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

Even when bowing, he was still squatter than most everyone. “I can’t help but notice that you are not wearing a wedding ring, dear lady. Are you, by any chance, looking for a husband?” He smiled eagerly, his drenched hat clinging to his round head.

“Looking for a husband? Why?” Grandma Maxine asked. “Did I lose one?”

“A sense of humor, too.” Walnut clapped his hands as if he had just opened a birthday present.

“And this is Sage,” Isabelle said. “Oh, that’s right. You two have already met.”

“You look well,” Sage said.

But Grandma Maxine scowled at him. “You promised to take her away. Why did you bring her back? There’s nothing for her here.”

“It was my idea to come back,” Isabelle said. “I want to help. We’ve all come to help.”

“Help?” Grandma Maxine shook her head. “Runny Cove is lost, Isabelle. The best thing you can do is to save yourself.”

BAROOO!

Grandma Maxine looked nervously up the road. “That’s the five-minute warning. I’ll get in trouble if I’m late.”

“But Grandma, we brought cherries to cure everyone.”

She gasped. “You mean like the cherry I ate?”

“Yes.” Isabelle opened the chest. Raindrops glided down glossy cherry skins. “Will you help me pass them out?”

“That’s why you came back? To help everyone feel better?”

“And to see you.”

Grandma Maxine pulled Isabelle into another rib-cracking hug. “You’re an angel, Isabelle. Of course I’ll help you pass them out. That nasty Mr. Supreme can give me quadruple shifts for being late—I don’t care. I’m going to help my granddaughter!”

The last of the workers marched past. Isabelle held out a cherry to one of the women. “Eat this,” she insisted. “It will make your cough go away.”

“I don’t have time,” the woman said hoarsely. “I won’t get paid if I’m late.”

Walnut, Nesbitt, Sage, and Grandma Maxine tried to convince workers to stop and eat a cherry, but not a single worker accepted the offer. Their eyes focused on one thing only—the factory that loomed at the top of the gravel road.

Isabelle wound frantically up the road, searching for someone who would trust her. Finally, she spotted Gwen. There was no time for a reunion. No time for explanations. “Eat one of these.”

“Isabelle?” Gwen mumbled, wiping her runny nose. She barely opened her eyes. “I’m so tired. You’re in trouble for missing so much work.”

“Please eat this, Gwen. It will make you feel better.”

“I don’t have time. I have to work triple shifts today,” she said, slopping through a pothole. She kept marching, just like the others.

“Leonard,” Isabelle called out, running to her friend. But he didn’t even recognize her voice.

“Got… to… get… to… work.”

“They won’t listen to me,” Isabelle said frantically. “They only care about getting to work.”

Walnut put an arm around Isabelle’s shoulders. “Don’t despair. I’m sure there’s a way to get them to pay attention.”

“Maybe we can try again tonight, when they leave the factory,” Sage suggested.

“But then they’ll be in a bigger hurry to get home to their suppers,” Grandma Maxine said.

“They won’t pay attention, not as long as that factory sits up there,” Isabelle cried. “I hate that stupid factory. I wish it would just disappear!”

“That can be arranged.” Walnut pulled a seed packet from his jacket pocket and smiled mischievously.

The instant the seeds fell into Walnut’s palm, they sprouted. “Seems to me that they can’t be late if there’s no work to be late for,” he said, green shoots flowing down his arm.

“Camouflage Creeper seeds. Great idea,” Sage said.

“Hmmm.” Nesbitt stroked his pointy chin. “It certainly would be a tasty bit of revenge if we made Mr. Supreme’s factory disappear.”

Isabelle smiled, imagining Mr. Supreme driving up in his big black roadster to find his factory missing. He’d holler, no doubt about it. He’d throw a fit, but all the while his factory would be right where he had left it. Wouldn’t that be a fun sight to see? Even better than the time Mama Lu had hollered all morning about her missing salt canister, and it turned out she’d been sitting on it the entire time!

“You’re talking crazy,” Grandma Maxine said. “In the first place, no one can make an entire factory disappear and in the second place, what would the workers do? We need that factory to survive. It’s the only way for us to earn a living.”

“Oh no, Grandma. There are other ways. Believe me.”

While traveling across the sea, Isabelle and her companions had devised a plan for how the workers of Runny Cove could earn a living without the umbrella factory. Though using Camouflage Creepers hadn’t been part of the original plan, it occurred to Isabelle that everything would be easier if the factory disappeared.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

“Rolo,” Walnut called. The raven flew from the clouds, scooped the Camoflauge Creepers into his beak, then flew toward the factory.

Mr. Hench stood in the factory’s doorway. “Hey!” he shouted through cupped hands. The workers had only marched two-thirds of the way up the road. “Get up here, you lazy lot of losers!”

Rolo dive-bombed Mr. Hench’s head, then flew around the factory dropping the wriggling creepers. The effect was immediate. The vines took root in the soggy ground and climbed the cement building, grabbing hold of windowsills and fissures. Sprouting branches and leaves, the vines climbed and covered until no doors, windows, or pipes could be seen. Up they rose, reaching the roof, forcing their way down the chimney and extinguishing its stinky plume. In only a few moments the towering cement fortress had been transformed into a solitary mountain. Or so it appeared.

The workers stopped in their tracks. They stared. They shook their heads. They rubbed their eyes. Rain pelted their disbelieving faces.

“Hey. Get a move on.” Mr. Hench hadn’t yet noticed the mountain. He hurried down the road carrying one of the new umbrellas—azure blue with white polka dots. “Whatcha all standing around for? Get up there and get to work or Mr. Supreme will fire the whole lot of ya.”

But the workers just kept staring.

Isabelle, who stood