Squashed

by Joan Bauer

  “Yes it is, Nana. He’s going to win.”

  Nana wiped her hands and looked at me hard. “Well,” she said. “So what if he does?”

  So what?

  “What if Cyril does win?” she continued. “What does that really mean?”

  “It means he wins and sticks it to me.”

  Nana stomped her foot. “Ellie Morgan,” she cried, “I’m ashamed of you, grousing around here like some bad loser. What does it mean if he wins, Ellie? You tell me, because I can’t seem to get there on my own!”

  Nana didn’t shout much, but when she did all those times she’d held back came out. “It means,” I insisted, “that he was, you know”—she was staring at me so I whispered the last part—“better.”

  “Better.” Nana said the word like she’d missed something. “Better than what?”

  “Better,” I shouted back, “than me!”

  “Oh,” said Nana, dragging me out back to the porch in full view of her land, “I see.” She pointed to her fields that she and Grandpa had sown and harvested and protected and cried over.

  “Three years of drought,” she said, “two years of infestation. One year the drainage tiles broke and water collected beneath the ground and your grandpa couldn’t handle it and it near about finished us. Four years straight the barn needed big fixings, one year of just plain bust. I stopped counting the early frosts and the freezes and the Dutch elm disease that took away all those good, shady trees. All of that, Ellie, over twenty years.”

  “Nana, I know—”

  “You don’t know,” she insisted, “not the way you’re acting. Growing’s not something you do, it’s something you are. It’s not a contest, though a little competition makes things interesting. It’s always going to be hard, honey, always going to be a challenge. Dealing with nature’s like dealing with a slippery pig: You just can’t get ahold of it. I could never get that through to your father. He always wanted to be in control.”

  I looked down at my shoes, which were caked with mud and memories. The air was clear and windless, the sun hit Nana’s field like a floodlight. “And,” she said, “all this about Cyril sticking it to you is a load of manure, because he can’t do anything to you unless you let him, so don’t, that’s all.”

  Nana took two fists of earth and put them in my hand. “Things don’t matter near as much as your attitude toward them,” she said, rubbing some dirt on my cheek, laughing, and sprinkling some on my hair. “Fairy dust,” she announced.

  I was laughing now, too, tossing dirt in her direction, ducking as she threw some in mine. We were both a mess when it was over. Nana hugged me with her whole self and slapped a hunk of earth in my hand.

  “Just in case you forget again,” she said.

  I went back home, turned off the sprinklers dousing Max, and checked with a shovel to see how deep the water had gone. More than a foot into the soil: perfect. I washed, changed, and made it to school only fifteen minutes late, not bad considering I had just been rolled in dirt by my grandmother. Justin Julee, the smallest boy in school and prize reporter for the Rock River High School Defender, was waiting for me after study hall.

  “I want to interview you for the school paper,” he announced.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I want,” Justin continued, enthusiasm bubbling from him because more than anything in his life he loved reporting, “to capture your thoughts about growing pumpkins and what it’s like to have accomplished so much already in this area while still in high school.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “The deadline is Thursday,” he said. “We need photographs and an interview. You’ll be the lead story in our Harvest Festival edition. Okay, Ellie?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  He wasn’t.

  I was an unusual choice for the Defender because I wasn’t a cheerleader, sports star, or brain. I figured if I totally starved myself I could drop five pounds by Thursday’s photo session, but if I ate nothing, I’d probably die and Cyril would dance on my grave. I went for broke and threw away my lunch (meatloaf sandwich on a croissant, a perfect pear, and julienned red peppers) in favor of Diet Sprite and a winning smile.

  School was full of news about Dennis. One report said that he and his band had been taken to the slammer in Des Moines and forced to share a cell with mass murderers and investment bankers. Another was certain that Dennis’s bail had been set for one million dollars and his father wasn’t even trying to raise it. Mrs. Lemming’s rotten grandson Ralphie said the sheriff and Mannie Plummer had buried Dennis and his cousin alive. Richard stayed quiet, and Mr. Soboleski began looking for a new first baseman.

