Squashed

Giant pumpkins?

I grew giant pumpkins because I liked battle, and growing one was an everyday fight. You had to be in it for the long haul. Rain, frost, bugs, and fungus could strike at any time and stop you dead. Only certain growers are cut out to handle this pressure—tough people of steel who can stand against the odds. Richard says giant-pumpkin growers are the spawning salmon of agriculture, since only the strongest make it upstream each year for anything worth mentioning.

Not all vegetables are this draining. Lettuce doesn’t bring heartache. Turnips don’t ask for your soul. Potatoes don’t care where you are or even where they are. Tomatoes cuddle up to anyone who’ll give them mulch and sunshine. But giants like Max need you every second. You can forget about a whiz-bang social life.

Books by

JOAN BAUER

Backwater

Best Foot Forward

Hope Was Here

Rules of the Road

Squashed

Stand Tall

Sticks

Thwonk

Squashed

For Evan, my squash partner

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

I
was preparing my secret
booster solution of one part buttermilk, two parts Orange Crush, and about to inject it into the thick stem of my world-class Big Max—technically a variety of squash, but often the winner in giant pumpkin contests. I called him Max for short. He was the biggest squash I had ever grown—107 inches wide around his middle—which put him over 300 pounds, approximately. Awesome was the only word for it, especially since this was only August. We had forty-six days to go until the Rock River Pumpkin Weigh-In and Harvest Fair, where I, at sixteen years of age, am
the only teenager ever
to enter the adult growing division. I was facing heavy competition for the blue ribbon from Cyril Pool, four-time Weigh-In champ and a deeply despicable person. If I didn’t win I was sure I’d die, which was why I couldn’t bother with anything else right now.

I stirred my booster solution to get it good and frothy and let the long tube attached to Max’s stem
carry the mixture to his core. This would, hopefully, make him more intensely mammoth, which is what growing giant pumpkins is all about. That, and absolute courage.

I patted Max, who gurgled happily, and fixed thoughts of victory in my mind. I could see myself acing the blue ribbon from Cyril Pool’s grungy hands—bowing to the crowd, who roared their support. Standing proudly as Mrs. McKenna pinned the blue ribbon on
me.
Waving to the press, saying, “It was nothing, really.” Being carried on my classmates’ shoulders across Founders’ Square, playing it real humble.

My cousin Richard threw his baseball into a nearby bushel basket. Richard’s baseball usually showed up before he did, indoors or out. He ran to get it and delivered the news.

“Cyril Pool figures his pumpkin weighs four hundred pounds, Ellie,” he said. “I swear.”

“Cyril Pool’s full of it,” I spat back.

“Well, you don’t have to believe me,” Richard yelled, “but I was there and I saw them measure it with the chart.”

“They probably rigged the chart,” I said, stroking Max but dying inside. The “chart” was from the World Pumpkin Federation and estimated a pumpkin’s weight by its size. I didn’t think rigging the chart was possible, but if anyone was low enough to try, it was Cyril.

Richard was not happy about bringing me the news. He threw his baseball high in the air away from him and ran to catch it like he did catching pop flies in the outfield. Richard was a partial baseball star and working hard to become famous.

“Anything could happen,” he said. “It’s only August.”

I hated August because it was hot and muggy and keeping a pumpkin safe took some doing. In August a Big Max could turn on you, just sit there, and that’s all I needed. I’d gained seven pounds already from all the butterscotch swirl ice cream I ate while worrying.

“I thought you’d want to know,” Richard said, waiting.

“We’re having smoked pork chops with sweet corn,” I offered. Richard’s face went rapturous.

Richard ate with us about four nights a week because his mother (my aunt Peg) had been in a car accident and couldn’t get around too well yet and fixed mostly TV dinners. Richard didn’t complain about it around me because my mother had died in a car crash when I was eight. My father says that’s why I’m twenty pounds overweight.

I am, quite possibly, one of Iowa’s great cooks. Everybody says so. Richard would rather eat my cooking than do anything except play baseball, and since we were cousins, it all worked out. I make the best desserts in all of Rock River High, and Richard eats them. I swirl the frosting on top of the cakes and decorate them with walnuts and pecans. Once I made frosting out of powdered sugar and orange juice and put a spiral of orange slices on top of a cake that was packed with rum-soaked raisins. Nobody could believe the taste. I’m starting my diet tomorrow.

My father is anxious for me to lose weight. He says being overweight keeps me from discovering my true potential. He talks that way because he is a motivational specialist who gets paid to remake people’s lives. He gives speeches to companies and groups who need to be motivated and can’t seem to do it on their own. He makes tapes on success. He’s very happy doing this and
has changed a lot of people’s lives in the greater Des Moines area and made them become more interesting, productive, and self-sustaining. Dad says if I stop being so stubborn he can do that with me.

Dad specializes in difficult cases, which is why he holds out hope for me. His most famous pupil was Warren Bowler, a rotten accountant who got turned around by Dad’s tape series,
Self-Imaging III.
Mr. Bowler believed in himself so much after listening to Dad’s tapes that he ran for treasurer of Rock River and
won.
Dad respected Mr. Bowler’s spunk but didn’t vote for him. Only God could turn Mr. Bowler into a decent accountant, Dad said, and God had easier things to work on, like world peace. Mr. Bowler was kicked out of office eventually, but managed to leave with his head high, a tribute to motivational therapy.

Dad believes in having Important Life Goals (he says, “A life without goals is a life without direction”) and is constantly writing his personal goals down on pads: Finding More Clients, Beating Insomnia, Running Seven Miles in Under Forty Minutes, Learning Japanese. I happen to think this is fine for some people, but for me, I have two goals right now. That’s all I can handle, and I don’t have to write them down. I want to grow the biggest pumpkin in Iowa and win the ribbon at the Harvest Fair, and I want to lose these stupid twenty pounds once and for all.

I’ve lost the weight, you understand, probably ten, eleven times, I just keep putting it back. As for pumpkin growing, Richard’s news about Cyril’s squash was bad, very bad. Cyril always wins because he’s thirty-five and doesn’t have anything else to do except booster his squashes. I always come in second because I have to take care of the house, cook, go to school,
and
be a great
pumpkin expert. We’ve tried housekeepers before but they could never cook as well as me.

Dad says he wouldn’t give up my dinners for anything and gives me a good chunk extra each week in allowance. My mother was a superior cook, and I make some of her recipes. Her specialty was sweet sausage ragout with homemade noodles. I used to help her roll out the noodle dough and cut the strips myself. Mother taught me a lot about cooking. Whenever I make Mother’s recipes I feel close to her, like she’s part of the ingredients. Dad gets real quiet and always has thirds.

Richard went home to tell his mother he was staying for dinner, and that’s when I started to cry. I really hate surprises, emotional or otherwise, and like most growers try to take the long view. I knew I was crying about Cyril’s pumpkin and how life was unfair and I was probably going to come in second again. Miss Runner-Up. Miss Congeniality. I saw myself standing next to Cyril, who always wore all his ribbons pinned on his shirt when he accepted another one. I was smiling and congratulating him and being a big sport, thinking a plague of locusts would fix him good. I was sixteen years old and had never kissed a boy or had a date. I wanted to be pretty, but my hair was brown and boring and hung down my back like yarn. I had great skin, but twenty pounds too much of it. I wanted to be noticed and kept getting ignored. I’d given Max the best months of my life, but now my world-class pumpkin seemed second-rate. My life was passing in front of my eyes, and it was pudgy.