The Year Money Grew on Trees Read online

  "Hi, Mrs. Nelson," I called out.

  As she walked closer, her eyes became bigger and she turned her head away.

  "Jackson, what is that smell?" she said as she grimaced.

  "We're fertilizing, the natural way."

  "Do you have to?"

  "If we want a lot of apples. Didn't Mr. Nelson ever fertilize like this?"

  "Oh, no! I would never have let him back in the house!"

  She marched away in a huff. I smiled, thinking that if Mr. Nelson had never bothered to fertilize, maybe he had never gotten all he could out of the trees. Maybe we would have an edge. We had better.

  ***

  We finished with the manure work on the second Saturday after we had started. When we pulled away from the dairy, a very small part of me was sad to wave goodbye to Jerry, who had been so good to us.

  No matter how many times I washed my shoes after that, they never stopped smelling. They were only good for working in the orchard from then on. They were only Fastbacks, some generic brand my mom had bought, but I was still tired of wearing my dress shoes everywhere. I asked my mom if I could get next year's school shoes early so I wouldn't have to wear my dress shoes anymore. I was hoping to get some high-tops because some of the kids at school were starting to wear them.

  "It's your own fault you ruined the pair you had, so you can wait until next fall," she told me.

  She was clearly paying me back for the smell that was now always there when you walked out of the house.

  I hid my dad's tarp in the orchard, buried under some weeds and dirt. That, too, was never going to be the same. I hoped he would forget about it or think it had blown away.

  I knew I owed Sam and Michael everything if those trees ever produced apples. There's something about standing knee deep in a pile of manure together that makes you feel close to someone, and I was feeling very emotional as the three of us hosed off the tractor after our last run. "Guys, I just want to say that was the worst experience of my life. I don't know two other people who would have helped with it. You're, like, the best friends I have," I blurted out.

  "I'm never doing it again," said Michael sharply.

  "Yeah, that's for sure. I don't think I ever even want to talk about this again. Let's just keep it all between us," said Sam, holding his soggy shoes.

  We nodded our heads in agreement. I called to the girls, who were walking out of the orchard, and motioned them over. Sam and Michael sprayed them with the hose as soon as they were in range.

  "Hey, Amy, here's a little taste of what we got," yelled Michael as he drenched her.

  Chapter 8

  Save the Blossoms

  It was early April. I hadn't noticed it while shoveling manure, but on close inspection the trees were beginning to look a different color. Up and down their reddish-brown branches, little specks of green were breaking out.

  Sam, Michael, and I had joined Amy cutting down the weeds poking out from the manure layer surrounding each tree. It was nice to be listening to the radio again, even if we had to hear "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" twice an hour. And compared with being covered in manure, I felt so fresh, it was like working in a bank or department store. Amy and my sisters had finished work on three rows and had piled the biggest weeds in the space between the rows where the tractor would usually drive. The cleared trees looked starkly clean without the tangle of weeds surrounding their trunks. All that chopping had also mixed the manure into the soil, coloring it with yellow and green clumps.

  "This looks like someone knows what they're doing," I said to Amy.

  "Well, we don't, really. And once all these stupid trees are done, I'm never doing it again," she replied quickly.

  I held back a grin. "I still think it looks good."

  ***

  The boys and I copied Amy as much as we could for the rest of the week. We could only find three hoes scattered around our yards, so I used a shovel to dig up the biggest weeds and willow trees that had begun to grow throughout the orchard.

  Something was definitely happening to the apple trees. Every day we rolled into spring, little red-green buds began to appear and grow fatter and fatter, bulging with life. When I woke up one Saturday morning, they had exploded over the entire orchard into tiny pink blossoms. I ran through the orchard checking all the trees. Every one of them was blooming. The pale pink popcorn against the dark apple wood was stunningly beautiful. Although I had lived my whole life next to those trees, I had never noticed before.

  I was stroking some blossom petals when the other kids showed up in the orchard. "Well, what do you think?" I asked.