  Ralphie was getting a big kick out of the arrest and suggested loudly in the cafeteria that Dennis’s house should at least get T.P.’d and that he, Ralphie, was just the guy to do it. Miss Moritz dragged him to the principal’s office, threatening him with additional history assignments if he did “anything with toilet paper other than what was originally intended.”

  A peace came over pumpkin growers near and far as word of the arrest spread through the area. Renée Burgess, director of the Rock River Pedal Pushers, a senior citizens’ bicycle club, led seven of her cyclists around Town Hall (slowly because they were old geezers) in “a great lap for freedom and victory.” Cyril was interviewed by the Rock River Clarion and had his picture on the front page with the sheriff, Spears, and Mrs. McKenna, who declared all pumpkins in the area were now totally liberated.

  I sat in the mud with Max and Spider, wondering why the joy of liberation had not reached my heart. I was going to come in second. The silver medal. Second at sixteen years of age, out of hundreds of other growers. That was not bad. That was very, very good. I was going to be interviewed for the lead article in the school paper and be famous. I felt awful and started to cry. An old green truck pulled up, Spider flashed his fangs, and out jumped Wes.

  I stopped breathing.

  He was wearing brown corduroys and a gold cotton sweater and he looked just great except for his nose, which was red from the cold he’d had. Grace said he’d had a temperature of 102 and was mostly reading and watching TV and unable to visit The Other One in Gaithersville over the weekend. Ha-ha.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” I sniffed, wiping tears.

  “I came at a bad time, huh?”

  “No, no, no, no, no…I’m okay…I’m just—”

  “Crying.”

  “Right.”

  He sat down with me in the mud and gazed upon Max. His face got far away, then he started grinning like he’d seen a rainbow. “He’s incredible,” he said, touching Max’s hard flesh. Max, always the showoff, seemed to stretch in the sun.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ve done something great here, Ellie,” said Wes, stroking Max’s huge vine. “Can’t do this with corn.”

  How true.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  I pulled myself together. “I’m not crying anymore.”

  “Why were you crying?” He was giving Max gentle taps across his top and examining his leaves like he had a microscope. What was he going to do next? Kick the tires?

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I like stories.”

  “It’s a sad story.”

  Wes nodded and shook Max’s vine. “About how many pounds a day is he growing now?”

  “Is this an inspection?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Wes said, on his knees now, checking Max’s underbelly. “How many pounds?”

  “Uh…maybe thirty-six in the past four days…it’s hard to say.”

  Wes whistled and jiggled Max, his ear close to Max’s skin. “Solid,” Wes announced.

  “Of course he’s solid.”

  Wes turned to me and brushed the dirt from his pants. “I think you can win, Ellie.”

  I sighed, deep and sad. I didn’t want to talk about Cyril and Big Daddy, who would devour Max in one humongous gulp. I shook my head and sank in the d
ust.

  “I was there,” Wes insisted. “Right before I came here. I saw him.” He raised his hands like a terrible giant and laughed. “Big Daddy.”

  “You went to see him?” I was numb.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Cyril didn’t run you off his land with a blowtorch?”

  “Nope.”

  “What were you doing over there? I mean—”

  “Spying,” Wes said, and laughed his laugh that started in his stomach and worked its way up. “I told him I was president of the Gaithersville Ag Club, which is true because they haven’t replaced me yet, and that I’d been hearing about him for years, which isn’t exactly true, and that I’d been wanting to shake his hand, which was a downright lie.”

  “You touched Cyril?”

  “Only for the cause,” Wes said, and looked at Max. I looked at Max, too, because if I looked at Wes I’d turn red, not a sophisticated move. “Then I told him I’d heard about his pumpkin and could I possibly see it and tell all the kids back in Gaithersville? You know.”

  “You said that?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. I wanted to see what you were up against.”

