Grandma
Stannard
(and why you
shouldn't annoy
the neighbours)
a short story
by
Tracey Meredith
2016
Published by Tracey Meredith
Copyright Tracey Meredith 2016
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when old Grandma Stannard was woken from a deep sleep by a pounding on her door. She got up slowly, having fallen asleep in her rocking chair, slumped sufficiently to one side to give herself a very stiff shoulder and a sore elbow. Just something else that was going to start aching, she grumbled to herself.
She shuffled to the door, silently cursing her age and all its infirmities. The door received another pounding. “I'm coming, I'm coming,” muttered Grandma, more to herself than the caller outside. Who on Earth wanted to talk to her this urgently? She wasn't expecting anyone, and she didn't have any kith or kin she had to worry about. The house wasn't on fire, the— Her thought processes paused. She sniffed. The house wasn't on fire, was it? No, she couldn't smell burning, and if anything was on fire in this house, she told herself, she would definitely smell it.
The knocking on the door continued. What was so damn urgent? She reached the door and put her eye to the spy-hole. There was no one there. She frowned. Don't say it was one of those bloody dwarves again, trying to persuade her that her front yard needed tarmacking. “Look at the weeds,” they would tell her. “It will stop them growing. It will save you hours of weeding,” they would insist. But Grandma liked weeds. Bees and other insects liked the weeds, too, and though Grandma Stannard had no particular affinity or fondness for bees, she saw no point in depriving the creatures of their reason for being, just to give a bunch of shifty looking dwarves a job to do. And, besides, a lot of the weeds growing in Grandma's front yard, aside from annoying the Hell out of nearby neighbours, were very useful—even the stinging nettles; though she had to admit, she hadn't been too keen on the nettle soup recipe she had tried. Yes, it had taken a certain kind of courage, eating that. She never thought she would come across something that was worse than cabbage soup.
She pulled open the door and snapped, “What!” Two children stood on her doorstep, a boy and a girl, their likeness to each other indicating they might be related. They beamed at her, as though she was the very person they had been waiting for. “What?” said Grandma again, and this time, far more irritably.
“Trick or Treat?” said the boy, in an annoyingly sing-song voice.
“It's April,” said Grandma coldly.
“And?” offered the boy.
“Trick or Treat happens in October,” Grandma reminded him.
“We know,” chimed in the girl. “We're starting the offer early, so you can beat the rush.”
“Rush?” said Grandma. “What rush? There's never any rush here.” And there wasn't. Grandma had a Reputation with her neighbours, and particularly their children. “Don't do Trick or Treat at Grandma Stannard's door,” they would say. “She doesn't do treats, but she knows a lot of nasty tricks.”
The girl interrupted her thoughts. “You don't get many Trick-or-Treaters, then?” she asked, tilting her head to one side and shaking her thick, blonde curls. She's probably been doing that since she was a toddler, thought Grandma. Presumably, no one has bothered to tell her it's no longer cute. Vapid, yes. And definitely irritating. But not cute.
“Perhaps we could help you with that,” prattled the girl. “For a small consideration, we can arrange for an agreed number of Trick-and-Treaters to call at your residence—” Grandma slammed the door on the pair. She stared at the back of the door and wondered if she should have given the two a more terrifying experience. After all, she had a reputation to maintain. She shrugged. They had probably told their parents where they were going. Any satisfaction she might enjoy was not worth the risk.
She shuffled back into the kitchen, and noticed, with a shiver and a curse, that the fire in the kitchen range had gone out. She must have been asleep for some time. She opened the oven door. Yes. It was completely out, but still very hot. You wouldn't want to put your hand in there.
She found the poker and agitated the ashes for a while, before bending down to obtain the knotted rolls of unread newspapers she cheerfully recycled every time she lit her oven. Three of them went in, then a bit of wood and a few pieces of coal. The coal always brought a smile to her face. Her neighbours were forever complaining about the coal smoke that issued from her chimney all the year round. They especially complained in the summer, when the noxious fumes upset their delicate babies trying to enjoy their paddling pools, and other summer joys. It was amazing how poisonous burning rubber could make the environment.
Grandma liked annoying her neighbours. People, she felt, were far too intolerant these days, too eager to complain about the slightest thing that might interfere with their own personal utopia. In her day, you shut up and put up, and the world had been a much better place for it.
She picked up the box of matches. There was a knock on her door. She chose to ignore it. She took a match out of the box and struck it. The head flared. There was another, louder knock on the door. Grandma started, and dropped the match. “Bugger,” she muttered. She tried again. The flame caught the newspaper and travelled up the edge of the page. She watched the rest of the rolls catch, before there was another knock.
“For crying out loud!” she snarled, shutting the oven door and shuffling out of the kitchen. “What!” she said, somewhat aggressively, as she flung the front door open. “What is it now?” It was the same two kids. “Go away,” said Grandma, with great self control, and slammed the door.
As she turned to go back into her (hopefully) warming kitchen, the knocker went again. Grandma ground her teeth, and chose to ignore what she knew would be a waste of her time. Once more, just once more, she thought to herself, and those kids will get what's coming to them, and damn the consequences!
She opened the oven door to check on the fire. It had caught the coals now. Grandma threw on another shovelful of the reviled fuel, laughing to herself as she did so. That was one in the eye for Greenpeace, and all those panda-loving prats who were foolish enough to believe they could fight human ignorance and greed, and save the planet. Ha!
There was another pounding on the door. What the Hell was going on today? Was it Peeve Grandma Stannard Off Day? She pretended she hadn't heard the door. After all, who would be out there that she would want to talk to? Those terrible kids? No, thank you.
But, whoever it was, wasn't going to give up that easily. The knocking went on, and on, and on, and on. “Right,” said Grandma at last, angrily picking up the poker. They were really, really going to get what was coming to them, now.
When she got to the door, she looked through the spy-hole, just to check it wasn't someone who might put up a fight. Again, there appeared to be no one there. “Bloody kids,” she grumbled as she threw open the door.
“Ah, good day, madam,” said a tall fellow in a pin-striped suit. He carried a brief-case in one hand and a furled umbrella under his arm. His other hand sat firmly in his pocket. “May I—?” he began. Grandma shut the door on him. She peered through the spy-hole again. According to the spy-hole, either no one was there, or someone very short was. She frowned, further wrinkling her already wrinkled brow. That fellow had been at least six feet tall. Why couldn't she see him?
She opened the door again. The man was still there. “Ah,” he began, putting his free hand hurriedly into his pocket. She shut the door, again, an
d peered through the spy-hole, again. He definitely wasn't there. She opened the door, ignoring the man's words about double-glazing as she carefully studied the spy-hole on this side of the door. It was still there, and it didn't appear to have been tampered with.
She turned to face the man, who was continuing with his spiel as though Grandma was giving him her undivided attention. “And of course, madam, and I mean no offence when I say this, but for a lady on her own, so rich in years as you, there is the additional comfort of security. All our windows and doors come with—”
“No, thank you,” said Grandma. “And I'm thirty-one,” she lied, as she slammed the door in his face. She hurried back to the kitchen. There hadn't been that much coal on that fire. If she was unlucky, the flames would have consumed it all and the fire would be—
She pulled open the oven door and gave a sigh that sounded more like a growl. Yes, the fire had gone out. She would have to start again. More paper went on. The hot coals underneath it started to make the paper smoke, but refused to co-operate fully enough to make the paper actually ignite. She fetched the match-box off the shelf, but, before she could even open it, there was another knock on the door. Grandma clenched her teeth and