The Chocopocalypse

by Chris Callaghan

  As they turned the corner of their road, Gran pulled a yellow plastic ball out from underneath her nightie.

  “Where was that?” asked Jelly.

  “You don’t want to know!” replied Gran. “And let me get one thing straight, young lady…”

  “What’s that?”

  “The next time you care for a little midnight adventure,” said Gran, “at least let me put some shoes on first!”

  Jelly awoke to the sound of traffic rumbling past and yawned a deep, long yawn. Stretching out her legs, she knocked over some dishes, which clattered to the floor and woke Gran with a jump.

  “There’s no chicken on Tuesday!” blurted Gran, still half-asleep.

  “What?” asked Jelly. “Today is Sunday, Gran.”

  Gran rubbed her eyes, looked around and gave a slightly more sensible “Morning, dear.”

  The caravan was a mess, since everything was still in piles on top of everything else to make room for Jelly’s bed on the sofa. Most of it had ended up on the floor.

  “Probably best if I make you a coffee in our kitchen, okay, Gran?” Jelly offered.

  Gran followed Jelly’s gaze, went a bit pink and nodded. “Give us a minute, to gather myself,” she said.

  Jelly pulled open the Gran-a-van door and sniffed at the exhaust fumes. A steady stream of cars was a familiar sight and sound, even on a Sunday morning.

  Inside the house, the kitchen was empty—it looked like no one else was up yet. It was only when she saw an empty box of Choco-Flakes squashed flat in the recycling bin that it hit her.

  The Chocopocalypse!

  Memories of last night rushed into her brain: following Mrs. Bunstable and finding out that Garibaldi Chocolati—or Choccy Cookie—had stolen so much of Chompton’s chocolate.

  Today was the day. The day that chocolate was gone. It was supposed to happen at 7:09 a.m. and it was past eight a.m. now. Has the ancient prophecy come true? wondered Jelly. The prophecy that Gari had “given a little nudge.” Had all his hoarded chocolate disappeared too?

  And where was he now? Had the police managed to follow and stop him? Or was it too late? She pondered whether she should have done something earlier. She’d been suspicious of him since they had first met. Was it actually all her fault?

  Mum wandered into the kitchen, yawning. “Morning, munchkin, has the world ended?”

  “I’m not sure!” replied Jelly.

  “I know I’ll cope as long as there is a cup of coffee heading my direction,” Mum hinted.

  Jelly flicked the kettle’s switch to the “off” position, smiling at Dad’s unexpected involvement last night, and got a few mugs from the draining board.

  “There’s definitely something up.” Mum smiled. “I wasn’t woken up by Old Bum-stubble banging bins and blasting her TV or Kenny bloomin’ Rogers for a change. Maybe she’s disappeared as well. What a result that would be.”

  “Wouldn’t that be amazing!” chuckled Jelly, smiling to herself and wondering if Mrs. Bunstable was still tied to that pole. Surely not! She had completely forgotten about her with all the Choccy Cookie goings-on. The police had turned up and went inside. They must have found more chocolate in there? And seen Mrs. Bunstable? But they had seemed most interested in the chocolate in the road….And what had happened to Dodgy Dave and Gari? Had the helicopter caught them? Jelly wondered if she should say something but decided to explain everything later. Gran wouldn’t want to miss that!

  “I’ll put the television on and see what’s what,” said Mum.

  The TV next to the microwave oven flicked into life, slowly. The kitchen TV was probably older than Jelly and covered in kitchen grime; Jelly was surprised it worked at all. Mum fumbled with the remote control, pressing all the wrong buttons. Jelly swapped the remote for a steaming mug of coffee and pressed the correct button for the news channel.

  A serious-looking reporter in a serious-looking suit wearing a tie with a pattern that would make you dizzy if you looked at it too long was surrounded by captions whizzing around the screen. There was no sound—her mum must have pressed the mute button. A large red banner read:

  BREAKING NEWS: CHOCOPOCALYPSE NOW! CHOCOLATE CRISIS: NO REPORTED SIGHTINGS OF CHOCOLATE. CHOCOLATE CRISIS: BELGIUM AND SWITZERLAND SILENT

  Dad burst into the kitchen, giving both Mum and Jelly a shock. He was wearing a “Where’s Willy Wonka When You Need Him?” T-shirt. “Has it happened?” he asked.

