Carrotty Kid takes up juggling and other mishaps

Carrotty Kid, the flame-topped scamp from the pages of The Dandy, has always been the sort of character who throws himself into hobbies with reckless enthusiasm. One week it is amateur magic, the next it is backyard cricket, and somewhere in between there is usually a sandwich involved. The latest streak of chaos begins when the orange-haired hero discovers an old set of juggling balls at a Bunnings car park sale, three for a dollar, and immediately decides he is destined for the big top.

Before long, Carrotty has turned the family lounge room into a training ground, dodging lamps, the dog, and an increasingly worried grandfather who just wanted to watch the afternoon test match in peace. The trouble is that Carrotty Kid, like many young Australians trying something new, believes talent should arrive fully formed and that practice is something other people require. Juggling, it turns out, has other ideas.

A new hobby in the back garden

The juggling balls came home wrapped in a plastic bag and were presented to the family as if they were the crown jewels. Carrotty stood on the back patio, the kind with a sagging Hills hoist and a milk crate full of cricket gear, and announced he would master the craft by sundown. Granddad raised an eyebrow from behind the sports section and asked whether the boy had considered simply tossing a tennis ball against the fence, as he himself had done in Brunswick back in the day.

Carrotty was having none of it. He had seen a clown at the Royal Melbourne Show and decided juggling was the way to impress the girl next door. Three balls flew up. Two landed in the herb garden. The third bounced off the rainwater tank and startled the magpies.

The first apples go flying

When the proper balls proved too bouncy, Carrotty raided the fruit bowl. A juggling apple was still a juggling object, and the kitchen had plenty of spare Granny Smiths. He lined three up on the verandah rail and tried a basic cascade he had seen in a book borrowed from the school library.

The result was immediate and messy. One apple split open on the bluestone path, another rolled under the Hills hoist into the neighbour's yard, and the third bounced into the garage where it sat next to a forgotten pair of thongs. The dog ate the evidence and, in fairness, looked very pleased with himself.

Tangerines, tennis balls and tantrums

By the second afternoon, Carrotty had moved on to tangerines because they were softer and made less mess. He recruited his long-suffering sister to count each successful catch, though she gave up after the seventh attempt when a tangerine caught her square on the ear. She retreated indoors to watch the latest episode of Boo! hosts a spooky sleepover basics.

Left to his own devices, Carrotty tied the tangerines to bits of string and hung them from the pergola, reasoning that a ball that could not fall was a ball that could not be dropped. Granddad wandered past, offered a grunt of approval, and pointed out that this was technically not juggling but rather hanging fruit.

The neighbourhood audience gathers

Word travels quickly in an Australian suburb, especially when there is hope of seeing somebody make a fool of themselves. By the third day, a small crowd had gathered at the bottom of the drive, including the girl next door, two kids who should have been doing homework, and a retiree with a folding chair and a thermos of tea.

Carrotty, never one to back away from an audience, strung a makeshift curtain between two Hills hoist posts and pinned a hand-painted sign to the fence that read CARROTTY'S CIRCUS. He demanded a gold coin entry from the front row. The retiree paid in exact change and asked whether there would be a meat pie at half-time. Carrotty said there would not, but promised there would be juggling.

Showtime at the local fete

The big debut did not happen in the backyard. The local primary school fete needed a last-minute act after the fire-twirler called in sick, and Carrotty, thanks to the retiree's networking, found himself on a fold-out stage between the cake stall and the lolly jar guessing competition. He was handed a microphone, a three-minute warning, and a paper bag from the sausage sizzle.

What followed was not perfect. One ball hit the lolly jar. One ball hit the cake stall. One ball, mysteriously, ended up in the esky. But Carrotty kept going, kept laughing at himself, and somehow turned the whole mess into a routine that had the crowd cheering by the end. Even the girl next door clapped, which was the only review Carrotty ever really cared about.

What the orange-haired hero discovers

The next morning, Carrotty woke up with a bruised elbow and a small trophy the fete committee had rustled up from the lost property box. He placed it on the mantelpiece next to a photo of Granddad's old cricket team and announced that juggling was done and it was time to move on to unicycles.

The real lesson was about something other than juggling. Sticking with something messy, laughing through dropped balls, and letting a neighbourly audience cheer you on are the small Australian virtues that turn a backyard disaster into a community event. Carrotty started by chasing applause, but finished by earning it.

If this sort of small-screen mischief is your idea of a good time, have a look at the television projects page for more of the strange and wonderful things happening over at Andy Fanton Dot Com, where new strips and drawings land whenever the kettle is on.