by Sandra Smith
“Jiminez is gone,” she said again. “He’s gone to work more closely with the Movement.”
CHAPTER 7
Clare and Dante
The history of politics class had been very informative. Back home, Clare hadn’t succeeded in finding out much on the Monitor, and Ana had focused their time together on teaching the basics of seeds and planting, vegetable identification, and gardening vocabulary. So it was interesting to learn how and why things had changed and important as well. To understand how to get back from somewhere, you have to know the path that got you there in the first place.
“We learned about Nipungyo today,” Clare stated at supper.
John scowled.
“You know they still exist,” she continued. “We never really got to the part about why we don’t eat fresh vegetables, though. How did that happen?” She paused. “If you don’t mind my asking.” Clare knew Marissa wasn’t fond of answering a lot of questions. It was one of the regrets she had about her hosts.
Marissa clicked her tongue. “I can’t believe they didn’t cover that—”
“—We sort of ran out of time. Some people kept interrupting…”
John spoke. “Simple. Bottom line: It’s about money. It’s always about money. If they can get away with it, they do. Unfortunately, your people didn’t stand up long and hard enough to win the fight. Canada was going the same direction, but enough people rose up.”
It wasn’t much of an answer, but given the emotion sizzling under his words, Clare decided not to press.
“Oh,” she said.
“Dante, would you like more gravy? Sweetie, pass your brother more gravy.”
Clare told herself there would be other days. And even if Stan never lectured on it again, she knew he was open to questions. Plus, maybe she could ask another class member.
It was cold. Too cold to be outside, even at ten in the morning. And especially on a Saturday. Clare, in her fluffy pink robe, was just finishing a bowl of hot oatmeal for breakfast.
“Did you forget?” John teased. “Go on and get dressed now. January cider is the best.”
Cider? Cider? What did that mean again?
“Come on, we have a full bin of apples that’s been sitting in storage getting sweeter and sweeter. Marissa hates for anything to go to waste. She’s already out in the barn, doing it all herself.”
“Where’s Dante?”
“Oh, he’s with her. But, you know, he’s kinda little. ‘Course, he was a good worker last fall; I guess I should give credit where credit’s due.”
“Ohh, cider.” She remembered then. Cider was juice made from crushing and squeezing apples. The Woods had their own small apple press. It was Clare and Dante’s job to load the apples in and then keep up with the juice as it ran out. After that, they carried the cider to the house in buckets and canned it by hand. It was a small family machine, for home use only. The cider John and Marissa sold in the fall was produced, pasteurized, and sealed at a larger neighboring farm. This was more work, but according to the Woods, much easier than the old wooden machine they had used as children.
John loved telling Dante how they used to hand-crank the large wooden handle attached to the giant iron gears while the apples were fed into the shoot, sometimes one by one. After that, they pulled the ground apples forward in a bottomless bucket, piled blocks of wood over the apples, and squeezed it all down with a giant corkscrew mechanism, causing the juice to flow like a river into the pail below. They had a few pictures of the old machine, but the children were unimpressed. Clare and Dante loved drinking the cider, and that was all that mattered. While the Juice back home was tasty, and they had no complaints, it had always come from small, square boxes, and well, sort of had a flavor of small, square boxes. To have picked the apples off the trees themselves, and then to drink the juice from those very apples—well, it was a completely different thing.
It was drinking apples.
CHAPTER 8
Clare and Dante
“What’s that?” Clare asked. Mrs. Wood, Marissa, was admiring a magazine brimming with beautiful pictures of garden plants.
“Seed catalogue,” she answered, not looking up. “Oh, I’m sorry! Of course this is new to you. Come on over, Clare,” she said, motioning the girl closer. “I just love looking through these.”
Clare joined her, peering at the colorful pages. “But there’s still snow on the ground.”
Marissa smiled. “Yeah. We know. All the more reason to dream of spring.”
