Telling stories: The Children's Picnic

A Post a Day in May 28/31

It had been a glorious summer day and everyone had enjoyed the ponies and the fair, but all good things come to an end, and it was now the end of the happy day. Martha, the children’s favourite nanny of all time, had persuaded the cook to prepare their tea as a picnic, so the happy day was ending like a fairytale, with a luscious meal outside in the garden. They spread out several blankets and emptied the hamper of buns and butter and savoury spreads and jam and biscuits and fruit, though nobody wanted that, as it was too ordinary. The chocolate biscuits were particularly tasty and the fizzy drink was a real treat.

It was all so good, but why did Clarissa have to be so annoying?

She had placed herself at the centre of the group, saying, “As the eldest, I shall take charge.” She was wearing her favourite pink hairband that, she said, gave her special princess powers. As if! But they humoured her because it kept the peace.

Billy and George bore the brunt of her commanding tone, as not only were they the youngest, but they were also outnumbered by the three girls and they had learned to stay in the background. Laura and Marion knew better than to try to stand up to Clarissa. She was all peaches and cream when the grown-ups were around; however, once they were on their own, her “princess” character came out.

But today — today would be different. Marion had promised herself that she would make a difference in this group and today was the day. While at the fair, dear sweet innocent-looking little Marion had dawdled after they had watched the ponies, so she could dart into the field, bend down as if curtsying to Madame in ballet class, and scoop up some fresh pony droppings. She had saved her now-empty sweetie bag especially for this task, holding it over the droppings and quickly pulling the bag up and over and then tying it securely, but not too tightly, so it wouldn’t be too difficult later on to get back into it. She had worn her blue dress today because it had good pockets, one of which now held the bagged pony droppings.

Marion waited patiently, not reacting to Clarissa’s imperious tone, waited until she was busy spreading butter on a bun for Billy. Then, quietly, Marion took one of the very tasty chocolate biscuits, split it open as she had seen her mum do for her dad, but instead of spreading jam between the layers, using her fingers, she spread some of the pony droppings. The colour was almost indistinguishable from the chocolate. She wiped her fingers on the underside of the blanket, feeling a tiny bit guilty, but not guilty enough to change her plan.

She placed the chocolate biscuit back on the plate and, when Clarissa had finished doling out the buttered bun to Billy, Marion offered the plate to her, saying, “Here, Clarissa. Have another biscuit.”

Clarissa, unsuspecting, said, “Why, thank you, I think I will,” sounding, she thought, just like a princess. She reached, just as she had been taught, for the biscuit closest to her, as Marion had thought she would. It was the right biscuit — the doctored biscuit.

Clarissa bit into and, before she had finished her first chew of it, spat it out and dropped the biscuit on the blanket, shrieking “Horrid, that’s horrid. What was that? It’s horrid!”

Marion had anticipated this would happen, so was ready to scoop up the remains of the doctored biscuit and tuck it under the blanket behind her. While she did this with one hand, with the other she rammed an entire biscuit into her own mouth and munched happily on it. Through her full mouth of yummy biscuit, she mumbled, “What do you mean?” Meanwhile, Laura and the boys were frozen in spot and Clarissa was rinsing out her mouth with the fizzy drink, spitting it out but not very effectively, as most of it dribbled down her front.

Laura, not realizing what Marion had done, said, “Clarissa, it must have been a bad biscuit. Here, have my jammy bun to take the nasty taste out of your mouth.” Clarissa accepted graciously and regained her composure. “Let’s not tell the grown-ups,” she said. “A princess doesn’t complain.”

Marion was gobsmacked — and disappointed. The whole point of pulling the prank was that Clarissa would behave badly and be punished by the grown-ups! Instead, Marion was left with a streak of pony droppings in the pocket of her favourite blue dress and not even the satisfaction of anyone knowing what she had done.

Later: Martha, the favourite nanny of all time, tidied up the children’s picnic, packing away the leftovers and folding up the blankets. When she stepped back to reach down and lift the corner where Marion had been sitting, her sandal crushed something under the heel, but she didn’t think anything of it. She finished the tidy-up and headed inside for a well-deserved cup of tea.

Later still: Jack, the gardener’s nephew who earned some pocket money by doing odd jobs, including polishing the household’s shoes, couldn’t understand why Martha’s leather sandal had smelly black stuff stuck in the ridges of the heel. When he sniffed it, it smelled like horse poop. How could that be? Martha was afraid of horses and, anyway, she hadn’t gone to the fair to see the ponies with the children. Oh well. Just another of life’s mysteries, he thought. You just never knew what the grown-ups in this house got up to.

Postscript: Over time, Clarissa shed her “princess character”, but was suspicious of chocolate biscuits for the rest of her life. Marion, on the other hand, made her fortune by inventing “The Better Chocolate Biscuit”, and took the secret of her mischief at the children’s picnic to her grave.

Author's note: This story is pure fiction, though the children in the family photo (circa 1964) are real enough — my sister, Katy, and my second cousins Clare, Philip and Oliver. I am in the blue dress. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.