Fortune's Magic Farm (5 page)

“Don’t go down there,” Mr. Wormbottom said. “It might not be safe.”

Curiosity is a powerful force, so Isabelle didn’t heed his wise advice. She slipped between the Wormbottoms and continued down the stairs.

“You’ve ruined it!” Gertrude screeched. Light spilled from the kitchen. A cloud of black smoke drifted by. Isabelle tiptoed cautiously to the kitchen’s entry and peeked around the wall.

The apple, now golden brown, sat in a pan on top of the oven. Sugar bubbled at its base and juice dripped from the hole where the stem used to be. A slice was missing.

“I didn’t ruin it,” Mama Lu insisted. “Look at it. It’s perfect. Ya just got a bad slice. Try again.”

Gertrude frowned. Oddly, her lips had turned black. The front of her bathrobe was black, too. She stuck a knife into the apple and carved another slice. Then she plunged a fork into the slice and held it at arm’s length.

“That slice looks just fine. Go on. Give it a try,” Mama Lu urged.

Watching those greedy women gobble up the beautiful baked apple would be torture, but Isabelle didn’t turn away. Gertrude blew on the steaming slice and with a shaky hand, cautiously brought it to her mouth. But just as her blackened lips opened, the slice made a high-pitched sizzling sound. Then,
BAM!
It exploded. Gertrude screamed and dropped the fork. All that remained of the apple slice was a puff of black smoke.

Gertrude shook ash from her hair. “You ruined it,” she snarled. “You overcooked my beautiful apple. You burnt it.”

“It ain’t overcooked,” Mama Lu snarled right back. “Look at it.” She pointed to the golden apple. “It ain’t burnt one bit. I’ll prove it.” Mama Lu stuck a fork into the apple and lifted it from its pan. She didn’t even bother to blow on it. She opened her mouth to take a great big bite.

Sizzle. SIZZLE. BAM!

This time both Mama Lu and Gertrude screamed as the apple exploded. The fork fell to the floor. Mama Lu’s eyes popped even wider than the time she had found a family of slugs vacationing in her whipped cheese spread.

An enormous black cloud arose, blocking Isabelle’s view. Coughing, the landladies ran from the kitchen straight into the parlor, where they gasped for air. Isabelle searched desperately for a hiding place and found it behind the hanging rain slickers. She snickered to herself, remembering Mama Lu’s expression, then peered between yellow sleeves.

“You owe me an apple,” Gertrude said, coughing.

“I owe ya nothing. That was a bad apple. Ain’t my fault ya don’t know the difference between a good apple and a bad apple.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” Gertrude asked, shaking ashes from her bathrobe.

Mama Lu wiped soot from her eyes. “I ain’t calling ya nothing. All I know is that it don’t take much brains to know a bad apple is a bad apple.”

Gertrude growled. “All I know is that it don’t take much brains to know how to bake an apple.”

“Are ya calling me a bad cook?”

They balled up their fists and stood, smudged face to smudged face. Isabelle delighted in the sight. They had gotten what they deserved for taking that apple from Gwen. Maybe they’d start punching each other. Oh, how she’d love to see that, but if the landladies caught her spying she’d be in huge trouble. How could she get back upstairs without being seen? The distance between the hanging slickers and the stairway stretched before her, where squeaky floorboards lay like landmines. It was too risky, but so was standing in the entryway with her feet sticking out from under the slickers.

Mama Lu’s Boardinghouse had a back door, used only by Boris and Bert because it led directly to their basement room. Isabelle could hide in their room until Mama Lu went to sleep. She’d have to walk around to the back of the house in the dark, but she’d manage. The front door couldn’t be seen from the parlor, so she’d be able to slip out. Isabelle
reached for the knob and was about to yank it open when she noticed two eyes staring at her through the window.

“Ahhh!” she cried—not scared, just startled.

A stranger stood on the porch in a puddle of kitchen light. His eyes were darker than any eyes Isabelle had ever seen. And he wore a hooded cape.

“Who’s that?” Mama Lu bellowed. Isabelle tried to hide behind the slickers again but Mama Lu grabbed her arm. “Whatcha doing down here? Ya looking fer something to steal?”

