What's in a Name?

Each Ten Word Tale is written using ten words suggested by children. What's in a Name? is one of two new stories by our Story Spinner inspired by ten words chosen by Iris, Lara, Jake, Aiden, Talia Rose and Taysiarae, Year 5 students at Ronald Ross Primary School. For the first time, our Story Spinner, Julie Sharp, has written two different stories inspired by the same set of words! 

Spot the 10 words - mochi, excited, sunny, favourite, slowly, melon, firework, thinking, red, emotion - and enjoy the stories!

Chapter 1

In a sunny back garden in Tooting, on a Saturday evening in June, there was the sound of laughter and excited chat and the clinking of glasses and cutlery on plates as three old friends met for the first time in five years.

Kōjin, Kit and Kezia had become friends at chef school. Kit had helped Kōjin and Kezia with a complicated cheese soufflé, Kezia had introduced Kōjin and Kit to the unlikely sandwich combination of bacon and banana, beloved in her home country, South Africa, and Kōjin had shown both the others how to pound the rice in the sweet dough needed to make traditional Japanese mochi buns. At chef school, the friends had often been told off for talking while they should have been studying, for making simple recipes too complex and for inventing dishes that needed very expensive and rare ingredients but they had never been told off about their cooking. Their cooking was brilliant, especially when they cooked together. The strictest teacher, the owner of the chef school, the wonderful world-famous Brazilian chef, Senhora Joana Bunninho, had once called their food the stuff of delicious dreams …. They always remembered that compliment.

After chef school in London, they each set off in different directions around the world to learn how people cooked in different countries. They kept in touch, sharing recipes and messaging each other so often they never got too lonely on their travels. Now they were all back in London for the first time after many adventures, meeting in the back garden of Kit’s flat in Tooting for a catch-up. They had all brought food and they ate and drank and talked and when the sun went down behind the houses, they lit candles and ate strawberries and talked some more. They were hatching a plan, like an egg, an egg that had been laid years before. They wanted to cook together. They wanted to make the stuff of delicious dreams their teacher once talked of. They wanted to open a restaurant. They wanted to feed people and make them happy. But where to begin?

Chapter 2

That June night in the garden, with the ideas buzzing in the air like midges, the three friends identified the three main problems: finding some money, finding a kitchen to work from and finding a name.

They began by talking to friends and family and banks and walking the London streets looking at possible kitchens. To their surprise the very first problem to be solved was probably the biggest: the money.

They all received a text asking them to come back to their old chef school.  When they arrived at the familiar white building in Chelsea they found their old teacher, Senhora Bunninho, waiting for them.

She explained, she had heard they wanted to cook together. Her own cooking life had begun in Brazil on the streets of Rio, selling her grandmother’s churros. This had become a very successful business and she (and her grandmother) became multi-millionaires. She now had a fund available to help those starting in the food business.

“I believe you will succeed. When you three work together, you work magic. My grandmother helped me when I had nothing. Now I will help you. The money is yours but I want to see a plan. Meet me here at 8 am sharp on Monday.”

Their old teacher talking like a teacher again made them smile. They could scarcely believe it: the very hardest problem was solved.

Three days later, Kezia found a possible kitchen behind Green Park Tube station. She was nervous the others might hate it and insisted they went to see it together. On one side was a laundry and a doctor’s surgery. The name Dr Jake Sternum was on a green plaque outside. On the other side there was a travel agents’ called Wings. Wafts of warm air from the laundry, smelling of hot cotton, and tropical music from the travel agents, followed them through the battered red door. The building had once been a charity kitchen for people sleeping rough in London. The charity had moved to bigger premises and wanted to sell. It had a high ceiling, twelve ovens, three freezers, lots of surfaces to work on and an industrial potato peeler. Perfect.

Feeling full of excited butterflies, Kezia let the charity know they wanted to buy the kitchen. The beginning had actually begun.

Chapter 3

Next day they met at the kitchen, soon to be their very own. They measured and calculated and listed all the things they would need to buy. Then they sat down to talk about the plan to show Senhora Bunninho, ideas flying between them, like one firework after another, causing eruptions of even more ideas as they went.

“What will our food business actually be: a restaurant or a café, or a street-food van, or a hotel?” asked Kit.

“And who will it be for? Thinking about the charity made me wonder about who we want to feed,” Kezia said. “Our ideas are mostly expensive. Do we really want to cook only for rich people?”

“And what kind of food?” asked Kit. “We all like to use things that are local and fresh. We have skills to make dishes from anywhere in the world but if we cook without any real direction we’ll end in chaos.”

“I had two ideas last night,” said Kōjin. His voice hesitated. “ I’m a bit nervous to say them. You might hate them.”

The others told him not to be silly. They had only come up with questions so any answers were welcome.

“Ok, firstly I think we are right to be unsure and we should experiment with customers. Take some time, a fixed time, to try out a mix of dishes on a mix of people.”

Kezia looked round. “But where? We only have the kitchen.”

“I was thinking we could experiment with takeaways,” said Kōjin. “That would keep expenses down to ingredients and packaging.”

“Brilliant!” said others, both at the same time.

Kōjin shyly passed them some printed plans.

“With our travels and the fact that we come from different countries, we can cover every continent between us. For instance: I could do Asia and Russia; Kezia, you can do North America and Australasia; Kit, Africa and South America. We could divide Europe between us?” Kit and Kezia nodded thoughtfully, looking at Kōjin’s chart. They needed to start somewhere. The plan could definitely work. They began to add suggestions until the ideas began flying again.

As they walked back to the tube, noting the pedestrians and wondering who their future customers might be, Kit was quiet, feeling a strange churny emotion.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kōjin.

