Dunducketty's Dahlia Heist

It was a time of mending, a time to heal. The folks of Dunducketty (population 63) had agreed to extend a hand of friendship towards the 4 families residing on the hill above their village. Mostly cousins anyway, the hill was known derisively as “Dunducketty Heights” and its residents, the “nobs.”  The hand of friendship had been withdrawn twelve months earlier when a slur was cast by the teenage daughter of one of the nobs. It concerned teeth. She’d suggested the number of teeth in lower Dunducketty averaged out to 3 per person. Unwisely published it on social media for all the world to see! The standoff began immediately and was rancorous. The Dunducketty General Store refused service to anyone from Dunducketty Heights. In retaliation, the nobs constructed a crude barbed-wire gate across the gravel road leading up to their hill. Nobody thought to fact-check the accuracy of the dental-hygiene accusation, but it was the public airing of dirty laundry which had stung.

 Lester Spigott, proprietor of the General Store, felt the gradual financial impact of losing custom from the Dunducketty Heights families. Heading a delegation from lower Dunducketty, he alighted from his asthmatic Landcruiser at the barbed-wire gate separating the two Dunduckettys.

“We’re willin’ ta let bygones be bygones,” he drawled across the wire and extended a gnarly hand.

“Aww yeah?”  Shaz Clutterbuck quizzed suspiciously in a nasal whine. “What’s in it fer youse?”

Lester’s plan had been fermenting for weeks.

“You take down the gate. You’ll get service in the store. An’ ter celebrate the neighbourly community vibe, we’ll have a flower competition in the ol’ schoolroom an’ a pissup that night. Most houses in Dunducketty have a few straggly dahlias in the yard so everyone hasta enter a dahlia. Waddya reckon Shaz?”

“There’s no lightin' in the old schoolroom. Ya know that.”

“I’ll get a sparkie from town ta come out an’ jury-rig some lightin’. Are we good?”

Hands were shaken, the gate came down, the nobs had their service at the store reinstated.

 Dunducketty’s single classroom school had closed a generation ago. Ever since, Dunducketty kids were bused 29km into the larger service town for their schooling. Several windows were now broken and peeling paint revealed deteriorating weatherboard walls. On the agreed morning of the Dahlia comp, residents trooped into the building each bearing a single colourful dahlia from their garden. They were presented in used beer stubbies, jam jars and spirit bottles. A frisson permeated the community – the cold war had ended, people were talking again, there would be a pissup after the judging of the dahlias. By midday, all entries were inside the schoolroom and the door was closed to the public.

A visiting community nurse, reluctantly seconded as judge, agonised for less than a minute before allocating first, second and third places to the anonymously displayed dahlias before departing Dunducketty quickly. The nurse had zero knowledge of flowers. Around 4pm, a tradie from the service town roared up to the old school. The sides of his 4WD announced ‘Markie the Sparkie.’ Lighting for the evening’s festivity was quickly jury-rigged and he too was soon on his way.

 At exactly 7pm, the entire population of 63 milled outside, toting eskies, plates of sandwiches and cakes. Lester and Shaz opened the schoolroom door, flipped the lights and the excited throng surged in to learn whose dahlias had received awards. Jaws dropped as one, brows furrowed. The trestle table was filled with numerous bottles and jars containing water but no dahlias. Voices were raised, accusatory looks and comments ricocheted around the schoolroom.

Fixing Shaz Clutterbuck with a death stare, Lester Spigott snarled, “Bloody hell! Youse nobs just can’t help yourselves can youse?”

“Hang about. Weren't us. Betcha this heist was done by some lowlife from down the hill. Wiv' about three teeth!” Shaz snapped in response.

 There was no pissup that night, the barbed-wire gate was reinstated across the hill road, the nobs had shopping rights at the General Store revoked forthwith. There was only one silver lining in the threatening cloud that evening. Twenty-nine kilometres from Dunducketty, Markie the Sparkie’s wife was glowingly chuffed about the gorgeous bunch of dahlias her thoughtful hubbie had brought home for her.