Sauerkraut

by Kelly Jones

  Oma floated over to the hockey stick and lifted it about a foot off the floor.

  “Nice!” Eli said. “It’s like you’ve been working out!” He bit his lip. “Uh, HD, maybe we could wait on having her yell? Or pass through me?”

  “No problem.” It was good to know that Eli wasn’t quite so cool about this stuff after all—at least, not now that he could kind of see her.

  “Hey, Oma, come check this out and see if it’s okay,” I called, holding up her crock lid.

  She rushed over, the buttons on her pajamas glowing.

  I wouldn’t say it was my best maker work or anything. But it was food safe, like Mr. Z. said, and it was the best I could do.

  She inspected the lid, and nodded. “Thank you, Hans Dieter,” she said, giving me another hug.

  “Any time,” I told her when she let go again. “It needs to dry longer before we move it, though.”

  “We must find the kraut pounder so we can make the sauerkraut!” she said, taking off for another stack of boxes.

  Carefully I wrapped masking tape around the lid so that all the pieces would stay in the same places even if they got bumped.

  “Looking good!” Eli said, coming over to see it. “Now come here and check this out!”

  I set the lid aside on the workbench, and sat down on the steps to watch Eli’s routine and holler, “Yeah, man!” when he got the time step right.

  After that, Eli worked out some ideas for his solo, and I started opening boxes.

  The first one had an old plastic mixing bowl and some dish towels in it. “Hey, Oma, did you ever use this?” I asked.

  She poked her head out through the side of a box and examined the bowl. “That is not mine,” she said. “And this is no time for baking. We must make sauerkraut!”

  “Got it,” I said, putting the bowl in the pile of things to give to someone else.

  “I have found it!” Oma cried, sticking her head through a different box. She floated out, and tried to lift the top box down. It fell to the floor with a crash.

  Eli and I went over to help. Nothing broke, thank goodness—it was full of old screwdrivers and boxes of nails and stuff. We lifted the next box down, and took off the lid.

  “The kraut pounder!” Oma cried, lifting up something that looked kind of like a wooden club with a flat bottom and top. “Now we are ready!”

  I asked Oma to stay in the crock while we wheeled it to my house, but she said the motion made her tummy feel funny, and it was worse when she was inside the crock and couldn’t see where she was going.

  Eli pointed out that she didn’t have a tummy. But neither one of us wanted to clean up ghost puke, even if no one in the history of science had ever examined it before.

  “I am not going to vomit,” the ghost said. “I am going to make my famous sauerkraut, and enter it into the fair, and win.”

  “Wait—what fair?” I asked.

  Oma looked at me impatiently. “My sauerkraut must win the pickle prize at the county fair.”

  You know how someone proclaims something in comics, and it looks like the caps lock got stuck on? And you can tell you should remember what they said, because it will be important? Well, the ghost proclaimed that.

  “I guess that’s what she needs to level up and be at peace,” I told Eli. At least it was easier than trying to find her fossil toe or something.

  “It is very rude to talk about someone who is right here,” Oma said, rushing around until she was floating in front of us.

  “Sorry, Oma,” I said. “We’ll do our best to help, but it’s up to the judges who gets a prize.”

  Oma frowned. “It is not just a prize. The winner is crowned the Pickle Queen. She wears the winner’s corsage and her best hat, and she rides through the town in the mayor’s car in the parade. It is a great honor, and everyone congratulates her throughout the year on her victory.”

  “Um,” I said, and stopped. Eli and I looked at each other. Life back then must have been really different.

  “I’ve never heard of the Pickle Queen,” Eli said. “Maybe it changed since you died.”

  We turned down my street, the wagon wheels creaking over the bumps where the roots of the big old maple trees had lifted up the sidewalk.

  “Here we are,” I told the ghost as we rolled up our driveway, past Mom’s vegetable garden. At least, no one else was home yet.

  I carried the crock into the kitchen and set it down on the counter.

