Genuine Sweet

by Faith Harkey

  “Hey! You can’t do this!” I banged on the door. “Let me out!”

  “Shhut!” said a groggy voice from behind me.

  I turned around.

  Pa sat on an upturned bucket, one eye open. I guess even he couldn’t sleep through all my racket.

  “You.” I narrowed my eyes.

  He nodded. “Gen’wine.”

  I sighed.

  “You don’t say ’lo to your pap?” he slurred.

  “’Lo,” I snarled back.

  “Heh, heh. She’s a gen’wine Sweet after all, in jail with her pap. Like father, like daughter.” He shook his head with mock pride.

  I tried to ignore him and went back to banging on the door. “Sheriff Thrasher! You open this door right now!”

  “Hey, hey, m’head hurts!” Pa protested.

  I spun like a flash. “Don’t you dare complain! Don’t you dare! Do you even know Gram’s dead?”

  He jerked his head back and regarded me.

  “Shore I do,” he replied, rubbing a hand across his eyebrows. “Took her to the hospital, didn’t I?”

  “You took her to the hospital.” I didn’t believe it.

  “Who else?”

  “Drunk and dangerous Dale Sweet, if-he-ain’t-drinkin’-he’s-passed-out Dale Sweet? You heard Gram calling for help and took her to the hospital?”

  “She didn’t call out,” he told me. “She came to my door. Knocked.”

  I was all sarcasm when I said, “She was dying, but she knocked.”

  He nodded. “And I opened my eyes and there she was, standing over me.”

  “You lie,” I told him.

  “Not so, not so.” He held up a hand, palm out. “She said to me, ‘Lights are out, Dale. ’S time to go.’ So I got up and grabbed m’keys and asked her where she wanted to go. ‘Hospital,’ she told me. And so I took her.”

  I would have turned the whole story aside as a fable had he not said, “Funny, how she looked all silver in the dark.”

  “Silver?”

  He nodded. “I said, ‘Ain’t ever seen no angel before,’ and she laughed and said, ‘You still ain’t. Turn the key ’n’ drive, Dale.’ Tha’s what she said.” He chuckled. “M’hands was nearly froze. Feet, too. Cold night that night. Dang cold.”

  I was standing there, with my hand on that big, gray door, partly turned toward Pa and partly turned away.

  “You might have froze to death yourself,” I said.

  “Naw. Drink enough’ll keep a man warm. Heh, heh.”

  I let that pass. “What happened when you got to the hospital?”

  He shrugged. “Some people come around, ask if we need help, whatnot. All o’ th’sudden, Starla crumples like a empty can.”

  I can’t say how, but I saw it right then, so clear in my mind’s eye. Gram had just crumpled. Something had left her and she’d just crumpled. Her time had come. It wasn’t the cold that had killed her, after all.

  “Was she still silver?” I asked, though I thought I knew the answer.

  “Naw. Jus’ for that time she was walkin’ around.” Pa paused. “Weren’t long after that, they put her in a bed and them machines went wild, beep-beepin’. They came and said she died.” He rubbed his hand through his hair. “Gonna miss that old girl. She never judged me harsh. She never did.”

  I stood stock-still for a time, just watching that night play itself out like a movie in my head. By the time I was ready to ask Pa another question, he was passed out again.

  I rolled my eyes. “Mighty nice talking to you.”

  But then, after a minute, I had to admit—it sort of had been.

  I was asleep myself when I heard the door unlock. I opened my eyes in time to see the sheriff give me a stern look before he allowed Jura to shuffle by him. She had a plate in each hand. The door shut behind her.

  “Mm-mmm! Room-temperature canned peas and beets!” she teased. “You hungry?”

  I took the plates from her and set one beside Pa. “You in trouble, too?”

  “No. I told Thrasher I might be able to talk some sense into you.”

  I sighed. “It don’t matter how much sense you make, Jura. The magic’s gone.”

  “No, no. I know,” she said. “What I really wanted was to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  She leaned her back against the door. “Did you mean what you said out there? About how people couldn’t know for sure they couldn’t fetch wishes because they’d never tried?”

