She thought about all this as she added a fourth layer of chicken wire to the bottom edge of the fence, just a few weeks into the season. So far, she’d grown nothing but bad luck, and she longed for an explanation.
It couldn’t be anything as simple as the fact that the Harveys kept a dog and she didn’t. She’d seen their dog. That dog was no more of a farm dog than those bright-eyed fluffballs that got paraded around the dog show once a year, preening for the crowd and the TV cameras.
Janis liked dogs fine, but she preferred useful ones. She never kept a dog because she didn’t want to upset the chickens. Stress was bad for the eggs, and with the critters waging war on her vegetables, those eggs might be her salvation. What an embarrassment! At this rate, she’d be the last farmer in the county to see a ripe tomato. Usually she was among the first, offering rare heirloom varieties that made tomatoes her specialty. She was the only farmer around who still grew Lester’s Perfected, and she was deeply proud of the fact. Now that was a tasty tomato.
Janis leaned on her shovel and gazed down the hill, where the Harvey’s tomato-red farmhouse perched in the distance. Could it be the dog? It couldn’t be. That pampered pooch was a house dog, one hundred percent. Why, if it ever met a rabbit it’d probably make friends with it! There had to be another explanation.
Then again, she’d clearly underestimated the Harveys. Maybe she’d underestimated their dog, too.
* * *
The two-legged farmers of Prune Street Farm may have fallen down a rabbit hole of inexperience, but what about Alice? Did she ever consider what the farmer-people might think about a vegetable garden that planted itself, sprouted by itself, and went on to mind itself better than most gardens get minded, even by the most skilled and devoted garden-minders?
In a word, nope. It never occurred to her, and you can chalk that up to a lack of experience, too. Like any cottontail, Alice had gotten an earful about farmers since the day she left the nest, but she’d never heard one word about how farmers themselves felt about things. Farmers were just an idea to her, not complex individuals who might be full of feelings and thoughts of their own, the way animals were.
Alice had no more insight into the mind of a farmer than the average human had into the mind of a rabbit. Yet now that she was a farmer herself, a quiet change had begun. Her thoughts just naturally started to take on new, more farmer-like opinions and preoccupations. She began to care about the things that farmers care about, and to worry about them the way farmers were inclined to worry.
First and foremost, she worried about the weather. She worried about unexpected freezes, sudden hailstorms, wild winds, or too-heavy rains that might batter tender young plants to the ground. Or else she worried there might be too little rain, which could cause her precious crops to wither and dry up.
After weather came insects. She’d struck deals with all kinds of animals, even the birds, but you couldn’t negotiate with insects; their brains were just too different. It was the farmer-rabbits’ nightly task to pick the aphids and beetles and leaf-cutters off the seedlings. Much as they preferred greens, Alice and Thistle agreed that eating the bugs was the simplest way to get rid of them.
She had her own special worries about “critters,” as Janis called them (although Alice simply thought of them as her neighbors). Sometimes Alice worried that the deals she’d struck might go sour in one way or another. Perhaps her fellow creatures would lose patience, or change their minds, and she and Thistle would show up at the garden to find that all their hard work had been lost.
And when harvesttime came, what then? Would there be enough crops to go around for all the creatures who’d been promised a share? It was possible she’d promised too much to too many—rabbits are whizzes at multiplying, but not nearly so skilled at division.
Like farmers everywhere, Alice’s biggest worry was financial. Lester had said that successful farmers turn their crops into money. Alice knew she’d have to do the same, and she wondered exactly how that was going to happen.
She wished she understood money better, where it came from and where it went, for she suspected that growing all the tender spinach in the world wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t manage to turn her crops into cash for the Harveys.
That’s what would protect them from the egg-headed man’s trap. That’s what would keep the Mauler away, in the end.
* * *
There was one animal in the valley with whom Alice hadn’t made a deal. His name was Worm. He was a long-tailed weasel, as slim and gray-bodied as his name suggested. During the snowy winter, he shed his gray fur and grew a thick white coat. Only the black tip of his tail never changed color.
