Season 1 · Episode 13
The Committee Is Everywhere
Published 9th September 2026
Nobody was organising. This was the trouble.
Nobody Needs to Organise
By lunchtime, the Square had become crowded enough for Batman Smith to make his least convincing announcement yet.
“Nobody needs to organise anything,” he said from the Fence Post.
The Jacks, already distributed across the Oak in a complicated black arrangement, took this as an opening remark. Gary occupied the Fruit Tree with one member of his family and took it as a personal challenge. The Smith family filled the Bird Table, the lawn and every useful patch of hedge.
“Who is organising?” asked Mr Jack Daw.
“Nobody,” Batman replied.
“Then why are you standing there?”
Batman looked down at the Fence Post. “Because it is available.”
The cloudy afternoon made every colour in the garden look slightly more serious. Robins worked the paths with their usual determination. The Jacks moved branch to branch, apparently discussing whether a branch could be made responsible for its own decisions. Gary watched them all, eyes bright with the conviction that one useful sentence would eventually fall out of somebody.
It did not.
At the Hedge, a small Coal Tit appeared, darted into the leaves and emerged again with even more urgency.
Gary leaned toward Batman. “Who is that?”
“Clive,” Batman said. “He is always late for something.”
Clive flashed past them a third time. “I am exactly on time,” he called, and vanished.
“For what?” Gary asked.
There was no answer.
The Highly Trained Tail Movement
By mid-afternoon, the Square had settled into a dangerous sort of pleasantness. Long-tailed Tits slipped through the Hedge in bright little bursts. The Smiths were busy without quite agreeing on what they were doing. The Jacks had gained several more relatives and a minor disagreement about seating. Gary became increasingly impatient with a day that had offered him activity without information.
Then the light began to lower, and Lieutenant Colonel Stirling came to the Vegetable Garden.
He was not alone.
His squad moved with him through the low branches and across the path: five quick grey shapes, silent except for the soft disturbance of leaves. They paused beneath the Bird Table, inspected the ground at the foot of the Oak, and gathered near the Fruit Tree.
Gary noticed at once.
“Colonel,” he called pleasantly.
Stirling looked up.
Gary arranged his wings into the posture of a citizen with absolutely nothing to hide.
Stirling looked at the Fruit Tree. Then at Gary. Then at the Fruit Tree again.
“Busy evening?” Gary asked.
The Colonel gave no reply. One squirrel crossed the path; another disappeared beneath the hedge. Stirling made a tiny movement with his tail. The squad dispersed with such efficient speed that Batman, arriving with several Smiths, had only enough time to look impressed.
“What was that?” he asked.
“An accusation,” said Gary.
“It was a tail movement.”
“A highly trained tail movement.”
The Jacks descended in numbers as dusk thickened. They occupied the Oak, the greenhouse roof and the Bird Table, then began objecting to one another’s placement. Gary’s family arrived in force at the Fruit Tree, and Gary spent the whole evening watching the Vegetable Garden as though it might suddenly produce a written confession.
“You are staring,” Batman said.
“I am keeping the Square safe.”
“From what?”
Gary looked toward the hedge. “That is what I am trying to find out.”
Night passed under cloud without offering a witness, a suspect or even a decent interruption. The Square kept its own counsel.
The Committee at Dawn
Before sunrise, Batman was awake again. One Robin called from the Hedge, then another, and soon the Smith family was pouring into the pale garden with all the energy of a household that had spent the night inventing fresh concerns.
The Jacks followed. The Oak filled. The Bird Table filled. The paths filled. The Square, which had been very quiet about its secrets, became loudly occupied by breakfast.
Clive arrived with two Coal Tits, moving through the Hedge like a small delegation late for a train. As the morning properly got underway, three Long-tailed Tits swept past in such close formation that even Gary paused to admire it.
“Flora, Fauna, Merryweather,” Batman called after them.
The trio wheeled around together.
“Morning, Batman,” said Flora.
“We are not stopping,” said Fauna.
“We have already stopped,” said Merryweather.
“Only briefly,” said Flora, and they disappeared into the Hedge as one.
The garden was now crowded with Robins and Jacks, calls ricocheting from the Oak to the Fence Post. A chiffchaff took up a position in the lower branches and began singing directly through the discussion.
Gary winced. “Who invited the chorus?”
“That is Colin,” said Batman. “He thinks the answer to every question is a song.”
Colin sang harder.
“I withdraw the question,” said Gary.
Derek Has a Name
Later, a Goldcrest flickered through the branches, so small and quick that Gary mistook him for a moving leaf.
“Percy,” Batman said, before Gary could announce an emergency.
The Goldcrest gave a polite nod, which was almost too small to see, and continued on his way.
Above him, a Nuthatch came down the Oak headfirst.
Gary stared. “That cannot be comfortable.”
Batman looked up sharply. “You! I have been telling you for days that you are using trees wrong. What is your name?”
The Nuthatch stopped, upside down, and considered him.
“Derek,” he said.
“Derek?” Batman repeated.
“Yes.”
Derek continued down the trunk without acknowledging the existence of gravity, criticism or Gary.
The Theory Can Wait
By mid-morning, the Jacks had reassembled for what Mr Jack Daw called an informal consultation and everybody else called a meeting. The Smith family remained everywhere.
Then Gary’s family arrived again in the Fruit Tree. At almost the same moment, low in the Vegetable Garden, Stirling’s squad returned.
Grey shapes moved beneath the leaves. Stirling emerged only long enough to look from the Fruit Tree to Gary, and then back again.
Gary became very still.
“I have a theory,” he told Batman.
“No.”
“You have not heard it.”
“I have heard all your theories in advance.”
Gary opened his beak.
A shower crossed the garden, soft at first and then lively enough to send the Jacks under the Oak’s heavier boughs. The Smiths complained. Clive hurried past with the startled purpose of somebody whose timetable had been personally insulted.
Gary closed his beak.
“Later,” he said.
Batman looked at the rain, the Jacks, the Fruit Tree and the no-longer-empty Vegetable Garden.
“That,” he said, “is the most worrying thing you have said all day.”
DUFF. DUFF. DUFF-DUFF-DUFF.