Tia grinned. “You know what I do? I make board games.”
“You make board games? Like Candy Land?”
“Yup. Only I invent games about anything I want.”
“Neat! I love to make things. Hey, you know what, Tia? We could invent games this afternoon. We could call ourselves the Invention Sisters.”
“Yeah!” agreed Tia.
“What do we need to make a game?” I asked.
“Oak tag or cardboard, paper, Magic Markers … let’s see. Buttons, scissors, a thumbtack, maybe glue. If you don’t have buttons, it’s okay.”
But Granny had a whole box of buttons. She found everything else we needed, too. Soon Tia and I were sitting on the floor in my room.
“First you make a spinner,” said Tia. She cut an arrow out of the oak tag. Then she cut a circle out of the oak tag. This is what she drew on the circle:
She used the thumbtack to fasten the arrow to the circle.
“See? You spin the arrow. You see what number it stops at. If it stops at four, then you move four spaces. Get it?”
“Yeah!”
After that, Tia and I drew a long wiggly path on another piece of oak tag. We divided the path into spaces:
We decided to call our game On the Farm. In each space, we wrote a message like this: “Your tractor breaks down. Move back two spaces.” Or, “Your chicks hatch! Move ahead three spaces.”
“Okay,” said Tia. “Good. Now, the first player to cross the finish line is the winner. You go first, Karen. Spin the spinner. Use a button for your playing piece.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “Hey, the Invention Sisters are pretty good, aren’t they?”
Tia grinned. “They’re the best.”
A New Friend
That afternoon, Tia and I made two more games. They were called Going to School and The Plane Trip. They were both gigundo cool.
Guess what Tia was wearing. Her blue-jean overalls again. This time she wore them over a striped shirt. She still looked like a boy. I decided that was okay.
I also decided I would not mind having my own overalls. Grandad wore overalls every day. And Granny wore jeans every day. I had jeans, but I left them in Stoneybrook. And I did not have any overalls. It would be fun to dress like Tia. Anyway, the Invention Sisters should look more alike. Right now, we did not look like sisters. We did not even look related.
It was funny. In Stoneybrook, hardly anyone wears overalls. Except babies and little kids. But almost everyone around the farm wore them: Grandad, Tia, the hired hands. I was tired of being the only one wearing dresses or good pants.
When Tia went home that day, I asked Granny two questions. The first one was, “Can Tia and I have a sleepover on Saturday night?” The second was, “Can I buy some overalls? And maybe a hat? I need them for working in the garden.”
Granny said yes to the sleepover. She said she would have to talk to Grandad about the overalls and the hat. We would have to drive all the way to town to buy them.
I hoped the answer would be yes. I really wanted overalls and a hat. Maybe I would even get my hair cut like Tia’s. But I decided not to. I remembered the last time I had gotten a haircut. It had been a disaster.
When Granny told Grandad that I wanted to go to town, this is what Grandad said: “I think that’s a fine idea. I need to pick up a few things anyway.”
“Let’s go tomorrow, then,” Granny said.
“Yippee-e-e-e!” I cried.
* * *
Even though Friday was a different kind of day, we still had to get up early. The animals needed to be fed. This takes a long time.
When all the animals and all the people had eaten, Granny and Grandad and I piled into the pickup truck. The drive to town was so long that I fell asleep. I woke up when I heard Granny say, “Here’s the town, Karen.”
“Where?” I asked. I rubbed my eyes. We were driving down a dusty road.
“Right here. There’s the store and there’s the bank and there’s the diner. Oh, and there’s the gas station,” said Grandad.
This was it? The whole town?
“Stoneybrook is a little bigger, isn’t it?” asked Granny.
“Yup,” I said. I was thinking, Where’s the ice-cream parlor? Where’s the video rental? Where’s the toy store? What do people do without a pet shop?
But I was surprised by the store. It looked small from the outside, but inside was — everything! You could buy clothes, food, toys, hardware, medicine, sewing stuff, school supplies, stamps, and more.
“Hi, Greta,” Granny greeted a woman in the store. (Grandad had gone to the hardware department.) “This is my grand-daughter. This is Karen. She’s seven.”
“Karen! Nice to meet you.” Greta gave me a FREE lollipop. Then she helped Granny and me to pick out a pair of overalls and a straw hat. I bought them all by myself with my own money.
When we were finished in the store, Grandad said, “How about lunch, Karen?”
“In the restaurant? Sure.”
We walked to the little coffee shop. I was wearing my new clothes. Granny and Grandad seemed to know everyone in the restaurant. They introduced me to the waitresses and the customers. When anyone asked me where I came from, I said, “Well, I was born in Connecticut, but right now I live in the state of Nebraska.”
Popcorn and Potatoes
At five o’clock on Saturday afternoon, the doorbell rang. I had just come in from the garden. I had been working hard. I was gigundo glad I had bought the overalls and the hat. When you work on a farm, you need those things badly.