Clare couldn’t believe her eyes. She had learned about peas, but now she saw snap peas, snow peas, and shelling peas. Under each of those titles were individual names: Sugar Spring, Sugar Ann, Rembrandt, Dakota, Canoe, Maestro … There were numbers and letters and prices.
“Please tell me how all of this works,” she said.
“You haven’t covered this in class?”
“No. We started at the beginning—botany, soil, fertilizer. We haven’t talked about actual gardening. I mean, I learned some stuff from my teacher back home, Ana, and Gruff—remember I told you about him? But there is so much to learn. What is this catalogue, exactly?”
Marissa thought for a moment. “When you bought things at home, how did you shop?”
“In Stores.” It was a strange question.
“Online? Catalogues?” Marissa asked.
“No,” said Clare, her forehead wrinkling. “Shopping online at home isn’t something the average person can do easily—you know? And I’ve never even heard of catalogues.”
“Okay, yes, I should have realized that. A catalogue is sort of like a store, only through the mail. If I want, I can buy seeds at certain stores, but I can also send for them. Delivery is three days a week. For people who live out of town, it’s convenient. And the selection is much better in the catalogues. Even if I don’t buy anything, I like looking at all the new or heirloom seeds.” She smiled at Clare, peering above the bifocals slid low on her nose.
“What about online?” Clare asked.
“Oh, certainly it’s easier here than in the States, but I prefer the catalogues,” Marissa said. “I like holding them in my hands, circling what I like with a pen, putting sticky notes on pages I want to return to.” She winked. “I think I’m a throwback to my grandma’s generation.”
Clare had been learning about the 1980s in school. It sounded like an interesting time to live; before too much technology or so many restrictions. But it was such a long time ago …
Her brow furrowed as a new thought struck. “I thought people saved their own seed.”
Marissa laughed. “Some do. I save seed from a few plants. Cilantro, peppers, certain flowers. But this is easier. And it’s so much fun to look through catalogues and send for the pretty packets. What’s wrong?”
Clare’s mouth turned down in a frown.
“It’s just that … well … what’s the big deal about Seed Savers if you can just buy seeds?”
“Oh honey,” Marissa said. “It is a big deal. What if what happened in the States happened here? People who save seeds are important. And besides that, there’s a lot to be said for having seeds suited to an area. A lot of times the seeds I order from catalogues don’t grow well here. On the other hand, a locally grown plant and its seeds adapt to a particular place; it’s important.”
“I don’t really get what you’re saying.”
Marissa sighed. She loved having refugee youth stay with her and sharing her hospitality, but often felt inadequate as a teacher. She preferred the Garden Guardians do the instructing.
“Okay,” she said, flipping ahead in the book, “let’s look at the tomatoes.”
“Yes!”
Marissa pointed at a picture of some elongated striped red tomatoes. “Striped Roman. OP—that stands for open pollinated. You know about pollination?”
“Yes.”
“So with an open pollinated seed, you can save the seeds and when you plant them get the same tomato as from the original plant. And ove
r time, plants change and adapt to the local growing conditions and year-to-year climate. So if I were to save my own seeds, the plants from my seeds would be better for this area. That’s why most places have seed banks and seed libraries. It’s a way of having food security.”
“Seed banks? Seed libraries?” Dante walked in just as Marissa was making her point about open pollinated tomatoes. “Can I check out some seeds?” he asked, giggling. “How long do I get to keep them for? Do I hafta pay a fine if they’re overdue?”
“Oh, go away silly,” Clare said, unwilling to be interrupted.
“I’m hungry.”
“You are a growing boy. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for you to have a small snack.” Marissa saw the startled look on his face. “Not that kind of snack. Snack here still means eating a bit between meals, it’s not one of those ridiculous packaged food groups you’re used to … oh for heaven’s sakes.”
“Just warm up a bagel and have it with peanut butter,” Clare suggested, still nervous Marissa might get distracted before her questions were answered.
