It was a grey sort of morning in Boddle’s Quay—the kind of grey that soaked into your socks before you even stepped in a puddle. The smell of brine and mackerel hung heavy in the air, and the waves slapped the weather-worn dock with an almost passive-aggressive rhythm. Seagulls barked overhead like gossiping drunks, and the foghorn groaned in the distance like it had a hangover.

Mayor Alistair Penrose stood in front of Town Hall in a three-piece suit far too clean for a place where people gutted fish for a living. He adjusted his tie for the sixth time that minute.

Across from him, the entire fishing village of Boddle’s Quay—some fifty-seven residents, counting the baby twins as one unit—stood in a very indignant clump. Most of them held handmade signs. Most of those signs were spelled wrong.

“WE DEMAND THE BIG BELL!” one read.
Another: “NO BELLS, NO FISH!”
A third, worryingly, just said: “TURNIP JUSTICE.”

“Right,” Alistair said, smoothing his voice like butter on toast. “Good morning, everyone. Lovely turnout, very democratic. Now—about the bell—”

“’S not just a bell, it’s THE bell!” shouted Old Thom, who smelled permanently of smoked haddock and despair. “You can’t run a proper quay without the proper ding-dong!”

“Aye!” chimed in Mags, the fishmonger’s wife, shaking her sign: “DING OR DIE.”

“We have the bell,” Alistair said, gesturing behind him to the top of the town hall, where a modest but perfectly functional brass bell hung in its usual place.

“Nah, mate. That ain't the real one,” said a particularly stout child named Digby. “That’s just a decoy bell, that is. Looks like a bell, sounds like a bell, but deep down? It’s soulless.”

“It’s literally the same bell that’s been there for two hundred years,” Alistair said, trying to keep the smile from twitching into a grimace.

“Yeh? Then why’s the fish been actin’ shifty, eh?” asked Agnes the Netmaker, narrowing one eye. “Used to practically leap in me boat. Now they give me the side-eye and vanish. Van-ish! Like I’m some kind of sea traitor!”

“Ever since the bell stopped ringing at the exact right frequency,” added her husband, Clive, “the cod’ve been wily. It’s unnatural.”

“The bell still rings,” Alistair said, his voice cracking slightly. “Every noon. As always. You can set your watch to it!”

“Used to set me watch to it,” muttered Digby, arms crossed. “Now me watch sets me. Dunno what that means but it sounds menacin’.”

There was a chorus of “Aye”s and muttered “dark times, these” from the crowd.

“And don’t get us started on the crabs,” hissed Old Thom. “They’re unionizin’, they are.”

“Right.” Alistair exhaled through his nose. “What exactly would make you believe that the bell is the real bell?”

“A ceremony!” shouted Mags. “With bunting!”

“And a priest!” added Agnes.

“And fire!” said Digby, eyes a little too wide.

“No fire,” Alistair said quickly.

“Just a bit o’ fire,” Digby muttered, disappointed.

“All right,” Alistair said, clapping his hands once. “We’ll have a ceremony. We’ll ring the bell. You can all touch it. You can sing a hymn to it if that helps.”

“It would,” said Clive, wiping his eyes.

“Only then will the strike end,” said Mags solemnly. “No bell, no boats. No boats, no fish. No fish, no pies. No pies, no—”

“Alright, alright,” Alistair said, holding up both hands. “Ceremony it is.”

That evening, the village turned out in full force. They’d hung stringy bunting made from old fishing nets and painted rocks. A choir of extremely earnest grandmothers sang “For Whom the Bell Tolls” but changed the lyrics to “For Whom the Bell Properly Rings.”

The bell tolled once.

Twice.

On the third ring, Old Thom burst into tears.

“She’s back,” he whispered.

Digby nodded solemnly. “The cod… they’ll come home now.”

Mags threw a smoked kipper into the sea as tribute. The sea, for once, seemed to accept it.

The next morning, the strike was over. The docks were bustling again, the fish were—if not jumping—at least flopping obligingly into nets. And the bell? The same as it had ever been.

Mayor Alistair stood sipping tea on the town hall steps as the villagers cheerfully sang an off-key shanty about triumph over bureaucracy.

“You know,” he murmured to himself, “I think they just wanted a reason to yell.”

Behind him, the bell gave a small, cheeky ding—as if in agreement.