Sauerkraut

by Kelly Jones

  I don’t think the bossy Maple Falls guy liked having us load the dirty old wagon and Oma’s crock into their fancy van, let alone me and Eli and Rodgers and Hammerstein. But Mr. Z. just plain didn’t care. He asked that guy if the van was there for the residents and their family and friends or not. When the guy said yeah, Mr. Z. told him that we were his friends, so he should be more polite to us and put down some newspaper for the goats. And off we went.

  Mr. Z. introduced us to Eleanora, the van driver, and I gave her directions to Uncle Gregor’s house. It turned out Eleanora had gotten her car fixed at Dad and Uncle Gregor’s shop, and of course she knew my mom (everyone knows my mom), so once we were away from the bossy guy, we were good.

  I kept a close eye on the ghost. I thought she moved her air a little, but I couldn’t hear her at all. I wasn’t an expert on ghosts yet, but this didn’t seem like leveling up to me.

  “Do you think we took her too far?” Eli asked.

  “Maybe, or we kept her away too long. But it doesn’t make sense—she moved to Uncle Gregor’s house without any issues.”

  When we got there, I left Oma’s crock and the wagon in the van for a minute while Eli and I put Rodgers and Hammerstein in the backyard and cleaned up the newspaper. Then Eleanora let us take the wagon down with the van’s lift.

  Mr. Z. gave Eleanora five bucks and suggested she go have a cup of coffee, his treat, and said he’d call her when we were done.

  I got Oma’s crock out of the wagon, led the way into the basement, and set the crock on the workbench.

  Almost immediately Oma flowed up out of it. “Where is my lid?” she said, and began rushing around the basement.

  “Whoa!” I said, and ducked.

  Mr. Z. looked at me, worried.

  Which reminded me that we hadn’t finished our introductions. “Oma, could you come say hello to Mr. Z.?”

  Oma zoomed over, snatched the pencil out of her crock, grabbed Eli’s notebook, and wrote Hello. She floated it in front of Mr. Z.’s face. Then she dropped the notebook and zoomed off again, forgetting to give the pencil back first.

  Mr. Z. put his hand on the basement stair railing. I saw it was shaking a little. But Mr. Z.’s hands do that sometimes. Dad says it’s part of getting old.

  “Does that mean she’s feeling better?” Eli asked, picking up his notebook.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I said. “She wants to know where her crock lid is, so I’d better help her look.”

  Eli found another pencil on the workbench. “Mr. Z., we should do some research while you’re here. Do you hear anything?”

  Mr. Z. stared at the crock some more without answering. Then he took Eli’s pencil and notebook and sketched something. He held it up. “The lid might look like this, with a knob at the top.”

  “Hey, Mrs. S., does your lid look like this?” Eli held up the notebook.

  “Yes, like that, and brown,” she said, nodding.

  “She says yeah,” I said. “Did you see it around here?”

  “No. My grandmother had one very much like it,” Mr. Z. said. He sounded kind of dazed.

  “Do you smell anything, Mr. Z.?” Eli asked.

  Mr. Z. sniffed. “Violet soap,” he said wonderingly.

  “And maybe some mildew too?” Eli asked. “We think that’s just the basement, not the ghost.”

  “Yes, precisely,” Mr. Z. said with a small smile. “Violet soap, and a little bit of basement mildew.”

  Eli made a note.

  “Hey, Oma, can you sense the lid anywhere?” I asked. “You know, with your ghostly powers or whatever?”

  The ghost stopped for a minute. “No,” she said, and started zooming around again.

  I watched the ghost rush wildly around all the boxes, wondering how long it was going to take to find the lid, and what kind of mess I’d have to clean up later.

  Then again…“Oma, can you float through this stack of boxes and see if the lid is in any of them? Or is it too dark for you to see in there?”

  “The rods and cones in your eyes can’t work without light,” Eli pointed out.

