Gertrude, Gumshoe Cozy Mystery Box Set: Complete Series by Robin Merrill

Author:Robin Merrill [Merrill, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Creation Publishing
Published: 2018-07-07T22:00:00+00:00

6

It was time for the slam. While Beth wandered around the room with marker boards looking for judges, and everyone else stood, stretched, and refilled their drinks, Gertrude followed the directive to head toward a corner of the room for the “draw.” She had no idea what this meant. She pictured two gunslingers from one of Calvin’s westerns squaring off in a dusty street.

This draw, as it turned out, had nothing to do with pistols. Eight competitors crowded around a young man holding a hat. He quickly rattled through the rules, but Gertrude had already read most of them online: no props, must be original work, three-minute time limit.

Each poet reached into the hat and drew a small piece of crumpled paper.

With dismay, she watched one of the poets, a hairy man with lots of tattoos, eat his piece of paper. With even more dismay, she realized that none of the other poets found this odd. And people say I’m peculiar.

When it was Gertrude’s turn to reach into the hat, she was overcome by an urge to grab all of the remaining scraps of paper, but she resisted and limited herself to one. Unfolding the paper revealed the number 1.

Pushing down on the walker with her left hand, she shot her right fist into the air, gave a little hop, and shouted, “Yippee!”

The other poets all stared at her as if she had lizards crawling out of her ears.

“What?” she asked.

“Oh nothing,” a tall young woman with shiny silver hair said. “It’s just, most people don’t want to go first. We all try not to draw the one. That’s cool, though. Glad you’re good with it.”

“I am,” Gertrude said defensively. “Good with it,” she added. She folded the paper back up and slipped it into her pocket. Then she said, “You’re awfully young for silver hair, aren’t you?”

The girl just smiled tolerantly.

Gertrude returned to her seat to find Calvin had gotten himself a glass of wine.

“Calvin!” she accused. “You have to drive me home!”

“Gertrude, I believe we’re going to be here for several more hours. I’ll be fine. I thought maybe a glass of wine would help me to stop agonizing about the giant parking ticket on my windshield right now.”

“Oh don’t worry. I’ll help you pay it.”

“Sure you will,” he said sarcastically.

“I appreciate your confidence,” Gertrude said sincerely.

Beth took the stage again. “OK, Poetland,” she cried enthusiastically. “We are going to have ourselves a poetry slam!”

The crowd burst into cheers and whistles.

Gertrude’s belly did a small flip.

Beth continued, “This is a qualifying slam, which means tonight’s winner will be eligible to compete in the indie semifinals, which will eventually lead us to find out who will represent us at the Individual World Poetry Slam this October in Austin, Texas!

More hoots, claps, stomps, and whistles.

“Is there another Austin?” Calvin muttered sarcastically, and rhetorically.

“How should I know?” Gertrude said.

Beth introduced the judges and then she read a short history of poetry slam from her clipboard, “Poetry slam was invented in the

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