“No, I heard something. There’s someone outside,” Isabelle said, her heart pounding in her ears. “A stranger.”

“What?” Mama Lu stomped over to the door and pulled it open. “There’s no stranger out there.” She slammed the door shut.

Gertrude emerged from the parlor, wiping soot off her face with her bathrobe sleeve. “She was going to steal my apple. That’s why she came downstairs.”

“I wasn’t going to steal anything,” Isabelle said. The landladies closed in. “There was a man standing on the porch just now. In a cape with a hood. I saw him.”

“Yer a terrible liar. Did ya fiddle with my oven?” Mama Lu demanded. Isabelle shook her head. “I bet yer the reason the apple got ruined. She’s the reason, Gertie. She thinks she’s special just because she got left on a doorstep. Well, I say she’s a mold-covered lying rat and she fiddled with my oven.”

“You’re right,” Gertrude said. “She done it because she’s friends with Gwen.”

Isabelle braced herself for the inevitable punishment—not a slap or a spanking, but a loss of a privilege.

“Ya know the rules,” Mama Lu snarled, pointing a soot-stained finger in Isabelle’s face. “No walking around after lights out. Ya just lost yer breakfast privileges.”

“But…”

“And you’ll have to pay for my apple,” Gertrude said. “Dish duty at my house for a whole month.”

“But it wasn’t
your
apple,” Isabelle blurted. “The bird didn’t drop it on
your
head.”

“Why, you little eavesdropping brat,” Gertrude snarled.

Isabelle hadn’t been in this much trouble since the broken cheese tray incident. She needed a distraction. Just as Mama Lu opened her blackened mouth to decree another punishment, Isabelle pointed at the fireplace where a tiny bit of peat had fallen onto the hearth. “Slug,” she said, trying to sound alarmed.

“Slug?” Mama Lu cried. She drew the salt canister from her bathrobe pocket and launched herself at the fireplace. Snapping the canister open, she dumped the entire contents onto the little peat ball.

“Kill it, kill it, kill it!” Gertrude screeched.

Isabelle raced up the stairs as fast as she could, fleeing the wrath of the landladies.

It felt as if the stranger’s dark gaze followed her every step of the way.

T
he bedroom lights snapped back on
at dawn. Isabelle hadn’t slept a wink. How could she have, with visions of sneezing sea monsters, exploding apples, and strangers in hooded capes bouncing around in her head? She reached under her pillow and pulled out the partially eaten apple. Even though the flesh had turned brown, it still looked delicious. She took three huge bites. It still tasted delicious. How nice it would be to have an apple tree growing in the backyard! She could eat apples for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or whenever the urge struck. How lucky her grandmother had been.

Wiping juice from her chin, Isabelle returned the apple to its hiding place. Grandma Maxine lay in a deep sleep, but she’d soon need breakfast, so Isabelle hurried downstairs with last night’s tray.

The kitchen floor felt damp and slimy. Wind howled, rattling the panes. Raindrops beat a chaotic rhythm along the gutters. The tenants shuffled in, quiet and sleepy, taking their places at the table. Mr. Wormbottom rubbed his hands together to warm them. Mrs. Limewig held her cup of tea to her pallid cheek. Isabelle cleaned her grandmother’s bowl and spoon at the sink.

“Good morning, Isabelle,” Boris said.

“Good morning, Isabelle,” Bert said.

Isabelle, sleepiest of all, returned their weak smiles, then
filled her grandmother’s bowl with cold, lumpy porridge. She poured tea into a cup.

“That food ain’t fer you,” Mama Lu barked from her throne. She had wrapped a knitted yellow scarf around her neck. A matching knitted yellow hat sat on her head like an oversized egg yolk. “Ya was up to no good last night so ya git nothing.”

“I’m not eating anything,” Isabelle said. “This is for my grandma.” As much as Isabelle detested the porridge paste, her stomach already missed it.

“Yer a liar. Ya ruined my dessert,” Mama Lu said, peeling orange wax from a wedge of cheese and flicking the bits onto her tenant’s heads.

“I didn’t ruin it,” Isabelle blurted. “I didn’t touch the apple. I came downstairs because I heard you scream.”

“Is ya contradicting me? I say yer a liar.”