  “Right, for our eyes—but she, uh, she doesn’t have rods and cones anymore,” I said. (She didn’t have eyes anymore either, but I felt like it might hurt her feelings to point that out, especially in front of Mr. Z., since he still had his rods and cones.)

  “Good point!” said Eli. “Let’s test it out!”

  Oma disappeared into the top of the first stack of boxes. The pencil she’d been holding fell to the ground. Then she oozed out the bottom with a little puff of dust that made Mr. Z. jump. “It is not there,” she said unhappily.

  “Keep looking, Oma. We’ll find it,” I told her.

  Eli was asking Mr. Z. if he felt cold, hot, or regular when Oma made a noise like she was going to cry.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. I put the magazines I was holding back in the box and hurried over to her.

  She was puffing in and out of the second box from the bottom of a stack. “Hans Dieter, my lid is broken!”

  “Well, let’s see if we can fix it.” I moved the other boxes aside so I could open it. Sure enough, there were five pieces of brown pottery lid inside. “What glue should we use for this?” I asked Mr. Z., bringing the pieces over.

  Mr. Z. fitted the pieces together carefully while Oma hovered nearby. Only a tiny piece was missing. “Silicone sealant, I think—be certain the package states that it is food safe! And, hmm.” He looked out at the dim basement. “Er, Mrs. Schenk? Would you prefer that the lid be more useful, or more beautiful?”

  Oma snatched Eli’s pencil, making us all jump, and wrote USEFUL. Then she underlined it about five times in case we didn’t get the picture.

  Mr. Z. nodded. “If you fill in this gap with the silicone sealant, it will be airtight, and you can use it for the sauerkraut.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Okay, Oma—Eli and I need to go get the right kind of glue. We’ll be back soon.”

  Thank you, Oma wrote.

  “I will call Eleanora,” Mr. Z. said, setting the pieces down on the workbench. “HD, I think that your parents would like to meet Mrs. Schenk.”

  I sighed, and nodded. Part of our deal is that Mr. Z. has to tell my parents if there’s anything he thinks they might want to know about, if I don’t. And I didn’t mean to keep the ghost a secret anyway. I just wanted to work a few things out first. “Yeah, I’ll introduce them tonight when they get home. Is it okay if we take the goats home and ride over to Rose’s to get the glue?”

  Mr. Z. nodded. “Yes, but take the bike path, check the intersections before you cross, and no stopping anywhere else along the way.”

  * * *

  I guess not every town’s hardware store has electronic supplies and a junkyard too. But Rose’s RadioJunkYardBirds has the perfect combination of stuff for a maker like me.

  Eli went right to the glue section, but I needed to walk by the computer components first. I got as close as I could without breathing on the glass case, so I could double-check the specs on the CPU box I was considering. It was exactly what I needed—if I had a hundred dollars.

  “Hey, HD. You want to see anything today?” Grace asked.

  “Nah, not today,” I said.

  Grace nodded and went back to unpacking headphones. Grace was the first Black geek I ever met, before Harry came to work at the library. She told me about how she learned to build computers in the army, and I told her maybe I’d learn to do that too, when I grew up. Grace just looked at me and asked what I was waiting for. She says it doesn’t matter how old you are, or what you’ve learned—being a Black geek is about who you are, and what you’re interested in. Nobody gets to decide that but you. So, I’ve been a Black geek ever since.

  When Grace got out of the army, no one wanted to hire her to build their computers right then, so she use
d to work for my mom’s farm program. But after Rose caught Dennis giving me a bad time when I asked to see some headphones, she fired him and hired Grace to manage the tech department. (I felt kind of bad for Dennis. I mean, he was a real jerk, and I used to peek in the window to see if he was there and not come in if he was working, so I’m glad I don’t have to do that anymore. But I don’t think he thought Rose would actually fire him for being mean to a kid.)

  When I got to the glue section, Rose was helping Eli.

  Eli handed me the silicone sealant. “It’s safe for food, see!”

