Billy Bratwurst: Eyes on the Prize

By Jo Hyland

Meet Billy Bratwurst. He's an ordinary kid, with some extraordinary ideas. Unfortunately, they don't always work. And this time, Billy desperately wants his biggest and best idea of all to succeed.

When Romney's has a store-wide sale, Billy absolutely must have the latest gadget-equipped ultimate boy's toy a multi-function pocket knife. But with bad luck and fate seemingly conspiring against him, Billy's chances of ever owning it are looking slim. Join Billy in this hysterical tale of con-artistry, blackmail, payback, mate-ship and family as he tries to move heaven and earth to achieve his goals and fulfill his boyhood fantasy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479725694

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was a rare glorious day in Coomerup when Kevin Bratwurst’s two-way radio crackled into life unexpectedly, hailing him urgently. After a rushed trip to the nearest hospital—normally an hour’s drive away, but done in a record-breaking thirty-five minutes—Kevin Bratwurst carried his wife, Anne, through the glass doors of the emergency ward, both red in the face and puffing, but for vastly different reasons. Kevin had been at work, plumbing a downpipe in a dairy, when his eldest child, Bethany, called him on his CB to tell him that Mummy’s water pipe broke, and he needed to come home and fix it immediately because Mummy is having contraptions.

The nurse looked up in surprise from behind her desk as Kevin—a large man by anyone’s standards—gently lowered his grimacing wife into a chair, then dashed back outside. Her surprise turned to horror when he came back in a moment later with a toddler and two dogs.

Sir, I’m afraid this is a hospital. I can’t allow you to bring animals into the emergency ward, said the nurse crisply. Kevin thought for a second, then whistled to the dogs—or maybe it was the child—it was hard to tell as they all came. Pointing to the corner filled with children’s toys, he gave them their orders.

Murphy, Coke. Sit, guard, stay, he said sternly. Turning to the small child, he spoke gently. Beth, you stay with the doggies, okay? Then he turned back to the nurse. I’m sure your patients don’t play in the kiddies corner too often. They’ll be alright there. Now, he said, peering around anxiously. Where is Dr. Jeffers?

Dr. Jeffers wasn’t having a good day. In fact, it was only halfway through the day, and he was wishing that he’d never gotten out of bed. He’d burned his breakfast in the morning, and had been annoyed to find that they were the last two slices of bread in the house, so he’d had to put up with extra-crispy toast. He’d caught every red light on the way to work, and had ended up running late. As a result, he’d parked his car badly in his haste, and a medical student had hit his car, being an even worse driver than Dr. Jeffers. He’d been concentrating so hard on making sure that he had gotten all the black bits of toast out from between his teeth that morning that he’d forgotten his lunch, and to make matters worse, he’d had to take on Dr. Carmichael’s patients as the poor chap had finally succumbed to the nasty bout of gastro that had been going around. He’d jammed his finger in the drawer of his desk, and just to top it off, he had a sneaking suspicion that he was coming down with the flu. So he was definitely not happy when the nurse from the emergency ward rushed into the lunchroom, where he was moodily munching on a muesli bar from the vending machine, and interrupted his first break to tell him that there was something that he needed to see to immediately.

Another earache or a pen lid jammed up some brat’s nostril, perhaps? said Dr. Jeffers sarcastically through a mouthful of muesli to the flustered nurse. The nurse was so distraught from Kevin’s complete disobedience of hospital policy and the thwarting of her authority that she tangled her words, creating a mish-mash of incomprehensible words.

There’s a woman with a man giving birth, two dogs and a child being guarded by them, and he told them to sit and stay, and they did it in the kids’ corner! she gabbled. This led to all sorts of sordid images racing through the mind of poor Dr. Jeffers. Sighing mournfully, he decided that he’d better go and see for himself. Standing up and cramming the rest of the muesli bar into his mouth (which to his disgust, was out-of-date), he took a swallow of his lukewarm tea to wash it down, which promptly went down the wrong way.

