by A N Sandra
“Lourdes has some too. She’s been helping me build a fence for the goats.”
“I’m sure Lourdes will be in charge of the chickens and the goats by the end of the day.”
“Even though your dad told her that we may end up eating some of them, she named them all.”
“Of course, she did,” Helena sighed. “I can’t wait for better food than this power bar. Please tell me we’re having dinner tonight. I’ll kill a chicken myself if I need to.”
“I think the only person who can cook is my mom, and she’s busy sorting parts to put the storage building together. I don’t think she’s making any dinner.”
“Show me the food supply and I’ll see if I can figure out dinner,” Helena said.
“Can you cook?”
“I might have some very primitive skills.”
Under several camouflage tarps were boxes and boxes of food. There were lots of dried beans and rice, protein powders in all manner of flavors, cases of vitamins, and dried meat. Canned veggies and canned meat were stacked next to dried fruit and huge sacks of flour and sugar and boxes of baking supplies. Massive sacks of potatoes lay on a large box.
There was a makeshift kitchen with a large griddle and a small camp stove hooked up to a propane tank. Assorted kitchen utensils were haphazardly stored in the general area.
“I think I can make chili if we have spices,” Helena said thoughtfully.
“Right here,” Duane showed her a box filled with three identical sets of seasonings.
“Cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder,” Helena took them out of the box. “I need to get started on a quick soak for the beans; show me how the stove works.”
“You can really make chili?” Duane sounded suspicious.
“I’ve helped Maria do it lots of times,” Helena told him. “It’s not going to be as good without fresh chilis and onions, but it should be better than another protein bar or those MREs.”
Helena chopped awkwardly, guessed at the required amounts of spices, and probably stirred way too much, but her efforts paid off.
“Baby, this is amazing,” Mr. Harris told Helena after downing his second bite of chili. “Just amazing.”
“It’s really good,” Peter grinned.
“I’m very impressed,” Helena’s mother said. “I’ve never cooked anything this good in my life.”
“You, my dear, are an angel,” Mr. Todd said. “Are you our camp cook now?”
“I can try,” Helena smiled.
“Forget about the garden,” Duane shoveled chili into his mouth. “You have real work here.”
“Working in the garden is fine,” Helena told him. “It’s hard, but it’s kind of fun. It’s an unexpected turn in life, but I think I like gardening.”
Helena’s mother gulped as if sobbing.
“Are you okay, Mom?” Peter asked.
The first Mrs. Harris nodded, and put a bite of chili into her mouth quickly.
Everyone took their plates to a makeshift sink and washed their own dishes before laying them out on towels to dry. Helena put her bowl and spoon down after washing them and went to lay out her sleeping bag for the night.
“Helena?” Christina said.
Helena turned to her mother with a quizzical look.
“I know you probably aren’t very happy with me, but if you want to talk at all, about anything, I’m here.”
“Why would I ever need to talk to you about anything?” Helena asked lightly. She turned away quickly, before she could develop the lump in her throat that characterized her relationship with her mother.
As soon as the sun came up Helena was in the “kitchen” mixing pancake batter. She’d helped Maria make pancakes for Saturday morning breakfast for most of her life. She knew the recipe by heart, but to make enough for everyone she’d doubled it, and preheated the grill. The first two burned on the outside but were raw batter in the middle. Helena readjusted the grill temperature. The next two wouldn’t cook, no matter long she watched them.
“Having trouble?” Duane asked.
“Don’t look,” Helena whined. “It’s a disgrace.”
“First the griddle was too hot, now it’s not hot enough?” Duane asked.
“How did you know?”
“Every Tenderfoot Scout learns this lesson,” Duane told her. “You have to set the griddle like this,” he turned the dial, “but you need to see how much steam comes off when you put a little drop of water on...” A small drop of water hissed a tiny bit before a wisp of steam came up over where it had been.
“Okay,” Duane said. “Now a little oil, not much.”
Helena ran a paper towel with a little oil over the griddle the way she had seen Maria do.
“Now pour a ladleful of batter, slowly.”
Together they watched the pancake form tiny bubbles as it cooked.
“Now?” Helena asked.
“Wait.”
“Now?” The bubbles were bigger.
“I’ll tell you when.”
Helena shifted from one foot to the other, hoping the pancake was not burning.
“Now.”
Helena turned the pancake over, leaving a small trail of batter across the griddle, and it was a lovely brown velvet color.
“That one’s mine,” Duane said.
“You got it,” Helena said. When he nodded she flipped it on a plate for him and began to hone her technique on the next pancake.
“Hey, Dad,” Helena said. It was the second day she had seen him wearing Carhartt work clothes instead of the Armani suits he had worn her whole life, except the days he hung out around the ranch in his country western clothes. It seemed odd to see him dressed like the plumber. “Want a pancake?”
“You are an amazing.” Mr. Harris smiled. “I would love a pancake.”
The storage building was ready to be assembled.
“This is going to be like an old-fashioned barn raising!” Mr. Harris was so excited it was touching.
“I didn’t know you had such a pioneer spirit, Dad,” Peter said.