“Yes,” agreed Marissa, “that’s a good idea. Can you handle that, Dante? Clare and I are in the middle of something.”
“Of course,” he said in his best grownup eight-year-old voice.
“Tell me about the seed banks and libraries.”
“Hmm. Like I said, seed banks and libraries are about food security—that is—knowing you’ll always have food if you have access to seeds, and the ability to grow them, of course. A seed bank usually consists of volunteers who grow out plants that are good for the area, then harvest and store the seeds. When there is enough seed to give out to people who can use them, they also do that. But there is always seed in the vault, so to speak.”
Clare was nodding her head. “And seed libraries?” she asked.
Marissa chuckled. “Well, just like Dante said, in some libraries you can actually “check out” seeds. You take some home, plant ‘em, and remember to save some of the seeds to bring back at the end of the season. Instructions come with each packet, and there’s a code for Monitor instructions for those who prefer. I think each seed library works a little differently. They’re not everywhere, but Hudson has one.”
She wanted to ask Marissa if they could go sometime, but held back.
“One other thing,” Marissa said, “about the ability to buy my seeds every year versus the importance of seed saving—see these?” She pointed at a photo of some thick-looking tomatoes dubbed Kobe Beefsteak. “F-1, that means these seeds are hybrids. With hybrids, the pollen of two species, or varieties, has been crossed to produce a new plant. I sometimes order hybrid seeds, but I would never be able to save seed from these plants. They wouldn’t be true, wouldn’t grow these same beautiful tomatoes we see here. If anything ever happened and I couldn’t buy seeds, eventually I’d run out. People who plant and save non-hybrid, or open pollinated seeds from year to year are guaranteed a food source.”
“What about these?” Clare asked, pointing at the next page. “Heirloom? My mom said our Bible was an heirloom. I thought it meant an old thing passed down in families.”
“That’s right. All of these seeds marked heirloom are open pollinated seeds that have been grown and saved and passed down in a family or community for generations. Seeds with stories, some people say.”
Clares eyes moved over the page slowly, caressing each photo of plump tomatoes, reading the enchanting descriptions and histories of the seeds.
The catalogue snapped shut abruptly. “But enough of this,” Marissa said as she stood, “you’ve got a lot to learn every day. How’s your home-work load?”
“It’s not too bad. I think I can get it all done after supper—need help in the kitchen?”
“Thank you, dear, but I’ve got it covered.”
Clare figured as much, from the fragrance filling the room.
“Stew in the slow cooker?”
“Yes,” Marissa answered. “This weather is just stew weather, isn’t it?”
“Mm-hmm.”
CHAPTER 9
Lily
“Mebby it’s just special Seed Savers code,” Abner suggested.
Evelyn grimaced. “It’s computer code,” she said, trailing off, as if she were seeing some time in the past, a younger version of herself, a long time ago. She lifted her head and continued, “Or computer language or something—I never really understood—maybe I’m not even explaining it right.”
I stared blankly. “Computer?”
“Before we called everything Monitor, we had phones, calculators, tablets, cameras, televisions, computers, heavens, there were so many, and new things all the time; it was hard to keep up. Eventually we just started saying Monitor. But every now and then I fall back to the old ways … so whenever I say computer, think Monitor. Anyway, there were different computer languages and as time went on very few people really understood the inner workings. So it seemed almost like a secret code. That’s what I think it might be … computer code. But I could be wrong, could be something else altogether.” Evelyn was explaining her idea on what the other letters and numbers next to the Seed Savers names on Ana’s list might be. The ones that weren’t apparent street addresses or telecom numbers.
“Well that doesn’t help much.” I couldn’t believe I said it out loud. Luckily, Evie didn’t take offense.
“Not for you, I’m afraid. Did your friend understand it?”
