The Chocolate Cake Ambush

When we worked in the kitchens one of the sweets was a very rich chocolate cake that went by the name of 'Death by chocolate.' Dark, but very sickly. All right if you were a chocolate fiend, but a slimmer's nightmare.

On this particular night young Suzie had been put onto a bay which usually had the most holiday makers meals. The soup, tea and coffee had all went out, so now all that was left to do was the sweet. So the crew set about putting up the cake in question, watched by the hygiene lads who often tried to steal a piece before diving in between the Jackson's to devour the evidence before their governor and the kitchen manager spotted them and ticked them off for eating on the job.

Normally it went down quite quickly but on this occasion one of the lads grabbed and hid a full box and then waited to ambush Suzie on account of she was forever borrowing their brushes and forgetting to return them so they could get their work finished. So they waited till the rush was over before springing their ambush, covering the luckless Suzie in dollops of chocolate cake, making her resemble a coloured doll and her wrap around uniform then resembled a skewbald pony.

When our boss found out he quickly sent Suzie down to her chalet, before he chewed out the two jokers responsible for the incident. Next morning when we all reported to the kitchen we found Suzie already there, setting up the bays but without her uniform, which was out at that moment in time drying on one of the hotplates before the cooks set it up for the morning shift. She'd washed it the night before and partially rung it out, but had to wear it damp till she got up the kitchen and could put it over the hotplate.

But it still bore the ravages from the attack. Brown patches back and front, from shoulder to hem, and knowing the formidable women who were in the clothing store she'd catch no ends of hell for the state of her overall.

But knowing Suzie, she wouldn't let herself be stopped in a hurry. So with bare moments to spare she got her now dry skewbald coverall for the remainder of the morning shift, before we all piled down onto the hotplate to plate up a meal of scrambled egg, hash browns or fried bread for when the hash browns ran out. Back and streaky bacon, that morning's cereals such as Weetabix, porridge, grapefruit, all to be put up before the rest of the crew came off the hotplate. Once our crew were dismissed for breakfast our governor materialised and duly warned us if what had occurred ever happened again, he or she would be instantly terminated. We were left to get out breakfast and then it was back to the bays to get cleared up.

Grace Baird Halbert