
Uh-oh 😮
Find out tomorrow what Luke thinks of that idea 😉
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For all the Luke Walker chapters click here
For the whole of chapter 12 click here 🙂
Story continues from Friday:
At half past three, all the Year Fives who wanted to be in the Christmas concert went to the hall to audition for Ms Robinson and Mr Beardsley. There were more parts available than actors to play them so Luke felt confident he’d get something. He was expecting to have to get up on stage and recite a line or two from the play, as he’d seen done in a movie once. However, when Ms Robinson saw how few people had turned up she simply asked for a show of hands for each role. If only one person raised their hand for a particular role, they got it. If more than one person raised their hand, Mr Beardsley drew one of their names from a hat. Luke felt this diminished the accomplishment somewhat. He was the only applicant for the role of Third Spirit so the part was his, in addition he was pressed to play Jacob Marley which he was happy to do. Simon Butler would play Ebenezer Scrooge as an old man, a young man and a child. Katia got the parts of young Scrooge’s sweetheart and Mrs Cratchit; Kenny got Bob Cratchit, Fezziwig and the coachman; Tania wanted to play Scrooge’s nephew and Scrooge’s sister because she thought it would add realism to have some discernible family resemblance between those characters. Her wish was granted. And so it went on. Children were permitted to leave after their roles were assigned and by a quarter past five only a few minor roles remained to be cast. Joe and Luke were the only children left in the hall. Luke was waiting for Joe who, for almost two hours, had waited patiently for an opportunity to ask if he could paint the scenery. He had brought with him some preliminary sketches of ideas for backdrops and costumes but when he approached Ms Robinson, she misunderstood his reason for being there.
“Okay Joe, that leaves us with Scrooge’s Servant, the Gentleman Visitor, the Cook, and the Butcher. Do you think you can handle those?”
Joe went white in the face.
“er, no, he don’t want them,” said Luke, stepping in.
“Excuse me, I was talking to Joe,” said Ms Robinson, quite testily. “Come on Joe, they’re only small parts, you can do those for me can’t you?”
Joe looked at the sketchbook in his hands.
“I brought these …” he mumbled nervously.
“What was that? You’ll do it? Thank you Joe,” and she wrote his name next to the character names on her clipboard.
Joe looked at Luke with panic in his eyes.
“No, he’s not doin’ the actin’, he’s good at paintin’ scenery. He’ll be too busy paintin’ to do any actin’,” said Luke persuasively.
Ms Robinson looked at Luke as if her patience was at an end.
“This is nothing to do with you. If Joe didn’t want to do it he would have said so. Please credit him with enough intelligence to speak for himself and stop interfering.” She turned back to Joe. “Okay Joe?”
Joe nodded his assent.
Ms Robinson closed her clipboard and began to pack up her things. Luke knew full well that Joe was only there because he’d asked him to be. He couldn’t let him get lumbered with this.
“No,” he said with determination “Joe don’t wanna do it. That’s not why he came. He daren’t say it coz you’re in a mood, but he definitely don’t wanna do it!”
Ms Robinson glared at him in that all too familiar way.
“Luke. Walker,” she said slowly as if something had just occurred to her, “you’re the one Cathy Tebbut warned me about.”
At this point Mr Beardsley, who had witnessed the entire interaction, decided it was time to intervene.
“Can I have a word Ms Robinson?” he asked.
She glared again at Luke and then stepped aside to speak to her colleague. Luke sat down on the floor next to Joe.
“Sorry,” he said.
“S’oright,” his friend replied.
After a few minutes of hushed discussion Ms Robinson left. Mr Beardsley walked over to the boys.
“Ms Robinson and I have been thinking,” he said, “it doesn’t work very well to have an odd number of pupils in a class because when we need you to work with a partner, there’s always an odd one out.”
The boys nodded. That was true.
“So,” Mr Beardsley went on, “it’s better to have twenty six or twenty four pupils in a class than twenty five.”
The boys nodded again.
“So, Ms Robinson has agreed that it would be a good idea for you to transfer to my class Joe, if that’s alright with you.”
Joe’s now very enthusiastic nod was accompanied by a wide smile. Luke smiled too.
“Okay then,” said Mr Beardsley, smiling back at them, “I’ll see you both, ten to nine, on Monday.” He started to turn away before adding, “oh, and Joe, Ms Robinson said she’d be delighted to have your help with the scenery because she’s going to give some of the Year 4 kids the opportunity to audition for the minor roles.”
He winked and walked away.
******************************************************
vegan children’s stories, vegan children’s books
Luke Walker paperbacks:
Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er (the first eight chapters); More Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er (chapters nine to sixteen); and Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er: my privut notebook are available from Amazon in the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada 🙂 but if you’d prefer to mail order them through us, get in touch 😀
For all the Luke Walker stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter 12 continues from yesterday:
*******
They weren’t prepared for what they found. Parked in the field, alongside the still confined sheep, was a double decker lorry.
The top deck was already full of sheep. The farmer was there, with his dogs, talking to the lorry driver. It was clear to the boys what was about to happen. That’s why they were locked up there. They were waiting for transport. Waiting to be taken to their deaths. Luke and Joe stood frozen at the bus shelter. They dropped their bags of apples.
“The lorry must be late,” said Joe in a husky whisper.
“Why?”
“Coz they haven’t been fed for two days, they must’ve not known it was gonna be that long.”
“It’s not late!” snapped Luke angrily, “look how clean an’ shiny that lorry is! I bet they don’t wanna get their lorry dirty – they don’t want no poo and wee in their lorry so they don’t let ’em eat or drink before the journey. Their last journey!”
Joe felt a lump in his throat and his heart ached.
“That’s horrible!” he said desperately, “what can we do? We’ve got to do something!”
Luke’s eyes started to sting as he watched them send in the dogs to herd the hungry sheep onto the lorry. He picked up the biggest stone he could find and threw it as hard as he could at the lorry’s windscreen across the road. It missed.
“There’s nothin’ we can do!” he said, grabbing his bag of apples, “unless you’ve got a thousand pounds to pay the farmer for ’em, and a hundred allotments to keep ’em on!”
Still they hated themselves for doing nothing and walked away in silent misery.
***
Friday morning at breakfast, Luke’s dad observed how cold and wet it was.
“It’s big coat weather already,” he told his wife, “it’s amazing how quick the temperature drops once September arrives.”
“Sometimes,” Mum agreed, “it’ll probably be warm again tomorrow.” She looked at her boys. “Your big coats need a wash to freshen them up,” she remembered, “so you’ll have to wear an extra jumper under your summer jackets for now.”
“I’m not wearin’ that wool jumper!” said Luke firmly.
“Luke, it’s cold. If your Dad says it’s cold then you know it is. He’s usually hotter than the rest of us.”
“Than you,” Dad corrected her.
“Yeah,” Jared agreed, “you’re the one who’s always cold,” he laughed.
“Well then, there you go, so if Dad thinks it’s cold …”
“I’m not wearin’ that jumper! Take it back an’ get your money back! We’re not givin’ money to farmers!”
Everyone stopped eating. Dad was not impressed.
“Luke Eugene Walker, how dare you speak to your mother like that? Apologise right now!” He spoke in that slow, quiet, angry way that meant you’d gone too far. Luke realised he shouldn’t be taking it out on Mum.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, “but I don’t want you to pay money to sheep farmers. I hate farmers!”
Mum’s response was gentle.
“Luke, clearly something has upset you, but the fact remains, as I told you, that wool isn’t cruel. It doesn’t hurt them to be sheared.”
Luke tried to explain it to her in a way she would understand.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” he said, “they kill ’em anyway.”
“Not for wool they don’t. They kill animals for leather but not for wool.”
“They kill ’em anyway,” Luke said again, “they make money out of ’em for wool; then they kill ’em and make money out of ’em for meat. They kill ’em for money and they’re horrible, nasty, evil, criminal murderers and I don’t want you to give them any of our money!”
Nobody could argue with that.
“Okay,” said Mum, “I’ll take it back today.”
***
Joe gave Luke back the books and pens he’d left in his garden the day before.
“I forgot them last night,” he apologised.
“Me too,” said Luke, taking possession of three brand new, very soggy, text books, and two exercise books in which a lot of his work had dissolved.
“Put them on the radiator,” Joe suggested helpfully.
