2016 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide

by Maggie Allen

  She took the bag off of her shoulders and unzipped an outer pouch that would turn into a shopping tote. She held it out to Mac, still folded.

  He shook it out, but before leaving the counter, raised an eyebrow in the direction of her main bag. It sat on the counter, not quite flat.

  “Got anything to trade, or will this all be on credit today little menina?”

  She opened the main compartment of her bag and pulled out two white paper sacks. “A little trade, a little credit,” she said. She gestured to the tote he held. “Now fill that up.”

  He guffawed and walked back to the crate full of the unshelled black walnuts. He filled the little tote full to the brim with the small lime green spheres, some of which were already half crumbled away from the black shells. She really hated shelling the things – by the time she got done her hands would be black and the stain stuck around for weeks, but Nonna insisted. Unshelled were cheaper.

  Mac brought the bag back, hoisted it up to the counter, and took a second tote Nesi had unzipped off of the main compartment of her backbag. “Anything worthwhile?” he asked, gesturing toward the little white bags still sitting on the counter.

  She nodded and held one out to him. He took it quickly with a big meaty hand, greedy to see what Nesi had left from her daily deliveries. “A couple of avocado brigadiero and a mini rum cake,” she said.

  He opened the bag just barely and took a big sniff. His eyes rolled back in his head with pleasure.

  “See this,” he said, “is why you need one of them scent-preventing bags. Those mutts can spot you from a kilometer away!”

  Nesi laughed. “Yeah? You think Uncle Toni would spring for one of those? They’re like five times as much as the Sneaks and I had to pay for those myself!”

  “Yeah, that’s what makes Antonio a good business man, right there.”

  “What? Not caring about his favorite niece and best runner?”

  Mac waved a dismissive paw. “Nah. It keeps you on your toes, moving fast. Besides, you turned on those fancy hover shoes today, and they just made you bump into a whole lotta people you could have avoided.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “You almost knocked over that sweet little old lady,” he said.

  “What? Where? I’ve never met a sweet old lady in this whole town,” she said and made him laugh and laugh again.

  “Alright, alright, I’ll have to go to the back for what you really came for,” he said with a wink and pulled her cap down over her eyes.

  Nesi pushed it up and glanced around quickly even though most everyone else was gone. She didn’t want the wrong vendor to overhear and snitch Mac out.

  “Castanhas-do-parå and coconut flour!” she yelled to make sure no one got any ideas.

  He raised a hand to say he heard her already.

  After a few minutes of waiting, Mac came back out, lugging her second tote now full of bags of sugar, up to his counter. The little table shook when he set it down. Nesi was going to have a long walk home based on that thud.

  “That’s four and a half quilos of granulated white gold, my little friend.”

  Nesi’s eyes widened. “Why so much?” It was twice the normal amount. Nonna would be as pleased as peaches.

  Might even make Uncle Toni forget that she didn’t get the vanilla.

  “Eh, my other regular hasn’t been by in a while.” He chuckled. “Maybe the mutts caught him distributing.”

  “What?! Your other regular? Mac, you hurt my heart,” she thumped her scrawny chest. “Right here. It wounds me that you’d sell to our competition.” It didn’t wound her any that their competition mighta been picked up by the coppers.

  Mac just waved away her melodrama. “A man’s gotta eat, and that sweet little Vietnamese kid buys a lot of sesame paste – something your operation’s never even heard of. And he’s a lot nicer than you are.”

  “You selling your best black market product to the squints, Mac?”

  “Hey now. None of that talk. Besides, a credit’s a credit my little lass. If I cared about such things, do you think I’d sell to a carcamana like you?”

  She held out her arm. “Yeah, yeah. Take what I owe you, you filthy bourgeois pig.”

  He scanned her, taking his credits quickly and efficiently. Any other merchant in the whole place and Nesi would’ve bargained and battled for a solid half hour before agreeing on a price, but she’d been coming to Mac for years. Unless there was some sort of shortage, his prices stayed the same for her.

