The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

called, indicating the church. Meli nodded as she leaped up the two steps to the Post Office. She threw open the door with a whole thirty seconds to spare. Zealously, the bell loudly proclaimed her late arrival; only today it wasn’t necessary to rouse Mrs. Barber from the back of the shop. Mrs. Barber was half way to the door. Mrs. Barber’s face didn’t register anything even remotely resembling a smile. In fact, Mrs. Barber’s expression looked as if she wanted to chew Meli into tiny pieces and spit her out. The smile on Meli’s face slowly disintegrated.
    “You’ve only just made it,” Mrs. Barber’s brusque tone was about as welcoming as the sound of a fog horn, after you had collided with the other ship.
    “Sorry,” Meli felt compelled to apologise. As they faced each other across the swabbed deck, Meli thought for one terrible moment that Mrs. Barber was going to make her walk the plank straight back out into the street. But then obviously deciding that business was business after all, she swung round on her lumpy calves and strode back to the prow of her ship where she formed an impressive figurehead in flamingo pink, that even Neptune himself wouldn’t have messed with!
    “You’ve got one minute.” Lifting her arm she held it up so she could observe the second hand of her watch sweep swiftly over its face.
    Meli could barely believe that Mrs. Barber was treating her so appallingly, and even more unbelievable, that she was letting her! With thirty-five seconds to spare, Meli was standing at the counter like a good little girl with her newspaper and the urgently needed bag of sugar.
    Frog marched from the shop in record time, Meli clearly heard the bolt thrust closed behind her. She felt like she’d been tossed out like yesterdays slops. As she stepped down onto the road the red Closed sign hit the window with such force that Meli ducked, expecting to be showered with broken glass.
    Mrs. Barber was decidedly odd today, she mused, not at all herself. Not only had she barely uttered a word (and the few that she had uttered had been extremely rude), she’d failed totally to try to prise any information from her whatsoever, and her eyes had flicked constantly to the clock as she gave Meli her change, as though she had somewhere extremely important to go. In fact, she’d reminded her of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Why, at this very moment she was probably leaping down a hole, or, more suiting to her size, a crater! What could have accounted for this bizarre episode? Did Bill have anything to do with it? After all, he had obviously just come back from the Post Office, as he had a loaf of bread in his hand.
    Meli had little time to puzzle over this, as her attention was caught by the twins, who were having a stand up argument by the war memorial outside the church, their churlish voices breaking the otherwise peaceful sounds of the countryside. “Keep it down,” she called as she rushed towards them. “Whatever is the matter?” She glanced between her sons.
    “That doesn’t make sense,” David goaded his brother.
    “Yes it does. You’re just too thick to understand,” retorted George, eyeing the base of the stone memorial as though expecting it to support him.
    “Understand what?” Meli demanded impatiently, standing directly in front of the monument and studying it intently. The only out of place thing that her initial sweep could detect, was the damp patch where Quassi had desecrated the stone.
    “There,” George jabbed his finger at one line of the inscription.
    “I still don’t understand,” Meli leaned closer.
    George threw his hands in the air in despair. “There. Where it says for Cod, King and Country.” Meli burst out laughing so hard that she almost fell over.
    “It doesn’t say Cod,” she told him, trying to restrain her giggles. “It says God.”
    “Told you so,” crowed David, folding his arms across his chest triumphantly.
    “No it doesn’t,” snapped George, his face screwed up like a week old sprout. “It clearly says Cod.”
    “But that wouldn’t make sense,” Meli was desperately tugging her lips back from where they’d curled up under her eyes like a huge slice of melon. George was taking this far too seriously. “Why would it say Cod?”
    Meli and David both looked at George.
    “Because,” he spelled out the reason with slow deliberate tones, like one would use when explaining something simple to kinder garden children. “This is