Freaky Fast Frankie Joe (14 page)

“These kind of things don't happen overnight,” he says.

“You think there'll be any . . . problems?”

Silence.

Wonder what problems they're worried about?

I sneak my way back down the hall and up the stairs. I have my own problems. December 22—when winter begins—is a little over a month away, and I still don't have everything I need.

I'm racing to Mr. Puffin's farm with a large pepperoni-and-sausage pizza when I hear a grumbling that sounds like a giant growling dog. As I get closer, I see dirt swirling into the sky. Under the dust, I can make out farm equipment. The tractors and harvesters and trucks that were parked inside the red barns are in the fields now.

Like giant insects, the harvesters devour corn and soybeans. The machines shoot yellow kernels into the back of big trucks with tall sideboards that keep the grain from falling out. Truck after truck loaded with shelled corn and soybeans leave the fields. I can't believe it. In the blink of an eye, the ground is barren as a brown paper bag. Just like the Chihuahua Desert.

My plan has developed a huge case of the hiccups. I start pedaling again and make it to Mr. Puffin's back door just as the old farmer is coming in from the fields.

“Perfect timing,” he says, removing the insulated bag from my basket. “I done worked up an appetite. Let's have a slice while it's good and hot.”

Wordless, I follow Mr. Puffin into his kitchen. Pocketing the money he hands me, I watch him plate up pizza. I stare at my slice. How can I eat pizza when giant shredders are ripping apart my escape-to-Texas plan?

Mr. Puffin looks at me. “You tired of pizza? I got some peanut butter and jelly, you want a sandwich.”

“No sir, it's just—they're cutting down the corn and beans! They're taking
everything
. The cornstalks and bean plants and . . . there's nothing left.”

“You've never seen a harvest before, have you, Frankie Joe? You see, we got equipment these days that shells the corn and beans right off the stalk, then takes the stalks down to the ground. Well, almost to the ground. There's a little stalk and root left to the corn. Roots rot, making fertilizer for next year's crop. Cornstalks are chopped up, made into silage to feed cows. Farmers sell off the shelled corn and beans, or put them in storage until prices are better.”

Storage. I'd forgotten about the big blue silos.

“Oh sure. The corn and beans are stored in those Harvestore silos.”

I begin to breathe easy again. I can get food out of the silos when I need it. I still have to figure out a way to hide if I need to, but at least I'll have plenty to eat.

Mr. Puffin shakes his head. “Silos are for storing
silage. Or used to be. You see, not too many farmers raise dairy cows anymore. Most silos just sit empty now. Lot of the barns, too.”

“You mean silos are for storing food for
cows
?”

“That's right. Corn and beans are hauled straight to river barges—that'd be on the Mississippi River for us here—or straight to the processing plants.”

“But don't farmers save back enough for themselves?”

“Themselves? Oh, you mean those that feed their own livestock. Don't feed corn and beans to dairy cows. Feed silage.”

I shake my head. “No sir, for
eating
. You know, corn and beans for making things like . . . burritos.”

He laughs. “Why, don't eat none of it, son! We grow field corn, not sweet corn. Field corn's tough, not that tasty. What we grow is processed for other things. Lot of what we grow 'round here goes for ethanol.”

“Eth–a . . . 
what
?”

“Ethanol! You know. Gasoline.”

I fall back in my chair. “Corn is made into gasoline? But—but this is the Bread Basket of the World.”

Mr. Puffin helps himself to another slice of pizza. “That's right, it is. Wheat and oats, barley and rye are still grown for human consumption. Corn, too, other places. But most of what we grow here is not the eatable kind.

“Big changes in farming nowadays,” he goes on. “Not like it was back in the last century. When my
grandpa came here, was nothing but tall-grass prairies. Grass grew taller than a man's head. Now
corn
grows taller than a man's head and is turned into fuel for cars. By the time you're growed up, probably be using corn to fly rocket ships to one of them planets out there.” He points upward. “How about it, Frankie Joe? You thinking of turnin' corn into fuel for rocket ships?”

“No sir, I was thinking of eating it.”

