Genuine Sweet (13 page)

“I'll come right now,” I told him.

“Not without me, you're not,” Jura said.

Even from down the way and across the street, I could see that Ham's was sardine-packed. A row of people stood at the door and curled around the side of the building.

Ham used his bulk to shuffle me and Jura through the door. There was a slew of familiar faces there, but Penny Walton wasn't among them.

“All right, folks! She's here!” Ham hollered. He led me to “my” booth, where I'd given Miz Tromp and Handyman Joe their wish biscuits. Cousin Faye stood nearby, just a-beamin' as she taped a construction-paper sign to the table:

 

Reserved! for

Sass's Own

Genuine Sweet,

Wish Fetcher

 

Jura and I slid into the booth. What else
could
we do? One by one, the citizens of Sass came forward, some hopeful and some pained, but all of them with a wish that needed fetching.

If only their faces weren't so full of trust. If only they'd ask for things like jewels and TVs, instead of medicine and work clothes, I could send 'em packing. Instead, I tore page after page from my notebook, taking it all down, watching as the number of wish biscuits I'd need to make doubled, then tripled.

Dimly, I recalled the ghost in
Macbeth
who said, “Sleep no more!”

I caught my mirror image in the window and pondered what it might be like to live
there,
on the distant side of things. Folks couldn't demand doodly from me; I'd be nothing but a reflection, far away, where things were watery and quiet. For a time, I just lingered there in my imagination.

As if from far off, I heard Jura talking with Jerry Tatum about a tractor.

“It don't have to be new. I'd take just about any tractor, long as it ran.” He shrugged. “Course I can't pay for it.”

“No, I understand,” Jura replied, “but maybe you have something you can trade?”

“Well, I ain't got no crops for trade, 'cause I ain't got no tractor.”

“No, I can see that,” Jura agreed. “But there must be something—a service maybe?”

He couldn't think of anything.

“Genuine? Any ideas?” Jura asked me.

From the stack of wish lists, a twinkle caught my eye. Silver light danced beside one of the names. Missus Sandidge had wished for a place to hold her twenty-fifth annual family reunion. A few notes of otherworldly music rang in my ear. I knew that song! It was the melody of the stars!

“Mister Tatum, that big barn of yours, the one facing the Henderson property, is it still empty?” I asked, starting to get excited.

“'Cept for my dead tractor,” he answered.

“Would you be willing to let someone use that barn for just a few days, if they would
loan
you their tractor when they weren't using it?” I knew the Sandidges had a fine tractor that they used for only part of one season each year.

He nodded so broadly it nearly doubled him over. “Heck, yes!”

Missus Sandidge was still at Ham's counter slurping a milkshake. I called her over. In under sixty seconds, both Jerry and Missus Sandidge left smiling.

“You're a genius, Genuine!” Jura exclaimed. “That's two less biscuits you have to bake! Who else can we pair up?”

By six-thirty, Ham's place had cleared out.

“Mister Rucker,” I said into Ham's phone, “if you'll see Miz Sams in the morning, I know she'd love to swap you some housecleaning help in exchange for a ride to her doctor appointment in Ardenville.”

Jura called Dennis Talley. “The hardware store needs an extra hand over the holidays, Dennis. They can't afford wages, but they'll be happy to pay you in building materials.”

And so it went. By eight o'clock, we had paired fourteen additional sets of people.

Hanging up the phone, Jura turned to me. “Not bad for a day's work.”

“Miz Sams was really excited.” I had to smile.

“They all were,” Jura agreed.

 

“Genuine Sweet! What were you thinking?” Gram met me at the gate. She held her hands in a knot at her chest.

“Roxie Fuller showed me on her computer what you done,” she fretted. “Saying you're a fourth-generation wish fetcher! From Sass, Georgia, no less! Putting up your picture for all the world to see!”

I gaped. “But Gram! You said Ma advertised in the Ardenville newspaper!”

“She didn't put her name! And she used one of those blind addresses! Nobody ever knew who she was!” She plunked down on Pa's apple crate and put her head in her hands.