  “Excellent. Let us begin,” Oma said.

  “Wait, we need to make sure your lid is dry first,” I said.

  Before I could stop her, Oma ripped the masking tape off of her lid and poked at it. “It will do,” she announced.

  I sighed. The instructions said to wait until the glue had fully cured, but I didn’t see how I was going to convince Oma to wait forty-eight hours to use her lid.

  “We don’t have our supplies yet,” Eli said.

  “And I’ve got stuff to do too,” I added.

  “Like what?” Oma asked.

  “Like moving a hay bale for Mr. Z.’s goats,” I told her.

  “Then we will make the sauerkraut after you feed the goats,” she said, folding her ghostly arms.

  Yeah, she was not going to settle down until we got her sauerkraut going. “Fine. I’ll call Mom and ask her to get the cabbages and juniper berries and salt on her way home. But after I call her, you need to let me feed the goats, okay?”

  “Very well.” The ghost waited.

  So I called Mom. “Hey, can you stop by the store on your way home? Eli and I want to try something.”

  “Hey, sweetie. What do you need?” Mom asked.

  I checked the recipe. “Five cabbages, some juniper berries, and a big box of salt.”

  “What for?” she asked. “You’re going to tell us all about this before you start making anything, right?”

  “Sauerkraut,” I told her. “It’s…Well, I’ll tell you all about it when you get home, okay?”

  “That’s a lot of sauerkraut,” she said. “Especially since I don’t think you’ve ever tried it.”

  I hesitated. “It’s for someone else.”

  There was a pause. “Well, that’s a lot of sauerkraut for Mr. Z. too,” she said. “But I guess it will keep for a while, and your dad will like it. Tell you what: I’ll pick up your cabbages, and we’ll look at your recipe when I get home. If you don’t need all five, I’ll teach you how to make your grandmom’s coleslaw. Deal?”

  Maybe she’d have better luck convincing the ghost than I had. “Deal,” I said. “Will you get the salt and the juniper berries?”

  “Check in the pantry first and see what we have. I think there’s a box of pickling salt on the bottom shelf—look behind the kosher salt. And check that gift basket Rainbow Carrot Farm gave me for my birthday—there were some unusual spices in there.”

  “Got it,” I said. “Hang on a minute.” I put the phone down and opened the pantry.

  Oma floated over to see what I was doing. “Aha!” she cried, swooping down toward a blue box.

  “Is there enough left in there?” I asked. “Or do you need a whole box?”

  The ghost lifted the box carefully. “No, this will do.” She set it down again.

  I picked it up and put it on the counter. Then I dug around in Mom’s gift basket until I found a little jar labeled JUNIPER BERRIES. “Oma, do these look right?”

  She grabbed the jar and tried to open it, but she couldn’t get a good grip. “We must smell them and see if they’re too old,” she told me, handing it back.

  I opened the jar and held it out so she could sniff it.

  “Yes!” Oma cried, and did a little circle in the air. “We are ready!”

  “Almost,” I told her, shutting the pantry. Then I picked up the phone aga
in. “Yeah, we’ve already got some salt and some juniper berries, Mom. Thanks.”

  “Okay, good. Then I’ll see you soon. Love you, sweetie.”

  “Love you too, Mom.” I hung up. “Okay, Mom’s getting the cabbages. So now I’ll feed the goats. You coming, Eli?”

  “Sure,” Eli said. He loves using the hay-loader. “Do you think we should take the ghost with us?”

  Oma glared at him.

  I sighed. “Why don’t you ask her what she wants to do? She’s right here, and she’s old enough to decide for herself, Eli.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. S.,” Eli said. “Do you want to come out back and feed the goats with us?”

  “No, I will stay here,” she said. “You can get out that slicing machine you told me about and some vegetables, and I will try it.”

  “Okay,” I said. At least, it would keep her busy.

