The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose & Me

by Sara Nickerson

  “Can I help you find something?” she asked. My own twisted fairy godmother.

  I quickly told her what I was looking for, then added, “And I need to keep it hidden from my mom. She’s over there.” I pointed to the pretty dress section.

  The girl laughed. “Got it. No problem. Follow me.” She zigzagged through stuffed racks of clothing to the far corner of the store. “I saw this today and thought it was amazing.”

  As she spoke, she pulled out the most unbelievable dress I had ever seen. It was made of stretchy material, short and clingy, in black and green camouflage print. Around the bottom was all this thick black lace that looked exactly like spiderwebs, and everywhere were these skulls and crossbones, stamped in like angry graffiti. I grabbed it from her and read the label: LOOKS CAN KILL. It was so perfect I couldn’t speak.

  “Well?”

  I nodded gratefully.

  “I know. It’s like for some end-of-the-world prom. Do you want to try it on?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t have time. I just need to buy it before my mom sees it.”

  “Understood,” the girl said. “Anyway, I’m sure it will fit you. It looks like your size and it’s stretchy material.”

  She pulled me to the counter and, with lightning speed, rang up the dress. I pulled out my wad of money and placed seven, five-dollar bills on the counter. The girl swept it up and gave me three dollars and a few cents in change. Not bad.

  “Do you want it on a hanger?” she asked.

  I held up my backpack. “I’ll just stuff it in here. And thank you. From the bottom of my heart.”

  The girl smiled and her black-rimmed eyes sparkled into my own. “Have fun wearing it,” she said. “You’ll look amazing.”

  As I wandered back to where I’d left my mom, I looked at the racks of pretty dresses. The colors were so perfect, all Easter egg and seaside taffy. I tried not to think about the silvery-green one in the closet at my dad’s house—how it felt when it swirled against my legs.

  Stop it, I said to myself. Stop it, Melissa.

  Silently, my mother appeared at my shoulder, making me jump. Along with her little bag of makeup, she was now carrying a long plastic bag with the hooked part of a hanger poking out. She kissed me on the top of my head. “Did you find anything to try on?”

  I shook my head. “What’s in your bag?”

  “Oh, just something I found over there.” She motioned to the grown-up section. “Something I liked for myself. But we have a whole dressing room started for you.”

  “I didn’t really like anything here,” I said.

  “Well, let’s try another store.”

  “Actually, Mom, I’m pretty tired.”

  “Shall we just go home then? There’s still some pie left in the fridge. I hid it from Claude.”

  “There is?” I was surprised. Cherry pie had seemed like years ago. “Yes,” I said, suddenly exhausted and wanting pie. “Let’s go home.”

  CHAPTER 29

  MAYBE BECAUSE OF MY DREAMS THAT NIGHT—dreams involving skulls and crossbones and spiderweb lace—I woke up groggy the next morning. I was so tired I even pulled the covers over my head to keep out the glowing sunrise. But when Patrick stuck his head into my room and called, “Time to get up, Missy,” I remembered my new job in the Little Field. I scrambled out of bed and was ready in record time.

  “Bye,” I said to my mom as I climbed out of the car. “Bye,” I said to Claude.

  Claude lunged forward, grabbed my shirt and held on tight. “Stay, Missy. Play!”

  “I have to go, Claude.”

  Mom said, “Claude, Missy is a big girl. She needs to do big girl work. Let go of her now.” Which is when he started to cry. Even as they pulled away, I could still hear him crying.

  When Mom’s car was back on the main road, Patrick hesitated by the garage. He opened his mouth to say something, but then shook his head. “Bye, Missy,” he said. And then, “Melissa.”

  “Bye, Patrick.” I opened the garage door and turned on all the lights. There were berries stacked for sorting so I turned on the machine and started in. It didn’t feel right to go to the Little Field on my own. It felt too private, like I was walking into their very house. Also, I had the feeling that I should wait until all the kids had been dropped off. That way, no one would be suspicious. No one would come snooping around.

  Finally drop-offs were over and I’d sorted all the berries. I turned off the machine. “Bev?” I called in the stillness.

  No answer.

  I was worried they had forgotten about me. I was worried that I hadn’t done a good enough job, or that it had been a big mistake. I walked over to the side door, the one that opened straight into their kitchen. I knocked quietly and waited. A moment later, the door opened. “Can you find your way on your own?” Bev asked.

  I nodded happily.

  Being back in the Little Field was as perfect as I’d remembered. The berries were perfect. The sky was perfect. The warm, sandy soil was perfect. But the thing most perfect was the way it made me feel. Moose and Bev trusted me—only me—with their precious field of berries. It was like when Claude had a nightmare and came to me instead of Mom or Dad. Like I was that important.

  And every day I loved it more.

  There was only one thing that wasn’t completely perfect, a certain kind of loneliness, the kind that grew worse when the voices on the other side of the hedge got too close. When I heard those familiar voices from the big field, yelling out a joke or calling for the time, I imagined Patrick and Shauna, standing close and laughing together. Discovering bird nests and secret hiding places and raccoons. Searching for Moose’s secret.