  “Where did you get that?” asked Mum, pointing to the shirt.

  “Found it,” said Dad, puffing up his chest. “On the path outside after the riots.”

  “You saw a grubby, stinking T-shirt lying on the ground!” exclaimed Mum. “And you thought that you would just put it on? And what on earth is that?”

  Dad looked at the suspicious brown stain near the hem. “Chocolate, probably,” he said.

  Mum and Jelly watched in horror as he rolled up the T-shirt to give the stain a sniff. Only, he didn’t sniff it—he licked it!

  “It’s not chocolate!” He grimaced.

  “I’m married to him, am I?” Mum asked Jelly. “Please tell me there was a mix-up at the registry office, and Channing Tatum is still waiting for me there, in tears!”

  A very weary-looking Gran appeared in the doorway, wearing sneakers with her nightie. Her slippers had obviously made it into the garbage.

  “You off for a run?” Mum laughed.

  “My goodness,” said Dad, staring at Gran’s wild hair, which she had made no effort to tidy. “You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backward.”

  “Or a ball pit!” giggled Jelly.

  Gran nodded. “Something like that.”

  Jelly handed out mugs of coffee while Mum swiped through her phone and said, “Michelle’s got no chocolate…Gemma has no chocolate…Donna has posted a picture of her empty chocolate drawer…and Karen has a photo of her cat asleep in the sink.” She showed Dad the picture, and he did a very poor job of looking interested.

  “Well, that’s that, then,” said Gran. “If Michelle has no chocolate and there’s a cat in a sink—it’s happened. The Chocopocalypse is upon us!”

  Dad picked up the remote and bashed it off the top of the TV. “I thought I’d fixed this,” he mumbled.

  The room was suddenly filled with the booming voice of the TV newsman. “Chocopocalyptic disaster!” he yelled.

  Jelly leaned over the microwave and pressed a small button on the bottom of the TV. The sliding volume levels reduced, and the newsman stopped shouting.

  “No confirmed reports of chocolate have been received, but we have some unconfirmed messages, including a man in Bonnybridge who says he has seen Elvis eating a big Hunk O’Choc bar.”

  “Thank you very much!” said Dad with a swivel of his hips—trying to do an Elvis impression but sounding more like a Welshman with a sore throat.

  There seemed to be a lot of confusion and nothing much to report. Lots of reporters in various locations repeated the same stuff over and over.

  There was no chocolate. Anywhere.

  “Well, that’s it—I’m just glad it’s all over,” said Gran, but everyone looked sad. What would happen to Chompton? What would happen to Mum’s job?

  Jelly was determined not to let her worries take over again. “Well, no matter what happens, we’ll get by,” she said. “I mean, it’s only chocolate, and chocolate was nice, but there’s plenty of other stuff.”

  “Shortbread,” said Gran.

  “Marshmallows,” Mum swooned.

  “Oh yeah, marshmallows,” said Dad. “Dipped in chocolate sauce.”

  Mum looked like she was going to throw her mug of coffee at him.

  “Jelly beans,” said Jelly.

  “Cheese-and-onion chips,” Dad added.

  They all sighed. Mum went upstairs to get dressed, and Dad went outside to water his “flowers.”

  “Any mention of…you know who?” asked Gran, nodding at the TV.

  Jelly shook her head. “Do you think th
ey got away?” she asked. “I mean, not many people could catch Dave the Demon Driver. And maybe they figured out the GPS thing as well and didn’t end up in Downing Street.”

  “Either way,” reassured Gran, “they’ll not show their faces around this town again. So it’s not our problem. But maybe we’ll have a word with the police once things have settled down a bit, okay?”

  Jelly nodded and then asked, “But we’ll tell Mum and Dad?”

  “Oh yes,” said Gran. “But not just yet. Let’s just have a quiet day, eh? I don’t have the energy for any more drama!”

  —

  Eventually Mum came down dressed, her hair in its tight ponytail, and Dad came in holding a bunch of his weeds like they were a fancy bouquet of flowers.

  “These are for my favorite wife,” he said, beaming. “To cheer you up.”

