Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos

Camp followers?

She's Michael's mother, I told myself, as I forced my hands to unclench, bit back several stinging replies, and walked away.

You don't want to get in an argument with Michael's mother.

And however seductive it might seem right now, killing her would be a bad idea. The police were still swarming all around, and Michael would be upset. I glanced over to where Michael was standing with his unit. He hadn't heard what she said. Maybe she hadn't meant it as an insult. Michael saw me looking at him, said something to his comrades, and headed my way.

"Meg, are you okay?" he asked, as he rejoined me.

"Thank goodness the police have finally arrested the murderer," I heard Mrs. Waterston say to the officer at her side.

"Not as far as I'm concerned," I muttered.

"She doesn't mean it that way," he said. "She's so focused on her festival; it's not as if she's even thought about whether Faulk's guilty or not."

"I know," I said. "Look, I've got to get back to my booth; you have to go rehearse. I'll see you at the skirmish."

"Meg, are you sure – "

"Michael!" Mrs. Waterston called. "Why aren't you with your regiment? We're getting ready for the rehearsal skirmish."

"You're right, I've got to run," Michael said. "We'll figure out what to do later."

I nodded and moped off, back to my booth.

The craft fair was open for another hour, and I got through it on autopilot, fending off questions from people who wanted to know more about Faulk's arrest with the not inaccurate claim that I was too busy to talk. On the bright side, I realized I wasn't going to go broke from the weekend's adventures. Eileen and Amanda had taken care of the booth in my absence, and had done well. I could gauge how tired I was by the fact that I couldn't instantly calculate in my head exactly how well, but I suspected I'd have a record weekend, even if I sold nothing on Sunday – not that there was much left to sell. And I'd taken a slew of orders for special commissions, which meant future income during the normally slow winter season. Of course, the bad news was that most of the commissions were for wrought-iron flamingos. I decided to get depressed about that later, so I could concentrate, for the moment, on feeling depressed about Faulk's arrest.

When the fair closed for the day, I headed over toward my parents' house for a short visit. I'd probably miss the beginning of the rehearsal skirmish, but I didn't think anyone would miss me, and I needed a break.

A break from portapotties. A break from the questions everyone had been throwing at me. And a break from the close proximity of the cannon, which had been booming quite vigorously ever since having to give Mrs. Waterston an alibi had revealed the crew's ploy with the speakers. Even at this distance, I thought, the cannon was giving me a headache. Or was it just stress? And I was very much afraid that our deal for some peace and quiet at night would be off.

I ran into my nephew Eric as I walked down the driveway.

"Meg!" he said, his face lighting up. Nice to know someone was glad to see me, although he looked uncharacteristically anxious.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Duck's brooding again," he said. "Can you help?"

"Brooding?" I asked. Weren't we all? But then, Eric's pet duck was a cheerful, gregarious creature who followed him around like a pet dog. What could she possibly be brooding about, and what was I supposed to do about it – quack knock-knock jokes?

"Brooding," Eric repeated. "Sitting on her eggs. Can you help?"

Oh. Of course.

"Why does Duck need my help with that?" I asked.

He sighed.

"She keeps laying them in all the wron places, and people break the eggs accidentally, or they have to chase her away. I thought maybe if we moved the eggs just right, she would go on sitting on them in the new place."

"Okay," I said. "We can give it a try."

I could see what he meant about all the wrong places. Duck was sitting on the hood of Dad's car. Evidently Dad hadn't driven it for the past day – no, two days. I could see two eggs under Duck. And Dad might not get around to driving his car until after the festival was over, but even a bird-lover like Dad was unlikely to give up driving for however many days it took duck eggs to hatch. Assuming they ever did hatch, which was unlikely, since Duck was, as far as we knew, the only duck for miles around.

I sent Eric in to get a bit of deviled egg, Duck's favorite food, and studied the situation. I had been struck by what seemed like an inspiration, and I was testing it to see if it had any cracks.

When Eric returned with the food, we managed to lure Duck off the car hood long enough for me to grab the pair of eggs she was sitting on. She didn't like it much, though; she began quacking and making little dashes at me with lowered beak. But she didn't seem to mind Eric holding them.

"Eric," I said. "How far do you think you can lead Duck?"

"She'll follow me anywhere," he boasted. "At least when she's not sitting on her eggs, that is."

"Good," I said. "You know those guys who are firing the cannon out on the battlefield?"

I watched as Eric went down the driveway, carefully holding the eggs, with Duck following behind. With any luck, if Eric could find a moment to deposit the eggs on top of the cannon, we'd have another night's reprieve from the cannon fire.

And the cannon crew would, I knew, take good care of Duck.

Probably overfeed her, but then, so did Dad and Eric.

