Lillian's Minor Garden Issue

Per usual, the Mayor took her seat at 6:30PM sharp. "Alright everyone, it looks like we've got a long night ahead of us so if I could please remind you to keep comments under ten minutes, that would be wonderful. Thank you. Alright, who do we have first?"

She consulted a handwritten docket curled inside a leather portfolio. "It looks like first on the agenda I have a complaint from the neighbors of Lillian Stanberg. Is Lillian here tonight?"

A withered hand shot up from the small crowd and an old woman in a lilac sweater wheeled herself forcefully to the front of the room, where she crossed her arms and swept a glare across the council members.

"Mrs. Stanberg, it seems your neighbors are concerned that a part of your garden may have..." The mayor adjusted her red framed glasses slightly, "... gained sentience and eaten several neighborhood pets."

"Pish posh," replied Mrs. Stanberg.

"One anonymous commenter said - My beautiful cat Marmalade, why Marmalade? Why? Why? Why? Why?"

The mayor paused to flip a page. "Well, it goes on like that for a while but in the interest of time we'll skip ahead. Harold Milner said I was walking my Pokipsie by Lillian's one night. I turned away to give her some privacy while she made her business. When I turned back, I saw her little legs disappearing under Lillian's fence. I tried to grab them but it was too late. There was a terrible gnashing sound from the other side of the fence. Then blood splattered out onto my shoes."

The Mayor turned to the recorder, "How are we doing on time here Jerry?"

"Jist at five minutes ma'am," he replied in his thick New Zealand accent.

"Lovely, lovely."

"Anyway, where was I? ...oh yes the blood on the shoe. Mrs. Stanberg it would seem Mr. Milner had the blood analyzed by a private Shaman who concluded that Pokipsie died of unnatural causes." She looked down at the old woman whose only response was her immovable steel gaze. "What are your thoughts on this matter?"

"Not my problem."

"Do you have any thoughts on how part of your garden may have attained a taste for flesh Mrs. Stanberg?"

"Nope."

"How's Mr. Stanberg? I don't recall seeing him in town for quite some time."

"He's on vacation...permanently!"

"Well, I would certainly hope that if anything had happened to Mr. Stanberg, that body would have been disposed of following city code 539, which states that all bodies not intruded in the cursed cemetery must be fed to the lake monster in order to avoid instances similar to this one."

The old woman's face became so sour it looked like it might actually implode upon itself.

"Right. Well, I'm afraid city code 227 states that any sentient shrubbery, which demonstrated malicious intent, must be disposed of immediately. We've all seen this before, it starts with animals and then graduates to children; and we all know we don't have enough of those in town since the last pterodactyl incident. Do you intend to take care of this yourself, or shall I send out a city worker at our next available time slot?"

The old woman mumbled a curse in an ancient, long dead, language and wheeled herself back to her seat.

"Jerry please make a note to send a maintenance worker round to Mrs. Stanberg's place at first available."

"Already done Mrs."

"You are a treasure Jerry. And we kept that under ten, fantastic! Who's next?"