by Nina Watson
It was October and a chill was strolling through the air, dancing
with the leaves who turned a shade of blush with embarrassment. As soon as she
had sniffed out Autumn some weeks prior, Madge had turned to her wife Lucy in
excitement and started the construction work. Now, in the field behind
Mapplebottom Square, stood proudly the first ever ‘Harvest Hay Bale Maze’, all
thanks to Madge. Of course being on the Mapplebottom Committee of Events and
Spectacles, it was her duty to entertain her village, obviously excluding all
entertainment containing whipped cream and fuzzy handcuffs – especially not
after last year. The maze was six feet tall, with enchanting little gourds as
decoration placed in convenient peepholes all around the walls of it, ribbons
of bunting waving their colours around the outside. At the centre there would
be Madge, standing happily in her tiny lookout tower, keeping a watchful eye on
all the entrants into the maze. Oh she could not wait for the grand unveiling
of it tomorrow, she was dreaming of it now as she poured the last drop of
Cinzano into Lucy’s glass. Children would be crying for their lost parents,
parents would be enjoying a coffee behind a particularly large bale and
finally, after months of sneering and sniping and slandering, Madge could lob
the odd toffee apple at Susan Hornslade as she ran into dead end upon dead end
of hay. The joy, the fun, the excitement! If only Lucy had taken her credit
card after she had purchased the glittery pink flamethrower from amazon, the
maze could have been so much more interesting.. and flammable…
*
Steam curled away from her lips as Madge spooned some more
pumpkin soup into her mouth, fumbling with her binoculars as she ate. She had a
lovely setup in her watch tower; blankets, cushions, a chair, a selection of
magazines, several orange flags for lost ‘mazers’ and a large plate of crudités
that Lucy had made for her. She was having the time of her life laughing at all
the villagers thinking they could conquer her maze, when suddenly she felt the
burn of a gaze searing into the side of her skull. Madge whipped round,
scanning the hay for signs of malice and fell into the fiery gaze of Susan
Hornslade. Susan’s lip was curling, her fists clenching and her legendary lucky
sweatband had yet again made an appearance around her monstrous head. There was
an eyebrow raise from both women, a toss of the hair from Susan and a vicious
bite of her crudités from Madge, and that was it – the game was officially on.
Susan raced into the maze, snarling past Wendy and Michael Shelting, and
tossing small children like bowling balls into her beautifully placed gourds.
Right, left and right again. Left, left, left then right. To her horror, Susan
was strutting through the maze with ease, even stopping to make sure Madge was
still watching through the infrared gaze of her binoculars (which of course,
she was). Madge consulted her mental map of the maze and suddenly sagged back
into her lawn chair with relief. She fumbled into her bag and grabbed a small
red remote with a large green button on it. Madge propped her feet on the edge
of her watch tower and made sure her cameras were recording, just as Susan
approached the turning with the remote controlled trap door…
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