Kevin Bratwurst was kneeling on the floor beside Anne, who was laying on a tarp her husband normally kept in the back of his ute for those messy plumbing jobs. Kevin looked up as the nurse returned, but this time it was Kevin who was surprised. Kevin stared—the nurse had met with an unfortunate accident somewhere along the line and was wearing the remains of a half-chewed meal, and was splattered with what appeared to be tea stains. She was followed closely by a coughing, red-faced man (who had to be the doctor if his ID tag was correct) who was unhygienically wiping the sleeve of his white coat across his mouth. And then there was no more time to ponder the strange scene as Anne let out a prolonged moan. By the time the gasping doctor had regained his composure, he was just in time to witness a dark head emerge, and before he could put on a pair of gloves, a small, healthy baby boy was delivered into his father’s large outstretched hands, which seemed more suited to swinging wrenches than catching the slippery bundle of his newborn son. Dr. Jeffers watched in horror as Kevin Bratwurst quickly laid the petite bluish infant on his mother’s stomach and stripped off his work jumper and then his flannelette shirt, leaving him bare-chested. Kevin paid no attention to the doctor, who was croaking inaudibly and waving his arms, and continued his task, carefully wrapping the tiny boy in his still-warm shirt and gently placing him into his mother’s outstretched arms. The remnants of Dr. Jeffers professional dignity fled when the baby, nuzzling at his mother’s bosom, began to cry, and this set the dogs off howling.

Jeez mate, you could’ve given us a hand over here. Do you think you could rustle up a cuppa for the missus and a beer for me? It’s hard work, this birthing kids business, wouldn’t you reckon, love? Kevin said, patting his exhausted wife on the shoulder gently. Dr. Jeffers nodded dumbly.

Oh, and could you possibly get someone to wash my tarp—wouldn’t want the dogs to get a whiff of it on the way home, if you know what I mean, Kevin shouted over the wailing dogs. Dr. Jeffers had never seen or heard anything like it, so he did the only thing he could.

Congratulations to you both, Mr. and Mrs. Bratwurst. It would seem for the meantime that you have a new baby boy. As Dr. Jeffers congratulated Kevin and Anne on their new arrival, he stepped forward and shook Kevin’s hand, immediately regretting his action. As Kevin’s massive hand closed around the doctor’s smaller, more fragile hand, the squashed finger reminded Dr. Jeffers why he had been nursing the wounded digit all day. Yet Kevin’s strength seemed boundless as his grip grew tighter and tighter. Dr. Jeffers whimpered, and this alerted the dogs who thought the noise resembled the cry of a wounded rabbit. Dr. Jeffers let out a terrified yell as the dogs turned towards him, growling excitedly, and he promptly fled, followed closely by the nurse and the two snapping, baying dogs.

Strange fellow, but at least everyone’s safe, said Kevin, ignoring the snarls coming from the gleeful dogs who were scratching at the barricaded door of the lunchroom.

What do you want to call him, Annie? asked Kevin, staring in wonder at the perfect miniature person clamped onto his mother’s breast, suckling noisily. Anne closed her eyes, and Kevin thought she must have drifted off to sleep when she answered, chuckling softly.

"I can still picture the nurse coming out of the lunchroom covered in tea, and I remember wondering if it was from a tea bag, or if was real tea, you know—the stuff your parents used to make in a billy on the stove, said Anne. Opening her eyes slowly, she looked at her tiny son with awe and love. He’s a going to be a real little man, this one, I bet. If he was a cup of tea, he’d be billy tea, she said gently, pride tingeing her tone. Let’s call him Billy."

And so began the auspicious life of Billy Kevin Bratwurst on September 15th, 1974.

Chapter 2

Billy, where are you?

Billy looked up from the sandcastle he was destroying with a water pistol in the backyard sandpit to where his mother was hanging up the washing on the line. It was a cold, overcast Saturday morning and Billy was filling in time with disgruntled boredom.

Over here, Mum, he called out, demolishing a turret with a well-aimed, high-powered blast.

