When I get back to the house, it’s almost time to leave for school, but Mom’s still in bed with the lights off.
“Mom?” I gently shake her shoulder. “Are you taking us to school?”
“Mmm-no,” she mumbles but won’t wake up. She curls in on herself, hugging Dad’s pillow to her chest.
It’s one of her dark days. Best let her be.
I tiptoe back out and ease the door shut before tapping on Grandpa’s door. “Grandpa? Can we get a ride?”
Ten minutes later, Grandpa drives us to school in the truck, with me riding shotgun and Scotty riding cowboy-middle-hump-chump between us, his knees knocking the gearshift every time Grandpa shifts.
Country music teases my fingers into tapping against the doorframe, my elbow resting out the window, as we coast over gravel, then paved roads. The side mirror reflects bright morning sun, and the wind beats whatever red strands escape my braid against my face while we drive past wheel-lines kicking misty rainbows over the first crop of alfalfa. There was dew this morning, but no frost, and the world smells rich and earthy.
Every spring, it’s a guessing game to see which crops are rotated to which fields. Potato fields are easy to tell, with baby seed potatoes hiding under long lines of dirt mounds. Sometimes when we drive past, the lines whisk by so fast they seem to stall and rush backwards like spokes on a wheel. Fall wheat is easy too, since it sprouts a few inches before winter and hibernates that way, waiting until spring to finish growing.
I spy corn peeking from a field Scotty swore we’d see in beans, but everyone’s too tired to tease much this morning.
Used to be, Mom would have loads of dark days, and Grandpa took us to school all the time, but back around Christmas, she got a little better and took over the driving. Still, I’m glad Grandpa’s our backup plan. He’s like our old oak tree, rooted deep and steady. Always there.
Except—Dad was our rock, and it only took a tap on a phone screen to shatter stone and wrench him out of our lives. I shove that thought out of my head and rub my wishstone harder than I need to. Make Grandpa safe, safe, safe.
Grandpa catches me staring, and his caterpillar-eyebrows inch up. “What’s going on in that head of yours, sweet pea?”
What I think is, Are you going to leave us too? But what I say is, “Um, I was wondering, in my class, we have to do a report on someone who made an impact on history and on our lives—and it can’t be someone everybody knows, like Einstein. Can you think of anyone whose life affected yours?”
“Someone not well known?” He sucks his teeth. “Well, I’d normally say John Deere, but everyone knows his name, so I’d have to say Henry Blair. He invented and patented the first seed planter so farmers didn’t have to plant each seed by hand anymore. I believe he was the second black man ever to own a patent. Had another one for something with cotton—another planter, I think.”
“Why him?”
“Well, while everyone else had their noses rooting in the dirt, planting seeds one at a time because they didn’t know any different, he went and raised his eyes long enough to see the problem and find a solution.”
“So he was an inventor?”
“Yes, but more than that, he was practical. A man can only do so much dropping a seed into every hole. But automate that, and suddenly whole fields can be planted in a fraction of the time. He had the mind of an engineer. A real problem solver.” He taps his forehead, then signals to turn off Yellowstone onto Tyhee Road. “I suppose he reminds me to stop and examine the problem.”
“But wouldn’t someone else have figured it out? Planting it all by hand would take forever.”
“Maybe, but it’s mighty hard to see the horizon with your face pressed to the ground.”
“You don’t have to have a planter to plant seeds,” Scotty says, moving his knee out of Grandpa’s way as he shifts again. “Formicidae spread seeds too.”
“Formi-whats?” The gears grind as Grandpa coaxes the truck into first and eases into the drop-off loop at Tyhee Elementary.
“Formicidae—ants—can carry fifty times their own body weight and run almost three hundred meters an hour.”
“That so?” Grandpa taps the wheel.
“And an average hundred-and-ten-pound human can carry almost a hundred and sixty pounds.”
“Good to know,” I say. I open the door and jump out so Scotty can scootch over.
Grandpa laughs. “Boy, if those forms-ants of yours start carrying humans around, I’m moving to the North Pole.”
