Fortune's Magic Farm

  With a huge groan, Sage pulled Isabelle onto the saddle, this time at the front. “Why did I listen to you?” he snarled. “I should never have untied that rope.”

  “S… s… sorry.” Though her heart pounded and she still hadn’t caught her breath, the icy plunge seemed to have shocked the seasicknesses right out of her. She pushed her dripping hair from her face as Sage secured the rope. Neptune floated patiently.

  “Th… th… thanks,” she stammered.

  BAROOO!

  A horn blasted through the fog. It sounded exactly like the umbrella factory’s horn. Oh no, Isabelle thought. Has Neptune gone in the wrong direction? Are we back in Runny Cove?

  BAROOO!

  Sage spun around. “It’s way too close,” he said. “Where is it? Help me look for it.”

  “Look for what?”

  Suddenly, an enormous wall of gray emerged from the fogbank. Taller than any boarding house, faster than any delivery truck, it barreled toward them. Isabelle clutched the saddlehorn. “What is it?”

  “Trouble.” Sage kicked Neptune. “TURN!” he screamed. “TURN!”

  Neptune undulated violently, moving away just in time.

  SWOOSH! The enormous structure glided past. Big black letters were painted on its side: MAGNIFICENTLY SUPREME SHIPPING COMPANY. FOR THOSE WITH SUPREME TASTE WHO LIKE TO SHIP THINGS.

  As quickly as it had emerged, the ship disappeared into the fog, leaving a wake that rolled beneath the seal. A quieter barooo sounded in the distance.

  “This place is dangerous,” Sage said. “NEPTUNE! AWAY!”

  Isabelle wanted to ask more questions, but the seasickness had drained her last bit of strength, as had almost being killed by a ship, losing a grandmother, and running away from Mama Lu.

  This time she didn’t fight the nap. She leaned against Sage’s chest and drifted to sleep.

  A whistle sounded, waking Isabelle from a dreamless sleep. She sat up. I’m going to be late for work. I can’t be late. That would mean extra hours piled on top of extra hours. She scrambled to her feet, instantly dizzy as blood rushed from her head. I can’t be late. I can’t be late.

  As the dizziness cleared, Isabelle found herself standing, not in her vine-covered room, but on a low bluff overlooking a quiet inlet. A small fire crackled inside a ring of rocks. As a delicate rope of smoke arose, so did the memories of yesterday. Grandma Maxine was dead and Runny Cove was far away. Gwen and Leonard were far away too. But a new home and a new family awaited her. She was a tender and only a few people got to be tenders. At least that’s what the strange boy had told her. But she still didn’t know exactly what that meant. Tenders grow things. That didn’t seem like such a big deal. What good was growing mushrooms between your toes? Or lichen on your head? Hadn’t he said that someday she might be the last tender in the whole world?

  The night had passed but she couldn’t remember a bit of it, not even how she had gotten to that bluff. She must have slept hard because a few pebbles had stuck to her cheek. She pulled off her kelp gloves and wiped the pebbles away. Yawning, she turned in a sleepy circle.

  Sage was nowhere to be seen, nor was Eve the cat or Rolo the raven. Isabelle scanned the beach for Neptune but he seemed to be missing as well. Had they left her because she had gotten seasick? That’s a rotten thing to do, she thought, to leave a person in the middle of nowhere. She gasped. Could this be Nowhere? But where were the houses, the factories, and the people? A sense of unease broke through her drowsiness. What if I’m alone?

  And why is it so quiet?

  The answer, she realized, was the lack of rain. One might think this would be a nice change for Isabelle, that she might start kicking out her feet in a happy, rain-free dance, or compose a little song about being dry. But the opposite was true. Imagine waking up one morning to find that you had suddenly gone deaf. That is how it felt to Isabelle. The rain’s melody, sometimes delicate, sometimes thunderous, had serenaded her for as long as she could remember. Though it hadn’t rained during the journey on Neptune’s back, the ocean had provided a constant melody of water and wind. Standing on the bluff, the inlet calm, she could feel the endless silence. Isabelle started humming her little song about Nowhere to fill the emptiness.

  That’s when a short whistle popped into the air, then faded away. Another whistle followed.