Don’t get too dirty, love. You know what day it is, his mother admonished. Yes. Billy knew what day it was. His older sister Beth knew what day it was. His younger sister Amy knew what day it was. His best friend, Josh McKean, and all the rest of his friends in Grade 6 knew what day it was—in fact, it was fair to say that everyone in Coomerup and the surrounding district knew that today was special. Today was the second (and to Billy, the best) day of the Annual Show. Billy couldn’t wait to go to the Show. He’d dreamed every night for the last week about showbags and hot-dogs, fairy floss, rides and mirror mazes. Billy grimaced suddenly, remembering the buzz leading up to today. Of course, being girls, all Beth and Amy wanted to do was play the sideshow games and go to the baby animal shed. Oh, not to forget the Miss Junior Showgirl competition. All Amy could talk about at breakfast was how she was going to wear the new outfit that Mum bought her, and how she was going to beat Cara Davies, her enemy from her Grade 4 class. And Beth, she was entered in the show-jumping competition on that fat little brute she called a pony.

Fat chance she’ll win anything on that pony, Anne, but it’d break her heart if you said she couldn’t enter, Kevin had said a week before, after his wife had put the last of the children to bed and he’d thought there were no listeners. In his bedroom, Billy’s ears had immediately pricked up, a knack he’d developed when he knew he was not supposed to be privy to adult conversation. Billy found this skill to be very useful and gleaned a lot of important information this way. Carefully, Billy snuck to his bedroom door and opened it a fraction.

I know, but I still worry something will spook Cracker and she’ll come off, fretted Anne.

She’s a good rider—you know that, and besides, just imagine her face if she did place or even win. Well, alright, maybe not win, but if Lisa McHendrick’s girl, Sarah, doesn’t enter, she might have a chance at third. She’d love to go to the movies—I think that’s the prize for third. There are a few good movies there at the moment… Kevin’s voice was drowned out by the dishwasher as the cycle started. Billy leaned in a little closer.

Besides, Cracker is only thirteen hands high and must be nearly a hundred years old by now, so if she does fall, it’s only a short distance to the ground. And Cracker’s so lazy that I’ll give anyone who’s willing to take my bet thirty bucks if he gets any faster than a trot, he added cheerily. ‘Cracker’ was the name that had come with the pony three years ago when Beth finally wore her parents out with her ceaseless pleas, and was able to find holes in all their reasons not to get a horse. The name was short for ‘Cracker Barrel’, a name that suited the fat little yellow horse perfectly—well matured, and Kevin joked, a bit flaky and smelly. Beth had learned to ride at a friend’s place up the road and had come to be an adequate rider. But there was no way that she was in the same league as Sarah McHendrick, the snooty, rich town girl in Grade 10, one year above Beth.

If Beth is going to have any chance at a ribbon and a prize, I think you’d better start praying for a miracle, said Anne flatly, arching an eyebrow at her husband. Billy stopped listening at this point and tiptoed back to bed, grinning as the wheels in his head cranked into gear.

He had an idea.

Chapter 3

C’mon Billy! Where are you? We don’t want to be late! Kevin yelled from the old blue Kombi van, honking the horn impatiently. Billy appeared soon after, slamming the front door behind him and tucking something into his pockets.

And not about time, either. What kept you? said Beth grumpily.

I had to… go to the toilet, said Billy evasively. When they were all belted in and on their way into town, Amy began talking animatedly.

Mum, do you know what the prize for winning Miss Junior Showgirl is? she babbled excitedly.

Yes, Amy, I do. It’s a twenty-five dollar gift voucher to Romney’s and a box of chocolates from Swain’s, said Anne with exasperation. You’ve told me a hundred times!

Talking of Romney’s, Mum, don’t forget we have to pick up my jodhpurs, Beth reminded Anne.

How could I forget when you’ve told me a thousand times? exclaimed Anne. Kevin rather suddenly slowed down and took the next turn towards town, an unfamiliar route which raised a few eyebrows.

What? Can’t we go a different way once in a while? Kevin said defensively. Beth raised her eyebrows at her mother, who shrugged and did the same back. Kevin dropped them out the front of Romney’s, then drove off the way that he’d come, with a promise that he’d return in five minutes to pick everyone up.

Inside the store, Billy gazed longingly at the front window display. Romney’s sold everything from wet weather gear to Mills and Boon books, party needs to the latest fashion. Of course, all Billy could do was look—he’d never be able to afford the new multi-tool pocket knife he’d seen advertised on special last week. He’d yearned for it when he saw it, but no matter how he’d begged, his mother had refused to buy it for him, stating that he had no need for it.

"And besides, it’s not a toy, and we don’t have money to