  “Are you working on a new project?” Rose asked, ringing me up.

  I shrugged. “I’m sorting through my grandma’s stuff.”

  “Well, if there’s anything you don’t need, bring it to Mei. It’s a rare day when she can’t see the possibilities in something,” Rose said.

  When I was little, Rose and Mei merged the lumber store and the junkyard and became partners. Then RadioShack closed, so they started carrying electronic supplies too. Mei makes sculptures for the junkyard’s Upcycled Art gallery, and sets car doors aside for a local musician who comes and bangs on them to figure out what sounds right for his next album. She gives tours for environmental field trips too, so kids can see that you shouldn’t just throw things away when you’re done with them.

  “Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out. Say hey to her for us,” I said. Then we rode back to my house, to have some lunch and work out our plans without the ghost interrupting.

  TO DO:

  FIX LID

  Glue pieces together

  Fill hole

  Try to make it look okay so Oma isn’t too sad about it

  MOVE CROCK (AND OMA) TO HD’S HOUSE

  MAKE SAUERKRAUT

  Get five cabbages, some juniper berries, and a big box of salt (ask Oma how many juniper berries, and how big a box)

  Slice cabbages (talk to Oma about the food processor)

  Follow Oma’s recipe

  Wait 2 weeks

  Ask Mr. Z. to taste it

  GET READY FOR ELI’S DANCE RECITAL

  Practice routine

  Build skyscraper costume

  Choreograph solo

  Practice solo

  BUILD GOAT OBSTACLE COURSE

  Build equipment

  Train goats to go through it

  Make the best video ever

  SORT OUT BASEMENT

  Open every single box

  Sort everything out into stuff we can use, stuff someone else can use, and trash

  Get paid

  MAKE HD’S COMPUTER

  Work on list of steps

  Buy components

  Put it all together

  Oma was glad to see us again, I guess. She started right up about how we needed to make sauerkraut.

  “Well, first we need to fix your lid, and then it needs to dry,” I told her, reading the glue instructions.

  “Mrs. S., can I talk to you about something?” Eli asked, and she floated over and grabbed the pencil out of his hand.

  I got a damp rag from Uncle Gregor’s kitchen and started wiping all the dust off of the crock and the lid pieces while Eli negotiated with Oma. He said it felt more equal when they were both writing. At least it meant they were quiet for a while.

  “Gross,” Eli said, coming over and examining my dirty rag. “I bet Mrs. S. didn’t like all that dust. Good thing she doesn’t have allergies, or eyes, or a nose, or—you know.”

  “No kidding.” I wiped it out again, and then one last time. “How’d it go?”

  He handed me the piece of paper. “She’s good with the food processor.”

  Eli: I know your recipe says to use the kraut cutter, but it looks like a super-sized version of this special slicer called a mandoline that my mom accidentally cut her finger really bad on. So I don’t think HD’s mom will let us use it.

  Oma: As long as you are careful, you will not cut your fingers.

  Eli: Right, and I am careful—I was extra-careful when HD let me light the last rocket we launched—and here, you can hardly see the scar at all now, right? But my mom says no way, no open flames and no sharp objects until I can keep better track of where my hands are at all times.

  Oma: Hmm.

  Eli: But since you’ve been dead, scientists have invented a machine that will cut cabbage with the press of a button, in seconds! And it has a special sensor so it won’t let you cut your fingers off. My mom says even I can use it.

  Oma: Where is this machine?

  Eli: HD’s mom has one—she got it before she told Mr. Schenk he could never again buy her a birthday present with a cord.

  Oma: We will go there, and we will try this machine, and we will make the sauerkraut.

  Next, Eli showed Oma his dance moves, and sang the music for her, and told her which parts were the hardest, while I assembled my supplies: the glue, all the lid pieces, and a bunch of paper towels.

  I fitted the pieces of the lid back together, like Mr. Z. had, so I could be sure where they all went before I opened the glue.