  It took me a second to even remember having said it. “Guess I must have.”

  “I was thinking—what if you teach someone else to fetch wishes?” Her eyes sparkled at the notion.

  I quirked my lips. “I dunno. Maybe. You want me to try to teach you?” It did make some sense. If somebody else could grant wishes, they could fetch the flood away.

  “No, Genuine.” Jura smiled. “I want you to try to teach everybody.”

  22

  Yellow Sherbet Sunrise

  SURPRISINGLY, THERE WEREN’T A LOT OF TAKERS. In the end, it was Jura and me, Dilly Barker, Travis and Miz Tromp, Ham, and Mister Strickland on top of that hill outside of town hall. Well, Sheriff Thrasher was there, too, but I think that was mostly to keep an eye on me.

  It was full dark out, and each one of us had a plastic cup in hand. Problem was, the sky was blanketed with clouds and, yes, it was still raining.

  “I don’t know if this is going to work,” I said to the others. “I think the best thing you can do is imagine the stars on the other side of the clouds. Really see them as best you can. Then, once you have them clear in mind, whistle.”

  “Whistle how?” Dilly Barker asked.

  “Loud and firm,” I replied.

  “Like you’re callin’ a pig?” Ham asked.

  “Something like that,” I agreed.

  They started whistling.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “Sorry. Hold up your cups, too. All right. Now, just call the starlight down, if you can.”

  They each had their way of doing it. Jura held her cup in one hand, and as she whistled, she gestured a welcome with the other. Ham did indeed whistle like he was calling his prize pig. Meanwhile, he shoved the cup at the sky like he was offering the stars a pail of sweet feed. Mister Strickland’s whistles came short and fast, and he tapped the bottom of the cup as he went. Miz Tromp’s crooning was soft and sweet, and Dilly Barker’s made me think of fairy tales, for some reason.

  Travis held his cup in both hands and pressed it hard to his forehead. He stayed like that for a long time, real still, before he began to whistle. It started out as a low, spreading sound, if that makes sense to you, but all at once, it became a tune—one I’d heard before.

  It was the song the stars sang.

  It was then, when Travis’s song streamed into the night, that the clouds gave way and the starlight began to flow.

  “If that don’t beat all,” Sheriff Thrasher whispered.

  I don’t think the others even heard him, they were so astonished by the six quicksilver waterfalls that spilled from the sky into their cups and over their hands, splashing to the ground, casting flares of silver sparks that danced like brief fireflies in the night.

  When the cascade stopped, Travis turned to me, his hands dripping starlight. His breath was short, like he’d just run a race, and he was grinning so hard you’d have thought he was another Travis entirely. “What do we do now?”

  The others looked up, also waiting for my answer.

  I told them about how my great-gram drank the starlight, and how Gram used her pocket lint to make wish seeds from it. “And y’all know about my wish biscuits,” I said. “I guess I’ll tell you what Gram told me. It’s best if you find your own way.”

  There came a long period of quiet then, while the new wish fetchers considered the method that might be their own. In the end, not every one of them decided right then, but here’s what each of them finally concluded.

  Instead of wish biscuits, Miz Tromp makes beauti
fully iced wish cupcakes. I myself have been the recipient of a Miz Tromp wish, and it’s no fable to say those cakes taste like sunshine drenched in honey.

  Ham pours his starlight into the gas tank of his truck, and then, something like a magical compass, the truck nudges him wherever he needs to go to find the substance of a person’s wish.

  Dilly Barker dips her fingertips in the starlight and smudges a few drops of it between the eyebrows of anyone who has need of a little enchantment.

  Mister Strickland lets his chalk soak overnight in the silvery stuff, and anytime someone has a good-hearted wish, he writes it out ten times on a special chalkboard he reserves for just that purpose.

  At first, Jura mixed hers with soap and blew wish bubbles. Lately, though, she’s taken to hopping buses to new towns and secretly dumping pure starlight into their water supply.

