Chocolate Robin

Robert Bradley

Description

A young boy, Fred Smith, is sent to live in a town he's never heard of with an aunt and uncle he never knew existed. His uncle, a rotund man so large that he is trapped inside the living room, dislikes children and all members of the Smith family. Fred strikes up a friendship with an Old English Sheepdog that happens to be passing the house and they become inseparable. Starting school mid-term, Fred is picked on and bullied. He deals with it by winning over the bullies with the incredible sweets he makes. The sweets are so good, the leader of the bullies sells some of them in the school but when caught, puts the blame on Fred. An encounter with the local butcher and a number of strange happenings change Fred's life. He is sure the dog is at the center of everything. But how can that be?

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 28 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645369608
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Chocolate Robin
Robert Bradley
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-02-28
Chocolate Robin About the Author Dedication Copyright Information Acknowledgments Synopsis Chapter 1: Appletree Cottage Chapter 2: Stuck Chapter 3: The House Chapter 4: Fred’s Bedroom Chapter 5: Inside the Attic Chapter 6: Chocolate Robin Chapter 7: The Butcher Chapter 8: Sheep Chapter 9: Sweets Chapter 10: Unwelcome Visitors Chapter 11: School Chapter 12: Bedtime Chapter 13: Fred the Cook Chapter 14: The Second Day at School Chapter 15: The Market Chapter 16: Success or Failure Chapter 17: What to Do Next Chapter 18: Sunday Is a Day of Rest (Part 1) Chapter 19: Sunday Is a Day of Rest (Part 2) Chapter 20: The Fungus Chapter 21: Things Start to Move Chapter 22: A Turn for the Worse Chapter 23: What to Do Now Chapter 24: Making Good Use of His Time Chapter 25: It Can Only Be up from Here? Chapter 26: Next Chapter 27: A Whirlwind
About the Author

The author
After obtaining a BSc in Mathematics and Physics from London University, Robert Bradley qualified as a teacher and taught for six years in both England and Jamaica. Later qualifying as a chartered accountant, he joined the international mining company, Rio Tinto, and after 25 years working mainly in the UK and Canada, he took early retirement and became a freelance consultant for a number of banks and multinational companies in the USA and UK before returning to education.
A father of five children, he has written six books for his children and grandchildren, one adult novel, and numerous poems. This children’s book, Chocolate Robin, is the first piece of writing he has submitted for publication.
Dedication
To Abigail and Annabelle, Zohha and Zayb, Bojana and Owand, and Julen and Ana for all the encouragement they have given me, but especially to my wife, Vanessa.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Robert Bradley (2019)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Bradley, Robert
Chocolate Robin
ISBN 9781641824101 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781641824118 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781641824125 (Kindle)
ISBN 9781645369608 (ePub)
The main category of the book — Fiction / General
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
[e-mail]
[phone]
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Trevor Marlow of Marlow and Sons, Butchers.
Synopsis
On the death of his father, a young boy, Fred Smith, is sent to live with his aunt and uncle in ‘a rundown shack’, as Fred politely calls it.
Life at home is dominated by his eccentric uncle, who has become so large he is no longer able to get out of the main room. Fred’s uncle dislikes the Smiths and makes things difficult for Fred. Shouting at him on his arrival and telling him he doesn’t want him here, Uncle Victor leans so far out the window that he gets stuck. Extricating him proves difficult but highly amusing.
Fred strikes up an acquaintance with the scruffy Old English Sheepdog he saw in the lane when he arrived and, because of the large brown splodge on its white chest, he names it Chocolate Robin.
Together, they set off to find Fred’s school. New to the area and joining in the middle of term, Fred is picked on and bullied. Having suffered this at other schools, he copes with the problem in a unique way: through his incredible sweets. The sweets are so good the leader of the bullies decides to make money selling them at school, but when he is caught he blames Fred, accusing him of bullying him into it. The head teacher punishes Fred by sending him home for a week.
Fred makes good use of the time. Unbeknown to his uncle, he begins cooking the evening meals and he and Chocolate Robin amuse themselves by rounding up a nearby flock of sheep to ‘cut’ the grass in the front garden.
During one night, Fred is awakened by a group of rats. Terrified and having no one else to talk to, the following day he tells Chocolate Robin what happened and is surprised when he comes home from school to find the barn owl that had started hanging about the garden appear with a few birds of prey and a couple of cats to drive out the rats.
Fred and Chocolate Robin make friends with a local butcher who encourages him to try to sell his sweets at the market. Unsure of how much to charge and worried that no one will want to buy them, it is not an easy thing for Fred to do and difficulties arise. He knows his sweets are good but that this is not enough; they have to be extra special, like nothing anyone has ever tasted before. An impossible task… or is it?
The following day, the barn owl starts draping sloppy strings of weed over the frame of Fred’s bedroom window. Fred gets angry and decides to take it out on his uncle by cooking some of the weed and serving it to him, pretending it is cabbage. Instead of his uncle raving and shouting at him, as he usually did, he loves it. Is this the special ingredient he dreamt about? Will it change his life?
Chapter 1: Appletree Cottage

