by Nancy Krulik
“Or maybe instead of starting at the Pilgrim houses, we could visit the Wampanoags first,” Katie suggested.
“That does sound cool,” Mandy agreed. “Okay. Let’s go there first.”
The Wampanoag village looked very different from the Pilgrim town. While the Pilgrim town was full of little wooden houses with small gardens, the Native American homes looked more like round huts made of tree bark and woven mats.
“Welcome to our wetu,” a Native American woman in a beautiful, brown suede dress said as she greeted Katie, Emma W., and Mandy a few minutes later.
“Your what?” Emma W. asked. “I’m sorry. I don’t speak Wampanoag.”
The woman smiled. “Wetu is our word for home,” she explained. “And I am very glad to have visitors. Please, noe winyah.”
“No what?” Mandy asked.
“Noe winyah,” the woman answered. “It means come in.”
“Thank you,” Katie said as she and her friends stepped inside.
Can I offer you some sobaheg?”
“I’m not sure,” Katie admitted. “What is sobaheg?”
“A meat and vegetable stew,” the woman replied. “It’s very delicious.”
“No, thank you,” Katie said. “I am a vegetarian.”
“What is that?” the woman asked.
Katie had a feeling that in real life the woman knew what a vegetarian was. But a Wampanoag woman in the 1600s probably wouldn’t. “I don’t eat meat,” Katie explained.
“But I do,” Mandy said. “And I am starving.”
As the Wampanoag woman gave Mandy a heaping helping of sobaheg, Katie looked around the wetu. There were beautiful woven mats on the floors. And although she didn’t like the fur skins that seemed to be everywhere, Katie understood that back in the 1600s, when there was no heat other than a fire, furs were probably needed for the Wampanoags to keep warm.
“I love this basket,” Katie said, pointing to a white woven basket with a flowery design on top.
“Thank you,” the Wampanoag woman said. “I wove that myself, from porcupine quills.”
“Real porcupine quills?” Mandy asked. “Aren’t they really sharp?”
The woman laughed. “Very sharp. But they are also very beautiful.”
Mandy and Emma W. took two last bites of their stew, and then stood up to leave. “Thank you for the stew. It was yummy,” Emma W. said. “I’ve never tasted anything like that before.”
“You have never visited a Wampanoag village before,” the Native American woman reminded her. “But I hope you will come back.”
“I hope so, too,” Emma W. told her. “I want to bring my whole family here.” Then she stopped for a minute. “Well, maybe just my older sister and my brother who is in first grade. I have twin brothers who are only two, and they’d probably turn your whole house upside down. They are wild.”
The Wampanoag woman smiled. “Not as wild as the many wild animals in our forest.”
“You don’t know my brothers,” Emma W. reminded her.
Katie laughed. Emma W. wasn’t kidding. Her twin brothers were definitely a handful.
“Come on, you guys,” Mandy urged. “We haven’t been to any of the Pilgrim houses yet. I want to see them, too.”
A few minutes later, Katie, Emma W., and Mandy found themselves in a completely different world from the Wampanoag village. Instead of wearing animal skins and brightly colored jewelry like the Native Americans, the Pilgrims were all dressed in the same colors—gray, black, navy blue, and white. There were no cars, of course. Or sidewalks. And every house was tiny. It was so different from Cherrydale and Katie’s daily life . . . Then she heard Suzanne shouting at Jeremy. That was very familiar.
“I was at the front of the line before you,” Suzanne shouted from outside the candlemaker’s home.
“You were, but then you got out of line,” Jeremy shouted back.
“I had to go to the bathroom,” Suzanne told him. “Now I’m back.”
“Exactly,” Jeremy answered. “So go to the back of this line!”
Katie sighed. No matter where she wound up, or what year it was, some things in her life never changed. It was embarrassing to hear Suzanne and Jeremy arguing like that. It wasn’t like the fourth-graders from Cherrydale Elementary were the only visitors to the Good Morrow Village. What if other people thought all the kids from their school were as badly behaved as her two best friends? That would be awful!
