The Cherry Wars
A/N: So, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to post this on FanFiction or FictionPress. Technically, this was supposed to be an original short story and it started off that way based on my recent summer job. However, I not long read and watched Hating Alison Ashley (written by Robin Klein: the book was my absolute favourite in Year 6 and still is one of my favourite novels), and I can't help but see the strong connections between the two: the protagonist thinking she's all that, a new girl coming in and getting treated better, a boy preferring someone else, etc. Thus, I played with a few themes and ended up implying that the new girl is the niece of Barry Hollis, and both girls are related to Alison and Erica. I'm afraid no other familiar characters apart from Barry are mentioned by name, at least not in the four chapters currently being published. Perhaps I will make the connection clearer, however, I did not want to publish as an original for fear of unintentionally breaching any Copyright or plagiarism rules/ laws.
I apologise profusely, too, for the appalling story-telling and grammar. I wrote this in a hurry for a competition so that my team wouldn't lose out on points for not submitting. It will be edited at a later date, but I understand if you cringe when reading. Sorry!
Before you torture yourself with this, I must also point out that all characters are fictional and not based on anyone that worked with me. Whilst there was an Italian backpacker, she was such a lovely, intelligent person and neither ate all the cherries or made up nonsensical metaphors (they were prompts for the competition, as were the funny bits of dialogue, sudden pairings and slang used). No one got bitten by a snake (as far as I am aware), there were no hippies falling in love, and any new people who came in the middle of the season were fantastic to work with :D
Chapter One: The Best in the Business
There was nothing better than the smell of cherries. Nothing could beat their sweet, tantalising scent, teasing people to bite into their red flesh, and as the first lot of cherries came up onto the conveyor belt, rising like an avalanche of fruit, Claudia smiled.
The blonde pulled on her gloves, taking pleasure in the sound of the latex snapping when she pulled the fingertips into place. She had already jumped on her stool and made herself comfortable. Like always, it was the middle stool, right next to the manager's so Emily could see how well she did—not that she didn't already know, of course. Now, she was waiting for the other slowpokes to get ready.
Jared, the twenty-one-year-old with the unwashed feet and questionable hygiene, was spinning around in his chair. From the loud chuckles he emitted, it seemed as if it had taken him three weeks to realise that his chair could do that. His dreadlocks flicked back and forth on his back, spurring on his amusement.
Jared was at least a little more prepared for the day's work than Claudia's other comrades. Josie, a mousy-haired teenager fresh out of high school, was fiddling with her iPod. She was taking great pleasure in searching for a song, her freshly-manicured nails tapping against the device's screen. Claudia had half a mind to remind her that nails should be filed back so the cherries weren't marked, but she was sure Josie would only go on and on about her nail artist like the last time she was spoken to about it. It was bad enough that Leah, the Italian backpacker sitting next to Josie, was currently examining her own nails, chipping off the vibrant blue polish with her thumbnail to make them look more 'edgy'. Claudia scrunched up her nose and made a mental note to wipe down the area in the first break.
At least the two other backpackers, Lee and Tiffany, already had their gloves on. By the time the cherries made their way down the belt to them, hopefully, they would stop arguing about who would sit on which stool. It wasn't like it particularly mattered anyway; Claudia was the best at making sure none of the seconds got past her. Cherry with a nasty, brown dry crack? In the bucket. A little white scratch on the surface? In the bucket. Green and white furry? Bin. Definitely in the bin.
"Are we all set?" Emily called down the belt, fiddling with a few buttons on the machine. The girl didn't bother to check if anyone really was ready and began to flip over the cherries.
Resisting the temptation to reach across the conveyor belt and clip Josie over the ear, Claudia instead reached towards the beginning of the conveyor belt and began to pluck out the poor-quality cherries. Given the fact that the cherry pickers themselves were pretty incompetent—nine times out of ten, the pickers would slip leaves, sticks and sometimes rocks into their buckets to weigh them down a little more—it was no surprise that many of the cherries were seconds or thirds. Picking up one, Claudia grimaced when her thumb went through the flesh and into the centre, red and orange juice oozing out over her glove. The cherry had appeared alright on the surface, but it was the very fine wet split she hadn't noticed that fooled her. Wiping her glove on her jeans, she hoped that Emily hadn't seen her faux pas and dropped it into the bin compartment. After all, Claudia was the best—and only one—able to find the wet splits in the group; it wouldn't do to miss one now.
Taking a deep breath, Claudia concentrated on the task at hand and started picking out the seconds. Part of her was secretly glad there were so many, for the more she found, the quicker her green second's bucket filled up. Each second she found she would toss into the bucket, always getting it in without having to look, another skill she had perfected. The cherries would make a satisfying 'plop' sound every time they hit the bucket, often occurring more frequently than in anyone else's bucket.
