As if in answer, they drifted down a little heavier. I shivered slightly, then pushed the cold aside and ceremonially uncovered the partridge.
Mother and the ladies of the Caerphilly Garden Club had done the First Day of Christmas float, building an elaborate and horticulturally improbable pear tree, festooned with both fruits and blossoms along with enough tassels, ribbon, feathers, garlands, and other gewgaws to keep a decorator’s shop supplied for a year. It was done in tones of gold and yellow, with a few accent notes of green. Even the car pulling the float was color-coordinated, a butter-yellow Mercedes convertible with an evergreen-and-pear wreath on the front grill.
The partridge—a real partridge, chosen for his phlegmatic temperament from among the partridge flock at the Caerphilly Zoo after Dr. Blake had inspected the cage and pronounced it suitable—was resting under a yellow silk cage cover until his moment in the limelight began. I whisked the cover off, and the partridge blinked and looked around curiously. He looked a little incongruous in his glittering environment—had anyone bothered to warn the ladies of the Garden Club that partridges’ feathers were mainly in earth tones? At least they’d had the sense not to suggest dyeing him to match his surroundings.
One of the junior zookeepers, dressed in a jeweled pear costume, was climbing onto the float.
“You’ve got the stuffed partridge, in case he gets stressed?” I asked.
The zookeeper nodded.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” I said. “Wagons, ho!”
The president of the Garden Club began waving at the surrounding crowd while her husband started the convertible and eased the float into motion.
The audience lining the beginning of the parade route set up a hearty cheer.
I directed a small marching band from the middle school into place behind the float, and they launched into the first of who knows how many repetitions of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
“Turtledoves!” I shouted.
The turtledoves followed—Miss Caerphilly County and her boyfriend, in feathered cloaks, sitting before a large heart made of chicken wire and pink Kleenex. Probably destined to become a large, damp papier mâché heart if the snow didn’t hold off, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. I did scribble a quick line in my notebook suggesting that next year’s Mistress or Master of the Revels insist on water- and snow-proof floats.
The three French hens rolled by, on their float from the French Cultural Alliance, followed by a fiddler playing “Un Flambeau, Jeannette Isabelle.” Four local auctioneers in blackbird costumes made rather odd calling birds, but the five gold rings were a crowd-pleaser: five local Olympic hopefuls, marching behind a set of interlocking Olympic rings made of hula hoops adorned with Christmas lights. Six Olympians, if you counted the horse one of the humans hoped to ride in the dressage event.
I was admiring the horse, who pranced and tossed his head as if he thought the whole parade had been arranged just to showcase him, when a whining voice piped up at my elbow.
“Are you people ever going to find my camera?”
Ainsley Werzel. Evidently the impending snow had inspired him to don a quilted down jacket, though I could still see the tail of the brown shepherd’s robe hanging down below the jacket’s hem. And he was shivering in spite of the jacket, and hunched against the cold. If I’d seen anyone else looking that miserable, I’d have felt sorry for them. In fact, to my surprise, I did feel sorry for him.
I finished shooing the Madrigal Society into place behind the Olympians and took a deep breath before answering.
“No,” I said. “We haven’t yet found your camera. I’m terribly sorry, but—”
“How can I cover this stupid, miserable parade without my camera?”
Stupid? Miserable? I might be biased, but I thought our parade was pretty damned wonderful. I bit back several satisfyingly withering replies. He was a guest, and what’s more, a guest who had the power to make us look like idiots in the Star-Tribune. I looked around and spotted my nephew.
“Eric!” I called. “Can you do me a favor?”
He obediently trotted to my side.
“Can you go up to my office and find my digital camera? Mr. Werzel is going to borrow it—”
“I don’t want your—” Werzel began.
“Just until we can find his camera,” I continued, glowering at Werzel as I spoke, and enunciating every word with icy precision. “We understand that he needs the photos in his own camera, but at the moment we’re a little too busy to look for it. I’m sure Mr. Werzel understands that we will do everything we can to find his camera . . . after the parade.”