Kate

by Janice Thompson

  “True,” Elizabeth said. “Sometimes that’s a hard lesson to learn, though.”

  “Sounds like the brothers are really mad at their sisters too,” Sydney said. “Otherwise, why would they make such a big deal about the recipe?”

  “Who knows?” Kate thought about that for a moment. “Penny and Candy used to work in the family business too, right? So they always had the recipe. And it came down from their parents, anyway. How can you steal something that your parents gave you? And why would brothers and sisters work for two different companies instead of just sticking together and working things out?”

  She paused and sighed. The girls went on talking, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her problems with Phillip, especially his comment about sabotage.

  “Kate…are you still with us?” Sydney’s voice rang out, snapping Kate out of her daydreams.

  “Y–yes, I’m here,” she stammered. “Sorry about that. I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

  “I’ll bet you do!” Bailey said. “Tell us about the festival. How are things going?”

  Before Kate could say a word, Alex dove in, telling all of the other girls about how Kate was a finalist in the competition. As they all celebrated this news, her heart sank. Hearing them sing her praises suddenly felt wrong, especially in light of the news about the quarrel between the Bender brothers and sisters.

  “Kate’s going to win the whole thing!” Alex exclaimed. “I just know it. Her invention is the best. You girls should see the video footage I got when they announced her name today. It was priceless. I can’t wait to post it for my viewers.”

  “I…well, I don’t care if I win or not,” Kate said at last. “Honestly, I’m just happy to be here. And I’m especially glad, now that I know we have another mystery to solve.” After a pause, she spoke her mind. “So, are we all on the same page? Do we think Mr. Whipple is the one sabotaging the Twisted Twins? Maybe the Bender brothers are paying him to do this?”

  “Could be,” Sydney said. “Though we can’t be sure without more proof.”

  Kate sighed, trying to figure out how—and when—they would solve the case. After all, she had to spend this afternoon and evening in the convention hall. Tomorrow afternoon the winner would be announced at a big banquet and then all of the competitors were going to get to go to the amusement park together.

  If it ever stopped raining.

  Right now she wondered if it ever would.

  The Competition

  Kate barely had time to rest after calling the Camp Club Girls because she had to be back on the exhibition floor for the rest of the afternoon. Alex’s parents decided to spend the day shopping, but Alex offered to hang out with Kate at her booth.

  “Sounds like fun,” Kate said. “You can help me with the demonstrations!”

  “I would love that!” Alex said. “And maybe I can get a little more video footage for my show.”

  When Kate arrived at her booth, she checked her supplies. Thankfully, she found the pretzels, jelly beans, and chocolate just where she’d left them. Before long, people were coming to her booth, asking for a demonstration.

  The grown-ups loved the Turbo Heat-Freeze and so did the kids. Kate found herself making more and more candy-covered pretzel bites. After awhile, she felt a little dizzy! When would this crowd of people move on to another booth? Probably never, as long as she kept offering them free sweets!

  Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Phillip demonstrated his Weather-Caster Watch. When the crowd thinned, she noticed that Emma and Rachel were talking to Phillip, so she decided to join him. Surely he wouldn’t say anything mean to her with them standing right there. She hoped.

  Kate walked over to his booth with Alex behind her. “Hi, everyone,” she said. “Taking a break?”

  “Mm-hmm!” Emma’s face lit up. “I’m so tired! Wish I could take a nap.”

  “Me too.” Kate tried to hold back a yawn, but it came out anyway. “It’s been a long day.”

  Emma smiled warmly. “Still, I’ve had the time of my life here. And I was just telling Phillip about another one of my inventions.”

  “What is it?” Kate asked.

  “I’ve been working on a hydroponic garden back at our farm,” Emma said. “I wish I could have brought it with me, but it’s almost as big as a room in our house!”

  “Wow,” Kate said. “What gave you the idea to do a hydroponic garden?”