“Yeah,” said Luke.
The bell rang and they went their separate ways.
*******************************
The story concludes on Monday but if you don’t want to wait you can finish it here now 🙂
**********************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children’s stories, vegan children’s books, animals, animal rights, animal protection, animal rescue, vegan children, veggie kids, sheep, sheep farming, wool
For all the Luke Walker stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter 12 continues from yesterday:
*******
On their way home from school Luke and Joe discussed the Christmas concert.
“I don’t wanna be in it,” said Joe.
“You could just ‘ave a small part,” Luke suggested, “then we’d be together.”
“Oh yeah,” said Joe, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was terrified at the thought of being on stage; of being watched by people. Luke sympathised and racked his brains for a way that Joe could be part of the production without actually having to be on stage. Then it came to him.
“You could be the scenery painter!” he said with great satisfaction. “Then you’d ‘ave to be there, paintin’ the scenes while we’re rehearsin’. Then I could chat to you when it’s not my scene and I could help you. I could fetch your pens and paints and brushes. You could tell ’em I’m your assistant so they don’t send me back to lessons when it’s not my scene.”
It was a brilliant plan. Joe was as happy about it as Luke.
They ducked into Joe’s house for sheep food. His mum was in the kitchen.
“Hello Joe, oh, and hello Luke. Are we returning the favour tonight then?” she asked.
“What d’you mean?” said Joe, trying to think of a way to entice her from the kitchen.
“Is Luke staying here for tea today?”
“Oh, er, no. Thank you,” said Luke, “I’ve jus’ come to borra somethin’.”
That gave Joe an idea.
“Yeah, I want to lend ‘im my book about trains,” he said, “ya know, the one Auntie Sue gave me.”
“Okay,” said his mum without looking up from the potatoes she was peeling.
“on’y,” said Joe, tentatively, “I don’t know where it is. Could you find it for me?”
“Haven’t I got enough to do?” she said indignantly, “what else do you want – shall I tie your shoelaces? Shall I clean your teeth for you?”
Joe shook his head.
“Find it yourself you cheeky beggar!” she concluded, and that was that.
The boys stepped back outside. It was no use. She’d started the dinner which meant she’d be in there for at least another hour.
“Sorry,” said Joe, “we’ll have to get somethin’ from yours again.”
“There’s nothin’ left to take,” said Luke, “Mum said we’ll have to have tinned veg ’til she can get to the shops again and coz she thinks I took it for Curly and Squirt and the damsons – typical! They always blame me! – she won’t let me watch telly for a week!”
The boys looked at each other and thought hard. There had to be a way to get something to eat for those poor starving sheep.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” said Luke, not for the first time. Then he had a thought. An idea. A good one. It might be tricky but it was do-able.
“Remember that farm behind the pony field, next to the rec?”
“Yes,” said Joe.
“They grow salads and things, in them plastic tunnels.”
“Mmm,” said Joe, nervously.
“So, I’ve seen ’em, them tunnels, all they ‘ave to do is water ’em twice a day. The rest of the time there’s no one in ’em.”
“But they’ve got them big dogs,”
“Okay, well, we’ll take a couple o’ dog toys, and then you can distract …”
Joe shook his head.
“I don’t want to distract.”
“Okay, I’ll distract ’em and you can go into the tunnels to get the salad.”
“That’s stealin’.”
“To save lives!” Luke reminded him, “and anyway, they’ve prob’ly got hundreds o’ lettuces and cucumbers, they won’t miss a few.”
Taking Joe’s silence as tacit consent, Luke continued.
“First, we’ll go to mine to get the dog toys; and a bag; then we’ll go to the farm and I’ll climb in to play with the dogs; as soon as I’ve got their ‘ttention, you sneak into the …”
Joe laughed.
“What?” said Luke, annoyed that his great plan was a source of amusement.
“Look over there,” said Joe, pointing to the bottom of his garden.
There stood two heavily laden apple trees.
“Or,” said Luke, “we could take some apples.”
They emptied the contents of their school bags behind the water butt and replaced them with apples. With no time to lose, they headed to the muddy paddock.
*******************************
The story continues tomorrow but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole chapter here now 🙂
**********************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children’s stories, vegan children’s books, animals, animal rights, animal protection, animal rescue, vegan children, veggie kids, sheep, sheep farming, wool
For all the Luke Walker stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter 12 continues from yesterday:
*******
When they got to the bus stop they stood under the shelter and looked carefully in every direction to make sure no one was watching. Then they hurried across the road and emptied their bags into the muddy paddock. The sheep didn’t trust the boys and they crowded against the opposite fence.
“These’ll give ’em water as well as food,” said Luke, “I hope they like ’em.” He was a little disappointed that they didn’t seem too keen to tuck in.
“I think they’re frightened of us,” Joe suggested, “p’rhaps we should go back over the road and watch from there.”
Luke agreed and within a few minutes the sheep bravely and hungrily partook. The boys were extremely relieved.
“That’s good,” said Joe, “we’ll jus’ feed ’em every day ’til they let ’em out.”
“Yeah, but tomorrow we’ll get the food from your house or my mum’ll catch on.”
“Okay.”
Then they went to visit Curly and Squirt, before popping in to Joe’s house to tell his mum that he was going to tea at Luke’s.
***
On Thursday Mr Beardsley said that Year 5 were going to be responsible for the Christmas concert this year. He said they were going to put on a musical production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
“… so for any of you who are aspiring singers or actors, the auditions are being held on Friday after school.”
This was interesting. It was a good story. The Muppet Christmas Carol was one of Luke’s favourite films. He’d never thought of himself as an actor and the idea of performing did not really appeal to him. However, when Jared was in the school play a couple of years ago he said they had to rehearse so much that he missed loads of lessons.
“What parts?” he blurted out suddenly without thinking. Mr Beardsley was writing on the board.
“I’m sorry?”
Luke felt a bit embarrassed.
“er, sorry, what parts are in the play?”
“Oh, er, well, lots. Scrooge, Scrooge’s nephew, Bob Cratchit, the Spirits, Tiny Tim, …”
“They’re all boy parts,” said Tania Spriggs, one of the new girls. She was understandably disgruntled.
“Oh, there’s lots of girls’ parts too,” said Mr Beardsley, trying to think of one. “Oh, er, there’s Mrs Cratchit, and er, the Cratchit daughters, and Scrooge’s sister, Scrooge’s nephew’s wife,” he was on a roll now. But then he realised he wasn’t. He couldn’t think of any more.
Tania huffed.
“The wife, the sister, the daughter! All minor roles!” she said, dispirited, “I look forward to a school play with a strong female lead!”
“I tell you what, talk to Ms Robinson at the auditions. She’s adapting the story into a script so I’m sure she’ll make sure there’s plenty of good roles to be had for both sexes.”
Luke gave it some more thought. He liked the idea of being one of the spirits. The really scary one.
Mr Beardsley resumed writing on the board. Maths. Again. Luke pictured himself as the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. He’d have a long, black, hooded cape; his face would be painted white with black cavernous eyes; he’d have sharp talons for fingernails and …
“Luke. What’s next?”
Luke, brought abruptly from his reverie, had no idea what was being asked of him. His bewilderment was visible. Mr Beardsley banged the pen on the board to draw Luke’s attention to the sum written there.
“Four thousand, two hundred and seventy nine divided by twenty two. Long division. Max did the first part. What’s next?”
Luke shook his head. He really hated it when someone interrupted his train of thought. He was in the middle of something. What was it? He turned to ask Joe but Joe wasn’t there. Oh yes, the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, that was the part for him. Then he had another thought. If Joe was in it too they’d be together again. He wondered what part Joe would like. Mr Beardsley moved on to Katia. She didn’t know either.
*******************************
The story continues tomorrow but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole chapter here now 🙂
**********************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children’s stories, vegan children’s books, animals, animal rights, animal protection, animal rescue, vegan children, veggie kids, sheep, sheep farming
For all the Luke Walker stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter 12 continues from yesterday:
*******
“Oh no! He prob’ly dint tell no one he’d locked the sheep up without food ‘n’ water, and if he’s dead, no one’ll know they’re here, and they’ll starve to death!” His eyes were wide with alarm.
“Call the RSPCA!” said Joe suddenly, “this is cruelty to animals, lockin’ em up without food or water! The RSPCA’ll rescue ’em!”
