Upside Down in a Laura Ingalls Town

by Leslie Tall Manning

  “Throw the meal away from you,” Rebecca Lynn said like a professional chicken feeder. “That way they won’t peck at your feet.” With my sister’s help, Prudence collected six eggs, picking up each one like a rare jewel and placing it gently in the basket.

  Back at the cabin, the two fake Confederate soldiers we’d met before the storm were standing with Dad by the gate.

  “The store in town won’t have nothing for a week or so,” one of the men said. “We got nowhere to stay. Nothing to eat.”

  “Food’s scarce as hen’s teeth,” the other man said. He tossed Prudence a creepy grin, and she stared at her muddy slippers.

  Dad said, “I’ll give you meals and a place to sleep if you’ll help repair my roof.”

  The men agreed. They didn’t seem in any hurry to go off and fight in a real or make-believe war.

  “This blows,” I told Prudence. “We barely have anything left to feed our own family.”

  “What happened to your roof?”

  “We lost part of it during the storm. Our mattresses got soaked. For the last week we’ve slept under the sky.”

  And under the stars. With a nice breeze. Dad told scary stories by moonlight. And I’d never slept better. Even so, our mattresses had to be refilled. I could only sleep on the hard floor so many nights, and Dad winced in pain when he woke up in the morning.

  “Time to collect dried grass,” I told Prudence.

  She and my sister and I spent the next few hours scouring the nearby hills, taking turns cutting down the tall grass with a large scythe, and tossing the mound on top of an old horse blanket so we could haul it down. Carl followed us around until both mattresses were filled. Dad and the two soldiers—Snyder and Mitchell—dragged the mattresses up the ladder and shoved them back in their boxes.

  While the men finished up the roof, I introduced Prudence to a good friend of mine. “Prudence, meet my oven.”

  She stared at the hearth. “That’s not an oven.”

  “It is to me.”

  “I can’t believe you cook over a fire.”

  “I know, right?” I went through the motions explaining how the Dutch oven worked, the cookbooks I used, and the ancient tools of the trade. “We don’t have any sugar left, so my baking is sort of limited.”

  After churning butter, collecting firewood, and grabbing another bucket of water from the stream to put near the fireplace, Prudence followed me out to the butchered garden where we stood along the edge. Carl sat on a tree stump by the cabin with his camera focused on my dad and the two men up on the roof.

  “I promise you, Brooke, I would never sabotage your family,” Prudence said.

  “It’s just that your bonnet…”

  “My bonnet was missing for a while. Why do you think I’m wearing this ugly cotton one?” She stooped down and picked up a kernel of corn. “Plus, our sheep eat grass, the horses and donkeys eat hay. We never buy feed. But I do know who sells it.”

  “The mercantile? Duh. They’re a feed store.” We stood a moment, as the idea formed in my head. “A feed store,” I repeated. “As in corn…”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “About the boot tracks we found.”

  “Everyone around here wears boots, except for me.” She gazed across the expanse of fertile soil. “Do you know why the Duffys got kicked out Sweet Sugar Gap?”

  “Wendell said they did something un-neighborly.”

  “He ought to know since he’s the one who turned them in.”

  “He did? What happened?”

  “Wendell made a delivery to their farm, but no one answered the door. So he looked in the barn, thinking maybe someone was out there, but no one was, and he found a cooler filled with beer. Modern-day beer. Next thing you know, the Duffys are gone.”

  I remembered the beer can I’d found on my way to the stream. “Prudence, can I ask you something?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why do you think my meltdown that day didn’t send us packing? Why do you think the producers forgave me?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe an unbridled dance is better than beer for ratings.”

  I had to force away visions of Wendell sneaking onto our property in the middle of the night, his wagon loaded with feed.

  No way is Wendell capable of doing something so low.

  But he turned in the Duffys, argued the paranoid side of my brain.

  “Let’s go up to my house,” Prudence said. “I want to show you something you might like.”

  Carl stayed with my dad and the fake soldiers as Prudence and I started up the hill.

