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‘Granny Parker thinks everything is a bad omen,’ said Debbie briskly. ‘She thought the M25 Eastbound being closed was a bad omen. She thought this morning’s rain was a bad omen.’
‘I know a bad omen when I see one,’ said Granny Parker darkly.
‘Is it time to start drinking yet?’ said Hillary, standing up and looking at his watch with a dramatic stretch of his arms.
The reverend nodded, no doubt keen to dismiss everyone so he could deal with the dead bat before his christening party arrived.
‘Really, Reverend, this won’t do,’ said Vivien, striding across the church to inspect the offending article herself. ‘Do you think it died of natural causes? Or are we to expect a whole colony of corpses tomorrow?’
‘I’m not sure I’m qualified to do a post-mortem,’ the reverend said with a smile.
‘Can we fumigate the church tonight? Flush them out?’ Debbie suggested.
‘They’re a protected species, I’m afraid. We can’t interfere with them at all.’ The reverend bent down to inspect the bat more closely. ‘I can assure you, this has never happened before.’
‘Perhaps we need a new category of sticker to denote “high risk of death by bat”?’ Hillary suggested, biting his lip.
‘A nasty, bad omen,’ repeated Granny Parker, slamming her novel shut with a thwack. ‘This would not happen in a Yorkshire church.’
‘Look, it’s got grey whiskers, it probably died of old age,’ said Josh, who had now joined the bat inspection party.
‘I’m not sure that’s going to fit in my dustpan,’ the reverend said nervously.
‘Well, it certainly can’t stay there!’ cried Vivien.
‘Don’t get too close,’ Josh said, ushering everyone to stand back. ‘We don’t know what diseases it could be carrying. Reverend do you have any gloves, fire tongs? Anything we could use to safely dispose of it?’
‘Josh to the rescue,’ Clara sang quietly to Audrey. They looked at each other and, without saying a word, communicated that this might be a good opportunity to exit via a side door and leave the bat-disposal project to those better equipped to handle such things.
