Byker Books

Shopping.

Fortnightly shopping trip with my arch-enemy and Community Care-Worker, Pippa, and today we had to go to Sainsbury’s as Tesco have now banned me from all of their stores in the area.  

 When I emerged from the house wearing my Clown Costume, Pippa quickly got out of her car and rushed up my front-garden path.

“No! Go and get changed. You’re not coming with me dressed like that.” She said, her face all of a sweaty, quivering rage.

“I shall dress how I like.” I informed her. “How many times must I remind you that you have a duty of care towards me? How many times must I tell you that, according to your OWN employer’s policy, you are unable to discriminate against me on the grounds of race, gender, age, sexuality, religion, cultural tastes or style of dress? How many times must I inform you that in doing so, you could be liable to disciplinary action by the Council?” Pippa didn’t reply. She just stared at me angrily for a few seconds before turning on her heels and bouncing back to her car.

I walked down the front path following her, careful not to spill the bucket of water that I was carrying, or indeed drop my shopping bag that was full of custard pies; neither is an easy task when you’re on stilts. 

Before I got into the passenger seat of Pippa’s car, I took off the retractable stilts and gently placed them, together with the bucket of water and the shopping bag, on the back seat. I closed the back door and clambered excitedly into the passenger seat.

“Jeremy the clown is going shopping with Pippa today! Jeremy is going to perform a magic trick to celebrate.” I exclaimed. I took off my clowns hat and pulled my magic wand from my extremely baggy yellow and red checked trousers. Pippa stared at me like I was an imbecile. Which, I suppose, I am in a way.

I waved the magic wand over the mouth of the hat. Nothing happened. I waved it again, and still nothing happened.

“Not much of a magic trick, is it?” Said Pippa, sarcastically. Ignoring her, I waved the wand a third time and a great fat wood pigeon shot from the hat. It tried to fly out through the windscreen, which of course it was unable to do. It banged its head against the windscreen and started fluttering manically around the car in a concussed and confused state.

“Get it out! Get it out!” Screamed Pippa, as the wood pigeon almost got tangled in her hair.

“I don’t want to.” I said, smiling. “I am Jeremy the laughing clown, the mystical keeper of pigeons! I can’t let one of my avian friends just fly away now!”

Pippa wasn’t listening to my inane ramblings; she had opened the car door and was scrambling out of her seat. Unfortunately, her foot had got tangled in the seatbelt, and she tumbled out headfirst onto the kerbside. The pigeon followed her, making its escape and flying off in a haphazard fashion into the distance.

When we arrived at the Sainsbury’s, I refused to get out of the car.

“I am not getting out of this vehicle until you allow me to perform my magic card trick.”

“I don’t want to see your bloody magic card trick, I just want to get the shopping over and done with and get back to the office. Now stop being so childish and get out of the bloody car.” She replied.

Her chubby face was covered in sweat, and her forehead had a fresh red mark from where it had collided with the pavement a bit earlier.

“No. Not until you’ve allowed me to perform my magic card trick.” I said, stubbornly.

Pippa slammed the car door shut and looked at me aggressively.

“Does it involve pigeons?” She asked.

“No.” I assured her. “All that it involves is a deck of playing cards.” Pippa huffed and puffed for a few seconds. Then she let out a weary sigh.

“Hurry up and get on with it then.” She said.

Excitedly, I pulled the playing cards from my trouser pocket and asked Pippa to shuffle them. When she had done so, I asked her to chose a card from the pack but not to let me see it. Pippa took a playing card from the deck.

“Now, I want you to memorise the card, and when you’ve done so, I want you to put it in your blouse pocket so that I can’t see it.” I instructed.

Pippa briefly examined the card and then placed it, as I had requested, into her pocket.

I looked skyward, and dramatically I said, in a grandiose and booming voice, “And now, Jeremy the magic  clown is going to summon from the heavens the psychic power granted to him by the late, great Gazinimomo, wizard of clowns, and predict the card that Pippa McBridey is holding close to her chest!” I waved my magic wand briefly.

“It’s the four of diamonds.” I said. Pippa actually looked impressed.

“How did you know that?” She asked.

“Because the four of diamonds is the only card in the pack that spontaneously combusts!” I answered, with a big wide clowns smile on my face.

Pippa looked down in horror at the playing card that was on fire in her blouse pocket, and pulled it out as fast as her pudgy little fingers would let her. It fell to the floor, and she had to stamp on it repeatedly to put the fire out. As she was doing this, I exited the vehicle and collected from the back seat my bucket of water, the shopping bag full of custard pies, and my retractable stilts. The fortnightly shop had begun.

