Fortune's Magic Farm by Suzanne Selfors (i read book .TXT) 📗

look brave. She held up her chin. “I’m going to find out where I came from.”

“Where ya came from?” Mama Lu snorted. She pulled the drawer free and shook it over the bed. She had taken everything. “Ya came from noplace. Now, give me whatever’s in yer boot.”

All that had been beautiful about the room on the fourth floor was gone—the happy stories of Sunny Cove, the peaceful little creatures, the warm mossy carpet and the glistening vines. But one little thing remained—one creature that had eluded Mama Lu’s stomping foot.

“Give me yer boot!” Mama Lu lunged at Isabelle. At that moment, Isabelle felt a bolt of courage. She ducked beneath Mama Lu’s swinging arm and grabbed the pickle jar aquarium.

“I hate you,” she cried. “You’re mean and you smell like stinky cheese. And I hate this place. I came from Nowhere and I’m going to find it.” She rushed into the hallway.

“Stop her!” Mama Lu screamed. “Thief! That’s my pickle jar.”

“It’s mine. You threw it away.” The aquarium water sloshed as Isabelle stumbled down the stairs. The tenants huddled on the third-floor landing, their gloomy faces gloomier than ever.

“Good luck,” Mrs. Wormbottom said, a tear in her eye.

“Take care of yourself,” Mr. Limewig said, his voice cracking with emotion.

Isabelle wanted to hug and kiss each one of them but there was no time. Mama Lu’s footsteps thundered close behind.

“Nothing leaves this house without my permission. She’s a thief! Someone call Mr. Hench!”

“You’ll get arrested if you take that,” Boris said, pointing at the aquarium.

“I won’t let her kill my barnacle. Grandma taught me all about barnacles.”

“Then we’ll try to slow her down,” Bert said. “Hurry.”

“Thank you. Goodbye,” Isabelle called as she flew down the last two flights.

“Stop! Ya’ll go to jail, ya moldy little thief! Get out of my way!” Mama Lu screamed. “Ya stupid dunderheads is blocking the stairs!”

Rain poured as Isabelle leapt off the front porch. Oh, how she wanted to tell Gwen that she was leaving, but she couldn’t risk slowing down. “Goodbye, Gwen!” she yelled as she passed Gertrude’s Boardinghouse, hoping her friend might hear. “I’ll send word as soon as I get there.”

Water splashed into her boots as she ran up Boggy Lane. Kitchen lights reflected in the ankle-deep water. Mama Lu would soon ring Mr. Hench and he’d come looking for her. “Goodbye, Leonard,” she called as she passed his boardinghouse.

At the edge of town she stopped running. Out of breath and coughing, she set down the aquarium and rested her hands on her knees. Which way should she go? The gravel road stretched before her, its right fork leading to the factory, its left fork winding through miles of dangerous bogs and swamps. Only the heavy-duty headlights of Mr. Supreme’s delivery trucks could cut through the bog’s thick fog. The older villagers often said that the few who had tried to leave Runny Cove on foot either drowned in swamp mud or got eaten alive by swamp frogs.

Isabelle looked over her shoulder. No one had followed. Not yet. She tried not to think about her grandmother. She tried to focus on her escape. But again and again the words repeated: She’s dead. Ya hear me? Dead.

Suddenly, Isabelle ached to see her grandmother one last time. But the cemetery would be an obvious place to search for Mama Lu’s thief. Grandma Maxine wouldn’t be able to hear the goodbye anyway. All that remained was her body.

“A body is just a container,” Mrs. Wormbottom had once told Isabelle. “When we die, our body is left behind but our soul goes on a journey to a wonderful place.”

If Grandma Maxine’s soul had gone on a journey to a wonderful place, then it would certainly have gone as far away from Runny Cove as possible.

Isabelle took a deep, decisive breath. Hugging the pickle jar, she started across the dunes. The factory’s yellow lights cast an eerie haze upon the sand. The rain poured as she negotiated the slippery driftwood, but both she and the barnacle reached the beach without injury.

The wind stung with needles of icy seawater as Isabelle scurried down the beach. With each step the factory’s lamplight faded and the abandoned fishing boats took on eerie shapes. She had never walked beyond the cove and when she reached its edge, fear crept over her. She rounded the rocky bluff and stared into total darkness. Not even Runny Cove eyes can cut through total darkness. She’d have to wait for morning light.

A boat lay up the beach, half-buried in the sand. The cabin door had long fallen free. With an outstretched hand she found a corner bunk, its wooden slats still strong enough to hold her. Suddenly, sadness weighed down every part of her body. She set the aquarium onto the sandy floor, then lay on the bunk and tucked her knees to her chest. She tried to keep the bad thoughts away, tried not to think of Mama Lu, or the undertaker, or holes in the ground where dead bodies are buried. She shivered as dampness seeped into her clothing. She trembled as grief took hold. For the first time in her memory, Isabelle had no one.

No one to answer her questions. No one to tell her stories of the old days. No one to say, “Good night, Isabelle.”

And that’s when the apple seed began to hum again. Not like a trapped insect, but a sort of melody, as if it were making up its own little song. She picked the seed out of her sock. The melody traveled up her arm. It spread over her chest and down her other arm until it had covered her entire body like a blanket. The song continued, soft and comforting, like a grandmother’s sweet humming. As Isabelle held the seed between her palms, her eyelids grew heavy and the bad thoughts drifted away.

Many hours later, Isabelle opened her eyes. She thought at first that she was dreaming because she saw the following things: a