Look Out, Lancaster County

by Wanda E. Brunstetter

  “The table is set, Mom,” Esther said a few minutes later. “What else would you like me to do?”

  “You can open the jar of peaches and put it on the table.”

  “Okay.” Esther tapped Rachel on the shoulder as she neared the table. “How are things at school these days? Are you getting along better with that new boy?”

  Rachel wrinkled her nose. “School would be better for me if Orlie moved back to Indiana.”

  “Rachel,” Mom scolded. “Orlie and his family have as much right to live in Pennsylvania as we do.”

  “I wouldn’t mind him being here so much if he didn’t tease me, and if his breath smelled better.”

  “You don’t mind the horses, and their breath doesn’t always smell sweet,” Esther said. She placed the jar of peaches on the table and opened the lid.

  Rachel couldn’t deny that fact. Just the other day, when she’d gone out to the pasture to visit old Tom, he’d blown his hot, smelly breath right in her face. “What you said about the horses’ breath is true,” she admitted, “but the horses—and none of our other animals—say mean things or stare at me in peculiar ways.”

  Mom set the frying pan on the gas stove and turned on the burner. “When I met Orlie and his folks at church, I thought he seemed like a nice boy.”

  Rachel folded her arms and frowned. “You don’t know him like I do.”

  “Be that as it may, he’s still a child of God, and you should be kind to him.”

  Rachel thought about the day she had tried to scare Orlie with the mouse. She wondered if her plan backfired because she’d been trying to get even. Maybe if she did something nice to Orlie for a change, he would leave her alone.

  If any of Jacob’s cake is left Monday morning, I’ll take a piece to school for Orlie, she decided. A hunk of yummy cake might sweeten Orlie’s breath, too.

  Ding! Rachel jumped out of her chair when the timer on the stove sounded. “It’s done! I’ve got to take Jacob’s hurry-up cake out of the oven, let it cool, and frost it before he comes in.”

  Rachel grabbed two pot holders from a drawer near the stove. Whoosh! The heat roared at her as she opened the oven door. She carefully pulled out the cake pans. The cake layers looked a little browner than they should have. But they smelled good, and she thought that was a good sign. She walked carefully across the room and set the pans inside the refrigerator to cool them quicker. Then Rachel hurried to make strawberry icing.

  By the time Rachel had mixed the icing, the cake pieces felt cool enough to frost. She took the cake out of the refrigerator. Still no Jacob. He must not have finished his chores yet. She picked up a cake pan and turned it upside down over a serving platter. It didn’t budge. She tapped on the bottom of the pan with her hand. Nothing happened.

  “Something’s wrong with this cake,” Rachel complained to her mother. “It won’t come out of the pan.”

  “Try slipping a butter knife around the edges and see if that helps,” Mom said.

  Rachel did as her mother suggested, but the cake still wouldn’t come loose. She tried the other pan. It wouldn’t come out either. “Always trouble somewhere,” she grumbled.

  Esther stepped to Rachel’s side. “Did you grease and flour the pans before you poured the batter in?”

  Rachel squinted as she tried to remember what she had done. “Was I supposed to grease and flour them?”

  “I told you to,” Mom said. “When I gave you the instructions, I said to be sure you grease and flour the pans. It said so on the recipe card, too.”

  Rachel groaned. “I must have missed that part.”

  Just then, the back door opened, and Jacob stepped into the room, followed by Pap and Henry.

  “Happy birthday, Jacob,” Esther said, handing him the paper sack she had set on the counter when she’d first come up from the basement.

  “What’s this?” Jacob asked, smiling at Esther.

  Esther nudged his arm playfully. “It’s your birthday present, silly.”

  Jacob’s smile broadened as he peered in the sack. “Wow, a new baseball mitt! I’ve been hoping for one.” He hugged Esther. “Danki, sister.”

  Esther smiled, and Rachel frowned. The hurry-up cake she’d made, that was stuck in the pans, was a stupid gift compared to what Esther had given Jacob. She wished she could hide the cake so Jacob wouldn’t see it.