“Let’s get out of here,” Katie told Emma W. and Mandy.
“Right behind you,” Emma W. agreed.
“Good-bye, twenty-first century!” Mandy added.
Chapter 8
“And now we leave the wax to cool,” the candlemaker said as she placed several candle molds near a window. “Thanks to the candles, we will have light in the darkness. Huzzah!”
Katie almost laughed. It seemed a little weird for someone to be so excited about candle wax. But then again, everything about the Pilgrim village was a little weird.
When the girls left the candle-making house, Mandy pointed to another small wooden house and said, “I wonder what’s going on there.”
“Oh, that’s Patience Mitchell’s house,” Katie said. “She makes dolls.”
Mandy and Emma W. wanted to go see how that was done.
“Good morrow, Katie,” Patience greeted her. “I am so glad to have visitors.”
“This is Emma, and this is Mandy,” Katie said, introducing her friends.
“Good morrow to you both,” Patience said. “My mother is grinding corn into flour today. Corn is very important. Our Wampanoag neighbors taught us how to plant and grow it. Perhaps later, you girls will try to make your way through our village corn maze. But here is a warning: The stalks are high and the paths are twisty.”
“Katie said you make dolls with corn husks,” Emma W. told Patience. “I’d like to see how you do that. We always have a big bonfire in our town on Wednesday night, right before Thanksgiving. We serve corn to the whole town. There will be plenty of corn husks.”
Katie frowned. She’d been having such a good time that she’d almost forgotten that she wouldn’t be around for the bonfire. Until now.
“This is one of my dolls,” Patience told the girls. She held up a little figure made of dried corn husks and string. It kind of looked like a man.
“Is it hard to make a doll like that?” Emma W. asked her.
“Not at all,” Patience answered. “Prithee, sit here beside me.”
As Emma W. sat down next to Patience so she could learn to make a corn-husk doll, Katie and Mandy looked around the tiny house.
“Those dolls are scary-looking,” Katie whispered to Mandy. “I think Suzanne’s little sister would cry if she got one of those as a present.”
“Nah, she wouldn’t be scared of a doll,” Mandy whispered back. “Nothing’s scarier than having Suzanne as a big sister.”
Katie laughed and then glanced over to where Patience and Emma W. were sitting. Patience was helping Emma W. tie four corn husks together. She showed her how to trim the edges and fold down the husks to form the doll’s head. Emma W. was watching Patience’s hands. But Patience seemed to be looking at Katie, not Emma W. And Katie wasn’t sure, but she thought Patience might be giving her a funny look.
Oh no! Had Patience heard what Katie had said about the dolls? She hadn’t meant to hurt Patience’s feelings. Before Katie could apologize to Patience, Kevin and Kadeem wandered into the house.
“We’ve been looking for you. It’s almost lunchtime,” Kevin told Katie and Mandy.
“Oh, are you children going to the groaning board?” Patience asked the boys.
“The what?” Kadeem asked. He shook his head slightly. “I don’t understand anything anyone says around this place.”
“The groaning board,” Patience repeated. “It’s a big feast.”
“It’s not meat stew, is it?” Katie asked Patience. “Because that’s all they had at the Wampanoag village, and I don’t eat mea
t.”
Patience smiled at Katie. “There will be many vegetables and fruits at the groaning board,” she assured her.
“Great,” Katie said. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Emma W. said. “I just want to finish my doll.”
Five minutes later, she put her doll in her knapsack and smiled at Patience. “Thank you for teaching me how to do this. I’m going to make a lot of these with the corn we husk next Tuesday night.”
“I’m glad to have helped,” Patience said. “Fare thee well. Enjoy the meal.”
Emma W., Mandy, and Katie headed off after Kevin and Kadeem. As she walked, Katie heard her stomach rumble. She also felt a little chilly.
“Oh no!” Katie exclaimed. “I left my jacket back at Patience’s house. I have to run back and get it.”
