“Please.”
“Fine,” she said, picking up her gigantic backpack. “Get your clothes back on and then I’ll help you.”
“Okay.”
As I went into the stall she said, “Just remember, you did this to yourself.”
I did this to myself.
Stay strong, Meg. Stay strong.
I changed back into my tank top and shorts.
When I came out, Grandma was waiting with a roll of toilet paper.
I looked at her. “What’s that for?”
“Sun protection.”
“Toilet paper isn’t supposed to see the sun,” I said.
“Toilet paper is meant to withstand a lot,” she said, giving me a wink.
My heart sank.
“Really?”
“You said you’d do anything. If it’s good enough for my hair, it’s good enough for your arms and legs.”
“Grandma,” I said.
“Hurry up, sis.”
I walked over. “How will it stay on?”
“Medical tape.” And of course, she’d packed a first-aid kit.
So Grandma wrapped my arms, my legs, my neck, and part of my head.
“You don’t have to do my head, Grandma, I have a hat.”
“Oh puffo. We’re going the whole hog if we’re going at all.” She was a toilet paper wizard, it turns out.
“It’s not going to stay on,” I said.
“Sure, it will,” she said, taping on one more piece. She packed the roll back into the backpack for safekeeping and smiled at me. “Let’s go get ’em, mummy” was the last thing I heard before she went out the door.
Point Grandma.
* * *
—
Meg 1, Grandma 1
30
Grandma Strikes Again
I made my way outside.
Was it hard to walk? Yes.
Did the paper rip? A little, but not as much as I thought it would. Like I said, Grandma was an excellent toilet paperer.
Did people stare? Uh, yes, they did.
When we walked out, Dawn Allerton looked confused, but she didn’t say anything. There were no explicit rules against taping toilet paper all over your body.
Diego and everyone else stopped picking and watched as we walked over to our strawberry crates.
A kid over in the public section started crying.
“That’s not a real mummy, honey,” his mom said. “That’s a girl.”
Great.
But I wasn’t going to lose so I took deep breaths, knelt next to Grandma, and started picking,
I have to say, I felt better.
I really did.
I picked and picked and when the paper ripped too much, Grandma taped me back together.
After a while, from three rows back, Diego called, “Why are you toilet papered?”
“None of your business!” I yelled back.
“It helps with the sun,” Grandma called.
What the heck!
Soon Diego went to the bathroom and came back with toilet paper wrapped around his arms and legs. “There’s tape in my backpack,” Grandma said.
“They’re our enemies.”
“Oh puffo,” she said. “We’re all here for good causes. Besides, you put out love and love comes back to get you.”
If she weren’t such a fast picker, I’d say she was the worst competitor in history.
* * *
—
Around one, Dawn Allerton rang a bell. “Break for lunch!”
Everyone stood up, exhausted.
I stood up too. Grandma did not.
“Grandma, it’s lunch,” I said.
She didn’t stop.
“Grandma.” I walked over to her. “It’s time to stop.”
“I’m going to keep going.”
“You are?”
“Yep.”
“But you said to take breaks and we have to eat.”
“I have been stopping every fifteen minutes for a drink and a handful of nuts. I have my sun hat and my gloves, and I’ve been pacing myself. I have plenty of energy. Plus we took all that time off to discuss that Little Woman dress.” She sat back on her haunches. “And I brought a portable lunch.”
She really was a hard worker.
“You’re not going to go sit at those tables?” I asked, pointing at the bright red luxurious wooden picnic tables over in the shade of a large fluffy tree, where everyone was relaxing and laughing. Diego and Dan were already sprawled out on the grass picking off toilet paper and sipping Gatorade.
“Nope,” Grandma said. “You can go on ahead. I’ll keep working.”
I thought about my Oreos, my egg, my root beer.
“I might just go over for a bit.”
“Fine by me, soldier,” she said.
That stung. It really stung. Today was not my day.
“I would keep working but I need to eat, and I don’t have a portable lunch or whatever.” I had no idea what that was.
“Oh well, if you want to keep going, I brought enough for you.”
My heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. “You did?”
“Yup. I want to win, so I came prepared. Go get my backpack.”
I sighed. Were there more things in that never-ending backpack?
And yes, there were more things in the backpack. At the bottom of the bag were two hats. Each hat had a cup on top with a straw coming down. “This way we can pick and eat at the same time,” Grandma said. She got out a thermos and poured green thick liquid into the cups on the hats.
“What is that?”
“Power smoothie. I’d put it in the hydration bladders but we need to still drink water while we eat. I saw these hats in the costume boxes when Grandpa and I were loading up to come here. I found them this morning while you were sleeping in.”
I wasn’t sleeping in. I was lying on the hardwood floor thinking I had outsmarted my grandma.
She handed me a hat with a cup filled with green sludge. I put it on.
“There’s a buckle,” she said.
