Doris winced as the kettle screamed, "I wish you'd clean out the dining room, it's uncivilized to have tea in the kitchen."
Doris and Eleanor were seated at a small white table crammed into one side of an already cluttered kitchen. Warm evening air swept through the open windows and mixed with the heat of the tall enameled stove where the stew cooked. Doris dramatically waved an unfolded paper fan while Maureen removed the kettle from the flame and placed it aside while she finished preparing the cups and tea leaves.
"You're always welcome to host my turns instead, Doris," Maureen said, annoyed and tired of repeating the same offer each time Doris complained.
The three women had tea four nights a week, taking turns each week to host. Maureen had little interest in the affair, and had declined repeated offers and insistence from Doris for several seasons after first moving to the village. It was Eleanor who ultimately convinced her, the kind hearted woman was the youngest amongst them and quite good company, but evening tea was nearly the only break she ever took from caring for the village's children and tending to her perpetually immaculate home. She could most often be seen with a messy bun of hair and a worker's apron stained with food, mud and occasional puke, but always cleaned herself up and wore a flowery sundress for tea time.
Doris was less welcome company, the richest and bitchiest hag in the village. She was never seen without a full face of makeup, an expensive dress, and an overly sized hat whenever she was outdoors. Maureen did at least enjoy the meals her live-in butler prepared when she hosted tea at her extravagant, three story home, and Maureen was also quite fond of the orchards on Doris' estate, having struggled to establish her own fruit trees in the region.
"Doris," Eleanor interjected with a hurried but cheery voice, "why don't you catch us up on the goings on? It's been such a long weekend, we must have missed a lot."
"Ah, yes," Doris said, needlessly adjusting her posture before continuing, "well the train is down again. Harris, the fool, insists it must be sabotage. Margaret says the poor man thinks we're still at war!" Doris let out a loud, scoffing laugh.
"You never know, maybe he's on to something," Maureen said, placing steaming hot cups of tea in front of either of the women before sitting down with her own, "I've had three parts stolen from my tractors in the past month, clearly someone's going around tinkerin' with things they ought not to."
"Oh," Doris said dismissively, waving a hand and looking away, "you probably just took them off and forgot about it. I keep telling you that maintaining tractors is men's work."
"And I keep telling you," Maureen said pointedly, "I don't care to keep men around for work I can do myself."
"Evidently," Doris rolled her eyes, while Maureen narrowed hers.
"What about the post?" Eleanor interjected, "surely it must be delayed."
"Oh, horribly," Doris said with an exaggerated drawl, "if you're waiting on an important letter, you might as well walk to the city and collect it yourself!"
There was a bang somewhere outside, like someone rapping a fist once against wood. Maureen rose sharply from her seat and stared out the window.
"Is someone at the door?" Doris asked.
"No, that came from the back," Maureen said absently, "excuse me for a moment." She stopped in the doorway on her way out of the kitchen, "Eleanor, see to the stew for me, would you?"
"Of course, Maury," Eleanor said with a smile.
"Maury?" Doris inquired curiously after Maureen had left, before taking a sip from her tea and frowning at the taste.
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"Shh! Idiot!" Sabine hissed in her guttural goblin language, holding a slender green finger to her lips.
"You said open it!" Rock replied indignantly, turning with a wooden board in their hands and almost swinging it into the wall of the garden shed again. They were the largest of the three goblins, with proportions nearly that of a small human.
"Quietly!" Sabine whispered, motioning for the taller goblin to crouch down lower.
"I told you I should just jimmy the lock," Nico said to Sabine, thumping Rock on their shoulder with the back of his hand.
A door creaked and slammed, and heavy boots stomped down wooden steps.
"Shh!" Sabine hissed again.
Sabine and Nico were small enough to easily hide in the overgrown grass surrounding the shed, their green skin and brown sack clothes acting somewhat as camouflage, while Rock had to duck behind the shed to hide. They waited silently for several minutes until they heard more stomps and the creak and slam of the door again. Nico immediately began to stand, but Sabine held him down by the shoulder. She glared at him with wide eyes, jerking her head sharply towards the house. Nico slowly leaned to the side until the doorway came into view, where he saw the old woman still standing at the top of the stairs. After a moment longer of surveilling the garden, the woman entered the house and let the door slam behind her.
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"She's crafty," Nico observed.
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"I'm glad you could make it back," Doris said pointedly, "I was just telling Eleanor about Michaela's scandalous affair with--"
Maureen moved swiftly through the kitchen, ignoring Doris. She took a swig from her tea and placed it down roughly on the table, then opened the pantry and removed a double barreled shotgun, partially breaking it open to ensure it was loaded.
"Maureen!" Doris shouted, "the pantry is no place for weaponry!"
"Kids breaking into my shed again," Maureen said in passing as she left the kitchen.
"You're going to shoot them?!" Eleanor gasped, rising sharply from her seat to follow.
"Of course not!" Maureen hollered back as she made her way down the hall to the backdoor.
She swung the door open furiously, stomped down the steps and fired a shot into the sky. She heard shrill screams and rustling behind the shed, and watched as the corn stalks in the field behind it shook.