  “My back and shoulders are screaming,” she said as we trudged up the incline. Most of the downed tree trunks had been cut and placed in stacks along the sides, but the mud was still slick. “I wouldn’t have lasted a week if we’d traded roles.”

  I no longer thought of my life out here as a role I was playing, or as a contestant on a game show, because that cheapened how hard I worked. But I said nothing as we stepped through the back door of the Millers’ kitchen. Rusty came in through the dining room and sat at the kitchen table while his camera rolled.

  “This is called an Oberlin stove,” Prudence told me.

  I had seen the large, cast-iron contraption on my water runs the night Mrs. Miller had the baby, but I hadn’t noticed the 1834 patent stamp until now.

  “It’s supposed to be more efficient than a fireplace,” Prudence said. “But I wouldn’t know, since Nanny is the only one allowed to do the cooking.”

  I checked out the rest of the kitchen. There were two connecting pipes and a chimney, and enough cook tops for a restaurant. Countless cake molds dotted the wall, and pots and pans hung from a metal rack over a long butcher-block table. The table was covered with all types of mixing bowls, and baskets filled with fruits and nuts.

  The kitchen grew warm and cozy as Prudence and I baked into the evening. As efficient as their Oberlin stove was, and considering they had enough sugar and spices to get the entire town through a winter, the biscuits and cakes weren’t nearly as tasty as the ones baked over a fire in a Dutch oven.

  Prudence wiped her forehead, leaving behind a long streak of flour.

  Nanny stepped into the kitchen. “Lawdy mercy,” she said, shaking her head. “With all this food, you might need to throw a party.”

  “A party!” Prudence and I said at the same time.

  Nanny laughed. “You all made a fine mess for me to clean. But at least the bakin’ part is done did!”

  After the sun had set and the cameramen were gone, Wendell and I sat next to the warm pool with our feet dangling. The storm had left a surge in the tributaries, and the water came all the way up to our knees. It was so fun coming out here without the cameras. The pool and the outhouse: the only two places I could sit for a spell without interruption.

  I discussed the party particulars with Wendell, knowing I would soon steer the conversation to the more serious topic which hid just beneath my tongue. “My dad found boot tracks the night the deer ate our crops,” I said, a little extra casually.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I waited, but he said nothing. I forged ahead, my stomach in knots. “I can’t help thinking…you know…that your store sells feed. A weird coincidence, I suppose.”

  “What is?”

  “You. Working at a store that sells corn feed.”

  He leaned back. Way back. Like he was suddenly farsighted. “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “You had those bags of feed in your wagon…”

  “I told you. I keep them back there for the weight.”

  “Right. I know. And I believe you…”

  “It doesn’t sound like you believe me.”

  “I do. I’m sorry. I just…”

  He stood up in a rush, speaking angrily as he hopped from one foot to the other, putting on his socks, then his boots. “You know,” he said. “I had something important to share with you. Something I wanted you to kn
ow before—”

  “I’m sorry.” As I stood, my foot landed on a sharp twig, but I ignored the twinge. “Don’t go. Please.”

  My stomach dropped as he walked away from me. I shouldn’t have said anything. Even if he did do it, it would have only been for the money. And who was I to suggest his family was less deserving than mine? Whatever Wendell had or hadn’t done, I was freaking out to think he might be breaking up with me. What would I do out here without him?

  “No, Wendell. Please!”

  He stopped on the path and my heart stopped as well. He looked so serious, almost anguished. There was something more he needed to tell me, something important, and I had ruined it by throwing accusations. “You know,” he said, “I was just getting used to all of this. Having dinner together, sitting on your porch, coming out here, away from the cameras. Now I feel like it was all a waste of time.”

  “No. Not a waste of time. Please, Wendell. I was just mad about what happened. I didn’t know where to direct my anger.”

  “God, Brooke, this isn’t the time to be angry. This is the time to…” he cocked his head to the side. “Did you hear that?”

  “What? No. What were you saying, Wendell? What do you have to tell me?”

