Efficiency Jane Pratt vs. the Laundry

The sun was very hot that day and out in the garden, a little girl was about to be in big trouble.

She was named Efficiency, because parents were allowed to be cruel back then. She tried to have people call her Effie, which she didn’t much like either, but when your full name is Efficiency Jane Pratt, you take what you can get.

Efficiency had never heard of nominative determinism — that is, the theory that your name shapes who you are as a person. Probably because anyone who subscribed to that theorem stopped believing in it immediately upon meeting her. There had never been a person less suited to the noun. Yet her parents persisted, assigning her various chores in the hopes that one of them would eventually induce a tolerable work ethic. 

Her mother, a stout woman with a smile like a crescent moon, in that it only appeared once a month, assigned her chores that were often outside. She thought that fresh air was good for children to the point of leaving windows open in midwinter, which no one had realised was bad for you yet. The past was a dangerous time, dear readers, not least for children.

Her father, a tall, thin man whose moustaches were so magnificent that at least a dozen lesserly-facial-haired gentlemen had removed their own after meeting him out of shame, tended to assign inside jobs, on the grounds that there was less to be distracted by in a room.

Neither strategy worked.

Efficiency was a distractible sort of person, right down to the bone. She had twice as many funny bones as most people, which you may point out, dear readers, is only two per elbow, but when you are very small the funniness goes a long way. Before you say anything, dear reader, I am aware that funny bones are not really bones at all but nerve endings, but I must remind you that this was the olden days, when leeches were still considered a sound medical treatment.

Effie had once seen a doctor with exactly thirteen jars full of leeches. She had counted them to check. This would not have been a problem if she had not stood in front of his horse to do so, causing a sizable traffic jam.

It had been one of the few times her parents had betrayed any emotion that was not cursory annoyance. They had never hugged her so tightly, before or since.

The chores had started then, really. But it had been two years since that incident, and they had had no effect yet. Mostly the chore-related objects ended up forgotten on the floor as Effie chased butterflies in the garden, even when she had started out inside. Bugs were her favourite kind of animal. She had eaten four moths so far, which would have concerned her parents had she been foolish enough to inform them.

But they kept at it. Mr. and Mrs. Pratt were not the type to give in lightly. Mrs. Pratt’s middle name was Robust, which I believe says more about her parents than they intended. I am not being metaphorical, my dear readers; undesirable names ran in the family, it seemed, as Mr. Pratt’s given name was Eura.

Effie had liked her grandparents, when they had visited. They told her things that Mr. and Mrs. Pratt had not wanted her to know, like how to paint a wall – parts of the Pratt house were now a rather lurid shade of orange – and how to treat gout in chickens. Effie didn’t know what gout was, but it had sounded interesting. Yes, she had liked her grandparents very much.

They had not liked her.

In the olden days, parents and indeed grandparents were allowed – nay, encouraged to dislike their children. It ‘improved character’.

As they were leaving, they shared a quiet word with Efficiency’s parents about the girl in question. Among other things, they called her inefficient, which bolstered the chore-giving after they had left. Efficiency’s parents’ persistence in her education in efficiency was rather admirable, it must be said, although perhaps a little foolish.

‘Go and hang out this washing, Efficiency,’ said her mother one day, handing Effie a basket full of white linens — or more accurately, placing a large heap of fabrics and a small amount of woven grass onto an undersized child. The pile of laundry was almost twice her size.

‘Make haste; it will dry the quickest in the noonday sun.’

Effie nodded enthusiastically, and waddled out into the garden; the oversized basket made navigation slightly complex. She plonked it down in the grass. The sun was indeed shining ever so brightly, and warm as anything.

‘Well Now,’ she said. It was her favourite phrase. She had absolutely no idea what it meant. She unhooked the rope from the garden wall, and began to string it between the laundry poles that dotted the wildflowered plot of land. ‘Well Now,’ she reiterated.

