Winner of the optional homework competition, January 2007
Professor Rosenkopf
and the Quest for Cheese
by
Adrian
Faulkner
It wasn’t the loud bang or smoke that told Mrs Ham that
Professor Rosenkopf’s latest experiment had gone
wrong, but the smell of singed hair.
“I don’t know, Mrs Ham,” the Professor told his housekeeper,
“perhaps I’m not cut out to be a scientist.”
“There, there,” said Mrs Ham, “you’re just having an off
day. Howsabout I fix us up a supper with some
of our favourite Stilton cheese.”
Professor Rosenkopf smiled. He had gone all day without food, and Stilton
was his favorite. But Mrs Ham came back looking
dejected.
“Oh dear,” she said, “It looks like we’ve eaten all the
cheese, and what with the shops now closed, we won’t be getting any until
morning at earliest. If only it had been a couple of hours earlier, I
could have sent you out to get some.”
If only indeed; Professor Rosenkopf’s
stomach was rumbling and the expectation had got his palette longing for a bit
of Stilton. And then it hit the professor
“I
know where I can get some,” he said and rushed out of house.
Mrs Ham didn’t know where he was likely to find a shop
open locally at this time on a Sunday, but time had taught her not to question
when the Professor was hit by inspiration. So she went into the kitchen,
put on the big pink rubber gloves, and set about doing the professor’s washing.
She was surprised then, when, not two minutes later, the
Professor came back into the house, carrying the lawn mower up to his
room. Then he came down and started collecting various items from around
the house: a spoon, some twine, the light bulb and lampshade from the lamp in
the hall.
Little did Mrs Ham know that the professor was building a
time machine.
“If I can go back two or three hours,” he told himself,
“the shops will still be open, and I can buy some cheese.”
However, the professor was surprised when he activated his
construction, not to find himself and the time machine in the house some two or
three hours earlier, but on a dirt track in the middle
of the country.
“Woah!” came
a shout from behind him, and he turned to see a horse-drawn carriage bearing
down on him. The driver, yanked the reigns hard
to the left and swerved the carriage around the time machine. The left
rear wheel couldn’t take the strain, and snapped, driving one corner of the
carriage deep into the dirt, and slowing the carriage to a halt.
“I’m sorry Mr Thornhill,” the
coachman told his passenger, “but it’ll take a couple of hours to fix.
Why don’t you go to that farm up on the hill, and I’ll come fetch you when it
is fixed.”
The Professor was sure he recognised the name, but
couldn’t work out from where. More confusingly, it seemed, from the state
of dress of the coachman and the Mr Thornhill that
his time machine had gone back several hundred years rather than just a couple
of hours.
“You there,” said Mr Thornhill,
walking over to the professor, “what do you mean by parking your cart in the
middle of the road. Could have killed us all”
Mr Thornhill tapped on the Time
machine with his cane to indicate what he was talking about.
“Oh I apologise,” said the Professor, “but my Time… cart
developed a… a malfunction that has made it … difficult to move.”
“Well, no harm done. But I would be most grateful if
you would accompany me up to the farm. It seems a long walk and I could
do with the company.”
The Professor agreed, keen to find out more about where he
was. He escorted the gentleman up to the farm, and then explained the
situation to a Mrs Orton and her daughter, Elizabeth, who lived there.
“You best come in then,” said Mrs. Orton. “Sits yourself down and I’ll get
True to her word, Professor Rosenkopf
and Mr Thornhill, had hardly had time to sit down before
“I say,” said Mr Thornhill,
“there’s something wrong with this cheese. I think it’s bad.”
“Oh no,” said the Professor, instantly recognising the
cheese as his favourite, “the blue veins help give it it’s
distinctive flavour.”
Mr Thornhill gingerly tried a
piece, and upon finding the flavour to his taste, eagerly scoffed the rest.
“Heavens,” he told the Professor. “You’re
right. This cheese is wonderful.”
He stood up and bowed to his host.
“Miss Orton,” he said, “I am the proprietor of the Bell
Inn, a modest establishment some 40 miles from here in the
“Really, sir?” said the young lady, “I don’t knows if
there would be such demand for our cheese.”
“Oh trust me,” said the
Professor, “this is the type of cheese that will be talked about for years and
miles.”
It was then that the Professor realised where he
recognised the name Thornhill from. In 1730, a
landlord from stilton, named one Cooper Thornhill,
stopped at a small farm near Melton Mowbray, where he became so enamoured with
the strange blue-veined cheese he was served that he
made a business arrangement that granted his
It wasn’t long before the coachman pulled up at the farm
with the carriage wheel repaired.
“She might be a little bumpy, sir, but she’ll get you
home” he told Mr Thornhill.
Mr Thornhill ordered the
coachman to fill the carriage with the Orton’s entire supply of their
blue-veined cheese, and whilst he saw to this, Mr Thornhill
turned to Professor Rosenkopf and said:
“Well, my strange fellow, you may have caused me to be
late returning home, but at the same time, without you, I would have not
discovered this wondrous cheese. So I bid you a fond farewell and only
ask that in future you take more care where you park you cart.”
He handed the Professor what he thought at first was a
foreign coin, until he realised it was a silver shilling.
“For your assistance,” smiled Mr Thornhill,
climbing into his cheese-laden carriage.
It was late by the time the Professor returned home to the
present, but Mrs Ham was still up.
“I was so worried where you’d got to Professor,” she said
as he gave her a slice of the Orton’s cheese with a crudely made gift tag
addressed to her.
“I hope you like it,” he said.,
“it’s certainly quite mature.”