“Yesss!” said Luke and the two of them rushed back to his house.
Luke found the number in the phone book and decided, for privacy, to use the phone in his mum’s bedroom. He put it on speaker so that Joe could hear. It rang for a few seconds before being answered by a recorded message.
“Thank you for calling the RSPCA. Please note some calls may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes. To proceed press 1 now.”
Luke pressed 1.
“Thank you. Please say your postcode.”
Luke was flummoxed.
“What’s my postcode?” he mouthed to Joe.
Joe shrugged.
The recording tried again.
“Please say your postcode out loud or key it into the keypad.”
Luke pressed some random keys.
“Thank you. Now please key in your house number.”
He pressed the seven and the one.
“Thank you. Your address is 71 Broomhill Drive, Glasgow, Scotland. If this is correct press 1; if this is incorrect press 2; press 3 to return to the main menu.”
Luke was exasperated. No, it wasn’t correct but he wasn’t going to tell them that or he’d have to start all over again. He pressed 1.
“Thank you. Now say your name out loud.”
“Robin Locksley.”
“Thank you. If you have called because of an animal in distress, please choose between the following options: If you’re worried about a dog in a hot car, press 1. If you’ve found an abandoned …”
Luke threw his head back in frustration.
“We ‘aven’t got time for this! Jus’ let me talk ta someone!”
“It’s a good job you’re not on a mobile,” Joe agreed, “Janet’s always runnin’ out of credit on hers.”
The machine listed several options before concluding with:
“For anything else, please hold for an operator.”
“Finally,” Luke mouthed and the ring tone began again. After a minute or so, a live person answered.
“Thank you for calling the RSPCA. How may I help you?”
“There’s some sheep locked in a muddy paddock with no food or water,” Luke told her.
“Are they in distress?”
“Wun’t you be distressed if you hadn’t eaten anythin’ for a whole day an’ night? Or drunken anythin’?”
“It’s only been one day?”
“And a night. More ‘n that now,” Luke said.
“Are they injured? Do they look like they’ve been abused or neglected.”
“Well, no, they don’t seem to be injured.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t think any of our inspectors will come out if they’re not injured or in distress.”
“They haven’t had anythin’ to drink or eat since yesterday! They’re really hungry and they’re locked in there! You’ve got to let ’em out!”
“I’m sorry. Perhaps you can ask the farmer to check on them. Do you know who the sheep belong to?”
“We think the farmer might be dead.”
“Who are you talking to?” Mum stood in the doorway.
Luke disconnected the call.
“Nobody. We was jus’ pretendin’,” he thought it best not to involve Mum.
“I heard a woman’s voice. Who were you talking to?” she persisted.
“Somebody. Don’t matter who.”
“I beg your pardon? You’re in my room, using my phone and I insist you tell me who you were speaking to!”
Luke looked momentarily at the floor and then back at her.
“Joe’s mum,” he lied again, “she said Joe could stay for tea. We’re goin’ to check on Curly and Squirt.”
Mrs Walker decided to pretend she believed him.
“Okay,” she consented, “back by six please. And in future, ask before you use the phone.”
While Mum stayed in her room to sort the laundry, Luke and Joe rushed downstairs.
“We’ll feed ’em ourselves!” Luke decided.
He handed a shopping bag to Joe and opened the fridge. Luckily, Mum had just been shopping.
“Take these,” he said, “and these, and these,” and he handed him about twenty carrots, two cucumbers, a cabbage, a lettuce and sixteen apples. The bag was heavy. Luke grabbed another one to share Joe’s burden and they left.
*******************************
The story continues tomorrow but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole chapter here now 🙂
**********************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children’s stories, vegan children’s books, animals, animal rights, animal protection, animal rescue, vegan children, veggie kids, sheep, sheep farming
For all the Luke Walker stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter 12 continues from last Friday:
*******
At the end of the day Luke couldn’t find Joe so he walked home alone feeling very sorry for himself. Then he saw something which took his mind off it. Across the road sheep were being rounded up with two dogs and a quad bike. They looked scared and tried to run in all directions but the dogs and the motorbike kept heading them off so that in the end they had no choice but to enter a fenced paddock at the edge of the field. Unlike the grassy field, this paddock was nothing but mud. There was nothing to eat and nothing to drink. Luke watched from the bus shelter as the quad bike rider locked the gate, ordered the dogs onto the back of the bike, and then rode away. When they were out of sight Luke went over to the sheep. There were thirty or forty of them who recoiled as he approached. Luke wanted to release them but wondered if he should. He couldn’t understand why the farmer would lock them in there like that without even a water trough, but maybe the sheep needed some medicine that had to be taken on an empty stomach. It would be wrong to act without knowing all the facts. He felt it best to come back and check on them later and decide then what to do.
***
Luke opened the back door, dropped his book bag on the kitchen floor, kicked off his shoes and reached for the biscuit tin.
“Erm, did you forget something?” said Mum, suddenly appearing from the pantry.
Luke stuck his feet back in his shoes and shuffled them out of the kitchen.
“Sohhy,” he said, his mouth full of gingernut.
“Don’t tread the heels down!” she reminded him wearily, “and that’s not what I meant.”
He looked back, confused, and then noticed his book bag.
“Sorry,” he said again, picked it up and started to walk away.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said again, in a sort of sing-songy tone of voice.
Luke stood still. He was tired. It had been a long day. Could she not just tell him what she meant? Did they have to go through this trial and error game every time? He turned to look at her.
“What?” he asked, “what did you mean?”
Mum gave him a look which meant he should modify his look. He did. Then she told him.
“Shouldn’t you ask before you take a biscuit?”
“Can I have a biscuit please?”
“You may have two biscuits,” she said smiling, “how was your first day back? Did you like your new teacher?”
Luke slumped into a chair in the dining room.
“He’s alright,” he said unenthusiastically.
“He? I thought you’d be with Ms Robinson this year.”
“Yeah. So did I.”
“So, how come you’re not? Who are you with? Mr Green?”
“No. A new one. Mr Beardsley.”
“Oh. What’s he like?”
Luke appreciated his mother’s interest but really wasn’t in the mood to recap the day’s events.
“He’s alright,” he said again, “I’ve got to do me homework,” and he lifted himself sluggishly from the chair and headed upstairs to cover his new books.
***
On Wednesday afternoon Luke was able to find Joe at the end of school.
“What’s it like in Muz Robinson’s class?” he asked jealously.
“‘s’alright,” said Joe.
Luke was surprised to get such a tepid response but realised that Joe was just being considerate, not wanting to rub it in. He appreciated that and gladly changed the subject.
“We need to go home by the main road,” he told his friend, “I’ve got to check on some sheep.”
When they got there Luke was very concerned to see they were just as he’d left them the day before.
“They must be so hungry,” he said, “and thirsty.”
The boys crossed the road. Joe was equally worried.
“We should let ’em back into the field,” he suggested, “there’s grass; and a water trough.”
“Yeah, I think so too,” said Luke, “but I can’t open the gate coz o’ the padlock.” He tugged pointlessly at the hardened steel lock. “Where’s the farmer got to? I thought he would ‘ave let ’em out by now.”
“P’rhaps he’s had an accident,” Joe said anxiously, “he might be dead!”
Luke hadn’t thought of that.
***********************************
The story continues tomorrow but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole chapter here now 🙂
**********************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children’s stories, vegan children’s books, animals, animal rights, animal protection, animal rescue, vegan children, veggie kids, sheep, sheep farming
For all the Luke Walker stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter 12 continues from yesterday:
*******
Tuesday came around as it was bound to, and Luke found himself back at school. He was predictably annoyed about it but took solace in the fact that at least he wasn’t in Mrs Tebbut’s class anymore. Everyone knew Ms Robinson was the nicest teacher in school. She never sent anyone to the headmaster or made anyone stand in the corner or made anyone do extra homework when they had trouble doing the normal amount of homework. From what he’d heard, Luke felt sure she was the type of teacher who would sympathise with someone if they accidentally stapled their own finger. And she certainly wasn’t the type of teacher to make someone eat all their mushy peas just because they’d asked for a big portion when they couldn’t possibly have known they would be so salty.
