The Pumpkin War Read online

  We nestled one seedling into each mound. I didn’t skimp on the fertilizer. That’s a fancy name for “cow dung.” You need a lot of cow dung to grow giant pumpkins. Cow dung is like pumpkin candy. Pumpkins can’t get enough of it even though it comes out of the rear end of a cow.

  As soon as we had all the seedlings planted, I gave each one a big gulp of water spiked with chopped seaweed and molasses. Over the next few weeks, I would see which seedlings shot vines across the dirt like rockets and which ones didn’t. The slackers would get yanked out and turned into mulch.

  When I looked up, Sam was coming down the hill.

  Sam is tall and lanky, and he can run fast and jump high, which is why the basketball coach is always trying to get him to come out for the team, but every time he asks, Sam tells him it would cut into his “reading time” too much.

  The sun glinted off his shaggy brown hair, which looks like he cuts it himself. Probably because he does.

  He climbed over the fence that cut between our two farms.

  “Did you figure out the stumper?” he asked, kneeling down to press the dirt around a bare seedling as he smiled up at me.

  I didn’t smile back. The days when his charm worked on me were over.

  “So? Did you?” he pressed.

  I tried to ignore him.

  Yesterday, on the last day of school, while we were all staring at the clock, counting down the last three minutes left in sixth grade, Ms. Bagshaw reached into her desk. I thought she was going to pull out a bag of leftover jelly beans, because during the year, she’d give you one jelly bean for a good answer and two jelly beans for a good question. Instead she pulled out a picture of a wrinkly old man with a halo of spiky white hair sticking straight up like he was just hit by lightning.

  “This is Albert Einstein,” she said, holding up the picture.

  We all looked at each other. School was almost officially over. No one wanted to hear about Albert Einstein.

  She told us Einstein was the most famous scientist in the whole world (which I knew), about how he couldn’t talk until he was four (which I didn’t know), and about how he came up with the most famous equation in the world (E = mc2) when he was barely out of college.

  That’s when the crickets in the heating vent began to chirp.

  Why were there crickets in the heating vents?

  Because Sam loved a good prank.

  His favorite pranks usually involved food. The “cream-filled” birthday cupcakes that had toothpaste inside. Candy apples that were really onions. Valentine’s Day chocolates filled with chili paste that set your mouth on fire.

  Pranks with insects was new.

  Sam put the crickets in the heating vent at the beginning of the year, and they were still going. Crickets are good breeders. I know that because Sam and I used to raise them in third grade to feed his pet lizard.

  “Over the summer, I want you to figure out what Albert Einstein was thinking about the day he died,” Ms. Bagshaw said. “And don’t bother looking on the internet. You won’t find the answer. You need to use your imagination.”

  She stood in front of the whiteboard, where she’d written, I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make them think.

  She said if you didn’t use your brain over the summer, you could turn into an idiot almost overnight and flunk seventh grade.

  No one cared. We were tired of thinking.

  When the bell rang, we exploded out of our seats and shot through the door, snorting and pawing like wild ponies. Racing toward freedom, sucking in the smell of summer, Einstein was the farthest thing from my mind.

  This summer was about one thing and one thing only: beating Sam.

  That night after dinner, I taped my brand-new growing calendar to the back of the kitchen door. It had a grid of little boxes where you wrote in your weekly measurements, and a table for figuring out your pumpkin’s weight based on the circumference.

  Last year, my race pumpkin was 164 inches around and 58 inches tall and weighed in at 996 pounds. I grew one even bigger the year before that, but after I forgot to put the shade cover up, the skin got sunburned, and a rib cracked open and pulp squished out.

  The world record weight for a pumpkin is 2,624.6 pounds. Growing a giant pumpkin gets a lot harder once the seedlings are in the ground. That’s when I declare war against all of Mother Nature’s sneaky little soldiers: cucumber beetles, aphids, squash bugs, and mites. Not to mention chipmunks, deer, raccoons, squirrels, and moles. And then there’s black rot and mildew.

