I try to shake off whatever just happened to the rhythm of my heartbeat just then, “Let’s just get this sorted, eh?”
And we do, for the most part. Janie brought a T-shirt, cargo pants, a plaid jacket and even gloves. She stuffed the body with hay from a nearby bale. I’m fairly certain we weren’t authorized to take the hay bale from the surrounding decorative displays but Janie said we absolutely could not just leave the fabric hanging empty.
But now there’s only a few minutes left and, as if we both weren’t on edge enough with the town watching, the paps circling and time running out, the Mayor, I meanAssistant MayorGary Chappel is piping a tick-tock sound into the overhead speakers.
“I forgot about the head, what do we do for a head?” Janie asks.
“You’re askingme?”
“Well, would you like to contribute anything to this project, sweetheart?” She sneers, smiling because she knows the cameras are snapping away. Though I’m not sure this is the look she wants to give them.
“Uh, uh, here!” I grab the first circular thing I see.
“A dirty paper plate?!”
“We can draw a face on it.”
She holds it up, “Yeah, sure, we’ll just make thegiant nasty chili stain his nose.”
“Right, not a good look, okay.” I say, scanning for something, anything. “Fine, this!” I take a few steps over to the pumpkin at the edge of our corner of the square. It’s the same as the decorative hay bales, probably not allowed but, desperate times and all.
“Hm, okay,” she says. But then I try to pick it up.
“Kill me now, it weighs a hundred stone.”
“A hundred what? We have like a minute left!” She wails.
“Heavy! It’s too bloody heavy!” I wail right back.
She looks across the square, then back to me. “Find a sharpie. I’ll be back.” I nod and watch her run away. Her long puffer jacket covers her glorious ass. Pity. She disappears from view and I shake myself back to the present. Right. Sharpie. I go on a quick hunt.
A moment later she’s back, “Did you find one?”
“Yes, but I think that man might faint,” I say, waving at the couple beside us.
“Steven? Oh yes, you probably made his year. Less about you, more about this scarecrow!” She grabs the sharpie, draws a smiley and then hands me a very small, white-ish round pumpkin, now with a face on it.
“Okay, what’m I to do with this?”
“Shove it on there,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing she’s ever said.
“Shove it on? On the top?”
“Yeah, stab it.”
I look from her expectant face, so bloody competitive, then the little gourd, then the top of our scarecrow’s body. It’s a small wooden pole but it’s not pointed at the end.
“Love, I’m no carpenter, but I don’t think I can just impale this thing on a blunt end.”
“You can, you have those big muscles under that fancy coat, just force it, really hard.” She’s nodding and waiting and I’m short-circuiting.
Because I never would have guessed she noticed anything about my body. Big muscles, eh? Big muscles good, big muscles bad? Too big? Not big enough? Samantha said Theo was jacked, I—
“Thirty seconds!” the assistant mayor calls on the megaphone.
“Come on! Do it, Benedict, quick!
“Darling, big as my muscles may be,” she rolls her eyes, “this is not going to—”
