Atkinson’s satirizes a Sunday School outing by making it a continuous set of missteps that leave the three Lennox children, Clifford, Babs, and Bunty, in such a rush to the train station that only two of them make it.
The problem is that Nell Lennox, their disorganized mother, decides to make scones as their contribution to the picnic, and heedless of time, wants them to bake correctly. When the impatient children finally take the under-baked scones, wrapped in a green and white checked tea towel, they run to the station. But Bunty, the youngest, is too slow. The older children rush ahead and spill the scones.
As the train departs, the brother and sister look through the window and catch a glimpse of Bunty alone on the station platform, uncontrollably bawling. When a gruff ticket taker approaches her, Bunty is standing in a “pool of tears” and “a puddle of something more embarrassing.” Had Bunty made the train, she would not have cried, her knickers would have been dry, but her lunch prepared by the Sunday School teachers would have been egg and fish paste sandwiches. With hindsight, Bunty may have gotten the better deal. Either way, it’s a disaster.
See Kate Atkinson. Behind the Scenes of the Museum. New York: Picador, 1995