  But then, a funny thing started to happen. Two funny things. The first was this: Maybe it was being so alone with so much quiet, but those little bushes came to be like friends. It made me think of that rainy day in the big field, when I first heard the plants talk. I was hearing them again, but more often and more distinctly.

  The other was that I started seeing things. If I looked up quickly, I’d often see bright patches of light dancing right above my head. I knew people would call these sunspots or mirages, but I started telling myself they were friendly fairies, coming out to keep me company. Sometimes I talked to them, just to pass the time.

  I guess there was a third surprising thing, and that was Moose. Even though Bev had told me that he used only about seven words a day, I found that not to be true. Every time he stopped by to drop off my lunch, or to swap my full buckets for empty ones, we talked. We talked about things like telling time from the sun and about my mom’s favorite Western movies. We talked about the odd jobs he and Bev did during the winter months, about the honeybee population, and the surprising varieties of beetles I’d seen in the field. Sometimes, just for fun, I counted up how many words he was using.

  So when Moose showed up to surprise me with a late-morning Popsicle, lime green and dripping just as soon as I peeled it out of its white paper, I didn’t feel strange blurting out the question, “Moose, do you think plants can talk?”

  He smiled and the creases at the corners of his eyes stretched into deep lines. “I thought they only spoke to me.”

  “No, really,” I said.

  “Really,” Moose answered. “I’m not kidding you. Why wouldn’t they talk? They’re alive, aren’t they?”

  “I thought I was just losing my mind.”

  “You’re not losing your mind.”

  “Well,” I said. “That’s good. And what about seeing things? You know, like out of the corner of your eye? Like little flashes of light?”

  “That I wouldn’t know about,” he said. “Bev talks about seeing things sometimes. You can ask her. But the sun can play tricks on your eyes. I recommend you start wearing a hat.” And for emphasis, he tipped the worn and dirty brim of his green cap.

  We were qu
iet for a moment when, all of a sudden, the air was filled with such a symphony of buzzing and chirping and rustling that it was almost too loud to bear. Then, just as quickly, it was gone. Moose cleared his throat. “So, tell me. What are they saying to you? The bushes?”

  I took my time with the answer. It wasn’t so easy to put into words. “Well, they don’t say things like sentences, really. More like feelings.” I shook my head. “I can’t explain it very well.”

  Moose nodded. “Not everyone has the ability or the desire to be quiet in nature. But if everyone did, well, the world would be a different place.”

  I licked off the sticky green trail of Popsicle juice that had slid down my arm and thought of all the other things I wanted to ask him. Like were the people in France enjoying their berries? How about the millionaire in Kentucky? Did he and his brother ever run into each other? Had Al’s hands always been so big, or did that just happen with age? But the longer we stood in the silence, the nicer it felt. As I looked across the field to the special little bushes, there was suddenly only one thing I wanted to know.

  “Moose,” I asked, “why aren’t there more bushes like these? You know, with them being so valuable?”

  “Well, there are many varieties of blueberries in the world. And all plants that get cultivated for farming have an interesting history. But these, these are personal. Part of their value comes from being unique. These particular bushes,” Moose motioned with his arm, “my father developed on his own. He’d work in the field all day, and then at night, he’d go out to his greenhouse and tinker with branches and seeds. Graft this to that.”

  He shook his head, chuckling. “During the off-season he’d travel around the country, looking at different bushes, different types of soil. That’s what we’d do on family vacations, hike around mountains and dig up wild berry bushes. My brother and me, we would ride around in the backseat playing rock, paper, scissors. Anyway, after years of planning and studying and trying things out, he came up with these.”

  I had been trying to count how many words he was using, but I lost track when he said the word “brother.”

  “Your brother?” I choked out. My heart was thumping.

  Moose nodded.

  All the things I’d heard, all the things Shauna and my brother had said, this was my chance to find something out. But how could I bring up a blood feud?

  “Then why—”

  “I guess I should get back to work,” he said stiffly. “Or Bev will send the dogs in after me.”

  I had done it, broken the magical talking spell.

  “Well anyway,” I said, “are there really some dogs around here? Because Al has mentioned them.”

  When Moose laughed, all the stiffness disappeared. “That’s just an expression. I don’t have dogs anymore. I used to have dogs.” He pulled up the sleeve of his farmer shirt and showed me his forearm. “See this?”

  I bent down for a closer look. There was a scar. Teeth marks.

  “Lyle’s dog,” Moose explained. “My dogs were never so mean.”

  It was the first time Moose had ever mentioned his brother by actual name. I jumped at the chance again. “So Lyle,” I started, but I didn’t know what to say next.

  Moose rolled down his sleeve to cover the mark. “This is from way back. That particular canine is long gone. Anyway, who knows what Lyle is up to these days? He’s after these berries. That much I know. And I guess he does have a dog. I hear it barking.”

  “Why?”

  He looked at me, confused. “Why does he have a dog?”

  “Why is he after these berries.”

  “I suppose because he thinks half belong to him.”

  “Do they?” It was out too quickly, before I could stop it; before I even knew I was going to say it. As my mother would say, “You and your mouth, Missy.”

