Free My Very Best Friend by Cathy Lamb Page A

Maddening!
I will be making my enchilada soup with chips and guacamole. I will be sending Fiona to chicken heaven. You know, the brown and white one, gold feathers on top? Arrogant chicken.
She’ll be delicious.
Remember, we need to talk about the fund-raiser. I can put up a couple of my chickens for the event, but we need something to crow about if we are going to contribute money for whatever worthy cause we choose this year, so start tootling that thinking cap!
 
Sincerely,
Olive
 
As always, so we don’t have to spend all day on the blasted phone, pass this note around. When you’ve seen it, write your name down, or a message at the bottom, and get it quick as a whip to the next person on the list. You all know the route by now.
 
To the ladies of the Garden Gobbling group,
Olive,
I’m delighted that Charlotte is coming. I can’t wait to see her! She’s a few years younger than me. Charlotte’s parents were both quite kind. I remember loving Mrs. Mackintosh’s American accent. I thought it was so worldly and stylish.
I heard from Dee Dee’s boy, Arthur, who works for Toran, and who helped unload all the rubbish from Charlotte’s house, that Charlotte lives on an island near Hawaii, has about twenty cats, sells vegetables for a living, especially tomatoes, and she has six types of tomatoes. She’s a farmer like her father. She likes physics. She also is against whale killing, but keeps whales in the ocean, which is her front yard. A tad confusing!
Don’t kill Fiona. I love that chicken. She’s a chicken fashion model and I won’t eat her.
On another note, we could kill my soon-to-be ex-husband, The Arse, pluck his feathers, boil him, and feed him to a hog. He has a girlfriend named Chrissy. You might know her by her other name, Bubbles. Can you believe this? He left me for bubbles.
Rowena
 
Hello garden gang ladies,
Olive, I have to add my own dose of medicine here. Please don’t kill Fiona. She is one of my favorites. She does seem to think the world of herself, but more woman power to her, right? Maybe we all should learn to strut like she does. Sorry this is such the scribble! I had a plum busy night. I reattached a toe, put twelve stitches into a man’s arse when he cut it open on a wine barrel, and had to operate on a man who had “accidentally” swallowed two beer caps.
He was in his cups. Told me I reminded him of “Doctor Mean Elf.”
I’m so glad to hear that Charlotte is a farmer in the States. Her father was an outstanding farmer and businessman, that’s what my father says. He still misses Quinn.
 
Kenna
 
Ladys,
I come to Gobbling Ladys Club and I bring chicken makhani, which is a chicken that has the butter. It’s tasty in the mouth water.
And piece to all of you and joy of life,
Gitanjali
Rowena and Kenna,
Don’t be ridiculous. You will love the taste of Fiona.
Olive
 
Lorna,
I am sending this note only to you.
We have St. Ambrose Ladies’ Gab, Garden, and Gobble Group this week, as usual. I want to talk to you about something, and I thought I’d put it in a letter for personal protection. You can come round or phone later if you need to talk after you have calmed your feathers back down.
A few of the women have been complaining because—I don’t know how to say it gently, so I won’t bother—you’re snippy and rude.
When you told Rowena that her garden had not improved for years, that did not have a pleasing result. It was not right for her to shove her slice of Tantallon cake into your chest, and call you an old witch, as you are not old, but you had no right to get so huffy about it, either. Rowena has four kids, and an ex-husband who, as you know, has taken up with that young bartender in town with breasts the size of Edinburgh.
When you had an argument with Kenna and told her she didn’t know a thing about roses, which she does, and you realize it, Lorna, as her roses always win awards, it showed your jealous side. You took such offense when she said your garden