“I’m a Texan!” Mr. Harris exclaimed. “Building things is in my blood. The Harris family—”
“I know,” Helena said. “The Harris family built Texas all by itself, we are Texas. Except now we’re in Alaska.”
“The only state good enough for us after Texas,” Mr. Harris smiled.
Helena smiled back.
“I have a chart with everyone’s assignments,” Mr. Todd said. “We’ll spend some time this morning getting organized and then we’ll get to work.”
Mr. Todd’s chart was impressive, with color-coding and lots of details. After they had studied it and discussed their part, Mr. Todd assigned jobs to everyone and they went to work.
After four hours they were eating power bars while looking at the shell of a large building. The sides had gone up over the frame like putting on a glove. Everyone had been carefully chosen for their assignments and stood back looking at the work that had been accomplished.
“We could do anything!” Mr. Todd enthused, drunk on the success of watching his careful plan come together so smoothly.
“Like save the world,” Peter commented. His mother sighed as if she had been punched.
Everyone became suddenly silent with only the sound of chewing being carried on the early afternoon breeze.
So, Christina, Ray, Peter and Tawna will be working to finish the inside of the storage building, and Duane and Lourdes will be working on the fence for the goats. Helena will work on the garden and make dinner and Miss Jan and I will be marking off the locations of our future homes,” Mr. Harris said.
“What are we having for dinner?” Ray asked.
“I’m not sure,” Helena was annoyed to admit. “Pancakes and chili were two things I helped Maria make all the time. We have lots of pasta and canned tomatoes, I’ll probably make pasta of some kind.”
“Pasta sounds good to me,” Mr. Harris said quickly. “I know we had such a productive morning that
it seems like we did enough, but we really shouldn’t waste the afternoon.”
“I agree,” Mr. Todd said. “Let’s go.”
Before thinking about dinner, which was at least four hours away, Helena went back to the garden to cultivate some more land and water the plants that had already been planted.
The garden was not planted in long rows like the garden that had been on their ranch as she grew up. It was planted in squares that were six feet by six feet. The ground was cultivated, then nutrients and worms were added to the soil, and then it had been marked into squares and planted.
So far mostly cool weather spring crops had been planted because even though it was the middle of June, and back in Texas the heat was certainly raging, the mountain meadow only reached the high seventies in the middle of the day. Peas had been planted with an interesting trellis made of PVC pipe for them to crawl up as they grew, although the peas had not grown at all yet as far as Helena could see. There was a six-foot box of lettuce, one of spinach, one of carrots, some herbs, and cabbages.
Helena looked at the list she had. She had cultivated two boxes yesterday, and would try to do another one now, although the mountain soil was quite difficult to dig. They still needed boxes for squash, corn, tomatoes, peppers, onions and potatoes. Many of those plants were now “starts” in little plastic pots waiting to be transplanted. Each of those things needed two boxes. They should be finished and planted as soon as possible.
“I bet when I’m done with this box Duane will help me plant the boxes that are finished tomorrow,” Helena said to herself. She remembered the garden at the ranch. She and Maria had visited it every morning and picked fresh salad ingredients, or things to mix with meat for fajitas. “As soon as we have peppers, I’m going to fix fajitas,” Helena promised herself as she turned on the cultivator.
Can you believe how fast it’s growing?” Helena showed Duane and Peter the pea shoots that
had finally broken through the soil. “The lettuce is huge!”
“Well, not huge,” Peter smiled. “But it has grown a lot in just a week.”
“The carrot tops look like lace.” Helena was quite pleased. “I’m pretty sure that we’re going to have a great crop!”
“You’re doing really well with taking care of it,” Duane said. “I really can’t tell the difference between what your mom planted before you got here and what you planted yourself. You work really carefully.”
“The hardest part is keeping the rabbits out,” Helena groaned. “I’m like Mr. McGregor with his rake.”
“No one can say you’re not trying. Besides, they haven’t gotten much.”
“Because I sleep out here in the middle of the garden.” Helena smiled with a stealthy look in her eyes. “Constant vigilance.”
“You’re getting pretty good with the air gun!” Peter said.
“I am surprised at how much fun it is to use,” Helena admitted. “I guess I was always a vicious garden warrior, I just didn’t know it.”
“That’s you,” Duane smiled. “Garden Warrior.”
“What are you making for dinner tonight?” Peter asked.
“Something good,” Helena told him. “That’s edible.”
“I can’t wait to start getting the houses framed and done like we did the storage shed,” Peter said.
“You’ll be sad to sleep inside now that you’ve been outside so long.”
“Not in the winter,” Duane said. “It’s fun to put a building together. We’ll have to do most of it without Dad though, he’s so busy working on the generator.”
“I am really curious to see the generator that’s going to stay in the storage shed but make enough electricity for three houses,” Helena said skeptically.
“The houses are going to be very, very small,” Duane said.
“Stuck in a small house with Tawna and Ray and Lourdes all winter,” Helena grimaced. “It’s going to be torture.”
“There won’t be room for all of you in one house,” Duane told her. “You’ll probably have to live with your mom.”
