by G. M. Dobbs
‘Capitalism by its very nature exploits the working man,’ Mark brought a fist down on the table to illustrate his point.
‘And the working woman,’ Sue chimed in. ‘It’s not all about men you know.’
‘Right on, sister,’ Mansall punched the air and had to adjust his cap when it fell forward over his eyes.
‘I had the impression it was about frogs,’ Granny chimed in.
‘Right on sister,’ Mansall repeated, this time neglecting to punch the air but throwing his support behind Granny as well as Sue.
‘I really think we should get back to the frogs,’ Granny said and then used the pun she had been itching to use for the last ten minutes or so: ‘We seem to have hopped away from the point of this meeting.’
Maud liked that and nudged Granny gently in the side as a token of her appreciation.
‘Indeed,’ Mark stood and leaned forward, his knuckles on the edge of the table. ‘But I used the word man as in mankind. I was referring to the species and not any specific gender.’
‘Womankind,’ Sue chipped in again. When she got something between her teeth she held onto it with the tenacity of a terrier. She also found Mark to be a pompous ass and took pleasure in annoying him.
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ Carol was sat forward on the table, her chin resting in her cupped hands. She looked bored and other than this one utterance was content to allow the proceedings to go on around her.
‘Please, please,’ Councillor Pipe stood and glared across the table at Mark. He didn’t say another word until Mark had sat himself back down, and then gave a tight smile before continuing. ‘You have stated your case and I have listened but please do not let this resort to petty arguments. If this meeting is to continue then I must insist on the correct decorum.’
‘Well what are you going to do, Dwain?’ Granny asked. She had known the councillor since he had been knee high to a grasshopper and would never, no matter what position he held in the council, address him by anything other than his Christian name.
The councillor frowned at the use of his Christian name.
‘I will arrange for a spokesman from your little group to put your concerns before a full council meeting,’ he said.
‘And when will this be?’ Mark asked, his tone aggressive. ‘The development is due to star in less than a month and I imagine someone in the council will benefit from things going ahead. This is nothing but typical bureaucratic stalling for time.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ the councillor once again glared at Mark. ‘What are you inferring?’
‘It is you that infers,’ Mark said, smugly. ‘I’m implying.’
‘Semantics,’ the councillor waved a hand as if to dismiss Mark.
Mansall, wondering what apes had to do with anything, turned his head back and forth between the councillor and Mark like someone watching a tennis match.
‘And I imply that palms have been greased within the council,’ Mark wasn’t going to let this go.
This time the councillor was speechless and looked to Granny for support, for it was she who had cajoled him into attending this impromptu meeting, which felt to the councillor like an inquisition.
The focus of the meeting should have been the small pond on Graig Meadow, which was a known spawning ground for the extremely rare Lesser Crested Frog, and yet the amphibians had been all but forgotten and the meeting looked to be in danger of becoming a full-blown argument.
‘If the development starts and the pond is destroyed,’ Sue said, frowning. ‘That it’ll be too late. It’ll be no use stopping things once the pond’s been destroyed. That would just be a waste of time.’
‘The pond goes,’ Amy said, offering Sue a smile of support. ‘The frogs will have gone forever.’
‘I am aware of your concerns,’ the councillor started but he was cut short by a hostile “bollocks” yelled out by Mark.
‘That’s the point, Dwain,’ Granny said, quickly stepping in to defuse the situation. Mark seemed to be getting riled and Granny knew he had a nasty temper. ‘The Lesser Crested Frog is a very territorial creature and if it’s habitat is destroyed then it will move on elsewhere and will miss the next spawning season. The frogs are rare enough as it is in this part of the world so time is of the essence. We can’t wait for a full council meeting,’ she pulled her battered pipe from her pocket and placed it in her mouth. She would have liked nothing better right now than to puff on a bowl of burley tobacco but the smoking ban meant that she would have to wait until she went outside.
‘The meeting will be arranged by the end of the week,’ Councillor Pipe said, firmly. ‘I’ll call an extraordinary meeting which means I only have to give twenty eight hours notice.’
‘There,’ Granny said. ‘That’s something at least.’
‘Excuse me,’ a short man wearing an oversized raincoat and clutching a tan leather briefcase to his chest said as he approached the table. His eyes went to each of them in turn before settling on the councillor since he was the only one wearing a shirt and tie and looked to be in charge. ‘I’m looking for a Terry Mansall.’
Mansall looked up at the newcomer and once again had to adjust his errant headband. He was about to identify himself, but then his eyes clouded over with suspicion and he remained silent. He had learned from past experience that whenever anyone came looking for him by name it usually wasn’t a good thing. The small man didn’t look like a bailiff, Mansall had enough experience with that breed to know one when he saw one, but the man was carrying a briefcase and Mansall could see no good reason for anyone connected with himself to carry a briefcase.
Mark was about to speak, likely pointing Mansall out, but Granny, noticing Mansall’s reluctance to make himself known, cut in.
‘And you are?’ she asked.
‘Forgive me,’ the small man said and had to put his briefcase down while he fished in his pockets for a business card, which he handed across to Granny.
Richard Purser, PhD
Herpetologist.
Cardiff University, Zoological department.
Granny looked at the card.