  "About what?" asked Amy.

  "The blossoms. Just look around!"

  "Yeah, they're pretty."

  "And do you know what this means? The trees are alive. They're going to make apples. Every blossom is an apple."

  "I'm not sure that's right, but what are you getting so excited about, anyway?" asked Lisa, unimpressed.

  "Isn't it nice to know that all our work so far wasn't wasted?"

  "But this is what trees do with or without us," Lisa replied simply.

  Everyone seemed more interested in who was going to use one of the three hoes we had for cutting weeds. I was still poking blossoms when Amy told me I needed to go see if Mrs. Nelson had any more hoes in her shed. I knew at least Mrs. Nelson would gush over the blossoms, so I yanked off a branch covered in pink and headed for her house.

  "Good morning, Mrs. Nelson!" I said happily when she answered her door.

  She looked at me and sniffed the air. "Why, you don't smell at all this morning," she said in surprise.

  "Thank you," I replied. "We're done with fertilizing. I brought you something." I held up the blossom-covered branch.

  She blinked a few times as if it were blinding her, and then she reached for it. "Oh, I didn't realize it was already time. They're just as beautiful as I remember." She sniffed at the blossoms and caressed the petals. "Oh, Jackson, don't you think they're the prettiest things?"

  "Yeah, I do. But I'm not sure everyone cares like we do," I said, but she wasn't really listening.

  "Why don't you come out and walk through the orchard?" I suggested.

  "Oh yes, I'll do that. Just give me a minute to get ready," said Mrs. Nelson excitedly.

  "While I'm waiting, can I have another look around the tool shed?" I asked.

  "Go ahead," she replied, and went back into her house to change her clothes.

  I cracked open the dark shed and began looking for tools that could be used for weed chopping. I noticed the tangle of hoses again and a big pile of bent aluminum tubes that I couldn't figure out. I didn't find more hoes, but I did find a couple of what people call "weed whackers." At the end of a wooden handle was a sharp metal blade. When you swung it back and forth, you could take out weeds with every swing.

  I met Mrs. Nelson coming out of her door. I let her lead the way toward the nearest row of trees. She picked her way gingerly through the weeds bordering the orchard while I hung back, taking practice swings along the way with the weed whackers. "How are you feeling lately, Mrs. Nelson? Any healthier?" I asked, trying to make conversation.

  "That doctor of mine says I don't have cancer after all." She sighed.

  "Well, that's good news." I was surprised that she didn't sound happier about the diagnosis.

  "I suppose. Looks like I'll be around longer than I thought. Wish I felt stronger, though." She had reached the nearest tree and stood next to it letting out oohs and ahs over the blossoms.

  I fished for compliments by pointing out the pruned branches and fertilized soil, but she ignored me.

  "These flowers certainly are glorious. The best thing about the whole orchard. I wouldn't care if there weren't any apples, as long as I could see this every spring."

  That wasn't quite the response I was looking for. In fact, what she was saying made me feel a little discouraged. I liked the blossoms, too, but come on; the apples were the important things.

  She
inspected a few more trees and then said, "I'm glad I made it one more year. But all the excitement's worn me out. I've got to go sit down."

  I probably should have walked her back to her house, but instead I let her stumble back alone while I returned to Amy and the others.

  Amy had been watching me and Mrs. Nelson but didn't say anything when I walked up. She grabbed the weed whackers and insisted that I use the shovel I was usually stuck with. Sam and Michael took the weed whackers and started swinging enthusiastically. At first we all worked around the same tree until Michael came within inches of hitting Amy with a wild swing.

  "Are you trying to kill me, you idiot? You almost hit me in the head!" she screamed.

  "It's not my fault you're so close!" Michael yelled back.

  "Why don't you go on to the next tree, then!" And with that, she split us up into teams of boys and girls. The boys were supposed to stay one tree ahead of the girls and concentrate on the largest weeds. After ten minutes of ducking Sam's and Michael's swings, I told Amy I was moving an extra tree ahead.

