‘Get to the doors!’ yelled Gary, opting to save himself from the floury storm heading their way. ‘Every man for himself!’
Call the Fire Brigade
Gary and Alan vanished from sight and Brian was nowhere to be seen. Albert knew he was never going to make it: the entrance doors were too far away. He wasn’t up to running either, so he fished his handkerchief from his pocket and held it over his mouth. He would find his way out and do his best to keep the flour from invading his respiratory system until he did.
‘Come on, Dad!’ yelled Gary, yanking him through a side flap and out of the marquee a few seconds before a billowing cloud of flour tried to follow them.
Alan was out of breath and had his hands pressed to the side of his head. ‘Oh, my goodness. What a disaster. However are we going to clean this up in time?’
Albert thought it a small mercy Brian wasn’t with them. Guessing he must have chosen a different exit since he wasn’t around to stick the knife into their host. To their left, twenty or more bakers and stallholders were doing the same thing as Alan: gawping through the plastic windows of the marquee. They couldn’t see anything – the whole inside was just a fog of pure white.
With a fresh escape of flour, the flap Albert escaped through moved to one side, and from the mess trudged a defeated and sorry-looking German Shepherd. His fur was slick with a rudimentary batter as the flying milk landed all around him as he ran, splashing his flour impregnated coat with liquid which was very quickly absorbed by the dry ingredient.
All Albert could do was stare. ‘My goodness, Rex. I don’t think Mrs Morton will let you back into our bed and breakfast looking like that.’
Rex hung his head. ‘I hate cats.’
Poor Alan was bordering on catatonic looking at the mess and gibbering over and over about the clean-up operation just to get it back to a state where they could begin to prepare for the next day.
‘There’s a bigger problem,’ offered Gary, getting Alan’s attention.
‘A bigger problem than this?’ the event organiser choked.
Gary nodded sadly. ‘All that airborne flour will settle, but not for a while. Until it does, you are looking at a big risk of explosion.’ Albert’s eyes flared at the very real possibility his son was right. He’d seen the fresh hazard before anyone else had thought of it. Gary was backing away from the marquee, taking out his phone only once he’d got some distance from it. Albert doubted the phone would be able to set off a flour explosion, but better safe than sorry.
The fire brigade would have to wash the surfaces down and blast the flour out to the drains. Albert looked at Rex again, the dog looking more like a German Shepherd shaped donut ready to go in the fryer than anything else. ‘They can wash you off too,’ he said.
Rex didn’t like the sound of that, but he was distracted by Alan saying, ‘I don’t feel too good.’ Albert looked his way, just in time to see the museum curator throw up. The term ‘throw up’ fails, however, to come close to capturing the projectile vomiting they bore witness too. Describing it later, Albert would refer to it as akin to a magic trick where the magician performed a spell to empty a human being. Watching him from a few yards away, and wishing he were in a different county, Albert expected Alan to deflate like a balloon as everything the man had ever eaten made a break for freedom on the grass outside the marquee.
When it was done, Alan wiped his mouth and looked about with an apologetic look. Then he collapsed.
Gary was too far away to do anything about Alan collapsing, but he got to see it and into his phone he sighed, ‘You’d better add an ambulance.’
Albert couldn’t work out what to be most concerned about, his dog, the venue for the World Yorkshire Pudding Competition, or the man now groaning on the floor. When, in the next breath, Alan went floppy and lifeless, the decision became easy.
Gary was already running in Alan’s direction and got there before Albert. By the time the sirens could be heard approaching – the second time in a few hours Albert had the emergency services to his location – Alan was stable, but wishing he wasn’t conscious.
First to arrive was the fire brigade, the same bunch as earlier, who were filled with amusement to see Rex again. ‘Does he often get into trouble like this?’ asked Station Officer Hamilton with an amused twinkle in his eyes.
Albert let his shoulders slump as he gave a sad nod. ‘Yes, all the time.’
Rex was thoroughly unhappy with his current situation. Large chunks of his coat were matted together with the flour and milk mix which was beginning to solidify. It was heavy and it didn’t taste very nice when he tried chewing it out. Also, he had already heard the word ‘bath’ several times and couldn’t see a way to avoid it.
The paramedics arrived at a run, bringing their gear with them in heavy bags they carried on straps over their shoulders. They took over tending to Alan which allowed Gary to check on his father.
‘Is this what you had planned?’ he asked flippantly.
Albert huffed a laugh. ‘I wonder if they will get this all turned around in time.’ They were sitting on a low wall, looking in through the now open sides of the marquee. The firefighters were washing the flour out, but it didn’t look as bad as it had initially. Most of the stall holders and attractions were yet to be set up. If
