Last fall, yours truly, the smart and wily Ida Hamilton Walker, got punked. Bamboozled. Conned. By my own police chief. Amos Royden threatened to take our relationship public, that is, to court me, to pursue me, to put some moves on me. To make our unconsummated romance a real one.

As mayor of Mossy Creek I can stand my ground on any threat except being openly seduced by my own police chief. So last fall I turned tail and ran, to my shame. But I didn’t desert The Sitting Tree. Oh, no. I just went underground with my civil disobedience, on the tree’s behalf.

I marshaled the Foo Club and the rest of my loyal troops, and discreetly directed their protests. We managed to stir up plenty of public outrage and get the TV news cameras turned on us, a tactic we’ve perfected several times since we kidnapped the new welcome sign a while back. As a bonus, we antagonized my pompous nephew, Governor Ham Bigelow, who, as it turned out, has a big-money family connection to the scheme to bulldoze the tree. As usual.

Best of all, we got a temporary restraining order against Whoopee Arcades, Inc., the cheesy, underhanded, Bigelow- cronyism-connected amusement park developer who was planning to destroy The Sitting Tree and flatten the foothill ridges of Rose Top, the historic mountain where the tree stands in a lower meadow.

Since then I’ve kept the restraining order alive while feverishly searching for evidence I need to save the tree and its mountain meadow permanently. I know I’ll win that battle, but it’ll be a tainted victory. I can’t forgive myself for my cowardice in the face of Amos’s oh-so-not- subtle romantic threat. No way. I've been kicking my own svelte behind for the past four months.

My cell phone rang (it plays the opening bars of Stevie Nick’s Dreams.) I checked the caller number excitedly.

“Hope?” I yelled into the phone. “What did you find -- besides hundred-year-old cockroach skeletons and dirty drawings of women in corsets.”

Hope hooted. “It’s here! Just like Cousin Farley wrote in that ancient diary you found! Behind the wallboard in the attic, right where he said he put it for safekeeping after Great Aunt Belinda died – stuffed between the pages of the ladies’ lingerie section of a 1902 Sears and Roebuck catalog!”

I hooted in return. God bless our great aunt’s son -- our long-dead mutual cousin, Farley -- and his fetish for busty Victorian babes wearing whalebone. “Hurry home,” I told Hope. “I’m calling Ingrid. We’ll pick you up at Bailey Mill in a few hours.”

“Where are we going?”

I chuckled fiendishly. My New Year’s resolution – to stay out of trouble – floated past like a small, resigned angel, waving goodbye. “We’re driving down to Atlanta to visit the governor. He’s got a meeting scheduled with the Whoopee Arcade people this afternoon. Perfect timing.” I paused, relishing the image of my pompous nephew roasting on a slow spit of defeat. “Ham’s about to get punked.”