At ten to nine he and the rest of class 5 were allowed to enter the classroom. There were a lot of unfamiliar faces and not enough desks or seats for everyone. Those who could, found seats, others sat on the desks while some, mostly the children Luke had never seen before, just stood around in huddles.
“I know there’s not enough seats,” said Thomas, Ms Robinson’s teaching assistant, “but bear with us. Ms Robinson and Mr Beardsley will be here in a minute and they’ll explain everything.”
“Who’s Mr Beardsley?” asked Katia.
“Ah, here he is. Mr Beardsley, meet Year 5.”
At that moment a tall, thin man with very short, sandy hair and glasses walked into the room. He wore a beige knitted waistcoat buttoned up over a white and beige checked shirt. Luke was a little concerned.
“Good morning everyone,” said the man, “I’m Mr Beardsley and I’ll be teaching some of you this year.”
“Where’s Muz Robinson?” shouted Kenny.
“She’s still talking to the Headmaster, she’ll be here in a moment.”
Luke and Joe stood against the back wall feeling rather uneasy. The room hummed with muffled mutterings. Nobody knew what was going on. A few minutes later Ms Robinson joined them.
“Sorry to keep you waiting class 5,” she said, “it’s all a bit last minute so I hope you’ll bear with us.”
“If they told us what needs bearin’ with, we might be able to,” whispered Luke.
Joe nodded. Ms Robinson explained.
“Little Greatoak Primary school has closed due to insufficient attendance. That is, the council has decided it’s too expensive to run a whole school when there are not enough pupils to fill it.”
Everyone was listening.
“So, all the children from Little Greatoak will be coming to school here from now on.” She looked around at the new faces. “Welcome to Gingham County Primary, we hope you’ll be very happy here.”
Luke, without understanding why, felt suddenly possessive of the school he’d never liked.
“Most classes have had the addition of three or four pupils,” Ms Robinson went on, “but Year 5 has been increased by twenty, making a class of fifty pupils which is far too many.”
Luke didn’t like the way this was going.
“So we’re going to have two Year 5 classes: Class 5A and Class 5B. I will take Class 5B and Mr Beardsley – who has also joined us from Little Greatoak – will take Class 5A.”
It could not truthfully be said that Luke was good at maths but even he was quick to work out that, since half of fifty was twenty five, at least some of his old class would not be in Ms Robinson’s group. Without realising it, he held his breath.
Mr Beardsley and Ms Robinson stood at the front of the class with open registers in their hands. Ms Robinson continued.
“Class 5B,” she said, “we will be moving to the new mobile classroom next to the playground. When I call your name, collect your bags and coats and wait for me in the cloakroom.”
Ms Robinson called the names on her register and, one by one, children left the room. Luke realised with horror that the division had been done alphabetically. Ms Robinson was taking the top of the alphabet. Those at the bottom were being left with Mr Beardsley. Joe Currant’s name was called. Luke Walker’s was not.
***
The story continues on Monday but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole chapter here now 🙂
Have a lovely weekend 😀
**********************************
vegan, vegetarian, vegan children’s stories, vegan children’s books, animals, animal rights, animal protection, animal rescue, vegan children, veggie kids, sheep, sheep farming
For all the Luke Walker stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter Twelve begins here:
Luke Walker and the new teacher
“Search everyone’s quarters on decks five to seven.”
“It’s nillogical to search deck six …”
“No, you don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Coz you’re Tom Paris.”
“Paris knows when things aren’t logical.”
“No he doesn’t. Paris don’t think like that.”
“But …”
“I’m Tuvok, you’re Paris,” Luke put his foot down, “say somethin’ like ‘no don’t search deck six coz it smells in there’.”
Joe shrugged.
“No, don’t search deck six, it smells in there coz that’s where Tuvok’s quarters is.”
“This is a serious situation Mr Paris! My quarters do not smell and even if they did it is nillogical to leave an entire deck out of the search. Search all quarters on decks five, six and seven. Now!”
“Luke, come downstairs please,” Mum called, “I want you to try on your new school uniform.”
Luke pulled a face. They would be back at school in three days and he had been trying not to think about it.
“Luuuke, now please.”
He reluctantly put down his tricorder and did as he was told. In the living room Mum had all his new clothes laid out on the settee. They looked horrible. Two pairs of grey trousers with a smart crease pressed down the front; four white shirts folded and pinned with cardboard under the collars; five pairs of grey socks; one black sweatshirt with the name of his school written in gold across the front; one black jumper, and new shoes. Luke looked suspiciously at the shoes.
“Are they leather? I’m not wearin’ cow skin,” he insisted.
“I know they look like it but they’re not,” Mum assured him, “look.”
She showed him the label inside and Luke was satisfied that they were made of synthetic materials.
“If they can make shoes what look like leather and feel like leather and do the same job as leather without bein’ leather, why do they keep killin’ cows?”
“Beats me,” said Mum, she really didn’t have time to get into it right now. “Okay, try these on. If they don’t fit I’ll have to take them straight back and change them.”
Luke tried it all on and everything fitted perfectly. Mum had a knack for choosing the right size which she was very glad about because it meant she didn’t have to take him with her when she went shopping.
“Oh, you do look smart,” she said proudly.
Luke scowled.
“I don’t like this,” he said, pulling at the black jumper, “it’s itchy. What’s it made of?”
“Wool.”
“Sheep’s wool?”
“Lamb’s wool act…, oh Luke, don’t start. Taking the wool doesn’t hurt the lamb, they have to have it sheared so they don’t get too hot. It’s just like when you have your hair cut. That doesn’t hurt does it?”
“How do you know? Have you ever seen a sheep bein’ sheared? Or a lamb? I don’t think Squirt would like it.”
Mum looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath.
“Luke, you need a warm jumper for school. Honestly, it doesn’t hurt them to have their hair cut.”
Luke didn’t know what to think. He supposed there could be no harm if the sheep did need to have their wool cut off; if they didn’t want it themselves. He decided to let it go for now, but he would have to find out more about it before making a final decision. He tossed the jumper onto the settee and ran back upstairs. He wanted Joe’s opinion.
Joe wasn’t sure.
“When Janet doesn’t know somethin’ she looks it up on the computer,” he said, “p’rhaps we should do that.”
“I bro…, erm, Dad’s computer doesn’t work anymore and Jared won’t let me use his. Can we borra Janet’s?”
Joe laughed and shook his head. Luke was stumped.
“We’ll ‘ave to investigate it ourselves,” he said eventually, “I’m not wearin’ that jumper ’til I know for sure it’s not hurtin’ anybody.”
************************
Chapter 12 continues tomorrow 🙂
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For all the Luke Walker stories so far click here 🙂
For the whole of Chapter 11 click here 🙂
Chapter 11 continued from yesterday:
The police car was between him and the officers so he kept his head down and crept up to the rear door. He tried the handle. Nothing happened. He tried it again. It should have opened. He’d seen Dad do it a hundred times. A car’s back doors were only locked on the inside. The black-haired lady looked out the window, shook her head and spoke almost inaudibly.
“What are you doing? Go away! Quickly! Before they see you!”
Luke didn’t listen. He was determined to rescue her. This lady was a righteous warrior like himself; a fighter for justice; a fellow animal stick up for-er. He would rescue her or die in the attempt. He tried the door again. It clicked open. It was like dad’s car!
At that moment the ice cream van pulled up between the police car and the police officers, thus enlightening the black-haired lady on the reason for her arrest. The ice cream seller leaned out his window to talk to the officers.
“Get out! Quick!” Luke urged the lady.
The two of them ran as fast as they could back into the market and out the other side towards the trees. When they reached cover they slumped down behind the trees and caught their breath.
“I’m sorry I got you in trouble Jessica,” said Luke. The lady grinned.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Luke.”
“Not Luke Walker by any chance?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“They’ve been calling your name on the Tannoy for the last hour and a half.”
“Oh yeah, that’s why I had to hide.”
The lady laughed.
“Oh, it all makes sense now. It wasn’t the police, it was your family trying to find you.”
Realisation flickered across Luke’s features.
“Oh,” he said, feeling a little guilty for forgetting about Nan and Grandad. “I’m sorry I got you in trouble,” he apologised again.
“Hey, listen, getting blamed for what you did won’t do my reputation any harm at all,” the lady said with a chuckle. Luke smiled.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I’m free and clear now. Thanks for rescuing me.”