  “My father is a farmer,” Emma said. “He farms all sorts of things—corn and beans, potatoes and lettuce. He grows all of the food that we eat on our farm. Some seasons we have a great harvest, and other seasons the vegetables don’t get enough rain. One year we lost our crop because of snow and ice.”

  “We could stand a little snow and ice right now,” Alex grumbled. “It’s so hot and sticky outside this week.”

  “I know.” Emma’s brow wrinkled. “Anyway, I got to thinking that I could create an environment in the barn where vegetables could grow in water. I used horse troughs to create the garden.”

  “Very cool idea,” Alex said.

  Kate thought about Emma’s words for a moment. “You mean you don’t go grocery shopping like we do? You grow all of your own vegetables?”

  “Well, we get a few things at the market sometimes,” she said. “But all of our vegetables come from our garden, and the meat we eat comes from butchering our cows and chickens.”

  “Oh wow.” Alex looked shocked. “That’s what life on a farm is like, I guess.”

  “Yes.” Emma smiled. “I love it. The fields are so pretty in the springtime. It’s so much greener than living in the city.”

  “Tell me more about your hydroponic garden,” Kate said. “I saw one at a science museum once, but I’ve never seen one in a barn before!”

  “We’ve been growing vegetables for years anyway,” Emma said. “And my daadi and I have been working on a hydroponics greenhouse. It’s a little different from what you’re used to because, like I said, we started with an old horse trough.”

  “Very interesting,” Alex said.

  “Oh yes, but the vegetables are growing like crazy!” Emma said with a twinkle in her eye. “You should see the heads of cabbage. They’re very large—bigger than any you’ll find in the grocery store, and you’ve never tasted anything so good.”

  Kate wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t sure she liked cabbage at all!

  “And our corn on the cob is the sweetest you ever tasted,” Emma said. “It’s almost like eating candy. I wish you could taste my mamm’s corn chowder. It’s my favorite. Well, that and the shoo-fly pie.”

  “Shoo-fly pie?” Alex looked confused. “You have flies in your pie?”

  Rachel giggled. “No, not at all! It’s just the name of the pie. It’s very tasty.”

  “I would love to have a bite and find out for myself,” Kate said.

  “I will ask my mamm to bring some back with her tomorrow,” Emma said with a twinkle in her eye. “I think you will like it.”

  “Life is very different where you come from,” Kate said, looking at Rachel and Emma. “But in some ways they’re just the same.”

  Phillip shook his head. “Sorry, but I can’t figure out how you manage without electricity. I don’t think I could do that.”

  Emma shrugged. “When you’ve never had it, you don’t miss it.”

  An elderly man approached Phillip’s booth and began to ask questions about the Weather-Caster Watch, so the girls moved their conversation to Kate’s table.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Emma whispered.

  “Sure.” Kate nodded.

  “We tried to talk to Phillip because he seems like such a loner, but he wouldn’t say much to us. Is he always like that?”

  Kate sighed. “Yes. He is. I’ve tried to be his friend for ages now, but he doesn’t seem to like me. I think he sees me as a competitor most of the time.”

  “Oh, I see.” Emma’s brow wrinkled.

  “Is he mean to you?” Rachel as
ked.

  “Sometimes…a little.” Kate shrugged.

  “Once a boy in our community was mean to me,” Emma explained. “Mamm told me what to do to stop his meanness, and it worked!”

  “What’s that?” Kate asked.

  “She said to turn the other cheek. When he treated me badly, to be extra nice to him.”

  “Yes, that’s what the Bible says,” Kate agreed. “And I’ve been extra nice to Phillip. I even wrote him a note once, asking if we could work together and be friends. But it seems no matter how nice I am, he still doesn’t like me.”

  “There has to be some reason why he feels this way,” Rachel said, glancing at Phillip.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s jealous of you, Kate,” Alex said. “You’re so smart.”

  Kate felt her cheeks warm with embarrassment.

  “No point in hiding it,” Alex said. “You know you are. And now that you’re actually competing against him at a real event, he can’t take the pressure. That’s my guess, anyway.”

