Fortune's Magic Farm (22 page)

Isabelle stumbled backwards, taking a deep breath. Was her grandfather crazy? He had yelled at her, had told her to go away. But no anger blazed across his face, no venomous words shot from his mouth. His green eyes twinkled, his wrinkled face crinkled joyfully. “You’re a true tender,” he said. “The truest of us all. Look at you. Look at your hair. That is the most magnificent hair I’ve ever seen.” Eve purred in agreement.

It wouldn’t have been possible for Isabelle to feel more confused than she felt at that moment. Of all the twists and turns her life had taken over the last few days, this was the most puzzling. She strained her neck to look up at Nesbitt’s face. Like a tree, he towered over her. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“I had to test your loyalty, Isabelle. Hold no grudge
against your great-uncle or against Sage. They acted on my orders.”

Sage and Walnut stepped out from behind some bushes. Each wore a long, hooded cape. Walnut skipped forward, dancing the same jig he had danced on the bridge when Isabelle’s hair had turned green. “She did it, she did it. I knew she would, I knew she would.” His wispy hair floated as he twirled around.

“What did I do?” She searched through the kelp suit’s pockets, worried that she might have missed a cherry. “I didn’t take anything. I promise.”

“Exactly,” Nesbitt said. He bent down on one knee, bringing his face level with hers. “You had all sorts of reasons to break your promise. But in the end you proved yourself honest. I almost gave up. I fired all the farmhands and stopped working because I thought it was over. But then Sage found you.” He spread his arms out like branches. “The future of the world can’t lie in just anyone’s hands, now can it? Certainly not. But a Fortune with a curious mind and a hero’s heart and a head of brilliantly green hair, now that’s the kind of person the world can rely upon.”

Isabelle’s confusion began to clear. “You mean, you like me after all?”

“Like you? We
adore
you,” Walnut sang, twirling so hard that he bumped into Sage.

“We love you,” Nesbitt said softly.

“You… love me?” Only one other person had ever said those words to Isabelle. She took a step back, shaking her
head in disbelief, the marmot perched on her shoulder. “You don’t think I’m just like my mother?”

Nesbitt’s knee creaked as he stood. “You’re like your mother in all the ways that your mother was good, and kind, and special. But because you were raised as an outsider, I had to put you through a test,” he explained. “Before Sage became the farm’s protector, he also had to pass a test. But he proved himself trustworthy, just as you have.”

Sage hadn’t said anything. He kept his distance, avoiding Isabelle’s gaze. Nesbitt leaned over and whispered in Isabelle’s ear. “The lies were entirely my doing. Sage does not deserve your anger. He is the truest protector this farm has ever employed.”

“Does this mean that you want me to live on the farm?”

“We want that more than anything in the entire world!” Walnut cried.

“And Rocky?”

“Rocky can stay too,” Nesbitt said.

“But you seemed so mad,” Isabelle said to her grandfather, not quite ready to believe. “You yelled so loudly.”

“That, my dear, was acting.” Nesbitt bowed as Walnut enthusiastically applauded. “Had I not been born a tender, I’m certain I would have joined the theatre. When I was a schoolboy, I had the lead role in Madame Pungent’s production of
Prince Arthur and the Land of Half-witted Trolls.
”

“I played the part of the Land,” Walnut called out. “I grew my own costume.”

“You’re not going to let the farm die?”

“Never,” Nesbitt said. “Though I’ve felt sad for a very
long time, I could never let the farm die. A true tender could never do such a thing.”

The farm wouldn’t die. She and Rocky could stay. But confusion still clouded the moment. “So what is true? Is my grandmother alive or not?”

Nesbitt patted the marmot’s head. “She’s very much alive and very well. One of our ravens just returned from checking on her.”

A smile burst onto Isabelle’s face. “She’s alive? She’s well? Sage was telling the truth about giving her a cherry?”

“Yes,” Nesbitt replied. “It looks like we have a happy ending.”

“Happy, happy, happy,” Walnut chanted, kicking up his short legs.

Isabelle laughed and all the bad feelings from last night washed away like gray water down the drain. She could barely contain her excitement. She started dancing around like Great-Uncle Walnut. The marmot scampered between their feet, nearly tripping them. Sage leaned against a tree, watching with amusement. A happy ending for a skinny factory worker from the most miserable place on Earth.

“Wait.” Isabelle stopped dancing. “It’s not a happy ending. What about Runny Cove? What about my grandmother and my friends and the rain and the factory?”

“What
about
your grandmother and your friends and the rain and the factory?” Nesbitt asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I still want to go back. I… need to go back.”

“Whatever for?” His eyes twinkled in a teasing way.

“I want to give Curative Cherries to everyone in Runny Cove and get rid of all the Cloud Clover so the sun can shine.” She waited for his reaction. Only he could give permission to take things from the farm. Would he get angry again? She folded her arms. “I’m going back. Even if you won’t let me take some cherries, I still have to try to get rid of the clover. I’ll do it by myself, if I must.”

Nesbitt, Walnut, and Sage exchanged knowing looks. “I think that giving everyone in Runny Cove a Curative Cherry and digging up all the Cloud Clover is a grand plan,” Nesbitt said. “What do you think, Sage? Can we risk another trip to Runny Cove?”

Sage stepped forward; his usually brooding face had softened. “I’ve covered the caravan in Camouflage Creepers so it can’t be seen by gyrocopter.” He lifted some vines to reveal the oxen. “And I loaded the cherries into the back just as you ordered.”

“You ordered?” Isabelle asked.

“Sage told me about your plan,” her grandfather said. “He also told me that he wanted to help you. So I gave him permission to collect some cherries.” Sage, Walnut, and Nesbitt threw off their capes. Each wore a bright green kelp suit.

