Writing for Fun
September 2019
The Clean Up Crusaders - Lynn Gale
Myrtle Miranda Makepeace stood on the podium and stared over her reading glasses at the half full village hall. Drumming her fingers impatiently, she waited until the hubbub of noise settled down. Not a good idea to upset Myrtle, as head of the St Oswell on sea committee she had the power to make anyone’s life a misery.
‘Thank you for your attention,’ she said sarcastically, giving poor Agnes Barker the postmistress a pursed lips, narrowed eyed stare. Agnes reddened and looked down at the floor.
Minutes of the last meeting were read along with apologies from missing members of whom which Myrtle noted in her little blue book. She coughed into her hand then began. ‘First item of the day the application to open a chicken and kebab cafe on the high street.’
She sniffed disapprovingly. ‘Personally I believe this will lower the tone of village and create far too much mess.’
‘We need something for the young ones,’ argued Fred Finlay who owned the butchers. ‘They are not really into pots of tea and cream scones.’ (Plus it wouldn’t do his business any harm.)
The arguments for and against went on for several minutes with Myrtle’s staunch allies known as Myrtle’s moaners, pooh-poohing those who saw it as a good idea.
‘Well, let’s have a show of hands.’ Myrtle turned to the mousy little woman on her right who sat nervously fiddling with sheets of paper.
‘You take the count, Janice.’
The result was 14 for and 12 against.
‘With mine and Janice’s votes to be included that would make it 14 all.’
Janice rolled her eyes but said nothing.
‘And as I have the casting vote, I oppose the application and will inform the council accordingly.’ Fred pulled a face and shook his head in disbelief. Myrtle ignored him.
‘Finally our last item of the day concerns rubbish collection, I propose this becomes a monthly oc-currence.’
There was a collective moan throughout the hall, everyone knew this was Myrtle’s personal cru-sade to keep the village free of any visible rubbish and she was becoming fanatical.
Her idea of planting trailing flowers in the waste bins meant shoppers were forced to take their rub-bish home with them, closely policed by Myrtle’s carefully selected litter watch volunteers.
Emptying handbags and pockets of bus tickets and other detritus, the residents of St Oswell’s were now being pushed beyond their limit.
‘The woman’s a nightmare,’ Miss Janes, the primary school teacher, whispered into the ear of Vio-let Vanguard, the florist. Violet nodded in agreement, she had incurred the wrath of Myrtle on sev-eral occasions, once for allowing petals to drop onto to the pavement outside her shop.
‘Where exactly would you like us to store our rubbish Myrtle?’ Bernie Goldman of Gold’s finest jewellery asked, ‘One collection a month will not be workable.’
‘The dustcarts are smelly and unsightly, our village is now the cleanest uncluttered and winner of the best kept village for the third year running’ she sneered, ‘A small price to pay for a little incon-venience.’
‘My storeroom is full of uncollected rubbish, there is no room for new stock.’ Bernie pleaded.
But Myrtle was not for turning and suggested that it could be put in colourful boxes and stored in their front gardens. ‘Which is what I do with mine’ she finished smugly.
‘I’d like to put her in a colourful box.’ Tom Brown the local landlord remarked earning looks of dis-approval from the moaners.
Once again the vote went in her favour. As everyone trudged out of the hall there were whispers of resentment from the villagers.
‘Something must be done,’ Fred told the others, ‘We will be up to necks in waste if we don’t stop her. Let’s have a meeting at my house later and make sure the moaners don’t find out.’
At seven o’clock that evening with Fred’s homemade sausage rolls and pork pies along with copi-ous amounts of alcohol supplied by Tom, ensuring that there was a good turnout. The Clean up Crusaders were formed.
The meeting went on merrily until the early hours with several suggestions on what to do with Myrtle (some more extreme than others). ‘Steady on,’ Fred laughed, ‘we don’t want to serve time.’
In the end it was Janice who came up with the best suggestion.
Over the next two weeks, there was a lot of clandestine activity with deliveries late at night and people huddled together on corners whose conversation stopped abruptly if any of Myrtle’s spies passed by.
The local primary school children talked excitedly about a painting project they were doing with their favourite teacher.
Myrtle rose at 6am every day, this gave her time to clean the house from top to bottom, then set out on her daily expedition to check the village for discarded rubbish. Strange she thought it’s still dark outside. On a midsummer morning she expected to see at least a chink of light through the evenly pleated velvet drapes in her bedroom. Approaching the window she opened the curtains and came face to face with gaudily painted boxes piled high against the glass. Running downstairs she flung open the door. Her immaculate manicured front lawn was covered with hundreds of such painted boxes, some of which ripped apart by wildlife and rubbish was now swirling around on the morning breeze.
Myrtle’s long drawn out wail of anguish could be heard throughout the village.