  Pap went to the storage closet and opened the door. Then he pulled out a fishing pole and handed it to Jacob. “This is from your mamm and me.”

  Jacob set the mitt on the counter and cradled the fishing pole in his arms like a mother would hold her baby. “Danki, Pap. Danki, Mom. I’ve been wanting a new one of these, too.”

  “Gern gschehne—you are welcome,” they said together.

  “Now it’s my turn,” Henry announced. He pulled a wooden yo-yo from his jacket pocket and handed it to Jacob. “I made this for you. Happy birthday, bruder.”

  “It’s real nice.” Jacob rubbed his hand over the shiny wood, then he slipped the loop of string over his finger, flicked his wrist, and bounced the yo-yo up and down. “Works real well, too. Danki, Henry.”

  “Gern gschehne,” Henry replied with a smile.

  Everyone looked at Rachel as if waiting to see what she had for Jacob. She groaned and pointed to the cake pans sitting on the counter near the stove. “My present’s over there, but sorry to say, I can’t get either one of the cake layers out of their pans.”

  Jacob’s eyebrows lifted high as he examined the cakes. “You baked me a cake?”

  Rachel nodded. “I tried to, and since I wanted to get it done before you came in from doing your chores, I made a hurry-up cake. Only thing is, I got in such a hurry, I forgot to grease and flour the pans.” Rachel motioned to the bowl of strawberry icing, and her chin trembled slightly. “Now I have a bowl of icing I can’t use, two halves of a cake I can’t get out of the pans, and nothing to give you for your birthday.” She hoped she wasn’t going to cry, because she figured Jacob would make a big deal out of it if she did.

  However, instead of making fun of her cake mess, Jacob grabbed a knife from the silverware drawer. He scooped up a glob of strawberry icing and slathered it on half of the cake. “Nothin’ says we can’t eat it right out of the pan,” he said, reaching back in the drawer for a fork.

  Pap grabbed a fork, too, and so did Henry. Mom stopped them. “With a little help from my spatula, I’m sure I can get the cake layers out of their pans.” She nodded at the stove. “I’m making Jacob’s favorite this morning—French toast. So no cake until we’ve had our breakfast.”

  “Oh, all right,” Jacob sighed, even though he was grinning. “I guess I can wait that long to sample some of Rachel’s good-smelling cake.” He thumped Rachel on the back. “Danki, sister. I appreciate it.”

  Rachel thought Jacob was only trying to make her feel better, but at least he hadn’t said anything mean about her messed-up cake. Next year, she would try to remember to do something really special for his birthday. Maybe she would make him a painted rock. Rachel was pretty good at painting rocks to look like various animals, even if she did say so herself. At least those didn’t have to be mixed, baked, or floured!

  Chapter 6

  Surprise Mondaag [Monday]

  As Rachel walked to school on Monday morning, her stomach quivered like it was filled with a team of fluttering butterflies flying in different directions. She carried a hunk of Jacob’s birthday cake in her lunchbox. She planned to give it to Orlie during lunch today and hoped he would be surprised. She also hoped the gift might make him quit pestering her.

  Jacob nudged Rachel’s arm. “How come you’re dawdling this morning? You’re slower than a turtle walking uphill.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are so.”

  “I am not walking like a turtle, Jacob.”

  Jacob grunted. “Jah, you are. Your name ought to be Rachel Yoder, the Slowpoke Turtle, and if you don’t walk faster, we’ll be late for school.” He poked her arm again.
“Why do you always drag your feet every Mondaag morning?”

  “I don’t always walk slow on Monday mornings.” Rachel kicked a small stone with the toe of her sneaker. “If you’re worried about being late, go on ahead. Don’t let me hold you back.”

  Jacob stopped walking and turned to face her. “You know I can’t do that. Mom would be madder than a hornet trapped in a jar of honey if I let you walk to school alone.”

  Rachel knew Jacob was right. When Jacob graduated from school after eighth grade, then what would Mom do? Maybe by then she would think Rachel was old enough to go to school without a babysitter. Maybe by then she would realize that Rachel was growing up and could walk alone.

