by Sandra Smith
Slowly I turned each page as if it might evaporate before me. Pictures of fabulous gardens opened and unfolded. To think these masterpieces of nature and human endeavor existed in people’s backyards and not just reserves or parks! It was almost impossible to believe. My personal favorites, of course, were the vegetable gardens—so long gone. I thought of Arturo’s yard, how that first day I saw only junk and chaos, and how later my vision was transformed to see the beauty. I’m not sure how long I sat there poring over the books, but voices brought me to a swift stop. Was someone coming in? I scrambled to put the books back—no time to get them in order. I crouched low behind the reference desk and held my breath. Someone pushed against the door, tried the lever. More talking, knocking on the door. But it didn’t open, and the voices faded. Someone like me, I thought, breathing again. Hoping to check out a book.
My growling stomach reminded me of the passing time. I’d had just a bite for breakfast and now it was almost noon. The books put away, I figured I might as well retreat to the cool basement. I found a spot near my entrance and got out the food I’d purchased on the bus. I ate sparingly and filled up on water from the bathroom faucet.
At times, when I wasn’t worried about the craziness of this whole escapade, I felt the rush of the adventure. Like any good writer (and I did see myself that way), I had read a fair number of adventure books and liked to think of myself as a character in an exciting story, never knowing what was coming next. Though I’ll admit, sometimes I wanted to know. You know, peek ahead some.
At last I was ready to move on. Getting up out of the basement proved harder than getting down, but it wasn’t impossible. Soon, I was back in the heat and on my way to find H. J. Jiminez. I’d copied the map and address onto a sheet from my notebook, which I now held in my hand. Clare, Dante, and I had made a point of learning about maps and how to read them after Ana had given us the one to her place. None of us owned mini-Monitors or tech maps, and we thought it exciting, if not useful, to learn the time-honored skill of map-reading. I figured it would take a few hours to find this place and hoped I didn’t faint from the heat before then.
The hat I wore protected me from the sun’s glare, but after a while I noticed the glare was gone. Dark clouds hovered in the sky, obliterating the sun.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” I said right out loud. “Rainy season?” Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew something about places having rainy seasons. Come to think of it, I remembered yesterday at about this time, the torrent hitting our bus as we sped down the highway. I looked around in search of shelter, but there wasn’t any. On both sides I was surrounded by those strange walls I’d seen earlier. Maybe if I made it to an intersection I could get out of this roofless tunnel before the rain started. I walked as fast as I could without actually running. For a moment I thought I saw something—a vehicle behind me, some movement from the periphery—no, out of the question, I couldn’t get in a car with a stranger. After nothing passed, I turned to find the street empty and quiet. Must be shadows in the storm, playing tricks.
Ten minutes later and still no intersection in sight, the sky opened. I was running, but it didn’t matter. In minutes I was soaked. I stopped running, stopped walking fast, but I trudged onward. It wasn’t cold, after all, and the wetness was somewhat refreshing. Except the part about my clothes clinging to my body.
“Hey. Girl!”
I looked up. A small silent vehicle had crept up beside me. A sun-darkened old man with a stubbly white beard leaned over and shouted at me through an open window.
“What th-the-galldurn do y-y-you th-th-think yer doin? Climb in here.”
I hesitated.
“C-c-come on. Are you deaf?”
Now I was offended. I studied the man and his passenger—a small boy in the backseat, holding a puppy. Where sweat had run down my face hours earlier, rain now poured, dripping off my chin. Caution to the wind, I opened the door and got in. In the rearview mirror, I caught it, right before we sped forward—the phantom vehicle I thought I had seen earlier.
CHAPTER 6
Lily
“Now why the h-h-hell are you out in this st-storm?”
Rather than answer, I turned and looked at the boy in the back seat.
“‘At’s my grandson,” the man said. “Nice lookin’, ain’t he?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“Look at y-you,” he said, “soaked to the b-bone. Don’t you worry. Grandma will get you all dried off. Name’s Abner, and ‘at there’s Junior.”
“I’m Lily,” I said. “Where are we going?”
“Not far. You can c-call yer folks when we get home and let ‘em know yer okay. G-g-goshdarn it, what were you thinkin’?”
“What are these walls for?” I asked, changing the subject, and sincerely curious about the odd-shaped and ubiquitous barriers.
The rain had stopped, and I was grateful, because after I asked the question about the walls, the man’s eyes were too busy staring at me to have safely driven in a downpour.
“Where you from, girl? N-n-now, everyone in P-Plant City knows about the walls, Lila. H-h-hell—”
Junior grinned every time his Grandpa cussed. The old man seemed to have a propensity for the word “hell,” maybe because it was as hot as blazes in these parts.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t know about the walls because I’m not from around here.” I said it rather rudely, but I was soaking wet, after all.
We turned onto a long private drive, bordered by a shorter, less expensive-looking wall that eventually ended altogether. Abner took his time answering.
“The walls hide our crops,” he said at last.
I stared at the empty fields around us.