Pippa and I did a bit of shopping, and eventually we got to the ‘meat and fish’ section, an entourage of young children following behind us, mesmerised by my ‘clown on stilts’ act.

“Here, hold these.” I said to Pippa, passing her down the bucket of water and shopping bag. I turned to the children. There were about twelve of them.

“Now children, would you all like to see Jeremy the magic clown do some juggling?” I asked them.

They all shouted ‘yes’, apart from one child who had started crying as soon as I had turned to talk to them.

“Pippa, pass me two of those fresh fish.” I instructed her, pointing down to one of the shelves.

“Jeremy, I don’t think this is a very good idea.” She said, with a rising tone of panic in her voice.

“Come now, Pippa, the children want to see some juggling.” I said.

I shouted jovially to  the children. “Who wants to see Jeremy the magic clown juggle the fish?”

“We do!” Shouted the children excitedly. Some of the mums and dads had joined their kids and were cheering along too. Backed into a corner, Pippa had little choice but to pass me two of the slippery, oily fish. As I leant down to collect them, I wobbled precariously on the stilts, but managed to somehow keep my balance.

I began to juggle the fish. The kids started cheering and clapping. I wobbled a bit more on the stilts but managed not to fall over.Then the whole moment was ruined when one of the mums shouted up to me.

“Anyone can juggle with just two things. Try doing it with three!”

I stopped juggling the fish, and instructed Pippa to pass me up one of the fresh chickens. The audience applauded as she did so.

I began to juggle the fish and the chicken, but I don’t know how to juggle more than two things at a time, and my attempt quickly resulted in failure; the two fresh fish landed on the floor, making a wet slapping noise as they did so. The fresh chicken just made a strange sound and rolled onto its side.

The kids thought it was funny; the parents less so.

“That was pathetic.” Muttered Pippa. Yet again, I ignored her. I realised that I was losing the attention of my audience.

“Okay, who would like to see Jeremy the clown perform a magic trick?” I asked.

Lots of the kids put their hands up in the air and shouted “me, me!”

“What are you going to do?” Asked Pippa, nervously. I ignored her.

“Watch in amazement as Jeremy the magic clown resurrects the dead!” I declared, and pointed my magic wand at the two pieces of fish and the chicken that lay on the floor.

Nothing happened, so I pointed the wand at them again. The chicken’s legs, bound together by a piece of string, momentarily started wriggling around, trying to free themselves from their restraints, but then they stopped. Then there was just a brief clucking sound followed by an avian death rattle, and the corpse lay still again.

The audience were beginning to drift away, so I pulled my clowns hat from off my head and cast the magic wand over it. I said a spell as I did so. “Wizard of clowns, grant to me a beautiful white dove!”

Nothing happened. I waved the wand over the hat again, and still nothing happened.

Pippa leaned against the shopping trolley looking bored, resigned to the fact that she was going to be late in meeting her next, psychotic client.

A crowd of around a hundred people, including a dozen or so staff and three security guards, stood and watched me perform my next trick.

“I need a volunteer.” I said. Pippa started shouting frantically “don’t volunteer, don’t volunteer”, but nobody was listening to anything that she had to say.

Around thirty members of my audience raised their hands, and I selected a blonde girl of around twelve years of age; I didn’t want a child that was too young, just in case my ‘teleportation trick’ went horribly wrong; a lot of my magic tricks appeared to be going wrong today. The girl stepped forward.

“Now then, young woman, what is your name?” I asked.

“Kylie.” Replied the girl.

“What a lovely name!” I said, lying through my teeth. “Well Kylie, I, as you know, am Jeremy the magic clown, and this here is my chunky assistant, Pippa.”

“I am not your bloody assistant.” Spat Pippa. She looked embarrassed to be cast into the spotlight in such a manner, which was my whole intention really.

“Assistant, go and find me a cardboard box, a box large enough for this young girl to climb into.” I ordered.

“No I will not.” Said Pippa. The crowd started jeering and booing her. Having little choice in the matter, she stormed over to one of the members of staff and asked them for a cardboard box. The member of staff went running off and came back about half a minute later with a suitably sized cardboard receptacle.

“Now, young woman, I want you to climb into the box.” I said.  Kylie eagerly climbed into it.  

“Assistant, close the flaps on the top of the box.” I commanded.

Reluctantly, Pippa wobbled over to the box and closed the flaps. I addressed my now considerable audience. “Jeremy the magical clown is now about to perform a feat of the impossible before your very eyes. I shall make young Kylie teleport from inside the cardboard box, and she will reappear over there.”