His long, straight body and dark eyes would put any human observer in mind of a sock puppet, with one important difference. Sock puppets are cute. The lithe and deadly weasels could be beautiful to watch, but no creature in the valley would call them cute; no, sir.
Alice, being so young, had never met a weasel, and she surely wasn’t expecting to meet one on a fine May morning. She’d slept through the sunrise and missed coming out for the breakfast graze, due to another long, late night of farming. Even Thistle had eaten and gone. The watchful, rabbit-brained part of her knew it was too late to graze alone; the day predators would be out and about, and she had no Foxy or Doggo to guard her. A sensible rabbit would go nap in safety and wait until dinnertime to eat.
But her hardworking and hungry farmer brain wanted breakfast, and that’s the part that prevailed. Worm was waiting for her. He’d found his way to Split Rock and lay there, his long body wrapped around the base of the cool stone, hidden in the shadows until he slithered out to present himself. Soft-furred as a rabbit, long like a snake, dark-eyed as a doe, clever and vicious as a crow. There was no other animal in the valley quite like him, and the moment he appeared, Alice knew exactly who and what he was.
There was a split second in which she could have bolted, but her reflexes were slowed from fatigue, and she missed her chance. Worm circled her, and her heart filled with relief that Thistle hadn’t waited, and that he knew enough about farming by now to carry on without her.
“Are you Alice, little cottontail?” the weasel said. “If so, it’s you I’ve come to speak with.”
“Yes, of course I’m Alice,” she said rudely, out of fear. “And you’re a weasel. Ho, hum! I expect you’ve come to hunt rabbits? If so, you’ve missed your chance. I’m having my breakfast now, and in the mood to eat, not to be eaten. Come back later.”
He snickered. “How brave you are! So unrabbitlike. I find it interesting, and strange. Well, I have heard something else strange, brave rabbit Alice. The jays have whispered it to me, but I find it hard to believe, and wanted to find out for myself.”
He circled closer to her. “They say you have made arrangements with the animals to go against their natures—you have even convinced my fellow hunter, my carnivorous cousin, the fox, to leave you in peace while you play in the farmer’s vegetable garden, across the meadow. Is it true?”
Alice’s whiskers twitched with pride, that news of her accomplishment had made its way to the mysterious Worm’s lair. “It may be strange,” she said, “but it is also true.”
“How did you manage such an unlikely feat?”
The weasel seemed to be in a talking mood, not a hunting one, but that might be a trick. “I asked them,” she said. “When I told them the reasons why, they agreed.”
“And what did you promise them in exchange?”
“Various things.”
This seemed to anger the weasel, and his eyes took on a reddish glow. “But no one has asked me to leave you in peace! No one has told me the reasons why! No one has promised me various things in exchange! Why? Are you afraid of me?”
“All rabbits are afraid of weasels, so don’t give yourself airs,” she said. “I would have told you about it myself, but I’ve been rather busy. Anyway, this is the first time you and I have met.”
“True, rabbit, true! And if we ha
d met before, that would have been the first and last time.” His voice was hypnotic like the eyes of a cat; listen too long and you might well go dark. Alice decided to listen to the chirping of the birds instead.
Worm waited, but she didn’t freeze, or bolt. “Tell me about this garden of yours,” he said, sounding interested, the way a friend would. Truly, he was a dangerous creature.
“Pish-posh!” Alice retorted, to keep herself angry and awake. “Since when do you care about vegetable gardens?” Weasels were true-blue carnivores and vicious hunters. In lean times they’d dine on frogs, insects, and birds’ eggs, but they much preferred meat, and all the smaller animals feared them.
“I care about what my prey cares about, for that’s where I will find you. For that reason, I make it my business to know what’s going on in the valley between the hills.” Worm stopped circling. “Perhaps I, too, will leave you and your friends alone, for now. But you’ll pay me my price. And you’re right; I don’t want any of your vegetables,” he said, in his musical voice.