  He snatched up the other treat in its little white bag, peeked inside and said, “These guys’ll be for the missus.” He gave her a little salute with his empty hand. “Nice doing business with you, Ness.”

  She nodded, slung her now empty backbag onto her shoulders and picked up the totes from the counter.

  Nesi was barely up the stairs and out of the market when a hand grabbed the back of her shirt at the neck.

  Instinctively, she ducked and lunged forward, hard, and felt her shirt slip free.

  Nesi did not turn. She did not check over her shoulder to see who’d been waiting in the shadows to grab her or what their motive may be. Instead, she ran as fast as she could, gripping the too heavy totes tightly.

  Ducking down a narrow alley between a yellow house and a blue, boarded up building, Nesi clicked her heels together and willed her Sneaks to have juice left in them. They coughed briefly to life, shooting her three meters forward before they sputtered and died.

  Behind her, heavy footfalls pounded a steady rhythm.

  She pushed herself to run faster, risking only one more quick hop to try and revive the Sneaks, but it was no use. She’d used most of their battery during the market escape.

  Nesi turned another corner and another, twisting and twirling her way through every back alley and secret passage she’d ever used as a shortcut or a hideout.

  Finally, she risked a glance over her shoulder. She saw nothing. She slowed to a jog and readjusted her totes in her hands. She’d lost a few walnut spheres along the way, but the precious sugar was safe and snug in its paper bags inside her tote.

  She kept moving forward toward home while checking her supplies, which meant she was looking down when she bumped into the chest of her pursuer.

  “Caraca!” She spun away, but it was too late. Somehow he’d gotten in front of her, and now a copper had a large hand wrapped around her skinny bicep.

  She could wiggle free if she dropped her tote, but it contained a week’s sugar supply. She couldn’t abandon their most precious, and most expensive, ingredient in the dirty gutter.

  “Let me go,” she said, “I’ve done nothing wrong!” She tugged and flailed and squirmed, holding tight to the sugar, but the copper held even tighter to her arm.

  “Please calm down,” he said between heavy breaths.

  She had a brief moment of wonder that he spoke to her kindly and calmly, but she was too smart to be fooled by a gentle tone of voice. She did not calm down or stop trying to get away.

  He raised the hand not holding her and she flinched, thinking he was going to hit her, but he only held a small, dingy piece of paper in her face.

  “You’re not in trouble!” he said, thrusting the paper under her nose. She flinched again. “I need your help. I need a sweet. Here, this is a recipe. People said the De Luca’s are the best at new product, that you try things from all over the world.”

  Nesi stopped struggling to peer at the paper. She didn’t know what it said, of course, having never bothered to learn to read useless books, but she knew how to read people. This copper was desperate.

  “I’ll let you go if you promise not to run,” he said. “Please, please don’t run.”

  He slowly let go of her arm.

  She didn’t move, though she remained ready to bolt at the slightest indication of a trap.

  But what would be the point of trying to trap her? She was already caught, and carrying enough sugar to get locked up for a very long time, minor or no. If he wan
ted to find her family, that was easy enough to do. He could have just followed her home, or followed his nose.

  It was easy enough to find pastries in New Rio.

  It was harder to pin something on the families that made them.

  “Please,” he said again.

  “What do you need it for?” Nesi asked, skeptical but curious.

  “It’s an old family recipe, from the States. My grandpa copper used to love it and he’s dyi—.” A tear ran down the copper’s dark brown cheeks.

  Nesi set down her tote of walnuts and snatched the paper. She pretended to study it, mostly to avoid the awkwardness of watching a copper cry. She shoved the meaningless scrap in her pocket.

  “Can you make it?”

  “I’m no baker,” she said.

  “Your family then. Can they do it?”

  “Why’re you so desperate?” she asked.

  “My grandpa’s dying. All he talks about is the old days and how much he loved—” The copper looked around him, making sure no one’s listening.

  Nesi didn’t have the heart to tell him that even if someone had overheard, no one in their favela cared one ounce about a corrupt copper.

  “My family can make anything,” Nesi said, “But that doesn’t mean they will. I make no promises.” She moved around the copper, heading toward home.