I pointed to one of the checkout tills. The audience muttered amongst themselves in excited anticipation. I waved my magic wand maniacally in the air, shouting weird- sounding demonic-like phrases that I was making up as I went along, and which ultimately had no mystical meaning whatsoever.

“Assistant, open the box!” I said to Pippa. Nervously, she opened the cardboard box and (rather professionally, I have to admit) tilted it on its side, so that the audience could see that there was no longer a child in it.

The audience began to clap. I bowed, nearly falling over in the process, then panicked and remembered that I had got caught up in my moment of glory and had yet to cast a spell to make the young girl reappear.

Again, I waved my magical wand in the air for a few seconds and spouted all sorts of nonsense. I pointed the end of my wand towards the checkout. Nothing happened. I pointed the wand again, but the child failed to appear. Suddenly, there was a sharp scream from behind me; it was the young girl, Kylie.

She had materialised on top of a large stack of empty cartons and boxes near the ‘chocolate and confectionery’ counter. The stack promptly collapsed under the weight of the child, causing her to fall about ten feet onto the hard floor below. It looked like she had broken both of her legs, as they were now pointing in directions that they shouldn’t have been pointing in. The girl started to howl like a banshee.

Members of the crowd rushed over to her. Pippa looked up at me angrily.

“What the bloody hell have you done to her?” She asked. I didn’t reply. Pippa, her temper at breaking point, lashed out and rammed the shopping trolley into one of my stilts, unbalancing me and sending me crashing to the ground.

The children, in their party hats, all laughed and clapped. I reached down, unbuckled my stilts and got to my feet. I took a custard pie from my shopping bag and walked towards Pippa.

“You naughty, porky assistant! You naughty, porky assistant!” I said, robotically.

“Don’t you bloody well dare.” Said Pippa. I was in no mood for compromise. I shoved the custard pie into her face with such force that she fell backwards into the shopping trolley. The kids in the audience went wild with laughter. Pippa frantically tried to wipe the custard pie from her eyes using her hands.

“Look children, my assistant is such a messy eater. She’s got custard pie all over her fat, ugly flippin’ face. I think she needs to have a good wash. What do you think, children? Should the naughty assistant have a wash?” I asked them.

All the kids screamed “Yes!” Needing no further prompting, I grabbed the bucket of water from off the floor and flung the contents of it all over Pippa. She screamed. The children began applauding and cheering. Pippa wriggled and writhed in the shopping trolley, but she couldn’t get out.

“Children, I think my assistant is still hungry. Do you think I should give her another custard pie?” I asked.

The kids all yelled “Yes”, like a baying mob at a public lynching. I grabbed another two custard pies from my shopping bag and hurled them at her; One of them hit her full on in the face, much to the delight of my bloodthirsty, feral young audience, but the other one missed her completely. It was now time for the final part of my act.

I grabbed the last two custard pies from my shopping bag and threw them at Pippa;  one hit her on her leg, which was poking out from over the side of the shopping trolley, and the other one hit her on her fat, wobbly breasts. I rushed towards the trolley and grabbed it.

At this point, several security guards had broken through the crowd and were heading in my direction. I pulled the shopping trolley around and faced them, in a classic ‘showdown’ manner. Except armed with a shopping trolley, rather than guns.

“Come on then, you flabby wankers!” I challenged them. The largest of the security guards rushed at me. I picked up one of the stilts off the floor, and took my defensive stance; I resembled a medieval knight ready for a joust, except with no horse, a retractable stilt as a jousting pole, and a shopping trolley containing a fat woman covered in custard pie as a shield.

As soon as the security guard was in striking distance, I lashed out with the stilt, and it caught him on the side of his head. Momentarily stunned, I rammed him with the shopping trolley and he went crashing to the ground.

The other security guards didn’t look so keen on trying to stop me anymore. I saw one of them talking to someone or something on their walkie-talkie, and I heard the   dreaded words “call the police” being mentioned.

“We’ve got to get out of here, they’re calling the coppers!” I said to Pippa. She just looked at me through all of the custard pie on her face.I frantically waved my magic wand and cast a mumbo-jumbo spell that I felt might work if I just had enough faith in it actually doing so. In the distance, I could hear police sirens.

Nothing happened, so I tried casting the spell again. Everything flashed brightly and then I found myself in the supermarket car park. I had no idea where I had teleported Pippa to, so I just ran away from the immediate vicinity and caught the bus home.