“A buckle?”
“Yup. To keep the drink from falling.”
I buckled it. Right under my toilet paper chin.
* * *
—
Meg 1, Grandma 2
31
Strawberry Fields for Never
We drank lunch.
And drank water.
We picked strawberries.
Grandma taped on more toilet paper when needed.
And Grandma stuck with me so that we were picking together. I told her not to.
“Grandma, just go ahead. It doesn’t make sense.”
She put three strawberries in my basket.
“Meg. Do you think I’m here to win fastest strawberry picker?”
“Uh, yes, Grandma. That’s exactly why you’re here.”
“Nope.” She picked three more strawberries. I was sitting on my butt giving her my full attention and wiping the sweat off my smoothie hat brow. “I’m here because I love you.”
No.
No.
No.
“Grandma. We’re not here for love. We’re here to win.”
Grandma smiled. SHE SMILED.
“I’m serious, Grandma. I’m dead serious. That’s why I declared war. I can’t have you taking off in hot-air balloons and going slow on purpose and kneeling here talking about love. I want to win.”
“I know,” Grandma said. “I understand. I think we have a good chance. I’m just telling you, I will try hard, but my priority is you.”
“Nope,” I said. “This is what I was worried about.” I was about to say something profound about Grandma Sally’s attitude but then a bee landed on my f
ace and I screamed, and it flew away.
“Whoops,” Grandma said, and kept picking.
So I gave up.
* * *
—
The afternoon wore on.
Some people surged, like Zoe and her dad, who took the quickest lunch and were pretty close behind us. Other people faltered, like Mr. Bailey and Cooper, who kept going to sit under the lunch tree, or Ellie and her mom, who left for three hours to do who knows what.
Grandma told me stories.
She told me about riding her bike barefoot down an old highway, screaming at the top of her lungs when she was my age.
“Why didn’t you wear shoes?”
“It was summer,” she said, like that was an obvious answer.
I told her about finally learning to do a front flip off the diving board at the swimming pool last July when I went for Lin’s birthday.
“Was it scary?” she asked.
“Kind of. But I liked it.”
She laughed. “That’s the best kind of scary.”
She told me about working in the cannery when she was a teenager. “Fastest canner in the county.”
“Like you put stuff in cans?”
“Yup. Beans. Corn. Peaches. You name it.”
I had never thought about how food got inside cans on the shelf at the store. I also had no idea my grandma was a part of that.
I told her how I threw up after riding the white roller coaster at Lagoon with my friends. “It was so embarrassing.”
“Eh,” Grandma said. “Everyone vomits. They’ll forget.”
She told me about picking strawberries growing up with her best friend Tootsie. No wonder she knew what she was doing.
“Tootsie? Her name was Tootsie?”
“Her name is Tootsie. She lives in New York. I’ll have you meet her sometime.”
I told her that Lin was my best friend and that she was over there eating Popsicles with Diego. Hey!
“Lin!” I yelled.
She waved. “Come get one.”
I looked at Grandma. “Can I?” I asked.
We had by far the most strawberries and there was only forty-five minutes left.
“Up to you,” she said.
“Do you want one?”
“No thanks,” she said.
I took off my smoothie hat. “I’ll be fast,” I said, and ran over.
When I got to Lin and Diego they were both clapping. “You win this one,” Diego said. “You guys are doing way better than us.”
“Thank you,” I said. I bought a Popsicle from the refreshment stand. “What can I say. She’s a strawberry picker.”
“No kidding,” Diego said. “Me and Dan are hoping for third.”
Dan came out of the bathroom and bought a Popsicle too.
We talked for a bit.
Then Dan said, “We should probably get back. It’s almost four.”
“What?” I looked at my watch. Had we been standing here that long?
Lin gasped.
“What’s wrong?”
She pointed. “What is she doing?”
We all looked.
Grandma was over by Zoe and her dad and she was pouring our strawberries into their crates!
I REPEAT: SHE WAS POURING OUR STRAWBERRIES INTO THEIR CRATES!
“No!” I cried, and started running.
Diego and Dan were right behind me.
“Grandma!” I yelled.
She didn’t stop.
More strawberries and more.
When I got there half our last crate was gone, there were strawberries smashed on the ground, Zoe was crying and laughing, and her dad was saying, “Sally. This is too much.”
That was when Dawn rang the bell to end the competition.
32
The Bitter Results
Everyone was staring at Grandma and Zoe and Zoe’s dad.
“What’s going on?” I said, trying to catch my breath.
“Zoe had a little accident,” her dad said. “She tripped and a bunch of our strawberries fell and got smashed.”
Zoe wiped her eyes. “I’m the worst.”
“Don’t say that,” Grandma said. “It was an accident.”
Dawn Allerton walked up then. “Good job, all of you. It was a long day.”