  As a bright yellow school bus rumbled past, Jacob grabbed Rachel’s hand and pulled her farther to the shoulder of the road. Rachel looked at the English children staring out their windows. She wondered if she were English and attended one of their public schools, if she’d have to put up with anyone mean like Orlie Troyer. She supposed there were boys like Orlie in every school, but that didn’t make it any easier to think about facing him again this morning.

  Jacob nudged Rachel again.

  “What?”

  “That hurry-up cake you made for my birthday on Saturday tasted pretty good, even if Mom did have to dig it out of the pan.”

  Rachel wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or if Jacob was teasing her again, but she decided not to make an issue of it. “Danki,” she muttered, quickening her pace.

  “Now you’re walking too fast,” Jacob complained. “Can’t you find a happy medium?”

  Rachel just kept on walking. Her brother was obviously looking for an argument this morning.

  By the time Rachel and Jacob entered the schoolhouse, the butterflies in Rachel’s stomach quieted. However, at noontime, Rachel’s butterflies returned when her teacher announced that it was time for the scholars to eat their lunches. Should she give Orlie the piece of cake or forget about the idea? What if he didn’t like hurry-up cake with strawberry icing? What if her gift didn’t make him stop picking on her?

  She drew in a deep breath and hurried over to the shelf where the lunchboxes were kept. Orlie was already outside, sitting in his usual spot on the front porch. He looked at Rachel and wiggled his eyebrows. “Got any tuna sandwiches in your lunchbox today?” he asked with a silly grin.

  Rachel shook her head. “I packed my own lunch this morning. I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

  He smacked his lips. “Peanut butter’s pretty tasty, but I like tuna better.”

  Rachel wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I—uh—brought you something for dessert,” she said, sitting beside him.

  Orlie leaned toward Rachel. His breath tickled her neck, and she smelled the pungent aroma of garlic. She held her breath as she reached into her lunchbox for the cake and handed it to him.

  His eyebrows lifted. “What’s this?”

  “It’s some of my brother’s birthday cake, and I baked it myself.”

  As Orlie pulled the lid off the container, his eyebrows rose higher. “This cake sure looks strange. How come it’s shaped so funny?”

  “It stuck to the pan and we had to dig it out.” Rachel paused and licked her lips. “But it tastes okay, so it’s safe to eat.”

  “My mamm bakes lots of cakes, and none of ‘em has ever looked like this.” Orlie puckered his lips and made an oink-oink-oink sound. “This looks like something that should have been fed to the hogs. Maybe you should take some baking lessons from my mamm.”

  Rachel clamped her lips together. That’s what I get for trying to be nice. Giving Orlie a gift hadn’t stopped him from saying unkind things to her. In fact, it seemed to have made things worse. She shouldn’t have bothered bringing Orlie a gift. He sure didn’t deserve one—especially when he’d acted so ungrateful and had said mean things about her baking skills.

  Orlie continued to stare at the cake as he wrinkled his nose, like it smelled bad. Maybe it was his own dreadful breath he was smelling.

  Feeling like a balloon that had been popped with a pin, Rachel said, “If you don’t want it, then just throw it away.”

  “If you don’t want it, then just throw it away,” he repeated.

  Rachel was about to say something more, when Jacob and two other boys, Nate and Samuel, walked by. Nate stopped in front of them. “How come you’re sittin’ with her?” he asked, pointing at Rachel.

  Orlie shrugged and his ears turned bright red.

  “Maybe she’s his aldi [girlfriend].” Samuel snickered. “Orlie likes Rachel,” he said in a singsong voice. “Orlie likes Rachel, and she’s his aldi.”

  “No, I’m not Orlie’s girlfriend!” Rachel scooted quickly away from Orlie and reached into her lunchbox to retrieve the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d made. She took one bite, then dropped it back into the lunchbox. Her appetite was gone.

  After lunch, Rachel’s teacher clapped her hands and asked for the class’s attention. “Judging from the way many of you chose several books to read the last time the bookmobile visited our school, I thought it would be fun to have each of you in grades three to six write a story.”

  Rachel’s cousin raised her hand.

  “Yes, Mary?”

  “What kind of story?”