  Kate shrugged. She thought about her friend’s words, knowing in her heart they were true. As much as she didn’t like to admit it, from the time she and Phillip were in elementary school, they had bickered over who was the better student. Seemed like every year the competition between them grew stronger. And now it had grown into a big mess, just the sort of mess Elizabeth had been talking about.

  Her thoughts then shifted to Penny and Candy…and to their brothers at the Bender factory. What could Kate do to help bring a broken family back together again?

  A familiar voice rang out and Kate looked up, surprised to see Penny and Candy approaching with their arms full of posters and banners. Looked like God was giving her the perfect opportunity to do something to help.

  She offered a quick prayer, and then turned to the ladies with a smile. She could hardly wait to see what they had up their sleeves!

  Dog-Eat-Dog World

  Kate grinned as she looked at the Twisted Twins.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” she said, looking back and forth between Penny and Candy. “What have you brought?”

  “Oh, all sorts of things!” Candy showed her a large banner with the words TWISTED TWINS on it, along with a couple of posters. The cutest one was a picture of Kate’s face peering through a large pretzel.

  “How did you do that?” she asked.

  Penny shrugged. “We took the picture from your blog and placed it into our logo. Very cool, right?”

  “Very!”

  “We want to put these on your booth, since we’re sponsoring you,” Penny said, lifting the banner. “Hope that’s okay.”

  “Of course! I’d be honored!” Kate nodded and thanked them. Then she helped put up the banner. Afterwards, she stepped back, grinning at how the pretzel theme changed the look of her booth. “I love it!” she said, clasping her hands together. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

  “Well, of course,” Penny said, giving her a hug. Her voice grew even louder as she said, “We think you’re the greatest, Kate, and we want people to know it.”

  Kate’s excitement suddenly disappeared, as Phillip looked her way with a sour expression. He must’ve heard Penny’s words.

  “I don’t really think I’m the greatest at anything,” Kate said softly. “I’m learning that God wants all of His kids to be successful, not just a few.”

  She thought again of Elizabeth’s words and whispered up a prayer, thanking the Lord for teaching her this lesson.

  Candy’s brow wrinkled. “Well, I suppose that’s true.” She shrugged. “I never thought about it before. In our business, it’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

  “Dog-eat-dog?” Alex—who had been putting up one of the posters—looked over, confused.

  “Candy just means that we have to fight for recognition and only the one on top really gets noticed,” Penny explained. “We want to be the top dog, the one to win the prize.”

  Kate glanced at Phillip once again before sharing her thoughts on the matter.

  “Being noticed isn’t a bad thing, and I suppose it’s necessary when you have your own business. I just don’t know…” She looked at the ground, unsure of what to say next. To be quite honest, she was tired of living a dog-eat-dog life. She just wanted her simple, noncompetitive life back, the one where she didn’t have to worry what others thought. Where she could just relax and be herself.

  “You’ll see one day, Kate,” Candy said with a nod. “Being number one is a good thing, a very good thing.”

  Kate just shrugged.

  “Now, show us this Turbo Heat-Freeze,” Penny said, looking at Kate’s invention. We’ve certainly waited long enough to see it.”

  Kate started demonstrating the machine at once, though she noticed the chocolate wasn’t hardening like it usually did.

  “That’s so odd,” she said. “I’m not sure what’s going on.”

  “Well, it’s still a great idea,” Candy said. “And I can just imagine how much better it would be on a larger scale.” She turned to face Penny. “Can you imagine, sister? We could use our longer pretzel rods. The crunchy ones. We could cover them in everything from chocolate and sprinkles to caramel and pecans.

  “Yum. Caramel and pecans! That’s sounds awesome!” Alex said.

  Kate tried to think about yummy pretzels, but she had other things on her mind right now. Her troubling thoughts wouldn’t leave her alone. She decided to change gears, to talk about something else that had been bothering her.

  “Before we do anything else, I need to talk to you ladies about something,” she said at last. “I’m still thinking about the flat pretzels at your factory.”

