r's Revenge
Jaleta Clegg
Copyright 2010 Jaleta Clegg
The Vicar's Revenge
Jaleta Clegg
Table of Contents
1. Tea Party
2. Enter Inspector Louis
3. Golf Date
4. A Zoo?
5. Don't Be Greedy
6. Cleaning Up
About the Author
1. Tea Party
"I say, Vicar!" Alfred licked his fork clean. "That was exceptionally tasty pie." His tongue probed his mustache for overlooked morsels. "What kind of berries did you say you used?"
"I didn't." The Vicar gave Alfred a thin smile. "They are a special variety. I picked them myself."
"Ah." Alfred licked his thick lips and leaned forward. The chair creaked under his weight. "Would there perhaps be more?"
"I'm so sorry, that was the last of the pie. I have to thank you for coming to tea." The Vicar hid his repulsion under a thin layer of civility.
"Thank you for inviting me. Well, I should be off then."
"Not quite yet. Please, Alfred. Just relax." The Vicar daintily sipped tea. "You do so remind me of a frog. One of those fat, uncouth, slimy ones from the ponds below the canal."
"What?" Alfred frowned, his fat face wrinkling in consternation. "Did you just call me a frog?"
"Quite. A very repulsive specimen."
"What is wrong with you, man? You're the Vicar. Why are you calling me a frog?" Alfred stood, his chair scraping across the floor.
The Vicar smiled, thin white hair drifting around his narrow face. His smile was peaceful now, satisfied. "Because, my dear parishioner, you are a frog."
Alfred blinked his bulging eyes. His thick lips writhed and flapped as he tried to protest. All that came from his mouth was a decidedly froggy croak. His skin twitched, all over, as if something were crawling beneath. The ruddy pink faded to a blotchy green. The bumps and wrinkles smoothed out. Within moments, Alfred no longer stood on the Vicar's Persian carpet. A massively bloated frog sat in his place. It croaked and flopped towards the door.
The Vicar gave a pleased nod and set his teacup aside. "A fitting fate. Wouldn't you agree?" He stepped carefully around the frog and opened the door. "I always detested you, Alfred. You and your croaking. May you have a short life full of swampy nastiness."
The frog hopped out into the summer afternoon.
"Yoohoo! Vicar!" Mrs. Blenchwithe waved her massive white purse from his garden gate. "I do so hope you don't mind me dropping by but I have information you must know."
The Vicar's smile turned wooden. Mrs. Blenchwithe was a gossip, a mean-spirited one. He detested her as much as he detested Alfred and his blusterings.
"Welcome, Mrs. Blenchwithe," he said smoothly. "My door is always open, as you well know. Would you care for some berry pie?"
A short while later, a goat ran bleating from his house, chin wagging in panic. It jumped the garden fence and trotted into the neighboring fields.
The Vicar's smile grew wider. He hummed as he gathered a basket and his gardening gloves. Most of his parishioners would benefit from a taste of his special berries.
The next day he invited more to his house for tea. Berry jam and berry cakes waited on lacy doilies. He smiled and greeted them as they came, one by one.
A turtle, a hedgehog, two quarreling sparrows, a rabbit, and a vole later, he was even more pleased with himself. All it took was a helping of berries and his word and they morphed into the most suitable animal.
"God's judgment on you," he said as the latest, a fat sheep that used to be Mrs. Picket, bounded away. The Vicar smiled. "Such an unattractive animal. Such an unbearably irritating noise you make. Go on, shoo." He closed the garden gate with a profound sense of satisfaction.
"Years," he said to his roses. "Years I have put up with them, their whining, their utter conviction that they are important. I've been patient." He plucked off dead roses with a precise twist of his fingers. He flung them to the ground and stepped on the withered petals. "And now I take my revenge on them for every petty argument and complaint. For their lack of appreciation for everything I've done for them. Ungrateful snobs, the lot of them."
"Vicar? Did I just see a sheep running from your garden?"
The Vicar paused, a dead rose pinched in his fingers. He smiled, calm and serene. "A stray. Please, do come in."
He still had a small pot of berry jam. It would be enough.
2. Enter Inspector Louis
Inspector Louis knew he was not important. So far, he had investigated the disappearance of four dogs and the theft of thirty-seven pounds of licorice from a local store. He sat at his desk and idly thumbed through the day's news.
The paper contained the usual articles about celebrities, and the local farmers' complaints. An article on the bottom of page twenty seven caught his eye.
"Eleven missing in one day? Sixteen the next? How curious." He fumbled through his drawer for a pair of scissors.
"Louis!" The sergeant bellowed like a bull. "There's been a report of a zebra sighting down at Terrington Green. Go investigate."
Louis resisted the impulse to use the scissors on the sergeant. He carefully and precisely cut the article from the paper and tucked it into his pocket before leaving to investigate the impossible zebra.
3. Golf Date
"Incredible, Vicar! How do you do that?"
The little white ball bounced to a perfect stop barely one yard from the hole. The Vicar smiled his wooden smile.
