Genuine Sweet (9 page)

Sometimes life just goes your way.

That night I told Jura I was ready to get started saving the world.

7

J
URA WAS WAITING FOR ME OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL THAT
next morning.

“Did you hear it's going to rain
again?
” she asked, shaking a
Settee
at me.

“Really? Fall is usually dry,” I replied, peeking at the newspaper.
ANOTHER FROG STRANGLER!
it said.

“Anyway, I've been thinking about how to get maximum leverage off your superpowers,” she said, pulling a spiral notebook from her satchel. It was filled with a sort of strange writing, lots of swooping loops and zigzaggy curls.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Shorthand. Old-school secretaries used to use it. It's a way to write really fast.” She flipped a few pages. “Okay. First thing—”

Just then, I saw Travis's face behind the glass of the door. I had a notion he was waiting for us.

I squinched my nose. “Not here,” I told Jura. A glance at the credit-union clock told me we still had a few minutes before first bell. “Follow me.”

I led her to a spot I'd been visiting since my ankle-biter days, a little patch of woods just behind the school. It was through a hole in the fence, down an animal trail and up a small hill, past patches of brilliant sunlight and mosquitoey chunks of shade. Finally, we reached Sass Rock, a great gray boulder where, Ham once told me, my ma used to come to gather
her
thoughts when she was in school.

We hunkered down on the cool stone.

“So, what'cha got?” I asked.

Jura took a breath. “I've come up with three broad categories of world saving. I'll tell you what they are, you pick one, and then we'll look at specific strategies. Make sense?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

“Category one. Historical Intervention. We pick some terrible world event and wish it happened differently.”

I was enough of an amateur historian to understand that if you pulled on one of time's threads, a whole lot else could come unraveled. “Naw. Better not.”

“Okay, two. Major Planetary Intervention. We choose a worldwide issue and wish it fixed anywhere we find it. Like hunger or war.”

Interesting. “All right. And three?”

“Act Locally, Think Globally. We direct all the wishing at improving the quality of life in a smaller area, like Sass or Georgia, hoping that other communities see what we're doing and do it too.”

I picked up a twig and poked at a hole in my shoe. “That only works if they have their own wish fetcher.”

“Maybe. Depends.”

“On what?” I asked.

“On what we do.”

I gave that a short think and moved on. “Go back to your Major Planetary Thingy. Do you really reckon we could get
everyone
fed?” I asked, the issue of empty bellies being near and dear to my heart.

She set the notebook aside and leaned back on her hands. “You'd know better than I would what the limits of your wishes are. How big can we go?”

It was a sensible question. I would have liked to make a sensible reply.

“Truth to tell, I'm not really sure
how
the star power works,” I admitted. “I could ask my gram.”

Jura shrugged. “You don't have to. We can probably figure it out on our own.”

“How's that?”

“We're dealing with stars, right? Stars mean light speed. String theory. That kind of thing.” She chewed on her lip. “So . . . when we look at the stars, the light we're seeing has been traveling for years, even centuries, before getting to Earth, right?”

I hadn't heard that, but it made some sense. “All right.”

“The farther away the star, the older the starlight, right? Based on Einstein's stuff, a light from a star that's one hundred light years away took one hundred years to get here. So, if you think about it, what we're really seeing is what that star looked like one hundred years ago.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And when we look through a telescope at a galaxy a million light years away, we're seeing what that galaxy looked like a million years ago!”

“Bring it back around the barn, Jura.”

“I'm almost there,” she promised. “So. With their
really
strong telescopes, scientists can see
so
far back in time that they're actually looking at stars that were born when the universe began. Your star juice could be as infinite as the universe itself.”

I was starting to get it. And, truth to tell, I was scared.

Jura grabbed my hand and shook it. “Genuine!”

“Ye-ah?”

“You have the power of the entire space-time continuum at your command!” she proclaimed. “You can go as big as you want!”

My mind reeled. I was suddenly dizzy and my shoes were too tight. I couldn't breathe! Was that foxfire dancing before my eyes? “That's a lot of biscuits.”

All right, Gen,
I told myself
. Get hold of those reins. If you wanna feed the world—if you wanna be something more than Dangerous Dale Sweet's woeful daughter—big power is just what you need.

“Good thing I've got miracle flour,” I muttered.

“Miracle flour?” Jura gave me a puzzled look.

“It's this bottomless bag of flour I use to make the biscuits.”

“You
are
full of surprises, Genuine Sweet.”

Off in the distance, the first bell rang.

“We got three minutes.” I reached for my satchel.

Jura held up her hand. “Hang on! Real quick! Let's say we did decide to end hunger. I could wish for it and you could fetch it, right? But given all the starlight infinities we're slogging through, not to mention all the steps involved in getting people organized, plus the time to grow the food—”

I saw where she was headed. “It might take a hundred years to actually make anything happen.”

She nodded. “That's what I'm thinking. I mean, even my mom had to wait a few days for a job ad to appear in the
Settee,
right? If you want to make a difference—fast—we might need to find places where there's already some anti-hunger infrastructure.”

“Infra-huh?”

“Places where people are already trying to get everyone fed, but maybe they don't have enough farming equipment or their government is making laws that get in the way, or something,” she explained.

I flumped. “I wouldn't even know how to begin to find folks like that!”

“We don't have to. They're gonna find us!” Jura rubbed her hands together. “Ooh, this'll look
sweet
on my college application!”

She looked so excited, I hated to remind her, “We're only in the seventh grade, Jura.”

“I know! Think of how far ahead of the game we'll be!” She took a pencil from behind her ear and started making notes.

 

Mister Strickland put on his strictest face when we walked in late.

“Nice of you to join us, Miss Sweet, Miss Carver,” he said, arms folded across his chest.

“Sorry, sir,” I said.