  The expression on Candy’s face changed to sadness. “What about them, honey?” she asked.

  “I have a couple of theories about what might have happened.”

  “What are you thinking, Kate?” Penny asked. “Tell us.”

  “Well…” She fidgeted with a jellybean, as she worked up the courage to speak her mind. Looking Candy in the eye, she decided to go for it. “Okay, well, I’m wondering about your connection to the Bender brothers.”

  At once Penny’s smile turned into a frown.

  “Our connection?” She began to pace in front of the table then glanced at Candy. “She wants to know about our connection, sister.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” Candy muttered, gazing down at the ground.

  “Do we tell her?” Penny asked.

  Candy shrugged. “I don’t suppose it would hurt anything.” She looked at Kate. “The Bender brothers are our brothers. Their names are Donald and Steve.”

  Kate nodded. So, it was true. The Camp Club Girls had been right all along. Penny and Candy were, indeed, part of the Bender family. Now to get to the heart of the matter. She had just opened her mouth to ask the next question when Alex interrupted.

  “Did you have a fight with them?” Alex asked. “We’re wondering because, well, someone we know told us about it.”

  “Yes.” Candy’s cheeks flushed pink and she started to fan herself. “It’s not something we’re proud of, but we did have a falling out with our brothers years ago.” She shook her head. “It was all their fault, trust me.”

  “And you’ve been competing with them ever since?” Kate asked.

  Penny sighed. “I guess you could put it like that. Our two businesses compete.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that your brothers might be sabotaging you in some way?” Kate looked Penny in the eye.

  “The thought has occurred to me,” Penny said, her eyes filling with tears. “Though I hate to think our own brothers would do something like that.”

  “I agree.” Candy wiped away a tear from her wrinkled cheek. “I’ve been concerned all along that our brothers are out to get us. They’ve been angry since we left the company, and now they want to put us out of business.” Her eyes narrowed even more. “I think you’re right, Kate. Those brothers of ours would do anything to shut us down. Ever since…”
<
br />   She started to say more, but stopped when she realized the girls were watching her. “Oh, sorry. Too much information. Besides, it’s all water under the bridge, anyway.”

  “Water under the bridge?” Alex asked.

  “She means it’s all in the past,” Penny said. “We had a…well, a quarrel with our brothers many years ago and we parted ways. Got really angry with them, in fact. But it’s in the past. Over.”

  “Do you still see them?” Kate asked.

  “No!” Both of the sisters spoke in unison.

  “They can stay on their side of Lancaster County, and we’ll stay on our side,” Candy said, folding her arms at her chest. “Good riddance!”

  “You mean, you don’t even see them at Christmas or Thanksgiving or anything?” Alex looked confused.

  Candy shook her head. “We haven’t seen our brothers in twenty-five years.”

  “Wow.” Kate shook her head, trying to imagine what that would be like. She couldn’t imagine going more than a few days without seeing her brother, let alone twenty-five years! Who could hold onto their anger for that long? It seemed impossible!

  “That’s not completely true, sister,” Penny said. “I saw Donald and his wife at the grocery store a couple of years ago.” Her eyes filled with tears. “They were shopping with their granddaughter. She sure is cute. I wish I could…”

  Brushing aside her tears, she said, “Well, never mind. It would never work out.”

  “Don’t you miss family time?” Alex asked. “Can’t you put your differences behind you and forgive one another?”

  Penny stiffened at once. “They were the ones in the wrong, not us. If they want to ask for our forgiveness, they know where they can find us.”

  “Yes, but the Bible says…” Kate wanted to finish, to tell them that the Bible said they should forgive, even if their brothers didn’t ask for forgiveness. But she didn’t. She bit her tongue to keep from interrupting. She didn’t want to stop the conversation, after all. Might as well learn as much as she could from them.

  “If you don’t mind my asking…” Alex looked at Penny. “What caused the fight? You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to. I’m just curious.”