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“It says it’s the house on its own at the bottom of the lane… This must be it.”
The social worker hesitated for a moment and turned towards the boy in her care, “It’s called Appletree Cottage,” she continued.
Appletree Cottage , thought Fred looking at the house in front of them, Appletree Shack, more like it… And someone’s run off with the apple tree! But he remembered his manners and kept his thought to himself.
“I hope it never gets windy around here,” said Fred.
The social worker turned and looked at him.
“It’s not as bad as that,” she replied, thinking he was upset at the sight of the unloved house with its overgrown garden and not realising he was trying to be funny.
Next to where Fred was standing, a rotten piece of wood with a few faded letters on it was buried in a clump of stingy nettles. He lifted his boot, kicked the nettles to one side, and then trampled them down far enough to be able to reach in with his hand. Trying desperately not to get pricked, he took hold of the sign between two fingers and carefully lifted it.
“Oops!” he said as it broke in his hand, “too many cornflakes for breakfast!”
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t your fault. If the owner complains, I’ll tell him it was an unfortunate accident.”
Ever since the social worker had collected Fred from the care home that morning, she’d been saying one nice thing after another to him. He’d tried to tell her she didn’t need to and that he was alright, but nothing he did seemed to stop her.
He’d tried to make her laugh. He’d said silly things that couldn’t possibly be true, like ‘It isn’t as if I’m going to live with an ogre,’ but nothing seemed to help. Fred decided she was one of those grown-ups who thought ‘jokes weren’t meant to be funny’.
Gingerly putting the sign back where he’d found it, a movement caught Fred’s eye. Just a few metres away from him, a scruffy looking Old English Sheepdog stood looking up at him.
“Hello, old boy,” said Fred, guessing the dog was male but having no way of seeing through the straggly coat of hair dangling from the dog’s back. “From your looks, I’d guess you live here?”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
A loud voice with the force of ten hurricanes boomed out from the direction of the house, almost knocking Fred and the social worker off their feet. The sudden noise scared them so much they instinctively wrapped their arms around each other and clung there like a couple of scaredy-cats frozen together on the school playground.
“AWAY WITH YOU!”
A moment of silence followed the two enormous outbursts of shouting. For some strange reason, the silence sounded more threatening and more deafening than the shouting itself.
“ARE YOU DEAF?”
Not yet , thought Fred, but if you keep shouting like that, I will be soon .
“GO AWAY, I SAID. DO YOU WANT ME TO GET MY GUN AND SHOOT YOU?!”
The social worker noticed she was clinging onto Fred and unwrapped herself. Shaking with fear, she grabbed hold of his hand to comfort him, but not knowing her own strength, she started to crush it. The effect was immediate: tears welled up in Fred’s eyes and overflowed down his cheeks.
“Are you Mr. Floggit?” she squeaked, her words sounding like popcorn being shot out of her mouth. Still quivering with shock and without waiting for the man to reply, her tongue took over and started gabbling at a hundred miles an hour.
“We’re looking for Appletree Cottage. The sign here… Oh, dear,” she said and ground to a halt as she remembered what had happened to the sign.
“GO AWAY, I SAID,” bellowed the enormous shape that appeared out of nowhere at the window, blocking the feeble light trying to escape from inside.
“I’m afraid we’ve broken your sign…” continued the lady. And not knowing what to say next but feeling she had to say something, her mouth took over again, “What I mean is I—”
“STOP BLATHERING, WOMAN!”
A smile crept across Fred’s face. To anyone looking on from the outside, this might have seemed rude, as if he was making fun of the man. But it wasn’t that. What was amusing Fred was that every time the man let out one of his shouts, the walls of the house shook violently, and the more he shouted the more they shook; it was like watching s