by Guy Antibes
The pay was less than what the two fetch-and-carry jobs made together, but more than either by themselves. He would start tomorrow, as soon as he could get a letter written from his parents giving their permission to work.
He reached his house just before dinnertime.
“I found a job!” Sam said to his mother, busy in the kitchen.
“That’s wonderful. Which inn?” she asked.
“I have a job at Washjoy’s Bakery.”
Tessa Smith frowned. “Washjoy’s? They aren’t the right kind of people,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“They are from the Western Provinces. They don’t worship Havetta like we do.”
Sam furrowed his brow. “Why does that make a difference?”
“Westerners worship family gods. They could believe in strange practices. I’m not so sure I can allow you to work for them,” she said.
“It’s not that they are unclean or anything. Their shop looked like the others, cleaner in fact.”
“But they are different from us.”
Sam felt exasperated. “But I’m different. I was fired because I am different. I want to learn, so I can have some opportunity. I need to rent my schoolbooks as I always have. If they do anything suspicious, I’ll quit right away. I’d rather deliver baked goods than muck out stables,” Sam said.
“We’ll talk to your father after dinner, but not before. If he gets mad, he’ll make everyone upset.”
Sam knew his mother’s words to be true. He helped her with dinner until Addy, his sister, arrived from her part-time job. Dinner went far too long in Sam’s estimation. The dishes were cleared. Rolph stood up to return to the forge, but Sam stopped him.
“I found a job, better than being a stable hand,” Sam said. “But Mother thinks it might not be suitable.”
“What can be less suitable than mucking after horses?” Rolph said.
“Delivering for the Washjoys,” Tessa said.
“Oh, I see.” Rolph sat back down. He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I don’t see that as a problem.” He looked at his wife. “I don’t think they will cloud his mind with false teachings. The boy has a hard enough time as it is. The Washjoys have a good reputation in Cherryton, those who will buy from them.”
Tessa’s eyebrows rose. “So you would approve of him working for their bakery?”
Rolph nodded. “One of my customers saw Sam sitting in front of The Golden Plume this afternoon.”
Tessa’s hand went to her mouth. “Not there.”
“They didn’t want me,” Sam said.
“Neither of us would approve of that place, my son,” Rolph said. “There are worse things than being exposed to someone’s wacky religion. I’ll give you permission, even if your mother won’t.” He looked evenly at his wife.
“When do you start?” Tessa said, with a tentative smile on her face.
“Tomorrow.”
That night, Sam looked up at the ceiling in his little room with his hands behind his head, thinking about the lessons he had learned. He was glad he had an ally in Miss Featherstone, but that was offset by the actions of Mr. Scrivener and Mr. Carter. The two men had to have colluded to fire him. It didn’t make sense any other way.
Mr. and Mrs. Washjoy were kind to him, but they were different, like he was. Perhaps that was one of the reasons they accepted him. They already knew about his disability. Most baffling was the behavior of his parents. He thought his mother would be his supporter in getting a new job, but his father ended up signing the letter with their approval.
He thought his father wouldn’t support him in anything that he did, but he had. Sam figured out that he might have misunderstood his father as much as he thought his father misunderstood him. His mother’s attitude was different from what he expected. She had showed him an unpleasant side that he had never noticed before.
Sam had always classified people into two buckets, those who supported him and those who didn’t. The second bucket dwarfed the first, but now he realized that people had different motivations, different expectations and different points of view. Sam didn’t know how he could use such insight, but he figured he might have to pay more attention to people, something that his focus on himself didn’t really permit.
CHAPTER TWO
~
M R. WASHJOY INSISTED THAT SAM CALL HIM TOM when he presented the permission letter before school, since the bakery was on the way. The smells of fresh-baked bread and pastries made his head swim as soon as he walked through the door.
“We have deliveries early in the morning. If you can do those, perhaps rather than pay you by the day, we can pay you by the delivery. You might make more money that way.”
“I have to get to school now,” Sam said, hating to leave delivery pay on the table. “But I can come early tomorrow.”
“Good. Let me show you something,” Tom said as he let Sam into the hot bakery behind the front shop. “This basket contains goods that are getting stale. Feel free to take whatever you like when you are here. The sweet things are typically snatched by my children, but if you come early, you might like what you find.”
Sam smiled. “Maybe I’ll take an item now, and I’ll see you after school” He grabbed two sweet rolls, ate one on his way to the schoolhouse, and put one in his bag for later. Tom had to use waxed paper for the sugared bakery goods since sugar icing stuck to pollen paper.
All in all, it appeared that Sam might like his seventh year in school, after all. He made it unscathed through the schoolyard and walked into the class shocked to see pollen-exercises listed on the board. He groaned. He would fail pollen-manipulation earlier than usual. In his other years, the teachers started with theory, which Sam understood and did well enough in to earn him a grade. He didn’t know how he could do such a thing if the coursework consisted of practical applications of pollen. The euphoria he felt walking up the steps to the school had evaporated as he plunked himself down on his seat at his desk in the back.
