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 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?”