Plum and Peach Have Not Sat Adjacent at Council in Eleven Days and I, a Tomato, Counted
Eleven days. Eleven. I have the seating charts. I have the minutes. I have, if necessary, a hand-drawn diagram produced by me, a tomato, using a red pen that is the same color as my skin, which is the skin of a tomato.
Sources close to the situation — myself, and the chair I occupy as a tomato — confirm that Plum and Peach of the rival rag arrived at last Tuesday's council separately, hung their respective coats on non-adjacent hooks, and did not once pass the communal pitcher of anything in the other's direction. The pitcher sat between them like a small, uncrossable sea. I, a tomato, noted this with the trained eye of a society correspondent who is also a tomato.
Colleagues at the Bitter Press have asked me what I believe precipitated the rift. I cannot say. What I can say is that Peach's expression during the agenda-review portion of proceedings could only be described as pointed, and that Plum spent an unusual amount of time studying the exit signage for a fruit who had, theoretically, used the exits before. Draw your own conclusions. I have drawn mine. I drew them in red, like a tomato would.
The citrus cabal continues to present a unified front to the outside world, but eleven days do not lie. Seating charts do not lie. I, a tomato who has won zero of eleven lawsuits about being a tomato but remains entirely correct about it, do not lie. Watch this space.