Looking all contrite, we made our way to our desks. Scree snorted a little laugh, and Sonny Wentz smiled at us as we passed by. I mean he
really
smiled.

Something odd stuck out from my desk cubby, a bit of yellow-gold paper. I eased it free to find it was a note folded in the shape of a swan. I never saw anything quite like it. On its tail was the word
Pull,
so I did.

The swan unfolded into a simple square. Written in the now-familiar writing of the chocolate giver were the words,
You bowl me over. If you feel the same, meet me at The Lanes this Saturday at two.

Sonny Wentz had asked me out on a date! Bowling! What could be more romantic? If I were a puppy, I would've piddled myself.

8

T
HURSDAY EVENING, MY BELLY FULL OF
miracle-flour flapjacks, I went to meet Jura at Ham's. I was very nearly there when I caught my first glimpse of trouble.

Penny Walton had set herself in front of Ham's diner door, her arms flung open wide. Gripping her hands on either side were Missus Binset and Miz Yardley, the city clerk. Nobody could get in, including a few of Ham's regular customers, who stood nearby, gaping and confused.

Ham was there as well, waving his chili spoon and shouting—sometimes at Penny Walton, sometimes at Deputy Lamar.

“You get them out of here, Lamar, or I'll remove them myself!” Ham yelled.

“Just you try it, Ham Quimby!” Penny dared him. “I'll pull your lease out from under you so fast your head will spin!”

I was about to saunter up and ask what the big hooray was when Penny Walton spat, “I know you're letting that Sweet girl panhandle her wishes here! Old Joe Williams couldn't gush enough about her magic! Well, let me tell you something! I am not about to let another wish fetcher finagle her way into some family's heart, just to have her turn 'round and grind their hopes under her boot heel!”

Miz Yardley cut Penny off with her own warbling protest. “No access for Sweet!”

This ruckus was about
me?

I ducked behind a pickup truck, peeking out when I dared.

Penny Walton's daughter, Edie, tore up, hopped from her car, and started pleading with her mama to leave. “You'll strain yourself!”

Penny said something so softly I couldn't hear it, then added in a shout, “Fret over the poor families another MacIntyre wish fetcher will destroy!”

Before long, Jura appeared, crouched down at my side.

“What's going on?” she whispered.

“We can't meet at Ham's today,” I said.

“They're trying to keep
you
out?”

“Looks like it,” I told her.

I couldn't help noticing Deputy Lamar fingering his handcuffs. If I was the source of all this, and they saw me there, would
I
get arrested?

“Let's get out of here,” I said.

“Right. Stay low.” Jura slid along, her back pressed to the truck, her head below the level of the truck bed. “Be. Careful.”

Grave as Jura's expression had become, I had half a mind to tell her we weren't in
that
much danger. Her life in Ardenville must have been a real upscuddle.

The crowd out in front of Ham's had grown so large that neither Penny Walton nor the deputy had a clear view of us. Quickly, but real casual-like, Jura and I crossed the street and ducked into the library.

Which, if you'll recall, was also the police department.

“Hello, ladies,” a voice called out.

We jumped clear out of our skins.

Then, startled by
our
alarm, JoBeth Haines jumped clear out of hers.

“Dear goodness!” she breathed. “What has gotten into you two?”

“Sorry,” I said. “We were just, uh, we—”

“May we use the Internet, Miz Haines?” Jura asked smoothly.

“I don't know . . .” JoBeth said. “Deputy Lamar just radioed in about a big ol' hoodaddy down at Ham's—”

Jura and I looked at each other.

JoBeth went on, “So you
might
want to hold off on your homework. Not often we get this kind of excitement here.” A thoughtful expression crossed her face. “Not often at all. This should go in my newspaper column!” She paused again. “I don't suppose you girls could just keep an eye on things while I run across the street to get the scoop?”

“Uh, sure thing, Miz Haines,” I said.

Missus Haines grabbed her notepad and rushed out the door.

And with that, we had the library to ourselves.

“Now what?” I asked Jura.

“Now . . .” She sat down in front of one of the computers and web-slung her way to whatever she was hunting.

“Now . . . I give you . . . Cornucopio!” She beamed, wafting a regal hand beneath the screen.

“Very nice,” I said, taking in the various slide shows and streaming do-funnies. “What is it?”

“It's a place where people who
have
stuff connect with people who
need
stuff.” She clicked and clicked once more. “Like this. Buccaneer Construction in Florida has a warehouse full of housing insulation to donate. I bet some Houses-for-Hope group is gonna snatch that right up.” Click. “It's not
all
about generosity—here's a guy who just wants to trade his work truck for a sailboat—but a lot of charities do come here for help.”

“Ju-ra,” I said slowly. “Are we talking about the saving-the-world thing?
Now?
You do recall there may be a posse on our tail, right?”

She stopped her clicking and turned my way. “Genuine, anybody who wants to change the world is going to meet resistance. Maybe even
massive
resistance. That stuff with Penny Walton—that's a good sign! She knows you're a real agent for change! You're on the right track!”

Massive resistance?
Agent for change?
Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that my fondest wish was three square meals a day and an icicle-free nose in wintertime?

“Maybe we should start smaller,” I suggested. “Safer.”

In a distant corner of my mind, I heard Gram agree.

Jura didn't say a word. She didn't bat an eye. She just . . . waited.

A shifting reflection caught my eye, and I found myself looking at the police holding cell nearby. So many nights Pa never came home. Did he spend them there? Crazy as it might seem, I couldn't help wondering if, somehow, that might be my fate, too. Dangerous Dale's blood in my veins,
plus
the power to call down the light from the stars? What if Penny Walton was right, and I
did
manage to ruin the town somehow?

Still, it was hard to reckon why folks would be
so
riled before I'd even made my first yap-up.