Open air.

 

The Magic Pickled Cucumbers.

07.04.2008

The first part of a children’s story about a Polish family’s emigration to London through the eyes of eight-year-old Janek.
Written and read by Ania Piwowarska (Dykczak)
Janek lives with his parents, grandfather Józef and dog Zbój, in the Tatra Mountains, in Poland. One day he finds out that his parents are taking him on a trip to London. He’s very excited that he’ll see the famous city that he’s heard so much about. When he leaves, his grandpa Józef gives him a jar of pickled cucumbers saying that they’ll help him if he’s ever in trouble. Janek doesn’t understand what his grandpa means but he takes the jar with him.
In London, the family is met by Janek’s uncle, Adam, who takes them to a flat which he shares with other Poles. On the first night, Janek’s mother tells him that this is not just a holiday. They are going to stay in London for a while and Janek is due to start school the very next day. Janek is shocked, particularly when he realises that he will have to wear a uniform.
The next day at school, Janek is assigned a Polish boy, Paweł, to help him settle in. Despite this, he finds it awful being in a new school and not being able to speak the language. Things are made a lot worse by the fact that at lunchtime he is given a massive portion of smelly Brussels sprouts which earns him the name of “Brussels Sprout Boy”.
The next day it seems that the children may have forgotten the unfortunate incident involving the ‘b’ word. However, when the school bully, Andy, gives Janek a plate full of Brussels sprouts mashed up with all the leftovers from lunch, the whole canteen chants “Brussels Sprout Boy” at him. Janek feels humiliated and doesn’t ever want to go back to school.
That night Janek has a dream in which his grandpa Józef and dog Zbój are standing on the Giewont mountain top. Józef, dressed in traditional Polish highlander costume, calls out, “The pickled cucumbers will give you the strength to overcome them!” When he wakes up, Janek knows that he must take the pickled cucumbers to school although he still doesn’t know how they’ll help him.
At lunchtime he brings the jar out in front of the big, ginger-haired bully – Andy. Janek takes a bite out of a cucumber and the juice hits Andy straight in the eye. Janek then hands a cucumber to Andy as a challenge. He takes a bite but immediately spits it out, unable to stomach the strange tasting Polish delicacy. All the children in the canteen queue up to try their hand at eating a pickled cucumber but no one can, apart from Janek. When a pretty classmate, Matilda, asks what the delicacy is called, Janek answers ‘pickled cucumbers’. Suddenly, he realises that he has just said his first words in English!
After the ‘Pickled Cucumber Showdown’, Janek’s life changes completely. Everyone wants to sit with him at lunchtime, even Andy. His English continues to improve until he speaks it even better than his uncle Adam, who has been in England for years.
At Christmas, Janek and his family return to Poland. Janek is overjoyed to see his grandfather and asks him if the next day he can teach him how to pickle magic cucumbers. Grandpa Józef laughs, saying that the jar that he gave him was just an ordinary jar of pickled cucumbers. Janek realises that there was absolutely nothing magical about the cucumbers. He overcame the school bully and learnt to speak English all by himself…