Even though he tried to escape before she reached him, and even though he looked about as unhappy as a barnacle without a shell, Isabelle gave Sage a great big Vice Vine hug.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Walnut asked. “Let’s go.”

Farewell, Isabelle,
the trees whispered.
Safe journey to you.

“Goodbye,” she replied, waving to the swaying pines.

Nesbitt looked around. “Who are you waving at?”

“The trees,” she explained. “They have whispery voices, don’t you think? They sound kind of like the wind.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Nesbitt said, smiling and stroking his chin. “No one’s had the power to hear the trees since the first tender. Dear, dear Isabelle, what a surprise you’ve turned out to be.”

Nesbitt gave Eve the cat instructions to watch over the farm. She rubbed against his leg again, then she pranced through the tunnel, her tail held high and proud. The vines closed behind her.

As Nesbitt and Walnut climbed into the camouflaged caravan, Isabelle smiled at Sage. He actually smiled back.

“It’s going to be a happy ending,” she whispered.

Long before they reached the beach, Isabelle knew that Neptune had arrived because it smelled as if she had stuck a fish up each of her nostrils. At the shore’s edge, Sage unhitched the oxen. “They will take care of themselves until we return,” he told Isabelle as the mighty creatures wandered back to the forest.

“GREETINGS, KING NEPTUNE,” Nesbitt yelled, bowing to the seal. “IT IS AN HONOR TO BE IN THE COMPANY OF YOU AND YOUR IMPOSING NOZZLE. WE HUMBLY REQUEST YOUR SERVICES AGAIN.”

Sage and Walnut removed the caravan’s wheels, then
pushed the caravan into the shallows. Neptune and two of his wives arranged themselves as Sage attached ropes around their middles. Then Sage jumped onto the driver’s bench, ropes in hand, with Rolo on his shoulder.

Walnut pulled a jar from his kelp suit pocket. “These are Ocean Motion Olives,” he told Isabelle, dropping one into her hand. The little sphere undulated. “It mimics the ocean’s movement inside your stomach so your stomach doesn’t become confused by the motion outside.”

“Tenders are people of the land, so sea travel usually disagrees with us,” Nesbitt added, eating an olive. Recalling the dizziness and upchucking, Isabelle eagerly ate hers.

Walnut pulled his knit hat over his bald spot and climbed into the caravan. “I’d better get my beauty sleep. Might meet myself a single lady or two in Runny Cove.” He pulled some moss from his nose, then curled up in the corner.

“Ocean Motion olives tend to make one sleepy,” Nesbitt explained, helping Isabelle into the caravan. “You’ll find yourself dozing in no time at all.”

He spoke the truth. Isabelle’s eyelids drooped. Exhausted from her night of bad dreams and her plans of running away, she curled into a corner and drifted to sleep.

“NEPTUNE! AWAY!” Sage cried. And off they went.

Evening’s first stars popped into the sky as the caravan reached the Tangled Islands. The marmot woke the sleepy travelers with a robust string of chirps. She pressed her nose against the caravan’s window.

Isabelle stretched her arms, then slid next to Rocky.
“That’s her island. Sage said that because marmots reproduce so fast, they’ll probably run out of food.”

Nesbitt yawned, then peered out the window too. “It does look like a small place.”

As the island neared, Rocky trembled with excitement, wiggling her stubby tail. Was she remembering her promise?

“Could we help them too?” Isabelle asked. “Could we take them someplace where there’s lots of food?”

“I’m not sure where that would be. Let’s ask my brother. He knows more about rodents than I do.” A few of the olives from Walnut’s jar had spilled into his pocket and had sprouted into young trees. Nesbitt pulled the branches aside, looking for his brother. “Walnut, wake up. What do marmots eat?”

“What about my feet?” Walnut asked, sitting up and wiping a speck of drool from his chin. “Do they stink again?”

Nesbitt pulled an olive leaf from Walnut’s ear. “Eat, not feet. What do marmots like to eat?”

“Yellow-bellied
Marmoticus Terriblus
or flat-bottomed
Marmoticus Faticus
?”

Isabelle held Rocky in the air, exposing her yellow belly.

“Oh, that kind. Well, the
Marmoticus Terriblus
is a vegetarian by nature, preferring nuts and leafy greens. Their favorite food, however, is clover. A marmot will travel miles for a sweet patch of clover. One marmot can eat three times its body weight in clover in a single day.”

Nesbitt turned to Isabelle. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Cloud Clover!” Isabelle cried.

S
aving an entire town is no easy task.
A person who sets out to
save an entire town
will probably be judged, by future historians, as having lacked common sense or as being downright loony. But Isabelle had traveled across the ocean and back, had grown green hair, and had spoken to trees. She had almost been killed by a ship, had escaped would-be kidnappers, and had passed a test of loyalty. She wasn’t about to let little things like common sense or sanity stand in her way.

But first they stopped at the Island of Mysterious Holes, where Isabelle explained her quest to save Runny Cove. One mention of the abundant Cloud Clover and the marmots raced across the muddy beach and piled into the caravan. Isabelle counted fifty-three, but they wiggled around so much, she could have been off by four or five. After tracking mud everywhere, the critters dug holes in the pillows, cavorted beneath the table, and threw olives at each other. Fortunately, Sage had locked the Curative Cherries inside a small rodent-proof chest. Rocky, after tiring of nose-kissing, joined in the digging.

“I never knew marmots were so rowdy,” Nesbitt said as a baby marmot burrowed in his sock. “I think I’ll go sit on the driver’s bench with Sage.”

“He’s not fond of rodents,” Walnut added after Nesbitt had left.