Scotty’s mouth is stuck in fifth gear. “Oh no. Ants can’t carry humans, but in a crisis, people sometimes gain unexpected strength and can lift extreme loads like cars, trucks, and tractors. Humans can be stronger than they ever imagined when there’s no other choice.” He drops to the asphalt and adjusts his backpack, but turns back for one more fact. “But on a regular basis, ants are always stronger. Also, the North Pole is a bad place to farm.”
“Thanks for the lesson, buddy.” I climb back in and shut the door, and Scotty marches off to the playground.
Grandpa and I drive in comfy silence, both of us listening to guitars strumming on the radio.
“So, you asked me, but who did you pick for your report?” Grandpa asks.
“Oh, I haven’t decided.” We stop at a light, and I scowl at a man in the car beside us with a phone pressed up against his ear. “I thought about Annie Oakley or maybe Malala Yousafzai. Mateo thinks I should do Dolores Huerta, and she’s cool, but Mr. Collier says he wants us to write about someone that speaks to us. I don’t know if I’ve found the right one yet. I’m still looking.”
“Seems to me plenty of folks are speaking. Maybe you need to open those ears of yours and listen.”
“My ears work just fine, but thanks.” I rummage through my bag as we make the last few turns before Hawthorne Middle School.
“Your mother’s a good one to consider,” he offers.
I sigh. “Mom’s wrong about me, you know. It’s not fair that she thinks of me as being in danger on the farm. I got the calf out, and nobody got hurt. That should prove I can do this, not that I shouldn’t.”
“Aw, she just worries about you. You know that.”
“Sometimes it feels like she can’t hear a word I say.”
“If ever there was a woman who could speak to the soul of things, it was your grandma.” Grandpa sighs. “She held her peace and thought things through long and hard before she ever said a word—doled them out like precious gems, so I valued every one. Hard worker too, like you. I see her in you sometimes—when you’re not dumping grasshoppers on folks.”
I’d just arched my back, elbows up in a nice stretch as I yawn, but I dang near choke to death at that last part. How could he know? He wasn’t anywhere near us. “Hey! I didn’t—”
“I didn’t say you personally did anything, but when cows trample a garden, who’s responsible? The cows? Or the one who turned ’em loose?”
“Um.” I squirm. “I . . .”
Mercifully, we arrive at school, and I grab the door handle as if it were the reins of a runaway horse. “Gotta go, Grandpa. See you!”
He tips his hat as I slam the door and jog toward the school entrance with the clay totem poles standing guard out front.
Grandpa is too quick for his own good sometimes, which makes it all the more weird that he ever fell under Miss Dolly’s spell.
At the steps of the school, I turn to watch Grandpa’s old truck pull out, and I touch the wishstone through my pocket. “Don’t worry, Grandpa. I’m gonna break her hold on you no matter what. I promise.”
Chapter Sixteen
With the open house coming tomorrow, concentrating at school is about as impossible as a mouse ignoring a rattler. Kimana and Mateo promise to come by right after school so we can work on our plan.
I think better when I’m moving, so I wal
k while I wait: from barn to barn, over the canals, and back. At each spot, I try to think like a city person. What would they hate? Smells, obviously. And bugs—gotta have lots of those. Spiders for sure.
Mr. Ferro didn’t seem scared at all when I told him how dangerous machinery can be on the farm, but what if I we set up something really scary? Probably Mateo can help me think of something to plant on—
I stop. Plant.
Mateo’s plant.
I didn’t open the greenhouse this morning.
Suddenly the warm day seems a lot more dangerous. I run to the greenhouse, and I can feel the heat even before I touch the tarp door. All day long, the sun heated the air inside the greenhouse like an oven, which is usually great if I have the fans on. But I don’t.
I forgot.
The greenhouses were never my job before. Mom always did them. I mean, I helped, but only when she asked.
The C-clamp clatters to the cement as I push the tarp aside, hot air billowing out around me.