  “If they were half his, would they be here in my field?” Moose’s voice was still slow like always, but there was something different about it. Something tight and hard that made me wonder.

  “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

  I remembered what Bev had said, that they’d once had to secretly move the entire field—all those plants! Had they moved it from Lyle’s side? Had they snuck out in the middle of the night and dug up all the precious plants? I imagined it under a full moon.

  Right then there was a new silence, not like the nice silence that usually came when Moose was around. This silence brought with it a shadow, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. And when the new silence went on long enough to make me squirm, I held up my bare Popsicle stick and said, “Thanks again.”

  Moose gathered up my full buckets. “Don’t mention it. I left extra buckets over there by the shade. I’ll bring your lunch out later, right after I make a run with the picking machine.” His voice was normal again, but I still felt funny.

  After he’d disappeared through the hole in the hedge, I listened for the sounds I’d learned how to hear—the plants, the wind, the grasshoppers, the dirt. But my mind was too loud with questions. I’d been so close to finding out something important, something about Moose and his brother and the giant hedge and the blood feud. And everything he told me just made me wonder more. I bent down over a small bush and tried to find the rhythm, tried to let my fingers take over and do their job.

  The pickers on the other side of the hedge seemed to be getting closer. That, or I was just paying more attention. I listened to their songs and the crackle of the radio and how they called out for the time. Their stupid jokes made me laugh, every time, even though they made me feel sad, too. Like I was sitting in that fancy restaurant in France, eating the most amazing meal, all alone.

  CHAPTER 30

  BY THE TIME MOOSE RETURNED WITH LUNCH, MY T-shirt was drenched. Sweat dripped down my forehead and stung my eyes. “Someone turned up the dial on summer,” Moose said.

  “I wish they’d turn it down.”

  “You come in if it starts to get to you. Don’t want a case of the heat stroke on our hands.” Along with my lunch sack, Moose held out a can of soda. “From Bev.”

  “Tell her thanks.” I stood right there, popped the tab, and took a long, cold drink. All the weirdness of earlier appeared to be gone, but, inside, my head was starting to buzz. Maybe this was it—another chance to find out about the mysterious blood feud.

  Moose picked up my little bucket and started to pick. His boots sunk in the sandy soil. “My daddy used to help me pick sometimes. He had big strong hands, and my bucket filled up so fast when he did. Like magic.”

  I tried to imagine the farm way back when Moose was a boy, before parts were sold off and the rest sliced down the middle. I kept my voice casual when I asked, “Did he help Lyle, too?”

  “Oh, sure. He never played favorites.”

  If he hadn’t played favorites, then why did Moose end up with the most valuable part of the field? I bit my lip so I wouldn’t say what I was thinking. Stop your mouth, Missy, but it was too late because next thing that happened, I heard my own voice blabbing. “Well, then, how is it that you got this Little Field? Why does it all belong to you and not Lyle, too?”

  Moose didn’t answer for a long time, and I was pretty sure I’d blown it. But then, in a quiet and calm voice he said, “My father wanted things to stay the way they were. He made us promise certain things about how the field would be run. I respected that and my brother didn’t.”

  “So—” Careful, Missy. Careful. “Your father gave it to you because you made the promise?”

  “My brother made the promise, too. But then he went back on that promise.”

  “So originally, your dad left it to you both?” I was pressing, in my very Missy way, but I couldn’t stop. As Patrick always says, it’s my very worst quality.

  “He left everything to us to run together. He never wanted to see it split up.”

  �
�And your brother—”

  “He was off seeing the world. Having adventures.” Moose was still looking down, still picking, so I couldn’t see his eyes. After a moment he added, “My father had a certain way of doing things, running his farm with a certain order.” He straightened up. When he handed back my little bucket it was piled high. “You have both your parents still?”

  “What?” The question startled me. Did I have both my parents?

  “Are both your parents alive?”

  “They’re alive,” I said. “Sure.”

  “Well, my father is no longer with us, you see. This year, I’m turning the same age he was when he died. That’s why I wanted kids out again, in his field. Real pickers, not just machines that tear the place apart. I wanted to hear voices again, and radios playing music. Doing things his way, well, it’s my way of paying respect to him. Every day I get to say, ‘Hello, Daddy—I’m taking care of your things.’ That’s about all I have left anymore. It’s what I wanted to do for him this year. That’s all.”

  There was something in his face right then that was too open, too exposed. It made me want to slink away, unnoticed. Like when you catch a glimpse of someone praying when they think they’re all alone. His hawk-eyes had softened, leaving deep, sagging creases in the corners. Deep creases and a secret sadness. I hadn’t counted words, but I knew those were the most real ones anyone had ever said to me.

  At the time, I didn’t know what a treasure it was, being handed words like that. But I did know it was something. Something to care for. Something to protect. I thought, Maybe that’s all I’ll ever know about the secrets of blueberries. Maybe that is enough.

  • • •

  The rest of the day flew by. When the sun was nearly at its three o’clock spot and I was gathering my things to go, I heard them. Directly on the other side of the hedge. Footsteps and rustling bushes. Whispers. A radio turned low.