Arabella Dove’s Potty Coffee Jar

Arabella Dove’s  Potty Coffee Jar: Object Post 84

Source? Discovered by the rubbish bin

Significance? Arabella used it to collect all sorts of things, including the calf her sister Jessica was searching for

Fate? Presumably Arabella kept it for a while but eventually it would have been thrown out or recycled

Author’s inspiration? My children used to like putting things into jars

Appeared in? The Magician’s Box

           

“Go and ask Mum for a jar, suggested Jessica, but Arabella didn’t bother. She found an empty coffee jar by the rubbish bin instead.

Jessica Dove was devoted to the rather odd calf Silverwood, in part because she was odd herself. After winning a magician’s box at the show she thought  she had some good luck for a change, but her troubles continued. She was vague, clumsy and always seemed to annoy her parents. Silverwood disappeared, and Jessica was looking for her in company with her little sister Arabella. Arabella understood them to be playing hide and seek with a sooky calf, but she found other things more interesting. She found a worm and wanted something to put it in. Distracted Jessica suggested asking their mother for a jar, but Arabella appropriated an empty coffee jar from near the rubbish bin.

“Jecca, I put ‘m in the potty,’ she reported.

“Mmm,” said Jessica.

“I put tiny, tiny worm in the potty,” elaborated Arabella.

Jessica nodded.

“I put ‘m pillow in the potty…”

The ‘pillow’ was a grub, or caterpillar, and Arabella continued her monologue reporting the pottiong of a ladybird and a feather and a beetle and another beetle, a grub, an ant, a pretty leaf…

“’n’ I find a tiny, tiny sooky ‘n’ put ‘m in the potty.”

“Mmm.”

“Come ‘n’ look, Jecca!I find a tiny, tiny sooky. Sooky playing hide an’ seek!”

“Be quiet Bella.”

“Put ‘m in the potty,” sang Arabella.

“Oh, shut up!” cried Jessica, and then, suddenly, she realised what her sister had said. “What did you say?”

After a little coaxing, Arabella revealed the latest denizen of the coffee jar.

Jessica had to pry one of her hand loose before she could see past the label. And what she did see… she didn’t believe what she saw, at all!”

Later, Arabella told her eldest sister Anna about her adventure.

“I…I find a tiny, tiny sooky and put ‘m in a potty!” she bubbled gleefully.

“Don’t be cheeky,” said Anna in an elderly tone.

“Not that sort of potty!” said Jessica. “She means a coffee jar, one of the big ones.”

Arabella Dove and her jar appear in The Magician’s Box.

 ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!