Gazing up at me, her eyes full of regret, she said, “I didn't even think to remember you might put your wishes on those Interwebs.”

“But . . . you said to find my own way,” I reminded her.

“And here's what comes of it.” She held out her hand, revealing a balled-up paper. I smoothed it open against my palm.

Now Hiring,
the flyer said.
Town Handyman. Apply at City Hall.

“This is something Pa might be able to do!” I exclaimed. “Don't you think?”

“I did think so,” Gram agreed. “Even went to city hall to get the details.”

I gulped. “And?”

“And I run into Penny Walton.” Gram took the job ad from me. “She told me Dale shouldn't bother to apply—not while his daughter's running around making trouble like she is.”

“No!”

“I asked her what business it was of hers—she don't run this town. She said the mayor wouldn't dare hire against her wishes, seeing as how he's hoping to buy one of her properties for a real low price. Can you believe that? Full-out bribery! The very stench of it!”

I was strack hard. That job could have made a real difference for us. Bills paid. Groceries bought. Penny Walton making a ruckus on the street corner was one thing, but this was real spite—the dangerous sort.

“Why is she doing this? I don't understand.”

Gram looked away. “There's nothin' to understand. Penny's just mad, doin' what mad people do.”

“This goes
way
past mad! Gram, please! Don't send me to the cotillion without eye shadow! You have got to tell me why she is so riled!”

She was quiet for a time. “All right, Gen. I expect if I don't tell you, someone else will.”

My heart did a double thump. Now that I'd asked for the truth, I wasn't at all sure I wanted to hear it.

I cowgirled up. “I'm listening.”

She looked at me, still standing there holding the wish lists under my arm. “Sit, honey. You're making me nervous.”

I sat down, facing her, with my back against one of our termite-chewed porch beams.

“So, what happened is,” Gram began, “some trouble came up. With some people. And there was some hurt feelings and some folks got mad. Then there was a sad to-do, but time passed and now, for the most part, it's done with.” She gave me a fuzzy little half-smile. “You see?”

“I . . . think I'm gonna need a few more details,” I said.

“Right. Course you will.” She smoothed her skirt. And started picking lint off it. Then she took off her glasses and started cleaning them on her shirt.

“Gram!”

“All right!” She swatted the tops of her legs. “What I said about your ma, her fetching anonymous wishes through a newspaper ad, that was all true. Cristabel kept things real quiet. But that didn't stop people in Sass from putting two and two together. My ma was a fetcher, I was a fetcher, so, of course—”

“Everyone in town figured Ma was a wish fetcher, too,” I ventured.

“Exactly,” Gram agreed. “And folks started coming to her for wishes. But she always turned them away, telling 'em
I
was the Sass wish fetcher, and if they wanted something,
I
was the MacIntyre to see.

“Except this one time.

“See, Cristabel and Penny Walton used to run together, real good friends, and Penny's big sister, Loreen, had taken ill.” Gram's eyes darted away. “It was bad. Lot of pain. And what with Cristabel spending so much of her time with Penny, she saw the very worst of it, up-close. So, one day, when Penny broke into tears, wishing for all the world that Loreen would get better, your ma said, ‘Let's see what we can do.'”

It was hard to imagine a time when Penny Walton had anything but ire for my kin and our wishes. “And Penny let her?”

“Let her? Begged her, is more like,” Gram said. “So, Cristabel went into Loreen's room, all alone, and spoke with her for a time. And . . . something happened.”

“What?” I asked.

Gram shook her head. “Cristabel would never tell me. Nor anyone else, far as I know.

“I don't know if she tried to fetch the wish and failed, or if she didn't have the heart to try, but when Cristabel left that room, Penny's sister was as sick as ever. She died a few days later.”

I peered over Gram's shoulder, through the open door, to the wall where Ma's picture hung. She was so goodly and beautiful. You could tell she was the sort of person who'd give a neighbor her last egg.

“Things weren't ever easy in the Walton house,” Gram added. “But after Loreen passed . . . I imagine Penny's life seemed unbearable. Seemingly, all because her good friend Cristabel—who fetched wishes for complete strangers—somehow let Loreen die. Betrayed, is how Penny must have felt. So, you might see why she's so angry. Course that don't make it right, her interferin' with that job for Dale.”

