Annabelle came bouncing into Church Club at the Infants School with a paper towel. It turned out to contain a small worm. Called Timmy. 'How long have you had this?' I asked Annabelle. 'Since the morning,' she beamed. I said I thought Timmy would probably prefer more worm-friendly surroundings but as Annabelle clearly wasn't going to return him to the wild just because I said so, I found a plastic sample pot in the science supply box, and we scooped some dirt from the trough in the playground, and put Timmy in that. His relief was obvious. Meanwhile Sam ran up displaying two splodges of red pen on his palms. 'I'm bleeding!!' he announced. Moments later Ruby had done the same, only she had managed to cover her hands with red felt tip. She kept asking permission to go to the toilet to scrub it off and eventually succeeded, returning with her hands only slightly less red than they'd been with the pen on them. Lauren (q.v.) was asked about this by Jade.
Jade: Why did Ruby do that?
Lauren: She was copying Sam. [very seriously] I don't think anyone should copy Sam.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Trevor has been thoroughly troublesome lately. His delusions have been ever more definite and he's been very annoyed indeed, on and off, with me, God, and the world in general.
Trevor: It's Terry who's been cursing me. He's the one who's responsible for all my problems.
Me: But your problems started before you met Terry.
Trevor: That's because he can do psychic readings with his cards, he told me. He could see that he would meet me in the future and that God had promised I would marry [the actress he's obsessed with] and he wanted her for himself, so he cursed me in the past so that he could have her in the future. And he had sex with her by magic. But it's all right because even though I can't have [Ms X] Jesus and the Devil have come to an agreement that I will have four wives in compensation.
Me: I think you need to tell the Deliverance Advisor all this ...
Trevor: Mr Stribley [his other great enemy] has murdered Pam [a neighbour of Trevor's parents who's been in a care home for a couple of years]. I called down the fire of God on him. If he gets burned up by God, the police won't prosecute me for it, will they?
Me: No, Trevor, the police definitely won't prosecute you for burning up Mr Stribley. But why did he murder Pam? What did he stand to gain?
Trevor: That's just what he does. He's murdered so many people. All those poor people on that aeroplane that vanished from Malaysia, he did that.
. . . . . . . . . . .
I was sat with Rick our verger saying Morning Prayer, slightly disturbed by a persistent sawing noise from outside. I assumed it was Jack, who is often about on Saturday morning tidying in the churchyard and doing odd jobs. But what could he be up to?
Once we were done, I went outside to say hello. I found not Jack but a man I've seen around the village but never spoken to before. He was sawing laminated flooring panels on the benches in the churchyard. He doesn't speak English that well. 'These for my house,' he explained. 'No table. Is all right?'
I was too nonplussed to disagree. Of course it was. It was only afterwards I found he'd managed to saw shavings off the benches as well as his floorboards. I suppose we are, in this, providing a service to the community. I should tell the diocesan newspaper.
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