  “So, you have to wash the vegetables before you put them in the food processor,” Eli told the ghost. “Can you turn the water on and off? Wait, did they have indoor plumbing when you were alive? What about electricity? Do you know how this all works?”

  “I died in 1961, not the Dark Ages,” Oma said stiffly. “I know how it works.” Slowly she turned the cold water on to a trickle, and then off again.

  “Good job,” I told her. I got out the food processor and the grater blade and set it up for her. Then I got a few carrots out of the fridge and set them next to the sink. “Now, let me show you how this thing works.”

  The ghost watched as I washed a carrot, put it on the cutting board, cut off the top, cut the carrot into big chunks, put the chunks in the tube, stuck the pusher in, and pressed the button. “This is a very nice machine,” she said.

  I nodded. There really isn’t much you can mess up with a food processor. She’d do fine.

  “Bye, Mrs. S.!” Eli said. “C’mon, HD.” He headed out the door.

  “Bye, Oma,” I said, and followed him.

  * * *

  Rodgers and Hammerstein were definitely glad to see us again. They jumped up on the hay-loader platform as soon as I lowered it, and then they had a contest with Eli to see who could jump the highest (Hammerstein won).

  Then Eli and I got the next hay bale out of the garage and lifted it onto the hay-loader’s platform.

  The hay-loader was my first real invention. Hay bales are heavy, and goats eat lots of hay—and they won’t eat dirty hay, so you can’t just leave it on the ground; you have to put it in a manger for them. It’s hard lifting a whole hay bale up into their manger by myself because the sides are pretty tall, so I needed a solution. I went to the library, and Harry and I looked all over the internet, figuring somewhere out there was a farmer with the same problem as me. But we couldn’t find anything.

  So Mr. Z. found me a design for a box lifter, and then I modified the design and built it and hung it from a big old apple tree in our backyard. Now I can strap a hay bale onto the platform, winch up the ropes, swivel it around until it’s over the manger, and release it so it falls right in.

  It took a lot of tries to get the design right. But the first time it really worked…Well, that was probably the best moment of my whole life. Mr. Z. said he’d never seen a better-designed solution, and Mom asked if she could share the design with some of the farms she works with. I told her sure.

  It was my project for the science fair last year, but I couldn’t build an operational one in the multipurpose room because they wouldn’t let me hang it from the ceiling. The judges weren’t goat farmers, and they didn’t really understand my diagrams, or how it helped people. I didn’t win anything.

  But Mr. Z. told me about patents, where you file some papers and diagrams that tell everyone you invented your cool design, and then by the time they realize what a great idea it is, it belongs to you and no one else can make it for a while without your permission. Mr. Z. has some patents from when he was an engineer. I’m working on the diagrams for my hay-loader, and when I’m ready, he’s going to file it for me, in my name and everything.

  While we worked, I told Eli about how I’d been thinking about some kind of door trap for my room so Asad wouldn’t be able to get in and touch my stuff. Then Eli wanted me to watch a new solo dance, until Rodgers butted Hammerstein off the hay-loader and Eli tripped over him. And then we brainstormed some more ideas for the GOAT Obstacle Course.

  “We should start working on it tomorrow,” Eli said.

  I sighed. “I guess we’d better go talk about sauerkraut some more first, though.”

  “It’s okay,” Eli said. “We’ve got all summer. We have time to help your great-great-grandma out.”

  * * *

  “Hey, Mrs. S.!” Eli said as we came back into the kitchen.

  There was no response. I looked around uneasily. The food processor was full of grated carrots, and she’d washed the knife and put it in the dish drainer.

  “Where are you, Mrs. S.?” Eli asked.

  “I don’t think she’s here,” I said.

  “What if she’s already passed on?” Eli asked. “I mean, she doesn’t ever have to go to the bathroom, right? So where else could she be? Do we still make the sauerkraut?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  There was a noise from the family room. We both froze.

  I crept to the doorway, with Eli right behind me.