  Isabelle stopped humming and spun around. Behind her lay a field of grass and rocks. Behind the field stood a forest of red-barked trees. She waited, holding her breath, watching for movement. A thing that whistles is probably a thing that moves, and she didn’t want it sneaking up on her. A boy in a hooded cape, an elephant seal, a ship as big as a factory—what could possibly be next?

  Another short whistle shot up from the field, and another. Perhaps the creature was very small—a whistling insect of some sort. Bending close to the ground, to make certain she didn’t squish anything, she took a few steps.

  Twee, twee.

  Then a few more steps.

  Twee, twee.

  Then she came upon a hole the size of a soup bowl. It wasn’t very interesting, as far as holes go. It didn’t have any decorative rocks around it or a flag sticking out of it. A hole sat in front of Mr. Supreme’s factory with a flag and a plaque that read: GROUND-BREAKING HOLE. ON THIS SACRED GROUND DID MR. SUPREME SENIOR DIG THE FIRST PATCH OF DIRT THAT BECAME THE MAGNIFICENTLY SUPREME UMBRELLA FACTORY, FOR THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE STARVING, DULL-MINDED VILLAGERS OF RUNNY COVE.

  Isabelle took a few more steps and found another hole. She stood on tiptoe and scanned the field. Holes lay everywhere, hundreds of them.

  “Hey!” a voice called.

  Sage emerged from the woods, his satchel flung over his shoulder. He crossed the field, zigzagging around the holes. Eve trotted alongside, a dead mouse swaying from her teeth. Rolo flew overhead. Isabelle forgot all about the whistling, overjoyed to see that she had not been abandoned. Yesterday she hadn’t wanted to travel with Sage, but he seemed to hold all the answers to her questions—plus, he had all her stuff inside his satchel.

  “Where did you go?” she asked as he approached.

  “Just checking things out.”

  “Is this Nowhere? I mean, is this Fortune’s Farm?”

  “No. This is one of the Tangled Islands. Neptune dropped us here last night. You were dead asleep.” He threw some sticks into the flames then looked to the horizon. “Cloudy. Calm sea. Sun should break through soon.”

  “Sun?” A wave of excitement washed over Isabelle. Grandma Maxine had often told stories of sunny days spent lying on a picnic blanket or beneath the shade of a tree. But those were stories from long ago, before the rain. “I’ve never seen the sun.”

  Sage tossed something into the pan, then stared at her dumbfounded. “Never? Well, that explains why you look like you’ve been living in a hole and why you’re so ugly.”

  Ugly?

  Isabelle turned away, feeling smaller than she had ever felt, her insides shrinking like a salted slug. Mama Lu had called her ugly many times. “Yer an ugly little thing, with that stuff growing in yer hair and those scrawny arms and legs. That’s why ya was dumped on the doorstep. Who’d want someone as ugly as you?”

  Isabelle had tried not to take Mama Lu’s comments to heart. After all, Mama Lu had never said anything nice about anybody. But when Sage, the boy who had rescued her, called her ugly, it hurt like a punch in the gut. Isabelle wanted to hurt him right back.

  “What do you know, anyway?” she mumbled. “You don’t look so good. Your hair is a mess. It looks like you never even brush it.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “That’s the point. I want to look this way. You couldn’t possibly want to look that way, with your skin all puckered and see-through. It looks like the rain washed all the color right off of you.”

  “Maybe I do want to look this way.” She folded her arms and glared at him. “Anyway, you’re just jealous because I’m a tender and you’re not.” She didn’t yet know the significance of this statement but
from the stunned look on his face, she knew that she had hurt his feelings. “So there!”

  Isabelle turned her back to him, angered by his rudeness and ashamed of her own. She wiped her stuffy nose on her sleeve.

  “You’re not crying are you?” He sighed with exasperation. “Look, Isabelle, I didn’t mean to say it like that. Ugly’s not the right word. It’s just that you look so… unhealthy. And you don’t look anything like a tender. You’ll be surprised when you get to Fortune’s Farm.”

  “You mean my mother and father don’t look like me?”

  He scowled. “I told you I can’t answer any questions about your family. You’ll just have to wait.”

  An unfamiliar scent drifted up Isabelle’s nostrils. Sage crouched next to the fire and poked at the sizzling contents of the pan with a stick. Isabelle’s stomach growled loudly. “Come on. You’ll like this,” he said.

