[Churchminster #3] Wild Things Read Free

Clementine could only watch in despair from the safety of Fairoaks, which was built on a slight hill, as the merciless brown waters had swept through her beloved village. To their anguish, it was the first time Calypso and Camilla had seen their grandmother cry. But when villagers had gone to the council to ask for money to floodproof the village, they were regretfully informed there was no money left in the pot to help them. The wealthier ones had put their hands in their pockets, coming up with an impressive three hundred thousand pounds between them, but it still wasn’t enough. They were sitting on a ticking time bomb – and winning Britain’s Best Village would safeguard their futures for ever. Clementine wouldn’t even entertain the idea that they wouldn’t.
    ‘Anyway, what are you up to grandmother dearest?’
    Clementine held up a piece of A4 paper.
    ‘I’ve drawn up a poster for the Britain’s Best Village meeting in the village hall on Sunday. If we’re going to win this thing then we need to start a proper committee, so I need people to volunteer.’
    Calypso pulled a face. ‘Why is there a lollipop in the corner?’
    Clementine looked put out. ‘It’s meant to be a tree.’
    ‘Riiight.’ Calypso leant back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘Not meaning to diss your art skills or anything, Granny Clem, but it’s a bit, well, rubbish, isn’t it? It’s not going to get them flocking in their droves.’
    Clementine frowned. ‘What do you mean? It’s got all the information, time, date and location. I thought my tree drawing rather jazzed things up.’
    Calypso rolled her eyes again. ‘Yeah, but people need more than that these days, don’t they? Something eye-catching and inspirational, that’ll get them off their bums and down to the village hall.’
    Clementine looked uncertain. ‘You think so?’
    ‘Like, deffo! Look, let me go and post these, and I’ll come back and do something on the computer for you.’ Calypso sprang up, revitalized, and bursting with one of her frequent bouts of energy.
    ‘Well, if you insist …’ Clementine wasn’t sure. She knew her granddaughter’s outlandish taste. ‘Just don’t do anything too avant-garde, will you, darling?’
    Calypso’s hazelnut eyes, the exact same colour as her grandmother’s , twinkled mischievously over the desk. ‘Granny Clem, as if I would!’
    Jack Turner, landlord of the Jolly Boot, polished a beer glass reflectively.
    ‘Interesting poster.’
    Behind the bar his wife Beryl was sticking it up with Blu-Tack. As usual, every window in the bar was wide open, trying to get out the last lingering vestiges of the damp smell from the flooding.
    ‘There! Pride of place.’ Beryl smoothed down her tight pencil skirt. ‘I think it’s lovely, Clementine. Your Calypso is really talented.’
    Clementine steeled herself to look at it again. ‘Do you think so?’
    ‘Oh yes!’ said Beryl. ‘It’s very er …’ She trailed off, searching for the right word. ‘
Colourful
.’
    It certainly was. Printed on bright green shiny paper, the words ‘Come join our garden party!’ stood out in large, neon-pink letters. Taking up the whole of one side was a voluptuous woman, wearing some sort of sunflower headdress. Whichever way you looked at it, it was hard to ignore the fact she was completely naked, her comely charms barely covered by three strategically placed leaves.
    ‘It’s a photograph of a reveller from the Mardi Gras carnival, apparently,’ said Clementine weakly. ‘At least that’s what Calypso told me.’
    ‘Mardi Gras,’ echoed Beryl. ‘How nice!’
    There was a brief silence.
    ‘You don’t think it matters that the words “Britain’s Best Village” are rather small?’ Clementine asked anxiously.
    Jack seemed transfixed. ‘No, no,’ he replied, eyes glazed over. ‘They’re not small at all.’
    The door at the back of the pub burst open and a buxom young lady with a combative look in her eye bounced in.