Alice's Farm

by Maryrose Wood

  “What’s up, Applesauce?” Carl said. They’d all taken to calling her that. He was at his desk, pencil in hand. Sally had just gone downstairs to check on the dehydrating operation, which now took up half the cellar and was poised to destroy every fruit on the Eastern Seaboard. Carl was figuring the week’s earnings from the farm stand. He’d learned to make spreadsheets on his computer, but it was more fun to do it by hand, drawing columns for all the different kinds of products, the prices per bunch or per pound, quantities sold, and so forth. It was the most interesting math he’d ever done, as he knew exactly what all the numbers meant and cared deeply about the outcome.

  Marie toddled over to him and put a half-chewed piece of paper on his leg.

  “Faam,” she said, and fixed him with her unblinking stare. “Bwanding.”

  “Do you need a Band-Aid?” he asked. She shook her no, no, no, perilously close to a tantrum, and waved the paper in his face. Eventually Carl figured out that he was supposed to look at it. It was the torn-off cover of a magazine featuring a photograph of Chef Armando Shubert, who grinned charmingly into the camera. Sally always shut off the television when the ad for Loco for Locavore came on the local news channel! “Shoo-bear!” she would mutter, clearly unhappy. Yet here he was on the cover of a magazine, holding a bunch of fresh spinach in one hand and a fistful of cash in the other. If only she could make Cham understand!

  “Hipster Farmer magazine,” he read. “Huh. I wonder where this came from?”

  “Read!” Marie demanded.

  “Okay, okay.” Carl started from the top. “Hipster Farmer. Volume three, issue one. ‘Will Armando Shubert reinvent farm-to-table?’ Hey, this guy must be Chef Shubert,” he explained to Marie, as if she hadn’t just told him the same thing. “He’s the one who doesn’t believe in forks.”

  “Poon,” Marie concurred, for she preferred using a spoon herself.

  “He was rude to Mom. I guess he must be famous, to be on the cover of a magazine.” Carl continued reading. “‘Got cheese? All it takes is a little culture.’” He looked up. “Culture! Like yogurt. It’s a pun.”

  “Bun-bun,” Marie crooned longingly, for this would all be so much easier if Alice were here snuggled in her lap, soft and warm and able to understand everything she said.

  “Not bun. Pun,” Carl corrected her. “When you can say real words you’ll learn about puns, trust me. Dad makes them all the time.” He turned back to the magazine and read, ‘Are you our next Hipster Farmer of the Year? Tell us your story! Details and application inside; see page seventy-three.’”

  “Hip hip.” Marie pounded both fists on Carl’s thigh. “Bwanding! Market! Faam!”

  Carl looked at the cover. Then he went to the box in the corner and found the rest of the magazine. He turned to page seventy-three. He read.

  “Applesauce,” he said, after a while, “I think you might be onto something.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Visions of the future.

  As Labor Day approached, Sally wanted to know all about this Harvest Festival idea, especially since it sounded like an opportunity to make a few simoleons.

  “It’s a local tradition,” Janis explained, peeling an apple. The days were getting shorter and ripe apples were dropping from the trees. It was what Brad called an “all hands on deck” situation. He’d hired a few part-timers to help him pick, and anyone old enough to hold a peeler was put to work the minute they stepped inside, coring and peeling and slicing, to ready the fruit for applesauce, fruit leathers, and the like. “All the farms participate. We pool money and put ads in the paper. Folks park at the MegaMart lot in town, and we hire a school bus to shuttle visitors from one farm to the next, to pick fruit, eat pie, pet the cows, and so on. Some years we’ll do a hay maze, or a pumpkin-carving contest. Depends on who’s got time to do what.”

  Janis turned to Carl. “It’s mostly people from the city who come. You should invite your friends from Brooklyn for a day in the fresh air and sheep dung. Maybe you’d like to introduce them to my chickens?”

  Carl had visited Janis’s farm numerous times by now with Foxy in tow, to continue her regular application of Shiba-made chipmunk repellent. It was all an act, of course. Alice had simply told the greedy chipmunks to lay off or risk getting smooshed in a trap.