  “Of course, of course. Thank you. I’ll owe you.” Just before she turned a corner, he called out: “How will I find you?”

  Nesi smiled. “Don’t worry your pretty head about it, copper, sir. I’m the best runner in all of New Rio. If we’re gonna do business, I’ll find you.”

  Nesi climbed up the three rickety staircases, threw open the front door and danced through the living room where rack upon rack of cakes and cannoli shells cooled, waiting to be stuffed and packaged and sent out with the runners first thing tomorrow morning.

  She finally dropped the totes when she made it to the kitchen. Nonna and Uncle Toni were already working away. Perfect. She would need them both to agree to the plan she had worked up on the way over.

  She said her hellos to Uncle Toni, gave the required kisses to Nonna, and pulled out the old recipe.

  “So I nearly got caught by the coppers in the market this morning.”

  They both stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

  “Obviously you got away,” Uncle Toni said. His hands were covered in dough and little pine nuts, but he stepped away from the pignoli he’d been balling.

  “Yeah. No sweat. Even better though, apparently one of them has a sweet tooth. He went through Mac to give us this.” A small lie, but she didn’t want Uncle Toni having a heart attack in the kitchen. He had baking to do.

  “Some sort of recipe?” Nonna asked, but Nesi didn’t hand it over yet.

  “I thought maybe we could make whatever’s on here and sell ‘em special. Since it came to us as a special request we could charge extra. It could make us a nice profit and create some goodwill, maybe. It wouldn’t hurt to have friends among the coppers. The other families do.”

  Nonna and Uncle Toni shared a look.

  Uncle Toni nodded. “We could always use friends. Let’s see it.”

  Nesi handed the paper to Nonna, who had the cleaner hands of the two. Uncle Toni moved to read over his mother’s shoulder.

  “Seems simple enough. We could do these.” Nonna said.

  Uncle Toni laughed. “Well done, kid. Looks like we just got a new menu item and an important customer. Want to be the first one to try the De Luca family’s brand new...” He squinted at the piece of paper. “...jelly donut?”

  Nesi grinned. Did she ever. Trying new product was the biggest perk of a runner’s job.

  Leafheart

  Anne E. Johnson

  Anne E. Johnson lives in Brooklyn. Her short speculative fiction for young readers has appeared in the 2015 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide, Rainbow Rumpus, Spaceports & Spidersilk, FrostFire Worlds (home to her Koob & Akilah dragon series), and elsewhere. She also writes short and long fiction for adults. As a way to give back, Anne is a long-time volunteer story judge at the website RateYourStory, and her “Kid Lit Insider” column about the children’s lit industry appears weekly on EatSleepWrite.net. Learn more about Anne on her website, AnneEJohnson.com.

  Her birth name was Harra, but everyone in the village of Deraheib called her Leafheart. She took comfort in the nickname. Ever since Papa died fighting the rebels, Leafheart decided she loved plants more than people.

  She trusted plants.

  A month after the rainy season, tiny yellow petals covered the chrysanthemum bushes by the stream. Every year. People weren’t like that. People changed. Or they disappeared forever.

  Leafheart was on her way to visit Minoo, a village elder, to get herbs for her mother. Mama used to be strong and happy. Since Papa died, she was droopy and sad. Some days she never got up from her sleeping pallet.

  As she walked along the dirt path, Leafheart stopped to wrap her toes around a tough stalk of wild sorghum growing straight up through the stones. Plants have no fear. She stroked the tendrils on a clump of its dark red blossoms. And plants are always beautiful.

  “Hey, Leafheart?” a bunch of village boys called, hanging upside down from the branches of an acacia tree. “Met any nice flowers lately?” asked one.

  “I bet she wants to marry this tree,” said another.

  The boys laughed and slapped their chests, but Leafheart knew they must be scared. Rebels were everywhere. Soon those boys would have to become soldiers. She caught the eye of Tabal, a tall and skinny kid with knobby knees. He looked away, as if he were ashamed of the company he kept. Smiling at him slightly, Leafheart went on her way.

