Sprinkles or sauce?

The two little girls stood patiently in the queue, as they´d been doing for ten minutes or more. Strictly speaking they were neither in the queue (which passed around them, meanly) nor waiting patiently (as they were simply waiting, without the luxury of patience or not). One of them (Jenny) was beginning to feel a tingling between her legs; she needed a wee, it seemed. It was very hot. Their clasped hands were slick with sweat and Jenny (again) was feeling wobbly in her legs.

Por Wordflow - Jo Carter | Cádiz | 21/08/2014

Mrs Benetton brought their wait to an end. Mrs B was down with her family on a week´s holiday from Bolton and that, coupled with her inherent cheerfulness (and yes, she was a large woman, too) caused her to grab the two girls and push them to the front.

“Here, me love, serve these two li’uns first. You couldn´t see them right down where they were, could you, love? Here, go on girlies, make your order…”

There was a pause whilst Jenny (who had the money) tried to stop her head from swimming and make her eyes focus, so that she could say the words.

“What´s the matter, cat got your tongue?” snapped the ice-cream lady, “I haven´t got all day, you know…”

Mrs B gave Jenny a gentle nudge and Jenny spoke up, holding out her one pound in her sticky palm.

“Two ninety-nines, please.”

“With sprinkles or sauce?”

“Sauce, please.”

“Chocolate or raspberry?”

“One with chocolate and one with raspberry, please.”Jenny said quietly, daringly.

The ice-cream lady tutted, took the pound, wiped her hands with hammed-up disgust and handed down the two cones.

Jenny gave the raspberry one to Susie and looked up at Mrs Benetton from under her fringe, and gave a shy half-smile in thanks.

“You´re alright, lovey. Now go on, chop chop, or they´ll melt.”

Jenny grabbed onto her sister´s hand and pulled her back down onto the sands. Her mum´s back, hunched over their guzzling baby-brother, still seemed a long way away.

“Don´t eat it yet, Susie!” she said. They had to sit on their towels to eat their ice-creams. It was a rule.

“Please, Jenny, just one lick?”

“Do you want a slap from mum? C’mon, we´re nearly there”

Jenny wished she could let go of Susie and put her hand between her legs to stop the wee from coming any further, but she wouldn´t have dared do that either.

They´d taken so long.

“C,mon, Susie… a bit faster”

She wanted to wee in the cold, salty sea and eat the most delicious thing in the whole, wide world; a ninety-nine cone with chocolate sauce. She wanted her head to stop aching and she wanted her mum to greet her with a big smile like the fat lady in the ice-cream van and give her a big kiss like nana Green did when she´d had a bottle.

What she didn´t want, of course, was to trip over the half-buried and broken bucket and fall to her knees. She looked down, as if in slow-motion, at her hand holding her ruined ice-cream, topped now with sandy sprinkles. It didn´t look like her hand and her eyes wouldn´t focus. The hot wee was running down her kneeling legs, stinging her eczema.

Susie held out her cone and whispered,

“Have a lick, Jenny.”

***

Cat got your tongue? – Has the cat got your tongue? – question asked when someone is inexplicably silent.

Chop-chop - shake a leg - get a move on - hurry up

lil’uns – shortened form of little ‘uns or little ones, ie. small children

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Jo Carter

Jo Carter is from England but has been living in Spain since 1999. Up till then she was a primary school teacher and enjoyed inspiring young children to love books. She has spent a lot of her life reading and writing (in between work, three children and lots of cups of tea) and intends to write a novel (one day!).

The idea behind the column is to highlight what is beautiful in the English language... Thus the column: idiomatic expressions in English woven into a short piece of creative writing.

Read more articles by Jo Carter here.