Alexander Mccall Smith

by The Perfect Hamburger;Other Delicious Stories

  Mr. Borthwick had reconciled himself to the loss of his business and had already begun to pack away some of his old equipment. Now, as he heard Joe's news, he seemed to get new courage for the fight.

  "Once we get some more of the spice," Joe explained eagerly, "we can sell hamburgers that will make Hamburger House's hamburgers taste like wet cardboard. Everyone will come to us."

  Mr. Borthwick's eyes gleamed: it would be wonderful to have a thriving business once more.

  "I'll expand!" he cried enthusiastically. "I'll buy new equipment!"

  Joe was thrilled with the change in his friend's mood and urged Mr. Borthwick to write a press release.

  "We must put an ad in the newspapers," Joe said.

  COMING SOON

  BORTHWICK'S TRADITIONAL HAMBURGERS. HAMBURGERS THE WAY THEY

  USED TO TASTE!

  Mr. Borthwick nodded approvingly. "You're right, Joe. That's just what we'll say. Everybody thinks things used to taste better. We'll show them that they really did!"

  Together the two of them decided there should be a picture of Mr. Borthwick standing over a hamburger, which would be sizzling away on the grill. Underneath would be written in old-fashioned lettering:

  Taste the secret recipe of the world's most famous old-fashioned hamburger! Try a Borthwick's hamburger today!

  Joe and Mr. Borthwick were so pleased with their plans, they celebrated with an old-fashioned hamburger. Joe mixed the mixture, and as he did so, he used the very last bit of spice left in the green jar.

  The Perfect Hamburger

  Mr. Borthwick and Joe wasted no time in placing their ads: five days later, across the front page of the local papers, were pictures of Mr. Borthwick and the announcement of the impending arrival of the famous old-fashioned burgers.

  "I thought Mr. Borthwick was finished," Joe heard somebody say. "But he must have something up his sleeve after all."

  "I haven't been there for months," another said. "Maybe I should give these new burgers a try."

  This was exactly what Joe and Mr. Borthwick hoped people would say. The only problem was that they had not yet found the supplies of the spice they would need if their hamburgers were to be truly perfect. Joe realized that it might have been better to wait before running the ads in the newspaper. What if they failed to find the spice? Mr. Borthwick would look very foolish.

  Without wasting any more time, Joe and Mr. Borthwick set off to find Mrs. Bailey's daughter. It was a long street and they were almost at the end of it when they came to a gate on which the words OLIVE BAILEY had been painted in neat red letters.

  Olive Bailey, a thin woman who probably wasn't very interested in food, opened the door. "Come in," she said. "Why are you looking for me?"

  For the next five minutes, Mr. Borthwick talked nonstop, explaining to Olive Bailey why they were looking for her mother's spice and why it was so important that they get hold of some of it as soon as possible. When he finished speaking, Olive Bailey sighed and shook her head.

  "I'm sorry to disappoint you," she said sympathetically, "but my mother's kitchens were cleared out years ago. I don't have any of the jars she used to use. They all went."

  Mr. Borthwick looked down at the floor. Joe noticed that he had the same crumpled look as when he had first announced that the business would have to close. His body sagged. His face was gray.

  "Please," Joe said to Olive Bailey. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

  Olive Bailey smiled at Joe. "I was going to say that there's something I might be able to do. I still have my mother's notebooks in the attic. I never got around to throwing them out. I think that some of them have recipes in them, but I'm not sure."

  Both Joe and Mr. Borthwick jumped to their feet at the same time.

  "We would be grateful if you'd let us see them," Mr. Borthwick said.

  "We'd take great care of them," Joe added.

  Olive Bailey left the two of them for a few minutes to return, looking rather dusty, with several old notebooks.

  "Here," she said, handing the books to Mr. Borthwick. "With any luck you will find what you need in there."

