Thumb Pickles and Other Cautionary Preserves

By Darcy-Lee Tindale

These are the stories you won't believe and the stories your parents don't want you to believe.

Klaus Von Fohn loved horseradish way too much; Signor Stupido pulled rude faces; Lorcan O'Reilly never washed behind his ears, and because someone ran with scissors, the children of the whole village of Tenderville lost their thumbs.

This collection of cautionary tales shows how ignoring good advice can lead to finding yourself in a real pickle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Woodslane Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780994183750

Book preview

Here Beginneth The Carrot Tale

The truth behind myth #1

Zee carrots vill change zee vay you see! True! Noh? If you do not eat zee carrots, you vill not see in zee dark. Ja?

Fräulein Von Fohn – 1912

Translation: Eating carrots will help you see in the dark

Fräulein Von Fohn lived in the heart of a busy town called Radmustdish, in the middle of the country called Jarmoney. She lived with her husband, Klaus Von Fohn, a large and sometimes very smelly man. Klaus was large and smelly because of what he loved to eat. He would eat pork and chicken and cabbage and potatoes. He would eat things with very strange names like sahnemeerrettich and pumpernickel and schupfnudel. It’s true! I’m not making these words up! He would eat anything, as long as it was smeared in mustard and horseradish.

Klaus loved mustard. He would put mustard on his toast in the morning and smear it on his eggs. Sometimes he would spread it straight off the butter knife onto his tongue. What Klaus liked more than mustard was horseradish.

HOW TO MAKE HORSERADISH

From the horseradish plant, toss the plant but keep the plant roots.

Grate the plant roots and mix in vinegar.

Pour mixture over EVERYTHING!

Eat!

Klaus would cover his meat and all his vegetables in horseradish. The hotter the horseradish and mustard, the more Klaus would eat.

Klaus loved mustard and horseradish so much that he saved all his coins and kept them in a jar. Once a month he would go into town with his jar of money and buy every bottle and pot of mustard and horseradish in the town’s store. Klaus was the only person in Radmustdish who had ever tasted mustard and horseradish. That was because he never shared them with anyone else. He would also always forget to buy his wife a lollypop from the store before returning home.

What Fräulein Von Fohn hated (aside from missing out on her lollypops) was the smell of her husband when he was eating mustard and horseradish.

You smell! Fräulein would cry.

"Danke," Klaus would reply.

But what Klaus hated was carrots. No matter how much horseradish or mustard he added, no matter how spicy or hot the horseradish or mustard, Klaus could still taste carrot.

Eat your carrots, Fräulein would cry.

"Nein!" Klaus would reply.

As the years passed, Klaus became bigger and smellier, until none of Fräulein’s friends wanted to visit any more. Poor Fräulein became lonely. The only company she had were the toads in her front garden. So she befriended them.

Klaus was horrified. You vill not play vit zee frogs, Fräulein Von Fohn. Zay vill give you vorts! he cried.

Ven you stop eating mustard and horseradish, I vill stop playing vit zee toads, replied Fräulein.

But as the years passed, Klaus kept eating mustard and horseradish, and Fräulein kept playing with the toads. In fact, Klaus ate more mustard and radish — spicier mustard and hotter horseradish. Fräulein continued to play with her toads, but she did not seem to grow any warts.

One cold wintery day, the house was warm, and the windows fogged. Poor old Fräulein, now grey-haired, could not see out the windows.

Alone with just her toads, she cried, Klaus! Zee fog on zee inside of the vindows must be caused by your bad breath!

Klaus replied, Nonsense! But if you keep playing wit zee toads you vill be covered in vorts!

Nonsense! replied Fräulein.

That night, at the dinner table, as Fräulein and Klaus sat down to eat, Fräulein placed her napkin on her lap and Klaus opened a new jar of mustard and a new jar of horseradish. But the jars of mustard and horseradish were so hot, the spice so zesty, the piquancy so strong, that the fumes wafted up into Klaus’s eyes before he even took a bite. So intense was the odour, so extraordinarily scorching was the heat, that Klaus’s eyes suddenly began to water badly. Suddenly he could not see a thing.

Klaus screwed up his eyes and yelped, I am blind!

