The sound of the hoses blasting away at the flour dropped as one by one Station Officer Hamilton ordered them turned off. He was heading inside to see how much more needed to be done, but the sudden drop in background noise allowed everyone to hear the argument raging between the bakers and Brian.
‘Are you out of your mind?’ shouted a large man with beefy arms and a pink hairnet keeping his dark locks in place. It was the same man Albert saw overseeing the work in the record attempt area earlier. His face was bright red with anger as he shouted down at the smaller man. The baker had the advantage of having a dozen other bakers, men and women, on his side. They had formed a wall of support, surrounding him on either side with every set of eyes expressing the same negative emotion toward the tiny man.
‘I don’t care what you say,’ snapped Brian, uncowed by size or numbers. ‘The record attempt is off. With Alan Crystal incapacitated, the running of this year’s show defaults to me, where it should always have been. So, I’m sorry but there will be no ridiculous, gawdy, and ultimately probably failed attempt to break a pointless world record no one cares about.’
‘Will we get paid?’ asked a quiet voice. Albert strained his eyes and ears to see who had spoken. The voice, a woman’s, sounded familiar but her face was lost among everyone else.
The beefy man was barely keeping his rage in check which drew Gary’s attention. There were fire and ambulance services present, but no police which meant he was the only person on the scene responsible for keeping the peace. Reluctantly, but accepting that intervening now might save bloodshed, he started in their direction, reaching for his police identification as he went.
Following Gary, Albert caught the beefy man’s next response. ‘Are you going to stop us then? Are you, little man?’ He was eighteen inches taller and at least a hundred pounds heavier than Brian. To accentuate his point, he jabbed a meaty finger down into Brian’s upper chest driving him back a foot. Bending from the waist to growl into the short man’s face, he said, ‘You so much as try it, and I’ll stuff you into the mixer and turn you into one of the puddings.’
Another voice jumped into the fray. ‘Yeah, what about all the money that’s been spent? What about all the advertising? People are coming here just to see it!’ Unlike the beefy man’s voice, the new voice was using reason and calm and all eyes swung to see a woman stepping away from the leading edge of the gang of bakers. ‘Mr Pumphrey, so much effort has been put into this project. You have to let us go ahead now.’
Gary allowed his pace to slow, the tension in the group was weakening; maybe he wouldn’t have to step in after all.
When the woman added the word, ‘Please,’ in a pleading voice, she handed all the power to Brian. He could say no, but he would appear pathetic and petty were he to do so.
Instead, Brian took a pace back, and sneered at the group of bakers, ‘Go ahead. Fail miserably if you must. Good luck finding fresh ingredients in time.’ Spinning on his heel, he stomped away across the damp grass.
As he left the scene, Station Officer Hamilton came back into view. He was returning from inside the marquee and heading for the bakers. ‘You can go back inside now if you wish; there’s no danger.
Wordlessly, the bakers began to drift in the direction of the marquee. They had equipment to sort out, their ingredients were undoubtedly ruined, and they were seriously short on time if they were going to break a world record tomorrow.
The beefy man was still glaring at the back of Brian’s skull as he sauntered away. His trembling lips could barely contain the insult hidden behind them, but just when Albert thought the large man might sling it and undo what the calm voice of the woman had achieved, she touched his arm. The large man stiffened, but when he saw it was her, he glanced about and pulled her into a swift hug. They didn’t hold it for long, probably worried about people commenting on their public display of affection. There was a very quick peck on the lips before they just as swiftly parted and pretended to not be doing anything.
The couple, now standing a yard or more apart, started to move toward the marquee, but Station Officer Hamilton held out a hand to stop them.
‘I have a question about your flour.’
Beefy’s feet stopped moving just as they were getting started. ‘The flour?’
A minute later, all the bakers, plus Albert and Gary, were standing around the remaining sacks of flour. The firefighters had noticed something when they were washing the spilt flour across the floor and out of the marquee. Parts of it were not washing away, not the way flour should.
It didn’t take much to work out what it was they were seeing: The flour had been cut with salt.
‘Why?’ asked Beefy.
‘Better yet, who?’ corrected the woman Albert saw the beefy man kiss.
Bath Time
His human had clipped his lead back to his collar and handed him off to three firefighters. Rex then had to watch his human back away, saying, ‘Sorry, Rex,’ just before he turned around.
‘Sorry?’ questioned Rex, his head down and his ears flopping sadly to the sides. ‘Me too. If I ever catch that cat …’
‘What have we here?’ asked one of the firefighters. Rex remembered them from earlier when he was lost, and they brought him back to his human. Normally, he would be