His beautiful plant hangs limp and droopy.
I lift it off the hanger, lug it outside, and set it down so the vines trail to the side but not under the pot.
“Let’s give you a drink.” I grab the watering can, but the metal almost burns my hand, and the water inside is warm enough to bathe in.
Dumping it out, I run and get fresh, cool water and hurry back to pour it over the thirsty flowers.
Plants can do amazing things when they have what they need.
Probably this will perk up.
I frown at the way the wilted white geranium bends almost upside down.
Probably?
I’ll check it later.
If the worst happens and the plant doesn’t make it, I’ll ask Mom or Grandpa to take me to the store and get him another one.
I squat beside the sad little plant and touch a withered leaf. “Live, buddy. You can do it. Please? Mateo is gonna kill me.”
I’ll give it a day or two before I decide what to do. No need to worry him if it’s gonna be okay, right?
A dirt bike growls in the distance, so I leave the plant outside the sauna and jog toward the house.
Kimana’s the first to arrive, and I wave her over to the chicken barn. “In here!”
With a backpack slung over her shoulder, Kimana flicks her kickstand down on the hard-packed dirt, takes off her helmet, and shakes her hair free of the straps. A beaded rose barrette clipped to the top of her long black braid catches the sunlight and sparkles with her every movement. She hangs the helmet on her handlebar. “We’re meeting in there?”
“Yeah. My mom’s probably still in bed, but just in case she wakes up, it’s better to be out here. I like your barrette. Is it new?”
She reaches up to touch it. “Yeah. And guess what? There was no way I was gonna trade enough or make enough to get my jingles and the rest of my stuff the way I was selling my work before, so my dad said I should sell them online.”
“Online, like your own store?”
“I know, it’s crazy, right? But I’ve already got orders for everything I have. I still don’t think it’ll be enough, but I’m trying. I’ll get there eventually.”
“After the powwow’s over, can you make me something with a peacock on it? It doesn’t have to be very big.” I mostly leave my hair in braids, but if I had a barrette with a peacock on it, I’d feel fancier than a queen.
“With the feathers? They might not last very long.”
“No, just with colored beads, if you can.”
“If I think of something cool to do with it, I will.”
“Deal.”
Mateo’s bike rumbles up the driveway and skids to a stop beside the barn. He jumps off and brushes his hair out of his face, but when he sees me looking, he smirks and purposely messes it up enough to make any porcupine proud. “Sorry I’m late. The Pruitts asked my dad if we could help them move their piano.”
“They’re moving?” I ask.
“Yeah. Mr. Pruitt’s brother is there helping, but the piano needed a couple extra hands.”
With all the crazy stuff going on, I’d forgotten all about Mrs. Pruitt. “I haven’t seen her since the day Dolly put that sign up—the first time.”
“The bank took their farm.” He glances at Kimana. “Have you heard where they’re going?”
“I think she’s got a kid living in Bountiful, Utah.”
“What would a bank do with a farm?” I try to imagine a banker driving a tractor in his suit, and it just doesn’t fit.
“They’ll sell it in parts, for houses or whatever,” says Mateo.
Nosey or not, the Pruitt family has been farming here forever. But then their kids moved away, and now their farm’s going away. Seems like every year, another farm disappears, and there’s not many of us left.
If the Pruitt family can lose their farm, what chance do we have of keeping ours?
Mateo scoops up a stick and strides into the barn, tapping the wall and straw stack as he goes. “So, how are we going to fight—”
“Honk!” Royal’s warning call fills the barn. “Honk!”
“Is that the peacock?” Mateo scans the top of the stack.
“Yeah. I think you scared him.” I climb up the side and check over the top to be sure there’s not a real danger like a fox or skunk up there giving him trouble.
Royal’s alone, but he’s also standing. He swivels his head to look at me and blinks. If he’s back on his feet, he needs a better place to be.
“Hey, can you guys help me make him a bigger enclosure? I think he’s starting to feel better.”
“Sure,” Kimana says at the same time as Mateo says, “Let’s do it.”
