(Vegetables) Chapter Eight: Things Don’t Entirely Go To Plan At The Weekly Bugle Event

The Weekly Bugle had its offices just a few minute’s walk from Morwen’s place of work, so during her lunch break she popped out to see how the big launch and Rosa were doing. She could hear the noise before she could see the event – lots of people laughing and shouting, and what sounded like a brass band playing.

She walked around the corner, and saw what appeared to be a street fair in front of the Weekly Bugle’s offices. There was indeed a brass band, and balloons and streamers and bumper cars and children running around with cake icing smeared all over their mouths. Lots of people seemed to be having a really good time, which was unusual given that it was a slightly damp day and a Friday.

There was even the wheezy sounds of an accordion, the clash of sticks and sound of bells competing with the brass band. The local Morris side were out, dressed in black and neon tatters, and waistcoats with embroidered rabbits on the back. Alongside the accordion player was a pretty young woman in a bright pink top hat, who was playing the tin whistle

A honking noise came from behind her, and she jumped out of the way as the unicycling rabbit cycled past. It waved at her cheerfully, before falling off the unicycle as it failed to hop up the kerb.

Morwen elbowed her way to the cake table where a happy but frazzled Rosa was handing people cakes and reminding them to buy the Weekly Bugle, their first stop for local news.

“Hi!” Rosa called to Morwen. “Bit busy – got a huge crowd! Fel’s over there somewhere!”

She waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the brass band.

“Our carrot and orange cakes have gone really well, only got one tray left!”

And then she was back to serving the hordes of people pressing close, on the hunt for free baked goods.

“Hi, yes, have a carrot and orange cake, and buy the Weekly Bugle! Buy one for a friend too! Hey, why not buy lots of copies!”

Morwen looked at the choices²³ and snagged herself a chocolate brownie, before pushing her way over to the band. The crowd had parted enough for her to catch a glimpse of Felindre, who had her back pressed firmly against a wall, and was staring daggers at anyone who came too close.

“I see the Morris are out,” Morwen said.

“Yes, and not a barrel of ale in sight,” replied Felindre.

Several Morris dancers chose that moment to walk past, towing a large barrel of beer on a trolley.

“I stand corrected,” said Felindre.

“You look like you’re having fun,” Morwen observed.

Felindre shot her a look of disgust.

“I’ve already had three men try to make a pass at me. It’s like the whole crowd’s drunk or something.”

“I’m impressed,” said Morwen.

“Why, because that number of creeps have made a pass?”

“No, said Morwen, taking a bite of the chocolate brownie. She pulled a face and spat the bite of brownie back into the napkin she held it in.

“I’m surprised that they’re not lying bleeding on the ground right now.”

Felindre gave her a look, and scowled out at the crowd, watching Rosa.

Morwen found a bin to put the remainder of the chocolate brownie in, before returning to Felindre’s side. Together they watched two kids of indeterminate age and sex running around shrieking and pummelling each other with balloons. There was more than the usual number of pigeons ducking through people’s feet and pecking at the dropped cake crumbs too.

“I promised Rosa I’d hang around for a bit. Besides, I don’t like this crowd. Something tells me they could turn nasty,” Felindre continued.

A middle aged woman was striding around the Weekly Bugle tables. She looked pretty nondescript, except for something exceptionally large and shiny on her shoulder. Even from a distance, the two could see Rosa flinch and shrink whenever the woman was near her.

“Who’s that woman?” asked Morwen.

A middle aged man in a rumpled suit walked up to them.

“What are nice girls like you doing in a place like this?”

Morwen blinked in surprise.

“Do people really use that old line?” she said, then answered herself with, “well, obviously some do…”

“Oh, just push off,” Felindre snapped.

To their surprise, he did.

“Which woman?” Felindre asked.

“That one, with the brown hair, stalking around like she owns the place. The one with the massive shiny broach thing on her shoulder.”

“Oh, her. Yeah, that’s the new boss. Rosa pointed her out to me. Turns out that whopping great broach is a gold and ruby spider. Tacky as all get-out and gives Rosa the creeps.”

Another, younger man came up to them, looking faintly hopeful. Before he could get a word out of his mouth, Felindre told him “No, go away.”

He did, but another woman came up and tried to talk to them, then another man. Morwen started off being polite, but after a while she too resorted to telling people to get stuffed.

“Hey, isn’t that Richard over there?” Felindre nudged Morwen and pointed.

“Where?” said Morwen. “I can’t see him.”

“There!”

“No, and anyway he’s away for work this week.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Felindre, under her breath. Then, louder: “I could have sworn it was him.”

All around the crowd was getting more and more raucous. The table near the cake stall that was selling the copies of the Weekly Bugle was surrounded by people, all waving money and grabbing copies of the paper. Fist-fights were breaking out around the tables as office workers indulged in an unseemly display of tug of war over newspapers.

“This isn’t looking good,” said Felindre, as the newspaper table was turned over with a crash and a rugby scrum of people, desperate to get their hands on a copy, piled on top of the poor hapless Weekly Bugle Staff member.