“I’ll save you a seat at the table,” Emma W. told her.
“Thanks,” Katie said. “I’ll be really quick.”
Katie wasn’t far from Patience’s house when she suddenly felt a cool breeze blowing against the back of her neck. It was really getting cold out. She really did need her jacket. But before Katie could reach the house, the gentle breeze began to pick up speed. Katie looked around. That was weird. The leaves on the trees weren’t moving at all. In fact, the wind didn’t seem to be blowing anywhere but around Katie.
Uh-oh. That could only mean one thing. This was no ordinary wind. This was the magic wind!
“Oh no!” Katie shouted. “Not now. Not before I get to eat at the groaning board! I’m starving!”
But the magic wind didn’t care that Katie was hungry. And it didn’t care that there was a whole feast waiting. The wind just kept blowing, circling faster and faster around Katie, whirring around her like a wild tornado. It was so powerful, she had to grab on to a nearby tree just to keep from being blown away.
Katie shut her eyes tight and tried not to cry.
And then, it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone.
But so was Katie Carew. She’d turned into someone else. One . . . two . . . switcheroo!
But who?
Chapter 9
Slowly, Katie opened her eyes and looked around. Everywhere she looked she could see small cottages and people dressed as Pilgrims. That meant Katie was still at the Good Morrow Village.
Okay, so now Katie knew where she was. But she still didn’t know who she was. She looked down at her feet. She could barely see them under the long petticoats that were beneath her skirt. But from what she could tell, her way-cool, red high-top sneakers were gone. Instead, Katie was wearing a pair of stiff, hard, leather boots.
The boots weren’t very comfortable. But then again, neither were the itchy wool stockings she had on. And her long skirt and thick petticoats were heavy and hot.
Wait a minute. Katie didn’t wear long skirts and petticoats. She didn’t wear wool stockings, either. No fourth-grade girls did. Not even Suzanne. And she wore a lot of really crazy things.
The only people Katie had seen wearing petticoats were the Pilgrim women at the Good Morrow Village.
That had to mean that Katie was now one of the Pilgrims. But which one? And what was she supposed to be doing?
“Prithee, Patience,” Katie heard a woman say. “These young ladies would like to see a doll being made.”
Katie turned around, hoping to see Patience, since Patience might know what Katie was supposed to be doing.
But Patience wasn’t anywhere around. The only people Katie saw were the woman who played Patience’s mother, and three girls in jeans and sweatshirts.
“Patience?” the actress playing the Pilgrim mother repeated.
Katie looked around again. The three girls and the Pilgrim woman were all staring right at her.
Uh-oh! That could only mean one thing. The magic wind had switcherooed Katie into Patience Mitchell. And right now, those girls were waiting to see Patience make her corn-husk dolls. But Katie had no idea how to make dolls or anything else out of corn husks. She hadn’t watched what Emma W. had been doing. This was soooo not good.
“Patience, prithee, make a doll,” the actress playing Patience’s mom said again. She had said prithee, but this time her voice was a lot more stern.
Katie looked down at the huge pile of corn husks by her feet. Then she looked at the dolls Patience had lined up on a shelf behind her. They didn’t look so hard to make. They were really just some string tied around husks to form a head, a waist, and some arms and legs. Katie knew how to tie knots. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard, after all.
Katie picked up four husks and a small piece of string. She looked at the three girls. “Okay, you guys, so first I tie a piece of string here,” she said, tying some string where she thought the doll’s neck would be.
“Hey!” one of the girls said. “How come you’re not talking like the other Pilgrims here?”
Oops. Katie had forgotten about the Pilgrim-speak thing. She wasn’t supposed to sound like a fourth-grade girl from Cherrydale. At least not as long as she was still Patience Mitchell.
“I mean, prithee, watch while I tie the string around the doll’s neck,” Katie corrected herself.
But the corn husks weren’t easy to hold together. And the string was small and hard to tie. It kept slipping from her hands.
