Redacted for Biscuits
On lost pages, polite rebellions, and the mercies that smudge.
Redacted for Biscuits
It began, as village drama tends to, with a dropped page and a woman who had never met a boundary she respected.
Maggie hadn’t noticed the page was missing. It must have slipped free after the WI subcommittee on teabag pricing and bin etiquette. She remembered folding her coat, juggling a thermos, the dog lead, and her notebook.
Apparently not well.
The page turned up the next morning — creased and gripped like a subpoena in the manicured hand of Audrey Crenshaw.
Audrey waited for the break in the next meeting: strategic, public, perfectly timed.
“Maggie,” she said, voice low but pointed. “May I have a word?”
She held out the page. Folded once. Then unfolded, slowly.
“I believe this is yours.”
Maggie glanced down. Recognised her own handwriting.
Paper rasp. A narrowing of breath.
Then composure.
Not the worst. Not ideal.
A casefile fragment. Vague, observing. An unnamed Chairwoman, shortbread “with the moral clarity of a forged signature,” and “ritual control thinly disguised as hospitality.”
“That’s not a published piece.”
“No,” Audrey said. “But it is … concerning.”
“To whom?”
“Do you keep notes?”
“Occasionally.”
“About … us?”
“About tea. And proximity. And fig bars. You’re in there, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not appropriate. This sort of … cataloguing.”
“Better than misfiling,” Maggie said.
Her fingers curled slightly at her side.
“I am requesting, formally, that you cease record-keeping of WI affairs unless it pertains to minutes.”
Maggie paused. “Noted.”
She thought of retrieving the page.
Then didn’t.
By Sunday, the page had stopped troubling her — at least in public.
By Thursday, it had become A Thing.
Netta Flinn sidled up during clean-up duty and whispered, “I always said your notebook held power.” She offered Maggie a protective sachet — cloves and eucalyptus.
Maggie declined politely.
Reginald said nothing, but raised an eyebrow high enough to count as commentary. When Audrey tried to hand him a petition titled Guidelines for Internal Documentation, he muttered, “We’re not a tribunal, Audrey,” and walked away.
By Friday, someone had scrawled LET THE WOMAN WRITE on the community corkboard — in Sharpie, not guilt.
Maggie stayed silent and watched.
The following Monday, she arrived early.
Tucked a folded sheet into the biscuit tin. Another into Audrey’s clipboard. One more beneath the donations jar at the parish hall.
Same text on all three:
Observation: Some documents were never meant for scrutiny. Especially the tender ones.
Outcome: De-escalated with plausible deniability and a tray of shortbread.
Additional note: If anyone asks, I keep a shopping list. And sometimes, it gets poetic.
She didn’t sign them. Not directly.
The biscuits would speak for her.
A small butter mark blurred the word control. She left it.
A faint ring of tea circled the margin when she closed the notebook — evidence enough of attention.
Later that week, Audrey handed out a new WI Code of Conduct.
Maggie smiled. It included a clause about “refraining from unofficial record-keeping, especially when coupled with metaphor.”
She wrote that down.
When Audrey passed her in the aisle, neither nodded. That, for now, was truce.
Netta admired the clause. “At last,” she said, “someone regulating metaphor.”
Outside, the hall smelled faintly of shortbread and apology.
Notebook Entry
Casefile #33 — Redacted for Biscuits
Observation: Some truths aren’t dangerous. Just inconveniently phrased.
Outcome: Narrative retained. Control politely declined.
Additional note: This entry has been redacted for biscuits.