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

Walnut sat with a weary sigh. “Because, except for the green hair, you are the spitting image of her.”

“It’s so unfair. We worked so hard.” Sage kicked the cupboard again. “All for nothing. For nothing!”

Isabelle’s mouth fell open. Is that what she was—nothing?

“Why are you so mad?” she demanded. “You’re not the one who has to go back. You don’t have to work in a factory or sleep in a rented room, or spend the rest of your life doing dish duty because your landlady called you a thief. You get to stay here and eat hot soup and wear dry clothes. You get to see the sun every day.” A panicky feeling flooded Isabelle’s body. Like a water bottle filling with seawater, the feeling swirled and bubbled as it moved from her toes all the way up her neck. “You should never have brought me here!” she yelled. She picked up the marmot and ran down the hallway and into her bedroom.

“Isabelle,” Sage called.

“Isabelle,” Walnut called.

She plopped the marmot onto the bed, then locked the door. She didn’t want to talk to Sage or to her great-uncle. She didn’t want to see them either, so she locked her window and closed the curtains. Then she threw herself onto the colorful quilt, buried her face into the pillow, and released the tears of a lifetime.

Sometimes a person cries for just one thing—a fall from a bicycle, a failed grade, or perhaps a ruined potato bug palace. But Isabelle cried for so many things that her tears soaked the pillow. She cried for her grandmother and for all the people she missed back in Runny Cove. She cried for the mother she would never know and who had done such a bad thing, and for the grandfather who obviously hated her. She cried because the world was full of mean and rotten people who cared only about making money. She cried because she was the reason for Runny Cove’s rain. And she cried for herself and her sorry predicament.

In an instant, Isabelle’s dream had been squashed like a bug under Mama Lu’s big foot.

“Isabelle?” Sage called softly from the other side of the door. “Isabelle?”

“You lied to me,” she said, spitting the words at the door. “You should have told me that I wasn’t welcome here. Go away!” The crying had stuffed up her nose. She stuck her head under the pillow to muffle her sobs. The marmot joined her, puffing warm breath onto Isabelle’s cheek.

“We needed to try. We thought that if Nesbitt saw you…”

“You lied to me. You said my family was waiting to meet me.” She threw the pillow at the door.

“Okay, so I didn’t tell you the whole story. If I had told you, you might not have come. I thought I was doing the right thing. Can’t you understand?”

“Can’t you understand? When a girl has never seen the sun she doesn’t yearn for it. When a girl has never felt dry she doesn’t know what she’s missing. But now I know.” Every vibrant, colorful, glowing inch of Isabelle knew what she had been missing.

Sage tapped on the door. “Isabelle, please let me in. There’s something else I didn’t tell you.”

“Go away! I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.” She curled into a ball, the way a potato bug does when it wants to protect itself from predators. From liars!

The floorboards creaked as Sage slunk away.

Something else he didn’t tell me. What else could there possibly be? That she’d be expected to pay for her dinner? That the elephant seal was taking a vacation so she’d have to swim back to Runny Cove? That, come morning, she would be fed to a Piranha Plant?

As night passed, Isabelle lay on her bed like the unhappiest lump of nothing in the entire world. She fell into a fitful sleep. Her dreams churned with angry voices.

You’ll have to pay for my apple. Dish duty at my house for a whole month.

She’s dead, ya hear me? Dead.

So, little girl, when I tell you that you must work extra hours, I expect gratitude.

There’s nothing out there fer ya. Yer just a stupid factory worker.

I DON’T WANT HER HERE!

Isabelle awoke, covered in sweat. She opened the curtains and the window, seeking a cool breeze.

Back in Runny Cove, if Isabelle felt lonely at night and her Grandma Maxine was sleeping, she would look out her fourth-floor window. Even if she couldn’t see Gertrude’s Boarding House through the rain and fog, it comforted her to know that Gwen slept nearby. But other than the marmot, who sat on her foot, nothing comforted her that night.

“I won’t go back,” Isabelle whispered. “I won’t work for that horrible Mr. Supreme.” Besides, who knew what other magical plants might grow if she returned? Maybe one that sucked up oxygen or one that turned rain into ice daggers. She had to run away and she had to do it before the others awoke.

She glanced at the clothes in the closet. That kelp suit would be perfect for her trip, and it wouldn’t be stealing because Great-Uncle Walnut had said that everything in the room belonged to her. So she changed into the suit.

“He doesn’t want you here, either,” she told Rocky. “Looks like it’s just the two of us.” Rocky seemed to understand, for she stared sadly at Isabelle with her round black eyes. Then she touched her wet nose to Isabelle’s freckled one. Together, they climbed out the bedroom window and started across the yard.

Each footstep felt heavier than the last. She didn’t dare look back, knowing that she’d start to cry again. She wanted to stay, with all her heart. There, in that fairy tale place, Isabelle knew that she would never run out of things to collect and take care of. She’d never run out of songs either. She’d never run out of interesting.

Her intent was to walk straight through the orchard and