  He took one step toward me and stopped awkwardly, like a toddler trying to take his first step. “I’m falling for you…okay? That’s what I have to tell you.”

  My stomach turned into an ocean with waves moving up and down, up and down. I stood frozen as he took another step.

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” he said, grabbing both my hands.

  “I’m glad you did. I feel the same way.”

  “But I’m not supposed—”

  A loud snapping sound struck the air, and we jerked our heads toward the noise. It only took my brain a millisecond to register what I was seeing. The words barely made their way from my throat. “Oh…my…God…” The dark hairy monster stood on its hind legs six yards from where we stood, just at the water’s edge across the stream from us. It let out a deep growl. Even in the dark, I could see its sharp teeth. “Wendell?”

  He whispered, his voice calm, “Back up. Do it. Get onto the path.”

  The bear created a wave as it flopped into the pool and stood up. I was mesmerized and terrified by its height. Another deep rumble rose from its core.

  “Go!” Wendell shouted.

  Someone had super glued my feet to the bank.

  In the water, the bear leaned forward on its haunches, dove onto its belly, and started swimming in our direction. Wendell screamed at me, but his screaming didn’t matter. My ears could only hear the bear’s growl and the splashing of its paws against the water, and when Wendell pulled something out of his pocket and held it up in the air, I believed Upside Down in a Laura Ingalls Town was no longer a family program, but a dystopian reality show where all the contestants, one by one, die a gnarly death, and he was going to be the first. He held up a red container. The bear stopped a few feet from the bank. It stood up again. Wendell took a wide step forward, his outstretched hand only a few feet from the bear’s face. The bear seemed to scream as his paws suddenly slammed against his hairy face. It stumbled to the right before falling back into the water.

  I was convinced Wendell was a super hero. He had waved a magic wand and willed the bear to its death. But the bear wasn’t dead. It stood flailing its arms like someone had set its fur on fire. I closed my eyes, foolishly thinking that would stop the God-awful howling from reaching my ears.

  Wendell took a step backward and tripped over my shoes, dropping the canister. I picked it up and squeezed my super hero’s amulet in my fist as Wendell grabbed the lantern and screamed, “RUN!”

  This time I obeyed.

  We tore through the woods with our only light coming from the lantern I held in my sweaty hand. We both tripped. I landed hard on my knees, and Wendell skinned the side of his face. But none of that mattered. As we neared the cabin, I could smell the lit fireplace as the chimney blew smoke up and over the trees, the most wonderful smell in the world. I started bawling as we ran together up the porch steps. Within seconds my dad was rocking me in his arms, and the door was safely locked behind us.

  I wanted Wendell to spend the night, but without any way to get in touch with his family, it was decided he go home. Two hours after the ordeal, Wendell and I sat on the top porch step, our eyes darting from shadow to shadow. My heart thumped erratically each time I envisioned the bear’s angry eyes. In the dark beyond the railing, every chirp or twig snap convinced me there were monsters lurking.

  Wendell said very little, and I knew that what had happened had shaken him to the core.

  “You saved my life,” I told him. “You’ll probably get the money. If you do, it’s because you deserve it.”

  He put his arm around me. I could still feel the traces of tremors. “You would have done the same for me,” he said.

  “This is yours.” I pulled the small red canister of pepper spray from my apron pocket and handed it to him. “You were smart to sneak it in.” I remembered all of the lame things I had chosen to sneak into the backcountry, back when thoughts of actual survival had never entered my mind.

  “I meant what I said earlier,” he whispered.

  “Me too.”