  A lot of things could go very, very wrong before I made it past the first hurdle: getting all the flower buds pollinated. And that was four weeks away. Until that pumpkin was in the water, ready to race, you didn’t know who was going to win the war against Mother Nature.

  I’d just finished taping up the calendar when a raspy voice wrapped in static came over the shortwave radio jammed between the toaster and the cookie jar.

  Dad looked up from the sink where he was washing the dinner dishes. We both heard the dreaded f-word.

  Frost.

  “There must be a backdoor cold front rolling in from the east,” Dad said.

  I glared at him even though it wasn’t his fault. When you live on a bay at the western tail of Lake Superior, the sky can lean down in the snap of a finger and blast your island with funnels of freezing air, leaving a sheet of frost behind that can wipe out an entire crop.

  “Will you at least help me put the row covers on?” I asked.

  “You know the rule,” he said, grinning.

  As if I could ever forget that rule. If your mom or dad helps you grow your pumpkin, you can be disqualified from the race.

  I hate that rule. My mom and dad love it.

  I ran out the back door and trudged up the hill to my patch.

  I spread newspaper and mulch around the base of each seedling before I put on the row covers, little plastic tents staked into the dirt to protect the plants from the wind and the cold.

  Sam was doing the same thing at the top of the hill.

  When I could barely see my hands in front of my face, Dad brought his truck around and beamed his headlights over the garden. While I worked, he sat in his truck singing Irish songs. Even though he’s been in America since he was eighteen years old, his Irish accent is still there.

  “When Irish hearts are happy,

  All the world seems bright and gay,

  And when Irish eyes are smiling,

  Sure, they steal your heart away.”

  I’d heard my dad sing that song a million times, but tonight it sounded different. I’d always thought it was a happy song, but tonight it sounded sad. I wondered if he missed Ireland. His mom died when he was born, and he said his dad was never around. That’s all Dad would say about his old life.

  By the time I was done frost-proofing my seedlings, it was late. Mom and Marylee were already asleep.

  Upstairs I pulled off my dirty clothes, dropped them in a pile on the floor in my bedroom, pulled on my pajamas, and flopped into bed without even brushing my teeth. My mom would never let me get away with that. Just as Dad kissed me good night and tucked my quilt up under my chin, the quiet night was sliced open.

  “Honey? Declan!” Mom cried out.

  My dad bolted out of my room. I threw my legs over the side of the bed and slid down the ladder. My feet hit the floor with a thud.

  “What? What?” my sister mumbled, groggy and confused.

  I found my mom standing in a puddle of water in the middle of the hallway, my dad cradling her giant belly.

  “My water just broke,” she said as Marylee stumbled into the hallway.

  “Water can break?” Marylee said, rubbing her eyes.

  “The baby’s coming!” Mom said. “Call the ferry!”

  “Where’s the stor
k?” my sister asked, looking at me. “You said the stork was bringing the baby!”

  I didn’t have to explain the birds and the bees to a six-year-old, because my mom suddenly squealed, “Hurry! He’s coming!”

  “He’s not due for three weeks!” Dad said.

  “Tell him that!” Mom shot back. She was swaying from side to side, a giant bowling pin about to topple over.

  My dad disappeared into their bedroom, where I could hear him calling Grandma and then the ferry. The ferry was the only way on and off the island. I was glad it wasn’t the middle of winter, when the ice is so thick, you have to go to the mainland on a wind sled. It’s fun when you’re going to school, but probably not so fun when you’re having a baby.

  “Where’s my baby blanket?” Mom yelled. “I can’t go without my baby blanket.”

  Dad hustled back carrying the yellow crocheted blanket they used to bring my sister and me home from the hospital. Mom grabbed it, clutching it to her chest.

  My dad wrapped his arm around my mom’s waist and helped her down the stairs. As Marylee and I trailed behind, I wondered what my new baby brother would look like.

  Unless “he” turns out to be a “she.”