"Next time I'm aiming!" She shouted, huffing as she lowered the weapon and placed a hand on her hip.
Eleanor and Doris burst out of the door behind her. Eleanor seemed genuinely frightened, while Doris had worked herself into quite a puff over the commotion.
"Complete savagery!" Doris complained.
"Relax, Doris," Maureen said, pulling a cigarette and lighter from her pocket, "it's the only language hooligans understand."
"I wish you wouldn't call them that," Eleanor said, crossing her arms.
Maureen paused as she was about to light her cigarette and looked back at Eleanor, "Sorry, Ellie. I'm sure they're not any of yours."
Eleanor's kids were grown and had long since moved away, but she took a lot of pride in her care for the village youngsters while their parents worked the fields or businesses, treating and caring for each of them as if they were her own blood. She was the only caretaker in the village that anyone but the wealthiest families could afford, and Maureen knew in all likelihood the hooligans probably were in her charge. She could hardly blame Eleanor for the way parents did or didn't raise their kids, but Eleanor would certainly blame herself.
"Ellie?" Doris asked, surprised.
"Oh for the Gods' sake, Doris," Maureen said around her cigarette, "get a clue!"
Doris scoffed and stormed inside. Eleanor lingered for a moment, then shouted, "the stew!" and hurried inside.
Maureen surveyed her garden as she smoked, looking for signs of tampering with her crops. Unlike her fields, where she farmed corn, wheat and boomstalks for trade, the vegetable garden was for her own personal supply. Amongst various vegetables she also grew tea, berries, a few spices that could handle the climate, and a few smokable herbs. Some of her carrots had been dug up, but she guessed that was probably the work of critters rather than hooligans.
She walked over to inspect the garden shed where she kept her smaller tools and other supplies. The door was still locked, but through the window she spotted a missing plank on the back wall and swore. Another repair added to the to-do list right before harvest season. She remained in the garden as she finished her cigarette, then made her way inside.
Doris and Eleanor grew suspiciously quiet as Maureen entered the kitchen. The pot of stew sat cooling on the stove.
"We were just waiting on you before we ate," Doris said, "because we're civilized."
"Right," Maureen said, returning the shotgun to her pantry, "you wouldn't be busy talking about me in my own home."
"Of course not!" Doris said, placing a hand to her heart and acting offended.
Maureen exchanged glances with Eleanor, who confirmed with her eyes that Doris had, in fact, been talking about her. Maureen was used to it, and had long since stopped caring what Doris thought about her, so she left it alone. She was annoyed at the thought that Doris would be telling everyone in the village who would listen about this, probably insisting Maureen had tried to kill the hooligans and somehow making herself the hero of the situation, but she tried her best to push those thoughts away.
Maureen prepared bowls of stew with a side of yesterday's bread and placed them in front of her friends before taking a seat with her own, settling in for several more hours of Doris recounting exaggerated stories she didn't care about.
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The three young goblins huddled in the corn at the far edge of the old woman's farm, just before the forest's edge that separated the outermost farmland from the hills where the goblins burrowed. They were huffing and puffing, out of breath after running for their lives.
"I'm not going back!" Nico said, doubled over with his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath, "she's gonna kill us!"
"She's not gonna kill us!" Sabine existed, taking a seat in the dirt, "we just have to be quieter, and you have to come with a better plan."
"I did have a better plan!" Nico insisted, "let me jimmy the lock and we can go right in the front door instead of ripping the whole shed apart!"
"That plan sucks," Sabine said, "she'll see us from the windows -- probably shoot us from them too."
"So she is going to kill us," Nico said, straightening up and putting his hands on his hips.
"Not if you get a better plan," Sabine replied with an attitude.
"Maybe stealing the wrong thing," Rock offered.
Nico and Sabine looked at them with blank expressions.
"What do you mean?" Sabine asked.
"My dad's always talking about how our warriors need better weapons," Rock explained, "says that's why we're stuck in the dirt, and that if we had blamsticks, we could take over a whole town for ourselves."
Nico snorted, "like the humans would let that happen."
"That's the point!" Rock said defensively, "if we have blamsticks, we decide what happens!"
"One weapon won't make the difference," Nico said.
"No," Sabine said thoughtfully, tapping her chin with a finger, "not for the burrow. It'll make a big difference for us, though. Without it, she can't stop us from looting her whole farm. We'll take back as much as we can carry, blamstick included, and be hailed as a hero!" she held out a clenched fist and her eyes glimmered with visions of glory, "they'll name a festival after me! I'll be single handedly responsible for the first of many victories over the humans of this wretched village!"
"Single handedly?" Rock asked.
"It wasn't even your idea!" Nico shouted.
"Us, we'll be responsible," Sabine said with a fake smile, "obviously. Nico! How do we get the blamstick?"
"Uuhh," Nico stammered, "we could set up a trap and lure her into it?"
"You're a genius!" Sabine slapped him so hard on the shoulder he stumbled forward, "we strike tomorrow night."
"Tomorrow?" Nico said, aghast, "w-wait-- there's more to it than that--"
Sabine was already trudging off.
Nico groaned, and followed after her.
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