‘What’s a herpetologist?’ she asked, and wondered if Mansall had contracted some kind of sexually transmitted disease. She hoped not since she’d taken a swig from his Red Bull yesterday but as Granny looked across at him, the cold sore in the corner of his mouth suddenly became far more pronounced.
‘Herpetology,’ the man called Purser said. ‘Is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians. I received an email from a Mr Mansall. Something to do with the Lesser Crested Frog, I believe.’
Mansall’s sigh of relief was audible and he jumped to his feet, holding out a hand to the newcomer.
‘I’m Terry Mansall,’ he said. ‘You can call me Mansall. Everyone else does.’
The man took the hand, smiled weakly.
‘Please, Granny said. ‘Please join us. Mark get the frog guy a chair.’
Mark frowned at Granny but nevertheless went over into the corner and brought a chair from the stack by the door. He placed it around the table, seating the herpetologist between himself and Mansall.
‘Thank you,’ the newcomer said and sat down, placing his briefcase beneath his chair. He looked to Mansall, as if for guidance but all he received from the man was a wide smile and a thumbs up gesture.
It soon became apparent that the herpetologist had only a basic knowledge of what was happening here.
Granny took the lead and introduced everyone to the timid looking newcomer. She started with Mark, Sue, Carol and Amy before moving to Councillor Pipe and finally ending with herself and Maud. She followed this up by quickly explaining the situation that had resulted in Mansall contacting the herpetologist, an act that had surprised everyone present since Mansall was more often than not in a world of his own, no doubt provoked by the copious amounts of cannabis he smoked. He was, in the modern tongue, a stoner and it must have been during a rare moment of lucidity that he had contacted the herpetologist.
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br /> ‘I Googled, ‘frog experts’,’ Mansall said after Granny had finished summing up the current situation. ‘And came up with you.’
The man smiled, and once again looked around the table.
‘And this development’s been granted planning permission?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Mark flashed an angry look at Councillor Pipe. ‘Rushed through it was. Tudor Lewis seems to have many friends in the council.’
‘Everything went through the correct channels,’ the councillor said. ‘The Tudor proposals where treated like any other request for planning permission. I can assure you of that.’
‘But some channels are deeper than others,’ Mark retorted.
‘Yes well,’ Granny, once again sensing an argument forming, stood up and turned directly to Dr Purser. ‘Will you be able to attend the council meeting Dwain’s promised to arrange?’
‘Er, yes,’ the man said. ‘As long as the council allow my presence.’
All eyes turned to Councillor Pipe who smiled weakly.
‘There’ll be no objections,’ he said. ‘As an expert advisor you’ll be most welcome.’
Following the meeting Granny, Maud and the herpetologist had climbed into Mansall’s van, while the others, with the exception of Councillor Pipe who had gone onto another meeting, had gone to the pub.
It was Granny who had suggested that they visit the pond and Dr Purser had been eager to do so, saying that if he confirmed it was indeed a spawning ground for the Lesser Crested Frog then he would have some powers to stop the development going ahead. The species was after all protected by government legislation.
The government think tank called it the biodiversity action plan,’ Purser explained as Mansall guided the van down a particularly narrow lane. ‘The Lesser Crested Frog is one of only five UK amphibian species that are recognised to be at risk.’
‘So you can definitely stop the development?’ Granny asked and puffed on her unlit pipe. She had filled the bowl with tobacco but would wait until they got out of the van to take a match to it.
‘I can,’ Purser said. ‘If this proves to be a spawning ground for the Lesser Crested Frog then all it will take is one phone call. I can use the habitats and species regulations to get a dozen environmental officers securing the site of the pond. It may take a legal battle to get the planning permission revoked but the development will be held back until the case goes to court.’
‘You’re sure of that?’ Maud asked.
‘Indeed,’ Purser said. ‘If the Lesser Crested Frog does indeed use your pond then the site will be protected.’
‘Well done Mansall,’ Granny said and reached over and squeezed Mansall’s shoulder. ‘You’ve done well in bringing Dr Purser here.’
Purser smiled, gripped his briefcase tighter to his chest.
‘I’m not just a pretty face,’ Mansall said.
‘Not even a pretty face,’ Granny retorted and smiled around her unlit pipe.
Granny sat back, feeling more and more like an environmental activist, and a successful one at that. She had little experience of this sort of thing, not like Sue and Amy who had both spent a number of years at Greenham Common back in the early Eighties. Carol was also an old hand at protests of one kind of another, as was Mark and Mansall who had taken part in both the coal mining strike of 1984 and the later poll tax riots. Granny though, like Maud, was popping her protesting cherry with this movement against the Tudor development.
‘Slow down, Mansall,’ Maud said when they hit a pothole in the road, the vibrations being felt by everyone in the vehicle. Granny’s pipe jumped free of her teeth and she had to pick it up from the floor, scooping tobacco up after it and pushing the rubbed leaves back into the bowl.
‘Here now anyway,’ Mansall mumbled and pulled the van to a sudden stop. He was heavy on his brakes and they all jerked forward as the van stopped.
Granny was the first one out, immediately bringing a match to her pipe and taking in a mouthful of the pungent smoke.
‘Come on you lot, ‘ she said, speaking from within a cloud of thick smoke. ‘We’ve only got a little daylight left.’
The story continues in Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs
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