  It was amazing how fast we worked when pacing each other. The boys constantly accused the girls of being too slow, and the girls replied that we were sloppy and, of course, dangerous. We hadn't shared a Shasta together for a couple of weeks, since the girls wouldn't come near us during manure days. During breaks it was nice to sit down together again and feel the spring sun on our arms and faces. Bees had begun to move from blossom to blossom, and it made the whole place feel full of energy. When we decided to quit working, I grabbed a branch full of flowers for my mom, thinking she would like them as much as Mrs. Nelson.

  "Look what I picked for you, Mom," I said proudly when I found her in the kitchen.

  "What is that supposed to be?" she asked, looking at the branch.

  "It's a branch of apple blossoms. I thought it would be nice to put in a vase, kind of like flowers."

  "Hmm ... thanks, sweetie." She pulled off a stem from the branch and placed it in a jar of water. "I just hope your father doesn't get the idea he can give me a branch off of a tree and call it 'flowers.'"

  I cradled what remained of the branch and turned to go to my room.

  "I hope for your sake it doesn't freeze and kill all your blossoms this year," she added casually.

  "What? What do you mean?" I asked in a panicky voice.

  "You know. If we get a late frost and it wipes out all the fruit for the year."

  "No, I don't know! How does something like that happen?"

  "Well, if it drops below freezing, I guess the blossoms just die before they turn to apples. Happens to the peaches and apricots too."

  I looked at her in terror, but she kept her back to me while she talked, oblivious to the havoc she was wreaking inside my head.

  "How do you know all this? When has it ever happened?" I demanded.

  "I don't know personally about it, but everyone around here always talks about whether the fruit trees are going to freeze. I think it happened last year."

  I backed out of the kitchen and stumbled back to my room as if I'd been kicked in the gut. I put my little branch of blossoms on the windowsill next to my bed and stared at it. Had I read anything about this? I couldn't quite remember. I hadn't written anything down about it. That worthless book. It was probably written about Florida apples or someplace that never got cold.

  I stared at the ceiling for a while and then went to talk to my dad, who was watching The Love Boat on TV. "Have they said what the weather's going to be like tonight?" I asked.

  "Tonight? Why, you got a date or something?" He grinned.

  "No. It's really important for the trees," I said seriously.

  "I think the weather guy said thirty-six degrees for a low in Farmington."

  I felt momentary relief but could hardly get to sleep that night because I felt so cold. I woke up still worried about freezing trees. All morning my mom kept saying, "Stop biting your lip, that's not going to help anything." She always nagged that I bit my lip when I was worried.

  I was still obsessing on thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit while sitting in Sunday school. I hadn't paid much attention to Brother Brown. "...and Jesus taught we could pray about anything, no matter where we are," he droned dully.

  Suddenly, the anxiety became too much. I bit my lip and then started speaking without even raising my hand. "Brother Brown, is it true that if the temperature goes below freezing, it can kill apple blossoms?"

  He looked at me as if part of the roof had fallen on his head. He paused, blinked hard, and said impatiently, "Uh, yes, that's true."

  "Well, what are you supposed to do about it?"

  "Not much you can do," he replied irritably in his croaky voice.

  "What about praying? Does that help?"

  He paused uncomfortably. I would have thought that a Sunday school teacher was supposed to automatically say yes. He shifted from side to side and looked down. He finally raised his head and looked me square in the eyes. I waited for a deep, profound answer. Slowly he said, "Sometimes." The wrinkles on his face looked tired and deep.

  We stared at each other wordlessly. I bit my lip and asked, "Well, do you pray for your trees?" My voice cracked a little on the last words.

  This time he didn't hesitate and said more strongly, "Yes."

  I finally became aware of all the other faces in the room staring at me. In our class, hearing a voice other than Brother Brown's had been the equivalent of a bomb going off, and everyone was now sitting up in their chairs.

