Today’s writing prompt and my response.
Use the prompt however you like, one at a time, or pen a short story over as many as you like.
Suppress Fish Cool: use these three words
‘Fish again?’ The child turns up his freckled nose.
Meryl dollops a spoonful of mashed potato onto the plate. ‘Good for your brain,’ she tells him. ‘Peas or salad?’
‘Yuck, salad.’ There goes the nose again.
In her years as a dinner lady, Meryl has witnessed many upturned noses. She thought herself immune. Somehow, though, this one annoys her. Maybe it’s the pudginess of it. She suppresses the urge to reach out and squeeze it, hard..
‘Why can’t we have burgers and chips like we used to?’ a second child, with ballooning red cheeks, asks.
The fish-despiser nods. ‘Yeah, why not?’
Meryl sighs, and repeats the answer she has given a thousand times in the last few months.
‘Because the grownups have decided that burgers and chips don’t feed your brains – or your bodies – as well as fish and salad.’
‘Or chicken and salad,’ a girl calls from further up the line. This one is slim, with clear, healthy skin and bright eyes.
Red cheeks throws her a cool look, chilly enough to keep the salad fresh for hours. ‘Chicken’s ok, if it’s in a nugget.’
The children in between giggle at this witticism and the boy’s cheeks balloon further, stretched by his supercilious grin.
‘We have burgers and chips at home,’ pudgy nose points out. ‘So not all grownups think what you said.’ He puts his hands on his sturdy hips and smirks at Meryl.
She will not give in to temptation and snap at him, or worse. She will not. In any case, therein lies the nub. Doesn’t matter what school governors decide. If there’s no follow up at home, what then?
‘Well,’ she says. ‘Don’t want to hold everyone up, do we?’ She squints at the boy who squints back, just on the right side of insolence. ‘Peas then?’
He humphs, shrugs. ‘Guess so.’
Meryl hands him his plate. ‘Next. Fish, or vegetable lasagna?’
At last each child has a meal and Meryl can cover the remains in their warming dishes, wipe her hands on a clean cloth, and retreat to the kitchen. Time for her own lunch. Her stomach growls as she takes the container from her bag and thrusts it into the microwave. She sets the timer, turns to fill the kettle for her cup of tea.
Soon, the taste bud tingling scent of warming burger and chips fills the room. Meryl licks her lips.
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My goodness. What a hypocrite (ha! ha!)