Last fall, yours truly, the smart and wily Ida Hamilton
Walker, got punked. Bamboozled. Conned. By my own police
chief. Amos Royden threatened to take our relationship
public, that is, to court me, to pursue me, to put some
moves on me. To make our unconsummated romance a real one.
As mayor of Mossy Creek I can stand my ground on any
threat except being openly seduced by my own police chief.
So last fall I turned tail and ran, to my shame. But I
didn’t desert The Sitting Tree. Oh, no. I just went
underground with my civil disobedience, on the tree’s
behalf.
I marshaled the Foo Club and the rest of my loyal troops,
and discreetly directed their protests. We managed to stir
up plenty of public outrage and get the TV news cameras
turned on us, a tactic we’ve perfected several times since
we kidnapped the new welcome sign a while back. As a
bonus, we antagonized my pompous nephew, Governor Ham
Bigelow, who, as it turned out, has a big-money family
connection to the scheme to bulldoze the tree. As usual.
Best of all, we got a temporary restraining order against
Whoopee Arcades, Inc., the cheesy, underhanded, Bigelow-
cronyism-connected amusement park developer who was
planning to destroy The Sitting Tree and flatten the
foothill ridges of Rose Top, the historic mountain where
the tree stands in a lower meadow.
Since then I’ve kept the restraining order alive while
feverishly searching for evidence I need to save the tree
and its mountain meadow permanently. I know I’ll win that
battle, but it’ll be a tainted victory. I can’t forgive
myself for my cowardice in the face of Amos’s oh-so-not-
subtle romantic threat. No way. I've been kicking my own
svelte behind for the past four months.
My cell phone rang (it plays the opening bars of Stevie
Nick’s Dreams.) I checked the caller number excitedly.
“Hope?” I yelled into the phone. “What did you find --
besides hundred-year-old cockroach skeletons and dirty
drawings of women in corsets.”
Hope hooted. “It’s here! Just like Cousin Farley wrote in
that ancient diary you found! Behind the wallboard in the
attic, right where he said he put it for safekeeping after
Great Aunt Belinda died – stuffed between the pages of the
ladies’ lingerie section of a 1902 Sears and Roebuck
catalog!”
I hooted in return. God bless our great aunt’s son -- our
long-dead mutual cousin, Farley -- and his fetish for
busty Victorian babes wearing whalebone. “Hurry home,” I
told Hope. “I’m calling Ingrid. We’ll pick you up at
Bailey Mill in a few hours.”
“Where are we going?”
I chuckled fiendishly. My New Year’s resolution – to stay
out of trouble – floated past like a small, resigned
angel, waving goodbye. “We’re driving down to Atlanta to
visit the governor. He’s got a meeting scheduled with the
Whoopee Arcade people this afternoon. Perfect timing.” I
paused, relishing the image of my pompous nephew roasting
on a slow spit of defeat. “Ham’s about to get punked.”
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