Fig Pudding by Ralph Fletcher
Author:Ralph Fletcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
5.
Traded Away
Late that summer, Cyn started acting funny. I first noticed it when Grandma Annie came for her summer visit. Grandma arrived with a box of chocolates for Mom and little presents for each of us kids, but mostly she arrived with blueberries on her mind. First chance she got she loaded up the car with a picnic lunch to go pick blueberries in Plymouth, Massachusetts. We always went to the same place: a forest where there had been a big fire a few years before.
âBurnt forests are bad news for Mother Nature but great news for blueberries,â Grandma said. âNo better place on earth for blueberrying.â
She always handed out empty coffee cans (the kind with a snug-fitting plastic top) to hold the berries we picked. Soon as you took off the top a strong coffee smell rose up and tickled your nostrils. It sure gave you a peculiar feeling to have that coffee smell spilling out in the middle of a burnt-out forest.
Grandma was a picking machine; she could easily outpick the rest of us kids combined. âPick, donât eat!â sheâd scold, but it was a pretend kind of scolding, half serious, half laugh. The little kids ate most of the berries they picked. For us older kids it was two berries in the can (plink! plink!), two in your mouth, two in the can, two in your mouth, until pretty soon your lips and tongue and teeth were stained such a dark blue that when Grandma asked, âAre you picking or munching those berries?â it didnât do any good trying to lie, not with a mouth gone all blue like that.
Grandmaâs summer visits meant blueberry everything: muffins, cakes, and turnovers. Best of all: pies. If you havenât tasted Grandma Annieâs blueberry pie, warm, with a flaky crust, topped with a big scoop of goatsâ milk vanilla ice cream (homemade from the Gonsalvesesâ farm three streets away) melting streams of white into the dark blue filling, and felt in your mouth the delicious war between the warm pie and the cold ice cream, well, I feel awfully sorry for you. I really do.
âComing blueberrying with us, Cynthia?â Grandma asked. We were in the kitchen gathering the empty coffee cans weâd need for picking.
âNo, Iâm not,â Cyn replied. She folded her arms. âI think itâs wrong.â
âWrong?â I asked. âWhy?â
âAll sorts of wild animals need those berries to live on,â Cyn said. She peered at me, lips pressed together. âEver consider that?â
Grandma looked surprised. We all did.
âWhat kind of wild animals?â Nate asked.
âSquirrels, turtles, lots of bird species!â Cyn said.
It bugged me to hear her use that word: species. Lately Cyn was starting to sound like a real know-it-all.
âBears, too,â Cyn was saying. âThatâs the problem with this worldânobody ever thinks about the animals.â
âI seriously doubt thereâs any bears living out there,â Nate put in.
âWe can feed the animals,â Brad told Cyn. âWeâll give them bread and cookies.â
âThey need fresh fruit,â Cyn told him.
âThatâs the craziest thing Iâve ever heard,â I said.
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