  The doctor said my mom was having a boy, but I’m living proof doctors can be wrong. They thought I was going to be a boy, so my mom and dad named me Billie before I was even born. When I turned out to be a girl, they had to think quick. All they could come up with was Sinopa, an Ojibwe name, and Finola, an Irish name. While they tried to decide, they kept calling me Billie, and the name stuck.

  Outside, Dad helped Mom into our battered pickup truck. Rust holes bloomed like flowers along the fenders.

  “Where is she? Where is she?” Dad said, staring down the hill toward the road.

  I was the first to spot two tiny headlights in the distance.

  Grandma finally screeched up in her old Jeep, the tattered canvas top flapping in the wind. She was dressed in her pajamas and the fluffy fleece robe I bought her last year with money from my honey sales. As she got out of the car, she grabbed her overnight bag. Her long white hair trailed behind her like the wispy cirrus clouds you see on a hot summer day out on the lake.

  She walked over to the passenger side of the truck and reached in through the open window to cup my mom’s face in her hands.

  “Baamaapii,” she whispered softly.

  That means “until later.”

  Grandma kissed Mom on each cheek as my dad slid behind the wheel. As he peeled out of the driveway, sending a messy spray of gravel shooting onto the grass, Grandma wrapped her arms around Marylee and me.

  “The baby’s coming early,” she said. “He’s impatient to meet you.”

  I was excited about the baby, but I was also a little nervous. What if he cried all the time? And I definitely didn’t want to change his diaper.

  As my dad’s red taillights disappeared into the night, we saw the ferry headed for the dock to pick up my mom and whisk her to the hospital.

  Grandma herded us back inside, where we trudged up the stairs, discussing whether the baby would look more like me or Marylee.

  “Tomorrow you girls need to start working on your jingle dresses for the powwow,” Grandma said as she tucked us into bed.

  Every year, Grandma made our dresses from buckskin that felt like velvet. My job was to sew on row after row of tiny metal cones between rows of brightly colored beading. All Marylee had to do was a pick stitch hem.

  “Do we have to?” she said, even though she had the easier job.

  “Yes,” Grandma said. “You have to.”

  I loved powwows. I loved the smell of venison meat roasting over hot red coals. I would even sneak bites when Marylee wasn’t around. I loved the taste of fry bread covered in a snowdrift of powdered sugar. I also loved running wild, dodging fiery bits of ash spewing from bonfires like shooting stars, but mostly I just loved the food. And this year, it was close by. We didn’t even have to take the ferry to the mainland.

  “Why do we have to go to so many powwows?” Marylee demanded.

  “So we can tell the stories of our ancestors,” Grandma said.

  “But I already know all those stories,” Marylee said.

  “We tell our stories every year so we don’t forget who we are.”

  “Grandma, I’m not going to forget who I am.”

  “People forget who they are all the time,” she said. “Our stories help us remember.”

  At the door, Grandma flipped off the light and said, “Gi zah gin.”

  “I love you too,” I said.

  “Me three,” Marylee added.

  As soon as Grandma closed the door, Marylee whispered, “Billie, do you ever forget who you are?”

  “Never,” I said.

  I knew exactly who I was.

  I was a girl who was going to get her revenge.

  It should’ve been a perfect July day.

  The sun was shining, a sweet breeze was blowing in off the bay, and white clouds floated by, a cotton candy slideshow.

  Joey was supposed to have been born today. July 2. But I guess he got his dates mixed up, because he was born three weeks early. Maybe it was for the best. If he’d been born today, he might have thought all the fireworks on the Fourth were for him.

  My mom said he had colic.

  Colic is when a baby starts out cute but then turns into a monster.

  I peeked over the side of my bunk.

  Marylee was awake.

  Without a word, we slipped into our clothes, tiptoed down the hall, and peeked into my mom and dad’s room. They were dead asleep with Joey nestled between them, wrapped up like a little burrito in his baby blanket. For once, he wasn’t crying.

