The Year Money Grew on Trees (23 page)

I nodded my head and said, "
Gracias.
"

Amy and I ran and quickly told the younger kids what was happening. They were closing up the station wagon after loading up a few unsold boxes.

"So let's get this tractor back and load up the rest of those empty boxes and get them out to the orchard. I need everyone's help because it has to be done before tomorrow," I said after explaining the situation.

"Are they really going to be able to fill all the rest in one day?" Sam asked in awe.

"Those guys can probably do it in a few hours," I replied.

Amy nodded her head in agreement.

A new wave of energy swept over me after we ate a little dinner. Michael and Jennifer held flashlights as we
loaded up boxes and then dumped them among the unpicked trees. I was glad we had saved the new boxes until the end and felt proud to be able to spread them around. I was in bed by 10:30 and never slept better.

***

The next day was a Friday, and my mom had to roll me out of bed. I hurried out of the house in my pajamas to check if the workers were back in the orchard but saw no one. On the way to the bus stop, the orchard was still empty.

"Amy, there were people out in the orchard helping us last night, right? We put all the rest of the boxes out?" I asked.

"Yes! Why are you asking that?"

"I just want to make sure it was all real and I wasn't dreaming."

I watched the orchard drift past as the bus pulled away. All day at school, I thought about those empty boxes and whether they would be full when I arrived home. I tried to think of a good excuse so I could go to the school's office and call my mom and ask her to look outside. My brain was too numb to think of anything creative, though, so I spent the day sitting and wondering.

On the bus ride home, I figured that even if Brother Brown's work crew had shown up right after we had left in the morning, they would still only have seven hours
before our return. I had told Sam they could easily do the whole job in just a few hours, but now I wasn't so sure. As the bus got closer to the orchard, I could see it was empty of people. My heart started beating fast. Could they really have finished already, or had they never showed up? I jumped out of the bus and sprinted into the orchard toward where we had left the boxes the night before. I tore the lid off the first one I came to.

It was full of apples.

I checked three or four more just to be sure and then gave a loud yell and danced around the boxes. It felt like Christmas morning in some rich family's house. My cousins and sisters had followed me from the bus stop and found me still skipping around the boxes.

"So I guess they're all full?" asked Amy, grinning.

"Now all we have to do is sell them," I said. "That's the easy part."

"Says you!" Lisa responded defensively.

"Amy, how about you try to do some selling with everyone else, and Sam and I can stack up these boxes," I said as everyone began to separate.

"Okay, but only because you're not good with people," she called out to me.

Sam and I spent the rest of the day hauling the remaining four hundred—plus full boxes to the end of the rows and stacking them three high. We figured this
would make it easier to load them on the wagon for the trip up to the road. When we were done, I was amazed that Sam had handled the previous six hundred by himself without complaining.

"Sam, your back must be made of steel," I told him, trying to stretch out the strains and pulls in my own back.

"You'll get used to it," he said, as if I had never seen a box of apples before.

We walked up to the station wagon to check on the others. I was glad to see Amy trying to convince an older couple to buy a bushel.

"How long do you think it will take you to sell four hundred more boxes?" I asked Lisa.

"I think tomorrow will be the biggest day of the year," she replied.

"Why tomorrow?"

"Everyone who's been stopping talks about the Navajo Fair tomorrow. There's going to be tons of cars going by."

The Navajo Fair was a yearly celebration that involved parades, powwows, and various other events in Shiprock. Shiprock was west of Fruitland about the same distance away from us as Farmington, but in the opposite direction. Shiprock was on the Navajo reservation and had very few stores, so most people living there would drive
to Farmington to shop. During the fair, the extra visitors filled Highway 550 with traffic, and we were right in the middle.

"Should we make some special signs or something?" I asked Lisa.

"I think we should put some of us on the other side of the road. That way we can get them coming and going." Lisa spoke as if she had been doing this sort of thing for years. "We can take one of these banners over there too," she continued, pointing at the signs she had made.