“Oh, can't be doing that. Crops are treated with pesticides and insecticides to keep the molds down and kill the bugs.” He eyes me. “You been eatin' the stuff that grows 'round here?”

“No sir.”

My slice of pizza has gotten cold, but I don't notice. I'm imagining myself hiding out in country barren as the moon and glowing in the dark like a radioactive mutant because I have nothing to eat but chemical-tainted corn and soybeans.

Mr. Puffin gets up from the table. “Gotta get back outside. Need to get my equipment in the barn before it gets too late.”

I follow him out the door.

“Better wear this wool jacket home,” he tells me as I climb onto my bike. He points to a thermometer hanging on the side of his back door. It reads thirty-two degrees.

The freezing point of water, I remember.

“Thanks. I'll return it soon as I can.”

Mr. Puffin looks toward the horizon. “Well now, look at that. I swear that looks like an Alberta clipper comin' in.” He looks at me. “And you know what that means.”

I eye the blue-gray sky beyond the colorless fields. “No sir. What does that mean?”

He grins. “It means I can drive into town now and eat my pizza at Gambino's. It's time to close down shop for the year. No more work to do.”

No more work? But I don't have enough money yet!

“But—but what about your cows? You need to milk them morning and night.”

Mr. Puffin laughs. “Where's your head, son? You mean you rode right past the barn and never noticed them cows are gone? I decided to take your daddy's advice. Sold every one of those Holsteins. Got a good price, too.” He smiles at me. “No cows to milk, and the crops are outta the field. Lookin' at them clouds, I'd say it's in the nick a time. No need to have my pizza delivered anymore. Least not until next spring when the seed goes into the ground.”

He helps me slip into the jacket, and I ride slowly back to town, looking at fields the color of a brown paper bag.

The Saturday Quilt Circle is still meeting when I get back. I try to slip past the roomful of chattering women, but I don't make it.

“Sit down next to me,” Mrs. Bixby says. “I'll quiz you on your multiplication tables. You still need to learn to count by sevens.”

I stifle a groan. “I
know
how to count by sevens.”

“You do? Well then, show us. Recite your sevens.”

“Now?”

“Now,”
Lizzie says.

I moan silently, then recite sevens clear up to seven times thirty. The women in the Quilt Circle smile. Lizzie beams.

“I taught him that,” Mrs. Bixby says, looking pleased. “Well then, time to move on to eights.”

I moan loud this time. “But I was gonna go upstairs and look up something in my dictionary.”

“Oh? Well, no need to go upstairs.” Mrs. Bixby pulls a dictionary out of her quilt bag.

Of course. She carries one with her. I turn the pages quickly and read silently.

Al-ber-ta clip-per
\
noun
:
a severe storm, often with a heavy snowfall, coming from Alberta, Canada, and the Canadian Rocky Mountains and swiftly moving east and southeast across the USA's Midwest.

But it's not time for snow. It's only November!

“You feeling all right?” Lizzie brushes her fingers across my forehead.

“He is looking a little peaked,” an old quilter with white hair murmurs.

“Indeed,” another one says.

“Oh, nothing wrong with him,” Mrs. Bixby says. “He just needs to practice his eights.”

“No, I think he needs to rest,” Lizzie says. “He's been working real hard.”

Wordless, I head for the stairs.

“Wait,” Mrs. Bixby calls out. “Now that you're working, you can buy a raffle ticket.”

“Oh, I don't think that's necessary,” Lizzie says.

Mrs. Bixby frowns. “Why Lizzie, we had a thousand tickets printed up and have lots of them left. Don't forget, the raffle helps fund The Great Escape. Besides, what's he doing with all that money he's making?”

Lizzie blinks, then looks at me.

I buy a ticket.

Snow!
Lots
of snow! The Alberta clipper blew in like a Texas tornado last night, burying everything in fluffy, white,
cold
snow. The house shook from the windblasts. Though Lizzie gave me two more blue-ribbon quilts, my teeth chattered as I lay in bed.

Finally it's morning. Even though the days have gotten shorter, and it's still dark outside, I can see a white blanket through the attic windows, covering everything.

