Project Mulberry Page 9

  During the rest of the field trip, Mr. Maxwell showed us the barn and the sheepcote, where the animals stayed in the winter. We got to climb into the barn's loft and jump down onto a big pile of hay—that was a blast. We rode on a tractor. And everybody got to take a turn going into the chicken coop and finding an egg.

  We got to keep the eggs, too. Mr. Maxwell gave us all cartons to put them in. I couldn't wait to eat mine—I wondered if it would taste different from a battery egg.

  On the bus ride home, and then as we walked to Mr. Dixon's house, I kept thinking about that first pasture. I liked the idea of the cycle—the cows, then the chickens, then the sheep, and starting all over again. For some reason it made me think of our worms. Egg, then worm, then cocoon, then moth, and back to egg again.

  Mr. Dixon was sitting outside when we got to his house.

  "We can't stay long today," Patrick said. I'd told him about getting in trouble with my mom. "We have to be home in time for dinner."

  "Best event of the day," Mr. Dixon said. "Wouldn't want you to miss that."

  We picked twice as many leaves this time, thirty altogether. Patrick and I had talked it over, and judging by the holes in the leaves, we had guessed the worms were going to need at least five at a time starting in another day or two.

  Boy, were we ever wrong. In the next two days the worms ate twenty-two leaves! They had turned into eating machines. The incredible thing was, we could actually hear them eating. I never would have thought that worms made noise. But ours did— crunch crunch, munch, nibble nibble, crunch. Even Kenny quieted down and stood still to listen.

  We had to go back to Mr. Dixon's just three days later. I was half afraid to tell my mom that, and she put on her perfect face when she said it was okay for us to go, but she didn't seem to be really mad anymore. Maybe it helped that she'd raised silkworms before and knew how much they could eat.

  "Back so soon?" Mr. Dixon called when he saw us. He had a pair of garden shears in his hand and was cutting some really pretty flowers that grew against the fence. Pink and purple ones.

  "Those are really nice, Mr. Dixon," I said. "What kind are they?"

  "Sweet pea," he answered. He skipped the t again, so it came out like "swee-pee."

  "Now, do you two have time for a little visit, or do you need to be running along?"

  I looked down at the ground and was trying to think of what to say when Patrick answered for me.

  "We can't stay, Mr. Dixon. Julia's mom made us promise not to take too much of your time, so we're supposed to just get the leaves and go home right away. She—she likes to be sure where we are all the time."

  Mr. Dixon nodded. Then he said, "Sounds to me like she's being a good momma. Too many kids running wild these days, and their mommas got no idea what they're up to."

  Maybe that was it. Maybe my mom was just being a good mom....

  "But I'd like her to know that I surely do enjoy a visit from young people every now and again," he went on. "Tell you what. I got some homegrown peppers in my freezer. From last year's crop—it's still too early for anything this year, of course. I'd like to send a few of them home with you. And you tell her from me that I'd be pleased to have you stay and chat sometimes."

  I looked up and smiled. "Thanks, Mr. Dixon. I'll give her the message."

  Mr. Dixon put down his shears and went into the house with the flowers. Patrick and I got busy picking leaves; we'd brought a plastic bag with us because we were going to pick a lot this time. We counted fifty leaves, and Patrick picked a few more just in case.

  We finished just as Mr. Dixon came out again. He had a bag with red peppers in it, and some sweet peas with their stems wrapped in a damp paper towel.

  My mom loved flowers. I felt hopeful—surely once she got the flowers and the peppers, she'd know that Mr. Dixon was a nice guy, and let us stay sometimes.

  Mr. Dixon handed me the bag and the flowers. "I hope she likes those peppers," he said. "They're not bell peppers—they're a different kind. A little spicy. Used to grow them when I lived down south, but they do fine up here, too, just come ripe a little later. I use them in my jambalaya. You like jambalaya?"

  "I love jambalaya!" I said. My mom made it sometimes, and I'd liked it ever since I was little. Rice and seafood and chicken and sausage all jumbled up together. Yum! I also liked the word jambalaya; it was fun to say.