“What do you want?” Alice asked.
“Rabbit.” He stretched his neck long, and a thin smile curved from one side of his head to the other. “I want rabbit.”
“Well,” Alice said, after a moment, “you may have some; it’s only fair. For you to eat rabbit is as natural as me eating grass. But you’ll have to wait.”
“Why must I wait, sweet Alice?”
“Because of the Mauler,” she said earnestly.
Worm feared little, but even he flinched at the word. Alice saw this and went on. “We rabbitfolk are working hard to stop the Mauler from coming. Other animals are doing their part, too, either by helping us or by leaving us alone to work in peace. Those are the reasons why.”
“Hmmm,” said Worm, sounding unconvinced.
“If the Mauler comes, we’ll all be sorry. You too must wait until the rabbitfolk’s work is done. What’s good for the bee is good for the hive,” she added, for all the animals of the valley knew that saying.
“Bees dine on flowers. I prefer rabbit,” Worm said, after a moment. “Brave rabbit. How long must I wait?”
“Until winter is near,” Alice replied, holding firm. It was so hard not to bolt, with his face so close to hers! His teeth were sharply pointed, like a mouthful of thorns. “Until the harvest is done, and our work is complete.”
“Winter, you say! Months away. A lifetime for some. Yet the seasons pass quickly. All right,” he said. “I too will do my part, by hunting elsewhere, for now. I will wait. When the days grow shorter and winter is in the air, my gray fur changes to white—all except the tip of my tail.”
The weasel turned, and his tail tip flicked like a splatter of ink along the grass. “When I have turned the color of snow, I will come back for my reward. Does that sound fair, tender rabbit? Do you and I now have a deal?”
“It does. And we do,” she said. Finally, Worm slithered away.
Alice was relieved to see him go, and pleased that she’d been able to strike any kind of bargain with the hypnotic creature.
Anyway, winter was a long way off.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Carl gets a real education.
Carl’s refusal to try a new school had persisted. His reluctance surprised him as much as anyone. He’d always liked school before. He just couldn’t bear the thought of all the scrutiny he’d get, strolling in as “the new kid” practically at the end of fifth grade. All those people looking at him, asking dumb questions like “What’s your name?” and “Where’d you live before?” and “Why’d you move?” and “How do you like it here?”
He didn’t want to talk about it, that’s all. Best to keep a low profile, at least until he knew what the kids around here were like. Imagine growing up on a farm, with your parents home doing farm stuff all day! All that peace and quiet and supervision was bound to warp a person’s outlook.
Anyway, his parents had their own misgivings about the local elementary school, which they conferred about in Marie’s room without always remembering that the baby monitor was on. Carl could hear every word just by sitting in the kitchen. Brad thought it might be too “by the book” for their sensitive son, while Sally wondered whether a more “results-oriented” environment would “do Carl some good.”
Well, that sounded terrible. He wasn’t setting foot in any school that was on a mission to “do him some good,” and that was that. But it was the only school in town, and since he’d made his feelings plain about not going, his parents had moved on to plan B.
“Lots of farm kids homeschool,” Sally said, by way of encouragement. The Harveys had gathered in the living room to decide his fate. Carl liked the living room. It felt old and cozy, with dark wooden beams across the ceiling and a big stone fireplace that was almost as tall as he was. A Christmas tree would look good in here, he thought. But Christmas was many months away.
Marie rolled and crawled on the carpet, pummeling Foxy’s side with her tiny fists. The dog snored peacefully throughout the friendly beating.
“Your mom and I are excited, champ. We hope you are, too.”
Homeschooling, of course! He should have seen this coming. Emmanuel homeschooled, so it wasn’t an unfamiliar or unappealing idea. Carl had even asked to try it once, after realizing that Emmanuel did his schoolwork in pajamas and sometimes got pancakes for breakfast on a weekday, but Carl’s parents had nixed it, saying “it wasn’t a good time for the family.” This was before the golden parachute, when Brad was at work all the time, and Sally was newly pregnant with Marie and needed to rest a lot.