  I sat quietly, my heart thumping. I was in love. Wes had gone to see the competition for me? “But Cyril’s going to beat me by at least a hundred pounds,” I explained. “You saw it! I can’t catch up. That thing is enormous, it’s unbeatable, it’s perfect, it’s—”

  “Rotting,” Wes said.

  “What?”

  “Rotting, Ellie. I swear. It’s just started so I could hardly tell, but once my aunt Izzy’s prize pumpkin started to go before its time, so I’ve seen this before.”

  “Rotting,” I said.

  “And ripe.” Wes was grinning. “Big Daddy’s ripe already, the vine’s withering, the stem’s dry. The skin’s softening just a bit under the belly. I don’t know how it happened, but—”

  Rotting. The thought was too wonderful to be true.

  “He could make it to the Weigh-In, maybe,” Wes continued, “but he’s not going to get any bigger. And if that rot starts really spreading…”

  Please, God, let it spread.

  “He’s soup. Either way,” Wes said, “Cyril’s going to have to cut him off the vine in the next couple of days, which gives you ten days to catch up at ten pounds a day….”

  I looked at Max, who suddenly became Super Squash right there. I rose from the dust. “All right,” I said, brushing myself off. “We’re going for it.”

  “Good,” said Wes. I stood there, not sure what was next. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I thought I’d start by standing.”

  Wes shook his head. “You’ve got to talk to him, Ellie.”

  “I talk to him!”

  “Show me,” Wes insisted.

  Show him? You don’t talk to a pumpkin in the presence of someone you want more than anything in the world to like you. Any loyal reader of Seventeen knows that!

  “I can’t,” I said shyly, “it’s…you know…”

  Wes scowled, grabbed my hand, and put it on Max’s vine. “Don’t get soft on me now,” he said. “I hate girls who go soft.”

  I thought boys liked girls like Sharrell who were soft through and through and couldn’t open bottletops or fix electronic sprinklers.

  “You’ve got to get tough now,” Wes insisted.

  Get tough? Give me a break. I mashed a beetle and bared my teeth. Wes knelt in the dirt and put both hands on Max. He closed his eyes like he was praying, but I didn’t think he was. “Max,” he said gently, “you are the greatest squash I’ve ever seen, greater even than my aunt Izzy’s, and I thought I’d never say that.” Breathless, I patted Max to let him know that was true as Wes continued. “Max, you’ve probably felt another pumpkin in the area, one who you think might be a little bigger than you?” Max shuddered at this. “He’s rotting, Max. Through and through. And you’re going to take his place. You’re filling with hope now—hope that you can do it. I want you,” directed Wes, “to gain eleven pounds a day starting now.”

  Wes stroked Max’s skin right there in broad daylight.

  He massaged his vine and patted his leaves. “That’s good, Max,” he said. “That’s good.” Wes sat back satisfied and turned to me. “That’s how you’ve got to do it.”

  I sat next to Wes, not too close, you understand, but close enough to make the point. I wanted him to know I was tough, but that I needed some help in this talking business with pumpkins that he was obviously great at, being a sensitive grower and all. I wanted him to know that what he had just done was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen in the whole world and I would never forget it.

  “I need help,” I croaked. Wes looked at me. “And that doesn’t mean I’m soft, okay?”

  Wes took my hand and squeezed it. My hand was sweating pretty bad and I needed to wipe it off, but that didn’t seem like a great idea, given the fact it was being used.

  “I’ll help you,” he said.

  My heart stopped beating, but I was still alive.

  “Okay,” I said, squeezing his hand back. “But only if you have time. You don’t have to go out of your way or anything.”

  It was Thursday. Eight days to go.

  I was hoarse from all the sensitive pumpkin talking I was directing at Max. There’s just so much you can say to a squash, and I was getting desperate for new material. I played Dad’s tape You and You Alone for Max in a moment of weakness and suggested he “look forward to each new day with anticipation and love for all humanity.”

  I tried the direct approach: I slapped Max’s vine and told him to push past his fear of success, be a man, and go for gargantuan. I, after all, had lost three pounds already this week and was going for size ten, an equally distant goal.