We’d had so many strawberries and now it looked like we had about the same as Zoe. The same! After all that. I looked at Diego’s and Dan’s and they had a lot too. Had my grandma just thrown the challenge?
“How could you do that?” I whispered.
“We’ll still win,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Our crates are loaded with a lot more strawberries. Besides, the poor thing was hysterical. You would have done the same thing.”
“No. No, I wouldn’t.”
One by one, Dawn called each team up to weigh their strawberries. The bleachers were filled with people watching.
Dad yelled, “Go, Mom! Go, Meg!” He stood up and did a weird raise-the-roof thing that he does. Mom was clapping, Hattie was cheering. My heart was a black hole.
First up were Ellie and her mom, who had only a few crates.
They weighed Cooper and Mr. Bailey’s next. They had more crates but theirs weighed barely more than Ellie and her mom. There was no way to know who had more because we all filled our boxes differently.
Next they weighed Diego and Dan’s. As they lugged their crates over to the scale, all my confidence went down the drain.
“Grandma,” I whispered again. “They’re going to beat us.”
“No. They’re not.”
They weighed Dan and Diego. The scale needle shot up.
Grandma went white.
Diego yelled, “That’s right!”
Dan was laughing. “Holy cow, we got a ton.”
Norma Knudsen looked at Dawn. “Those are some loaded boxes of strawberries.”
Diego smiled at me.
I folded my toilet paper arms. Please please please.
Zoe and her dad went next. “Thank you so much for your help,” Zoe said to Grandma.
“Of course,” Grandma said, but she didn’t seem as cheery.
They put the strawberries on the scale and the needle went almost to the top—past Diego and Dan’s record. My heart was now the deepest and blackest of holes.
“Wow!” Norma Knudsen said. “I’ve never seen two amateur pickers get that many strawberries.”
Zoe whooped. Her dad laughed and gave her a hug.
Then it was our turn.
I looked at Dad, who was standing with his hands to his mouth. Mom gave me a thumbs-up.
I closed my eyes. Please please please.
“Okay, here we go,” Norma Knudsen said, “last but not least, Sally and Meg Stokes.”
She put the strawberries on the scale.
There was a gasp.
I opened one eye.
Diego’s mouth hung open.
Zoe was staring at me, clutching her dad’s hand.
The needle went high but not high enough.
Second place.
Second.
33
Second Is the First Loser
I was livid.
Boiling.
Flames.
Flames.
Flames.
Even Grandma seemed upset.
“Is that right?” she asked.
Norma Knudsen nodded. “The scale doesn’t lie.”
Zoe’s dad, he said, “I think maybe, um, we should give some of our strawberries back to the Stokes team.”
“Nope,” Dawn Allerton said, too quickly. “No way. The results are final.” She looked at me and Grandma. “We make choices every day, don’t
we, ladies. And we must live by our choices.”
For some reason, this emboldened Grandma or whatever. Before Dawn said that, she seemed sorry, really sorry. And she should have been. But when Dawn said that, about choices? Oh man, with Grandma, something happened.
She put her hand on her heart and said, “I will live and die by the choices I make, Dawn Allerton. Thank you for that. Thank you.”
She looked around at the crowd and there were plenty of people. Besides those who had come specifically to see the competition, more had sauntered up to see what all the commotion was about.
Grandma projected out, from her stomach, no doubt, “I have one thing to say.”
Dawn Allerton had lost control like me.
“I want my family, my granddaughters Meg and Hattie, and all the good people of Jewel to know,” Grandma said, “that what Ms. Allerton just said is true. You choose a path in life.”
Oh my gosh. Was she doing a monologue? I sat in the dirt, right there where I belonged. She just made us lose. Was this the path she wanted in life?
She looked at me, and then she kept going. “You choose a path in life and that path can swerve, it will take you up hills and across meadows. It will take you over rivers and on top of rocks. It will take you to the highest summits.”
I lay down on my side then and curled up. Diego sat next to me.
“And it will take you down to the lowest valleys.”
She was doing a monologue.
“No matter where it takes us, we must not falter! We must be brave! We must”—she cleared her throat—“show the children!”
Then she started singing a song, I don’t lie. She really, really did.
She started singing a song that was about children being the future or something.
She sang that, at the top of her lungs. And then Dad joined in, I swear to you he did—he was in the bleachers and he just started belting it out, he was singing with his mom about the beauty we kids possess inside. I rolled over on my face.
Soon Norma Knudsen was singing. Zoe’s dad. My mom. All the adults in the crowd. Diego was giving me reports. “What is happening?” Diego asked.
I shook my face in the dirt, and some of it went up my nose.
At the very end of the song, I heard a voice joining in that I did not expect, a voice that was unexpectedly quite beautiful, with much vibrato. I turned to see if it was true, if it was really and truly true, and guess what, it was.
The War with Grandma Page 12