Sugar and Spice by Sarah Mlynowski

Author:Sarah Mlynowski [Mlynowski, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2016-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

Oh, no. Oh, no. This is not good news at all! I thought we’d have a few days! But it’s true that my brother eats more than just bread crumbs! In Smithville, he’d be considered scrawny, but in Vegetopia, he’s downright meaty! Ahhhh!

“Well, don’t just stand there, girlie,” Patty says to me. “Go turn on the oven.”

“Wait. Hold up,” I say, thinking fast. “You’re making a huge mistake.” But what kind of mistake? Must. Think. Fast! Oh! “You’re making a … nutritional mistake.”

She squints. “Excuse me?”

Yes! I got this. “I get that you’re hungry. But see, my brother is like ninety-nine percent junk food. He devoured the outside of your house. He ate half the roof by himself! And besides that, he’s always stuffing something sugary in his mouth. Cookies. Chocolate. Candy. I bet he has some candy hidden in his pocket right now. Go ahead, check!”

She turns to my brother. “Show me what’s in your pocket,” she orders.

Jonah shrugs and pulls out the mangled lollipop. “It’s still good,” he says.

“It is not,” I say, stifling a laugh. “Prince slobbered all over it. AND it’s from your sock drawer. But that’s not the point, Patty. The point is, you are what you eat, right? And my brother eats a lot of junk food.”

Patty crosses her arms in front of her chest. “You just don’t want me to cook him.”

“Of course I don’t want you to cook him. But if you insist on cooking him, you may as well be eating something nutritious. You’re the one who said junk food is poison. I get that you use your candy house to lure kids, but all the junk you get them to eat is not that good for you, now is it?”

“Hmm. I suppose not,” she says.

“Exactly. Which means we need to healthen him up. Feed him some vegetables. Pump him with nutrients. Detox him. Then, by the time he’s ready to be eaten, he’ll be super healthy. Which will make you super healthy.”

She nods slowly. “I like the way you think.”

“I’m very smart,” I say.

Jonah snorts.

I give him a dirty look. Hello! I’m trying to save his life here!

I turn back to Patty and give her one of my own special-for-grown-ups super-polite smiles. “Why don’t I make him something healthy? Like a kale smoothie?”

“What’s a smoothie?” Patty asks.

“Veggies, fruit, ice. They’re very healthy. My mom makes them all the time when she needs a cleanse.”

“All right,” Patty says. “I have a lot of healthy food. Especially vegetables. See, I own all the vegetable farms in this town. My father used to own them, but after he died, they all became mine.”

Wait a minute. Vegetopia. KEEP OUT signs. Fences patrolled by an evil bird. Hungry townspeople. The witch must be the farmer! She’s hoarding all the vegetables in Vegetopia for herself!

“Why don’t you sell the vegetables at the market?” I ask.

“I sell them to the highest bidder,” Patty says smugly. “Which right now means to the kings and queens in other kingdoms. They pay me in jewels.

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