  Oma was staring at the photos on the mantel, crying. (At least, bluish-white streaks were running down her bluish-white face, and she looked really sad, so I think she was.)

  “What’s she doing?” Eli asked.

  “I think she misses her family,” I whispered. “She’s having a Captain America moment—like, when he came out of cryogenic stasis and realized everyone he knew lived the whole rest of their lives without him while he was frozen, and now he’s back—but they’re all gone.”

  “Should we ask if she needs anything?” Eli asked.

  “She might need a moment first,” I said. “We can get ready to make her sauerkraut, though. Maybe that will help her go see her family again.”

  So I found a container, scooped all the grated carrots out of the food processor, and put them in the fridge. I washed the food processor and Oma’s kraut pounder too.

  “Do you think we should check on her now?” Eli asked.

  I dried off the kraut pounder and thought. Maybe seeing her kraut pounder all clean would make her happier. “Okay,” I told him.

  She was still crying, I think. But she turned around this time when we came in.

  “I’m sorry you’re sad,” Eli said.

  “Thank you,” she said, sniffing. She turned back to the photos.

  I went over and stood next to her. “That’s my granddad.” I showed her the one where he had his truck all apart in pieces and was holding a wrench and laughing. “Uh, your grandson, I guess.”

  She looked at it for a long time.

  “And that’s my dad and Uncle Gregor.” I showed her the one where Dad still had the leg he was born with, and they were dressed up for some teenage thing. “Mom says I have Dad’s chin.”

  She examined me. “She is exactly right—your father’s chin, and your mother’s eyes.”

  I showed her the photos of Mom and Dad dressed up in their uniforms for army balls and hanging out with some of the soldiers from their battalion, and the one from when they got out. “And here’s Grandmom and Grandpop Davis, with Mom and Aunt Nia when they were little—and here’s the last time we visited them, when we all went to see Kwame Alexander talk at their library.”

  “You have a brother?” she asked, pointing to another one.

  “Yeah, that’s my little brother, Asad.” It was a photo of us at the air show last summer. Mom and Dad had their arms around each other. I was watching some lady spin a propeller, and Asad was about to have a meltdown. We looked good, thou
gh. Like the family we are.

  I imagined what it would feel like, if they were all gone, and shivered.

  “HD washed your kraut pounder for you,” Eli said.

  The ghost blinked. “Yes…we must make the sauerkraut.” She floated into the kitchen, grabbed a clean dish towel, and gave the kraut pounder another swipe. “But that machine will not work. We need sliced cabbage, not grated cabbage mush.”

  I held up the slicer blade. “What if we use this instead?”

  The ghost examined it. “Perhaps….If you have another carrot, I will try it.”

  So I got out another carrot for her, and showed her how to take out the grater blade and click the slicer blade into place.

  Then we all heard the front door open. “Hey, sweetie, I’m home!” Mom said.

  I swallowed. Right. So what exactly was I going to tell my mom about all this?

  “Hey, Mrs. Schenk!” Eli said. “We’re doing some research!”

  “Didn’t I tell you two no experiments in the kitchen unless they’ve been cleared by an adult first?” Mom asked, coming in and setting her groceries down. She didn’t say anything about the ghost who floated over to peek into her bags.

  “But we’re under adult supervision!” Eli said happily.

  Mom studied me with her mom-abilities, like she could read my mind. “What’s wrong?”

  How do you tell your mom that the ghost of your great-great-grandmother is moving in with you for a while? Probably those people who work with the Avengers have a plan for this kind of thing, but I didn’t.

  Mom was looking at the food processor. “Honey, what’s going on here?”

  “We are ready to make the sauerkraut!” Oma said.

  Mom didn’t blink. She folded her arms and stared at me, waiting. I had about one second more before there were consequences.

  I thought about what Grandpop Davis says, about how people might remember what you told them later, even if they can’t hear it right then. “Um, Mom? We need to help my great-great-grandma make sauerkraut, for the fair.”