Luke looked at the lady and thought she could be trusted.
“Would you like to join my secret society?” he asked.
“I like the sound of that! Especially if this is the kind of stuff your secret society gets up to!”
“Good,” said Luke, “there’s on’y me an’ Joe so far but that’s good coz no one else knows about it. So don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” the lady agreed.
“Nobody.”
“I won’t,” she laughingly assured him.
“How will I get in touch with you?” Luke asked.
The lady took a pen out of her pocket and wrote a phone number on the back of Luke’s hand.
“Any time, day or night, you can reach me on that number,” she said, standing up, “and my name’s Kris.” She smiled at his mild confusion. “I’d better get out of here before they start searching the woods. Will you be alright? Will you be able to find your people?”
“Yeah.”
“Go to the organisers’ table, they’ll be able to get hold of them for you.”
Luke wasn’t sure.
“Don’t worry, the police aren’t looking for you. It’s safe. Go and find your people,” she urged him and then she started away, going deeper into the trees.
“Oh, don’t forget your jacket,” Luke called after her.
“Keep it,” she said, smiling, and left.
Luke walked back through the market to the organisers’ table and informed them that he was Luke Walker. Nan’s mobile was called and she and Grandad were there to fetch him in next to no time. Nan ran at him, hugged him and then smacked his bum.
“You horrible boy! Why would you do this to us? We’ve been worried sick! Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, “I was jus’ shoppin’ and I lost track of time.”
“Shopping! You weren’t supposed to go off by yourself! You were supposed to stay with us! You knew th…”
“What did you buy?” Grandad interrupted.
Luke looked at him and thought for a moment.
“A wheelbarra …” he said, turning full circle to look for it. And there it was, lying on its side, just a few metres away. “This one,” he added, going to fetch it.
“And a jacket by the look of it,” said Nan, a little calmer now.
“Oh yeah,” Luke smiled, “and a jacket.”
Come back tomorrow for Chapter 12 😀
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Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er (the first eight chapters); More Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er (chapters nine to sixteen); and Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er: my privut notebook are available from Amazon in the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada 🙂 but if you’d prefer to mail order them through us, get in touch 😀
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For the stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter 11 continued from yesterday:
Luke stood still, his face flushed hot.
“They know!” he thought with horror.
It got worse. He watched as two police officers walked up to the organisers’ table. After a few moments a man there pointed in Luke’s direction. The police officers started to walk towards him. He ran. All he could think was that he needed to get out of there. They might know his name but would they know his address? He didn’t look behind, that would be suspicious, he just ran as fast as he could. The wheelbarrow was slowing him down. He had to leave it.
He climbed the low post and rail fence and jumped down into the car park. His first instinct was to find Grandad’s car, but then he thought that if they knew his name, they might know who his grandparents were, they might be waiting for him there. He hesitated, crouched between a Mini and a Fiesta, and tried to see Grandad’s car without being seen. Yes, that was it, and there was Grandad. With another policeman.
There was nothing for it, he had to go back into the market, he had to try to be invisible in the crowd. But he was scared and wanted an ally. He made a beeline for the black-haired lady’s stall.
The lady, who was just beginning to pack up her stall, putting leaflets back in their boxes, was surprised to see Luke racing towards her, all red in the face and out of breath, looking like he feared for his life.
“Hide me!” said Luke desperately, and sunk to the floor behind the biggest box.
The lady was alarmed.
“What’s wrong? What are you …?”
“Shhh!” said Luke in a vehement whisper, “don’t talk to me! Don’t look at me! They might be watching!”
“But …”
“Excuse me Miss,” another woman’s voice interrupted her. She turned to face a policewoman.
“Is this your stall?” she asked.
“Yes it is.”
“And your name is?”
“Jessica Rabbit. Would you like a leaflet?”
“I would like to have a look, yes, thank you,” and the policewoman began to paw the various piles. “Is this all you’ve got?”
The black-haired lady casually dropped her jacket on top of Luke as another officer stepped around the stall to look in the boxes.
“I’ve got these as well,” she answered, “as you can see,” and she lifted the boxes onto the table so that they wouldn’t need to rummage around the other side.
The policewoman found what she was looking for – three different anti-dairy leaflets.
“Is there any reason you were hiding these?” she asked.
The lady laughed.
“I wasn’t hiding them, I was just in the process of packing up,” she explained.
The police officers exchanged cynical glances and while the male picked up the box of leaflets, the female addressed the stall-holder.
“I am arresting you on suspicion of offences under section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”
“Not remotely,” the lady replied, “what am I supposed to have done?”
Luke stayed motionless under the lady’s jacket. He felt bad that she was getting blamed for what he’d done, but was somehow unable to move or speak. He just sat still until he couldn’t hear them any more. He waited till they’d gone.
When he stood up and watched them retreat past the other stalls, seemingly diminished in size, his courage returned. He donned the khaki jacket, pulled the hood over his head and cautiously followed. The officers and their captive approached a police car and the policewoman opened a rear door, put her hand on the black-haired lady’s head and assisted her into the back seat.
Luke was worried they would drive away before he could get to them but luck was on his side again. Another policeman with a camera called to his colleagues and they walked a few steps away from the car to talk to him. That was Luke’s chance.
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Story concludes tomorrow, or read the whole of chapter 11 now 🙂
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For the stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter 11 continued from Friday:
With a wheelbarrow full of three different leaflets which told the truth about the dairy industry, Luke headed for the car park. The wheelbarrow was heavy and the cars were parked quite close together on uneven ground, so it was rather difficult to stop the barrow from tipping. But Luke was strong and determined so he only lost control of it a couple of times, and on those occasions the cars he grazed were already scratched anyway. He put one leaflet under a wiper blade, on the windscreen of each car. He’d seen it done before with car-wash flyers in the supermarket car park.
Some wipers were easy to lift, some of them required a bit of force, a couple of them came off, but when that happened he was luckily able to find a window or a sunroof open so he tossed the leaflet inside. Considerate as always, he tossed the wiper blade in with it.
After some time – he had no idea how much – Luke had leafleted most of the cars in the car park. He had intended not to miss a single one but when he saw an angry man, waving a wiper blade, fast approaching his position, he decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated behind the long queues for the portaloos. He had almost half a box of leaflets left and wanted to use them. It wasn’t long before he found an opportunity.
The ice cream van was parked close to the line of trees which skirted the market. It was doing a roaring trade. Luke felt that it wouldn’t do any trade at all if there was any justice in the world. He was sure it wouldn’t if everyone knew the truth. That thought gave him an idea. This idea, he was well aware, was not, strictly speaking, legal. But it was moral and that meant he was right to do it. He would do what Robin Hood would have done, whatever the consequences. He was an outlaw after all.
He left his wheelbarrow in the shadows behind the trees and ran back to a craft stall he’d seen earlier. The lady on the craft stall was demonstrating how to make paper maché models. She was doing the ‘here’s one I made earlier’ bit, revealing a stiff, hollow, paper pig ready for a coat of paint. The tub of wallpaper paste that she’d been using in an earlier part of her demonstration was tucked away under her stall.
“I jus’ need to borra a bit,” Luke told himself, “I’ll bring it back before she misses it.”
Within minutes he was pasting leaflets all over one side of the ice cream van, unseen by the ice cream seller or his treat-seeking customers who stood in line on the other side. He worked fast, knowing he might be spotted and stopped at any moment. At the same time he was encouraged by a feeling that some great spirit was watching over him, enabling him to complete his mission unhindered. The spirit of Robin Hood? It couldn’t just have been luck that he’d been able to get his hands on exactly what he needed for this job. The label on the side of the tub of paste read:
MELROSE WHEATPASTE
suitable for paper maché, scrapbooking
wallpaper application & billboard posters
NON TOXIC * STRONG * DRIES TRANSPARENT
WARNING: WHEATPASTE POSTERS, ONCE APPLIED, ARE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE.
It couldn’t have been more perfect. Luke fearlessly pasted over colourful illustrations of lollipops, ice cream cones, and a happy cartoon cow who bore no resemblance to her real-life counterparts. The van’s lies were soon obliterated by pages of facts and figures about the cruel reality of dairy farming, including miserable photographic proof. When the side of the van was completely covered in leaflets, as high as Luke could reach, he stepped back to see the full effect. It was good.
