A Piggly Wiggly Christmas Read Free Page B

hope you don’t mind my going on about Peter like this. I was just trying to make a point.”
    Mr. Choppy put down his spoon and cupped his right hand under his chin, nodding thoughtfully at the recognition that flooded his brain. “I don’t mind one bit. Some a’ that sounds an awful lot like my life here in Second Creek, especially the part about people comin’ here with their agendas. I was halfway thinkin’ that your Santa Fe feelin’ might be akin to our Second Creek solutions.”
    “That’s the way I see it, too. Oh, the architecture is different, and one place is the Old Southwest and the other is the Old Deep South, but they’re both special places determined to do things their own way and not lose their identities.”
    Mr. Choppy finished off his ice cream and then helped his wife clear the table. Over the sink, he said: “Oh, I meant to tell you—I talked over the Caroling in The Square idea with all the councilmen, and I don’t think you and the churches’ll have any trouble gettin’ a special event permit from the city. And you haven’t said anything, but my guess is that things went well with your Nitwitts this afternoon.”
    She rinsed out the ice cream bowls and put them in the dishwasher before answering with an undeniable friskiness in her tone. “And you knew that because?”
    “Because if any of the ladies had raised a stink, I would have heard about it long before the ice cream came out. Am I right?”
    Gaylie Girl’s laughter was masked somewhat by the dishwasher starting up. “You know you are. They all went along, and now we’ve divvied up all the duties to within an inch of our lives. Imagine—the Nitwitts soliciting heavenly music.”
    Mr. Choppy paused for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. “How hard can it be to get people together to sing Christmas carols? Not much controversy in that, to my way of thinkin’.”

Two
    In Search of Angels

    T he Nitwitt trio of Gaylie Girl, Novie, and Laurie set out on their mission to the various Second Creek churches the very next week. Unexpectedly, however, Novie called up the other two and insisted that she was going to be their driver and escort. “Par excellence. I have a fun surprise in store for the both of you,” she explained, offering no details when Gaylie Girl pressed further at her end.
    “It’s perfectly fine with me, then,” Gaylie Girl answered. “Both you and Laurie know the town a whole lot better than I do. I have no idea where several of these churches are. So, drive on, my good woman!”
    Early Monday afternoon, Gaylie Girl was sitting quietly on the rose-colored Belter sofa in her freshly decorated drawing room. She was also finishing up a cup of herbal tea while scouring the latest issue of Southern Living for recipes when she was startled by the extremely loud honking of a horn. Of course, she knew that it would be Novie picking her up, but she was hardly prepared for what she encountered when she walked out onto the porch and closed the front door behind her. There, parked before her at the end of the boxwood-edged brick walkway that divided her diminutive front yard, was an enormous white-paneled van with a window or two thrown in for good measure. The kind, in fact, that some churches used to transport their indisposed members to and from services, pancake breakfasts, and potluck suppers. Or, more notoriously, akin to the model favored by drug dealers making their clandestine deliveries in the middle of the night.
    “Great heavenly ham and a plate of applesauce, Novie!” Gaylie Girl exclaimed, reaching out gingerly to touch the side of the van as Novie rolled down the window. “Where in the world did you get this monstrosity?”
    Plump little Novie then shut off the engine, climbed down out of the captain’s chair, and waddled her way around the ostentatious vehicle, unable to suppress a giggle. “Isn’t this sheer lunacy? My Caddy is in the shop, and they were supposed to get me a loaner, but