  "Well, I reckon your momma will be able to get some good use out of them," he said. "Don't Chinese people use a lot of peppers in cooking?"

  For a second I couldn't say anything. I felt my face getting hot. And then Patrick rescued me again. "Julia's not Chinese, Mr. Dixon. Her family is Korean." He started talking faster. "And her mom does cook spicy stuff, and her family eats spicy food all the time, so I'm sure she'll like the peppers a lot."

  "Well, that's fine," Mr. Dixon said. "I'll see you two later then. Mind you go right on home now."

  "We will," Patrick said.

  We left and walked a little way. Then Patrick turned to me. "Jules," he said in a low voice, "he didn't mean anything. He said 'Chinese,' but he meant, you know, Asian. Any kind of Asian."

  I nodded. "I know, Patrick. It's okay."

  But it wasn't.

  Once in a while somebody thinks I'm Japanese. But that's it—either Chinese or Japanese. It seems like those are the only kinds of Asians anyone has ever heard of. I didn't know exactly why it bugged me. Maybe because it made me feel like being Korean was so nothing—so not important that no one ever thought of it.

  I was used to people making that mistake. I was used to having to explain that I was Korean and not Chinese or Japanese, and most of the time I didn't bother getting very upset, unless people were being mean about it.

  But I'd really been surprised to hear Mr. Dixon say the same thing, and Patrick could tell.

  Why? Why had I been so surprised?

  Jostle, jostle, jostle. My mom had assumed things about my teacher Mrs. Roberts because she was black. Mr. Dixon assumed my family would like peppers because we were Chinese. And I assumed that Mr. Dixon—somebody black, somebody who probably had a lot of experience with racism—would never make a mistake like that.

  But Mr. Dixon and I weren't thinking bad thoughts about each other, not like my mom had about Mrs. Roberts. We weren't being mean about it, either, like those girls who had chanted "Chinka-chinka-Chinaman" at me. That made a difference, didn't it?

  Then why was I thinking all those things at the same time?

  I thought again about why I didn't like people to assume I was Chinese. They thought they knew when they didn't. And because they thought they knew, they never asked.

  So in a way, it didn't matter whether what you were thinking was good or bad.

  Not knowing.

  And not knowing—or not caring—that you didn't know.

  And not bothering to find out because you didn't know you didn't know.

  That was the problem.

  Me: I feel a little dizzy. Not knowing about not knowing reminds me of something —a picture in a book Patrick once showed me. There was this drawing of a can of dog food, right? And on the can there was a picture of a dog holding a can of dog food. And on that can there was a dog holding a can of dog food, and on THAT can—

  Ms. Park: Okay, okay I get it.

  Me: That picture made me dizzy the same way. It's, like, I want to stop thinking about it, but I can't.

  Ms. Park: Sometimes I feel like that when I'm writing. Especially when I can't get things in the story to work the way I want them to. Things go wrong, and I can't seem to fix them, and I can't stop thinking about them. I get dizzy, too.

  Me: So what do you do about it?

  Ms. Park: Usually I take a little break. I might get up and putter around in the kitchen—I like to cook. Or I might take the dog for a walk.

  Me: Does it work?

  Ms. Park: Sometimes. Other times I just have to move on to another part of the story and fix the problem later.

  Me: I don't hav
e any dog to take for a walk, and I don't know how to cook yet, not really. So let's try the moving-on thing instead.

  12

  Patrick came over extra extra early the next morning. We had to videotape the worms as usual, and we also had a miniproject we wanted to do.

  We were going to have eggs for breakfast—the two happy-chicken eggs plus two ordinary eggs. My mom was going to fry all four of them and then we'd eat them side by side to see if there was a difference in the taste.

  Patrick was making a list of the differences. He wasn't writing them down, since this wasn't for school or anything—he was just saying them out loud. I was watching my mom and making toast at the same time. Kenny was still in bed; his school started later than ours. And finished earlier. No fair.

  "Happy egg, brown. Battery egg, white," Patrick said.

