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The McMurray Garden by Rob Queen


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She wondered if the bare backside that waddled off before her was not the cause of the reek.
In reality, it was not. While Angus retreated to the bathroom to rummage up a cure for what he called "The Frobs" – it was never a hangover headache, and ‘th' was always pronounced with the ‘f' sound – the cause of the stink poked his head from the hedgerow.
Unlike poor Angus, Churril never had to worry about waking up without his trousers. In its own way, Churril's life was simple enough that he would not recognize a pair of pants if they became snakes and bit him in the hairy arse. Of course, if that did happen, he'd think they were a double-headed snake, which the little fellow had seen once upon a time. But that's a different story altogether. If Churril did encounter a genuine pair of trousers, he might hop in glee and urinate all over them to denote possession. In this – for different reasons, obviously – he and Angus might have treated trousers similarly.
"Oy!" Madge shrieked into the afternoon when she saw Churril, much to the consternation of her neighbor who had just reached that cozy state of neutrality that signified the plunge into a nap. "Oy! Hurry up in there! There's a rat out here!"
The woman's fit reminded Churril of a panther's roar, so without delay, he retreated into the safety of the hedgerow, where he could watch the bellowing monster from the shelter of the hedge's spiny branches. The rotund woman, reminding him of an oversized football he passed on the way to this random destination, waddled back into the house, with her hands squirrel-like before her. She disappeared only to reemerge a moment later with a large wooden stick in her forepaws.
"Bloody, good for nothin' lazy git, always off on his own when he's got more important things ta do. Angus! Hurry up! Leavin' me wif all the horror of cleanin' out the bloody garden. Tomatoes don't come cheap ya know..." she babbled on, for the most part under her breath. On those occasions when she punctuated her diatribe with screeches to her husband, her neighbor cringed.
"Good afternoon, Madge!" the neighbor cried out when Madge's screeches threatened to destroy any chance of an afternoon doze. Pat had things to do later, of course.
"Oh, Pat! Lovely day, innit?" Madge replied, spreading a super-sweet icing smile over the sponge cake of her face.
"Right beautiful now that the showers've ended," Pat replied, returning Madge's charmed greeting smile. "If you'll forgive the forwardness, might I bother you to keep the hoots down?"
"Oh! Was I yelling? I had no idea. A rat's come creeping into the yard, an' my lazy, good for nothin' Angus's left his trousers in the boot again, so to wash off his stink, he's gone into the shower, leaving me alone to rid the garden of the foul beast."
"But my dear, this is England. We have no rats."
"Keep telling yourself that, dearie, an' yer shrub's be gone in a month."
"I don't grow shrubs, I grow herbs, now if you will, I'd like to settle into a nap. Tea at three?"
"Right," Madge replied, waving off Pat with a salutation of her broom.



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