  Joe couldn't wait until they got back to Mr. Borthwick's to look through the notebooks. As they drove back, he thumbed through the thick books. Inside, written in spidery handwriting, was recipe after recipe. Take two pinches of this and three spoonfuls of that: take three apples and cut them into squares: take two potatoes and put them in a pot, and so on.

  "There are thousands and thousands of recipes here," Joe complained.

  "Just look for one that has 'spice' written at the top," suggested Mr. Borthwick. "That's the one we're after."

  "But I can't," Joe said sadly. "None of them has anything written at the top!"

  There was only one thing that Joe and Mr. Borthwick could do. They would have to go through the recipes, one by one, choosing those that looked as if they might be for the spice. Then, having done this, they would have to test each of them in turn.

  "If only she'd labeled her recipes," Joe wailed as he and Mr. Borthwick measured out ingredients for the fortieth time. "It would have been so much easier for us right now!"

  Slowly they worked through the notebooks. As they neared the end, Joe began to despair. As they tried out the last recipe, he was certain they would fail. He hardly had the energy to measure the ingredients, and Mr. Borthwick barely bothered to taste the mixture that they had made.

  "Any good?" Joe asked as Mr. Borthwick put his tongue into the mixture on the spoon.

  For a few seconds Mr. Borthwick said nothing, and then he merely shook his head. "Taste it yourself," he said.

  Joe took a little of the mixture and dabbed it on the tip of his tongue. No. That was not it. It was far too peppery.

  "That's it, Joe," Mr. Borthwick said wearily. "There's only one thing to do."

  "What's that?" Joe asked, dreading the answer.

  "I'm going to place a new ad in the newspaper saying that we will be closing next week. I will thank all my old customers and leave it at that."

  He looked around at the familiar grills and battered stools that he had known for so many years. Then he stepped out of the door and was gone.

  Joe sat alone in the kitchen. He had done all he could to help Mr. Borthwick, but it had not been enough. Hamburger House had won, and that was all there was to it.

  Idly, he picked up one of Mrs. Bailey's notebooks and flipped through the well-thumbed recipes. They had tried all the likely ones and none of them had proved to be the right one. Joe looked at the back cover. It was very dirty from spending its life in a kitchen. Underneath the grime there was some sort of picture. Joe struggled to make out what it was.

  For a few moments he hardly dared believe what he saw. Could it really be that? Joe held the book up to the light.

  There on the grimy cover of the book, so covered with stains that they had not noticed it, was a picture of a tree. And there was no mistaking it—it was the same tree that appeared on the jar of spice. Beneath it Joe could just make out a list of ingredients. It was the recipe for Mrs. Bailey's Mixture!

  As Mr. Borthwick was turning in the ad that was to run in the next day's papers, the newspaper clerk answered the telephone. "Yes," he said. "He's right here."

  Mr. Borthwick was surprised to hear Joe on the other end of the line. Quietly he listened to Joe's message and then he handed the receiver back to the clerk.

  "I want to change this ad," he said firmly. "I want it to read: To be launched tomorrow: Borthwick's Old-Fashioned Hamburger. At last—the perfect hamburger!"

  The clerk wrote down the wording and Mr. Borthwick rushed back to his hamburger place where Joe was waiting for him.

  On the day the perfect hamburger was launched, word spread quickly that something important was happening at Mr. Borthwick's. For the first time in months there were lines of people waiting to be served, and all the beat-up stools were occupied. Everyone who bought a burger agreed: it was the perfect hamburger. Some people had two, and
one customer ate six!

  The newspapers sent reporters to interview Mr. Borthwick's customers, and not a single one had anything but praise for the old-fashioned hamburgers.

  "How would you describe the taste?" one reporter asked a satisfied customer.

  "I'd describe it as . . . Well, it's like . . . No, that's not quite like it . . . It's just like . . . Oh, taste it yourself!"

  Joe couldn't have been happier. Now that Mr. Borthwick had so many customers, he would be able to buy new equipment, have the walls painted and the stools recovered. Nobody went to Hamburger House anymore, and it was Hamburger House that now stood empty at night.