  The chipmunks nattered and complained, but they were grateful for the warning. Since then, they’d been strategically marauding over a broader territory, taking care not to provoke any particular farmer to declare all-out war against them. When a farmer plants crops in a different field each season so as not to exhaust the soil, it’s called crop rotation. The chipmunks were doing something similar. Sustainable garden thievery, you might say.

  But Carl still hadn’t worked up the nerve to meet those dang chickens. There was a guilty stain on his conscience the exact color of barbecue sauce straight from the packet. The chickens might forgive him, but could he ever forgive himself?

  “Maybe,” Carl replied. “I think my city friends might be allergic to chickens.”

  “I’m not the one laying the eggs, kid,” Janis said, reasonably. “Might as well meet your business partners, say thanks and howd’ya do. It’s only polite.”

  In a similar spirit of neighborly cooperation, some of the local farmers had taken Brad under their collective wing. The group included Larry Senior, Larry Junior, and a few other farmers who’d been at the Bustin’ Barn of Antiques the night of the meeting. All through August they’d convened weekly for breakfast at Cindy’s Diner, six a.m. sharp, last one to arrive picked up the tab.

  Cindy’s was nothing fancy—it was no Loco for Locavore—but it opened early and the breakfast was cooked to order, often by Cindy herself, in portions big enough to fuel a hard day’s work.

  Over plates of rich yellow eggs and mugs of strong coffee, the farmers gave Brad advice whether he asked for it or not. They urged him to buy his apple bushels early, before the suppliers ran out. They lectured him about “the economies of scale,” which meant that if you were going to go to the trouble of building a sheep paddock, you better raise enough sheep to turn a profit from it. Likewise, two beehives did not a honey business make, but twenty would be a start, and you still only needed one beekeeping suit.

  They didn’t waste words encouraging him; they just told him what to do. This plainspoken guidance was of great use to Brad once he got over feeling yelled at. In return, he did his best to answer the farmers’ questions about the most up-to-date ways to promote their farms and products to potential customers.

  Interestingly to Brad, none of these farmers saw one another as competition. Being a farmer was tough enough. They just wanted to do what it took for all of them to survive. As Larry Senior sourly remarked, “The powers-that-be think us farmers are a dying breed. Sometimes they offer to help us die more slowly. The joke’s on them, though. Know why?” He slurped his coffee and chuckled. “Because everybody’s got to eat, that’s why! Even those dang politicians.”

  * * *

  “But I don’t want a playdate with the twins!” Carl was adamant. “First of all, ‘playdate’ is a kindergarten word. Second of all, I’m busy. I have stuff to do.”

  Carl hadn’t seen the Fleischman boys since the meeting with the pie. He hadn’t missed them, either. And he did have stuff to do. He’d been struggling to fill out his application for the Hipster Farmer of the Year contest for almost a week now. So many questions to answer! Some were easy and short—Where do you farm? How long have you been farming? What do you grow and sell?—but others were more complicated, in dreaded essay-question form. What’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned since becoming a farmer? What’s been the biggest surprise? What’s your vision of the farm of the future?

  Carl had ruled out getting his parents involved, as he thought his dad especially might take offense at the “hipster farmer” designation. However: If the fedora fits, wear it. Sometimes it takes an outside eye to see things clearly, and right now that eye was Carl’s. If they won
and got Prune Street Farm on the cover of a magazine, it would be worth any indignity suffered. If they didn’t win, his parents would never need to know about it.

  He’d been working on the application privately, in spare moments, sitting on his hay pile behind the barn, pencil and paper in hand. But the days had flown. Now it was Labor Day, the third of September. The contest deadline was midnight. Carl hadn’t finished writing his answers, and he still had to type them into his computer to email to the contest.

  His thoughts kept arranging themselves into essay form, and therefore, in conclusion: It was the worst possible day for entertaining the Fleischman twins, not to mention he wasn’t sure he liked those boys. He hadn’t forgotten how they’d teased him.

