Gaby Book 18 ~ Summery ~ Chapter *6* The End is Nigh

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*Chapter 6*
The End is Nigh

 

 
The restaurant can seat about a hundred at a pinch but of course you don’t want even half that number on one table – even if there was space. Instead there were a couple of ten seaters with the rest using the smaller tables and side booths. Once everyone had found seats it was time for us ‘waitresses’ to earn our keep.

“Pia, Gaby drinks orders, bring them to me, Amanda and Connie, you’ll deliver to table, okay?”
“On it Dad,” Pia chirped.

We took a table each and in practice we only made one trip to the bar as we passed off the orders to Con and Mand when they delivered the previous table. Even so it took best part of fifteen minutes to get everyone ‘watered’, almost everyone had something, even if it was just soft drinks. I can’t say it went like clockwork, these things never do but everyone eventually got what the wanted.

At Christmas it was all a bit make do and hope, today its all planned so once the drinks were distributed we were straight into delivering the soup, Ingrid doing the serving. With four of us on the job it went quickly allowing us to retire temporarily to the Stube where Helmut was ‘entertaining’ the bus crew. P got us soft drinks, its warm work all this rushing about in heavy skirts!

“Everything okay girls?” Helmut enquired.
“They’re all eating soup,” P advised.
“A couple of you check round in a minute eh?”
“I'll go,” I volunteered, “Con?”

Of course there’s an art to the timing with these things, how many times have you found yourself waiting ages between courses, used crockery sat on the table especially at formal do’s. On the other hand having it snatched away as soon as you put your cutlery down is just bad manners. The Sebenschuh’s have been running this place long enough to have fine tuned the timing.

We managed to make short work of the plate collection, three of us removing the remains whilst P checked on the drinks situation. I guess the Lebersuppe with Semelknöddel isn’t to everyone's taste but there wasn’t much left in the dishes and we had no complaints, the two vegetarians having received clear onion soup instead. By the time we’d finished Eva and Ingrid were placing tureens of steaming sauerkraut and boiled potato’s on the counter so we went straight into distributing the main course.

Well duh, they weren’t just getting that, no indeed, Eva started loading plates with Schweinhaxe1. We were already delivering the plates as Mand and Con finished with the potato tureens much to the surprise, delight or amusement of our guests. Once again we retired to the bar to catch our breath, but it really was a brief halt this time.

We gave them a few minutes to get started then Mand and Con went round with extra veggies whilst P and myself did another drinks circuit.

“Well done girls, that’s the worst over.” Eva offered when she poked her head into the restaurant for a moment.
“They seem to be enjoying it,” Helmut observed joining us, “can someone start the coffee please.”

Guess who got that job, well it did get me out of the main course clearance although I still copped for delivery of the berry compote that answered for dessert. By the time we got the coffee to table we’d been at it for over an hour somehow, we weren’t finished but at least most of the fetching and carrying was over. You can’t spin out a cup of restaurant ‘coffee’ for that long, soon enough the Global party started drifting towards the bar allowing us to start the clear up.

At some point the hubbub died down and we were alone, the cellar tour having departed for parts subterranean. I spotted Julia sat playing with her Handy, I grabbed a coffee pot and headed over.

“More coffee?”
“Oh please.”
“You didn’t fancy the cellars?”
“Er no, they lose their appeal after a couple of visits, Gabrielle isn’t it?”
“Gaby,” I suggested.
“Your English is very good.”
“Not good enough, Mums got me signed up for extra classes in the summer.”
“So were you one of Chris and Den’s saviours at Christmas?”
“Chris?”
“Sorry, I was forgetting, it was Nena wasn’t it, so?”
“Er yeah,” I admitted.
She had a light bulb moment, “hang on, your the girl who did the choir solo.”
“Um.”
“You are, Den showed me the thing on his phone, you’ve got a very sweet voice.”
“I was sort of conned into it,” I told her.
Then she had another light bulb light up, “I know you from somewhere else.”
“You do?”
“That's it! On the telly at Christmas, you were on that sports thing, that's it, they linked up with Germany, you’re her.”

Sugar, of all the luck, I have to meet the one person who watched that, no one ever remembers that after the night.