To an outsider, filling a bucket would not appear that great an achievement. However, as Claudia very well knew, filling a bucket meant that she had picked out cherries that weren't good enough for public consumption—at least not the public rich enough to afford first-rate cherries. The more she took out, the fewer bad cherries made into the packing boxes, and the less the owners had to worry about hearing complaints from the shops purchasing them. The more bucket she filled, the more the owners would know she was competent enough to do her job, as well as anyone else's sitting up on the tiny wooden platform.
With a smirk, Claudia lifted her first filled bucket up off the metal holder it had been perched on. She placed it onto the platform floor with a little more force than necessary, a few cherries falling over the rim. Then, picking up an empty bucket, easily slipping it out of the pile, she made a little extra noise fixing it back in on the metal holder.
As she had hoped, Sean, one of the packers working below, walked up to the platform and picked up the bucket. Claudia smiled at him when he did, pleased that it was he, and not one of the other packers taking it. She knew he had a small crush on her, had so ever since she started the job, recognising that she was, dare she say it, the best sorter out of the lot of them. Sean gave a half smile before walking off with it and placing it in the pallet.
Claudia turned back to her work, but not before she sneakily taking a peek at the other's seconds buckets. She noted that she was the only one to have filled up a bucket within the half hour since they had started. Josie's bucket, made a little see-through by the bright sunlight streaming in through the shed window, wasn't even halfway filled. She was too busy juggling trying to take out her iPod from her pocket and select a new song without Emily noticing, and yapping away at Jared.
"So, do you like, ever ride in a car?" Josie said.
Claudia wanted to roll her eyes and turned back to the cherries in front of her. If Josie would bother to turn up to work when she was supposed to, and not at 8:00 am on the dot when they really should've been up on the platform, then she would know that Jared's mother always drove him to work. The boy might've tried to pull off the eco-friendly vibe, but there was no mistaking his arrival in a car when his mother would yell out the window, "And next time, don't use a sock!" before speeding away in a cloud of dust.
Still, she couldn't help but listen in to the conversation, already sick of the 'new age' music played on repeat on the radio.
"Wow, so like, you must live far away then?" Josie was saying.
"Yeah, all the way from Huon," Jared said.
This time, Claudia did roll her eyes. She had only been living in Tasmania for just over two years, yet every Tasmanian she ever met didn't seem to understand the concept of distance. For them, simply travelling twenty kilometres to visit a friend was a huge deal. From where Claudia lived in New South Wales, twenty kilometres barely got anyone to the nearest shop. Chester's Cherries was no more than ten or fifteen minutes from Huon and the distance was certainly nothing to be impressed by.
"What Huon?" Lee said, evidently finding the conversation more interesting than it was.
Tiffany quickly chimed in. "He was asking what Huon is," she said loudly, and as Claudia looked up at her, she could see Tiffany miming the words to Lee.
"A town," Jared said to Lee, but Tiffany translated anyway.
"Town! Zhèn."
Claudia could see Lee's eyes clouded with confusion, and rather than replying, he simply grinned at Jared and nodded.
"I like towns, they're like… um, big houses, where everyone can be friends," Leah said, joining the conversation as she popped another cherry in her mouth.
First checking to see that Emily was too busy sorting the cherries to see her, Claudia ducked her head under the conveyor belt and looked at where Leah was sitting. Just as she had expected, the area surrounding Leah's feet was covered with dozens of cherry pits and stems. The girl usually spent more time eating seconds instead of placing them in her bucket, and it was no wonder that, as she sat back up, she could see that Leah's bucket was only half full. Claudia could only hope that the girl was now used to them and no longer had to run to the toilet every fifteen minutes like she had the first few days.
It was possibly more annoying than the way Leah always tried—and failed—to come up with similes and metaphors for everything she saw in her quest to fully master the English language.
Sighing, Claudia turned back to the cherries. It seemed that she would have to work extra hard today to make sure no seconds or thirds went through. She tuned out the mundane and rather idiotic conversation, and for the next two hours, focused on filling up bucket after bucket.
It was going rather well, too. Not only had she managed to beat her previous record of filling five buckets in one session, causing Emily to raise her eyebrow, out of respect no doubt, she had also managed to stop a number of cherries from falling in between the two layers of the conveyor belt. She had prevented what could only have resulted in a breakage of the machine, and she sat up swelling with pride.
"What song are you listening to?" Jared's voice cut into her thoughts, and Claudia looked up.
He had finally managed to fill one bucket, yet it was still left teetering on the metal holder. His hands were throwing cherries on top of the pile, but the cherries would bounce off the small mound and fall to the platform below. His blue eyes were instead focused on Josie, who was now nodding along to some pop song that was blasting out from her earphones.
"A bit of Justin," Josie said, louder than necessary. "He's like, good to listen to when I'm doing aromatherapy classes."
"Cool dude," Jared said.
The boy, still oblivious to the cherries falling to the floor, reached across the conveyor belt for a particularly nasty looking cherry. The surface of one side was orange, white puss bulging from underneath it. Claudia kicked herself for not having seen it first, but seeing as it was a third and not a second, didn't mind that Jared spotted it.