  My mom cracked the first egg—a white one—on the edge of the frying pan. Then she did the brown one.

  "Two taps to crack the brown one," Patrick said. "Only one tap for the white one."

  The same thing happened with the other two eggs. Patrick looked pleased. "He was right," he said.

  Mr. Maxwell had told us that his eggs had sturdier shells than battery eggs.

  The battery eggs spread out a lot more in the pan; their whites seemed runnier than the others'. "The brown eggs are nice and fresh," my mom said. "A fresh egg doesn't run in the pan. I remember that from my family's chickens in Korea. These eggs were laid a few days ago, right? But I bought the supermarket eggs last week, and I'm sure they were at least a few days old when I bought them."

  "Happy egg, yellowy orange yolk," Patrick noted. "Battery egg, yolk paler."

  That was interesting. I'd always thought of ordinary eggs as having nice yellow yolks, but the happy eggs were a much deeper color.

  My mom dished up the eggs while I buttered the toast. Patrick and I sat down at the table. I saw that my mom had put Mr. Dixon's sweet peas in a vase. They looked nice. Maybe it was a good sign....

  "Which are you going to try first?" Patrick asked.

  I thought about it. "The battery egg," I said and took a bite, making sure to get both white and yolk on my fork. Patrick did the same.

  We looked at each other. "Tastes like egg," I said.

  We giggled.

  Now for the happy egg. I felt a little nervous as I cut into it with my fork. That was silly—it was only an egg.

  We chewed and swallowed and were silent for a moment.

  Patrick said, "Tastes like egg."

  I laughed, but I felt a bit disappointed.

  Patrick took another bite of his happy egg. "Maybe it does taste a little different," he said. "A little ... eggier?"

  My mom came over to the table. "Can I try?" I handed her my fork, and she tasted a bit of my happy egg. "Oh, yes," she said. "This egg has a lot of flavor."

  I tried another bite of each egg.

  Maybe there was a difference, but it definitely wasn't a big difference.

  Patrick must have been thinking the same thing because he said, "That must be why Mr. Maxwell doesn't make much money. His eggs are more expensive, and they don't taste that much different. So people must figure, Why buy them?"

  "Because the chickens are treated better," I said, "and maybe the eggs are better for us."

  "We know that now," Patrick said, "because of the field trip. But how many people get to go on a field trip like that? Hardly anyone."

  Hardly anyone. Still, I had been to the farm....

  I turned to my mom. "Mom, could we get happy eggs from now on?"

  My mom was packing Kenny's lunch. He didn't like school lunch, so he always took a sandwich. "We'll see," she said.

  Gak. Typical grownup answer. I was about to start trying to convince her when Patrick waved his fork at me.

  "Jules, I've been thinking. You realize we're sort of running a silk farm now?"

  I snorted. Our aquarium—a farm?

  "No, really," Patrick said. "We're raising the caterpillars to make silk—that's what they do on a silk farm."

  "Well, maybe, but it's the smallest farm in the history of ever," I said. "I don't know if you could really call it a farm."

  "Still"—Patrick waved his fork again like he was trying to erase what I said from the air—"I was thinking that we should try to make it a sustainable farm, like Mr. Maxwell's."

  "How the heck would we do that?"

  Patrick put down his fork. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just thought it would be a good idea."

  It was a good idea, and I told him so. But I still didn't see how we could do it. For a start, we didn't have any other animals we could make a cycle with.

  "Keep thinking about it," Patrick said. "Maybe one of us will come up with something."

  Other people might not have found the silkworms very interesting—all they did was wiggle around and eat. But I loved watching them. They were a grayish greenish white color, and big enough now that you could see all the little segments of their bodies and their tiny, delicate feet.

  I also loved listening to them. The bigger they got, the louder they crunched. When they were all eating at the same time, it sounded like a miniature army marching over gravel.

  Most amazing of all were their faces. I used a magnifying glass to look at them. Two eyes and a mouth—those were clear. And something in the middle, a little bump that I guess was the nose.