“Guilty.”
“Hang on, that means you’re English, they had an article in Chad.”
“So now I'm confused, Chris, I mean Nena said you were German.”
“I've lived here for a few years, I've been assimilated.”
“Assimilated, I like it,” she chuckled.
“It’s difficult not to be when you live here full time.”
“Well you certainly had me fooled, if someone was describing a typical German girl you’d be it.”
“So my friends tell me.”
“So the extra English classes?”
“True, top of the class in German, so so in English.”
“Helmut said he had an English girl working, I'd never have guessed it was you.”
“I don’t think he was, he’d be thinking of Amanda.”
“The platinum blonde?”
“Uh huh, she’s from Croydon.”
“I would’ve gone for the shorter one with dark hair.”
I gave a chuckle, “she’ll love that, she’s Helmut’s daughter.”
“Whoops.”
“Sounds like they’re starting to head back from the cellars, I'd best give the others a hand.”
“Well nice to meet you Gaby, I guess we might meet again, I think I've got a few of these Rhine Moselle trips this year.”
“Right, well have a good trip home, tschuss.”
“Tschuss.”

“What was all that about?” Con enquired.
“Just getting her more coffee.”
“Pull the other one,” Pia stated, “you were talking for ages.
“She recognised me from that telly thing at Christmas.”
“Telly?” Mand queried.
“Sports personality? They linked up from the market?”
“I didn’t think anyone watched that.”
“Neither did I.”
“Grab the other end Gab,” Pia requested offering me some table cloth.

It was after nine before we were done, the coach had departed about eight thirty with a load of happy, merry passengers.

“Thanks girls,” Eva told us as I stacked the last of the plates on the dresser.
“You straight off?” P asked.
“Best, Dad’ll wonder where we are I said we’d be home by now.
“I'll get your stuff then.”

It was only after we’d recovered our bikes and said our good nights that I realised we were still wearing our ‘uniforms’.

Sugar!”
“What?” Con asked.
“Kostüm?” I hinted.
Mand chuckled, “I'd forgotten, oh well, come on I'm starving.”

Yeah, in our enthusiasm we forgot to get anything to eat before coming out, never gave it a thought.

“Last one to Dernau kisses Jorge tomorrow,” Con challenged, pushing off down the ramp.
“Why you!”

We must’ve looked quite a sight, three dirndl wearing Teutonic maidens haring down Zaungarten on city bikes, skirts flying, yipping and shouting at each other as we each tried to gain ground on the others.

“You’re late,” Mum mentioned when Mand and I burst out of the bike store into the house.
“Soz, things ran over a bit.”
“Good evening?” Dad enquired.
“Pretty good.”
“We got fifteen euros each in tips,” Mand put in.
“That's nice,” Mum allowed.
“Got anything to eat, we’re starving.”
“You’ve not eaten?”
“We were working,” I pointed out.
“We forgot before we went,” Mand admitted.
“Your father and I had salad,” Mum told us, “I think there’s some frikadel and potato salad in the fridge you can have.”

Well its not exactly Schweinhaxe with the trimmings but its better than nothing.

“You could make some coffee,” Dad suggested.
“Whatever.”

“So you gonna wear your bust thingy on Friday then?” Mand asked as we waited for the Frikadelen to warm under the grill.
“Might do.”
“You guys are off the wall,” she stated shaking her head.
“We’re not.”
“Really?”
“Well maybe a bit,” I allowed.
“I don’t mean that’s a bad thing, I wish I had more confidence to do what you lot do.”
“Such as?” I queried rescuing our supper from the grill.
“Some of the stuff you wear for starters.”
“Like this stuff?”
“No, well yes but like when you all wore heels and stuff on the school trip.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“The others told me when we were shopping a bit back.”
“It was hardly daring.”
“You see anyone else doing it?”
“No.”
“I arrest my case.”
“That was like one day,” I pointed out.
“You serving those burgers or breeding them?”
“Oh right,” I passed her the plate of Frikadelen, “what else is off the wall?”
“You want a list? You want some Kartoffelsatat?”
“Er yeah.”
“List or salad?”
Good question, “salad definitely.”

Maddy bell © 22.11.16

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Comments

Happiness is an chapter of Gaby

Having already purchased the book and read it several times I still love reading the chapters posted on Bigcloset. If you cant identify with Gaby after reading these stories then you're missing the whole show. Maddy's places detail on life in Germany for a teenaged expat as if you the reader were living it. Love the stroies.

Will

Resting cases

Just wondering; isn't the saying " I rest my case " instead of " I arrest my case " ?

quite possibly

Maddy Bell's picture

But given the number of misquoted I see on here surely Gab and co can be forgiven the odd misquote?

Mads


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Madeline Anafrid Bell

Fractured Gaby Tales

For those that remember Rocky the Flying Squirel and Bullwinkle tv show, there was a bit called Fractured Fairytales. The idea behind it just fits Gaby so well. ;-) I arrest my case. Which word, btw, has a specific use in English referring to bringing things to a full stop, as in arrested landings on an aircraft carrier. Which would fit here as the discussion was brought to a stop. Yes?


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin