Evertaster

by Adam Glendon Sidwell

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” asked Guster.

  “No! She likes it very much,” said Storfjell with a grin, as the cow mooed happily. Without another word he took off jogging down the beach, high stepping like a football player at practice. The cow bounced up and down on his shoulders with each step, her head bobbing like a pendulum, her giant udder jostling back and forth like a balloon full of pudding.

  Guster had seen farmers carry small pigs like that at the state fair, but he never thought it was possible to run a full-grown cow down the beach with such ease as his friendly giant host did. It was downright astounding.

  Torbjorn came running from the far end of the beach, in the opposite direction of Storfjell, a cow also bouncing up and down on his shoulders. “Ya!” the two giants shouted in unison as they passed each other. Torbjorn stopped when he got to Guster, set his cow down, picked up one that had been standing there, and slung her over his shoulders. “Hallo! I hope you are enjoying the fresh morning air,” he said, and took off down the beach again, the cow’s udder rebounding off his chest the whole way.

  They ran several laps with each cow. When they were finished, Storfjell and Torbjorn set the cows in their arms down and crashed their chests together with a loud “Ya!”

  A moment later they each had a cow on their shoulders again. This time they started dancing in a circle, kicking up their legs and spinning around, slapping their heels and hitting their knees in unison, all the while shouting some song at the top of their lungs that Guster could not understand.

  Mariah and Zeke came up behind Guster, yawning. “What are they doing?” asked Mariah.

  “Joggling the bovines,” replied Guster with a shrug of his shoulders. He still couldn’t fathom why anyone would do such a thing, but at least now he knew what the word meant.

  “Does it hurt them?” asked Mariah.

  The cows held their mouths open, their eyes shining brightly, almost as if they were laughing. “I think they like it,” said Guster.

  “I guess they do look happy,” said Zeke.

  “Ah! Hallo, younglings,” said Storfjell. “You are just in time to see Olga do her favorite part of the joggling.” He set his cow down and untied a rowboat from a post. “Like our clan in ancient times, Olga very much likes waves, you know.” Storfjell heaved a dark red cow into the rowboat and shoved it out to sea. He hopped in just as a wave came crashing down on the boat, nearly capsizing it. “Oh, my!” he said. “The sea will make some very good joggling today!” He shouted as he set two oars from the boat into the sea and rowed, the boat dipping and rising with the waves.

  What a strange sight, thought Guster, as the tiny rowboat crested the top of the wave and Olga stood tall, stretching her neck into the wind. Her udder sloshed back and forth with the ocean. She reached down to lick Storfjell on the cheek.

  “I think Olga is his favorite,” said Torbjorn to Guster. “Though he insists that he likes them all the same.”

  “If you make so much butter, where are all your butter churns?” asked Mariah.

  Guster remembered the butter churn carved into the eggbeater’s handle. Mariah was right, there hadn’t been a single one in the whole longhouse.

  “Oh you mean the old way for making butter!” said Torbjorn. He looked a little taken aback. “We gave that up centuries ago on Bjørnøya.”

  “But you need to stir the milk and shake it up to turn it into butter. How can you do that without a churn?” said Mariah.

  Torbjorn laughed. “That is why we joggle of course! To stir up the milk!”

  The rowboat came crashing to the shore with a curling wave. Storfjell hopped out, heaving Olga over the side with him. “You don’t pick a strawberry from the vine before it is ripe, yes?” Storfjell said.

  Guster nodded. He could understand that. He never ate strawberries that had been picked too early.

  “So you do not take the milk out before you’ve stirred it!” said Storfjell. “It makes the butter so much stronger, like us!” Torbjorn nodded, his horned helmet rocking back and forth on his head.

  “This is just too weird,” said Zeke. But somehow, it made sense to Guster. Then again, a lot of things were making sense to Guster now that he never would have believed a few days ago.

  “Would you like to see one more joggling?” asked Torbjorn. Mariah, Zeke and Guster all nodded eagerly. “Then come with me!” He led them to the foot of a grassy hill, with a cow under his left arm. He stopped at pile of huge barrels, like the one that he had served the butter out of the night before. He picked up a barrel with his right arm, then started up the hill. Guster, Mariah and Zeke stayed at the bottom.