  As for Travis, he uses his to fill the shafts of ink pens. Anytime he meets someone who’s unhappy, he gives them a pen. “Write your own story,” he tells them, “with you as the hero. Give yourself a happy beginning, middle, and end.”

  It was Dilly Barker who went to Sheriff Thrasher that night and asked for his wish.

  “Uh, I, uh, I hardly know,” he said. I think he was still sort of stunned from the whole parting-of-the-clouds, downpour-of-starlight thing.

  Ham walked up behind the cop and cleared his throat. “I think earlier you mentioned something about the flooding, Mike.”

  “Oh! Right!” the sheriff said.

  “Well, then,” said Dilly. “Wish away, my fine fella.”

  So he did. And not a thing changed. Not that night, anyway. It was drizzling as the eight of us trudged back through the mud into the town hall, and I could still hear the patter of the rain on the roof as I fell asleep in my cot.

  Every citizen in Sass must have been standing on top of that hill that morning, looking down over our soggy city. Soggy, I say, but no longer flooded. The waters had receded, and although there was a fair amount of nature’s flotsam collected along the curbs—tree branches and the like—the buildings looked downright sound. All the birds were chirping, and the sunrise painted the sky tangerine and yellow like the most beautiful sherbet you ever saw.

  “The sun keeps on shinin’ like that, things’ll dry out in no time,” Ham said. A mutter of general agreement passed before he added, “So. Who’s gonna help me drag my boat home?”

  At first, no one answered him. After the upscuddle last night—and the way the flood got fixed in spite of folks’ hardness—I imagine my neighbors weren’t feeling too proud of themselves.

  Handyman Joe was the first to break the sheepish silence. “I’ve got a trailer on my truck. Won’t take me but ten minutes to run home and get it.”

  “Think the church bus has enough seats to get these folks back to the seniors’ home in one trip?” I heard Pastor Missy ask.

  “We can get ’em there, but the whole place was flooded out, down to the last linen,” someone replied.

  “I can board two at my place,” Missus Fuller called.

  “So can I,” said Miz B.

  And so, real gradual but real steady, we started to get things back in order. Miz Tromp helped me and Jura organize the seventh-graders into a steam-cleaning, laundering power-house, all our supplies coming free of charge from Sass Foods.

  One more thing happened before we all left the hill that morning.

  I was unlocking the door to Pa’s jail—he was still in there, still asleep, and muttering something about a note from Gram—when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around. It was Dilly Barker, the lady who’d given me the miracle flour.

  “Hey, Dilly,” I said.

  “Hey, Genuine. How are you?”

  I thought about it. “I’m all right.”

  “Good, good.” Dilly nodded. “Listen. I just wanted to say, I think it’s only fair for me to give you something in exchange for those wish-fetching lessons.”

  “Oh, no,” I replied. “You don’t need to—”

  “I do and I will.” She said it sternly but she patted my arm. “Next weekend, I want you to come by my place, ’round about nine a.m., you hear? I’m gonna teach you how to mill flour.”

  Then she winked, smiled, and walked away.

  23

  Thanksgiving

  BY THE TIME THE SCHOOL BUILDING WAS DRIED out and cleaned, it was Thanksgiving break. With Gram gone and Pa, well, unchanged, I didn’t have any particular plans of my own. Fortunately, I had good friends and a heap of invitations. Jura and I watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade on the library computer, and after that, we visited with Dilly, who greeted us at the door wearing a turkey-feather headdress. We played Chinese checkers and did a lot of laughing.

  Later that afternoon, I parted ways with Jura. She was headed to the Wentz Family Annual Turkey Day Cookout, and I’d been invited to the Tromp place.

  In case you’re wondering, I hadn’t spent a lot of time with Travis since the flood. Not because I didn’t want to—or even because he didn’t want to—but because he’d been in California with his pa. He’d only just come home. I couldn’t help wondering if he’d made a decision, and if this would be the day I’d hear about it.

  I found Travis on his bench swing reading a book.

  “What you got there?” I called as I opened the gate.

  “Book,” he replied with a smile.

  “I can see that, you clabberhead. Which one?”

