The Revealing (28 page)

And she couldn’t stop dwelling on the unfolding drama in that farmhouse. She figured it must have something to do with the boy who returned from jail and the baby. How fascinating! Better than a reality TV show.

This morning, before a cup of coffee—which should have been a waving red flag to Brooke, but she was never good at noticing red flags—she blurted out a question to Vera Schrock as the older woman delivered a breakfast tray to the guest flat. “So, Mrs. Schrock, what do you think the chances are that the missing mother will show up and reclaim the baby?”

Vera froze, set the tray on the kitchen table with a decided bang, and turned to Brooke with an icy stare. “What I think is . . . ,” she lifted a hand and pointed a finger directly at her, “. . . that you are a girl who needs more on her mind.”

Weather permitting, Jesse organized the eighth graders to stay after school to practice their softball game. On the pitcher’s mound, Jesse worked with Mim to show her how to throw a knuckleball.

“It doesn’t look very hard to hit,” she said. “It looks slow and easy.”

“If it works, batters can’t hit it.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“If it doesn’t, even the pitcher doesn’t know where it’s going.”

That made it sound easier to her. “How does it work?”

“It’s a mystery. A small flip of the fingers and wrist, and the ball is thrown with zero spin.”

He threw the ball. It seemed to go slowly, and Mose Blank,
who was in a younger grade but liked to hang around Jesse, cocked the bat and swung. And missed.

The children, especially the boys, howled with laughter.

Then Mim threw the knuckleball, just the way Jesse had taught her. It went slowly, like his did, and it even got close to the batter, but it didn’t have zero spin on it. Mose Blank, who normally struck out, hit the ball over the school fence and into the cornfield next door.

Again, the boys laughed long, unrestrained. From the schoolhouse window, she saw Danny watching. Mim was mortified.

“Well,” Jesse said philosophically, “this might require a little more practice than I had anticipated.”

On the way home from school, Mim leaned over a horse trough at the farm with the huge falling-down barn and examined her face in the still water. Curly hair surrounding a thin little face with a pointed chin. Gray eyes that were hidden by big, clunky glasses.

Out of nowhere, Jesse Stoltzfus was leaning over her shoulder, peering at her face. His lean face was ruddy from the wind. “Pretty terrific looking, I’d say.”

She snapped up and scowled at him.
That
boy really thought he was somebody. She could only imagine what her grandmother would have to say to a boy who complimented his own image.

“I was talking about you.”

Mim stood perfectly still. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“But you must know that.” Jesse said this as if it was as obvious as the day is from night.

“How would I know? No one ever told me.”

“I’m telling you.”

“Well,” she said, at a loss for words. She felt her face and neck redden at the praise. Mim Schrock hadn’t known a compliment from a boy before. She put her hand up to her face so Jesse wouldn’t see her flush, but his attention had already moved on to the eagles, circling above the creek that ran along the border of Eagle Hill. They weren’t far from the eagles’ aerie.

“Luke says there are three eggs this year.”

“He would know,” Mim said, her voice still shaky from the unexpected compliment.

Jesse’s eyes were glued on the eagles as they walked down the road. “I think one of them just caught a fish. Look what’s in its talons.”

Whenever Mim was nervous, she started to spout off facts. “Did you know that bald eagles can lift about four pounds? And that’s one-third of their weight. They have hollow bones and about eight thousand feathers. And they can swim too, unless the water is extremely cold and they get overcome by hypothermia.” She knew she should stop, but her mouth just kept going and going. “They have excellent eyesight too. They’re at the top of the food chain. The very top.” She paused, exhausted of eagle facts.

Jesse was grinning at her.

She eyed him suspiciously. “You already knew those facts about eagles, didn’t you?”

“Pretty much, but it gave me a chance for a quick nap.” He stroked his chin. “But I think you’re slightly off on the eight thousand feathers. There are only seven thousand . . . give or take a few during molting season.”

So much for showing off her knowledge.

As they reached their driveways, he turned to her. “About
the knuckleball, I have no doubt that you’ll come through with waving colors.”

“Flying colors.”

“I only made a mistake to make you feel superior.” He swept his hat off his head and bent over at the waist in an exaggerated bow. “I bid you adieu, my lovely lass.” Then he turned and ran up the driveway.

Lovely lass? She felt a smile pull at her mouth but fought it back. She barely made it home and up the stairs on shaking legs as she hurried to her bedroom. There she found Luke and Sammy staring up guiltily from the bed where they had been reading her diary.

“I thought you stayed after school,” Luke said, flying immediately to the attack.

“We hadn’t gotten to anything really private,” Sammy said, far more frightened. “Not yet.” He handed her the diary like it was a hot potato.

Miriam Schrock, who was considered a lovely lass, a terrific-looking girl, by one of the most intriguing boys in Stoney Ridge (and there were only two), drew herself up to her full height.

“You can explain all that later,” she said. “To Mom and Mammi Vera.”

“Don’t tell Mammi Vera!” Sammy pleaded. “She’ll give us a lecture that will last for a month of Sundays.”

“Mom won’t like what you’ve been up to,” Luke threatened.

Mim’s stomach clenched. In that diary were all the thoughts and questions she had about Mrs. Miracle and Danny Riehl and Jesse Stoltzfus. How far had he read?

When she told her mother what the boys had done, they were grounded for a week. “A person must be allowed to have
her private life,” her mother told the two sulking boys. “It’s a terrible thing to invade someone’s privacy.”