Times sure had changed. Now you’d think they’d invented the idea themselves, the way they went on about it.
“Hey,” Brad said, “remember when you went on that field trip to the farm?”
“That was second grade, Dad.”
“Your whole life is a field trip now! Homeschooling will be awesome.”
Sally, who was teaching herself to knit from a book, waved a needle in the air, trailing yarn. “It’ll be fun. Don’t you think so?”
“Ehhh,” Carl replied. Not a ringing endorsement by any means, but not a flat no, either. Did they mean it about homeschooling, or was it the old parental switcheroo trick? That’s when they pretended to go along with your plan, but only so you could “learn for yourself” that their plan was the better plan in the first place.
“Remember, it’s your decision, champ.”
“That’s right, honey. School or homeschooling; it’s up to you.”
Life would be a lot easier if his parents just told him what to do every now and then. Maybe that’s what “results-oriented” meant. Maybe his parents were the ones who were trying to “do him some good.” They were being awfully sneaky about it, if so.
“Ehhh, okay,” he said. “We could try it, I guess.”
Within days, boxes of books began arriving at the house. Sally called it “curriculum,” but Carl knew a book when he saw one. There were math books and history books and penmanship books. There were books about reading other books. There was even a book called Nature Study, which didn’t seem like you should need a book to do it, but it had plenty of pages and the pictures were good.
A week passed. The skyscraper of “curriculum” tottered on the wooden desk Brad had set up in a corner of the kitchen. Nobody said a word about doing schoolwork. Basically they just left Carl alone.
Carl began to wonder. The old, citified Brad and Sally had noticed his every slouch, eye roll, and overdramatic sigh, but these new, rustic versions seemed benignly uninterested in his daily affairs. Had they been secretly swapped for robot versions of themselves? Attack of the Robot-Farmer Parents Who Mind Their Own Business and Let You Mind Yours?
There were other signs of change. Brad had already traded his Brooklyn fedora for the John Deere cap, but soon he replaced that with a lightweight, broad-brimmed straw hat that shaded him all the way around. The padded, skateboarding-style sneakers that had been his everyday shoes since the dawn of time
had been traded for stiff work boots, to protect his feet from sharp rocks and dropped tools.
Sally had acquired a similar pair of boots for doing outdoor chores, and a whole wardrobe of aprons, oven mitts, and hairnets for her culinary endeavors. Glass jars with metal lids were delivered by the case, along with enough science lab gear to outfit ten homeschools, but Sally said this equipment was for her, not Carl. There was an enormous stainless steel pot called a “water bath canner” (with a built-in thermometer, she noted with pride), funnels, tongs, a “jar lifter,” a “sterilizing rack,” a “magnetic lid wand,” and something called cheesecloth, which had nothing to do with cheese as far as Carl could tell, but would make a terrific mummy costume if you wrapped yourself up in it.
There was no mention of learning, homework, quizzes, or any of that. Sally glanced at the desk now and then, but kept her thoughts to herself. Meanwhile she was studying all day long; apparently there was a lot to know about preserving food in jars, especially if you intended to sell it to people without making them sick.
Brad mostly worked outside, building fences for a sheep paddock, scouting locations for a beehive, pruning and communing with the fruit trees, and a million other things.
By the middle of homeschooling week two, Carl was so bored that he started to play with Marie. She liked it a lot, and Sally appreciated it to no end. He found himself trying to teach the baby stuff she was too young to learn, but it made her laugh, anyway.
Janis dropped by nearly every afternoon to admire Sally’s new canning equipment, advise Brad on his fence building and other projects, and grab a neighborly cup of coffee. Sometimes she brought pie, and they were the best pies Carl had ever tasted. She always managed to work in a casual stroll to the vegetable garden. Sometimes she gave Foxy a probing, suspicious look.
By the end of that second week she finally spoke up. “Hey, kid. Were you ever in a spelling bee?” she asked as Sally refilled her cup.
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