  But Joe and Mr. Borthwick had their greatest satisfaction one evening when a car pulled up outside and out stepped three people. There, on the pavement, stood none other than the great Cassaroli and, elegant and beaming, Mr. Octavius and Miss Cadillac.

  The three special visitors ordered a large hamburger each, which Joe and Mr. Borthwick prepared with extra care. Then, after they had finished eating, they agreed to join Joe and Mr. Borthwick in the kitchen for a celebration.

  "I have a small gift for you," the great Cassaroli said. "Here it is."

  Mr. Borthwick pushed Joe forward to receive the gift from the great chef. It was a beautiful silver spoon, and on it had been inscribed the words: To the makers of the perfect hamburger—from the great Cassaroli.

  Mr. Borthwick was so pleased with the great compliment that he had to wipe away a tear of joy that had begun to run down his cheek.

  "Maestro," he said, "how can we thank you enough?"

  "That's simple," snapped the great Cassaroli, "make me another hamburger!"

  The

  Spaghetti Tangle

  For Lucy

  Contents

  Aunt Rebecca

  A Delicious Discovery

  A Very Special Competition

  Waiting to Win

  A Welcome from Mr. Pipelli

  Things Go Wrong

  Tangled Up

  Aunt Rebecca Gets to Work

  Mr. Pipelli Comes to Lunch

  Aunt Rebecca

  There were once two children who had never eaten spaghetti. John and his sister, Nicky, would have loved to eat spaghetti, but they were never even allowed to taste it because of Aunt Rebecca.

  John and Nicky had lived with their aunt for as long as they could remember. Their parents were experts on volcanoes, which is one of the most dangerous jobs there is. They had to live in far-off places, waiting for volcanoes to erupt so that they could tell people what to do about it. It was too dangerous a life for children, and so they had reluctantly passed John and Nicky over to Aunt Rebecca.

  Aunt Rebecca was a kindhearted person, in a funny sort of way, and the children liked her—also in a funny sort of way. They knew that, for some reason, she was not very happy with life, but they had never been able to find out exactly why this was.

  "I think she's grumpy because she never married the person she wanted to marry," said Nicky one day when Aunt Rebecca had been especially grouchy. Their aunt had once told the children that she had been engaged to somebody but that the wedding had been called off at the last minute. But she had not said any more than that, and the whole thing remained a mystery.

  Life with Aunt Rebecca was a little strange. It was not that she was always grumpy—she wasn't. But when she wasn't grumpy, she would usually do peculiar things. For instance, they might find Aunt Rebecca in the living room, dancing to music. And it was not the sort of dancing that you would do by yourself; it was as if she were pretending to dance with somebody. She would have her arms held out before her with dreamy look on her face, and she would whirl around the room just as if she were being guided by an invisible partner. This meant that the children were worried about bringing friends back to the house—just in case something embarrassing happened. And for this reason, they had fewer friends than other people. But they enjoyed each other's company enough, and they saw their friends at school.

  Aunt Rebecca also had firm ideas about a number of other things, and the most important of these matters was food.

  "People eat the most dreadful garbage," she would say. "Look at all that terrible butter and sugar and other unhealthy things they put down their throats."

  Aunt Rebecca's idea of a healthy meal was carrot soup followed by raw onions and nuts and washed down with tomato juice. Now this was all very healthy, of course, and tasty too, but if you ate nothing else, then you would begin to want something different.

  "Oh, what I wouldn't give for some French fries!" John whispered to his sister as they sat down to their raw onion rings and diced turnip.

  "I'd do anything for a piece of chocolate cake!" replied Nicky under her breath. "With a twirl of whipped cream on the top!"

  "What was that?" barked Aunt Rebecca, looking sternly at the children. "Did you say something about the onions?"

  "No, Aunt," said John in a sad voice. "We said nothing about onions."

  "A fine vegetable, the onion," said Aunt Rebecca, peering at the pile of raw onions on her plate. "It's very good for the blood, you know."