Unable to believe how well this was going, Luke slipped unseen, back the way he’d come. He re-emerged from behind the line of trees when he reached the craft stall and returned the paste. Then he tucked the remaining four leaflets in his back pocket and pushed his empty wheelbarrow from stall to stall, looking for Nan and Grandad. He looked for ages until eventually he came close to the organisers’ table and heard his own name over the Tannoy.
“Would Luke Walker please go to the ice cream van. Would Luke Walker please go to the ice cream van, near the car park and the toilets.”
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Story continues tomorrow 🙂
To read the whole of Chapter 11 now, click here 🙂
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For chapters 1 to 10 click here 🙂
Chapter 11 continued from yesterday:
He smiled broadly as he considered how fortuitous this outing had turned out to be; how lucky it was that this week of all weeks he’d needed a wheelbarrow.
***
Nan and Grandad loved to go to car boot sales, antique fairs and flea markets. They would drive for miles to get to them and rarely a Sunday went by without Nan acquiring a ‘new’ old plant pot, or handbag, or garden bench, or record or book or who knows what. So, when Luke decided he needed a few tools for his allotment – a rake, a bucket or two, and a wheelbarrow – he asked Mum to ask Nan if he could go with them that weekend. She said yes, as long as he behaved himself and didn’t eat or drink anything in Grandad’s car, or put his feet on the seats.
“Will she ever get over the chocolate biscuit/chewing gum incident?” he thought. “It wasn’t even my gum – it had got stuck on my shoe because of a dropper and the chocolate crumbs … ”
Anyway, he promised to be good, and it was arranged.
Six days later, Luke was sitting in the back of Grandad’s car; seatbelt on; feet on the floor; no food or drink whatsoever. They turned into a farm lane and drove past a field of grazing cows, one of whom had a baby with her. They waited in a long queue of cars approaching the flea market and Luke was able to watch mother and baby for a few minutes.
He could see how attentive the mother was to her baby and how the baby followed his mother wherever she went. It was nice to watch. Then he saw two farmers with a wheelbarrow walk over to them and lift the baby into it. The baby cried out for his mum and the mum tried to get to her baby but one of the farmers obstructed her so that the other one could wheel the barrow away. He walked briskly, almost breaking into a run to get to the gate as quickly as possible and the mother cow hurried after them, calling all the time to her baby and him calling back to her. The farmer with the wheelbarrow got through the gate and closed it and the other one climbed the fence. They put the calf into a trailer and drove away in the Land Rover that towed it, along the track that bordered the field, until they got to the road and were soon out of sight. The whole time the mother cow was running along the edge of the field, trying to keep up with them, calling for her baby. When the trailer was out of sight she just stood at the fence and called and called, a most miserable, pining sound, as she watched the direction in which they’d fled, pleading for her baby’s return.
“Where are they takin’ ‘im? Are they gonna bring ‘im back?” Luke desperately asked his grandparents.
“What love?” said Nan. She hadn’t been watching.
“The baby cow! They took ‘im away from ‘is mum! Why did they do that? When will they bring ‘im back?”
“They won’t,” said Grandad, matter-of-factly.
“What?! Why not?” Luke demanded.
“The farmer keeps cows for their milk. He needs to sell as much milk as possible so he can’t have the calves drinking his profits can he? He’s got to make a living. Way of the world Luke, you might as well get used to it.”
Luke was outraged. He’d known instinctively that it wasn’t right to steal a cow’s milk and was certain it couldn’t be natural to drink it if you weren’t a baby cow, but he’d had no idea that farmers actually kidnapped babies away from their mothers; that a mother who’d done nothing wrong, who was giving him her milk, was not even allowed to keep the baby who made the milk possible. And the baby – what would happen to the baby?
“Does everybody know this? Does everybody know what the horrible farmer is doin’?” Luke felt that surely people wouldn’t buy the milk if they knew.
“He’s not horrible Luke,” Nan tried to explain, “cows are not people, they don’t have the same feelings and emotional attachments that we have.”
“Yes they do! Din’t you see? Din’t you see ’em together? They love each other!”
“Luke,” Nan answered quietly, “the farmer’s got to earn …”
“I could earn a livin’ stealin’ other people’s jewel’ry and sellin’ it to someone else, but if I did that you’d tell me off!”
“It’s not the same …”
“Too right it’s not the same coz I wun’t be kidnappin’ someone’s baby!”
While Luke fumed Grandad reached the car park and they all got out of the car. Luke couldn’t stop thinking about the cow baby and the cow mum crying for each other. He trailed slowly behind his grandparents, very unhappy in the realisation that this was the way of the world and there was nothing he could do about it, not really, not for that baby or that mum.
“Grown ups always say ‘you must be good’, ‘you must be kind’ and then they do things what they know is unkind,” Luke mumbled frustratedly to himself, “they don’t follow their own rules, so they can’t expect me to follow ’em. They should follow my rules – mine make more sense, mine do what they say instead of just say and not do!”
And so, as he railed against the world, he wandered away from his grandparents and browsed the stalls alone. He wasn’t worried. He’d find them later.
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Story continues on Monday 🙂
To read the whole of Chapter 11 now, click here 🙂
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For chapters 1 to 10 click here 🙂
Luke Walker and the ice cream van
Set apart from the rest of the flea market was a stall that was of great interest to Luke. Standing behind it was a lady wearing black eye shadow and black nail varnish. She had long, straight, jet black hair and her khaki jacket had lots of badges on it which said things like “MEAT IS MURDER” and “A FISH IS NOT A VEGETABLE” and “NOT YOUR MUM” written above a picture of a man suckling from a cow.
“Where’d you get those?” Luke asked the lady.
“These? Oh, different places. This one I ordered from a website,” she said, indicating the one with the suckling business man, “and these I got from VegFest.”
“What’s VegFest?”
“It’s a weekend event with lots of stalls and talks by veggies and veggie companies. They have them a couple of times a year in different cities like London and Brighton.”
Luke had never met another vegetarian before, apart from Joe, and he’d had no idea there were enough of them to warrant weekend events like that. He was impressed.
“Are you interested in becoming vegan?” the lady asked as Luke browsed the leaflets on display.
“Vegan?” said Luke, “That’s not a real word! I’m a veggietareun and I wun’t be nothin’ else!”
“Well that’s good, but why are you a vegetarian? Is it because you don’t want animals to be killed?”
“Of course,” said Luke.
“Well then, it might interest you to know that animals are also killed to supply you with milk and eggs,” the lady explained, with patience.
“I know that, that’s why I don’t eat ’em because I’m a veggie-tareun!” said Luke, slowly, with emphasis. Not patience. “Veggie (that’s short for vegetables) tareun (that means someone what eats ’em). I on’y eat vegetables, which means things what grow after bein’ planted in the ground.” It must be acknowledged that Luke was good at explaining things.
The lady looked as though she now understood and was very pleased about it.
“That means you’re a vegan young man, well done!”
Luke was unswayed.
“I’ll stick with words what make sense, thanks.”
The stall-holder smiled again. The word didn’t matter. Then she realised the boy had been browsing for a good few minutes and no responsible adult had materialised.
“Who did you come here with?” she asked, “is your mum or dad or somebody around here somewhere?”
Luke nodded.
“Mmm, somewhere.”
He continued browsing. There was a lot of interesting stuff. People needed to know this stuff.
“Where do you get these leaflets from?” he asked the lady.
“Why? Do you want some? You can take what you want,” she replied generously.
Luke couldn’t believe his luck.
“Just take ’em? As many as I want?”
“Yes,” the lady assured him, “they need to get out to the public; people need to know this stuff.”
“Yes they do!” said Luke, gratified to have found a kindred spirit, “have you got a box?”
“You want that many?” the lady raised her eyebrows, “it’ll be quite heavy if you fill a box. How will you carry it? How will you get it home?”
“I’ve got a wheelbarra,” said Luke, proudly pointing to a rusty old one he’d bought for 50p ten minutes earlier, “an’ I’m not takin’ ’em home.”
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Chapter 11 continues tomorrow 🙂
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For the whole story click here 🙂
The conclusion of Chapter Ten:
For dinner his mum had cooked lamb chops. After getting to know Curly and Squirt, Joe couldn’t bring himself to actually bite into one but when no one was looking he cut a piece off and hid it in his pocket. Then he shoved some mashed potato in his mouth. After swallowing, he started making retching noises.
