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

THE LAKE SHAPED LIKE A HALF ROUND OF CHEESE. THIS WAY TO THE SWAMP THAT MAKES RUDE NOISES. THIS WAY TO THE CAVE THAT SWALLOWS THINGS THEN SPITS THEM BACK OUT. She pushed aside some tall blades of grass to read the last sign. THIS WAY TO THE TENDER AND FARMHAND CEMETERY. The arrow pointed down an overgrown path, its stepping stones barely visible. She had only visited Runny Cove’s cemetery one time, a sad and eerie place of cracked headstones and prickly thornbushes. Maybe she’d find some answers about the rest of her family in Tenders’ Cemetery. It was worth a try.

“Rocky,” she called, hoping the marmot would join her. A cemetery would surely be less creepy with a furry friend by her side. But Rocky didn’t appear, so Isabelle took a deep breath and set off down the trail.

A solitary dark cloud hung gloomily over the cemetery. Many of the headstones stood as tall as Isabelle. She wandered around, peeling back ivy vines to read the engravings. Dozens of Fortunes had been buried there, some of whom Walnut had mentioned and others, like Caesar Ragweeder Fortune, Pollenminder Veritas Fortune, and Sunflowery Millicent Fortune. Etched beneath each name was the cause of death: DIED MOST UNEXPECTEDLY FROM A FALL OFF A LADDER. DIED MOST PEACEFULLY WHILE NAPPING AT A PICNIC. DIED MOST REGRETTABLY IN A DRUNKEN DUEL. Only one tombstone did not list cause of death and its single name read: DAFFODILLY.

In a separate part of the cemetery she found a clump of headstones that bore only single names like Bob, Poke, Curly, and Gus, followed by the statement, A LOYAL FARMHAND TO HIS DYING DAY. These also mentioned cause of death, though in one-word form only: EATEN, SQUEEZED, SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTED, LOST. No doubt about it—farmhanding was a dangerous occupation.

Isabelle searched and searched but no headstone read: MOTHER TO ISABELLE or FATHER TO ISABELLE, or PARENTS OF THE CHILD WHO WAS LEFT ON A DOORSTEP. Walnut hadn’t said that her parents had died. He said she no longer had a mother and father. That could mean something else besides death, couldn’t it? Maybe. Hopefully.

A whistle rang through the cemetery. Isabelle, who was becoming something of a Marmoticus Terriblus expert, knew that marmots chirp when discussing things and whistle when they feel threatened. She ran back up the trail to the thatched-roof cottage. Maybe that goat was getting too close to Rocky’s new hole. Another whistle sounded from somewhere in the field. “Rocky?” She stood on tiptoe and strained her green eyes, searching for a furry brown head. At the center of the field, something orange rose out of the grass, hovered in the air, then sank back down. Rocky whistled again.

Isabelle hurried across a red bridge. Not too far ahead, another orange object floated above the grass, hovered, then disappeared. Heading that way, she crossed a green bridge and came to a pond. “Rocky,” she cried out, relieved to find the marmot sitting at the water’s edge. “What’s the matter? I was worried.”

Rocky squinted at the water. Orange fish, about the size of Mama Lu’s salt canister, swam to the side of the pond and stared up at Isabelle with bulging black eyes. They swam in place, huddling together, shiny scale against shiny scale. “Fish,” Isabelle said. While she had heard many stories from her grandmother, she had never been face to face with a real fish. She lay on the bank, resting her chin on her arms, watching them as intently as they watched her. Rocky climbed onto Isabelle’s head for a better view. Were these the same kind of fish that Grandma Maxine’s father used to catch in Runny Cove?

One of the fish grew bored and swam to the center of the pond, where it nibbled on a round-leafed plant. The fish took a few bites, then floated up out of the water. It didn’t look surprised as it hovered. It flapped its tail and slowly sank back to its watery home. Grandma Maxine had never told her that fish could fly!

Rocky climbed off Isabelle’s head and wandered closer to the edge, where she snagged one of the round leaves. She sank her buckteeth into the leaf’s flesh, tapping her feet as she happily chewed. Apparently the pond plant made a delicious meal because she reached in and pulled out another.

Isabelle sat up and laughed, watching as another fish took a bite, then enjoyed a midair float. What lucky fish, Isabelle thought, to be able to float like that.

Rocky stopped chewing and chirped. She cocked her head, then rose off the ground. It’s the plant, Isabelle realized, not the fish. “Oh Rocky, you shouldn’t have eaten that plant.”

The marmot whistled and frantically pawed at the air. Apparently, while goldfish enjoy mid-air floating, marmots do not. Isabelle leapt to her feet and tried to grab Rocky’s stubby tail, but she was already out of reach. Squealing and writhing, the furry rodent rose higher and higher.

“You’ll be fine,” Isabelle called. “You’ll come down soon.” Hopefully. “Don’t be afraid.” A silly sight, to look up in the sky and see a marmot rump floating past, but Isabelle felt too worried to giggle. Rocky was her friend, her responsibility. The slugs and the potato bugs had died because she hadn’t been strong enough to fight Mama Lu. And she hadn’t been brave enough to fight Mr. Supreme. Had she been, she could have gotten home in time to save her grandmother. She wasn’t about to let anything happen to her marmot. She ran as quickly as she could, following the marmot’s shadow. If Rocky fell…

But Rocky didn’t fall. Isabelle held out her arms as the trembling rodent descended. “You scared me.” After a wet nose kiss, Rocky wiggled free of Isabelle’s hug and scampered off. “Don’t eat anything else,” Isabelle called.

Though that advice seemed wise for a marmot, Isabelle found herself wondering what it would feel like to float, not across an ocean, but on air. She wandered back to the