  She sat beside him and eagerly ate all that she was given—eight slices of bacon, a large chunk of smoked salmon, and a mug of peppermint tea—foods that she had never tasted before. The surface of the tea glistened with bacon grease but that didn’t bother her one bit. Eve the cat happily chewed on a mouse tail, growling when Rolo got too close. Sage tossed a piece of bacon rind to the raven. Isabelle didn’t say a word until she had finished the last bite of her meal. Feeling full was as unfamiliar to her as rainless silence. And it felt good. Really good.

  She drained her mug. “How far away is the Northern Shore?”

  “Hopefully we’ll land by dinner, if that good-for-nothing seal would hurry and finish hunting.” Sage scraped the pan clean, then stuffed it into his satchel.

  As much as she wanted to get to Fortune’s Farm, Isabelle wasn’t looking forward to riding Neptune again. All that rocking to and fro might upset her lovely breakfast. She stretched her legs and leaned back, spreading her fingers in the soft grass. The fog had lifted above the horizon, revealing scattered islands sprinkled with trees and edged with rugged cliffs. Back home, Isabelle had often gazed at the cove’s horizon, but never had there been anything to see. Each of those islands is a different place, she thought. A different world I know nothing about.

  “Ouch!” She pulled her hand out of the grass. A droplet of blood dripped from her pinkie. “Something bit me.” She put her finger to her mouth.

  Sage pointed. “There’s the villain.”

  Isabelle turned to find a pair of black eyes staring up at her. Attached to the black eyes was a body about the same size as Eve’s, only covered in brown fur, with a shorter, thicker tail. The “villain” sat on its hind legs, exposing a belly of yellow fur. The nails on its little paws were long and two big front teeth rested on its lower lip. It wiggled its black nose at her and blinked. Then it whistled and darted into the field, disappearing down a hole.

  “What was that?” Isabelle asked, still sucking on her finger.

  “A yellow-bellied marmot. You gotta watch out for them. They’re little devils. I don’t know what they’re doing out here on this island. They usually live inland. At the rate they reproduce, there soon won’t be enough food for all of them.”

  “Why’d it bite me?”

  “Just protecting its territory. If you get too close to its den, it’ll hit you right in the head with a rock. Believe me. I know.” He looked out over the inlet. “Neptune better not forget to come back. If he forgets me one more time, I’m getting myself a new seal.”

  Isabelle examined her finger. The bite wasn’t deep and it stopped bleeding right away. As Sage continued packing things into his satchel, she remembered something. “Do you think we should put my barnacle into some water?” she asked.

  “I already did. I found the perfect new home for it.” He motioned for her to follow.

  They climbed down the bluff. Isabelle’s kelp booties gripped the flat black stones that covered the beach. At the water’s edge she and Sage knelt beside a tide pool thick with barnacles. Little white feathers fanned the water as the barnacles fed. Or maybe they were talking to each other. Maybe they were one big family.

  “There it is,” Sage said.

  Sure enough, Isabelle’s little barnacle sat on its rock, right in the center of the tide pool, also fanning the water. Isabelle smiled. “It’s the perfect place,” she said, surprised by Sage’s thoughtfulness. “Thank you.”

  He lowered his head and mumbled, “No big deal.”

  A roar filled the air. “Finally,” Sage said, leaping to his feet. “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” The seal hauled himself out of the shallows and a full-blown argument ensued, with Sage hollering and shaking his fists, and the seal roaring and whacking Sage with his flippers.

  Isabelle took a long, last look at her barnacle. “I hope you’ll be happy here,” she whispered. She felt proud and victorious, having saved something from Mama Lu’s stomping feet. Too bad she hadn’t been able to save the others. Two of us escaped. Take that, Mama Lu!

  Something hit the back of Isabelle’s arm.

  A marmot sat on a log, a stone’s throw away. It wiggled its black nose and blinked. “Hey,” Isabelle said, rubbing her arm. Another marmot popped out from behind the log and joined its friend. They greeted one another by touching noses. Then they balanced on their hind legs and stared at Isabelle.

  “Go on. Shoo.”

  They didn’t shoo. One picked up a rock and threw it at her.

  “Ouch!” She rubbed her shoulder. “Stop doing that.” Was she standing near one of their holes? No. But still, they stared. “What do you want?”