  "And they make you smell," Nicky murmured.

  "What?" snapped Aunt Rebecca. "What was that?"

  "I said, And they keep you well," said Nicky timidly.

  "Indeed they do," said Aunt Rebecca. "Now eat up, children. There's a nice glass of carrot juice next."

  It was difficult for the children not to think about food. Every day, on their way home from school, they would pass by the best restaurant in town. And every time they went past, their noses would catch the delicious smell of cooking.

  The children would have loved to eat in the restaurant, but how could they? Then, one Friday, Nicky had an extraordinary stroke of luck.

  She had received a letter that morning from an uncle who lived far away but who always sent birthday presents. This year he had forgotten about Nicky's birthday and had written to tell her how sorry he was. And in the letter, to make up for the birthday present, he sent Nicky a crisp new twenty-dollar bill. Nicky had never had so much money before, and she found it difficult to make up her mind what to do with it.

  "You could buy a new pen," John suggested, as they walked home from school together.

  "I have a pen," Nicky said.

  "Or you could buy a game," John continued.

  "I don't want one," said Nicky.

  They were now just outside the restaurant. From within, there came the delicious smell of food, and they both stopped to sniff the air.

  "I could take us to dinner," Nicky said suddenly, her face breaking into a smile.

  "Do you really want to?" John said, hardly daring to believe the offer.

  "Yes," Nicky said firmly. "Let's go in right now."

  And they did.

  A Delicious Discovery

  "A table for two, please," Nicky said to the waiter as he glided forward to meet them.

  "Of course," said the waiter politely. "Would you please come with me?"

  They followed him to a table near the window. There he pulled out the chairs and invited them to sit down. Laid out on the table were a crisp white tablecloth, shining silver knives and forks, and sparkling crystal glasses.

  With a flourish, the waiter produced the menu.

  "I shall be back soon," he said. "I shall take your order then."

  Nicky opened the menu and looked at the list of dishes it contained. Many of them were written in French, and she had no idea what they were. Others were easier to understand. She knew what roast beef was, and she had a good idea what chocolate meringue would look like. Then her face fell. John noticed. "What's wrong?" he asked.

  "I just saw what it all costs," Nicky whispered. "I don't have nearly enough money."

  She passed the menu over to her brother. He turned pale as he read.

  "There's nothing here that we can afford," he said. "We'll have to sneak out."

  They looked around them. Their table was far from the door, so the
y would have to walk past everybody else if they were going to leave.

  "Come on," John said, beginning to push his chair back. "There's no point in staying."

  At that moment, the revolving door into the kitchen opened and out came the waiter. Smiling, he walked through the restaurant to stand at the side of their table.

  "Well," he said cheerfully, "have you had enough time to make your choice?"

  Nicky gazed down at the tablecloth.

  "I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "We don't have enough money. It all costs too much."

  John braced himself for the waiter's anger.

  The waiter said nothing for a few moments. Then he leaned forward and whispered, "How much do you have? Show me."

  Nicky took the twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket and showed it to him.

  "Oh, dear," said the waiter. "I can see that you didn't realize how much restaurants cost." He shook his head. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

  "Don't worry," said John. "We'll leave right now. And we're sorry for wasting your time."

  "Oh, no you don't," the waiter said. "It's a rule at any good restaurant that nobody leaves hungry. You were my guests the moment you walked through the door, and I won't have my guests be disappointed."

  "Do you really mean that?" asked Nicky.

  "Of course I do," said the waiter. "Now, what I suggest is that we think of something that doesn't cost as much as the regular dishes on the menu. Then I can get the chef to make it especially for you."

  The waiter thought for a moment, then he made his suggestion. "I know!" he said. "What about a good bowl of spaghetti? You could afford that."

  Nicky looked at John, who said nothing.

  "Well," said the waiter, "you like spaghetti, don't you?"

  "No," said Nicky. "I mean, yes. I mean, well, we've never actually eaten spaghetti."