  “On the avenue I’m taking you to—FORTY-SECOND STREET!” Eli belted out, shuffling his feet, while Oma hummed along.

  I opened up the silicone sealant and squeezed a tiny bit onto a paper towel, to see how fast it came out, and how much. Then I took a deep breath, picked up the first piece, and squeezed it along the broken edge.

  “Okay, this part is hard—” There was a thud, like maybe Eli ran into some boxes or something.

  I didn’t look up. Eli would tell me if there was a problem, and it’s better to stick pieces together right after you put the glue on. Carefully I pressed the next piece onto the glued edge, turning it around so I could see if any extra glue dripped out. I held them together for another minute, then squeezed some glue along the next broken edge.

  “Let’s take it from the beginning,” Eli said, and started over, with Oma singing along. “Hear the beat of dancing feet…”

  I tried to tune them out while I concentrated. There was a bad moment where I didn’t get two of the edges lined up quite right, but I caught it before the glue set, and wiggled them into place without any of the others falling off.

  Finally, all the pieces were stuck together in their places. I squeezed a drop of silicone into the gap where the tiny piece was missing, and smeared it around with the glue nozzle to make sure it filled the little hole.

  “BA-dum! DA-dum! Bu-BA-dum! Wop-wop—Fo-orty…SECOND STREET!” Eli yelled. I could hear his sneakers sliding across the basement floor in his grand-finale move, just as I put the glue cap back on.

  “Bravo!” shouted Oma.

  “Whoa!” Eli yelled. “HD, come here!”

  I looked up.

  Eli had backed up against a stack of boxes. He was staring right at Oma.

  I stared too. “Oma, what happened? Why are you wearing your pajamas?”

  Because she wasn’t just thick air anymore—she was a glowing ghost. Still see-through, but now I could see the wrinkles on her face and hands, and the buttons on her pajamas.

  Eli blinked. “I need to make some notes.”

  Oma looked down at her glowing pajamas. “Well…if I had known that I was going to die then, I would have gotten dressed.” She looked up again, staring back at me.

  Wait—had she been able to see me clearly before? Or had I looked as blurry to her as she did to me?

  Maybe she didn’t know I didn’t look like her grandson, or any of the other blond, blue-eyed Schenks she knew before.

  I swallowed hard. I’d had a lot of practice explaining why I don’t look like my dad. But not to my own great-great-grandmother.

  She floated slowly toward me, still staring. It was creepier to be a
ble to see a person flying through the air at you, even if she was see-through, and glowed and stuff.

  I kind of froze up when she reached for me. Then I realized she was giving me a hug.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  It didn’t feel like a regular hug. But it was still nice, once I knew she wasn’t going to pass through my body or anything.

  “Everything okay?” Eli asked, his eyes big.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re good.”

  EXPERIMENT: CHECK TO SEE IF MRS. S. IS REAL, PART TWO

  Researcher: Eli Callahan

  Do you hear anything? Yes

  If so, what? A ghost yelling “Bravo!” for my tap dance! Then my friend HD asking a ghost why she’s wearing her pj’s—and then I heard the ghost answer!

  Do you see anything? Yes

  If so, what? Blurry air, moving around

  Do you smell anything? Yes

  If so, what? The same sweet smell, only stronger (also mildew)

  Does the basement feel hot/cold/normal? Cold, but the same as last time

  Conclusion: I think Mrs. S. really is floating among us. (Don’t get mad, HD, I believed you before. But it’s kind of different when you can see someone with your own eyes.)

  “When did you fix her lid?” Eli asked, still making notes.

  “Right before I looked up and saw her like this,” I told him.

  Eli nodded. “So they could be related. Now that her lid is fixed, you can see her better, and I can hear her, and kind of see her.” He made another note. “Hey, Mrs. S. Can you try lifting that hockey stick? I want to see if you’ve gained muscle mass—er, ghostly strength.”