  We sat on the step in silence until Dad told Wendell it was time to leave, and I stood at the railing until my hero’s wagon disappeared into the dark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The blue mansion set the stage for a perfect party. Paper streamers hung from the ceilings, vases of flowers sat on every table, and there must have been a hundred candles taking up space on the three mantels. The Murphys brought cranberry tarts, Mrs. Wrightman brought a huge tray of bonbons, Reverend Clark and his wife brought nut bread, and Prudence and I baked a bunt cake and three dozen sugar cookies. Nanny popped fresh popcorn and boiled a pot of warm apple cider. It somehow seemed incomplete without the Duffy family, but we still aimed to have fun. Even the camera guys smiled like real people. The Jackie Chan lookalike filmed us in the parlor, while Rusty and Carl took turns in the other rooms. The grownups and we older kids played a game of marbles called Ringer, and the traditional Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Games that no teenager in their right mind would play in Modern Land; that only a few months earlier would have sent me running to Libby’s FROG for a game of Eight-ball and a double shot of Jack.

  When it was time for music, thoughts of scary beasts and ruined crops and concluding television shows seemed far away as Wendell handed me my guitar. Everyone sang along, including my dad. His beard now hung well below his chin, and he had bathed and doused himself in cologne that smelled like a cross between lemons and parsley. Wendell had taught me “Old Dan Tucker,” but I changed the words to make it about my dad instead:

  “Old Tim Decker’s a fine old man, came out here to farm some land. / Never combed his hair or shaved his beard, could barely catch a fish or shoot a deer. / So get out of the way, get out of the way, get out of the way, old Tim Decker. / You’re too late to git your supper!”

  Everyone was hooting and hollering. Dad’s face grew beet red and he beamed like I’d just won an Olympic gold medal. So I gave him the next verse:

  “Old Tim Decker he come to the gap, ridin’ on a horse while taking a nap. / Woke with a start when his horse fell asleep, landed headfirst in a nearby creek. / So get out of the way, get out of the way, get out of the way, old Tim Decker. / You’re too late to git your supper!”

  Wendell took the guitar from me and accompanied Prudence on the piano, but he gave me the sugar-eye the entire time. Mrs. Miller pulled out a violin. The three of them made a pretty good band, even though the songs were more appropriate for Civil War recruits on their way to battle.

  As the music played, Snyder and Mitchell, the two soldiers sleeping in our barn, showed up. They hadn’t been officially invited, but in the 1860’s backcountry, even party crashers were treated like neighbors. After the two men ate platefuls of dessert, they cam
e and sat on either side of me on the sofa. A round wooden canteen appeared in Snyder’s hand. He and his buddy passed it back and forth in front of me, and the room filled up with the smell of liquor.

  “Want some tar water?” Snyder offered, shaking the canteen under my nose. “Apple brandy.”

  Except for the beer can I’d found, drinking hadn’t entered my mind the entire summer. “No, thanks,” I told him, relocating to a seat by the fireplace.

  Soon, the two soldiers were laughing like jackasses and cussing up a storm, so my dad suggested they take their carousing outside. The men went onto the porch. After a while, Nanny went to check on them. Curious, I followed Nanny outside, and Rusty followed me.

  Snyder was sitting on the porch swing. He spoke beneath the music still playing in the house, his words slurred. “My agent’s an ass.”

  “Mine’s not so bad,” Mitchell said, his hand wrapped around the chain of the swing. “The last job he got me, I made residuals up the wazoo.” He turned to Nanny. “Aren’t you sick of being typecast?”

  A usually silent Rusty said, “Guys, this is a nice party. Why don’t you all go and sleep it off?”

  “Why don’t you go screw yourself?” was Snyder’s reply.

  Mitchell patted his friend on the arm. “Chill out, Snyder.”

  “Don’t tell me to chill. They offer me a lead, and they put me out here in the sticks and pay me atmosphere wages.”

  For the first time that I’d ever seen, Rusty turned off his camera. It hung limply from his hand.

  Snyder said, “Oh, so now you’re not going to film us? Is that the way it works? We break our backs putting shingles on some farmer’s roof in exchange for bad cooking, and you don’t even have the courtesy to put us on camera? What do I look like, a slave?” He turned to Nanny. “No pun intended.”

  Nanny touched my arm, “Brooke, let’s go inside.”

  I pulled from her grasp. I was interested in what these men were talking about, even if I didn’t know exactly what they were talking about.