Six Geese A-Slaying (4 page)

I could see his eyes glaze over. Good; we were safely back in quaint again. Maybe he’d skedaddle back to Washington after
the parade and the county’s unemployed and working poor could collect their turkeys and warm coats in privacy.

I turned to greet the delegation from the nearby clown school, which involved receiving multiple joy buzzer handshakes and
having innumerable coins pulled out of my ears. I heard Werzel’s camera clicking, and cringed.

But when I’d dispatched the clowns to their staging area, I turned and found that Werzel was snapping pictures of the Dickens
float. Mother and her fellow Victorians certainly were elegant. I smiled approvingly as Werzel snapped shots of the float
from various angles. Another triumph for Mother’s decorating skills, not to mention her ability to appear completely impervious
to both summer heat and bitter cold like today’s weather.

Unfortunately, when Mother saw I was free, she furled her parasol and came over.

“Meg, dear,” Mother said, “we have a little problem.”

Chapter 5

“What little problem?” I repeated. I braced myself—Mother had once described the presence of a black bear in the living room
of our vacation cabin as a little problem.

“Those SPOOR people are at it again.”

“At what, Mother?”

“SPOOR people?” Werzel echoed.

“Stop Poisoning Our Owls and Raptors,” I said. “They’re a local environmental group. They specialize in bird-related issues.
What are the SPOOR members up to now, Mother?”

“They’ve brought those protest signs,” Mother said. “The ones with the depressing pictures of dead birds on them. I thought
you told them they couldn’t bring their placards. If they’re going to be marching with those signs. . . .”

“I did, and they’re not,” I said. “Where are they?”

“Over by the barn.”

“I’ll talk to them,” I said. “While I do, why don’t you show Mr. Werzel the camels?”

But Mr. Werzel wasn’t interested in camels, or assumed he could see them anytime between now and the start of the parade.
He trailed behind me as I went to straighten out the SPOOR delegation.

They were already dressed in their costumes—SPOOR members would be playing the six geese a-laying. They’d been trouble from
the start. Shortly after dawn, I’d had to lay down the law and forbid the entire SPOOR membership from marching in goose costume.

“It’s
six
geese a-laying,” I’d said. “Not thirty-seven.”

“Thirty-eight counting Mrs. Markland,” one of them had put in, and the others had nodded approval, as they always did when
anyone mentioned their late founder and first president.

“Mrs. Markland died last year,” I’d countered. “You’re not planning to bring her along, I hope?”

“She’s always with us in spirit,” one of the members had said.

“That’s fine,” I’d said. “You can have as many people with you in spirit as you like, whether they’re still on this plane
or have gone to that giant protest march in the sky. But I only want to see six of you marching in costume in the parade,
or I’ll get six of the Boy Scouts to replace you.”

They’d sulked at that, but had started drawing lots to see who got to wear their elaborately feathered Canada goose costumes
and who would simply march along behind in plain clothes, carrying the SPOOR banner. I’d also had to discourage them from
including an offputtingly realistic reenactment of egg-laying in their routine. I’d had a private word with Clarence, whom
I considered one of the more sensible of the SPOOR members, and he’d promised to keep them in line.

And yet, in spite of everything, here they were blatantly trying to ignore the ban on carrying political signs in the parade.

When I arrived, the six lucky members who would be portraying the geese were doing a Rockettes-style dance number. I had to
admit, it was pretty funny, seeing their giant webbed feet kicking into the air in unison, and even funnier when they bent
over and waggled their fake tail feathers. I realized I was grinning at the sight so I paused a moment to settle my face into
the kind of stern look that would tell them I meant business. And to see if I could have a word with Clarence. Even in costume,
I should be able to spot him, thanks to his towering height.

No tall geese in sight, unfortunately. But I did notice that a dozen other SPOOR members were scuttling around furtively behind
some shrubbery. They seemed to be carrying something.

I strode over, parted the bushes, and frowned at them. They were all hovering over a pile of placards. One of them had taken
off his coat and was trying to conceal the contraband. The dancing geese broke ranks and came trailing after me.

“I’m confiscating the signs,” I said. I began picking up the placards and tucking them under my arm. Something poked me, and
I realized that they’d trimmed the placards for the occasion with little bits of holly and evergreen.

“But it’s for such an important cause!” one of the costumed geese said.