  Their mouths were pretty mean-looking. You could see the two parts—lips? is that what you'd call them?—except instead of being top and bottom, like people lips, they were side by side and looked like pincers.

  When Patrick looked through the magnifying glass, he said, "Yikes! That's nasty." He handed me back the magnifier hastily. "They look like aliens."

  "Aliens!" I said, indignant.

  "Yeah. Their faces. Like some kind of miniature alien monster."

  Kenny agreed with him. Great buddies, those two.

  I guess they were right, in a way. But sometimes things can be so ugly that they're cute, and I thought our worms were adorable. I especially loved the way they moved. They'd raise their heads up like they were looking around, then stretch themselves waaaay out and let go with their rear ends at the last minute, but very smoothly. It didn't look like crawling, not the way Kenny used to crawl when he was a baby. It was more like rippling —they rippled across the leaves.

  They pooped, of course. Little tiny black pellets. Every time we cleared up the silkworm poop, it made us think of the cow poop on Mr. Maxwell's farm, and that made us wonder how we could make our project—I refused to call it a farm—sustainable.

  Patrick drew Mr. Maxwell's cycle on a piece of paper. Blades of grass, cows, cowpats, flies, chickens, and sheep. He drew them so they formed a circle, with arrows in between.

  Then he made another drawing of our project: a mulberry leaf with an arrow pointing to a caterpillar.

  We looked at the drawings side by side. Ours looked pretty pathetic next to Mr. Maxwell's.

  "There's gotta be some way we can make it a cycle," Patrick said.

  I studied the drawings for a minute. "Wait," I said. "You left a couple of things out."

  I took the pencil from him and drew a mulberry tree next to the leaf. Then I made a few tiny dots with the pencil point next to the caterpillar. "The tree and the poop," I said. At least our cycle didn't look quite so bare now.

  "That's it!" Patrick shouted. "You did it!"

  "I did?" I stared at him and then back at the drawing. "I don't get it."

  Patrick took the pencil back. He drew a long arrow circling around from the caterpillar poop to the tree.

  I still didn't get it.

  Patrick was grinning. "Don't you see? We take the worm poop to Mr. Dixon's, and use it to fertilize his mulberry tree! It's not a big fancy cycle like Mr. Maxwell's, but it's still a cycle, and this way the worms and the tree are sustaining each other. Get it?"

  Wow, was he ever smart. But I have to admit I felt pretty silly when we took the poop to Mr
. Dixon's house. We cleaned out the aquarium every other day and kept the poop in a little plastic bag. By the time we went to get more leaves, we had about a handful of poop—if the hand was the size of a newborn baby's.

  I said I didn't think it was enough to make one bit of difference to the tree.

  "It doesn't matter," Patrick insisted. "It still counts."

  He told Mr. Maxwell about it at the next Wiggle meeting. Mr. Maxwell was so pleased that he gave us high fives.

  One morning when the worms were two weeks old, I went out to the porch to do my normal check on them. I looked through the aquarium's screen lid.

  My heart almost stopped.

  Some of the worms were just lying there. They weren't wiggling or eating.

  They were dead.

  My heart went from stopped to top speed in about a second. It was pounding so hard I could hardly think. Call Patrick first? Pick up the dead worms? Figure out what had happened?

  I looked around wildly at Kenny's pad on the wall. The numbers had been getting bigger pretty steadily—it was getting warmer every day. The worms couldn't have frozen.

  There were plenty of leaves. They hadn't starved.

  What had we done wrong!

  Just then Kenny bumped open the back door and came out onto the porch.

  "Kenny," I said hoarsely.

  "Hey, what's wrong with them?" he said, pushing his face closer to the glass.

  I couldn't speak. I could feel hot tears in my eyes.

  "Cool," Kenny said.

  Cool? He thought the dead worms were cool? I was going to kill him.

  "They're like little hollow worms," Kenny said.

  What was he saying? Not that it mattered. They'd be his last words on this earth—

  Wait.

  What?

  Hollow?

  I blinked away the tears as fast as I could and lifted the lid so I could take a closer look.