Fortune's Magic Farm (20 page)

“The cloud bogs?”

“Yes, the wetlands that surround Runny Cove. They are not naturally occurring. The plant growing in them is called Cloud Clover, a highly invasive species that turns dry land into mush. While most plants release oxygen into the air, Cloud Clover releases clouds. You see, the only seeds that survived long enough for Henry to sell were Cloud Clover seeds. In an evil attempt to get more people to buy umbrellas, Mr. Supreme planted Cloud Clover in sunny parts of the world.” A sapling shot up from the table where Walnut’s hand rested. “Anyone can grow the clover. It germinates and does quite well on its own. But the Cloud Clover growing in Runny Cove is seven times taller than it should be. When Rolo reported this, we knew that a tender had to be living in that horrid village. Rolo continued his investigation and discovered that there were three ten-year-old children. And then Sage delivered the apples, and, well, here you are.”

Isabelle’s shoulders fell. “I am the reason that it always rains in Runny Cove?”

“It’s not entirely your fault. You didn’t plant the seed. But you are the reason the cloud coverage is thicker than porridge and why the sun can never break through.”

“That’s terrible.”

No one said anything for a long while. The marmot went back to digging. Isabelle could barely believe it. She was the reason for so much of the misery in Runny Cove. The clouds didn’t part because of her!

“What are we going to do about Nesbitt?” Sage asked under his breath.

Walnut frowned. “What’s that? Did you just call me a twit?”

Sage yanked a mushroom from Walnut’s ear. “I said,
Nesbitt.
What are we going to do about Nesbitt?”

“I shall speak to him again. This time I will demand that he allow Isabelle to stay. This time I’ll…”

“WHY IS SHE STILL HERE?”

Isabelle almost fell off her chair. The booming question ricocheted off the walls and rattled the teapot.

Nesbitt Rhododendrol Fortune stood in the kitchen’s entryway, so tall that he had to stoop to fit through. His wrinkled face blazed as furiously as his orange streaks. Isabelle began to tremble.

“I TOLD HER TO GO!”

N
ow Nesbitt,” Walnut said calmly,
“there’s no reason for all this shouting.”

“I don’t want her here. I never wanted her here. Can’t you see? She’s just like her mother.”

Sage stood. “I’m the one who brought her here so if you’re going to get mad at someone you should get mad at me.”

“I told Sage to bring her,” Walnut defended, also rising from his chair. “This was all my idea.”

“You both disobeyed my orders?” The question hissed slowly from Nesbitt’s mouth, like steam.

Horrible silence filled the room. No one took a breath. Isabelle didn’t budge. She could feel her grandfather’s stare burn right through her. She wanted to crawl under the table and hide. The marmot, however, found a pebble in the potting soil and threw it right at Nesbitt.
Bonk!

Stunned, Nesbitt rubbed his forehead.

“I’m s… s… sorry,” Isabelle stuttered. “She likes to throw rocks.”

For a moment, the old man’s expression softened. Would he change his mind? What could she do to convince him that she wasn’t like her mother, that she wasn’t going to hurt the farm?

But his eyes narrowed. “The child leaves tomorrow,” he ordered. “You will take her back to where you found her. If
you don’t obey me this time, you can both go with her and never return.” He stomped over to the kitchen table. As his hand flew through the air, everyone flinched. But the hand simply landed on the cast iron soup pot. “I’m hungry,” he murmured, lifting the pot off the table. As he made his exit, he sneered at the marmot. “And that rodent goes too!”

He stomped down the hall and slammed the door marked “N.”

Sage smacked his hand on the table. “Why won’t he listen to us?” He kicked a cupboard door. “Why is he so stubborn?”

“Pride, my dear boy,” Walnut explained. “He may never recover from Daffodilly’s disloyalty.”

“But why did he say I was just like her?” Isabelle asked. “He doesn’t even know me.”

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 find the path that led up to the ridge and tunnel, but Rolo flew from the barn and circled her head. “Caw, caw.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sage hurried from the barn, bits of straw hanging from his hair. “Were you trying to leave without me?” He grabbed Isabelle’s arm.

“I’m not going back to Runny Cove,” she said, yanking away from his grip. “Never. Do you hear me. Never!”

“Shhh. You’ll wake Nesbitt. Let’s talk inside.”

“No.”

“If you don’t come inside and talk to me, then I’ll wake Nesbitt anyway,” he threatened.

She didn’t want to talk, but she didn’t want to wake her grandfather either. She followed Sage to the barn. As he lit a candle, some of the animals awoke. The oxen snorted a greeting. The goats raised their bearded faces.

Isabelle stood in the doorway. If she went inside, he might trap her. “No one can make me go back.”

Sage rubbed sleep from his eyes. “You won’t survive out there. Not without me.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, scowling. “You think I’m just a stupid factory girl.”

Sage folded his arms and shook his head. “I don’t think you’re stupid, Isabelle. It’s just that you don’t have the survival skills. I know. I ran away when I was seven. If it hadn’t been for Nesbitt, I’d be dead.”

The chickens clucked softly, repositioning themselves on their roost. Isabelle took a cautious step inside. “What happened?”

Sage pushed aside a blanket and sat on a pile of straw. Dim candlelight flickered, throwing shadows across his dark face. “I grew up in a port town, way down south,” he said. “My parents indentured me to a seaweed soup factory when I was six years old. Do you know what that means, to be indentured?” Isabelle shook her head. “It means that they sold me to the factory’s owner. I don’t know how much money my parents got for me but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I knew, even at age six, that I wasn’t about to work in that factory for the rest of my life, standing at that conveyor belt every day, pressing labels onto soup tins. So, when I turned seven, I ran away.”

Isabelle was too stunned to speak. Sage had been a labeler?

“I figured that the best way to get out of a port town was by boat, so I stole aboard the biggest ship I could find, a Magnificently Supreme Shipping Company ship.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I stole food every night from the kitchen and slept down below where they kept the ropes. After thirteen days at sea I overheard some of the crew saying that we’d reach the next port by morning. I knew they’d need the ropes to dock the ship and I didn’t want to get caught. I waited for nightfall, then crept up on deck. I could see land and it didn’t seem very far away, so I climbed over the railing and jumped into the water.”

Sage picked a piece of straw from his hair and rolled it between his long brown fingers. His eyes took on a faraway look. “I made two mistakes that night. I miscalculated the distance and I didn’t realize that the water would be so cold. My arms and legs started to feel like stone and the land didn’t get any closer. I went under. The next thing I knew I was lying across the back of an elephant seal with a man who introduced himself as Mr. Nesbitt Fortune.”

“He saved your life,” Isabelle whispered.

“Yep. And he gave me a home. And I’ve worked hard ever since because I love this place. But you can’t imagine how bad it’s been with Supreme searching all the time. We can barely leave the farm anymore.” Sage flicked the piece of straw.