My neighbour was sneaking over and pilfering my compost by the sackful in the dead of night. So, last night, I generously sprinkled it with baking yeast.
Been round nicking from my heap again, have you? It wasnt a question, just stating the blindingly obvious.
Linda, the neighbour just over the fence, didnt bat an eyelid. Stood in the middle of her veg patch, leant on her spade, giving me the look of someone wrongly accused in a TV courtroom drama.
Oh come off it, Grace, she huffed, youve got mountains of the stuff! Cant begrudge a childhood friend, can you?
Its not stuff, Linda. Thats five hundred quid a load, plus the bloke with the lorry wanted extra for offloading. I nodded at the significantly shrunken mound at the far end of my garden. And for the record, its mine.
Oh, choke on it then! she rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might fall out. So what if I took a bucket or two for my cucumbers? My pensions laughable. I cant be ordering truckloads like some people.
Linda always knew just when to play the victim. Her life was a string of injustices: the council, the weather, solar flares, and, naturally, me, because my tomatoes blushed before hers every year.
Back indoors, I felt my anger fizzing away like a badly-capped bottle of cola. It wasnt about buckets or moneythe cheek of it, and the way she must think Im daft, really got under my skin.
Every night, around two in the morning, Id hear that familiar rustle. And it was never just a bucket. Linda went full commandopacking thick black builders sacks, silently hauling away enough for a siege.
In the kitchen, Tom sat chewing on a sandwich and scribbling in his crossword book.
She been at it again? he asked, eyes glued to 9-across.
She has. And then calls me stingy, as usual.
Well, set a trap.
Yes, and then explain to everyone why Lindas hopping around the garden on one leg. No, this needs cunning, not brute force.
I peered out the window at her pristine greenhouse, the envy of the allotment committee. Linda loved to boast about her one-of-a-kind seeds and the magic touch. Magic, indeedespecially when diving into someone elses compost.
That night, sleep would not oblige me. I lay there listening to a barking dog, the rhythmic chirp of crickets, and thenthat rustle again. Linda, shovel in hand, mining the heap Id nursed under tarpaulin like a precious family heirloom.
Morning. As usual, Linda was already bustling about her beds.
Morning, Gracie! she sang out, beaming like the winner of Best Turnip in Show. Your courgettes look a bit peakyis something the matter?
Oh, she was positively radiant. Her boots made tracks betraying that three more sacks had vanished overnight.
Morning, Linda. Youll be waiting a long time if you think youre getting any more, I muttered pointedly.
I drifted to the shed and spotted my garden supplies: seed packets, feed, and a jumbo yellow tub of dried yeast, bought ages ago for strawberries. Suddenly, an idea assembled itself in my mind with military precision.
Linda stashed her loot in extra-strong builders sacks, tightly tied, then left to ripen in her greenhouses balmy embraceperfect conditions for fermentation.
I filled a bucket with warm water, emptied in every crumb of sugar from the cupboard, then tipped in the entire yeast packet. The mixture fizzed and bubbled encouragingly, stinking of homemade booze and sweet, sweet revenge.
As soon as dusk fell and before my nightly thief set out, I crept round the back, slipped my hand through the same gap in the fence she used, and liberally doused the top of the pile. Let her enjoy a nice homemade starter if she fancied pinching something.
Back inside, I washed my hands and slid into bed, feeling as if the scales of justice had finally levelled.
Whyre you grinning? Tom mumbled sleepily.
Im expecting sweet dreams, finally, I replied, snuggling under the duvet.
The night passed peacefully. Not even the customary rustle. Perhaps Linda was slinking about extra carefully.
But morning didnt get off to its peaceful, radio-two-and-tea start. It was shattered by an almighty shrieklike a fox in the compost heap.
Tom and I leapt up together. He ran to the window in nothing but his pants.
Whats happened?! he yelled, blinking into the watery morning light.
I threw on my dressing gown and opened the door. The air was crisp and tangy, laced with an odd, sour note. Linda stood by her gleaming polycarbonate greenhouse, doors flung wide.
She was a sight. Her dressing gown and hair were polka-dotted brown, giving her the look of someone caught in a custard pie fight. I sauntered over, playing the part of the concerned neighbour.
Linda, what on earths happened? Your pipes burst?
She turned to me, wild-eyed, face plastered with the same brown substance. Itit exploded! Oh, Grace! Its alive!
I peered in through the mesh and just about restrained a giggle. Inside, it looked as if WWIII had kicked off in miniature. The orderly sacks shed stacked so carefully were torn apart. A thick, sticky mess plastered the clear walls and the ceiling dripped brown gunk. Her prize pepper bed looked like itd survived an artillery barrage. And in the middle of it stood Linda, star of the show.
What on earth exploded? I asked, deadpan.
The sacks! she spluttered. Went in to check, and the first one went bang! Then another! Grace, what did you put in there?!
Me? I raised my best innocent eyebrows. Thats my compost, on my property. Only thing Ive added is what Daisy the cow donated.
How it ended up so neatly portioned in sacks inside your greenhousewell, now thats an interesting question.
Linda froze. The gears in her mind were clearly grinding awaya confession meant admitting theft, but to call it hers would mean owning the whole fiasco. She looked as if she was melting, in more ways than one.
Its sabotage! she hissed eventually. You tried to poison me!
With organic plant food? I shrugged. Maybe the greenhouse has bad feng shui. Or youve been hexed. Werent you the one with the magic touch?
Tom appeared at the door, surveyed the devastation, choked back a laugh, and darted back inside before he gave the game away. Linda, meanwhile, launched into frantic damage control with the hosepipe.
Water trickled instantly off the dressing gown, but the smell clung like heartbreak. Not the perfume of successmore a powerful ode to hubris.
All day, the street buzzed with gossip about Lindas exploding allotment. Theories abounded: secret moonshine operations, high-tech fertilizer bombs, maybe even a meteorite. But Linda, stoic as a Cold War spy, scrubbed her greenhouse well into sunset.
She had to throw out all her seedlings and change the topsoilthe nutritional boost was now a radioactive zone, even for the hardiest courgette. That evening, she didnt come calling for a cuppaa rare event.
A week later, another truck rumbled in with a fresh load of compost for me. The heap restored to its former glory. That night, silence. No midnight rustling, no shovel scraping. I went out into the moonlit garden: untouched.
The next morning, Linda strode past my fence, face rigidly averted. Now shed started buying bright bags of compost from the posh garden centreout of her own purse.
Morning, neighbour! Hows your pepper crop? I called out.
She stopped, glared. There was not the tiniest hint of guiltonly well-founded fear of chemical warfare.
Theyre fine, she grumbled. Ill manage, dont need your gifts.
Great! If you ever want the secret feeding recipe, you know where I am.
She spat on the path and all but sprinted home. I went back and brewed a fortifying mug of builders.
No gloating, no gleejust a sense that the world was running in its proper groove. Mine stayed mine, and no one dared touch my heap again.
Boundaries arent set by the height of the fence, but by the lessons you dish out. Dont poke around in someone elses muck if youre not ready for surprises.
And I keep a generous tub of baking yeast on the top shelf, now. Just in case another pesky little bug wants to test my generosityeveryone learns the hard way around here.