“Um, have you ever done this before?” one of the kids said.
“This is kind of boring, anyway. Let’s leave,” one of the other girls whispered to her friends, loud enough for Katie to hear.
Katie frowned. She was trying her best. Why couldn’t these kids give her a break?
As soon as the girls left the cottage, the woman playing Patience’s mother said, “What is the matter with you?”
Katie scratched at her legs. The wool stockings she was wearing made her itch.
And she was starting to feel really uncomfortable. Who wouldn’t? Under her thick waistcoat, Katie was wearing a longsleeved blouse and a very thick, tight stay. The stay was like an undershirt, except it was really, really stiff and uncomfortable. It felt like there was a wooden board sewn into it or something.
Katie was tired of being a Pilgrim doll maker. She needed a break.
“Patience, why are you not working?” the woman asked her.
Katie didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t tell the woman that she had to get out of there before any more kids came and wanted her to make another doll. But she did have to get out of there.
“I . . . um . . . I have to use the change pot,” Katie said finally.
“The what?” the woman asked.
“The change pot,” Katie repeated. “You know, I have to go.”
“Oh, the chamber pot,” Patience’s mother corrected her.
Katie frowned. This Pilgrim-speak was hard.
“Well, go then,” the woman said. “And pray, be fast. We shall have more visitors within the hour.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Katie said. She ran out the door.
“Aren’t you going to say ‘Pray, remember me?’” Patience’s mother called after her.
But Katie was already out of there.
Chapter 10
“Boy, it’s hot out,” Katie murmured to herself as she stepped out of the cottage. It was November, and the air was actually kind of cool, but with all the layers of clothing she was wearing, it felt like summer. She rolled up her sleeves of her waistcoat, and looked around for the nearest bathroom.
A moment later, a man dressed as a Pilgrim farmer came racing over to her. “Modesty,” he hissed in her ear. “Roll those sleeves back down.”
“Oh, sorry,” Katie apologized. “I . . . uh . . . I forgot I wasn’t supposed to roll up my sleeves. I was just going on my break.”
“Mind the accent,” the farmer whispered.
Oops. Katie had forgotten to sound like a Pilgrim.
“Righty-o,” Katie said. It was what an English kid on a TV show she liked to watch was always saying.
The man looked at her strangely.
Uh-oh. Appa
rently the Pilgrims didn’t say things like righty-o, either.
“I guess I’m getting a bit dizzy. I think it’s the heat and ...” Katie’s stomach rumbled. “I’m a little hungry, too.”
“Then prithee, go to the groaning board for some food,” the farmer told her. “And then back to work.”
The groaning board was set up in a restaurant that was designed to look like a Pilgrim home. Katie had never seen so much food in her life.
Some of it looked delicious. There were salad and fixings, and cooked vegetables. The rolls were huge. But there was also some sort of boiled meat. That looked really gross. Katie walked right past it and began piling veggies onto a plate. Then she grabbed a knife and fork and looked around the room for a seat. Oh cool. There was a space right near Kevin, Andy, and Mandy.
“Hi,” Katie said. “Mind if I sit here?”
Kevin moved over to make space for her.
“Aren’t you supposed to say Good Morrow?” Andy asked.
Oops. “Oh, yes, of course,” Katie said quickly. “I was just trying to speak the language of our visitors. Much like the Wampanoag people will try to learn English. At least, I think they will. Someday. Maybe. I’m not really sure.” She turned to Kevin. “Did the Wampanoags try to learn English?”
The kids all looked at Katie strangely. But that wasn’t nearly as awful as the look she was getting from the Pilgrim man standing nearby. He looked kind of mad.
But then again, maybe he wasn’t mad. Pilgrim men always looked angry. Katie had never seen a single picture of one smiling.
“This place is so cool,” Kevin said as he stuffed a giant tomato into his mouth. “I really liked the crafts. I’m thinking of becoming a joiner one day.”
“What would you join? A crafts club?” Katie said in surprise. “You hate that sort of thing.”