The Bad Cook

The Bad Cook
by 
Xavier Colfer 
(age 13)

There once was a man who wanted to be a cook. His name was Arnold. He woke up Monday morning and drove in his maroon car into town. When he got to his favorite restaurant, he asked the manager if he could work there. Arnold and the manager were good friends, so the manager told Arnold to come back tomorrow to demonstrate his cooking abilities.

The next morning Arnold drove back to the restaurant. When he got in the kitchen, with the manager watching him, he started to put on the white apron.

"No, you're putting it on backwards!" the manager exclaimed.

"Oh," Arnold said. "I thought you would wear it like a cape."

The manager handed him a chef's hat. When Arnold started to put the hat on upside-down the manager remarked, "Don't do that, you're putting it on upside down!"

"Am I?" Arnold asked. "I thought you used it to carry utensils," he smiled embarrassedly.

After Arnold had fixed the apron and hat, the manager told him, "Why don't you try to make something.* I'll come back in a little while."

When the manager returned, Arnold was surrounded by smoke, and there was an awful burnt smell in the air. There was a loud sizzling, and he was flipping something black and shriveled in a pan.

"What are you cooking?" the manager coughed, waving a hand in front of his face.

"Why, it's an omelet!" Arnold exclaimed, eyes watering from the smoke.

When Arnold and the manager walked back out front, the manager said sadly, "I'm sorry but I can't give you a job here right now. Why don't you try improving your skills and come back another time?"

Arnold went around to many other restaurants looking for a job. Each time he did something wrong and didn't get hired. One time he even tried to impress the manager of another restaurant by rolling around on a ball to get places faster. Of course, he messed that up and ran into a waiter and his cart of food. A week later he returned to the first restaurant.

Arnold asked the manager, "I really need a job, are you sure you don't have anything for me?"

"Well, I don't have a cooking job for you, but my customers have been requesting something…."

That night during the restaurant’s dinner schedule, Arnold was up on a stage in the dining area juggling, rolling on a ball, and doing other entertaining tricks for the diners! Some laughed joyfully, and others smiled amusedly.

Arnold may have been an awful cook, but he had become a great circus entertainer.

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