Six Geese A-Slaying Read Online Free PDF Page B

Werzel, the reporter, stumbling along in pursuit of the choir, snapping away with his tiny camera. So much
     for our image as an erudite, cosmopolitan community. Maybe I should be glad he’d already pegged us as quaint. Quaint was an
     improvement over barmy.
    Since Werzel’s camera looked like the same inexpensive model that I used to take family snapshots, we could always hope that
     his photos didn’t turn out good enough for the Trib to use. Where was the promised professional photographer, anyway?
    I double-checked my participants list to make sure I had the waiver from the choir absolving me, the Caerphilly Town Council,
     and the immediate world of responsibility for anything that might happen to the high-flying angels during the parade. Reassured,
     I stamped the choir in as present and accounted for.
    “Not bad for a small town.”
    Ainsley Werzel had returned. I had to smile—the reporter was clearly struggling to maintain his former air of cool superiority.
     Score one for the elephants.
    I waved and just nodded to him—at the moment, I was busy welcoming Miss Caerphilly County. Werzel stood by with surprising
     patience while I admired the beauty queen’s hair, earrings, nails, makeup, dress, and shoes and gave her directions to the
     women’s dressing room—the living room and library in Michael’s and my house.
    “So how far is Tappahannock from here?” he asked.
    “Forty-five minutes to an hour,” I said.
    “You’re an hour away,” he shouted into his cell phone. “I said west of Tappahannock, not in it.” He snapped the cell phone
     closed.
    “Photographer’s still lost,” he said. “So how come you guys have this shindig only two days before Christmas? Most towns have
     their Santa parade at the beginning of the shopping season so the parents can hear their kids’ gimme lists. And the stores
     can make more sales.”
    “Caerphilly’s parade started out as an event to give presents to the town’s poor children.”
    “You mean poor as in economically disadvantaged?” Werzel said.
    “A hundred years ago, when the parade started, people mostly just said poor,” I answered. “But yes. And then when the Great
     Depression came, everyone was economically disadvantaged, and they started the tradition of giving every kid in town a present.
     So that’s what has happened for the last eighty years or so.”
    He nodded and scribbled some more. I considered telling him that while our curmudgeonly Santa was handing out small presents
     to all the children, regardless of economic status, in the public ceremony, many of the families who were quite genuinely
     poor would be picking up additional presents, not to mention food and warm clothing, from stations set up by the various churches
     and community service organizations.
    I decided against telling him. If he bothered to use the information, it would make Caerphilly look good, but I doubted he
     would mention it. And more important, most of those proud, struggling country families were embarrassed enough at having to
     accept handouts. It would be the last straw to have some reporter from a big city paper taking intrusive pictures of them
     doing so.
    “And there’s a big festival,” I said instead. “Baked goods, barbecue, craft sales, lots of raffles, judging the quilting and
     cooking contests, performances from many of the local musical groups and church choirs—sort of like a big church bazaar and
     a county fair rolled into one.”
    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