This is in response to a challenge thrown down by Jill…..a story using the following words/phrases:

Classroom paste

A ruler

Cafeteria mashed potatoes

Chalk

Librarian

Don't trust Starsky's recipe – it just fitted the story and the 'ingredients'

Starsky looked around the place as he followed Hutch up the steps and into the elementary school. He sniffed the air and stopped. "Hey Hutch d'ya smell that?"

Hutch turned to look at his partner who was standing staring in the general direction of the school cafeteria. "Smell what?" Starsky was sniffing the air like a tracker dog on full alert. "Nostalgia; it's the smell of childhood."

Hutch shook his head. Either Starsky had totally lost it or there was something he was missing here. He stepped to stand next to Starsky and waited. Starsky continued to grin and sniff.

"Ok Starsk, let me in on it will you please. Just what nostalgic smell is it?"

"School lunch."

Hutch resisted the urge to gag. His memories of grade school lunches were not the happiest in his life. Starsky's rapt expression made him wonder whether the city of New York had better catering than Duluth. He sniffed the air warily. He could smell something but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. It wasn't an unpleasant odor and it was almost appetizing.

"Starsky; all I remember of lunch at school was unidentifiable meat, gray boiled potatoes or soggy french-fries and peas that were cooked two weeks in advance. Oh and lumps in the gravy."

Starsky shook his head pityingly. "Geez, no wonder you eat the crap you eat; your taste buds were never properly educated"

"And yours were, I suppose."

Starsky grinned again. "Oh and how. Just the scent; the slightest hint of the smell of meat loaf with gravy …..." He started to walk in the opposite direction from the classroom they were supposed to be visiting.

Hutch sniffed again; it was meat loaf all right.

Starsky turned back down the hallway 'come on Hutch; we have a job to do here.'

Hutch laughed; he was still trying to come to terms with the idea of his buddy Starsky dating a school librarian. They met her when they were performing their (in)famous Laurel and Hardy routine at the school pageant. The performance nearly didn't happen.
One of the teachers was a friend of Abby and if Abby asked Hutch to do her a favor….well he was as Starsky said, 'putty in her hands'. The favor was painful one. One of the children showed signs of abuse; he had the marks of a vicious beating on his back. When Starsky saw them he looked sick and had to run out of the room.

Suspicion fell on a hot-tempered father until the two cops found out that he hadn't even been in town when the last beating took place. Suddenly the child's mother was the main suspect.

"So much for the perfect mom." Starsky said scornfully casting an eye over her religious objects as they led her away. "Suffer little children, huh. Damn it even I know it didn't mean beat the living shit out of them; it meant 'let them come to me', right?"

"Yes, that's exactly what it meant."

"Yeah, well I sure as hell hope no one will ever let another child near enough to that bitch for it to suffer."

"Hey Starsk, calm down."

"I'm sorry Hutch; it just makes me so mad. I mean if they don't wanna be nice to their kids why have them? There's no excuse these days."

"I guess she believed she was doing the right thing."

"Yeah!" Starsky punched his left fist into his right palm.

So now here there were back in school because the librarian had found Starsky's Laurel impersonation attractive. When she found out how talented he was at modeling and repairing things he was dragged into her service – and if Starsky had to go along then so did Hutch.

"Well it was Abby started all this remember?"

Jessie was pretty; in fact she reminded Hutch just a little bit of Terry, the woman Starsky had loved enough to want to marry even if she was dying. She had laid out all the books to be repaired on the tables in the library and Starsky was examining them one by one. He made two piles; the books that would be easy to deal with 'those are for you Klutz' and the books that were damaged enough to need a little more care and attention and expertise.

Starsky handed Hutch a ruler and a pair of big scissors and pointed to a roll of strong cellophane. "Draw round the book with chalk – then you can wipe it off the cellophane later; you need to leave about an inch and a half; you know how to miter the corners?" Hutch grinned. "Yes Ma'am!" Starsky joshed his shoulder. "Just make sure it's a neat job or I'll send you to the Principle's office."

Starsky settled to his more complicated job of totally rebinding a couple of books. He carefully lined up the pages then spread the cover open. "I need paste for this."

Jessie handed him a pot of classroom paste and he tested it by putting a little on his finger and thumb and pressing them together. When he parted them they came away clean with a little spot of paste on each fleshy pad behind his fingernails.

"It needs something else….something with more starch in it"

Jessie looked around the library room. "I think some of the teachers still used flour paste with the children in kindergarten."

"No it needs to be thicker than that." He sat back and thought for a moment. He sniffed the air.

"Of course; it's meat loaf day!" he sprang to his feet and started to run to the kitchens. Jessie and Hutch exchanged puzzled glances.

Starsky returned with a small bowl in his hand. "Just the thing; nothing better." He settled down to remix his paste. Hutch stepped over to his side and looked at the gray lumpy contents of the bowl.

"You are kidding aren't you Starsky?"

"No. think back to the days when they didn't give you limp French fries….what did you get instead?"

"Oh come on Starsk, you can't be serious…can you?"

Starsky stirred the mast of the cafeteria mashed potatoes into the pot of paste and tested it between his fingers. This time thin gluey threads formed as he opened his hand.

He pasted the first book spine and pressed the tightly wedged page edges against. He picked up a thick giant rubber band and used it to secure the book while the paste set. Ten minutes later Jessie put the book back on the shelf.

Hutch shook his head. "You know something Starsky; I don't think I even want to know how you learned to do that."

Starsky grinned and set to fixing the next book in silence.