  “Awww,” said Mum. “They look…amazing. Thanks.”

  He disappeared for a minute, coming back with a large glass vase. They all tried not to smile as Dad carefully arranged the weeds into a limp and spiky arrangement and stood back to admire his work. “There you go,” he said proudly. “You could take a picture and post it to all of your borrowers.”

  “Yeah, my followers.” Mum nodded. “I don’t have much charge left on my phone, but I’ll do that later. Definitely. I’ll just…um…take the garbage out first….” She pulled the trash bag from the garbage can.

  “I’ll take that out,” said Gran. “I’m going back in the caravan anyway.” She took the bag and wandered off to the end of the pathway. “That…oooooh, that woman!” Jelly heard her shout from outside.

  She went to the front door and saw Gran glaring into the garbage bin.

  “Why she can’t use her own bin, I’ll never know,” she continued to mutter, and tried to push the trash down to allow some space.

  Mr. Walker and Truffles were on his lawn again. “Things have got worse, poor thing,” he called out when he saw Gran. “We gave him a bit of that disaster bar last night. I know we shouldn’t have, but we wanted to share it properly…you know, like a family. And now…he can’t stop pooing. I think we’re going to have to get a new couch!”

  “No. You know what?” Gran said, ignoring Mr. Walker completely and glaring into Mrs. Bunstable’s front garden. “I’ll put our trash in your bin for a change!” She stomped over to the waist-high fence, reached over and flipped open Mrs. Bunstable’s garbage can lid. She dumped the trash bag in, making as much noise as she could. “Let’s see how you like that!”

  Then she froze, the open lid in her hand, staring into Mrs. Bunstable’s bin.

  What is she looking at? Jelly wondered.

  She watched as Gran pulled their trash bag back out of the garbage can and started shouting, “Jelly, everyone, come and look!”

  Mum and Dad rushed to the door.

  “Time to call the men in the white coats,” whispered Dad to Jelly as they made their way to the gate.

  Gran elbowed Dad in the stomach. “I heard that. And I’ve still got all my marbles, thank you—but look!” Gran laughed like a crazy scientist on an old black-and-white film. “Look, look!”

  They all peered in. Jelly’s heart jumped when she saw what was at the bottom.

  She leaned into the deep garbage can to reach it, her feet lifting off the ground as she did. A moment of panic hit her as she felt herself fall, before hands gripped her firmly around her waist and stopped her from going in.

  “I don’t think your arms are long enough, dear,” laughed Gran. “I’ll see if I can get it.”

  Before Mum and Dad could stop her, since she wasn’t any taller than Jelly, Gran leaned into the bin. Her feet shot straight up into the air, and a muffled whoop of surprise came from inside.

  Mum, Dad and Jelly tried to get hold of Gran’s wiggling legs and not look at the large pink pair of underwear. Does she have any other colors? Jelly wondered.

  “I’m not sure which bits I’m allowed to grab!” Dad muttered.

  Mum was kicked in the face by a sneaker, and Jelly couldn’t stop giggling.

  “You’re no help!” said Mum, rubbing her nose.

  “Try tipping the bin over,” suggested Jelly.

  Dad carefully lowered the bin onto one side, and they all pulled Gran out. Finally she sat on the ground, rearranging her dressing gown while fluffing up her hair and panting furiously.

  “Oh, my days!” she puffed.

  Dad crawled into the bin and came out holding a rusty, bent screwdriver. “I could use this for something,” he said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” muttered Mum. “If you want something done…” She pushed Dad out of the way and climbed into the bin. Seconds later she reappeared, red faced, her nostrils flaring with disgust. “Is this it?” she asked, holding out a metal box. On it was a sticker of a kitten with an eye patch.

  “That’s it!” shouted Jelly. “That’s my experiment!” Mrs. Bunstable had not only stolen their governmental disaster chocolate—she’d actually gone into their shed and taken Jelly’s experiment too! She must have seen Jelly put it in there—Dad really needed to fix that gap in the fence!

  The lock looked like it had been tampered with. It was a little bent, and there were lots of scratches around it, which she couldn’t remember being there before—Mrs. Bunstable had obviously tried hard to get into it. It felt like it still had something inside, but the metal box was quite heavy, so it was hard to tell.