Miss Featherstone walked in and glanced at Sam, giving him a ghost of a smile. She looked a little guilty, but then Sam might be imagining her expression. How would he be able to cope in a course built entirely on practical uses of pollen?
She tapped on the desk. Sam couldn’t see the kind of pollen rod or whatever that she used. All he could hear was the sound.
“You have spent most of your schooling approaching pollen from a mundane point of view. This year you will learn a few advanced techniques. Not all our subjects will be so benign. We will learn how to harness pollen-manipulation for offensive and defensive means.”
Wally’s hand shot up. “We will get to make wards?”
Miss Featherstone sighed. “Wards and armor. You will learn how to quickly make shields and swords. You will be timed in creating tents, umbrellas, canopies, boxes, all kinds of things. Note that I said timed. It isn’t just that you can make these things, many of which you learned to craft before you even started school, but to make them fast. Your proficiency will be noted. How well you do may have a bearing on what kind of apprenticeships you will be able to apply for.” She looked around the class. “Can someone tell me what wards are?”
Hands shot up. Sam kept his own on the top of the desk. Miss Featherstone called on a girl in the front.
“Wards are paper-thin pollen mats that do things when people touch them. It is one of the pollen’s few applications where something happens when the pollen is disturbed. They might send a signal back to the maker that it has been moved or touched. My father uses a ward over his weapons chest where he keeps his sword and knives. If one of my brothers opened it up, he would feel that the ward had been violated.” She smiled a bit too smugly for Sam’s taste.
Miss Featherstone called on Gob Carter.
“Will we learn how to make explosive wards?”
“And what is an explosive ward?” the teacher asked.
“It’s where you have an explosive layer of pollen and a layer like Mindy talked
about. When the top layer is disturbed, the explosion goes off. I think they are illegal in Cherryton,” another girl said.
Sam sighed. How could he not be laughed at for not being able to do anything with pollen? He shook his head, wondering how he was going to cope for the rest of the year and beyond when school ended. He tried to listen to Miss Featherstone’s lecture on the principles of advanced techniques, but his mind seemed to drift aimlessly, bouncing against his disability and his anxiety at being constantly shown how useless he was.
Class ended for recess. He rose, but Miss Featherstone stopped him.
“Close the door,” she said.
Sam didn’t like the serious face on the woman.
“You will have problems in this class if you sit with a black cloud over your head,” she said. “You have had trouble in this class since you started, right?”
Sam nodded.
“So, I will give you a special assignment. I want you to come up with applications that can be solved with pollen. If the class works on wards, come up with a set of wards that people can use. I will base your grade on your creativity and understanding of pollen, not on how you can or can’t manipulate it.”
The woman’s proposal made Sam speechless. He had always viewed pollen magic with distrust, and now she wanted him to be creative with it?
“I guess I can try,” Sam said.
“You’ll have to do more than try. I’ll want a practical application of pollen by the end of the week. I want you to take notes during class while the others are struggling to learn how to create wards. Only a few of them will be successful.”
“I understand, Miss Featherstone. I never thought about participating in anything related to pollen before.”
“Pollen is all around you, like it or not,” she said. “Even if you can’t see it, there is no escaping its existence. Now, go out and enjoy recess.” She gave him a smile.
Sam never mixed with the others during recess since many of the games were based on pollen balls or mallets or bats. He couldn’t be included even if he had wanted to be. Could he be creative with pollen? He couldn’t taste or see it. The only thing that he could do was smell burnt pollen. He could hear it if someone dropped something made of pollen on the floor of the school, and he could feel it, but not well. He shook his head and stood. Moping around was never good for him, so he left the yard and ran into the stretch of woods that bordered the back part of the school. He could always exercise, and today that’s what he needed.
Someone rang the school bell. Sam ran through the yard before the rest of the students had filed into the building. At least he didn’t have to think about pollen until tomorrow.
~
“How am I going to carry all this?” Sam asked Mr. Washjoy. “I’ll mash it all.”
“There is that,” the baker said. “You can’t use pollen to make a sectioned bag, can you?” He put his hand on hips and looked at the bags with notices on them.
Sam couldn’t see some of the bags, but Mrs. Washjoy had already put paper tags on those before Sam had arrived from school.
“Is there a cart that I can use?” Sam said.
“We have one out back. If you can fix it up, you can use it. We’ve cobbled it together with pollen, but I think we’ve done all the cobbling the thing can handle. Perhaps if you found some tools, nails, and a few boards, you could make it work.”
Sam trotted to the back of the bakery. Mr. Washjoy had added more baking space onto the back, but he found the cart sitting in the garden. Weeds grew up through the holes in the cart. The wheels wobbled, but it looked repairable to Sam. But then what did he know? His father might.
Using cloth bags to carry the deliveries, Sam had to hustle since he couldn’t carry much with him. He didn’t finish until about dinnertime. The cart would barely roll, but Sam managed to get it home.
“What is that pile of sticks doing in our front garden?” Rolph said as he walked into the house.
“It is Mr. Washjoy’s cart. I was wondering if I could get some help fixing it up to make my deliveries easier,” Sam said.
“I think Mark is making it worse,” Tru said, entering the house.