  Elizabeth tapped her pencil against her chin. “Well, let’s see now…. I think it should be a made-up story, but you can base it on a real person or some kind of true happening.”

  Orlie’s hand shot up.

  “What is it, Orlie?”

  “Should it be about someone living or dead?”

  “Either,” the teacher replied. “Just make sure you change things enough so the story is fiction and not something that actually happened.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Elizabeth tapped her pencil on her desk. “You can spend the next hour writing the story, and then we’ll do something else that should be both fun and interesting.”

  Rachel wasn’t excited about writing a story. She wished she could draw a picture instead, but she knew better than to disobey the teacher, so she set right to work on her story about the most unusual person she’d ever met.

  Some time later, Elizabeth clapped her hands together again and said, “Time’s up. Now you will each read what you’ve written. Rachel, would you like to go first?”

  Rachel knew her teacher’s question wasn’t really a question. It was a direct command for Rachel to get out of her seat, walk to the front of the class, and read the story she’d written. She took a deep breath and swallowed hard, hoping she wouldn’t throw up. If she’d known she would be expected to read her story in front of everyone, she would have written something else.

  Slowly, Rachel stood. Her legs felt like bags of rocks had been tied to them as she walked to the front of the room carrying her notebook in her shaking hands.

  Elizabeth smiled. “Go ahead, Rachel.”

  Rachel fought the temptation to bite off a fingernail and licked her lips instead. “Once there was a horse named Otis.” She paused and cleared her throat. “Otis was an unusual horse because he smelled like a stinking rose and liked to eat weird things. Most horses eat hay, oats, and corn, but not Otis—he liked to eat tuna sandwiches and garlic cloves.”

  As Rachel continued with her story, her cheeks became hotter. Did Orlie realize her story was about him? Did the teacher and the whole class know that, too? Rachel finished the story by saying, “So, if you ever meet a horse that smells like a stinking rose and likes to eat weird food, you’ll know it was Otis.”

  Rachel rushed back to her seat. She wished she could dash for the door and run all the way home. She didn’t know what had possessed her to write such a story. Had it been her way of getting even with Orlie for saying mean things about her cake?

  She grimaced. I thought I was done with trying to get even. I thought I had decided to try and be nice to Orlie. She reflected on the verse from Luke 6:31: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” I
wouldn’t want someone to write a story about me and say bad things—not even a made-up story.

  “That was an interesting story, Rachel.” Elizabeth’s forehead wrinkled. Then she nodded at Orlie. “Now it’s your turn, Orlie.”

  As Orlie passed Rachel’s desk, he gave her a sidelong glance. She noticed how red his ears were, and she wondered if it was because of her story or if he felt nervous about reading his own story in front of the class.

  Orlie shifted from one foot to the other, and his hands shook as he held on to his piece of paper.

  “Go ahead, Orlie, we’re waiting,” Elizabeth prompted.

  He cleared his throat and began. “Rosie the Raccoon had a problem.” He paused and cleared his throat two more times. “Rosie’s problem was that she didn’t know how to bake. In fact, she baked a cake once that stuck to the pan and looked like pig food.”

  Rachel’s ears burned, and she gripped the sides of her desk so hard her knuckles turned white. Orlie wrote that story about me! Rosie the Raccoon didn’t bake a cake that stuck to the pan. I did! She glanced around the room. I wonder if everyone knows.

  “Not being able to bake wasn’t Rosie’s only problem,” Orlie said. “She was a picky eater who threw away her tuna fish sandwich when she thought no one was looking.”

  He continued with his story, telling how Rosie got dizzy one day when she was twirling on a tree branch. Then she got sick and threw up.

  Rachel clenched her teeth. He’ll be sorry. Orlie doesn’t deserve for me to be nice to him.

  On the way home from school, Rachel felt so sorry for herself that she wasn’t watching her steps and tripped on a rock. Plop! She fell and skinned both knees. “Ouch! That really hurts,” she whimpered.

  Instead of offering sympathy, Jacob scolded her for not paying attention to where she was going and accused her of daydreaming.

  “I was not daydreaming,” she argued.