I'm excited until I realize what it means. My delivery business is doomed.

At breakfast Lizzie asks, “Where are your new clothes and boots?” I look around the kitchen table and see the four brothers are dressed in bibs. Then I look at the coatrack at the back door and see four parkas. In the boot tray are four pairs of Wellingtons.

FJ gives me his look, and I go to get into my new duds.

Walking to school, I see a plow pushing snow to the curb along the street and people shoveling sidewalks. I pick up a handful of snow, shape it into a ball, and throw it against the side of a building. My first snowball! I make another, then another.

I wish my school friends in Laredo were here. They've never seen snow either. We could make a snow fort—and have a snowball fight!

I debate skipping school altogether so I can play in the snow, but I have a test in Math today. As I turn toward school, I notice other kids in similar clothes, looking like miniature Technicolor versions of the Michelin Man.

Mandy's coat and pants are strawberry pink. “Hey,” she says, waddling up next to me. The snow is knee-deep for her. “Don't walk so fast,” she complains. “In case you haven't noticed, my legs aren't as long as yours.”

“What's that stuff the snowplows are putting on the street?” I ask, slowing down.

“Cinders and sand. It helps the snow melt and gives the tires traction.”

Cool
. At least I can still deliver Nova for Miss Peachcott.

It's
so
depressing, I think, looking out the attic window. Everywhere, white . . . white . . . white. Another clipper blew in during the night, dumping six more inches of snow. One more thing to interfere with my escape plan. No corn to hide out in. Nothing to eat along the way. Snowdrifts too big to bike through. I almost yearn to see soybean green again.

Every day this week has been the same. Snowplows wake me early, growling their way up and down the streets. I leave for school in the dark and come home in the dark, slipping and sliding on sidewalks covered with chunky ice. I like making snowballs and snowmen when the snow is soft, but now there's an icy crust on the top, making it hard. The snowplows pile dirty snow everywhere, and I have to take turns shoveling the front porch and sidewalk.

But then I smile, remembering that today is different. Today is my first day as tester and dabber.

I decide to take Mr. Lopez's paint memento to show Miss Peachcott. The treads on my Rover Sport's fat tires grab onto the cinders and sand without much sliding, just as they do on desert hardpan. And even though I don't like them, my Michelin-Man jacket and pants keep me warm.

“Come in, Frankie Joe,” Miss Peachcott says when I wade through the knee-deep snow to her door. “I've got your deliveries all sacked up. But we have other business to tend to first.”

I peel out of my parka and boots and sit down. A box of Girl Scout cookies is on the kitchen table. Shortbread.

“Help yourself to a cookie while I set up.” She pauses as she's gathering things. “And tell me when that jackrabbit mother of yours gets out of jail.”

I knew it! I knew she'd ask! I chew on a cookie for a long time, considering how much to tell her. Just the good stuff, I decide.

“Um, Mom gets out in July, but she's talking to a lawyer about a new hearing. She's thinking about going into business with her new friends, so I figure that will work in her favor. It shows she's being enterprising.”

“Business?” She frowns. “What kind of business?”

“I dunno. She didn't say.”

“Oh my, I hope she's not chasing rainbows.”

Rainbows again. I feel my shoulders droop.

“There's lots of things she can do,” I say. “She's worked all kinds of jobs before—in clothes stores and cafés and even a hardware store once. And I'll help her in her new business. Maybe I'll do deliveries for her.”

She looks surprised. “You're planning on going back to Texas?”

“Well sure, why wouldn't I? Mom needs me. I help her out a lot.”

She hesitates. “Well now, it's just that you seem to be settling in here so well. I'm sure Frank and Lizzie would hate to see you go.”

I don't say anything.

“Is she coming to get you? Or is Frank planning to drive you back?”

Enough questions. I don't want to slip up and say something about my escape plan. “Maybe we better get started. I have lots of homework.”

Miss Peachcott sits still as a stone as I work the black dye into white root hairs with the slanted eye-shadow brush. Stepping back, I survey my work.