  When he reached the top, Torbjorn set the barrel upright then stuffed the cow inside as if he were packing luggage. Her legs stuck out the top. “Please be careful for where the barrel rolls,” he called down to them, then tipped the barrel over and shoved it down the hill. It bounced and tumbled like a shoe in the dryer all the way down to the bottom. Zeke and Mariah dove out of the way. “Guster!” cried Mariah, and Guster jumped out of the path of the oncoming barrel just in time.

  It rolled to a stop in the clover meadow. Torbjorn ran down the hill after it, set his feet on the rim of the barrel and, with both hands, yanked out the cow. She stood up, wobbled, then turned in a few circles with her hooves spread wide, trying to steady herself. “That is very much their favorite!” cried Torbjorn. The cow swished her tail, her udder still quivering.

  They spent the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon leading the cows out from the longhouse to the beach and the hill, where Torbjorn and Storfjell continued with their joggling. No matter how many times the two giants ran up and down the beach with the cows on their backs, Guster never tired of watching the sight.

  “The afternoon is almost over,” said Storfjell, though it was just as bright as it had been that morning. “We must take the cows back to the house. They will be needing milking.”

  Guster had enjoyed his day so much, he’d almost forgotten how hungry he was. After all that joggling, his knees were wobbly from lack of food, so he was more than happy to head back to the longhouse and get some butter.

  When they got there, they stopped outside. Storfjell sat down on a stool next to Olga and placed a bucket under her humongous udder. He started milking her as Guster watched in amazement. Instead of thin white milk, thick, creamy yellow butter squirted out of the cow’s nipple like soft serve ice cream out of a machine. It smelled delicious.

  “Holy, buttery cow!” said Zeke. Guster never imagined he’d see such a sight. It was indeed the freshest butter anyone could get.

  Storfjell and Torbjorn set to work squeezing fresh butter from one cow after another. When they were finished, they sent them out into the field of clover to graze. “Now let us go to eat!” said Storfjell.

  Guster still couldn’t get over how easy it had been for Torbjorn and Storfjell to joggle so many bovines in such a short amount of time. They were so strong and cheery while doing it, too. Storfjell never seemed to pick on Torbjorn like Zeke picked on Guster while they were doing chores.

  Storfjell opened the door to the longhouse. The smell of rancid fish bubbled up out of a pot over the fire. “I used some of your dried salmon to make some fishball soup,” said Mom, stirring the pot.

  Storfjell and Torbjorn’s eyes lit up. Guster felt his stomach turn queasy. The air smelled like a fish market three days after things had putrefied into slime.

  Torbjorn grinned at Mom, “Oh this is so wonderful to have a Mom-maiden in our midst.”

  “Ya! And I can make us some blueberry muffins!” Storfjell said, dusting off his hands.

  “Already in the oven,” said Mom. She dished out several bowls of light pink slime with a ladle and set them on the table. Zeke and Mariah and the Buttersmiths took a seat. Guster followed reluctantly. It was going to be tough to get out of this one. Mom shoved a bowl of fishball soup in front of his nose. He nearly gagged.

  Storfjell fetched the barrel of butter
as Torbjorn poured out seven mugs of cider. They slurped down their soup.

  “You’ve made an incredible amount of butter today,” said Mom.

  “Ya! But this is not very much compared to how much we used to make when the whole clan was here!” said Torbjorn. “Then we had a few hundred head of cattle and made twenty barrels a day.” There was a note of pride in his voice.

  “What happened to them?” asked Mom, setting down her bowl.

  “It doesn’t matter,” grunted Storfjell from across the table.

  Torbjorn looked down at his soup. “They sailed away,” he said.

  “To where?” asked Mom.

  Storfjell slammed his mug of cider down on the table with a thud. “Oh, it is not important!” he said. “Let us talk of happier things!” He stood up and walked to the back of the longhouse to fetch more butter, though the barrel was still quite full.