“Joe! Do you have to make that revolting noise?” his mum asked with disgust, “what’s the matter?”
Joe jumped up from the table and ran to the toilet. Mrs Currant was close behind so he had to be quick. He tipped the pre-opened tin of lentil hotpot, that he’d hidden behind the toilet, into the bowl and then leaned over it and made vomiting noises. Mrs Currant caught up.
“Oh, Joe, have you got a stomach bug? I hope the rest of us don’t catch it!”
Joe looked up at her.
“No,” he said pathetically, “I think I’m allergic to meat.” He bit his lip as he remembered Luke had told him not to tell her he was allergic, but to let her work it out for herself.
Mrs Currant looked in the toilet, saw the orange slop and thought with revulsion how different a person’s food looked when it came back up from how it looked when it went down, only moments before. She looked at her son, he did look pale.
“Okay, you go and lay down. I’ll bring you a glass of water and a bucket.”
“So far so good,” thought Joe and went to bed, hungry.
In the morning, he was even hungrier but knew he had to ditch one more meal. As it was Saturday, breakfast consisted not only of cereal, but also fried eggs on toast. First the cereal – Joe tipped the choco pops into his bowl and covered them with cows’ milk. He put a spoonful into his mouth and immediately spat it back and grabbed his throat. He gasped.
“I can’t breathe!” he whispered desperately as he bent his head to his knees and reached in his pyjama pocket for Luke’s mum’s blue eyeshadow. He rubbed his fingertip into the colour and smeared it across his lips before lifting up his head to reveal it to …. no one. The room was empty. His dad had taken his plate into the living room to watch the news and his mum had gone to get the paper from the front door. Joe continued to hold his breath, hoping his mum would return before he was forced to exhale. Just then the kitchen door opened and his older sister, Janet, walked in.
“That better not be my eyeshadow,” she warned him.
“It’s not,” he assured her, forgetting not to breathe just as Mrs Currant re-entered the kitchen.
“Mum, Joe’s messing up my eyeshadow.”
Mrs Currant looked at Joe then screwed up her face and shook her head.
“That’s not yours. Yours is more turquoise,” she said and sat at the table to read the paper.
Part two was a bust. Joe loaded his plate with eggs from the pan and toast from the rack before stealing himself to proceed with part three of the plan. He sat down and reached into his other pyjama pocket to get the stinging nettles hidden there. While his mum read her horoscope and Janet searched the fridge for jam, Joe quickly and bravely rubbed the nettles on his forearms and neck before hiding them again in his pocket. The pain was immediate. It stung a lot.
He chopped and mashed one of his eggs with his fork to make it look as if he’d eaten some of it. Then, as he noticed the white bumps starting to appear on his arms he said,
“Mum! Mum!” and rubbed his arms and neck furiously with the palms of both hands.
Mother and daughter both looked at him.
“How on earth did you get stung in here?” Janet said in high-pitched disbelief.
“I didn’t,” Joe argued, in genuine distress, “I’m allergic to eggs!”
“Stop rubbing it like that, silly boy!” Mrs Currant grabbed a tea towel from the drawer and ran it under the cold tap. “Here, put this over the bumps, keep them cool ’til they go down. And maybe have a look in the garden for a dock leaf to rub on it.”
“It’s not stingers,” Joe protested, “I’m allergic to eggs!”
“Honestly Joe,” said his mum, shaking her head and returning to the horoscopes, “only you could get stung at the breakfast table.”
“Boys,” said Janet derisively.
Joe had had enough. His skin was burning and itching and stinging – he was in real pain and they still didn’t listen.
“I’M A VEGETARIAN!” he shouted.
“Joseph Currant! How dare you raise your voice to me?!” said Mrs Currant, shocked by his impertinence.
“Keep the noise down in there! I’m trying to watch the news!” Mr Currant yelled from the living room.
“And now you’ve upset your father,” his mother went on.
Joe looked at his hands.
“I don’t want to eat meat no more,” he said quietly, “or eggs or fish or milk, or cheese,” he finished, getting quieter with every word.
“Oh, I get it,” Joe’s mum said, knowingly, “you want to be like your little friend don’t you?” she peered at him over the newspaper. “You don’t have to copy everything he does you know.”
“No, that’s not …” Joe tried to explain.
“I know what it’s like, it’s not that long since I was at school myself you know. Of course I was vegetarian, long before it was fashionable,” she boasted.
“Why’d you stop then?” Joe wondered.
“But then I married your father and you can’t imagine him giving up his sausages and his bacon can you? Ha! I’d like to see the woman who could pull that off!”
“Mm,” said Joe.
“Talking of which, I bet you haven’t thought this through, – if you do this you won’t be able to have fish fingers any more.”
“I never eat fish fingers. I don’t like …”
“And no more ice cream, or cake,”
“You can get special ice cream and …”
“Oh my boy, you don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for!”
Joe looked at her, holding his breath.
“I know what you’re letting yourself in for – been there, done that!”
She studied him through squinting eyes. Joe said nothing. She seemed to be considering it. After a couple of minutes she made a decision.
“Well, alright. But I’m not making special meals just for you. You can have whatever we’re having with some extra vegetables instead of the meat. Is that acceptable Your Highness?”
Joe looked up and smiled.
“Yes,” he said, “thank you.”
His mum returned the smile and ruffled his hair.
“Boys,” she said, slowly shaking her head.
Joe pressed the damp tea towel against his throbbing skin and smiled. Janet scrunched up her nose and stuck out her tongue at him.
“I give it a month!” she whispered.
Joe just carried on smiling.
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More Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er (chapters 9 to 16) is available in paperback now from Amazon 😀
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For the whole of Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er, Chapter Ten click here 🙂
Chapter 10 continued from yesterday:
“But what will I eat today?” he asked, disheartened.
Luke was busy thinking.
“What? Oh, you can share mine,” he said generously, and they continued on to school.
As luck would have it they wouldn’t be short of food that day because class 4 was having a cookery lesson and that meant they’d all brought ingredients with them. They were making scones. Mrs Tebbut never allowed the boys to work together on these things and insisted on choosing their partners for them. As a result, Luke found himself sharing a table with Penelope Bittern. Penelope was very particular about doing things properly.
“Don’t put any of your stuff on my half of the table,” she instructed, “I can’t let it contaminate my stuff.”
Luke was affronted.
“There’s nothing wrong with my stuff,” he told her, “it’s clean. It’s new packets – haven’t even bin opened – look!”
She lifted her arm to shield her side of the table from the sealed bag of flour he thrust towards her.
“You can’t put that near my stuff!” she sounded panicked. “I might be allergic!”
“Allergic to what?”
“I’m allergic to raisins and kiwi fruit so …”
“I ‘aven’t got no raisins or kiwis!”
“Sooo, my mum said we’re playing it safe ’til they know for sure what else I’m allergic to. I’m having tests.”
“Well, you’ve got the same stuff as me,” Luke couldn’t abide hypochondriac drama queens, “flour, sugar, margarine – so if you’re allergic to mine you’re allergic to yours.”
“But my ingredients have been specially kept separate from things that might give me allergies – like milk, eggs, peanuts – and …”
“You can be allergic to milk?”
“Yes, lots of people are, which is why…”
“And what happens to you if you eat it, if you’re allergic?”
“Well, that depends,” she was gratified he was finally listening to her. “I think it’s different for different people. It depends how serious their allergy is.”
“It can be serious?”
“Yes. Some people die if they eat something they’re allergic to. Even just a tiny bit of it. Even if it’s so tiny you can’t hardly see it.”
“Okay, now I know you’re makin’ it up. No one’s dyin’ from a tiny bit of peanut! You’re just a ‘ttention seekin’ hypochondrian who’s makin’ stuff up to get the whole table to ‘erself!” That was disappointing. Luke went mentally back to the drawing board.
But Penelope wasn’t finished.
“They do! Their throat swells up so they can’t breathe! My mum told me and I think she should know ’cause her brother’s allergic to nuts and he has to carry a life-saver injection with him all the time in case he accidentally eats one.”
“Really?” That sounded real. Penelope didn’t have enough imagination to make up something as cool as that. “What other things might happen to someone who ate somethin’ they were allergic to?”