  The two marmots jumped off the log and scampered up the beach to where a giant tree had fallen. They climbed up the fallen tree’s trunk and chirped, a softer, friendlier sound than the whistle. They stared at her, chirped, stared, chirped—clearly telling her something. Sage was busy with the saddle, so with a shrug, Isabelle approached the tree, shielding her face with her hands in case they took aim again.

  Dozens of empty broken crates lay hidden behind the fallen tree. Each had a label that read: HANDLE WITH CARE. CONTAINS LIVE LABORATORY ANIMALS. SPECIES: YELLOW-BELLIED MARMOT.

  The marmots ran along the trunk, then lay on their bellies and hung their heads over a branch. A furry marmot bottom poked out from under the branch. The creature’s little legs kicked frantically but to no avail—it was stuck. The two marmots chirped softly to their trapped friend.

  “Poor little thing,” Isabelle said as the legs continued to kick. “I’ll help you.” She crouched next to the wiggling bottom and pulled at the branch with all her might until it snapped off. Branch in hand, she tumbled backwards.

  The marmot waddled out and scratched its head with its leg. Except for a small cut above its right eye, it looked unhurt.

  Isabelle was about to sit up when the freed marmot climbed onto her chest and sat itself down as if it meant to stay awhile. It leaned forward and peered into her eyes. Isabelle held her breath. Was it going to bite her nose with its buck teeth? It leaned closer but rather than biting her, it pressed its wet nose against hers. She giggled as its fur brushed her face. It nosed her again. Then the freed marmot greeted its friends. They touched noses, chirped, and scurried around one another. It was the happiest dance Isabelle had ever seen.

  “Isabelle!” Sage called. “Time to go!”

  She scrambled to her feet and ran back down the beach.

  “Where were you?”

  “I was over there,” she said, pointing to the distant tree.

  Sage frowned and pointed at her feet. “And what are you doing with that?”

  The rescued marmot had followed Isabelle down the beach and had wedged itself between her kelp booties.

  “It was stuck. I helped it.”

  “Oh.” Sage’s expression softened for a moment. Then he turned serious again. “We need to catch the tide.”

  “Goodbye,” Isabelle said, waving down to the marmot. Then she ran over and greeted the glistening seal. “YOUR NOSE IS LOOKING EXTREMELY LOVELY… I MEAN, EXTREMELY BULBOUS THIS MORNING.”

>   Neptune nodded and tilted his head so Isabelle could scratch his chin. The marmot whistled and threw a rock at Neptune, who didn’t even notice—like a grain of rice bouncing off a truck.

  “COME ON, LET’S GO!” Sage pushed Neptune’s rump.

  Neptune rose up on his flippers and made his way into the shallows. Sage tucked Eve into the satchel and secured it to the saddle’s horn. Then he climbed on board. Rolo watched from the branch of a red-barked tree. The marmot scurried across the wet sand and sat on Isabelle’s foot.

  “I’ve got to go,” she told the furry creature.

  “Hurry up,” Sage urged. “We need to make the Northern Shore by nightfall.”

  Isabelle tried to gently push the marmot off her foot but it flattened its body and chirped softly. “I think it wants to go with me.” She picked it up and held it at arm’s length, still unsure of those teeth. “Do you want to go with us?”

  “No way,” Sage said. “We don’t have room for another passenger. There’s no place to put it.”

  The marmot wiggled its bottom, then climbed up Isabelle’s arm and onto her shoulder, where it squirmed its way down the back of her kelp shirt. Its little claws tickled but didn’t prick her skin. The shirt stretched as the marmot turned itself around and popped its head back out through the neck hole. Its furry belly felt warm against her back. It sniffed her earlobe. Isabelle giggled. “I don’t think I have a choice.”

  Sage grumbled to himself. “Fine. But it better not have fleas.”

  Isabelle settled behind Sage. She helped tie the rope around her middle. The marmot made little wheezy sounds as it breathed in her ear. “Do marmots get seasick?” she asked.

  “Probably, knowing my luck.” Sage gave Neptune a kick. The seal pushed itself into the deep water.

  “What should I feed it if it gets hungry?” Isabelle asked, scratching the marmot’s head.

  “I don’t know.” Sage checked the rope again. “By the way, it’s a she.”

  “A she?”

  “Yes. She’s a girl marmot.”