"Remember," I called. "Wait until the skirmish is over. And try not to let anyone see you."

Eric nodded, not even looking back, so fiercely was he concentrating on the eggs.

When I got to the house, I found Mother and Mrs. Fenniman moping on the porch as neglected glasses of lemonade sweated small puddles onto a tile-topped table.

"Hello, dear," Mother said, faintly, as I sat down.

Mrs. Fenniman merely grunted.

I thought of going to the kitchen for a glass so I could pour myself some lemonade, but it seemed like too much trouble. I sat down on the glider and rocked for a while in silence. From time to time, either Mother or Mrs. Fenniman would sigh.

I don't know why I didn't succumb to the contagious atmosphere of gloom and depression, but I didn't. Okay, I'd arrived ready to whine a little and extract some sympathy, but seeing the two of them pining away like lost souls ticked me off. It was okay for me to get depressed, dammit, but a world in which neither Mother nor Mrs. Fenniman was out causing some kind of mischief was truly a world turned upside down.

"So what's wrong with you?" I finally asked Mrs. Fenniman.

"I feel worse than a snake with a potbelly," she said. "That low-down polecat of a sheriff has stolen the damned election with his sneaky tomato toss."

"Then go out and do something sneakier," I said.

"Can't," she said.

"Yes, you can," I said. "I have every faith in your superior guile and cunning."

"I thought you were going to think of something for me," she complained.

"Okay, borrow the dunk tank they use at the county fair and have them set it up in front of the courthouse," I suggested. "Or go hand out your grandmother's recipe for stewed tomatoes. Better yet, go down to the garden-supply store and buy up all the tomato seeds you can find and hand them out."

Mrs. Fenniman chuckled faintly; then more vigorously as she started thinking about it.

"I might," she said. "I just might do that. I think I'll go down there right now."

She got up, drained her lemonade, and strode off down the driveway.

"It's October," Mother pointed out. "They probably don't have a lot of seeds at the garden-supply store."

"Well, by the time she gets there and finds that out, she'll be so fired up she'll think of something better," I said. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, dear," Mother said.

"Well, it's too dull for me around here," I said, standing up. "I'm going down to the battlefield to watch the rehearsal. Mrs. Waterston sure does know how to put on a festival. I think she'll be a shoe-in to chair next year's committee."

Mother sniffed.

"And I bet the battle's going to be the most exciting thing of the whole weekend," I went on. "Yes, I bet people will be talking about that battle for weeks. Months, even."

"Nonsense," Mother exclaimed. "It's going to be a complete disaster. You should hear some of the ridiculous things she's said about it. That woman knows nothing about how to plan a battle."

"And how much do you know about planning battles?" I asked.

"As much as Mrs. Waterston, thank you very much," Mother said. "And a great deal more about the Battle of Yorktown. After all, I grew up here. She's going to spoil everything."

"Well, there's not much you can do about that now," I said.

"We'll see about that," she said. She got up, went into the house to repowder her hair and top it off with a huge flower-trimmed straw hat, and set off down the driveway at a brisk pace.

As I followed, more slowly, I didn't know whether I'd done a good deed or just stirred up trouble, but I felt better now that only one of us was moping.

Out on the battlefield, chaos reigned. Rope barriers now divided the battlefield proper from the sidelines, where workmen had begun erecting bleachers for the spectators. Mrs. Waterston, in yet another fabulously ornate period dress, was running up and down the sidelines like a football coach, barking out orders with an anachronistic megaphone that the Town Watch were studiously ignoring. I could tell from some of the comments of other people in the watching crowd – friends and family of some of the reenactors, from the sound of it – that they resented her. I could only imagine what the troops felt about the whole thing.

Especially since a lot of the participating reenactors had been to Yorktown Day before and knew a lot about what actually took place back in 1781. I figured out, finally, why so many reenactors tolerated Mrs. Waterston's unpopular decisions – she had somehow convinced the National Park Service to allow her to stage the reenactment on the actual battleground, an unheard of feat in recent memory. Still the troops obviously didn't like her plans as detailed on the official instruction sheets the Town Watch handed out. A few people were shouting mad and a lot more simply muttered mutinously.

And yet the show went on, and Mother appeared to have something to do with it. To my surprise, she was acting as a peacemaker. After Mrs. Waterston passed through a group, stirring up discontent and making herself about as popular as the tax on tea must have been, Mother would follow in her wake and leave even the surliest soldiers smiling.The rehearsal skirmish got started late, but it did start, with Mother, sitting at the edge of the battlefield, smiling and waving a handkerchief at the participants whenever ill will seemed about to erupt.

"It's too good to be true," I muttered, as I sat on the bleachers with Dad, watching another column of troops march out onto the field for the rehearsal. "She's up to something."

"Who's up to something?" Dad asked.