The Surprise
A short story by Rosie Clare Illustrated by Rosie Clare and Emma Vivian
“Hello, Gizmo,” said Bertram. “What are you making this morning?” Bertram was out for his morning walk when he came across Gizmo scrabbling through the rubbish bin at the entrance to the park. Gizmo was always scrabbling through rubbish bins. Fortunately, Bertram had come to realise, Yolanda was never usually far behind. Yolanda spent half her time clearing up after Gizmo. The rest of the time Yolanda spent sleeping, eating and licking her paws. Yolanda spent an excessive amount of time licking her paws.
Bertram watched Gizmo for a while, knowing he’d get an answer eventually but probably not until Gizmo had found whatever bit of rubbish was vital to today’s project. “Aha!” Gizmo roared with delight, holding a slightly squashed juice carton trophy-‐like above his head. “Perfect.” “Purrrrfect?” Bertram and Gizmo looked, frowning, in the direction of the disbelieving voice. It was Yolanda. “What , may I ask, is purrrrfect about that?" Yolanda sat on her haunches and started licking her paws. Although she said nothing, Bertram knew she was expecting an answer, and clearly so did Gizmo. What
surprised Bertram were the beads of sweat gathering on Gizmo’s furrowed brow. Whatever Gizmo was planning today he didn’t seem keen to tell Yolanda. “Shall we make a start?” Bertram suggested to Yolanda, hoping to distract her from Gizmo’s strange behaviour. “All in good time, my dear Bertie. First, I want to know what all this mess is in aid of.” The beads of sweat on Gizmo’s brow were gathering speed. He was shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other refusing to look Yolanda in the eye.
Yolanda didn’t approve of juice cartons. “How,” she said to no one in particular. “Do the Big People have the audacity to make something for the Little People and print the words ‘Not widely recyclable’ on the back?” She licked her paws again, as though that was the only thing that made everything better. Bertram decided to get cracking, hoping that Yolanda would join in. He started by collecting up the plastic bottles. Bertram was always amazed at how many there were in park rubbish bins. He never understood why the Little People didn’t take their drinks bottles
home. Special Big People came once a week to collect such recyclables right from their doorsteps. But never mind, at least it kept Yolanda in mice. Yolanda did eventually get sorting. She went for the cans. The Special Big People at the Recycling Bank like cans. “Worth a bit, them are,” the wrinkly one with the beard always says. Then he dangles the dead mice by their tails and watches Yolanda follow them with her big green eyes. Half a dozen cans generally gets her two mice. “Here you are, my lovely.” He always smiles broadly when he hands over the mice, the number of wrinkles on his grizzled face temporarily doubling. Bertram thinks the man gets as much pleasure from feeding Yolanda as Yolanda gets from eating – which, when she’s not clearing up after Gizmo, is the
thing she does second most after licking her paws. Bertram had a good haul of plastics and Yolanda seemed pleased with her collection of cans. Gizmo, hidden from Yolanda’s view by the big stone pillar of the park gate, was whooping silently at the half dozen tetrapaks but he still wasn’t giving any clue as to what he planned to do with them.
Gizmo offered Bertram his bicycle cart and said he was quite happy to walk home. Bertram realised he probably would have just given them both a lift,
but for the fact that Yolanda would soon be questioning him again. Although Bertram couldn’t for the life of him think why Gizmo was being so cagey about his collection, he did feel sorry for the old dog and agreed that he’d peddle Yolanda to the recycling bank with their goodies and then he’d return the bike to Gizmo that afternoon. Bertram threw a manky apple core to a passing sparrow and by the time Gizmo had gone off with his drinks cartons and they’d loaded the recycling onto the makeshift cart that Gizmo had cobbled together from a couple of discarded bike wheels and a sturdy cardboard box, the bin was empty. Yolanda climbed into the cart and Bertram onto the bike and off they went just as the first voices of the Little People
could be heard on the corner of Park Avenue. The wrinkly man at the recycling bank greeted Bertram and Yolanda with a crinkly smile. His prune-‐like face was tanned and weather-‐beaten, but the delight in his eyes shone as his favourite visitor purred and rubbed herself round his bowed legs. “What have you got for me today, my lovely?” Yolanda showed him the cans and Bertram handed over the bundle of plastic bottles. The wrinkly man scratched his beard, looking deep in thought. Bertram wondered what the man was thinking. Just then, the man swung round and marched off towards his office.