“I’m not a liar.” Isabelle held her breath, trying to control the anger that raced through her. What would the landlady do? Take away her breathing privileges? What else was there to take?

Mama Lu scowled and leaned over the armrest. The observation chair tipped precariously. “Don’t make me come down there, you unwanted, abandoned little mushroom-growing wretch. ’Cause I will. I’ll come down there and wallop ya on the head with my cheese tray.”

Isabelle could see right up Mama Lu’s gaping nostrils. She imagined climbing the observation chair’s ladder and shoving a wedge of cheese right up that bulbous nose. But,
of course, she didn’t. She couldn’t change the fact that Mama Lu was a tyrant or that her sick old grandmother needed breakfast. So, rather than defending herself further, she hummed a little song to calm herself down while she finished putting together the breakfast tray. And, since she had taught the song to the other tenants, they snickered while she hummed.

The Mama Lu Song

All day long she sits in her chair,

in her fuzzy bathrobe and striped underwear,

yelling and hollering and making up rules,

telling us we’re stupid, calling us fools.

What can we do about Mama Lu?

We could

push over her chair,

stick slugs in her hair,

flush all of her cheese down the toilet.

Sneeze in her face,

track mud in the place,

take her bathrobe and boil it!

We could

dump gruel on her head,

put slugs in her bed,

fill both of her slippers with gutter sludge.

Give her a cold,

flick her with mold,

serve her slug poop and tell her it’s fudge.

“Stop yer humming!” Mama Lu shouted. “Humming and singing all the time. Acting
different
and
special
all the time. Growing that stuff on yer head because ya thinks yer more important than anyone else.”

Isabelle didn’t think she was more important than anyone else, but she certainly knew that she was different—and that was a good thing, especially if it meant being different from Mama Lu. She picked up the breakfast tray and hurried from the kitchen, stepping over a new pile of salt. A brown puddle bubbled at the center of the pile.

Poor little slug.

One day, Isabelle hoped, the slugs of Runny Cove would rise up, form an army, and bury Mama Lu in a pile of slime so enormous that a person could dig for days and never find her.

Back upstairs, Isabelle decided not to wake her sleeping grandmother, so she set the tray on the bedside table, quickly warming the teacup in her hands. After checking on the barnacle, the slugs, and the potato bugs, she retrieved her apple. Using the spoon, she cut another chunk and left it on the breakfast tray. Then she cut four more chunks—one each for Bert, Boris, Leonard, and Gwen—and stuffed them into her shirt pocket. All that remained was the apple’s core, which she ate in two bites, stem and all.

Take that, Mama Lu! I don’t need your lumpy porridge.

As she chewed, something caught between her front teeth. She picked out a glossy black seed. How
interesting.

BAROOO!
The factory’s horn rang across the village, warning workers that their shifts would begin in half an hour. Isabelle would have to wait to examine the seed—maybe during her lunch break. She tucked it into her sock so she wouldn’t lose it along the way.

“Don’t be late,” Grandma Maxine muttered, opening her eyes.

“Are you feeling better?” Isabelle asked. “Do you need my help with the spoon?”

Grandma Maxine reached out her hand, which Isabelle took. “Yes, I’m feeling better. Go now or you’ll be late.” She closed her eyes again.

Her grandmother had never lied to her before. So, if she said she was feeling better then she must be, which was very good news. And yet, she looked as gray and shrunken as ever. “Be sure to eat all of it,” Isabelle said, just before rushing out the door.

Boris and Bert sat on the entryway bench, pulling on their rubber boots. Mama Lu, still in her observation chair, was building a cheese tower, so she didn’t notice when Isabelle slipped the apple chunks to the twins. Their blue eyes ignited mischievously. “Thank you,” they whispered, happily gumming the fruit.

All along Boggy Lane, workers emerged from their boardinghouses. Slickers zipped to their chins, hoods tied securely,
they formed a human stream. Fighting a strong headwind, they pushed their way through the village tired step after tired step, past the boarded-up schoolhouse and past the old fish market with its collapsed roof. They pushed past a vacant café and a vacant hardware store, ghosts from a time that only the old ones remembered. In the distance, the factory’s cement towers pierced the low-hanging clouds.