  "Sorry for interrupting," I blurted out, and slouched down as far as possible.

  ***

  That afternoon my family was having dinner with my cousins. I gathered all the kids around and told them I had something very important to announce. After discussing the freezing possibility that had been confirmed by a "reliable source," I told them they all had to pray to keep the apples safe.

  "I've already been praying for the trees," announced Lisa self-righteously. "But I guess I can include something about them not freezing."

  "Should we really be praying to control the weather, though? What if someone else needs it to be cold?" asked Sam.

  "Maybe we could pray for it to be warm just around the orchard, and it could be whatever temperature everywhere else," offered Michael.

  "Listen, just pray for the apples to survive. That's all he wants," said Amy impatiently.

  When we sat down to dinner, I asked if I could say the blessing on the food. The adults acted surprised but readily agreed. I bowed my head seriously and began.

  "Our Father which art in heaven. We are thankful for the springtime and for the new blossoms on the trees, especially the apple trees. We are thankful they are still alive after the winter. Please let them stay warm so their apples can live, just anything above thirty-two degrees. Please don't let the work of your children be wasted ... And bless this food. Amen."

  All the adults were looking at each other with crooked grins on their faces when I opened my eyes.

  "What?" I asked loudly.

  "Nothing, honey," said my mom. "That was sweet."

  I was fourteen years old, and I wasn't sure I had really meant anything I had prayed before. I knew I wasn't supposed to think about prayers as magic or wishing or anything, but I guess that's what it had felt like in the past. That night when I was alone, I prayed like I was lost, begging for a way home.

  The next three days it rained and even sprinkled during the night. It made working outside so muddy that we called it quits after an hour. Everyone was thrilled. I was thrilled it had stayed above forty degrees.

  ***

  On Thursday morning the sky was a deep blue, and the moment I stepped outside I could tell the temperature had dropped. We were able to get back into the orchard that afternoon, but I was terrified at what might happen during the night.

  "What do they say the temperature will be?" I asked my dad later, not daring to look at the TV.

  He saw my worried face and hesitated. "They said
thirty-one, son, but I don't want you to get all worked up. They're hardly ever right, and we're usually a couple of degrees warmer than Farmington."

  I tried to sleep but kept popping out of bed to pace the floor between my door and window. Every hour or so, I tiptoed into the kitchen and called the phone number that reported the time and temperature. At 3:30 a.m., the voice said thirty-two degrees. I prayed some more. I felt absolutely helpless. I wished I had three hundred blankets or tarps to wrap around the trees. Why had we picked up those branches? We could have made bonfires to warm up the whole place.

  My mom had to come and wake me up the next morning, and I could feel I had bit my lip raw. At school I could barely keep my head off the desk. When I got home, I scanned the local paper looking for the overnight temperature. It listed thirty-one.

  "What's wrong?" asked Amy as I joined my cousins in the orchard. "You look like you're going to throw up."

  "Nothing!" I said, trying my best to appear cheerful. I didn't want everyone else worrying and giving up. For the rest of Friday and all of Saturday, I kept fairly quiet and a couple of trees ahead of the others, knocking manure off the biggest weeds and then attacking them with my shovel. I was thinking of what I would say to everyone if I had to break the news about a frozen crop. There had been more and more blossoms blooming every day, so that every tree looked like it was coated in pink snow. I had no idea if this was a good or bad sign.

  It was late afternoon, and the others were discussing whether or not you could be killed by a bee's sting as bees buzzed around our heads. "...I'm just telling you what my teacher said. Some people are extra allergic, and even one sting can kill them," stated Lisa matter-of-factly.

  "But bees don't sting as bad as black widows, and even they won't kill you," replied Sam.

  Amy wasn't paying attention and was singing along to Duran Duran on the radio.

  "Why don't we call it a day?" I announced.

  "Really? Already?" asked Lisa.

  "Why? Aren't we going to finish the other trees?" asked Jennifer.