***

By eight o'clock the next morning, Lisa and Jennifer were positioned at the station wagon with fifty full boxes stacked next to it. On the other side of the road were Amy and Michael. There were no old cars available for them to sit in, so we set up an old pup tent we used whenever we went camping. Another fifty boxes sat next to it.

Sam and I were going to work on bringing out the rest of the apples throughout the day and also help both sides of the road with selling. I could tell Lisa viewed the whole thing as a competition and wanted me to keep careful track of how many boxes went to each side. She had given Amy an empty peanut butter jar to put money in and had included a little change and carefully labeled the amount on the outside.

The morning started off slowly, and I decided to
wander across the road to help Amy and Michael. The first customer I talked with pulled up in a beat-up Ford pickup.

"You got any of them white apples?" called the old Navajo woman in the passenger seat.

"No, but we have some really good red ones. You can try 'em," I said.

I ran and got a good-size apple and wiped it on my shirt until it was nice and shiny. The old woman took the apple and without trying it said, "We wanted the white ones," and they drove off.

It took me several attempts to sell my first box. Finally, a Navajo man gave me a $10 bill and then kicked his foot at one of the boxes. "This one," he said roughly.

"Okay, thanks," I replied, taking the money and handing him his change.

He kept looking at the box, then at me. I finally realized he wanted me to carry it to his truck. I was going to tell him to do it himself, but I looked across the road and saw Lisa and Jennifer carrying a box to a truck while a man looked on. They each were holding one side of the box and struggling to get it over the tailgate. I grudgingly grabbed the box and threw it in the man's truck.

We discovered after a few hours that Lisa's side of the road had a distinct advantage. There were many more cars heading to Farmington in the morning, and so she would often have five or six cars at a time pulled off
beside her. She had unloaded her first fifty boxes by 11:00 a.m. and had a satisfied look on her face.

On the other side of the road, Michael was doing his best to keep Amy and me distracted. He started rolling apples onto the pavement as cars would drive by, trying to time his rolls so that the apples would be smashed underneath a tire.

"What are you doing?" I yelled.

"We do this all the time when I help Sam bring the apples up," he said coolly.

"I was wondering where all those stains on the road were coming from," said Amy. "I knew there couldn't be that much roadkill."

I restrained myself from telling Michael to stop since I wanted to keep everyone happy.

"So what else do you do to entertain yourself up here at the road?" I asked him.

"The best thing that ever happened was when the Hostess Bakery truck came along, and we traded him a box of apples for a whole tray of day-old pies. You know the kind that come by themselves wrapped up in a little package," Michael said, thinking about it happily.

"How come me and Jackson never got any pies?" asked Amy angrily.

"Well, we decided if we didn't tell you, you wouldn't miss them."

In the afternoon the traffic pattern began to switch,
and there were more people headed back toward Shiprock. Long lines of cars pulled off both sides of the road, some of them trying each side to find the best deal. Sam and I stayed busy bringing more boxes up from the orchard, which I was much happier doing than trying to sell.

In the evening the traffic pattern had completely switched, and Amy's side of the road was swamped while Lisa sat around nervously. She insisted that we load all the remaining boxes of apples onto the wagon and park it on the other side of the highway, about one hundred feet from Amy.

The final boxes and bags were sold in a blur of activity as a seemingly endless stream of cars and trucks moved toward Shiprock. Right around 7:00 p.m., Sam carried the last full box to a waiting pickup and it was over.

"We're all out!" Amy shouted to cars that kept pulling off the road. "You have to wait till next year."

"Michael, pull down that sign so people don't stop anymore," I yelled to him.

We yanked up the pup tent, threw everything onto the wagon, and forced the tractor through the traffic and across the highway toward home. Lisa grabbed Amy's jar of money and went into her room and shut the door. Everyone else stood outside pacing around and talking nervously. I bit my lip and stared at my feet, hardly daring to think about what was going on behind the door.

