the planning continued. It seemed to be going uphill from there. Rowena set up almost daily meetings, where everybody came and discussed their plans for the anniversary. Simon’s whole band was on board with this thing. They had practice sessions every week. Violet was still spying on everyone, and bringing in interesting snippets of what she called, ‘classified information from the said subjects,’ but what everyone else called, gossip. Harry’s food samples were simply mouth-wateringly good, and the samples were always gone at the end of meetings. Simon suspected Violet stuffed half of them into her bag when no one was looking, but still hadn’t been able to prove it.

Simon also started on the decorations. When he told his sister Rose, she practically exploded with excitement.
‘You? YOU? Are sponsoring an event for PLANESVILLE!?’ she squealed. ‘And YOU, are making the decorations? This is BRILLIANT! And I can make ANY KIND OF DECORATION? This is going to be great, brother, you and me, decorating the party! We’ll get all sorts of bonding time!’ Simon smiled weakly.
‘Yay. I’m so happy,’ he mumbled.

So far, his over-enthusiastic sister had bought Chinese lamps, candles, cardboard, paper, paint, pencils, brushes, fireworks, and a lot of other things, all bought through the money she got from her 4 small, stall businesses. Simon didn’t even have to chip anything in. Each of the lamps was emblazoned with P, L, A, N, E, S, V, or I, which ruined the Chinese effect, but as Rose said, ‘Chinese doesn’t have letters. They have symbols for each word. And I am not about to invent one for Planesville.’ Simon kinda loitered around, attempting to help Rose’s decor mania. And each week, Simon would bring a box to the small rented out room in the town hall to show the others, and store in a corner.

The group, officially named the Planesville Anniversary Planning Committee (PAPC) by Rowena, and unofficially named the Society To Undergo Planesville’s Impossible Disco (STUPID) unsubtly by Violet, had finished one of their meetings, when the first incident happened. Harry was walking out of the meeting room, when he slipped on a blob of paint. Arms cartwheeling, he threw his tray, and all the plates on it, into the air, and he fell back with a THUMP!

Nothing was broken, as the plates were paper, but Harry’s pants were stained with red paint, and he had a nasty bump on the back of his head. Violet blamed Simon. Simon blamed Rowena. Rowena slapped herself repeatedly on the forehead. Harry assured everyone that, yes, he was perfectly alright, no, that he didn’t like these pants anyway, and no, he did not need assistance to get home. Rowena looked flustered.

‘Guess it could have been an accident,’ she muttered. ‘But still…’ and she walked out of the room. Harry, after assuring everyone once again on his health, followed her out the door. Keith, Violet, Simon, and Lucy were left staring at each other.
‘Well,’ Lucy said, ‘I’m going to get myself dinner. Anyone wanna come?’ There was no answer. Lucy walked out with her head high, picking up her bag, and resolutely not looking at any of them. Keith got up too.
‘My daughter’s judo class will end soon,’ he said. ‘I’d better be there to pick her up.’ He left the room. Simon was left staring at Violet. He made to go, but Violet stopped him.

‘Wait,’ she said quickly. ‘This fell out of Lucy’s bag.’ She held up a page that looked as if it was ripped out of a notebook. Simon really didn’t want to have anything to do with Violet, but his curiosity was peaked.
‘What is it?’ He asked, moving closer, to take a look at it. It looked to be a diary entry. Violet was already reading, eyes skimming over the words. Simon started reading.

19th of October, Saturday.
We had the meeting today. It went well, I think. Honestly, I don’t know how my ancestors did it. The members of my little “society” can’t get along with each other at all. I guess that’s the point though. Hopefully, this will all go to plan. Just a few incidents, nothing too dramatic. Stop them from succeeding, and I’m saved. Fail… well, I just can’t imagine the consequences if my plans fail. I can only hope.

Simon looked up, to meet Violet’s wide eyes.
‘There’s someone in the society trying to stop us,’ she said. Simon sucked in a gulp of air. This was much more than he bargained for.