  Torbjorn shook his head. “My older brother has always been the responsible one. He has no time for grieving. Neither of us knows where the clan ended up. They told us they were headed to Vinland to trade butter for grapes.”

  Mom gasped. “Why would they leave you here?” she asked.

  “They were planning on coming back in two months, but it has been at least seventy years.”

  “Seventy years?” cried Zeke. “That means you’re older than Dad!”

  Torbjorn chuckled. “Well, I am eighty-two. How old are you, youngling?”

  Zeke sunk lower on the bench. “Fifteen,” he said under his breath.

  “I think that this fresh air does us very good,” said Torbjorn. “We live to be very old here on the island. We still have a very long time yet to live. Storfjell is eighty-seven.”

  “So he was only seventeen when they left you all alone, and you were only twelve,” said Mariah, adding up the figures in her head.

  “How did you ever manage?” asked Mom.

  Torbjorn sighed. “We didn’t for a while. It was great at first — no one made us do chores. We could sleep all day, or ski on the glacier. But then we got hungry, and the cows, their udders got full. That is when Storfjell took charge. He made us get up and joggle the bovines and thatch the roof and fish for meat in the ocean, just like we always did when our father and mother were here.”

  “Imagine!” said Mom, “If my two oldest boys were left all by themselves to tend the farm! I don’t know how they would manage all that responsibility. They can barely feed themselves.” She shot a look at Guster.

  He bit his lip. This was Mom’s favorite subject.

  “Butter does not come from nowhere, and it wasn’t until everyone else was gone away that we realized how much they were giving us,” said Torbjorn.

  Guster did his best to keep his eyes fixed on the fire, but he was almost certain Mom was staring at the untouched bowl of soup in front of him.

  “Ever since they left though, Storfjell refuses to return to the open sea. He won’t go beyond the harbor where we take the cows,” said Torbjorn.

  “Hmph!” Storfjell grunted gruffly as he approached the table again. “I must know something,” he said. “In the past, our fathers traded butter with neighboring clans from across the sea where the fjords stretch deep into the land like fingers. After doing business, we always disappeared without a trace. It was good this way, for when their supply ran out, those clans wanted the butter so badly they sailed up and down the coasts, burning and plundering villages in search of us and our butter. But they could never find us here, and we have not had a visitor for five hundred years. When we saw your great silver bird land on our island, we came to see what it was, and Torbjorn sent away the bear. That is why I wonder, you travelers from far away, how is it that you have come seeking our butter, the golden fortune of our herds?”

  Mariah looked at Mom with a pleading expression on her face. “Go ahead dear,” said Mom. “You may tell them.”

  “We’re searching for the ingredients in the One Recipe,” said Mariah.

  Torbjorn looked at her blankly. “Ya well! You outlanders have such funny names for things. What is this ‘the One Recipe?’” Mariah unzipped Guster’s backpack and showed them the eggbeater. She pointed out the carving of the Bear and explained the coordinates.

  Torbjorn scratched his head and took a careful look, his eyes squinting underneath his shaggy red eyebrows. “Ooo,” said Torbjorn. “That is a one of our bears! But how did you know about the butter?”

  “From the carving of the butter churn. This eggbeater is like a treasure map,” said Mariah. “Long ago a great chef named Archedentus must have come to this island and tasted your butter. He left a recipe that described where to find it, and someone carved it into the handle of this eggbeater.”

  Torbjorn’s bushy eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Then the lore is true!” he said. “The Master Mead-Maker said someone would come back, but no one thought it would take this long!”

  “Who?” asked Mom.

  “The Master Mead-Maker!” boomed Storfjell. “Our legends tell us that he came here, five hundred years ago, and with him he brought a mead that was more delicious than anything we ever drank. It sparkled like sunshine, and a single mug filled our bellies with warmth for days. He saw our butter, and deemed it good. He told us that one day someone would return to claim some of it for a great purpose — one that would change the face of the world. He said that with it, he would silence the roar of the dragons and melt all the violent men’s axes into cooking pots.”

  Archedentus, Guster thought. He’d left a trail, and ever since Peru, they’d been retracing his steps.