  Wes had been by yesterday and brought pictures of giant pumpkins from his aunt Izzy’s World Pumpkin Federation newsletter. Huge ones—650 to 690 pounds—from England, Australia, and France. He showed them to Max: “This,” Wes directed softly, “is what a pumpkin was meant to do, Max.” Wes and I stood quietly together until his sneezing jag killed the mood. He blew his nose, and reached out to take my hand when Richard appeared, blabbering about the Chicago Cubs and the strength of the National League. I glared at Richard, Wes glared at Richard. Richard, oblivious, grinned and oiled his glove.

  “Well,” said Richard after Wes left, “that was nice.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that we wanted to be alone?”

  Richard looked around. “We are alone.”

  I stamped my foot. “I meant Wes and me! Could you possibly consider that?”

  Richard considered it. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.

  “Chicken breast and broccoli.”

  “With skin or without?”

  “Without. Skin is bad for you.”

  “Potatoes?” he asked hopefully. “Rice?”

  “Nothing,” I sneered. “Dry, lifeless, lo-cal.”

  “You could die from that.”

  “I’m going to be gorgeous,” I reminded him, sucking in my stomach.

  “It’s no way to live,” he said, and slumped home to have frozen dinners with his mother.

  Already Max had beaten every previous record from the Rock River Pumpkin Weigh-In and Harvest Fair. He was bigger than anything, except for Big Daddy, who was still on the vine, still sucking up Cyril’s good soil—and hopefully rotting his brains out. Any caring grower would have cut Big Daddy off the vine and let him cure in the sun to dry the stem and stop bacteria and mold from spreading. But Cyril didn’t care if his squash was sick and needed medical attention. As long as Big Daddy stayed on the vine, he might suck up a few extra pounds. As long as Big Daddy could hold together and get on the scale in eight days, Cyril would win and he knew it.

  Richard was watching Cyril’s moves from behind the barn on the old Winger property. Cyril, he said, was under pressure, and Herman wasn’t spitting with the same spunk.

  “He comes out and shakes the
vine,” Richard said, “sticks his ear on the skin to listen. Then he looks real worried and goes away.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “How’s it look to you?”

  “Still too early to call.” Richard blew a giant bubble with his gum and peered at me from behind it.

  “You could lie to me. You could tell me to be encouraged, that good will triumph over evil.”

  “Good will triumph over evil,” said Richard.

  “Liar.”

  Justin Julee and I sat in the back of Miss Moritz’s empty classroom that had been decorated with World War II battle maps and posters of popular war sayings like “The slip of a lip can sink a ship.” Gina Carlucci’s grandmother had baked cannolis for the class to remind us that there was more to Italy than Palermo and Sicily. My cannoli was sitting in my stomach like a lead pipe, pushing against my khaki slacks, which I was wearing along with my floppy orange blouse and Mother’s earrings that made me look deeply sophisticated. Justin asked me how I protected Max from pumpkin thieves and I told him about Spider and the bells and my natural ability to sense doom. Justin wrote as I talked about the extreme pressures of champion squash competition and how you had to be strong to fight off all the terror Mother Nature threw your way.

  I told him that some of the bravest people on earth grew giant pumpkins, which he hadn’t realized, and I said most people didn’t. Kids stopped and looked in the room as we talked, which made me toss my head to make Mother’s earrings dance. I decided I could really get used to fame.

  Mrs. Lemming’s grandson Ralphie was the school photographer. Photography was the only thing he was any good at; even Mrs. Lemming said so. Ralphie was checking the light and snapping candid shots from my good side and announced that it was time to take a picture of me and Max together.

  We piled into Ralphie’s red pickup that had leather seats and a wooden steering wheel. He bought it after selling his prize photograph of baby pigs at sundown to Life magazine. Nana said the photograph, which hung for months near the overdue book desk in the Rock River Library, was sensitive, funny, and caring. I mentioned to her that Ralphie was none of those things, and how could he turn out such wonderful work? Nana said life wasn’t fair and just to get used to it.