Marcia fumed as she looked at the other entries in the
‘Design-A-Card’ category. The remit had been wide – to make a greetings card
that a grandmother would appreciate – and there, amongst a dozen or more cards already
displayed, was a card that was almost the double of the one she was about to
place on the table; it was Lucy, it had to be! Nobody else knew Marcia’s style,
nobody else had been taken into her confidence (and her craft room)… Lucy, her
best friend for three years, had copied her idea.
She pushed her square-framed glasses higher up on the bridge
of her freckled nose and fumed silently.
Entries were anonymous until after The Judging, and there was only
twenty minutes of staging left before the exhibitors’ time was up and they would
all have to leave the marquee. But there was no doubt in Marcia’s mind; Lucy
had stolen her design.
But then again, Marcia realised, as she carefully unpacked
her own entry and placed it tenderly in its allotted space, it didn’t really
matter how good your ideas were, unless they were properly executed. You could
lose points for sloppy presentation, for unruly finger marks or stray strings
of glue…
It had been months ago that Marcia had decided on her
initial design – ‘Ahoy, There’, a three dimensional decoupage of a boy and girl
in sailor suits and beribboned hats standing looking out over railings on a
seaside promenade. Out to sea is a small boat, and the boy was waving his hat
vigorously in its direction; a joyfully-striped white and red lighthouse
completed the seascape, and the whole picture was meant to evoke nostalgic
seaside memories from the golden age of the British Holiday by the Sea.
From a dozen or more identical copies of the print, Marcia
had painstakingly cut out elements from each, carefully trimming double-sided foam
pads to insert between the layers, so that each feature stood out from the
background to represent how near or far away it was; the boy and girl were made
up of the most layers, standing in the foreground. She had carefully shaped
each layer, too, so that the lighthouse was rounded and the boat’s hull had a
tiny, but important curve to it. The whole picture was varnished with a clear
acrylic coating and, to finish off, she had taken ages to produce a tiny piece
of knitwear ( knitted on cocktail sticks with embroidery floss) that she placed
as if tied around the boy’s middle. It
was something of a trademark with her, to include a small detail that would
stand out and show her work to be more thoughtful than others.
Yes; Lucy aside, she was very pleased with her card and, to
her mind, it stood out well amongst the rest of the exhibits.
Suddenly she found she was not alone; Lucy had the nerve to
come to stand next to her.
‘Hi, Marcia,’ she said brightly. ‘Look good, don’t they? I must say, it’s
exciting, all this. My first show and I think I’ve done all right!’
It took Marcia a couple of goes of opening and closing her
mouth before she could form a coherent sentence. Meanwhile, Lucy breezed on.
‘What a coincidence, us both doing the same thing! Makes you
wonder, doesn’t it?’
‘Does it?’ Marcia said acidly.
‘Well, what are the odds? Out of all the decoupage packs in
all the craft shops in Chester, and we come up with the same one?’
‘Or,’ Marcia began sharply, ‘when you looked round my craft
room you saw I was already working on ‘Ahoy, There!’ and decided to copy my
idea…’
‘Oh, don’t be silly! Why would I do that?’ Lucy’s tone began
brightly, but as she saw the fury in her friend’s eyes, she faltered a little,
went on more gently. ‘Look, Marcia! You
had so many wonderful things in your craft room, I didn’t know what my eyes
were doing half the time! Maybe I did see your card…’
‘Aha!’
‘…and maybe it lodged in my subconscious, and so when I went
to buy a decoupage pack, I was drawn to the same one. But I didn’t actually plan on copying, you
know. Why would I?’
‘Well…’
Marcia began to thaw. After all, Lucy was younger, and less
thoughtful, and they’d been friends for so long, it seemed a shame to cause a
fuss and spoil the friendship. Besides,
her own card was much better.
‘It was a mistake, Marcia, honestly! Look, if it really
bothers you, I’ll withdraw from the competition, how about that?’
‘No, don’t bother!’ Marcia said with a sigh. ‘But you can buy me tea and cake to make up
for it!’
‘Okay, you’re on!’
Behind her friendly smile, Lucy gave a mental sigh of
relief. There was a part of her that had
been surprised that Marcia had connected the duplicate card with her; Marcia
was obviously quicker on the uptake than you’d expect to look at her.
‘I have to say, Marcia,’ she began thoughtfully as she
looked at the displayed entries again.
‘Raised decoupage cards seem to be in the minority…’
‘Yes,’ Marcia, veteran of dozens of county shows ‘There does seem to have been a falling off
lately. I think it’s since it’s costs more to send thicker things through the
post…’
Lucy looked at her in surprise. ‘Will that matter?’
‘It might…’
The two young women began frantically scrambling in their
handbags, Marcia for a pen and Lucy for a tape measure.
‘What’s the limit, do you know?’ Lucy asked.
‘Standard thickness less than six mill, I think,’ Marcia
said, hastily adding a line to her description of the card on its entry form.
‘Oh, thank goodness, just in!’ Lucy said with relief and
added, with a hint of venom in her voice, ‘glad I didn’t do as many layers as
you did…’
‘That’s fine, Lucy,’ Marcia said breezily. ‘Mine’s to be
hand-delivered; let’s get that tea and cake while the judging starts!’
As the results wouldn’t be announced until the early
afternoon, there was plenty of time for tea and cake and gossip. If Marcia was
a little wary at first in her attitude to Lucy, Lucy was magnanimous enough not
to show that she’d noticed and within half an hour, Marcia had thawed completely
and, beginning to feel guilty, had invited Lucy to lunch the following week to
make amends.
The show was small and the weather, typically British, mixed
in cool sunshine, breezy air and threatening showers so the presence of several
marquees with floral arrangements, vegetable displays and cake competitions
provided shelter in the damper intervals of the day.
Finally it was time and they made their way back to the
marquee, arriving just as the waiting
entrants were being allowed in; there was a flurry and a rush as everyone made
for their own entries to read the little result cards. Lucy hadn’t placed – the judges’ comments on
the card told her she had too few layers and her edges were imprecise, but with
a whoop of delight, Marcia saw she’d got second with a commendation for her
knitted detail and her forethought in mentioning that the card was not to be
trusted to the post.
‘Sorry you didn’t place, Marcia said, unloading a tray - she'd bought tea and cakes this time. ‘But
don’t be disappointed – better luck next time!’
Lucy smiled bravely.
‘I didn’t really enter to try to win,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to take part. What about cakes? I might try the cake competition for the next one show. Do you ever go in for the cake competitions?’
'Actually, no,' Marcia replied. But maybe she should start...
No comments:
Post a Comment