I could only nod.

“You got to understand,” she said. “I kept this from you for your own good. There weren't nothing you could do about it, for good or for ill, as a child.”

But the truth was, I didn't
really
understand why she'd kept it from me. It was a sad story, but nothing I couldn't bear.

“Do you see now?” Gram called me back from my thoughts. “Do you see why we got to keep things quiet? With the problems we got, the last thing we want is more trouble. More folks . . . needing things we might not be able to give.”

She set her head in her hands and let out a lone sob.

Something still wasn't adding up. Why was Gram so upset? Why had she been so secretive about a dying girl and a sorrowing family? I wanted to ask, but Gram's pain called me to her. I went to set an arm around her shoulder.

“It's all right, Gram.” I soothed her as best I could.

I can't say I was glad she'd kept things from me for so long, but the truth was, even if I
had
known about all this business beforehand, I wouldn't have acted any different. I couldn't regret helping folks. To turn aside from another person's suffering—that was downright unneighborly!

But I had heard Gram's sorrow, too. From now on, I'd be more careful. Stir the pot more gentle-like. I'd lay the lemons on the table and show Sass I knew how to make lemonade. Maybe, someday, I'd even nudge my way toward Penny Walton's good side.

“What's in your head, Gen Sweet? I can see the wheels a-turning.” Her voice was thick with woe.

“Don't worry, Gram,” I told her. “All shall be well.”

And I believed it. I really did. With all of my heart.

If only I knew why Ma hadn't been able to save Loreen Walton.

13

T
WO DAYS LATER, THE PRESS ARRIVED.

It began before dawn with a knock on the door. Half dreaming and figuring it was Missus Fuller come to have tea with Gram, I went to the door in a hand-me-down robe that hung open to reveal my pink
Prom Queen
–themed pajamas. My hair was unbrushed, as were my teeth. I'm sure I had a heap of sleep in the corners of my eyes.

“Genuine Sweet?” asked the voice of a woman far too alert, given the time of day. She also pronounced my name wrong.

I couldn't actually see the woman. The pre-dawn dark, combined with a mess of blinding TV lights, prevented that.

“It's Gen-u-wine, but . . . yeah?” I shielded my eyes.

“Kathleen Kroeger,
Ardenville in the Morning.
” By the time I understood that this had been her way of introducing herself, she'd turned her back on me. “Are we rolling? Darnell? Can you get us rolling?” A red light blinked. Suddenly, and if it was possible, Miz Kroeger was even perkier. “This morning I'm in Sass, Georgia, talking to Genuine Sweet, who claims that she's a fourth-generation wish granter—”

“—who's made the dreams of hungry people around the world come true. Genuine, sources tell me that the recent successes of groups like WorldFeeders and Les Estomacs Heureuses are due entirely to you—”

“I wouldn't say ‘entirely'—”

“—and your magical wish muffins.”

“Biscuits.”

“Can you tell us more about this gift of yours?” She thrust a microphone at me.

Oh no, oh no, oh no!
If Gram was tore up about an online profile, she'd fall to pieces over a TV interview!

“There's really not much to say,” I assured her. “Not much to it at all, really. Sorry to have wasted your time. Have a nice day.”

I tried to shut the door.

Miz Kroeger reached out an arm and flung the door back. She didn't look as perky as she had a minute ago.

“So you claim these muffins
don't
contain actual magic?” Miz Kroeger demanded.

“No! I mean, yes, they do, but—”

Just then, Jura came tearing up.

“Genuine! Wish to End Hunger—we've gone viral!” she gasped.

“Viral?” Was someone sick?

“Our hunger campaign,” she explained. “It got picked up in the blogosphere!” She handed me an armful of printed pages:

 

HUNGER RATES PLUMMET ACROSS AFRICA
(
BigAppleNews
.
com
)

FEWER ASIAN KIDS GO TO BED HUNGRY THIS WEEK
(
NewzFerst
.
com
)