Рита Браун - Cat On The Scent

“Gag me,” Pewter sniped.

“Mrs. Murphy, come back here,” Harry said firmly. She was put out at Mrs. Murphy's showing off, but secretly she was also enjoying Archie Ingram's discomfiture. He could be so pompous.

Naturally, Mrs. Murphy flopped on the other side, again gazing at her fans. She emitted a honey-coated meow.

“Precious,” another voice cooed.

Even Tucker looked queasy.

Harry handed Pewter to Fair, stood up, and stepped along a row of desks to the center aisle. “Madam, you get off that desk.”

“One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four to go,” the tiger cat sang out, sat up, grabbed Archie's pencil in her teeth, and leapt off the front table.

“Hey!” Archie boomed as everyone in the classroom laughed at him. “Hey, I want that back.”

Mrs. Murphy pranced over to Sarah Vane-Tempest, dropping the pencil at her expensively shod feet.

“I can't believe you did that,” Pewter hollered at her.

“Watch me.” She skidded out to the hallway, dodging legs, and finally sat down under the water fountain. By the time Harry caught up with her, she was intently grooming the tip of her tail.

“Monster.”

“Broccoli eater.”

“If you even move your eyebrows I'm taking you out to the truck.”

“Take me to Blair's Porsche. I don't want to sit in the truck.”

“Don't you mouth off at me,” Harry warned her.

“Who else am I going to mouth off to?”

Harry paused, wondering whether to take her back into the meeting or go directly to the truck. Well aware of Murphy's lethal temper, she thought the cat would be safer in sight than out of sight. She scooped up the silky-coated creature, holding her bottom while Murphy leaned on her shoulder, winking at passersby.

By the time Harry reached the classroom door her seat had been taken. Pewter stood on Fair's lap, paws on his shoulders, looking for her buddy. Upon seeing Mrs. Murphy, she jumped down and walked to the back of the room.

Meanwhile Archie was explaining to the assembled why the reservoir plan was outdated. He couldn't resist reminding them that he had always been an opponent of unchecked growth. However, the population had grown, the water supply had not, and as a public servant he had to find a solution. Before he could finish his presentation, the county commissioner next to him dropped his tablet. It hit the floor with a loud clatter.

Archie glared as Donald Jackson bent over to pick it up, tipped off balance, and fell over, still in the chair.

Jim Sanburne quickly hopped out of his seat to assist Don, which made Archie look like a jerk, since he was standing above the fallen man.

Irritated, Archie continued reading off his figures.

“Archie, we know all that.” Don tried to divert him.

“Everyone in this room knows the cost of building a new reservoir?” He slapped his hand on the table, the papers in his other hand shaking.

“Yes. It's on the handout sheet. You don't need to read that. In case anyone missed a handout sheet, a new reservoir in the northwest quadrant will cost us thirty-two million dollars.”

“What's wrong with rehabilitating Sugar Hollow?” a voice from the middle piped up.

Sugar Hollow was the site of an old reservoir.

“After what Hurricane Fran did?” Archie imperiously dismissed the question.

“Not so fast, Archie.” Ned Tucker spoke up. “Given the importance of the issue, a feasibility study on reviving Sugar Hollow isn't a frivolous suggestion.”

“Maybe we need them both,” Sir H. Vane-Tempest suggested in his soothing voice.

“And where would the money come from?” Little Mim asked a sensible question yet received a frown from her mother.

Big Mim preferred to speak before her offspring did, at which time she expected Little Mim to rubber-stamp whatever she had said. Aunt Tally, leaning on her silver-handled cane, cast a sharp eye at her family. The handle itself was carved in the shape of a hound's head. It had become Tally's signature accessory.

“From my pocketbook,” Miranda good-naturedly called out.

A few people laughed. Others nodded.

“The county's population has tipped over 112,000.” Jim, deep voice rumbling, folded his hands. “The original plan for the reservoir between Free Union and Earlysville was drawn up in 1962, when the population was half of what it is today and projections were not even close to our current rate of growth.”

“That's the problem. Unrestrained growth,” Archie again said.

“We can't throw people out.” Jim sighed, tacitly acknowledging the problem.

“No, but we can certainly put the lid on development.”

“You've done a good job of that all by yourself,” Sir H. Vane-Tempest jocularly interjected.

“With little support from my colleagues.” Archie's eyebrows twitched upward as he stared at the Englishman. “You've been opposed to growth, H. Vane, and I appreciate your vision.”

“Un planned growth. A master plan for this county would go a long way to solving these woes.” Sir H. Vane-Tempest appeared to shift politically ever so slightly.

“We don't have a master plan!” Archie's eyes narrowed. What was Vane-Tempest up to?

“This reservoir plan is not worth the paper it's printed on.” Don Jackson shook his head. “Earlier commissions did not foresee this population boom nor the encroachment of Richmond and even Washington, on weekends, anyway. Our infrastructure is woefully inadequate and that includes our water supply.”

“Wouldn't it make sense to identify all of our water resources?” Fair Haristeen stood up. “We have the runoff from the Blue Ridge Mountains, which I believe figured into the original reservoir plan. We have the remains of the reservoir at Sugar Hollow. We have the Rivanna, Mechum, and James rivers, which may yet prove useful.”

“He's right.” BoomBoom smiled, which made the men smile back.

“Yuk,” Harry whispered to Mrs. Murphy and Pewter.

“And if we try to dam up the rivers, do we know what the state will do to us? Ha!” Archie threw up his hands. “To say nothing of the catastrophic environmental damage.”

“We can't be the only county trying to absorb new people.” Sir H. Vane-Tempest now stood up. In his early seventies, exuding vitality, he was well turned out, although the ascot seemed pretentious for the occasion. “The concept of a major reservoir serving ourselves and even the lower counties, such as Buckingham, isn't a frivolous idea.”

“Well, what about the water table?” Dr. Larry Johnson joined in. “Whatever we do, we have to examine the underground effect. This isn't just about building a reservoir.”

Archie sat down, folding his arms across his chest.

Don leaned forward. “Precisely the reason for these local meetings. Our commission has to present your ideas to the state. There's no way Albemarle County can fund a reservoir. Even if you double taxes, we can't pay for it.”

“So we have to go to Richmond no matter what?” Jim Sanburne half asked, half informed the audience.

“Too much government! Richmond will only make it worse. Look at the bypass.” Aunt Tally referred to a bottled-up traffic mess that the state couldn't resolve, each plan being worse than the former.

People nodded their heads in agreement.

“There's got to be enough water under the ground. Got to be.” Ridley Kent shook his head.

“Ridley, if you had a brain you'd be dangerous.” Vane-Tempest guffawed at his own joke.

Ridley, not one to take offense, laughed back. “I mean it. There're underground rivers as well as overground rivers.”

“Exactly. Identify the water sources.” Fair spoke again.