  “And what is this symbol?” said Storfjell, pointing to the ape and the diamonds.

  “The Mighty Apes’ Diamonds. We haven’t figured out what it means yet,” said Mom.

  “Hmm,” Storfjell said, lost in thought. “Our father once told us of a place deep in the earth, where men dug tiny, white crystals from the rock. They traded butter for the tiny grains, which were delicious, because they tasted like the sea.”

  “Salt!” said Mariah. “You think that this is salt?”

  Storfjell shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said.

  Mariah bit her lip in thought. “Mom, what can you make out of eggs, butter, and salt?” she asked.

  Mom shook her head. “Hundreds of things. I’m afraid we haven’t figured out what enough of the ingredients are to know what they make.”

  “Interesting —” muttered Torbjorn to himself while he fingered the vial of dark potion. He seemed lost in thought. He stashed it away again before Guster could ask him what it was.

  Storfjell finished his fifth bowl of soup as Mom put a tray of steaming muffins on the table. “It was so delicious, thank you. My brother and I are not used to someone making us dinner.”

  “You are so kind,” beamed Mom. Clearly the compliment made her happy. “I do enjoy cooking for people.”

  Storfjell stroked his long, silvery braids, “How did you come to possess such a token?” he said pointing to the eggbeater again.

  Did they have to bring this up now? This was the perfect chance for Mom to tell Torbjorn how Guster had disobeyed, or just how ‘picky’ she thought Guster was.

  Mariah chimed in instead, “Well, Mom went into town because Guster’s an Evertaster and he wouldn’t eat Mom’s casserole.”

  That did it. “Don’t call me that!” Guster said. He shoved the fishball soup aside and reached across the table for the wooden spoon stuck in the butter barrel.

  “Guster! Not until after you’ve finished your soup,” Mom snapped. It was like she had been waiting for that.

  He cringed. He couldn’t eat that slime when the butter was right in front of him. He wasn’t going to press his burning hand to a hot stove when there was a bucket of cool water nearby. “Don’t you like your mother’s cooking?” asked Torbjorn.

  Guster shook his head. He expected it from Mom, but he couldn’t believe that Mariah of all people was calling him Evertaster. She was supposed to back him up.
And now Torbjorn was starting in on him too?

  “Guster!” said Mom; her voice sounded hurt. “Eat!”

  He knocked his bowl of fishball soup into the fire. “I would if you didn’t keep making barf-casserole every single day!” He had had enough. He was so hungry it hurt, and it was time the truth came out.

  Mom looked at him in surprise, her mouth open, the pain stabbing across her face. Guster shoved back from the table.

  “Guster…I didn’t mean…” said Mariah, putting a hand on his shoulder. He pulled away. She would never understand.

  “What? Do you even know how long it’s been since I’ve had anything — I mean anything — to eat! I’m starving to death, and no one even notices!”

  Mom breathed slowly, as if she was trying to concentrate. “They all eat it,” she said, holding her arms out as if trying to make it obvious. She looked like she was about to cry.

  “I’m not them,” said Guster.

  Mom’s lip trembled. “Even after all this. After we’ve come so far. For you–” she started out in a whisper, then built momentum. “Cooking day in and day out, without so much as a thank you! Every meal bending over backward just to find something, anything you would eat! Zeke eats it! Mariah eats it! But you! You’re the only one Guster! And now we’re half way across the world and that’s still not good enough for you, is it?!”

  “I’m not making anyone come along,” said Guster, storming from the table.

  He did his best to slam the heavy door of the longhouse as he left. It barely budged. He kicked it, madder than ever, the frustration he’d pent up since summer started bursting out. He ran up the hill onto the glacier as fast as he could.

  She still didn’t get it, did she? Even after tasting the eggs, the butter — everything else they’d encountered ever since that night in the Patisserie. She still couldn’t understand what they could be eating. How it should taste.

  What does she want me to do? he thought. He didn’t stop running until he came to a pile of snow-covered boulders. When he looked back the longhouse was just a small dot in the distance, far below. “I’m not picky — just careful!” cried Guster aloud. He sat down in the snow, his head steaming with anger.