“Kezia found the amazing kitchen and your ideas about experimenting are perfect but what have I done? I’m hopeless,” she said mournfully.

The others reassured her and made her laugh about feeling hopeless. They reminded her there was still one big problem left for her to solve. What about their name?

Chapter 4

On Monday morning they arrived in Chelsea perfectly on time. Senhora Bunninho invited them into her flat for coffee.

“Banoffee is looking forward to meeting you,” she said, as they climbed the stairs.

No one knew who Banoffee was, except the name of a pie, but he turned out to be Senhora Bunninho’s dog, a cockerpoo (a cross between a spaniel and a poodle), who jumped about madly at the sight of visitors.  

They told Senhora Bunninho about the kitchen and the plan to experiment before they finally “opened” in October.

“Excellent,” said Senhora Bunninho.

She asked about possible customers. They had done some research.

“In the eight streets near the kitchen we have found two Polish, three English and three Caribbean families and families from Africa, Italy, Indonesia and India, one couple from Peru and one from Wales. They all said they’d like to try our food.” Kezia was reading from their careful list. “We have twenty more names of interested individuals, people like Dr Jake who lives next door to the kitchen, people who work strange hours and come home hungry.”

“Well done. Any news on the name?”

“No name yet,” Kit admitted, glumly.

“It will come. The experiment plan is excellent. I am excited for you.”

They said goodbye to the Senhora and to Bannoffee, who ran round their legs in a blur of caramel fur.

The experimenting began. They enjoyed trying new ideas and sharing the kitchen with each other. They cooked for several families every night and took careful notes of responses. They decided on five main dishes and five special dishes from round the world that would change every month.

They brainstormed name-ideas but unsuccessfully. Somehow perfectly possible ideas turned into horrible ideas as soon as they were spoken aloud. They tried: Terrific Tastes; Fresh and Friendly; The Comfy Kitchen; The Lunch Munch. No good.

They thought of Packs of Snacks (because of the takeaways) or The Horseradish (for foody reasons), The Fantastic Flamingo, (Kezia’s favourite colour was pink) and even Delicious Dreams (because of Senhora Bunninho’s compliment long ago). It was a nightmare: they hated them all and October was drawing closer.

On 20th September, the day they had decided they MUST decide, Kit read the whole list to Senhora Bunninho. “Hmmmmm,” she said. “Is there anything here that anyone actually likes?”

“Kōjin wants a food word and Kezia wants the takeaway deliverers to have a uniform so that would have to link in. We all like alliteration or rhyme,” said Kit, “and I think we need a character.” Senhora Bunninho’s business had a Cheery Churro character that had become very famous.

“Hmmmm,” said Senhora Bunninho again. “Food word ... costume for courier ... character. Does the character have to be a person?”

“What?” A new idea had suddenly come into Kit’s mind. “No ... that is ... no,” she said slowly.

Later Kit was to admit she had no idea where the idea came from. One minute she felt every good idea had been sucked out of her by a giant hoover. The next, there it was in her head. No wildlife book lying nearby. No jungly picture on Senhora Bunninho’s walls. No London bus passing the window advertising the zoo for tourists.

“I am nervous to tell you because you might hate it.…..”

Chapter 5

It was eight o’clock on 14th October. An unlikely furry figure on a delivery bike was making its way across Green Park to a street of houses. The figure opened a gate, left the bike and took off the blue safety helmet; it walked up the steps, carrying a box, and rang the bell.

A small boy opened the door to the large gibbon with a brown box. The box showed the picture of a gibbon and, in bold letters, the name: The Gourmet Gibbon. A delicious smell wafted from the box and rose into the night air. The boy grinned delightedly at the gibbon*, quite as if he expected him, and shouted into the house, “Mum! The noodles are here!” He took the box from the gibbon, shook its furry paw, and said, “Thank you!” The door shut on the sound of a hungry family’s pounding feet running towards their takeaway supper.

The gibbon smiled, went back to the bike and took off her head. It was Kit.

In her bicycle carrier there were more boxes to deliver. They had been so busy since they had begun that their four delivery men (or gibbons) already weren’t enough and she was helping deliver until they hired more helpers. Fortunately she had bought spare gibbon costumes. She checked the delivery details, muttering aloud. “Pizzas and melon sorbet, 2 separate boxes for the Robinson family; red Thai curry and box 5 has the mochis, they’re for Mrs Azami; and there’s chicken Kashmiri for Doctor Jake.”

The others had taken a little while to like the Gourmet Gibbon name but Senhora Bunninho had liked it from the first. “A delivery gibbon will make all the difference. You’ll see.”  She was right. As soon as the takeaways began, there was a flurry of attention. A gibbon delivering food was an enjoyable surprise for customers and the costume made people stare and advertised their company.

“Oh Kit, you were right. Gourmet food delivered by a gibbon. They love it!” said Kezia, hugging Kit that second day when a total of twenty three people had rung asking if they could have a gibbon please before asking about the food.

“You brilliant girl,” said Kōjin, hugging her on the fourth day when fifty people had ordered, asking for the Gibbon to send a gibbon.

“Don’t be silly. It’s all of us. We all did it all,” Kit had answered, because it was true.

Now, Kit put on her furry gibbon head, adjusted her helmet, and set off down the long lamp-lit street with her Gourmet Gibbon boxes safely tied on, heading for her next delivery… and then for the kitchen and her friends and maybe one of Kezia’s bacon and banana sandwiches.

 
© JSS for L2L2R January 2022

 
* gibbons are monkeys with especially long arms, legs and tails.