Rolph hurried outside. “What do you think you are doing?” he asked Mark, who was kicking at the cart.
“Isn’t this here for firewood?” Mark asked. He couldn’t wipe the sly smile from his lips.
“You know better than that, son,” Rolph said.
Tessa and Addy joined Sam, Rolph, and Mark in the front.
“I can still fix it,” Sam said.
“If you can get it to the smithy, I’ll help,” Rolph said.
Sam smiled inside that his father was willing to help him.
~
Sam didn’t need much help fixing the wooden box, but Tru and Rolph greased up the axles and made a new swivel for the front wheels. Sam was able to find enough wood scraps for the rest. Mark stood around, giving Sam a bad time while he worked. By now, Sam was used to Mark’s verbal jabs and just ignored him.
He took the little cart to the bakery and let Mr. Washjoy inspect it.
“Good work,” Tom said. “You can use it now.”
Sam piled all he needed to deliver inside and went on his way. The deliveries were fine until towards the end when the wheels started clattering on the cobbled payment.
The next customer, an older woman, looked inside her bag. “There are too many crumbs in the bottom. I won’t accept another delivery from Washjoy’s if they sell me little pieces of bread. I want the whole loaf.” She shut the door in Sam’s face.
Another customer complained before Sam wheeled the cart back to the bakery.
“We will have to have a smaller load the next time,” Tom said, giving replacement loaves to Sam to deliver to the complaining customers.
The angry woman was mollified by the replacement. It was Sam’s last delivery before dinner. He wondered if there was something he could use to pad the inside of the little cart. He woke with the solution.
Sam made a few morning deliveries without the cart and hustled off to school. He spent half the morning working on his pollen design. Then he took the dimensions of the cart that he had recorded while he was delivering and brought it to Miss Featherstone as recess began.
“My first creative assignment,” Sam said. “I want a pollen cushion for the delivery cart that I use for my after-school job.”
“Show me your design.”
Sam gave it to her.
“What are these holes for?”
“The pollen has to be made soft, so it can cushion the load. It’s sort of like how you can fall on a haystack and not get hurt.”
“Ah, that’s a bit different from a pillow,” Miss Featherstone said.
“A pillow wouldn’t last long before the pollen breaks down, I think.”
She smiled at Sam. “That’s why I use a goose down pillow rather than one made of pollen when I sleep,” she said, winking at him. “Good. We will get the class together tomorrow and have the students try it out. I’m sorry you won’t be able to judge the results since you won’t be able to see the cushions.”
“Yes, I will. I’ll put my book on it and see if it feels right.”
~
“We are going to try one of a series of creative uses of pollen. We will be making a cushion. It can’t be too hard or too soft. Harder than a pillow, but still soft.”
“Like a chair cushion?” Glory Wheeler said. She was a blonde girl who had mostly slipped beneath Sam’s notice, being small and not much more sociable than he was. She sat on the front row, and he sat on the back.
“Right,” Miss Featherstone said.
The students all tried. They put their work on their desks. Sam took his book bag and tested each attempt. Some were ridiculously soft. Others were uneven, and Miss Featherstone prompted Sam to bounce the book bag on a deficient area.
“This is unfair,” Wally Scrivener said, complaining after Sam rejected his poor attempt at a cushion. The boy glared at Sam a
s he passed.
The chair cushion girl, Glory, produced the best attempt.
“I want you all to test Glory’s work and then feel all the rest. You’ll get a better idea about what Sam was looking for.”
The students roamed about the room, pushing and prodding the pollen cushions. Sam couldn’t see the cushions, but he listened to all the comments.
“Now for the rest of the class, I want you to try to recreate what Glory Wheeler made. Try her cushion again, if you want.”
The students went to work again. Sam watched them examine Glory’s work and tried to duplicate it. Miss Featherstone had Sam test the cushions again, and he approved of over half the attempts. Even Wally’s passed.
“I’ll need a student to help Sam make more of the cushions. We actually worked on practical uses for our project today. Sam works with Tom Washjoy, one of Cherryton’s bakers, and delivers baked goods around town. He uses a cart that needs padding, so the products don’t get too jostled by the time they are delivered.”
Glory Wheeler raised her hand. “I’d be happy to. Maybe Mr. Washjoy will give me something sweet to eat.” She grinned.
Hands shot up with offers to help, but Miss Featherstone picked Glory.
After school, Sam walked with Glory. She had made a pollen net to carry her cushion to the baker’s shop.
“Oh, I see. This fits exactly,” she said as she placed the cushion on the bottom of the cart. “You did so well…” Left unsaid, Sam could nearly hear the rest of her words proclaiming him to be without magic.
“Can you make sides?” Sam asked.
She nodded and spent half-an-hour making sides and joining all of the slabs of pollen cushions to each other. Mrs. Washjoy walked out with bags of products. She packed them in between the cushions and giggled.
“This is so much better. Where did you ever get the idea?” Mrs. Washjoy asked.
“I didn’t want to go on short delivery runs,” Sam said. “I thought pollen cushions might help. I told Miss Featherstone, our teacher, and Glory made the best cushion. Could she get a treat for helping me?”