  In the kitchen, there were no Cheerios, no bananas, no raisin toast, and no butter for the raisin toast even if we’d had it, which we didn’t. And definitely no freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Nothing for us to eat, but almost a dozen little bottles of Mom’s breast milk, all lined up in a row in the refrigerator.

  My mom used a breast pump that looked like something you’d find hooked up to a cow in a barn. You could look at the milk and know exactly what my mom had for dinner the night before. Greenish milk meant spinach. Reddish milk meant beets. Yellowy milk meant mangoes or papayas.

  As Marylee and I scavenged for food, Joey started up again.

  I heard Dad’s feet hit the floor above my head. A second later, he thudded down the steps.

  The crying grew louder and louder until Dad burst into the kitchen, holding Joey in his arms like a football. Mom was right behind him, struggling to close her flapping bathrobe. He grabbed one of Joey’s bottles out of the fridge and slammed it into the microwave, then jabbed at the timer with the tip of his finger.

  “Why can’t YOU get his bottle once in a while?” Mom screeched.

  “That’s what I’m doing!”

  “You’re only doing it because I got mad at you!”

  “So? I’m doing it, aren’t I?”

  “But you’re being mean about it!”

  Mom’s hair was all tangled up like a nest only a crazy bird would build. She pressed her fingers against her eyes. When she opened them, they were filled with tears. She looked right through me like I wasn’t even there, and as quickly as Mom and Dad had blown into the kitchen, they blew back out.

  Marylee and I stared at each other in silence.

  Just then, Cami and Turtles appeared at the back door.

  “Is it safe to come in?” Cami asked, her forehead pressed against the screen door as she peered inside our kitchen. I nodded.

  We could still hear my mom and dad fighting upstairs.

  “If we yelled like that, we’d be grounded,” Marylee said.

  At least Joey had stopped crying. I passed out spoons, and we all dug into
the peanut butter jar.

  “Your house used to be fun,” Turtles said.

  “Now your mom and dad sound just like our mom and dad,” Cami added.

  Turtles offered Hector a swipe of peanut butter from the tip of her finger just as Joey started crying again.

  “Does he ever stop?” Turtles asked.

  “Only when he’s sleeping or eating,” I said. “Let’s get outta here.”

  “Bees first?” Cami asked. “Or pumpkins?”

  “Bees,” I said.

  We slipped out the screen door and jogged up the hill. As we passed the barn, I glanced over at my pumpkin patch. After only three weeks in the ground, my main vines were each around thirty feet long, with secondary vines shooting off in all directions.

  I’d stayed up late the night before, crawling around on my hands and knees, burying chunks of the main vines in wet mud so new roots would sprout and suck up even more of the nutrients in the dirt to feed the flower buds, which were growing from the vines on skinny stalks. These were the male buds. Typical. Just like in the lunch line at school, boys always show up first.

  My bee helmet was hanging on the gate where I’d left it. I slipped it on and tucked the veil into the top of my T-shirt. If a bee stings your eye, you can go blind, so I always wore the helmet.

  I grabbed a bucket and the hose to make some bee grub. We’d had too much rain and not enough sun all spring. Without enough sun, flowers don’t bloom. If flowers don’t bloom, they don’t make nectar, and if they don’t make nectar, my bees starve to death. And it’s not like the bees can go snack on ants, because they’re vegetarians, like us.

  Marylee scooped a pound and a half of sugar from the storage bin by the gate and dumped it into my bucket. Cami filled the bucket up with water while Turtles swirled the water around with her hand to mix it up. When I couldn’t see the sugar anymore, I lugged the bucket over to a hive and dumped the syrup into the top feeder. A gaggle of hungry bees buzzed around my head.

  We had six hives stuffed with more bees than I could count. Our hives were healthy, which was a miracle, because about ten years before, bees around the world had started dropping like flies. Some scientist figured out that pesticides were to blame. Those poor bees would leave their cozy hives in the morning to go spread pollen around the world so that flowers could bloom and vegetables would grow, but they never came home, because pesticides scrambled their bee brains.