She brushed a beetle off of the rope. Actually, there seemed to be rather a lot of beetles on it. Or were they ants? She was never quite sure. In any case, the numerous bugs — Effie did not know the word 'insects' yet — were practically pouring off of the string. Well, about a dozen, anyhow. It was quite exciting. She brushed those off too until she was satisfied she had got them all, then ran over to the hook on the garden wall where the rope had been kept, and sure enough there were a hundred ants or beetles, all shining in the noonday sun, all crawling up and down, making fascinating little routes through the cracks in the brick—

‘Efficiency!’ called her mother’s voice from somewhere within the house. ‘Is the washing nearly dry yet?’

Oh no! She had become distracted again — she must have been staring at the ants or beetles for at least half an hour. ‘Not yet!’ she called back gingerly. Frantically, she threw the linens over the now insect-free rope. But they were still soaking! Effie’s parents would surely know she’d done it wrong again, and then there would be hell to pay. How could she make it dry out quicker?

Children’s minds work far quicker when they are trying to avoid being caught by a grown up than in any classroom in the world. They have a knack for getting into trouble, and must practise getting out of it. Effie had not mastered the second half yet. Nevertheless, her mind scrambled for a solution.

And found one. Of course — Fire! When it was raining, her mother always put the clothes in front of the hearth to dry. Surely, the more fire you had, the quicker the laundry would dry?

Effie had not been taught the laws of thermodynamics yet, because they hadn’t been invented. If you are also unaware, dear reader, let me be the first to inform you; that is not how fire works.

She ran as quickly as she dared whilst remaining undetected into the kitchen to collect firewood and snatch the matches from the dresser. You must remember, dear reader, that in the olden days, children were actively taught how to use matches and informed where they were kept.

At the time it was also very common for schools to catch fire without rhyme or reason, particularly ones that used corporal punishment. An unrelated phenomenon. According to the teachers.

Effie laid out some sticks underneath the laundry, and struck the match. For a minute, it burned satisfactorily, and she thought she was in the clear. Then, predictably to any of you paying even a mite of attention, the flames licked just a little higher and the linens went up in a blaze.

‘Well Now,’ said Effie, as though this was a mildly annoying but on the whole not unwarranted occurrence. The blaze was rather pretty, but she resisted the urge to stand and stare at it.

She calmly went to get a bucket of water, but by the time she got back, both her mother and her father had arrived, and were watching the fire with a sort of fascinated horror. Similar slackjaws have been observed in dental patients under anaesthetic. Effie splashed the linens, quenching the fire and snapping her parents out of their reverie.

‘Efficiency Jane Pratt,’ said her father, which didn’t bode well. Neither did the tooth grinding that her mother was performing, which would likely soon make her a dental patient. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

There was a long silence. The laundry let out a puff of steam.

‘Well Now,’ smiled Effie, ‘the sun is very hot today.’

‘Do you expect us to believe,’ said her mother, standing with a straighter back than most soldiers can boast, ‘that the laundry caught on fire because of the sun?!’

In the lull in conversation that followed, you could hear three things: the ants and beetles moving as far away from the smouldering clothesline as possible; the laundry still fizzling slightly and emitting a smell that resembled burnt toast; and the clockwork ticking of Effie’s brain struggling to decide whether it was believable for the sun to have caused what would later be referred to as the Great Fire of Laundry.

‘Yes,’ she eventually said, firmly. ‘Without A Doubt.’ Without A Doubt was her second favourite phrase after Well Now.

Mrs. Jane Robust Pratt and Mr. Eura Pratt folded their arms simultaneously, and Effie knew she had made the wrong decision. She was not let out of her room for two weeks, which pained her greatly, as it was prime butterfly season.

Afterwards, she was always chaperoned when doing her chores. At least until – well, now that is a story for another day, my dear readers.

The End.

Buddy Ray Deering is a Writer, Actor and General Nuisance from London. They are currently studying at Bangor University, where they have been writing a great deal more than they have been studying — don't tell their lecturers. In their free time, they enjoy watching pretentious old films.