  Brad wiped his brow. “Okay. You’re right, I used the wrong word. It’s not a playdate. Look, champ”—his tone shifted from sensitive dad to pleading coconspirator—“I didn’t even know they were coming. Larry Junior offered to help me fix one of the irrigation sprinklers and he brought the boys along. They’re sitting outside in his truck. It’d be rude not to invite them in. Can’t you be a good host, for a little while? Their dad is doing me a big favor, and on a holiday, too. It won’t take long, I promise.”

  “I guess so,” Carl said, defeated. He didn’t see what was so bad about sitting in a truck, but clearly he had to get this over with so he could finish the application. “But please don’t call me champ in front of them. Okay?”

  Brad gave him a funny look. “Okay, it’s a deal. Thanks a bunch—Carl,” he said, stif f ly, and left.

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Billy and Greg Fleischman were the parent-approved version of themselves. They politely accepted glasses of lemonade from Sally and made funny faces at Marie. They took pieces of dried fruit and ate them without complaint, and asked if they might pet the dog before reaching out their sticky hands to do so. They even offered to peel apples, but Sally would hear none of it. Soon they ended up in Carl’s room. Billy closed the door behind them. Greg immediately started going through Carl’s shelves.

  “So,” Billy said, “do you belong to a gang?”

  “What? No,” Carl blurted. He sat on the edge of his bed, his leg twitching. “Why would you even ask that?”

  Billy shrugged. “My dad said you were from the city. Is it true?”

  “I used to live in Brooklyn,” Carl said. “So, yeah, I guess.”

  “Cool,” said Greg. He’d found the comic book section of Carl’s bookshelves and seemed interested, judging from how he kept pulling issues off the shelves, glancing at them, and dropping them on the floor. “Did you ever get murdered?”

  Carl used his robot voice, to be funny: “Your question does not compute.”

  Greg shrugged. “My parents always say we can’t go to the city or we’ll all get murdered.”

  “Well, that’s dumb,” said Carl. “I lived in the city my whole life and I was never murdered once.”

  “Are you calling our parents dumb?” Greg said, suddenly heated. Carl’s face flushed, but Greg had already gone back to wrecking the shelves.

  “Maybe you were just lucky,” Billy said. “Our sister watches this crime show on TV and people get murdered all the time.”

  Carl had sincerely had every intention of being a good host, but this conversation was getting on his nerves. “That’s because it’s a crime show,” he snapped. “It shows crimes. If it were a farming show it would show farming.”

  “And no one would watch it!” Greg said, cracking himself up.

  That broke the tension, and they all agreed that Greg had made a pretty funny remark. He’d also managed to get all the comic books in messed-up piles on the floor before moving on to the next shelf. “Hey, can we play with your robot?” he asked.

  “The robot’s not really for playing with anymore. He’s more of a…” Memento was the word Carl was looking for, from the Latin verb that means “to remember.” A memento was like a souvenir, an object you keep to remind you of a place you once visited, or of a person you used to be.

  Big Robot was a memento of his former life, his younger self. But he couldn’t remember his Latin roots just then, as he anxiously watched those clumsy boys manhandle what was left of his favorite possessions. Instead, he thought of Old Man Crenshaw. “He’s retired,” he explained.

  The Fleischman twins had already taken Big Robot off the shelf.

  “What do you mean, retired? Is he busted?” Billy asked.

  “He doesn’t look busted. I bet he just needs new batteries.” Greg looked up at Carl. “Do you have any?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “I think so.”

  “So go get some, derp!”

  Carl hesitated. Big Robot hadn’t had batteries in him in a while. Maybe it would be fun, to see him walking and talking again, like old times. Or maybe it would feel weird, like a zombie version of the big guy come back to life that wasn’t really Big Robot at all.

  “Okay.” Filled with trepidation, Carl padded down to the basement to get batteries.

  When he returned to his room, Big Robot was missing an arm.

  “Oops,” said Billy, holding the severed limb. “It’s busted. You were right. We were trying to get the battery compartment open and his arm came off.”

  Carl stared at them with dead eyes. “The battery compartment is on his back,” he said. “Not on his arm. Your story doesn’t make sense.”