Penelope patiently answered Luke’s endless questions and he, in return, took great care to keep his ingredients away from her half of the table. By the end of the lesson Luke knew how to make Joe’s mum listen. The hard part, however, would be persuading Joe to do it.
***
Joe swallowed his last bite of overdone scone and made a face that suggested he wasn’t enjoying it.
“Not good?” asked Luke. His had been delicious.
“What? Oh, yeah, the scone’s good, it’s your idea I don’t like.”
“Drastic times, drastic scissors,” Luke reminded him, “I know it’s not very nice but it’ll be worth it won’t it? You need to make it look real or it won’t work.”
Joe was still reluctant.
“But I don’t see why I can’t just do the lentil hotpot thing. I could do that. And the not breathin’ thing – I can hold my breath longer ‘n most people.”
“You have to show you’re allergic to all three things – milk, eggs and meat – so you have to have three different allergic reactions to be convincin’. Jus’ think yourself lucky you’ve never liked fish, otherwise we’d have to come up with four reactions.”
Joe nodded and took the bag Luke handed him. Luke patted him on the back. It was important to give moral support to your soldiers.
“You can do it,” he said encouragingly.
Joe walked home from Luke’s house, dreading what he had to do, but determined to do it. Luke was right. It would be worth it.
************************
Story concludes tomorrow 😀
Click here for all ten chapters of Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er
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Chapter ten continues 🙂
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Dinner was almost over and Jared was helping Mum clear the table.
“Hurry up Luke,” Jared was impatient to get to Youth Club and wasn’t allowed to go until he’d done the washing up.
“You want me to get indigestion I suppose!” said Luke, not really surprised that his brother would be so blasé about the dangers of rushing one’s food. He’d learned about them from the Rennie advert. “You want me to get acid an’ a burnin’ heart from eatin’ too fast do you?”
Truth be told, Luke was just full up. He really wanted that last roast potato but knew he couldn’t swallow another mouthful. He pushed his plate away.
“Go on then – take it,” he said, feigning self-sacrifice.
Mum ignored them both and went upstairs to run a bath. Luke followed her.
“Do you want your lavender bubble bath Mum?” he asked helpfully, “the one I got you for your birthday?”
Mrs Walker smiled.
“Yes please, it’s on my dressing table.”
Luke brought it to her.
“D’you want me to get your KT Tunstall CD? The one I gave you for Mother’s Day?”
“Wasn’t that from both of you?”
“Yeah, but it was me what chose it. Jared wanted to get you a set of tea towels but I said that wasn’t a relaxin’ present. I told ‘im Mother’s Day is for mothers to relax so it had to be a relaxin’ present.”
Mum nodded slowly.
“Is there something you want Luke?” she asked.
“No, you just have a nice bath. I’ll get the CD for you,” he volunteered.
“Wait,” said Mum, quiet but firm. “What do you want?”
“Oh nothin’ really,”
“Luke.”
“Well it’s nothin’ much, jus’ thought I’d better mention that I’ve bin feelin’ hungrier at lunch times and I could really do with a bigger lunch.”
“Really?” She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head, “since when?”
“Well, jus’ this week really, but I think I’ll be hungrier from now on coz I’m growin’ fast.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“So, just how much extra food do you think you’ll need?”
“Prob’ly about twice as much I should think,” he said nonchalantly.
“Twice as much?” she exclaimed with exaggerated surprise, “So that would be two sandwiches, two bags of crisps, four pieces of fruit and two cakes?”
Luke nodded.
Mum shook her head.
“I’m sorry Luke, we just don’t have enough money in the budget to give you two lunches every day. I’m sorry if that means you’ll stop growing but we should be thankful that you’ve had a good spurt recently.”
Luke had a sneaking suspicion she was being facetious. He frowned. As he turned to leave she called him back.
“Don’t forget my CD,” she reminded him, smiling, “and tell Jared not to give the potato you didn’t have room for to Dudley or he’ll get the runs.”
****
The following morning Joe called for Luke and they walked to school together. When they reached the bins outside the Memorial Hall, Joe stopped and took out his sandwich. Egg mayonnaise. Before Luke could stop him he tossed the whole thing into the bin.
“So, what have we got for lunch today?” Joe smiled, enjoying the quiet rebellion. Luke felt awkward.
“Well, erm, …”
Joe’s smile faded.
“Couldn’t you get it?” he asked, disappointed.
“Well, it’s not that I couldn’t get it,” Luke didn’t want to admit defeat, “it’s just that I was thinkin’ a lot about it and I decided that actchally it’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?” said Joe, feeling hungry already.
“Well, if your mum still gives you meat and eggs and cheese and stuff, even though you don’t eat it, then it’s still bein’ bought for you, which means animals are still bein’ killed for you.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Joe agreed. He didn’t want that.
“So we’ve got to find a way to make your mum listen,” said Luke decisively.
Joe was not hopeful.
“She won’t listen.”
“She hasn’t listened yet,” Luke corrected him. He liked a challenge. “We’ve just got to tell ‘er in a way she can’t ignore.”
Joe sighed. He preferred to do things quietly. Secretly.
******
Chapter ten continues tomorrow 🙂
For chapters 1 to 9 click here 🙂
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For the stories so far click here 🙂
Chapter Ten: Luke Walker and the allergic reactions
Luke was hesitant. If he made a mistake now it could cost him the game. Janeway was a good card. She had a lot of Starfleet Authority and was also very cunning. But which to choose, that was the important question.
“Come ohn,” said Joe, “it’s borin’ when you just sit there. Choose one.”
“Okay, erm, I choose …” he hesitated again.
He really needed to win this round. He took a deep breath, looked Joe in the eye and said,
“Janeway. Cunning: 45.”
Joe looked at his next card and smiled.
“Worf. Cunning: 49.”
“Blast! I knew I should have chosen Starfleet Authority! What’s Worf’s Starfleet Authority?”
“I’m not telling you that!” said Joe, laughingly holding his cards close to his chest.
“Well, it can’t be higher than Janeway’s. She was Captain. Worf wasn’t captain was he?”
Luke consoled himself with the notion that he would have won if Joe hadn’t rushed him. If he’d just been able to think about it for a bit longer he would certainly have chosen Starfleet Authority instead of Cunning. Joe really should learn not to rush people, it’s not sportsmanlike. Luke had one card left. It was Joe’s turn to choose the statistic.
“Neelix. To Boldly Go: 20.”
“What?!” Luke looked at his card in disbelief. “Neelix can’t be better than Spock at boldly goin’!” He sighed and handed it over. “Spock. To Boldly Go: 15”
“Yesss! I have triumphed! The cards are mine, all mine, ha ha ha haaa,” Joe revelled in his rare victory.
“I’m hungry,” said Luke, pretending not to care.
“Me too,” his friend agreed and they took out their lunch boxes. Joe peeked apprehensively between the two slices of Hovis Best of Both which made up his sandwich. Sadly the peanut butter he’d hoped for was not present. Luke was adding crisps to his Marmite and beetroot sandwiches.
“The crunch makes ’em extra good,” he explained. Then, “uh oh, has she done it again?”
Joe nodded as he removed two slices of ham and bit into his plain bread and margarine.
“You’ve got to tell ‘er,” said Luke, tipping a few of his crisps into Joe’s lunch box.
“I have told her, she won’t listen!” Joe complained, “I said I’m not eatin’ meat or cheese no more and she said, ‘course you are!’ and that was that! She won’t listen. It’s okay, I just put it in the bin when she’s not lookin’.”
“What about your dad – you could tell ‘im to explain it to ‘er.”
“He won’t. He just says ‘ya mother knows best’ and ‘listen to ya mother!’. I’ll just have to be vegetarian in secret ’til I leave home.”
Luke frowned.
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea. It’ll be pretty borin’ jus’ livin’ on bread an’ marg..”
“That’s okay,” said Joe as he took another bite, “thanks for the crisps,” he added.
“That’s it! That’s what we’ll do! Outlaws have to help each other!”
“What?”
“I’ll tell my mum I’m more hungry and I need a bigger packed lunch, with an extra sandwich an’ an extra bag o’crisps an’ an extra cake an’ an extra apple … then I can give half of it to you!”
Joe liked that idea.
“Yeah! Thanks Luke. D’you think she’ll do it?”
“No problem,” said Luke confidently.
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Story continues on Monday.
Have a lovely weekend 🙂
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