Seeing her one opportunity, Fräulein Von Fohn quickly turned off all the lights, plunging the house into darkness.

Fräulein! Fräulein! Did you hear me? I’m blind! Vat shall I do? I cannot see! cried Klaus.

Eat zee carrots, cried Fräulein. "Eat zee carrots! "

His eyes streaming with tears, Klaus thought he had been blinded by the heat and spice from the mustard and horseradish. So he felt he had no choice: he began to shovel carrot after carrot into his mouth. Fräulein Von Fohn, on the other hand, snatched up all the left-over jars of horseradish and seeded mustard that she could find in the house and smeared their contents all over her face, arms, legs and neck, all the while yelling to her husband, More carrots! Eat more of zee carrots!

At last the scent of mustard and horseradish faded from the air and Klaus’s eyes stopped watering. Fräulein turned the lights back on. Miraculously, Klaus could see again.

As Klaus wiped away his tears, he saw his wife covered in horseradish and mustard, so he instantly ate her!

No, he didn’t. Just joking. Here’s what really happened.

Klaus turned and looked at his wife. Seeing her covered in hideous lumps and bumps, he gasped, Fräulein! Vot is vrong vit your skin?

Ah! You see, all those carrots have made your eyes much better. Even better zan before. So good, in fact, zat at last you can really see. Ja, finally you can see me clearly!

But vot is vrong vit your skin?

It must be vorts from playing vit zee toads all these years! Fräulein replied.

Then you must stop playing vit zee toads, cried Klaus.

Okay, okay! I vill stop playing vit zee frogs and toads, if you stop eating zee mustard and horseradish, answered Fräulein.

Klaus agreed.

See, I told you, said Fräulein, "zee carrots vill change zee vay you see! True! Nein? If you do not eat zee carrots, you vill not see in zee dark. Ja? Now you see!"

Later that night, Klaus ate his supper of sahnemeerrettich, schupfnudel and pumpernickel with salt and pepper, and they tasted just as delicious without smothering his food in mustard and horseradish.

Zis food is vonderful, said Klaus.

Fräulein blushed, "Danke."

Then Fräulein took a shower to wash off all the horseradish and mustard before Klaus had a chance to figure out her trickery.

Over the rest of their years together, Klaus started to smell better. Once a month he visited the town’s store to buy his wife a lollypop. And because their windows no longer fogged up, people could see that they were home and visitors stopped by.

Fräulein was happy that she had friends to visit once more and that Klaus no longer smelt. She never told her husband that carrots don’t make you see in the dark, but lights do, and because of her little lie, both Klaus and Fräulein lived happily ever after.

Here Endeth the Fräulein tale

Here Beginneth The Wind Tale

The truth behind myth #2

Lemme tell you; If you pull’a da face anda da wind change, you’re gonna be stuck like that foreve’a!

– Bella Fragranza — 1725

Translation: If you pull a face and the wind changes, you’ll be stuck like that forever.

Bella Fragranza lived in a country near southern Europe called Itisalie, in a tiny village on the south side called Gluh. Bella was a little woman who loved to cook big meals. All day in her kitchen she would be boiling, broiling, steaming, mashing, rolling, sifting, mixing, sniffing, tasting and at the end of the day — the part she loved the most — she would be serving.

Bella loved to fill her dinner table with glorious food. Her meals were like art. Each dish should have been on display in the Uffizi Gallery. On the crisp white linen, bright hand-painted pottery bowls were piled high of agnolotti. Each half-circular pasta shape was stuffed with meat and in perfect form as the next. Some of her agnolotti looked like fairy pillows, so soft and enticing, you could almost curl up and rest your head on them. Her chopped salad was so colourful, it equalled the beauty of the rolling hills outside her windows. The fragrance from the table would waft and fill the room, spill from her windows and make the villagers’ mouths water. What is for your husband’s supper tonight, Bella? came calls from envious men as they returned from their day’s labour.

"Tonight, crostini, made with red pepper and capers for starter, then deep-fried courgette flowers to tickle my husband’s tongue."

"Ah! He must be more handsome than the god Anteros to be made such a feast," came the reply.

Bella was not finished yet, "then tortellini