“I was wondering if you’d like to try these, my lovely?” The wrinkly man held out a small, rectangular tin. Bertram watched Yolanda’s nose crinkle up. “Smells good,” purred Yolanda. She sat back on her haunches and started licking her paws. The wrinkly man placed the tin carefully beside her and then excused himself to deal with the pile of recycling the pair had brought. But the man turned back just as he approached the cart and Bertram thought he detected a worried expression among the wrinkles on the man’s face. “Are you sure I can’t offer you anything, Bertram, me old fella?” “No, really. It’s a kind thought but, no, honestly.” Bertram was a teddy bear and he always thought one of the wonderful things about teddy bears was they needed very little looking after. You
never need to feed a teddy bear. All they ever need is a bit of love. The man seemed a little sad but he set about putting the cans and bottled into the different skips and Bertram waited for Yolanda to finish the tin of sardines.
“Uhm, delicious,” purred Yolanda. “You don’t know what you’re missing, Bertie.” Bertram wasn’t at all sorry that he didn’t need to eat week old leftover sardines and he was very thankful that teddy bears had no sense of smell either.
Teddy bears are not stupid. Week old leftover sardines, as anyone could imagine, are bound to whiff a fair bit. It didn’t take Yolanda long to lick the tin clean and soon she was busying herself with her customary post nosh paw-‐licking. When she had finished she thanked the wrinkly man with a quick rub of the legs and nodded to Bertram to follow her to the cart. As they set off to return the bicycle cart, Bertram hoped that Gizmo had finished with his mysterious tetrapak project. Bertram peddled up the hill towards Gizmo’s hovel at the edge of the community copse, all the while trying to come up with a plan to occupy Yolanda while he took the bike back to Gizmo. But the more he tried to think, the more
ridiculous each thought became and he just hoped that Yolanda would drift off to sleep in the cart so he could sneak in and find out what Gizmo was trying to hide from her. Sure enough, with impeccably clean paws and a stomach full of sardines, Yolanda soon drifted off. When Bertram pulled up outside Gizmo’s hovel, he tiptoed towards the door so as not to wake her. Just as Bertram was about to knock, the door opened and there was Gizmo standing in the doorway, finger poised on his lip. “Shush.” He beckoned to Bertram to follow him. The two of them tiptoed up the rickety steps towards Gizmo’s workshop and Gizmo threw back the door. “Dadaaa!” Gizmo was clearly very pleased with his creation. “It’s for Yolanda. Do you think she’ll like it?”
“Gizmo, I’m sure she will. I’m not sure it will entirely stop her from pursuing the banning business, but it’ll certainly ....” Bertram was interrupted by a commotion coming from down below. Gizmo flew down the stairs and Bertram followed. The sight that met their eyes was not a pretty one. Rolling away from them down the hill were a bicycle, a cardboard box on wheels and a large ball of fluff. The ball of fluff was making the most frightful yowling noise.
Bertram looked at the wide-‐eyed Gizmo.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I’m going to be in for it now,” sighed the old dog. “I forgot to mention the brakes were shot. I pulled that bike out of the hedge by the brook. I was planning to fix the brakes, but I got all wrapped up Googling to find something useful to make for Yolanda’s birthday.” “Come on,” Bertram said. “Brace yourself. They’ll all come to a stop when they get to the bottom.” Bertram set off down the hill and Gizmo followed, tail between his legs. By the time they caught up with Yolanda she was on her feet and shaking herself down, but she was clearly feeling a bit groggy. Gizmo and Bertram fixed up the bicycle cart and then peddled Yolanda back to Cozy Cottage. They set her up on her favourite sofa with a bowl of milk, a plate of leftover rabbit casserole and her laptop and Gizmo showed her how to use Snapchat.
So with a now purring Yolanda entertaining herself with Snapchat and Twitter, Bertram and Gizmo took themselves off home agreeing to call in on Yolanda in the morning. Next morning, Gizmo and Bertram were up early scrabbling through the rubbish bins in the Market Square. Soon the fancy shopping bag Gizmo had made from the drinks cartons was full to the brim with cans and plastics.
Gizmo had fixed the brakes on the bicycle and they set off to wish Yolanda a happy birthday.
They found Yolanda still on the sofa with her laptop, arriving just in time to intercept her fourth ‘licking my paws’ tweet of the day. Yolanda was thrilled with her recycled tetrapak shopping bag and even more delighted at the prospect of taking its contents to the Special Big People at the recycling bank. Gizmo was so relieved that his birthday surprise had been well received that he completely forgot about publishing his ‘how to make a tetrapak shopping bag’ video on YouTube. Still, never mind, you can always buy one online.
The End