  “The Light in the Forest,” he replied. “You read it?”

  “Naw. Is it good?”

  “Real good.” He flop-eared the page he was on and shut the book. “I missed you.”

  “The same dog bit me.” I smiled. I tried to keep on smiling as I asked, “Are you moving?”

  He shrugged. “Thinkin’ about it.”

  The feeling I had was something like being punched in the gut. I bet it was a full minute before I managed, “You like California?”

  “It’s different.”

  I nodded. “If you go, maybe I’ll come visit you someday.”

  He set the book down on the swing, got up, and took my hand. “I’d like that.”

  In the kitchen, Miz Tromp managed a turkey, a big ol’ smoked salmon, the baking of a pie, the icing of a cake, and the candying of at least twenty yams, and she did it all with the easy flair of a dancer.

  “Hey, Miz Tromp,” I greeted her. “Need any help?”

  She dipped her finger in the gravy and tasted it. “I don’t think so. Unless you two want to set the table.”

  We said we’d be glad to. Travis and I went to the cupboard, and he handed me off enough plates for five.

  “You and me. Your ma. Tom. Who else is coming?” I asked him.

  “My father,” he replied. “He wanted to talk some stuff out with Ma.”

  Making plans for the big move, I reckoned.

  I swallowed hard. “That’s . . . um.”

  Travis spun on me and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “That all you got to say about it? ‘Um’?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was funnin’ me or not.

  Even if he was, I decided I didn’t feel much like joking. “No. That’s not all I have to say.”

  “Well, then?”

  I stepped up and set my hands on my hips. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t think it’s right. First, because I’m selfish, and I like having you around. But second, because I don’t trust your pa. He left you all alone! And now, out of the blue, he turns up and wants to be your daddy? If you ask me, there’s something rotten up that creek!”

  “Who’s your outspoken friend, Travis?” came a man’s voice from behind me.

  “This here’s Genuine,” Travis said. “Genuine, this is Kip. My father.”

  He was a beefy type, well-muscled and fit. His hair was cut short, and I could see where Travis got his big ears from.

  “Something rotten up the creek, huh?” He reached out a hand to shake.

  “Surely even you will admit
the stench is a mite fishy, sir,” I replied, though my voice shook a little.

  He lowered his hand. “Fishy, because a man wants to know his boy?”

  I stood my ground. “Fishy because he doesn’t care whether he uproots his boy from a life he and his ma worked hard to build—without any help from that man, I’ll add, when help was surely owed!” Warming to my subject, I pulled out my preaching finger. “Do you know they have a family business here? People rely on them for wedding cakes and skin smears and whatnot! They’ve got friends who care about them!”

  “I can see that,” Travis’s pa replied.

  But I wasn’t done. “It’s not fair what you’re doing here, sir. And it’s selfish. And if you’re really trying to convince folks that you’ve changed, it’s precisely this sort of selfishness you might want to take a gander at!”

  “Is that so?” Kip asked.

  “Yes, sir. It is.” But my engine was running down. I was hearing my own words and thinking Kip might not be the only feckless father I was mad at. I dropped my arms to my sides and said a little more softly, “Now, I apologize if I’ve been rude, but sometimes a body’s got to call it like they see it.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” he agreed. He raised an eyebrow in Travis’s direction, then walked out.

  Suddenly embarrassed, I set myself to folding Miz Tromp’s dainty cloth napkins. When I finally looked up, Travis stared like he was seeing me for the first time.

  “Sorry if I was outside my rights,” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “You wasn’t.”

  “There’s a tiny chance some of that upscuddle wasn’t actually about you and your pa.”

  “Probably. But I’m still glad you said it.”

  As I set out Miz Tromp’s good silver forks, I couldn’t help noticing how fine they were, real ornate and heavy in the hand. Like the kind I imagined my great-great-gram might have had.

  It had been a while since I’d thought about her. All at once, I couldn’t help wondering if she and Gram, and Gram’s ma and my ma, too, were all together somewhere. What would they be doing? What did dead wish fetchers do for fun?