  “It was an accident, okay? Sorry.”

  “So why are you lying about it?” Carl said, his voice rising. “Why not just admit that you broke it?”

  Billy looked like he was going to say something, but Greg stepped forward. “Did you just call us liars?” he said, his chest puffed out.

  Carl was too angry to be scared. “I dunno. Did you just lie?” he retorted.

  Greg took another step.

  “Greg, leave it,” Billy said quickly. “He’s a city kid. He’s probably got razor blades and murder stuff hidden all over him.”

  To Carl’s enormous surprise, Greg froze. Both boys looked at Carl. They were, remarkably, afraid.

  “That’s right,” said Carl, standing tall. “Razor blades, and, uh, murder stuff. That’s how we roll in my gang. Now, why don’t you farm boys go home? Scat!”

  The Fleischman twins didn’t have to hear it twice.

  * * *

  That night, the light in the upstairs bedroom of the big red house stayed on much later than usual. As midnight approached, the truly sharp-eared might have heard the quick soft clacking of fingers on a keyboard, some anxious canine whining, a boy whispering, “Shush, girl! I’m pressing send right now.” Then, silence. Minutes later, the lights went out.

  Yes, it was midnight, and all the animals of the valley were asleep or awake, hunting or digesting, soaring, burrowing, alone in a den or pressed together for warmth as they slept, each according to the natural order of their kind.

  The boy and his dog would be extra tired the next day, as humans are naturally diurnal, awake during the day and asleep at night. Wild dogs are crepuscular, like rabbits and deer, but domesticated dogs tend to do as their humans do.

  For the nocturnal creatures of the valley, midnight was rush hour. The owls were on the hunt, and the bats flitted here and there, gobbling insects. The coyotes loped after their prey, which was pretty much anything they could catch, and the porcupines waddled in pursuit of their favorite food, which was tree bark (there’s no accounting for taste, but porcupines do have the teeth for it). Doggo and his fellow foxes were likely to be up and hunting, as were the bobcats.

  Quite close to the farmhouse, near the garden gate, a long, slim creature prowled in the moonlight. He was a nocturnal hunter, too; all weasels are. Weasels must eat frequently to keep their long bodies fed. They’re one of the few animals who hunt for sport as well as nourishment, but tonight, Worm was simply hungry.

  He didn’t expect to find rabbits on the farm at that hour, although he wou
ld have liked it if he had. He would have gladly eaten a chipmunk, or a field mouse. Oddly, the small rodents all steered clear of this garden. Worm usually steered clear as well. It was too close to the farmhouse, and humans were the real creatures to fear in the valley; every predator knew that.

  He sniffed, and caught bird scent. Weasels are expert climbers; he was up a tree in no time and seized an egg from a jay’s nest, which he cracked and ate. The squawking of the mother jay was terrible. He ignored her cries and easily slipped out of reach of her frantic, dive-bombing attack.

  After a few minutes, she left him alone. Jays are intelligent birds; no doubt she realized she was better off guarding her remaining eggs than being upset about one that was already lost.

  The weasel stretched his gray-furred body, so long and lithe he could see most of himself just by turning his head. The fur of a weasel is luxuriously soft. When the pelts are used to make human garments, the fur is called ermine. People have paid a great deal of money for pure white ermine coats over the centuries; they still do.

  Worm examined himself thoroughly. The change always started at the belly, where the thick winter fur started to grow in. He could see it happening, the streak of white growing along the midline, spreading upward like tendrils along his sides.

  Four or five weeks from now, nearly all his fur would be pure white, from his nose to the jet-black tip of his tail. He would be ready for winter then, and the snow.

  * * *

  “You’ll never guess who won the raffle,” Janis said over the phone. “Me! Proud owner of a new rototiller. I’m on my way to pick it up. Ask the kid if he wants to take a ride to Phil’s showroom with me in Tin Can. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Naturally, Janis had jovially accused Ruth and Phil of cheating to make her win. Wasn’t this their way of getting her to finally own a piece of farm machinery built after World War II? Absolutely not; Ruth swore it. The raffle was fair and square and Janis was just lucky.