At the same time, Josie also saw the fungal cherry, her hand darting out towards it. It brushed against Jared's, and the girl looked up at the same time as he did.
It felt like ten minutes rather than ten seconds that Jared and Josie sat there, staring into each other's eyes. Neither blinked, and if Claudia hadn't known any better, she would have assumed they were statues put there by the bosses to make it look like they employed more workers.
"Heh, sorry," Jared eventually said, pulling back his hand.
A goofy smile was plastered across his face, causing Josie to giggle as she placed her hands in her lap. "It's ok," she said, her cheeks turning red.
Claudia looked from one to the other, dumbfounded. What was happening? Was the machine leaking fuel again, causing the two to act weirder than usual?
Cherries slid past the two, yet neither appeared to notice as they went back to staring into each other's eyes. Josie winked at Jared, taking one earphone out. Leaning across the conveyor belt, she stretched the white cord further than it should have gone and passed it to Jared. The boy flicked a dreadlock out of his ear and put the earphone in, smiling as he listened to the music.
"Hey, I know this tune!" he said, nodding along.
Claudia tentatively sniffed the air, trying to see if perhaps there was a gas leak somewhere. She couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary, save for the diesel of the forklift bringing in more pallets of cherries and the smell of Jared's sweat. Still, it couldn't hurt to be too cautious.
"Claudia… Claudia!"
Blinking, Claudia turned her attention back to the cherries in front of her. Emily was flapping her hands around, trying to gather up the rotten cherries and simultaneously pull cherries from blocking up the machine. Whilst Claudia had been busy trying to figure out what was going on between Jared and Josie, she had missed the pile of cherries coming her way. She hastily started rolling cherries over, taking out as many seconds and rotten cherries as she could.
Sometimes Trevor, the boy in charge of putting the cherries in the cold water before they were sent up the conveyor belt, would get distracted and put in an entire bucket at once, causing a mountain of cherries to come through. With one eye on the cherries and another on the shed floor below, Claudia could see Trevor fist-bumping Sean, an empty bucket lying sideways in the tub.
Shaking her head, Claudia focused back on her job. The people here would never cease to amaze her.
Finally, after ten hours and almost fourteen full seconds buckets, the work day was over.
Claudia hummed as she swept up the rotten cherries, pushing them towards the drains. She had already wiped all the benches and most of the conveyor belts without Emily having asked. Emily hadn't yet said thank you, but Claudia knew it was only because the brunette was too busy trying to pry Josie and Jared apart.
The pair had been locked at the lips for the last ten minutes, for-going any tidying up they had to do. Claudia hadn't minded taking on the pair's duties—after all, she would have done a much better job than they could have done together—but Emily insisted they do it themselves.
"Aww, they look like they're having fun. They're like a pair of, um, a pair of those dogs rubbing their noses together over a plate of spaghetti," Leah said, sidling up to her.
Claudia scrunched up her nose. Emily had given up, shrugging her shoulders and stalking off to reprimand Trevor for using the hose to spray Sean and another packer, Caleb. Jared had just picked out an insect that had become tangled in Josie's hair, and the two were now staring into each other's eyes again.
Turning to Leah, Claudia snorted. "They look more more like a pair of zombies trying to eat each other's faces."
Leah scratched her head. "Zombies? It might be fun to be a zombie. But if I die, just know that I'm coming back to eat your brain. Or maybe I'd eat Jared's."
"You're going to be one disappointed zombie, then," she replied.
If she had just met Leah, she would have considered emitting her to a special ward, given the things she came out with sometimes. Now, however, all she could do was remember that there was only one more week to go, and she wouldn't have to put up with these people any longer.
Directing Leah towards a pile of cherry pits not yet swept up, Claudia turned off towards Lee and Tiffany. Emily was still busy telling off the boys, and thus it seemed it was up to Claudia to sort everyone else out.
She promptly ignored the sound of metal falling into the drain coming from where Leah was, as well as her cry of "Oops! I hope that wasn't important." It probably was important, perhaps a screw to the machine, but she didn't have time to deal with any more of Leah's accidents.
"Broccoli has a higher IQ than her," Claudia muttered under her breath, before calling in a louder voice, "Lee over here."
Holding up a bucket of soapy water, Lee came trotting over. "Shi?"
"I want you to wipe down this table," she said, mouthing the words and miming the actions.
Lee nodded, taking out his cloth and wiping down the surface. Tiffany came trotting over, and having heard Claudia's instructions, began to translate to him what to do.
Claudia tapped her foot impatiently, but before she could tell the girl to leave and find something else to do, Emily called out, "Alright, time to knock off. See you lot tomorrow." Sighing, Claudia shrugged her shoulders and put her broom away.
At least she had tried, and at the end of the day, it was still a good job, and people knew she was proficient. Just the way she liked it.