“Yes, and that’s why I asked SPOOR to represent the geese,” I said. “Giving you a key, highly visible role in the parade.
But you’re not going to win over anyone, marching in the holiday parade waving pictures of dead birds.”

“They don’t all show dead birds,” one SPOOR member said. “We’ve got some with birds that are victims of an oil spill.”

“Oh, and that’s so much more cheerful than dead birds,” I said. “Look, the dancing’s great—it should get SPOOR a lot of attention,
and then when you are in a forum where it’s appropriate to protest, everyone will remember you favorably.”

Some of them seemed content with that idea, but the rest were muttering mutinously.

“And if you insist on carrying the placards—”

“We know—you can always replace us with Boy Scouts,” one said. “Of course the Boy Scouts don’t have costumes.”

“They’re always prepared, remember?” I said. “I’m sure they could come up with something on short notice.”

They nodded, most of them rather sullenly, and didn’t try to stop me from taking the rest of the signs.

Werzel fell in step with me as I headed toward the house with my armload of placards. He even nudged a couple back into place
when I began to lose my grip on them. It would have been nice if he’d offered to take a few, but he had his notebook out and
he was scribbling madly.

“So, you don’t approve of this SPOOR thing?” he said. He’d probably taken a few shots of the SPOOR rebellion. I made a note
to see if I could borrow his camera, once the parade was over, and accidentally delete anything really embarrassing.

“I thoroughly approve of SPOOR,” I said. “It’s a wonderful organization. My father’s the current president, and I’ve joined
in some of their protests myself. They’re doing good work to protect the bird population. But I told everybody from the start
that we weren’t allowing any political signs or gestures as part of the parade. Not even for political causes I agree with.
It’s a holiday parade.”

Just then, I noticed that one of the geese had followed us and was hovering nearby, clearly waiting for a chance to talk.
A very tall goose—Clarence? I looked around for someone to handle the placards and spotted my brother.

“Rob,” I said. “Put these somewhere. In the safe room.”

“Sure thing,”

“Safe room?” Werzel repeated.

“Our pantry,” I said. “It’s got a lock on the door. We have a lot of strangers wandering around the house and grounds today,
so anyone who wants a safe place to leave a purse or a laptop can check it in the safe room.”

“Good idea,” he said. “There’s always a klepto in every crowd.”

Especially if the crowd included Mother’s side of the family. We had several relatives who suffered from what Mother referred
to as “a little problem.” Michael liked the phrase “insufficiently developed understanding of the concept of private property,”
but I suspected in at least half the cases in my family the so-called kleptomaniacs were actually drama queens with an unquenchable
thirst to be the center of attention. Not that I was going to mention this to a reporter.

“And while you’re in the house, give Spike a bathroom break, okay?” I said to Rob.

“Roger.”

Jorge Soto came up to help Rob with the placards and I turned back to the goose.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

The goose took its head off, revealing Clarence’s shaggy mane.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I’ve been telling them repeatedly that signs were completely inappropriate. Not that they’ve
been listening.”

“I understand,” I said.

“It’s just that—”

He glanced at Werzel, who was holding his pen poised over his notebook as if waiting to take dictation.

“Can we have a little privacy here?” I asked.

Werzel cocked his head as if he didn’t quite understand what I was saying.

“Beat it,” Clarence said, his voice an octave lower than usual. He scowled at Werzel, and tried to cross his arms to assume
a menacing posture. Of course, the goose costume wasn’t designed for arm crossing, and it looked more as if he was trying
to fold his wings in prayer, but Clarence still looked remarkably menacing. Werzel got the message and hurried off. Clarence
turned back to me.

“Look,” he said. “I just wanted to give you a heads up about something. Feeling is running rather high among some of the SPOOR
members.”

“About the protest signs? Don’t they understand—”

“No,” he said. “About Santa.”

“Is there something environmentally unsound about the concept of Santa?” Staying politically correct seemed to get harder
every year.

“Not Santa in general, just your Santa.”

“You mean the Santa the Town Council foisted on me,” I said. “I would never have cast Ralph Doleson as Santa.”

“No, you’ve got more sense,” he said. “But remember what happened with him this summer? Oh, wait—it was while you and Michael
were on your honeymoon, so I suppose you didn’t hear. Well, in late June—oh, look!”

