Fund Raising…

Short and sweet, from Whispers 3

She should, of course, have known better, having been wheeled into one of Sam’s political fund-raising ideas last Easter, but saying definitely ‘No’ when her job and her flat and her Renault Five very much depended on her knowing when to say ‘yes’, wasn’t easy. Not out here in the shires, where everyone knew everybody else and jobs, flats etc were few and very far between.

‘Well what exactly do I have to do, Sam?’

‘Not a lot really, sweetheart. It’s a sort of auction you see, and you get a few balloons with prices on and people are allowed to buy them. Then we give you some more balloons and people buy them again, and so on.’

‘And that’s all there is to it?’

‘Er — more or less. Except there are forfeits as well, depending on the colour of the balloon.’

‘Who has to pay these forfeits?’

‘Well, you do, my sweet. Red balloons are a smacked bottom, green ones mean a stroke with a cane — and then there’ll be a big purple one, but that won’t be till the very end of the auction, I should think; sort of a climax you see, but the purple one will be very expensive, so I daresay the forfeit will have to match up to the expectation of whoever buys it —’

Yes, she should have known better —