Mark your territory
A perfect holiday read for all ages
WE OWN THE ROOFTOPS, STREETS, AND BEACHES.
CHIPS, PASTIES, ICE CREAMS —ARE TO BE SHARED.
ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAY.
By order of the gulls
***
Young gull Lazarus (crew name Flick) is living his best life—in St Ives, flapping and filching with his mates, his crew.
His father, Solmondor, still believes in fishing and foraging—the noble arts, he calls them—but that’s hard work, and what’s the point when humans provide everything?
Yet the past has a way of catching up.
And a dark shadow is on the move.
***
The perfect beach read. Funny, visceral, and poignant, ‘The Art of Stealing Chips in the Mizzle’ is a modern seaside fable about finding the courage to face what you’ve flown from.
***
Note: Image shows hardback cover.
A look inside...
‘You’re a herring gull, Lazarus. Act like one.’
Father’s stare—granite-hard.
Gulls—divers—screamed from the clouds, stupid-fast, white streaks into the deep.
Zip-zip-zip—for the sardines, the silver.
His belly tightened.
Not for him. Not yet. Maybe never. Not after what happened.
Leg still messed up. Head still patchy. Feathers wouldn’t grow there.
Mother stood with Father now. Not beside Lazarus.
Proper peck in the gut or what?
He looked to the ocean.
Time to leave this stink-o’-sardine flat roof.
He loved Father, the stupid old fool.
But that gull had no idea what Lazarus had found.
Gulls didn’t have to dive.
Not anymore.
Act 1
Est (August)
Two seasons later.
Chips and pasty on the warm wind.
St Ives, Cornwall—gull paradise.
Harbour. Proper one.
That’s how Lazarus had bigged it up yesterday, to the brown-feathered gull he’d met—a gull that called him brother.
Brother? Lazarus hadn’t known he had one.
‘In town—Sives we call it—I’m known as Flick,’ he’d told the little sprat, to set things straight. ‘My crew name. I fly fast, edgy. So leave off with the Lazarus.’
They’d split with a plan: rub feathers again come morning.
Morning had arrived, regular as ever.
Flick hadn’t slept well. Moonlight—bright as Father’s stare—wouldn’t clear his head.
Belly a live bait tub, squirming.
A brother.
Samoel.
His parents could’ve warned him.
Now, sun warming his legs, he perched on the easy-angled roof of the lifeboat house—where the big blue-and-orange boat lived.
Bloaty, the gulls called it.
Out at sea, past Smeaton’s harbour wall, gulls dove to fill their bellies.
Show-offs.
Not better’n him.
Blog posts
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Fun facts about gulls
People think gulls are just feathered pickpockets, screaming down the harbour for pasties. True enough — but there’s more to them than chip-thieving chaos. Here’s a few facts worth squarking...
Fun facts about gulls
People think gulls are just feathered pickpockets, screaming down the harbour for pasties. True enough — but there’s more to them than chip-thieving chaos. Here’s a few facts worth squarking...
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The evolution of an idea (and title)
Sometime between 2007 and 2012 I did some work as a tradesman, in a cottage in North Wales. I can’t remember exactly which property, but I can picture it: a...
The evolution of an idea (and title)
Sometime between 2007 and 2012 I did some work as a tradesman, in a cottage in North Wales. I can’t remember exactly which property, but I can picture it: a...
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About the author
Julian Patrick lives in Marazion, Cornwall, where the gulls and the mizzle insisted on becoming characters. The Art of Stealing Chips in the Mizzle is his debut novella—a darkly comic...
About the author
Julian Patrick lives in Marazion, Cornwall, where the gulls and the mizzle insisted on becoming characters. The Art of Stealing Chips in the Mizzle is his debut novella—a darkly comic...