  Like everyone in Deraheib, Minoo lived in a tukul, a hut with a thatched roof shaped like a cone. Before Leafheart reached Minoo’s home, Leafheart paused to gaze at the Red Sea Hills on the horizon. She loved how their gray stone sliced into the sky. They were more mountains than hills. Deep crevices cut through their sides, up and down from their peaks to the ground.

  As she looked around, her eye fell on a stack of brush a few meters off the road. The meadow was just long grasses and wildflowers, so she wondered why the twigs were there.

  “Harra! Stop your daydreaming.” Minoo stood in the doorway of her tukul. The shawl wrapped around her waist emphasized her wide hips. Her feet, as usual, were wrapped in yellow cloths she’d dipped in camphor. She always smelled like healing herbs. “I can’t stand here all day on these aching joints.”

  Leafheart hurried forward, head bowed. “I am sorry your joints ache.”

  The old woman backed into her hut so Leafheart could enter. “What were you thinking about outside? Your eyes searched for something in a different world.”

  “Just a pile of twigs, auntie.” Embarrassed, Leafheart shrugged.

  “You really love plants, don’t you?”

  Someday I will go to the city of Khartoum and become a great plant scientist. Leafheart didn’t think Minoo would understand, so she just shrugged and said, “They’re pretty.”

  “Being pretty is the least important thing about plants.” From a clay jar, Minoo pulled a small bag of brown shavings. “Here’s ginger root for your mama’s headaches. You remember how to steep it to make tea?”

  “I remember.” Leafheart and her sister had steeped medicinal tea for Mama more times than they could count.

  Minoo pulled down a smaller jar. This one had a lid. With a wooden spoon she scooped out a dollop of goo. “Acacia oil and clarified butter.” She scraped it into a plastic bowl. “Rub it on her muscles. I need the bowl back.”

  “Yes, auntie.”

  As Leafheart took the bowl, she was surprised that Minoo reached out and touched her face. Her old fingers felt dry against her cheek. “You have spirit ears, leaf-hearted Harra. Don’t just look at the plants. Listen to them. One day you will learn something from them that no one else can hear.”

  Leafheart’s mind swirled as she left the
tukul. Her mama waited for her medicine, and Leafheart had promised to pound some spelt grain so they could make porridge. But that pile of twigs across the road called to her.

  It wasn’t made of sorghum grass. Or combretum shrubs. Or birch branches. The brush pile wasn’t made of any plant Leafheart knew in the area. And she knew all of them, thanks to a book a traveling teacher gave her once. Plants of Egypt and the Sudan was her favorite possession. She couldn’t understand all the paragraphs, but she memorized the fancy words naming all the pictures.

  Leafheart decided to take Minoo’s advice and listen. “What are you?” she asked the pile of twigs. She could have sworn they rustled slightly.

  The closer she stepped, the more certain she was these were not ordinary twigs. Under their drab bark, Leafheart saw faint traces of every color of the rainbow. What had looked like nicks and knots from across the road now seemed more like notches, carefully carved into them. And then there was the smell. The twigs gave off a peculiar scent Leafheart couldn’t identify.

  “What are you sniffing, Leafheart?” The two village women staring at her carried baskets to fill at the market. “Don’t you have chores?” asked the one in the red and black dress.

  Not wanting trouble, Leafheart ran back to the road. “Can’t you smell that?” Closing her eyes, she sniffed the hot afternoon air. “Like salt and berries and gasoline and donkey dung and…”

  “Child!” scolded the woman in green and yellow. “We have too much work to stand around smelling twigs.”

  The one in red narrowed her eyes. “You’re the one who refused to help pull the seeds out of water lilies last year when the whole village was hungry.”

  “I remember that,” scoffed the woman in green and yellow. “You said they were too beautiful to eat. What a crazy girl. That lotus-seed porridge saved us.”

  Leafheart looked at her feet. The woman spoke the truth. But it still made Leafheart sad to picture how they tore up all those gorgeous white flowers.

  “Go home to your family,” said the woman in red.