“I don’t know. Stuff happened kind of fast.” I explained about Ana, Clare, Dante, and me, leaving out the names. Everything except the part about being the daughter of James Gardener. Okay, and the stuff about Trinia being spotted in my hometown recently. I did tell them about Arturo. Talking about him made me feel happy. Abner smiled knowingly.
I stayed with Abner and Evelyn for three days. They showed me pictures of their strawberry fields and answered all my questions about how the berries were used and why they were hidden. I even got to taste the leather, a way of dehydrating berries that Evelyn admitted wasn’t very productive because Abner and the grandkids ate it up as soon as it came out of the dryer! The leather reminded me of Sweeties, but the other things I tasted, jam and pie, were really good and like nothing I had tasted before, especially the pie, which Evelyn made from frozen strawberries. They told me the frozen berries—though very good, I thought—were totally different than fresh. I wished I hadn’t missed them.
Another afternoon, Abner and Junior and I walked the property with a metal detector looking for buried treasure. We found some very old pull tabs from ancient soda cans, three nickels, and other junky pieces of metal. It was fun and silly and for a brief time I was able to forget about the stresses of my life. As I watched Abner—belly hanging over his droopy and patched jeans—interacting gently with his young grandson, I was warmed by his loving tenderness and hopeful about a future with my father.
The best part, okay, so not the best part—that would be feeling like I had grandparents—was that Abner and Evie knew so many Seed Savers in Florida. For claiming not to be a part of it, they sure knew people. Not questioning me anymore about my plans, they plotted places along the way where I could stop on my journey south.
When it was time to go, Abner and Junior drove me to the next town—one with an actual bus station. The little boy told me a lot of nonsensical things about his toys, which I had a hard time understanding, but Abner remained unusually quiet, making the drive seem long. When we finally arrived, Abner climbed out and walked around to help me. He handed me a ticket purchased a day earlier.
“W-well Lily, it was nice to m-meet you. I sure h-hope everything works out. Y-you let us know if, if you can—how things turn out.” His eyes were watery.
I hugged him as if I’d known him my whole life and then boarded a bus that would take me closer to my father.
The bus was crowded, but thin as I was, I made my way to the back easily. Once my backpack was stowed, I studied the map and then glued my face to the window, not really registering the scen
ery, lost in thought as I was. Part of me had wanted to buy a ticket all the way to port, but Abner and Evelyn had insisted I get off “down the road a spell.” They said I’d enjoy meeting some “young people in the Movement.” Truth be told, the closer I got to my father, the more doubts wiggled their way into my head. Was he still in Cuba (if he ever had been)? Would I be able to see him in prison? I wondered whether I should have told Abner and Evelyn everything. Whether or not I should have communicated with Ma to let her know I was okay. Why, oh why, was I always acting first, thinking later, then forever keeping secrets?
So this stop was not totally unwelcome; it provided a diversion before my inevitable date with destiny.
At the first stop, I decided to get out and stretch my legs. That’s odd. An old gas-powered pick-up truck sat across the street, a man with dark hair and dark glasses looking my way; I could have sworn I’d seen the same old beater in Plant City. I hurried back onto the bus, unnerved.
It was mid-afternoon when I reached my destination. Evelyn had let my hosts know my arrival time, and I half-expected to see a grinning couple holding a large sign declaring, “Welcome Lily!” like I’d seen at a few other places. I should have known Seed Savers would be more discreet. NO ONE was waiting at the small bus stop. There wasn’t even a building, just a lonely sign and a bench. A wave of doubt washed ashore my soul as I stepped off the bus, the door slamming behind me. I looked around for Meg and Aaron—the couple I was supposed to meet. A small car drove toward me and slowed. The window rolled down, a young woman at the wheel. I recognized her from the photo and sighed in relief.
“Lily?”
I smiled and nodded.
“Hop in.”
I threw my pack in the backseat and scooted in next to it. As I pulled the door shut, a loud vehicle passed by, leaving dark exhaust fumes in its wake. I looked up in time to see the dirty, white truck speeding away.
