When crime knocked on Sunhampton’s door, people couldn’t just draw the curtains and pretend they weren’t in. Someone had to answer, and that person was usually Mick Mulroon.

They called him Skinny Mick, but ‘Slim’ would have been more accurate. He was in good shape for a guy of his age, even if he said so himself. Some fellas in their mid-thirties looked like they were hiding a pumpkin under their shirt. Nothing wrong with that - ‘Bought and paid for’ as his dad used to say. But Mick didn’t want to have to buy a whole new set of shirts as he got older. Tailors were expensive, whereas staying in shape was free.

He kept himself lean by going running twice every day. The first run, before breakfast, was on an empty stomach. Some people couldn’t lace up their running shoes without a slice of toast or a bowl of porridge warming them, but not Mick. In his case, eating breakfast before running killed it for him. Made him feel heavy and off the pace.

His second run was always a couple of hours after dinner, just late enough so his food had settled but not right before bedtime - which ironically would have made it harder to sleep. His route was always the same. One lap clockwise around Sunhampton, fifty five minutes at a steady pace. A conversational pace, they called it, a term which became literal whenever Flo Anderson joined him.

Some folks asked him, “Skinny, how’ve you got the irons to go running every single day?”

He told them that he found it as easy as buttering bread. Why? Well, that was simple. His running route took him around a town he loved with all his heart. Why should having the irons ever come into it?

Sunday was the only day of the week that he let himself miss his morning run, since he always believed that a person needed at least a little bit of time off. He didn’t always get time to relax, though.

This particular Sunday was a special day, one that saw Mick retrieving his smartest shirt from his closet, his burgundy one that had cost a quarter of a week’s wage, and which he had resented handing over every coin for. It was only the fact that it was on sale and should have cost twice more that allowed him to get over his coin clutching and buy it.

Grabbing the shirt, Mick was disappointed to see that it was creased on the front, back, and one sleeve. This wouldn’t do, not at all. Not when Wendira Bishop, head of the northern Easterly Guards’ Commission, was coming to Sunhampton. What would she think if he turned up representing Sunhampton, looking like he’d spent the night in the tavern?

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Though it wasn’t even light outside yet, his Ma was already sitting at the counter in the kitchen. She got bad acid reflux sometimes, and it wasn’t rare for her to wake up at four or five in the morning and struggle to get back to sleep.

“Hey, Ma. Your reflux playing up again?”

In front of her was a plate with a single piece of dry, unbuttered toast on it, a corner bitten off. She nodded, struggling to swallow her unappetizing breakfast.

“Need me to stop by Healer Brown’s on the way home?” Mick asked.

She gave a dismissive hand wave. “You’re much too busy.”

“Ma…”

“I’ll be fine, Mick.” Not a second after saying it, she put her hand to her chest, winced, and then burped.

“I’ll stop by Healer Brown’s,” he said. “Honestly, it’s no problem.”

“You just make sure you don’t change your whole day. Not for me, I’ll be alright. Hand me that shirt.”

“I’m a grown man, I can iron a shirt. Finish your toast.”

“Shirt.”

“Toast.”

They stared at each other for a few drawn out seconds. Ma was legendarily stubborn. Everyone in Sunhampton knew it, and she was used to getting her own way. She’d made her own nemesis in this regard, though, because Mick had inherited that same quality.

“On the scrapheap, at my age,” said Ma, in mock self-pity. “My only son doesn’t need me…”

“That hasn’t worked on me in years.”

Ma smiled, her self-pity gone. “How are you feeling about today?”

While Mick waited for the flat iron to warm up on the glow stone, he and Ma chatted about Head Commissioner Wendira’s visit to Sunhampton. Normally, a village with just one voluntary guard wouldn’t merit a visit from the head of the whole commission that oversaw guard standards and budgets, but Wendira was making a tour of the whole of the north, one district at a time.

Mick had scarcely seen a single soul from the commission ever since becoming head of Sunhampton’s guards. Even when he took over from his father, all he had to do was fill out a form and send it to Full Striding. This was an opportunity that he might not get again for the rest of his career.

“If I can get her ear,” said Mick, pressing the hot iron against the sleeve of his shirt and smoothing it out, “maybe I can squeeze some gold out of her. You know, rental for an actual guard office instead of sharing Douggie Fernglass’s tool shed. An actual uniform so folks know when I’m on duty.”

Ma gave him what he had always known as her ‘ma’ look, which had two variants. One signified that he was about to get a reprimand of some sort, though that didn’t happen much these days, given his age. The second, more common, was that Ma had some motherly insight about him. Whether she’d share it or not depended on her mood, and Mick’s receptivity to such truths on any given day.

He sighed. “Come on, out with it.”

Ma picked up her toast and raised it to her mouth, then thought better and set it back down. “Might it not be about more than that, Micky?”

“What? I need coin. I don’t get a penny from the guards’ annual fund. In fact, I pay more in taxes to the guard fund than I actually receive, and I’m a bloody guard!”

“There’s another thing as good to receive as coin, though, ain’t there? Might be nice to hear from this Wendira that you’re doing a good job. When a person notices how hard you’re working, there’s nothing nicer. And you deserve it.”