Lisa reappeared after about half an hour. "I'm done counting; everyone can come in," she said, trying to sound very important. We all squeezed into her room, and I sat on her bed next to Amy. Lisa had lined up at least a dozen jars full of money on her floor. She held up a spiral notebook, where she had kept track of numbers and dates.

"Okay, I first want to announce today's results. My team had a total of $116 more than Amy's," she said, with a proud grin.

"What are you talking about?" asked Amy, who sounded annoyed. "I didn't even know you were keeping track of that. Your side of the road was better, anyway."

"Okay, okay, let's not argue about that," I said, laughing uncomfortably. "We were all helping each other, so I don't think it matters. What we care most about are the totals."

Lisa flipped a page in her book very officially. "Today was by far our biggest day," she began.

"We know, we know! Just tell us the numbers," said Michael impatiently.

"Today's total was $3,518," she barked out.

Everyone's eyes opened wide in appreciation.

"And the grand total?" I asked.

"We made $9,180. Plus thirty cents."

I had a feeling I would remember that number for
the rest of my life. Everyone looked at each other as if a rocket had just gone off.

"We're so rich!" yelled Michael.

"Now we just have to figure out all our shares," said Lisa excitedly.

I didn't say anything to interrupt their celebration, and I kept the same wide smile on my face. I looked over at Amy. She was smiling happily, too, but in her eyes I could see a look that said, "I'm glad it's you who has to tell them and not me."

The celebration in Lisa's room continued for another hour or so. By the end, nearly everyone was delirious from a combination of newfound riches and physical exhaustion. Michael had decided we should all pool our money and buy a boat that we could go up and down the river on. None of the girls seemed interested in this idea, so he spent most of the time trying to convince Sam and me how fun it would be.

At the same time, Lisa was making plans to use all the money to build a snow-cone stand up at the road. "We
could really clean up. This apple money is nothing compared to snow cones," she kept saying.

I let them talk themselves out before I spoke up. "Before we can spend anything, though, I need to pay off our bills and give Mrs. Nelson her part," I said to disappointed faces.

"Why don't you do it now?" asked Michael.

"I want to go to the bank and trade in some of these smaller bills," I said. I also wanted someone else to count it all, but I didn't dare tell Lisa that. "I've got to try and convince Mom to take me when they're open."

"Jennifer and I can help you ask her," Lisa volunteered.

"Okay, but I think we better keep this all to ourselves until everything is settled. Don't even tell our parents how much we made," I said, trying to sound very secretive.

"Good idea," agreed Michael in a loud whisper. "They might try to take it all for themselves."

"So just give me a few days to get everything straightened out," I concluded.

"You got it," Michael whispered again. I had the feeling, however, that he would be bugging me constantly until he got some money.

***

The next day I saw Brother Brown in Sunday school. He gave a lesson on the Good Samaritan, and it sounded
very deep and almost emotional. I was trying to figure out what he was doing differently that day when I turned to look at everyone else in the class. They were all looking down or out the window as usual. I glared around the room. When Brother Brown paused a little in what he was saying, I spoke up loudly, "Hey, why aren't you guys paying attention?"

The other kids in the class flinched. Instead of looking at Brother Brown, though, they spent the rest of the time staring at me.

When it was over, I hung around again until the other kids had gone.

"I don't know how to thank you for everything. I couldn't have done any of it without your help," I said, looking at him.

He kept his head down and stared at his shoes. "Don't mention it," he mumbled.

"If you ever need any kind of help from me, just ask. I don't really know much about anything, but I'm willing to try and work hard."

He kept looking down and moved toward the door. As he brushed past me, he stopped and grabbed my arm right under the shoulder. He gave me an awkward shake and then kept walking. I felt a kind of electricity shoot through my body as he touched me with his weathered hand.

"See you next week," I called after him.