Walking the Waiteti - a Mary Mitty story

The misty rain had turned the track into a treacherous, sticky sludge. It clung to Mary’s redbands as she trudged the path with a shlirp-glup, shlirp-glup. In her left hand, the two leashes were taut, vibrating with the frantic, four-legged energy of poodles who had scented a duck. The Waiteti stream was flowing more quickly than normal and had turned a muddy brown. Mary took a deep breath. The cold air was sulphur scented from the onshore Rotorua wind. She thought about the stack of Scrabble tournament flyers waiting at home to be folded and posted. The tournament was going to be intense, especially if the Mt Albert anagrammers were there. Mary shrugged inwardly and focussed on enjoying the damp walk with her woolly canine companions. Stay in the moment, she reminded herself. She braced her feet against a slick patch of turf and bent to examine some smooth pebbles made shiny from the rain. Picking a few up, she juggled them in her hands, enjoying their tactile coolness. She put a few into the pocket of her puffer jacket. It was an old jacket. A few pebbles wouldn’t harm it. A little further along, she broke off a branch from a dead looking tree to help steady her in the mud. Stick in hand, she stood and looked across the rushing water.

“Laydees and gentlemen, It is TIME!” bayed the disheveled, curly haired MC.

The grey Rotorua drizzle was now the cooling mist of a thousand high-intensity stage lamps. The gurgle of the stream the rhythmic, expectant thrum of a sell-out crowd- hub-bub-rhubarb, hub-bub-rhubarb, thrum…

Mary, no longer wearing her frayed puffer jacket, stood tall, draped in shimmering midnight-blue sequins. She stood in a circle of dazzling light, centre stage at the Opera House. Across the Tasman, that city held its breath.

She pulled the mic stand toward her. The conductor looked tired, slightly bored, ready to finish the night. He tapped his baton, raised his arms and the orchestra swelled—a lush, polyphonic arrangement that rose like the waters of the Hamurana spring. Gripping the microphone, Mary walked toward the audience, breathed deeply and began to sing. Her voice was not the thin reed of a faded, retired secretary; it was a velvet contralto that held the audience in thrall. In the front row, a woman leaned toward her companion, her eyes filled with tears. Standing before his orchestra, the conductor beamed with renewed energy. This was unexpected and extraordinary. Mary sang with the purity, intensity and clarity of a mountain stream.

The final note hung in the air, pinning people to their seats in a stunned, breathless silence. Then someone began to clap, then another and another until the whole auditorium resounded like a river in flood. One after another people stood, calling “Bravo” and it felt to Mary as if the applause would never end. It was a triumph.

Then, Mary raised a gloved hand and the audience slowly settled, wondering what could possibly come next after such a moment of pure, glorious art.

“And now,” she said, her voice low and calm, “the Final Challenge.” The shaggy MC barked some instructions and the stage rotated with a mechanical clack-whirrr. The grand piano vanished, replaced by a gigantic Scrabble board backlit in purple. Across from Mary sat a red-faced man with a thinning, rather ill advised, comb over. He was dressed in a strikingly vivid red tie of truly impossible length that trailed aimlessly onto the dusty, scuffed floor. He was sweating profusely, his tiny hands fumbling with the tiles.

“And here ladies and gentlemen, we have the final showdown between the President of the U S of A and ..er..Miss Mary Mitty from Rotorua, New Zealand. This is the last move of the World Championship. Quiet please. President to move.”

With an artful expression playing upon his features, the President hesitated only a fraction, before carefully placing GREENLAND across a Triple Word Score.

“Thirty three points. Plus fifty for the Bingo,” he stated with finality.

“Challenge, Donald. That is a proper noun, Donald,” Mary said, her lip curling in elegant disdain. “Invalid. Illegal. Fake. You forfeit your turn.”

There was a gasp from the audience, not dissimilar to the collective sigh that was heard when the Iran peace agreement fell through for the fifteenth time.

“The challenge stands,” growled the MC.

Mary swung the board towards her and reached into her velvet bag. The tiles felt cold and smooth and slightly damp. As if she were skipping stones across water, she flung seven tiles onto the board to create the word 'QUIZZED'. The ‘Z’ sat squarely on a Triple Letter; the word bridged two Triple Words.

“Four hundred and fifty five points,” she announced. “A triple triple.” Her tangerine opponent’s mouth fell open. Mary noticed, without pleasure, the remnants of a recently consumed cheeseburger stuck in his square teeth. “I believe I have won, Mr. President.”

“You cheated,” he blustered. “ I will be calling the Attorney General. I will be suing the ISC.”

“She won fair and square, ” yelped the MC. “Mary Mitty is the NATO world champion.”

The crowd erupted. They were in no doubt of the linguistic brilliance they had just witnessed. Their applause seemed organic, and once again endless. Mary was the Amazon of the Alphabet, Diva of the Dict—

“Wruff!”

The Opera House vanished in a violent jerk of the wrist. Mary stumbled, the stones falling from her hand. The dogs had spotted a neighbour’s ginger tabby, which sat atop a fence post looking entirely unimpressed by Mary’s sudden loss of equilibrium.

The applause was gone, replaced by the rushing gurgle of the Waiteti and the distant, tinny rasp of a boy-racer’s muffler three streets over. She was back in her moment. Short, bespectacled, slightly damp, and secretary of the Scrabble Club. The folded paper in her pocket reminded her that a daunting stack of Henneveld Cup flyers was waiting on the dining table. The rogue anagrammatists from Mt Albert wouldn't know what hit them in this tournament she decided.

She shortened the leashes, tossed away the walking stick, and set her jaw. Let them bring their parallel plays. She still held the blanks.

“Come on, you two,” she muttered, and marched into the sulphur-scented dusk.