brokko

The old Badger disliked Halloween intensely. Maybe it was the connection with the Walpurgis Club, a bridge club he had once visited, a bridge club populated with all manner of beasts, even worse than the Menagerie Club where the Hideous Hog reigned supreme, an obnoxious, arrogant and know-it-all sort of fellow so into three no-trump contracts that the old and wise Badger brain wondered why they insisted on actually bidding - a waste of good bridge time - when the hideous one always ended up in the damned contract. Or was it their ghastly system they played at the Walpurgis? Named after the club itself: The Walpurgis Club. No-one could get their head around it, even the players themselves, always peering at their convention cards. And then there were the witches, sneakily peeking at their bridge flippers on the floor beside them, pretending to stroke their black cats. If tutting was allowed, the Badger would have been tutting all evening, but tutting was wasn't allowed at the Walpurgis. Yet scaring the wits out of your players was! And why he had decided on a whim to visit the Walpurgis on a Halloween many moons ago was still beyond his grasp. It's reputation preceded it. But he had. Curiousity had got the better of him. A "Trick or Treat Bridge Extravaganza" had been promised. He had pondered whether the overcooked, slightly burnt sausage rolls and insipid mulled wine had been classified as a "trick" or a "treat", and had concluded that they were neither. His partner was called Banquo - a ghostly looking man with white hair and pale skin who insisted on using a convention called Macbeth. And their opponents had been equally ghoulish: one warlock with frizzy hair and mad eyes and a hook-nosed witch with a large mug of steaming brew that a green frog peered out of now and again, burping loudly to draw attention to itself, and then disappearing back into the vapours. Though why he had never returned to the Walpurgis were those teeth. Those horrible ghastly teeth chattering away. If he had known that the tournament director, as soon as he was called for a revoke, would rush to the table and pull from his jacket pocket a pair of wind-up chattering dentures and set them in front of the offending player, he would never ever have ventured to the Walpurgis in the first instance. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! those plastic teeth were saying, mockingly, accusedly, chattering furiously until the coil had wound down. The Badger pondered what the punishment would have been four down vulnerable doubled? Thankfully, that never happened that evening and the Badger avowed never to visit the Walpurgis again. But tonight was again Halloween. But tonight would be different. It would be oh-so-normal bridge with my oh-so-normal bridge partner playing against oh-so-mainly-normal bridge opponents in a cozy reputable club, The Black and White, the Badger assured himself adjusting his bowtie and brushing a few bristly hairs from his tuxedo. His partner tonight would be the veritable bridge ace, the HoneyBadger. They had a lot in common and usually did well, though 'Honey', as she liked to be called, had a ferocious edge to her play and her bidding, usually overbidding by a trick or two. The first hand was no exception. Seven no-trumps reached very quickly. Badger as declarer. He counted his tricks. twelve on top, one to find. He played from dummy on the opening lead, the right hand opponent playing a card quickly. Badger counted again: twelve. He hesitated and played low. "WHAT!!!!!" hissed his partner, baring her brillant white teeth. Her upper lip was quivering and she was starting to snarl. And, once again, Badger thought briefly of those horrid chattering teeth. He looked hurriedly at the cards. Oh my God, he thought realising that he had let his opponents win the first trick in a seven no-trump contract. And then a clearer image of those mechanical teeth chattering away from long ago fixed in his mind. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! "I was only rectifying the count" the Badger said, by way of timid explanation, a small bead of sweat now breaking on his brow, his mind still thinking fuzzily of the number "twelve" and those chattering teeth. Twelve, midnight, the witching hour, ghosts and ghouls, and chattering teeth. The Badger actually hated Halloween.