Saturday at the Kettle Café

Text 1: Table Six, by Fiona Strachan

An original short story extract.

By ten o’clock on her first Saturday, Shona had stopped counting the orders. Every table in the Kettle Café was full, and there was a queue out of the door and along the pavement past the launderette. The coffee machine screamed without a break. Bells rang from the kitchen hatch, where plates of eggs and beans were piling up faster than anyone could carry them. She took four breakfasts to table six, and table six said they had ordered pancakes. Somebody’s toddler was sitting under table nine, eating sugar cubes. Her notepad was so covered in scribbled orders that she had started writing on the back of her hand. When Mrs Garvey, the owner, swept past with a tray of teapots, she pressed a cold sausage roll into Shona’s apron pocket. ‘Lunch,’ she said. ‘Eat it when you get the chance. You won’t.’

Give three words or phrases that show how busy the café is.