“But there’s nothing here.”
“N-N-Not now. These are strawberry fields. Too hot now. Season’s over.”
I considered this information for a moment. “But I passed a lot of crops on the way here,” I said, “and only a few walls. Why are there so many walls around here? What’s so special about strawberries?”
“Hmph. Indeed. N-n-now little girl,” he stuttered, “guess you’ve never had a strawberry.”
“No, sir.”
We had reached the house, a ramshackle old place with a lot of rusty cars and machinery littered about. It reminded me of the abstract art I’d seen on city street corners and squares. A faded scarecrow in a checkered shirt, missing his left arm, hung in what looked to be a garden that had run its course. A hound dog tethered to a large metal stake barked and jumped as we approached. Abner pulled up, entirely too close to the backdoor, and turned off the vehicle, letting it coast to a stop. “Here we are.”
A woman with hair the color of faded poppies in curls too tight to be natural stepped out.
“Abner, where you boys been? I had lunch ready an hour ago. Who’s that with you? What have you gone and done this time, you old fool?”
“Th-th-this here’s April. N-n-now Evelyn—”
“—Lily,” I said.
“—She was caught in the d-downpour.”
“So I see; you, come on in and get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death,” she said, looking me up and down.
It was sort of silly, the thing about catching my death, being so warm and all, but I wasn’t about to protest, and besides, wet clothes in high humidity aren’t comfortable. Without speaking, I followed as she led me through the old house, cluttered high with unidentifiable paper products, faded photos stuck to the walls, and a large glass case filled with what—dead animals? I tried to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor, though I couldn’t stop staring and nearly walked into the wall, so entranced was I by the fading menagerie of wildlife posing for eternity in their glass home on the wall. I had never seen a squirrel stand so erect and tall, as if at attention—forever—the nut between its paws never to be cracked or eaten.
In a tidy but stained bathroom, I changed into my extra set of clothing, and Evelyn whisked away my wet clothes. Then I joined Abner
and Junior at the kitchen table for a late lunch, where they ate a bowl of something, something rather … lumpy. I surveyed the dish in front of me. I recognized chunks of Protein, but what were these other things? They reminded me of seeds … were they bean seeds?
“Are these bean seeds?”
Abner laughed joyfully. “Did you hear that Mama? Lila knows beans.”
“Lily,” I muttered into the bowl of beans.
“Yessiree, them are beans. Evelyn prides herself on how little of the super-processed food we eat.”
“So you have a garden?” I asked in a low voice.
“‘Course we have garden,” Evelyn snapped. “But can’t keep much goin’ in this heat.”
“Tell ‘er Mama,” he winked at me as he spoke, picking up a spongy slab from a plate next to the pot of beans. “She didn’t grow these b-beans,” he said. “Back when the grocery s-stores started changing into the S-Stores we have now, and the old kind of food began t-t-to disappear, Evie an’ me started storing up what we could. Food that lasts—dried beans, p-peas, lentils, rice, wheat. Freeze-dried meals, canned stuff—some of them d-d-damn “preppers” meals. Ha! Thirty-year shelf life! That sh—”
“Abner!!!”
“—That junk was worse than the f-food they have n-now, galldurn it.”
“And it wasn’t easy,” Evie broke in, “not in this humidity. You got to be ingenious.” She opened her eyes wide and smiled.
“We’ve kept these beans for th-thirty years. It’s the last of ‘em.”
Although they tasted great, I now stared down at the dish in front of me, doubting the wisdom of eating more. Evelyn read my disdain.
“Now, there’s nothing wrong with them beans. If I were you, I’d be a whole lot more worried about what’s in the processed food you eat every day than in the age of these beans. Abner just likes to get people riled up.”
I wasn’t so sure. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to what Abner was eating.
“This is bread, Lily, the Mrs. bakes it herself. Grinds the wheat herself, too. N-n-now, I kinda like the Carbo squares—I—I—I mean they’re hard and all, but they’re not so bad.” He winked again, as Eveyln scowled.
“You old fool … if you like Carbos so much, stop eating the bread and leave more for the rest of us.” Then she smiled sweetly and I realized this was just how they got along—him incessantly teasing her, she calling him an old fool in return.
Abner and Evelyn proudly explained the details of how they had stored up vast quantities of food supplies in the special underground temperature and humidity-controlled room they had built when food regulations began tightening up and food choices were becoming limited. They bragged about the produce they grew in their GRIM-sanctioned garden; apparently if you were a government grower, you could own a private garden as long as you didn’t sell or share with others. They boasted about how they saved seeds, right under the government’s nose, Abner making a point of the illegality of it.
“But you work for the government?” I was confused. I had wondered about the wisdom of their telling me so much about the special underground pantry, not knowing anything about me and all, and now it sounded as if they were working for GRIM while at the same time working against them.
“We grow for the government.” Abner looked a bit dismayed for the first time. “It’s not—we d-don’t like it,” he said. “B-b-but I-I-I c-c-couldn’t raise st-st-strawberries otherwise.”
