Miz Scarlet and the Holiday Houseguests (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery #3) Read Free Page A

informed my mother.
    “Why?” My mother looked up at me
expectantly.
    “Because she will be bored with idiots
and jerks,” I replied confidently. “They won’t understand what she
says to them.”
    “Good heavens, Scarlet Wilson! Have you
learned nothing all these years?” my mother demanded, wagging her
index finger at me in warning.
    “What?”
    “You’re not supposed to talk honestly
in front of the m-e-n.”
    “Ha! Burn,” said Jenny to my brother,
laughing.
    “Very funny, ladies. I’ll remember
this. And wait until I sit down for a chat with Santa. Coal for all
of you!”
    “If it’s all the same to you, I would
much prefer a more environmentally-friendly material in my
stocking, Bur.” Jenny’s eyes twinkled.
    “Touch é!” he shot back. “And so it begins. The cute girl morphs into
the old crone. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, missy! If you’re not
careful, you’ll turn absolutely hideous, like Miz Scarlet
here.”
    “If only you had the brains to match
wits with the rest of the world, instead of being just another
pretty boy....” I teased.
    “Pretty is as pretty does,” he
announced, pirouetting into the dining room with all the grace of a
blind Baryshnikov on steroids, leaving us in stitches.
    “When can we decorate the tree?” Jenny
called after him. “I can’t wait!”
    Bur reemerged with the tree stand in
hand. “Let me make sure this will fit over the trunk
first.”
    “What if it doesn’t?” she
wondered.
    “We’ll go dump it in the woods and
start again. There are plenty of other trees in the forest. We’ll
just keep chopping until we find one that fits.”
    “You can’t do that!” Her shocked face
said it all. “That’s just so...wrong!”
    “No? What do you brainy
women suggest?” he inquired. That’s when she realized he was
yanking her chain. “Ha ha! I’ll have you know I wrote the book
on Burn 101 , little
girl!”
    “Give me strength, Lord,” my mother
groaned with great exaggeration. “These children try my
patience.”
    “Somebody has to keep you on your
toes,” Bur replied. “Okay, we’re good to go. Help me carry the tree
into the living room. We have to let it stand a few hours, so the
branches rest. Then I’ll put all the lights on and you can hang the
ornaments, squirt.”
    “I love Christmas!” She and I grabbed
the trunk in tandem while my brother took the top. Together, we
waddled our way through the dining room, down the hallway, and over
to a corner in the living room, where we unwrapped the covering and
managed to set the tree upright. I held it in place while Bur
screwed the long bolts into the trunk.
    “Lovely tree. Well done,” Laurel
declared as she watched from behind.
    “Look!” the excited teenager pointed.
“There’s a little bird’s nest!”
    My mother rolled her wheelchair forward
to take a peek. “It looks like a cardinal’s nest.”
    “But how do you know it wasn’t built by
a chickadee... or a sparrow?”” the inquisitive teen
wondered.
    “It’s twiggy. Cedar waxwings use more
grass and leaves when they build theirs. Every bird has a
preference for where to build its nest,” my mother explained. “Some
do it in the cavities of tree trunks or a bird house. Some prefer
the branches of deciduous trees, where they can fly out easily.
Others prefer to hide in evergreens like this, or even
shrubs.”
    “I just assumed all birds just pick any
old tree.”
    “Bite your tongue!” Bur poked her.
“There is no such thing as ‘any old tree’, not in this family,
anyway.”
    “When you want to identify what type of
bird crafted a nest, look at the materials and construction
techniques. Is there mud, twigs, grass, or moss? You’ll find the
robin’s nest in the fork of a tree. Vireos make nests that look
like a cup hanging down from a tree branch, and Baltimore orioles
make nests that look like woven bags. Goldfinches build on the ends
of the tree branches and line their nests with the dander from