“Hmmm,” Helena said. Inwardly she put up resistance but tried not to look like a spoiled child in front of Duane by denying what she hoped to avoid. “We’ll see.”
“The houses are only about five hundred and fifty square feet,” Peter said. “I looked at the plans that came with the kits. We might have to live with Mom.”
“We’ll see,” Helena said. She hoped she sounded casual, but her stomach soured at the very thought of trying to live with her mother. It had taken years to give up the idea that she might have a loving mother. Revisiting that idea was not something she was willing to do.
“I’ve spent more time with her in the last week than I have in years. I think it would be okay,” Peter said.
“That woman gave birth to me, but she isn’t my mother.”
“We don’t have to talk about it now, anyway,” Peter said quickly.
“I’m going fishing later, you guys want to come?” Duane asked.
“I do,” Helena said. “I love to fish.”
“Really?” Peter asked, surprised.
“It’s part of my new backwoods Garden Warrior persona.”
“I think I’ll keep an eye out for rabbits with the air rifle while you’re gone. You shouldn’t have all the fun.”
Going fishing alone with Duane was almost a date, Helena told herself. Back in Texas her father would have had a fit if she’d told him she was dating a college boy, but no one would care if Duane took her fishing today. He was handsome, smart, and taking the changes in his life surprisingly well. He’d made a point of being friends with her, maybe he liked her. Maybe. She’d never ask. The possible humiliation would be too intense.
“Why am I not surprised that you’re good at catching fish?” Helena asked after Duane put a third fish on a line he was keeping in the creek to keep the fish cold.
“Years of Boy Scouting, probably not natural talent,” Duane said. “You’ve caught two yourself.”
“Because you helped me,” Helena answered. “I know how to make my own fried fish. Maria always started with a whole fish and made her own breaded fish.”
“Sounds great!” Duane said. “In Boy Scouts we just put them in foil packets with butter and herbs.”
“That doesn’t sound bad either.”
“You don’t ever talk to your mom; did you notice that?” Duane asked.
“Wow, what a subject change!” Helena tried to laugh, but she could hear her own falseness and felt embarrassed.
“Peter doesn’t talk to her a lot, but you never do. You don’t really believe this whole mess is her fault, do you?” Duane asked. “‘Because that wouldn’t be fair.”
“I barely know the woman, she worked on her project my whole life. She is not really a mom to me the way your mom is to you. I don’t really blame her. I barely understand this situation, but I don’t think this is her fault alone.”
“Okay. It isn’t really my business anyway. I’m not happy about missing MIT, losing my childhood home, and all the trappings of wealth I had enjoyed. But I don’t blame anyone here. Blaine Hollister and his creepy narcissistic friends are who I blame.”
“To be perfectly fair, though,” Helena qualified, “anyone should have been able to guess that the world leaders behind this project would have their own agenda.”
“Both of our fathers trust people too much,” Duane agreed. “They probably had no business working together because they are both too optimistic. But that doesn’t make the evil plans of other people their fault.”
Helena knew that was true, but she didn’t have a good response. She was rescued by a fish.
“Ha! Look!” Helena’s fishing line went taut. “I’m catching up with you!”
This toast is to our hard work coming to fruition!” Mr. Todd said, holding up a large bottle of champagne in one hand and a plastic cup in the other.
“To our hard work!”
“Cheers!”
“Yeah!”
The storage building was completely done, watertight, and wired for the electricity it would receive when Mr. Todd was finished building the generator. The small chicken coop on the back of it housed chickens that were safely secured with copious amounts of chicken wire, protected from the natural predators of the area. The goat pen was secured to the other side of the storage building, with a small shelter to keep the goats safe from the winter weather that would surely come. All the supplies that had been housed under camouflage tarps were neatly labeled and stacked inside.
“The best is yet to come!” Miss Jan said. “Tomorrow we start to put up our own houses!”
“I’m ready!” Christina grinned ear to ear.
“I love sleeping in the garden,” Helena said regretfully. “I am winning the war against the rabbits.”
“No one ever thought you’d lose,” Mr. Harris told her. “You’re my kid, a Texan.”
“Rabbits are tougher enemies than you might think.”
“Some of the toughest enemies don’t look tough, do they?” Joel Harris said.
CHAPTER 12
July 9th, Manhattan, NY
No, it’s better this way,” Dan insisted, putting down his phone to look Sadie in the eye. They were at his kitchen table in the Village. “Just don’t wreck it and you’ll be fine.”
“I’m not that much of a celebrity. I can rent my own car.”
“I’m not renting a car, and you’re not either. The Hollisters don’t need to know anything we’re up to.”
“I’m not a great driver,” Sadie admitted. “I only got my license to prove I could. I can barely drive. I probably shouldn’t be driving a rental car rented with your roommate’s credit card.”
“That doesn’t make you different from anyone else in New York,” Dan told her. “Just drive slowly and don’t be afraid to flip people off if you need to. Nick is so in love with you he wouldn’t mind if you felt bad for wrecking a rental car in his name. You could take him for coffee to make up for it.”