He’d had a hard time getting it out, and now he hung his head.
“Abner’s life is the berries,” Evelyn said. “Without them he might just wither up and blow away.”
“N-n-now Mama,” he protested, cheering up a bit.
“What about you, Lily?” Evelyn asked bluntly. “What’s your story?” Her eyes were small and piercing.
Based on what they had just shared, I figured I could trust them, and besides, they seemed like totally good people. “I’m trying to find H. J. Jiminez,” I said.
They exchanged looks.
“He’s gone,” Evelyn said.
My face fell before I could catch it.
“You related?” Abner asked. “I thought mebby you had more of an Asian look to you.”
“Abner!”
I giggled. I’d never known grandparents, but I decided right there that Abner would make a pretty nice grandpa.
“No. But he’s on a list of people I can trust.”
“Listen, girly, cut the mystery talk,” Evelyn said. “You’re what, ten, twelve years old—”
“—thirteen—”
“—traveling alone. Where you from, and how do you know about beans? And what kind of a list do you mean?”
I inhaled and let my breath out slowly. “Have you heard of Seed Savers?”
Abner’s eyes changed. The dancing man inside them stopped.
“Yes,” said Evelyn.
“Well, Jiminez is a Seed Saver, and, well, I’m sort of a Seed Saver in training; are you—”
“—No,” she interrupted, “we used to be. Before the laws. When it became political we got out.”
“G-g-good thing, t-t-too. Th-th-that f-f-fool l-let that witch t-t-talk him—”
“There, there, Papa.” Evie looked at me. “Abner gets worked up thinking about James Gardener and that woman, Trinia Nelson. If we would’ve logged in on that awful day, we’d have lost everything.”
She continued her story, but I didn’t hear it. I was too stunned hearing my father’s name. Eventually, Evelyn noticed my silence.
“I’m sorry, dear. You probably don’t have any idea what I’m yammering on about.”
“Oh, no, no. I do, actually. A friend told me and my best friend some of the history. I’ve heard of James Gardener and Trinia Nelson.” I felt my ears getting red. My feelings were hurt that Abner had referred to my dad as a fool. But it did set the Movement back, so maybe I could overlook the slight. “Have you heard anything about either of them recently?”
“Gardener and Nelson?”
“Yeah—like where he’s being kept; what she’s up to?”
“Well, goshd-d-darn it, I think he’s still detained over in Cuba.”
“And I’m pretty sure that two-faced Nelson still works for the government. Some high-level, high-paying job, no doubt,” Evelyn added.
“I heard things might be turning around,” I tried. It was like tiptoeing into a place you knew you shouldn’t go.
“H-h-hell, Lily.”
“Abner, you watch your language around this child.”
“Y-y-you young people give me hope yet.”
They confirmed what Ana had told me: Seed Savers were connecting on a massive scale, much like in the days before the Set-Back (as it was apparently called.) A new leader—known only as JALIL—had emerged and was uniting rebels across the country, as well as gaining international support. GRIM, in the meantime, was struggling. The country was in what seemed to be a spiraling economic downturn with cutbacks looming in many departments. Abner and Evelyn had heard that lawmakers believed the population was so pacified that the number of inspectors and enforcers in GRIM could be decreased without repercussions. There was even speculation that government agencies might be reorganized, possibly eliminating GRIM in its current structure.
“And this JALIL—who is he?” I was miffed that someone was replacing my father.
“It’s quite a mystery,” Evelyn said. “Mind you, like we said, we’re not really part of the Movement. But we know people. And from what I understand, even insiders don’t know. Apparently, he doesn’t want a repeat of what happened before. All I know is this JALIL is a pretty smart cookie and very busy sending out the rallying cry. Abner would love to be a part of it, but I keep him sensible. We can’t risk losing what we have here.”
I looked at Abner, thinking about the many contradictions of these old folks. “That’s right. Mama is the smart one,” he said.
“We always say, I’ve got the brains and he’s got the heart,” Evelyn added, taking Abner
’s hand.
There was a pause and, once again, Evelyn focused her pale eyes on me. “Where are your parents, Lily? Did something bad happen? Everyone knows GRIM keeps it quiet when Seed Savers ‘mysteriously disappear.’”
I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I tell the whole truth?
“Um, you know, based on what you just told me, I think it’s better if I don’t tell you everything. I may be a kid, but I am involved in Seed Savers. The less you know, the better.” I looked at them hopefully—would they buy this?
“L-l-look, Lily, we weren’t born yesterday. Did you run away?”
Concern lines cut deeply into his kind face. I almost changed my mind, came clean. “No. No, my mom knows I left—it’s not like that. I told everyone where I was going.” (It was true—I told them I was going to find my father). “I didn’t want them to worry about me.” I reached into my pocket. “Here’s the list my friend gave me,” I said, pushing forward Ana’s paper as proof of her permission.
Abner turned it over, staring at the many names and numbers, then handed it to Evelyn.