The Catbird Seat

Note: I do not own this story, the original was written by James Thurber. The plot line is the same, but I have not copied down any of his words. Please regard this story for the pleasure of Hetalia fans that like short stories. Thank you, please enjoy.

Mr. Kirkland bought a pack of Camels on a Thursday night, 7:42 pm, from a cigar store known around the block. Maybe about 5 other men where there, laughing and hacking along with each other, including the clerk. He had stuffed them in the inner pocket of his trench coat and hastily walked out of the smoke-filled room. If anyone from the faculty of W&B, they would have been shocked. Everyone who knew Mr. Kirkland knew that he never had and never would smoke. Luckily the odds were in his favor, and nobody saw him.

It was exactly a week away from the time that Mr. Kirkland decided that he would simply "rub out" a woman named Mrs. Emma Jansen. This, he decided, was a good term for what he was about to do, for all it meant was just correcting an error, one in this case made by Mr. Williams. Each night of the past week as Mr. Kirkland walked home, he thought through his plan. Often he would ask himself the same questions as the night before, making sure that there were absolutely no flaws. The guesswork, the boldness, the casualness, and the cunning aspects of his scheme all mattered. But nobody would ever see it in the meticulous hand of Arthur Kirkland, head of the filing department at W&B, who was once said by Mr. Williams, "Man is fallible, but Kirkland isn't". He would be the last person you would suspect, unless you caught him in the act.

Sipping the fresh Earl Grey Mr. Kirkland had made at his apartment, he sat down at his kitchen table and decided to go over his case that he held against Mrs. Emma Jensen. Starting at the beginning, he recalled her first coming into the W&B workplace on April 12, 1941, her loud and high-pitched voice filling the building. She had been introduced to Mr. Williams as the new special adviser to the workplace. Mr. Kirkland was disgusted by the Belgian woman instantly, but of course he just politely shook her hand, a fake smile plastered on his face. "Well well~" she would giggle as she entered his office, going over the papers over his desk, "Are you lifting the oxcart out of the ditch?". This thought almost made Mr. Kirkland spit out his tea. Slowly swallowing that sip, he reminded himself that this was about the crimes of her work, not her childish personality. However, this was quite hard for Mr. Kirkland. She had continually poked and prodded him all over the office building. For the most part, she would be nagging him about how he did his work, or asking him stupid questions, such as: "Are you scraping around the bottom of the pickle barrel? Are you tearing up the pea patch? Are you hollering down the rain barrel? Are you lifting the oxcart out of the ditch? Are you sitting in the catbird seat?"

One of Mr. Kirkland's assistants, Alfred F. Jones, had explained all this question nonsense to him. "She's probably a Dodgers fan, you know? Guy named Red Barber announced their games, and he uses some expressions that he heard around down in the South.". Alfred could see that Mr. Kirkland still wasn't understanding, so he went on to explain a couple. "Tearing up the pea patch is getting angry and going on a rampage - probably because you have a problem with another player. Then sitting in the catbird seat is a batter up with 3 balls and no strikes. It's like he's sitting pretty, you know?". Finally Mr. Kirkland pushed this distraction from his mind. It wasn't about her personality, someone like him couldn't be moved to murder over something like that. As he went on Mr. Kirkland noticed how well he behaved under each time she poked at him. He did always have to act polite to others, it was part of his personality. Everyone else was fooled by his act. "I believe you like that woman," Ms. Héderváry, another secretary of his, had told him once. All Mr. Kirkland could do was smile in return.

Returning his thoughts to the case, he finally reached the main point of his argument. Mrs. Emma Jansen was clearly trying to ruin the establishment of W&B since she first had been appointed as special adviser. And oh, was it provable. Ms. Héderváry knew all the gossip around the office, including the story of how Mr. Williams and Mrs. Jansen met. Apparently they had met at some house party, where a drunken brute mistook Mr. Williams for an old Russian war veteran. She had broken up the fight, and led him to a couch to see if the the poor man was alright. Things escalated from there, and he wound up giving the slag a job, starting a week later. As soon as she stepped into the building, she wreaked havoc along every department she "advised". The previous one she had ruined, had gotten some of Mr. Kirkland's acquaintances, such as Mr. Honda, Mr. Zwingli, and Ms. Arlovskaya. Mr. Beilschmidt, being the responsible man he is, when to talk to Mr. Williams about firing her. After the talk, the German man decided to turn in his hat as well. And it was Mr. Kirkland's turn to have his department ruined. The woman might as well of taken a wrecking ball to the place, it would have gotten what she was trying to do done a lot faster.

Coming to the end of his thought process, Mr. Kirkland mind went to the previous week. Thursday, October 17, 1943. At exactly 2:03 pm, the crazy blonde had barged into his office, giggling obnoxiously. He had jumped slightly, from the shock of her slamming open the door. A face like hers should come with a warning. "Are you scraping the bottom of the pickle barrel?" she smiled then began to look around his organized office, going through every file, opening every drawer "Ugh, do you really need all these papers? Some of these are from like a million years ago,". He tried not to show his discomfort from her stupidity and replied with a calm voice "Each of these files is very important, and could be needed in the future.". Mrs. Jensen scoffed, "Well! Don't go tearing up the pea patch!" and left with a huff. It was only a matter of days before her metaphorical wrecking ball was going to smash into his section of the building, and knock right into him, personally. And he was going to act quickly to make sure that didn't happen. "Your honor, and gentleman of the jury." Mr. Kirkland stood up, setting down his empty teacup and walking to the window. "I demand the death penalty for this foul woman."

To be continued...