“Right,” said Felindre, cracking her knuckles. “We’re getting Rosa out of here, before this turns into a riot.”

And she was off, fists, elbows and knees all working to make her way through the heaving crowd.

Oblivious to all of this, the brass band kept playing. Morwen was faintly surprised to hear them playing a medley of James Bond themes, keeping in perfect time with Felindre as she pushed, prodded and thumped her way to the cake table.

There was a pop, expertly drowned out by a crash of cymbals.

There was another crash, as the cake table went flying. What was the beginnings of a brawl now turned into a very sticky cake fight.

A white rabbit with a piece of paper in its mouth hopped out from a shadowed corner. It took one look at the fracas, shook its head and hopped back into the corner. There was another pop, but it was lost in the racket.

The band stopped playing with a very discordant squawk as a young man crashed into the tubas, victim of a randomly thrown cream cake. He pushed himself up awkwardly off the ground, getting tangled in the sheet music stands, one hand trying desperately to wipe the cream out of his eyes. As he tried to free himself, he got his free arm stuck in the slider of a trombone, and then promptly fell over again, onto the cymbal player.

The noise of this one guy trashing the brass band was almost as bad as the near-riot happening near the cake stand. The two weren’t separate though – as members of the band were weighing into the cake fight after being hit by collateral damage from shards of rock cake.

A hapless band member, struck in the face by a chocolate éclair, stumbled backwards and crashed into the barrel of ale, knocking it off its trolley. The Morris dancers stopped as one and watched in horror for a moment as the tap on the barrel got knocked off, and ale started spilling into the gutter.

With a shout, several of them dived for the barrel, stopping the spillage, while the rest dived into the fray, their sticks and bells causing damage and adding a strangely jolly air to the fight, respectively.

Felindre, by this stage, had disappeared into the crowd. Morwen could trace where she was by the high pitched “hi-yahs!” that rang out, and the shockwave of people staggering as far away from her as they could get.

The unicycling rabbit was observing from a safe distance. The pigeons were causing even more chaos by diving in to steal flying bits of cake, tripping humans up and causing them to fall over by flying into their faces. It was not looking good.

On impulse, Morwen plunged into the mess that was once a brass band, dodging gingerbread biscuits and flapjack crumb, and hauled the young man up by the arm, extricating him from the tangle of music case straps he’d somehow got himself tied up in.

“Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” she said, as she looked at his familiar, pimply, and cream-covered face.

“Duck!” he replied, and pulled her down, as a triangular flapjack flew through the air where her head had been.

“Thanks,” Morwen said straightening up. “That was close!”

“Duck!” he yelled at her again, pulling her down as a duck flew over her head.

“Wow, really a duck,” said Morwen. “What on earth is that doing here?”

He didn’t get the chance to respond, because at that moment, Felindre, dragging a scared and dishevelled Rosa, exploded out of the crowd towards them²⁴.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Oh, it’s all gone so wrong! I’m going to be in so much trouble!” moaned Rosa.

“It’s not your fault,” said Felindre, expertly blocking a flying piece of shortbread that would have shattered against her hip.

A fondant fancy (obviously shop bought) caught Rosa on the upper arm.

“Ow! That hurt!” Rosa rubbed her arm and yelled at the top of her lungs:

“I wish it would just stop. I want everyone to just STOP!”

Her shout echoed over the noise of the cake fight, and for a moment, everyone stopped. There was a long, drawn-out wheezing note from the accordion. Then the sounds of police sirens could be heard in the distance, drawing near.

There was a space of two, three, four breaths, and then a flying slice of apple cake landed with a splat on a small child in a pushchair.

Said small child screamed, in shock, not pain, and it all kicked off again.

“Run!” yelled Felindre, and they did, Morwen towing the cream-covered young man behind her. The rest of the crowd started running too, scattering in many different directions. For a few moments they all ran next to a harried young mum, pushing a pushchair. The small child inside the pushchair, despite being bumped and rattled around, was happily chomping on the slice of apple cake.

Behind them, in the shadow of an alley, a little old lady with a stick with a handle that looked like a silver cucumber stood and watched them go. She was muttering to herself²⁵.




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²³ Alongside the carrot and orange muffins, there were fairy cakes of the brightly coloured icing variety, some with chocolate sprinkles, flapjacks, millionaire’s shortbread, billionaire’s shortbread (like the millionaire’s version, but with extra chocolate and caramel), chocolate chip cookies, iced biscuits, Chelsea buns, Belgian buns, iced fingers, iced doughnuts, jam filled doughnuts, chocolate doughnuts, peanut butter cookies, plain shortbread, chocolate coated shortbread, macaroons in a variety of colours, coconut ice, more flapjacks, seed cake, carrot cake, apple cake, chocolate eclairs, Danish pastries, and a lone tray of mini sausage rolls.
²⁴ If Morwen had cared enough to look, she would have seen the large numbers of people on the floor, groaning, that Felindre had left in her wake. But she didn’t.
²⁵ Or maybe she was talking to the bright pink rabbit in the shadows next to her. Who knows?