It takes a good hour of stacking straw bales, moving chain-link panels, and getting lawn tractors out of the way. Each of us brings different parts to help—twine, fencing, rabbit hutch panels, straw, and wire—but it takes all of our pieces to make the whole and build his home. By the time we’re finished, a new ten-by-ten space is ready with feed, water, and a sawhorse to perch on.
“How should we move him?” Kimana asks.
“Maybe we can lure him with food?” Mateo taps a wheat barrel.
“No, he might try to jump down. I don’t think he’s ready for that yet.” I grab the fishnet we use for catching roosters. “Can you pass me your hoodie? I’ve got an idea.”
Royal honks one more time when I slide the net over him, but he settles down quick when I cover his head with the hoodie. Getting him down off the stack is a whole lot trickier.
I hug him gently, but firmly, so he can’t flap around, and Kimana keeps his hoodie in place so he doesn’t panic. He’s too big to hold with one arm, so I wrap both of mine around his middle, holding the wings closed. Heavy as three big pop bottles and just as awkward to carry, he pants real quiet under the hoodie as I shuffle forward on my knees, his long feathers dragging across the straw bales behind us.
“Pass him to me.” Mateo rolls a bale onto its side, stands on it, and reaches up.
Kneeling at the edge of the stack, I lean over as far as I dare and ease Royal into his arms. The hoodie slips, and Royal kicks out, his claws raking down Mateo’s side, but Kimana slides down and drapes his head again, and he quiets.
“Did he get you?” I ask Mateo.
He sucks air through his teeth, but laughs it off. “Just a scratch. It’s not like he’s got horns or anything.”
We hold the door to the new pen open while Mateo slips inside and carefully sets Royal on the floor. Backing out, he leaves the hoodie in place until he’s as far from Royal as he can be, then tugs it off and slips out the door so we can shut it.
Royal’s blue head pops up and swivels this way and that, eyeing his new digs: the tall straw-bale walls, the fence-panel roof, and the chain-link door at the front.
“You like
your new house?” I drape an arm around Mateo’s shoulder as we watch Royal stand, ruffle his tail, and take a limping step forward.
“He’s still hurt?” Kimana squats beside the door, her fingers hooked through the chain-link.
“I think he might have sprained something in his hip. I’m just glad he can stand.” I like to think maybe the extra bread and fruit helped, but probably time and rest did most of the work.
Feet pound the dirt outside the barn, and I drape a tarp over the door, hiding Royal from any nosey spies.
Scotty pops into the barn and cups his mouth. “Grandpa wants you!”
“All of us? Or just me?” I ask, but he’s already running out the door.
Mateo, Kimana, and I glance at each other, shrug, and follow, through the yard, up the porch steps, and into the house.
Grandpa and Mr. Ferro sit in the rocking chairs, visiting like old friends.
No good can come of this.
“Come in, darlin’.” Grandpa’s grease-stained hand beckons, and Mom walks in from the kitchen, her arms folded across her middle and her hair done up in a clippy.
She nods to us but doesn’t say anything. If she’s up this fast, she’ll probably be almost better by tomorrow.
“You gonna help your dad move all them pigs tomorrow?” Grandpa asks Mateo.
“Uh, yes, sir. Probably.”
I eye Mateo sideways. If we can get things to work right, he won’t have to load those pigs at all.
Grandpa nods. “Good. Many hands make light work. Anyhow, Mr. Ferro here thought it was high time we cleared the air.”
Mr. Ferro stands, his little hat in hand. “When we were here two days ago—”
I brace for him to scold me for all them grasshoppers. If Grandpa figured it out, a reporter probably did too.
“—Scotty mentioned something about me being a spy for Miss Dolly.”
The little snitch. I hear boots scuffle behind me, but before I can give Scotty the dirty look he deserves, Mr. Ferro continues, “I don’t work for, or with, Miss Dolly. I think you’ve misunderstood why I’m here.”
The Wish and the Peacock Page 12