“But there was nothing in it!” Sammy said.

Mim’s mother frowned at him. “To say that is making it worse still.”

Mim felt as if she was having trouble breathing. She had no idea how much the boys had read by the time she found them. She wasn’t worried about Sammy. He was very young and didn’t really understand anything at all.

But Luke . . . he was a continual worry to Mim. Luke was nearly thirteen and thought he knew everything.

If he read the part about Mrs. Miracle and figured it out, that meant that two more people now knew her secret identity.
Two more people!

It felt like she was falling down a hill. She couldn’t stop and she couldn’t change direction and she was bound to get hurt.

Bethany looked at Tobe thoughtfully across her coffee. She had made the mistake of politely asking him how the new henhouse was going and he assumed she was actually interested in the answer. He explained in meticulous detail the concerns he had about the timing of the new henhouse coinciding with the annual moulting of the chickens. They might get stressed, he said, and that wasn’t good for their health. She was just about to tell him that boring a person to death about chicken feathers could create stress too . . . when suddenly she saw a solution to everything.

Tobe would be the perfect answer.

Later that morning, Bethany gathered Jimmy and Tobe
and Naomi to share her idea. A brilliant idea, she thought. “Tobe, you need a job and Jimmy needs a manager for his mother’s egg farm.”

Tobe tilted his head. “I thought Jimmy was the manager.”

“I am,” Jimmy said. “But I hate chickens. Despise them. I want to get back to my horse breeding business now that Lodestar has come home.” He gave Bethany a wink and a nudge. “Thanks to your sister.”

“I don’t mind chickens,” Tobe said, looking a little embarrassed. “In fact, I sorta like them.”

Naomi was almost glowing. “Jimmy, what would your mother think of that arrangement?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Jimmy said, “but it’s worth asking.”

“Naomi should be the one to ask her,” Bethany said. “She adores Naomi.”

Jimmy nodded. “That she does. Still, I can’t imagine she’d be agreeable. You know my mother.”

“What do you mean?” Tobe said. “I don’t know your mother.”

“Well,” Bethany started, “let’s just say that Edith Fisher is considered by all to be a woman whom it might be easy to annoy.”

Tobe’s eyebrows lifted.

The following day, Edith hammered Tobe with questions about poultry when they stopped by her house. He answered every one correctly, then turned the tables and asked her a few questions. “Have you considered speckled Sussex hens? They’re less aggressive than the Old English games you’ve got. The ones you’ve got might be good layers, but they’re mean birds.”

Edith glared at Jimmy.

Jimmy glared back. “How was I supposed to know that? I thought all chickens were mean and evil spirited.”

“Sussex are friendly, curious birds. Fine layers too.” Tobe folded his arms against his chest. “Though if I were going into the market, I’d go for heirloom hens.”

Edith gave him a suspicious look. “What are those?”

“They’re heirloom breeds of hens—Ameraucana and Marans. They lay brown and white eggs. Their yolks have a bright color, a rich flavor. Taste better than commercial eggs.”

“Do tell.” Edith stroked her big cheek. “Like heirloom tomatoes?”

Tobe’s dark eyes took on a hint of amusement. “Yeah, I guess. Except that these hens are bred to produce more eggs and eat less chicken feed.”

Now he was speaking Edith Fisher’s language. Saving money.

“Why not sell chicks to small-flock poultry farmers? And what about expanding to raise and sell meat birds? You’ve got the space for it and there’s a market for local birds. It’s called the locovore movement.”

That brought a whoop out of Edith. “A movement? We call it the Amish way of life.”

Tobe grinned. “English folks want food produced locally and are willing to pay top dollar.”

He had Edith in the palm of his hand, but he didn’t stop there. “We’ll have to make a few adjustments—the best results come from having the brooders in field houses that can be moved from pasture to pasture. The more greens they can eat, the better.”

Edith frowned. “We’ve got hawks here.”

“Better netting would solve that,” Tobe said.

Edith gave Jimmy a look as if to ask why he had never thought of any of this. She decided that having Tobe manage the chicken and egg business would be an excellent idea.
Fallen straight into their laps
was the way she described it.

“I’ll arrive early and stay late,” Tobe said.

Edith speared Tobe and Naomi with an unblinking stare. She had always been able to apply pressure with a glance. “Nonsense. After you’re
officially
married, you’ll live here. You can have Jimmy’s room. It’s the biggest.”

Jimmy’s eyebrows shot up. “But . . . what about me?”

“You can move into Paul’s old room. Oh, wait. I’ve turned that into my sewing room.” Edith dismissed that worry. “Well, we’ll find a place somewhere.”

“It’s high time for you to move on anyway,” Bethany whispered to Jimmy. He looked less certain.

“But . . . what about Galen?” Naomi said. “I can’t leave him alone.”

Edith waved that concern away with a flick of her wrist. “He’s a grown man. It’s time he found a wife.” She pointed an accusing finger at Naomi. “You’re the reason some sweet gal hasn’t been able to nab him.”

Naomi’s eyes went wide. “I just thought he didn’t want to be nabbed.”

Edith snorted. “Fat chance. He’s kept his life on hold for your sake.”

A confused look covered Naomi’s sweet face. Had that truly never occurred to her? Everyone knew that.

Edith jutted out her big jaw. “That’s the only way this will work out. My chickens need twenty-four-hour-a-day care.”

Naomi straightened her back. “We’ll stay, but we’re going to live in the Grossdawdi Haus. We need our own home.”