  “Well, open it, then,” said Dad, with wide eyes.

  “Hold on.” Mum fumbled around in her pocket. “I’ll video it.”

  While Mum worked out how to change her phone’s camera from “Photo” to “Video,” Jelly placed the box on the garden wall and wiped the dirt off the top of it. Her heart was pounding, and she licked her lips.

  “Come on!” said Dad to Mum.

  “I think it’s recording,” said Mum, not sounding too sure. “There’s a red circle showing.”

  “That means it’s recording,” confirmed Jelly.

  “Okay…,” said Gran. “Action!”

  “What do you mean, ‘Action’?” giggled Dad.

  Gran glared at Dad. “We have to record this in a scientific way.” She looked at Jelly. “So tell me, what is your name?”

  “My name?” asked Jelly, confused. “Did you bang your head when you fell in the bin?”

  Gran put her hands on her hips. “For the purposes of recording the scientific experiment,” she said sternly.

  “Oh,” said Jelly, getting the point and turning back to Mum. “My name is Jennifer Wellington.”

  “And the date is?”

  “Today is the summer solstice, the twenty-first of June.”

  “Has anyone got today’s paper or something to prove the date?” They all looked at one another vaguely until Dad pulled out his phone and showed Gran the screen with the date on it. Gran held it close to the camera. “Can you focus on that?”

  “Er,” said Mum. “I don’t know how to change the focus. Hang on, it’s doing it itself. It’s clever this thing, isn’t it!”

  The camera focused on the phone’s screen, confirming the date displayed above the screen saver—a picture of a packet of cheese-and-onion chips.

  “Most men might have a picture of their wife or daughter on their phone,” mumbled Mum grouchily, “but not you, oh, no!”

  Dad shrugged and returned the phone to his pocket.

  “And what is this, Jennifer?” continued Gran. “Explain what you are doing here.”

  Jelly cleared her throat. “Last Tuesday, I put some chocolate into this box. It was an experiment to find out whether the Chocopocalypse was real or fake.” Gran nodded proudly. “I kept it safe…or at least, I thought it was safe. I locked it using a padlock so no one could open it but me. Now I’ll open it…”

  She stopped. Mum, Dad and Gran were all looking at her, waiting.

  “Go on, then!” hissed Mum.

  “But first,” Jelly said, “I have to explain that I have already come t
o a conclusion. And regardless of what is inside the box, my conclusion remains the same. In fact, it doesn’t matter what is inside….”

  “Open the bloomin’ box!” shouted Mum and Dad together. Gran gave them one of her “looks,” but then gave Jelly a simple nod—it was time to open the box.

  Jelly turned the dials on the padlock.

  “One-two-three-four?!” her dad blurted. “That’s your secret code? Any fool could work that out!”

  “Except Mrs. Bunstable,” muttered Gran.

  The padlock clicked open, and Jelly drew back the lid. Mum moved around to get the camera closer to the inside of the box. With trembling hands, Jelly removed the paper towels from the top and sides. She could just see the words “Blocka Choca” through the plastic bag….

  Jelly pulled the bag from the box. It seemed heavy. Was it chocolate—or was it just the wrapper?

  She opened the bag and put her hand inside. Everyone was silent—Jelly wasn’t even sure that Mum, Dad and Gran were breathing. She felt a solid lump of something and squeezed it, trying to work out exactly what it was. Then she pulled it out, and everyone stepped forward.

  In Jelly’s fingers was a Blocka Choca bar.

  “Is it real?” asked Gran. “Open it!”

  Jelly ripped open the bar, and they all gasped. Inside the wrapper was what looked like delicious, milky brown Chompton chocolate.

  “Eat it! Eat it!” yelled Mum and Dad together.

  Jelly broke off a chunk and popped it into her mouth. Instantly a familiar sensation filled her mouth, and her heart beat faster, flooding her brain with pulses of pure joy.

  “It’s real,” she cried through the mouthful of chocolate. “It’s real chocolate. It really is. It’s chocolate!”

  The Wellingtons were dancing in the living room later when a picture of Jelly and her chocolate appeared on the news.

  “We have unconfirmed photographs,” said the newsman, “of a girl with some chocolate, somewhere in the UK.”