I turned to see what he was pointing at. The wise men were taking their camels for a test ride. The camels alone would have
been worth staring at—they were stately and majestic and wore the most elaborate and brightly colored leather saddles, bridles,
and other accoutrements I could ever remember seeing. They were even more impressive with the elaborately robed wise men riding
them. I looked around, but Ainsley Werzel had wandered off someplace. Ah, well—with luck, none of the photos he took would
be used for the article anyway, and the camels would still be around when the photographer eventually showed up.

Michael, at the head of the procession, looked as if he had been born in a camel saddle—partly because he was fairly good
at riding horses, and partly because he was too good an actor to let anyone know that he wasn’t quite at ease with Larry’s
oddly swaying gait. Behind him rode Dr. Montgomery Blake, my grandfather, who had spent so many of his ninety-some years roving
various wildernesses for zoological projects and environmental crusades that he was perfectly comfortable riding a camel,
horse, donkey, elephant, or any other steed or vehicle you could think of. He had one leg hooked around a protrusion that
was the Bedouin equivalent of the saddle horn, and was turned around nearly backwards, shouting instructions at our local
police chief, who was portraying the third wise man.

“Chief Burke doesn’t look altogether happy,” Clarence said, with a frown.

That was an understatement. The chief’s normally calm, brown face wore a fierce scowl that would ordinarily have reduced his
officers to abject terror lest they be the ones who’d screwed up. Under the circumstances, I suspected the scowl was a deliberate
attempt to hide absolute panic. But I had to hand it to him—he hung on gamely as the procession lurched and swayed its way
past the house and headed down the road.

“Aren’t they going the wrong way?” asked a child’s voice at my side. Cal Burke stood, shovel and pail in hand, staring anxiously
at the camel procession as it disappeared around a curve in the road.

“They’re just taking a practice ride,” I said.

“Hmph!” Minerva Burke, the chief’s wife, had appeared, wearing the maroon satin choir robe of the New Life Baptist Church.
She shook her head as she watched her husband’s progress. “At this rate, the old fool will break his neck before the parade
even begins. But there’s no stopping them when they get a crazy idea in their heads, is there? Cal, go keep an eye on your
grandfather.”

Cal nodded and scampered off behind the camels. Clarence frowned—was he still worried about Larry’s limp?—and followed.

Ainsley Werzel sauntered up. He’d thrown on one of the county-issue brown shepherd’s robes and was stuffing his press pass
inside it.

“Getting into the spirit of things,” he said, when he saw me eyeing the robe.

More like trying to fool people into thinking he was part of the parade and catch them off guard, I suspected.

“So Chief Burke’s one of the wise men?” he asked. “Is that okay?”

“More than okay, it’s useful,” I said. “In the unlikely event of any trouble, we’ll already have the police chief and a number
of his officers on hand to deal with it.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that carrying this whole multicultural thing a little too far?” Werzel asked. “I mean, were any of the original
wise men African-American?”

Was he making a joke? No, he sounded serious. I was still trying to figure out a tactful way to answer when Minerva Burke
spoke up.

“African-
American?
” she said, with a snort. “Not hardly, since it wasn’t till fifteen centuries after the Nativity that Columbus discovered
what the Indians had already found and a while after that before people started calling it America. Not to mention a couple
of centuries till the slave trade brought Africans to this side of the ocean. So, no, there weren’t any African-American wise
men.”

“However,” I said, “there’s a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages that one of the wise men, Balthazar, was African.”

“Just African,” Minerva Burke said. “No hyphen required.”

“And we’ve asked Chief Burke to be a wise man to honor that tradition.”

“Great, great,” Werzel said. He backed off, smiling nervously, until he was about ten feet away—at which point he pretended
to become fascinated with one of the musical acts—a barbershop quartet dressed as Christmas trees—and loped off as fast as
he could.

“Sorry,” Minerva said, shaking her head. “Don’t know why, but that man just brings out the mean in me.”

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “You’re welcome to chase him away any time you see him hovering near me. I really don’t want to
have to deal with a reporter on top of everything else.”

“I’d have thought you’d be pleased to see he was here,” Minerva said. “After all, we’ve been trying for years to get someone
other than the local rag to cover it. And you snagged the
Star
Tribune
—it’s a fabulous coup.”

“I didn’t snag him,” I said. “He just showed up. And if that’s a coup, it’s one that could backfire, big time,” I said. “Have
you read any of Werzel’s articles?”

She shook her head. Not surprising—I hadn’t either before the
Trib
called to request directions and a VIP pass. But a quick Google search told me all I needed to know.