Chapter 9: The Count

Neil's emergency session met on Tuesday night in Elspeth's front yard, because Elspeth had the only yard with a coffee urn.

He sat at a card table with a gavel.

Fourteen houses of Birch Street sat in lawn chairs around him, one chair per house.

I had never seen all fourteen of us in one place without a fire truck.

"The chair calls the meeting to order," said Neil. "There is one motion."

He read it off a card.

"The lodge on the ridge is hereby a members' shelter, open to households in good standing."

"Second," said a man in the back row.

"Point of order," said Garth. "I have an amendment."

"State it," said Neil.

"The lodge is open to everyone who asks."

"That's not an amendment, Garth. That's the opposite."

"It's the opposite with a better ending," said Garth.

Elspeth stood up with the urn.

"The chair recognizes the casserole," she said. "Fifteen minutes."

"That's not in the rules."

"Neil, dear, there is a pan of baked ziti in my kitchen," said Elspeth. "It is in the rules now."

We ate ziti from paper plates.

I watched Neil cut a square and set it aside untouched.

He looked at the street over the top of his clipboard.

For a minute I understood him very well.

"The chair calls the question," he said, when the plates were gone. "Hands for the motion."

Seven hands went up.

"Hands against."

Seven hands went up, and one of them was Elspeth's, and one was mine.

Neil put his gavel down gently.

"A tie," he said. "In which case, under the bylaws, the president casts the deciding vote."

"Who elected you president?" said Garth.

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