"Clean living."
Lord Baffle guffawed and slapped the vicar on the shoulder. "I should know better than to play with a Vicar." He lined up his shot. The ball went wide, landing in a hedge. "You've heard the rumors?"
The Vicar made a polite, noncommittal noise.
"They say half the parish has up and gone to a retreat somewhere, joined a cult of some sort. Load of toff, if you ask me. I'd never join one of those cult things. All that chanting and goodness would give me a headache." He shoved his club back into the bag. "I've lost another ball. Time to cede the game to you, Vicar."
"Would you care for tea, Lord Baffle?" The Vicar smiled. "I have some berry tarts, fresh made this morning."
"You know me, Vicar. I never turn down berry tarts."
"Quite," agreed the Vicar. A hippo, he decided, a waddling hippo. His smile warmed.
4. A Zoo?
"Strange goings ons, if you ask me." The woman nodded and sniffed. Her lips pinched tight. "All them animals appearing out of nowhere. It's the devil's work, that's what it is. That Marla, it's her wickedness with men. We're being punished for her sins."
Inspector Louis nodded. Anything to get the woman to shut up. He'd heard variations of the same story all morning. He'd heard more about the sins of the missing people than their possible whereabouts. As to the strange animals appearing from nowhere, the zoo people were still trying to catch the giraffe and the giant python. No one had a clue where they might possibly have come from. It was enough to give anyone a headache.
"Inspector!" A boy of perhaps eleven ran up to him and tugged on his coat. "There's a giant squid what landed in the Vicar's garden! He says to please come remove it before it destroys his roses."
"A giant what?" Louis tapped his pen on his little notebook. This farce had gone far enough.
"A squid! Tentacles and all! It's up there, at the top of the lane!"
Louis followed the boy's outflung finger. A small cottage sat aloof and alone at the top of the rise, surrounded by a pleasant garden. Flowers bloomed profusely. A small crowd huddled near the gate.
"Inspector Louis," he said pompously as he approached. "Move aside." He flashed his badge, mostly because he'd always wanted to.
The people aro
und the gate shifted reluctantly. He heard the whispers of gossip as he pushed through.
Louis stopped to stare. A giant squid was indeed lying in the Vicar's roses. One tentacle twitched. An eye the size of a saucer stared, twisted pupil seeming to track his every move.
"The ocean's a hunnert miles yonder," a helpful older man said. "No telling how the thing got here."
"It's the devil what brought it."
There was a general murmur of assent.
"Our good Vicar, he's been cursed by evil." The portly woman burst into tears.
The door to the cottage opened. The Vicar stepped into the afternoon light. He smiled at the Inspector. His smile seemed off, too plastic, like a doll. He had an unholy gleam in his eyes as he greeted the Inspector.
Louis fought the impulse to step back, away from the Vicar. He straightened his spine and stepped forward.
"Inspector, how pleasant of you to stop by." The Vicar extended a hand. "Do come in for a spot of tea. I have a lovely berry cake just out of the oven."
Louis licked his lips. Surely he was imagining things. It must be the giant squid's influence. The day had been too strange.
"I'm partial to berry cake," he said. "Would you perhaps have cream to go on top?"
"But of course." The Vicar's smile warmed.
Inspector Louis stepped into the Vicar's cottage. The door closed behind him.
5. Don't Be Greedy
The Vicar regarded the gray squirrel chiding him from a perch on top of the hatrack.
"Pompous, self-important little squirrel, stop your noise." The Vicar tilted his head and watched the little creature. "Such anger. It's your own greed that did this to you." He opened a window. "Out you go." He dismissed the squirrel that had once been Inspector Louis.
The Vicar eyed the remains of the berry cake. Inspector Louis had been quite the pig. No, squirrel had definitely been the proper choice. The Vicar picked up the platter, carrying it to the kitchen. Louis hadn't gone quietly. He'd fought the change. Unfortunately, the squirrel had landed in the cake. Smears of berries marked the platter. The Vicar scraped the remains into the scrap bin then set the platter in the sink.
The Vicar returned to finish his tidying. He absently licked a smear of berry from his hand. The flavor was tart and sweet, the most delicious berry he had ever eaten. He stared in horror at his hand.
"No!"
His muscles twitched, straining and stretching.
A moment later, a large black crow flapped from the open window into the evening light.
6. Cleaning Up
"What a mess!" Matilda, the cleaning woman, surveyed the litter of dishes with a frown. She planted her hands on her hips. "Not even the decency to pick up behind yourself."
She sighed and plopped into a chair. It was Wednesday, his day for meditation in the woods. She had plenty of time. She absently picked a scone from the litter of tea remains, spreading a generous spoonful of jam over the scone.
"A little taste never hurt anyone, now did it?"
She lifted the scone to her mouth, taking a dainty bite.
About the Author:
Jaleta Clegg enjoys playing What If and writing stories about the results. She writes SF, comic horror, and dabbles in Fantasy. If you enjoyed this story, you can find more at www.jaletac.com.