I raced for the front door. There stood Tia. She was wearing a backpack. Her bicycle was parked by the porch.
“Ready for the sleepover?” I asked her.
“Ready!”
Tia and I had a lot to do. First we went back to the garden. I let Tia carry the basket. We picked vegetables for another salad. (We did not need help. We could do that by ourselves.)
We were on our way back to the house when Granny called, “Karen! Tia! Would you pick six ears of corn, please?”
So we did. Then we ate dinner outside at a picnic table: salad, corn on the cob, and chicken. After dinner, Granny said, “How would you girls like to make popcorn?”
“Yes!” we cried. Granny brought out a jar of corn kernels. They were not plain old yellow kernels. They were lots of different colors — red and green and blue. When they had popped, they looked like a fluffy cloud and a rainbow all mixed together.
“Cool,” I said.
“Yeah, cool,” agreed Tia.
We took the popcorn upstairs. We ate it while we made another board game. This one was called Going to Hollywood.
“You know what?” I said to Tia after she had won the game.
“What?” asked Tia.
“I am making a surprise for Granny. It’s because she has been so nice. Because she taught me how to garden and knit.”
“What are you making?”
“I’m knitting her a whole long scarf. Pink and purple stripes. When it is finished, I am going to wrap it up. I think I will even make the wrapping paper.”
“Do you know how to make potato-print paper?” asked Tia. I told her I did not. “Then I can show you,” she said.
Tia and I went to the kitchen. We found a potato. Tia asked Granny to cut it in half. “This is for a secret,” I told Granny. Granny left the kitchen.
Tia found a fork. She used it to press a crisscross design in one potato half. Then she made polka dots in the other potato. She used the end of a crayon for that.
“There,” said Tia. “Now, all you do is pour some paint into a saucer. Then you dip the potato design in the paint — very lightly — and you stamp it all over a piece of paper. You can use white paper or colored paper.”
“Tia,” I said. “I wish you lived in Connecticut. Then we could always be friends.”
“I wish you lived in Nebraska,” Tia replied.
“Maybe we can be pen pals,” I suggested.
“Maybe you could visit you
r grandparents every year.”
“Maybe you could come to Connecticut sometime.”
“Girls?” called Grandad. “Karen? Tia? It’s bedtime.”
“Boo,” I said.
But then Grandad came into the kitchen. He said, “It’s extra hot tonight. How would you like to sleep on the porch? The porch will be much cooler than the bedroom.”
Sleep on the porch? Right over the snakes?
“What would we sleep in?” I asked.
“Hammocks,” replied Grandad.
Wow! I looked at Tia. She was grinning.
“Okay!” I said to Grandad. “Thank you!”
That night, Tia and I fell asleep in the hammocks. Above us, the stars shone. And all around us, a soft breeze blew.
Karen in Business
“Vegetables! Vegetables for sale! Get them right here! We’ve got carrots and peas and corn and tomatoes, eggplants, cabbages, beans, and potatoes!”
I woke up from a wonderful dream. I was so excited that I forgot where I was sleeping. I nearly fell out of the hammock.
“Tia!” I cried. And then I realized that the sun was rising. We had slept right through the rooster alarm clock. “Tia, wake up! It’s late. And guess what. I have a terrific idea. We can start a business. I had a dream about it. We can sell vegetables from the garden. We’ll set up a stand at the end of the drive.”
“Yeah …” said Tia sleepily. “I have to check with my parents, though.”
Tia’s parents said she could stay over until five o’clock. Then Granny said we could sell some vegetables. “Just don’t pick too many.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Granny looked at Grandad. Grandad shrugged. Then he said, “Well, it’s Sunday, Karen. There might not be much traffic today.”
“Anyway, a lot of people have their own g —” Tia started to say.
But Granny interrupted her. “Run along and pick some vegetables. Why don’t you start with one basketful.”
“I will carry a table and two chairs outside for you,” added Grandad.
“Oh, and we better make a sign!” I cried.
* * *
Later that morning, Tia and I were in business. We were sitting on chairs at the end of the driveway. In front of us was the table. We had put the vegetables on the table. We set them out in a gigundo pretty pattern. Next to the table stood our sign. It said: K-T VEGETABLES. GET YOUR FRESH VEGETABLES HERE! (K-T stood for “Karen and Tia.”)
We sat outside for an hour. Two cars drove by. They did not stop.
I looked at my watch. “This is boring. I wonder what’s wrong,” I said.
“Maybe —” began Tia.
But suddenly I exclaimed, “Oh! I know! We did not advertise enough. No one knows about our business unless they drive by our house.”
“What should we do?”
“We could make more signs,” I suggested. “We could put them up and down the road. They would say things like, ‘One more mile to K-T Vegetables,’ and ‘Just half a mile to K-T Vegetables.’ Everyone would want to stop and buy.”
“It will take a long time to put up all those signs,” said Tia.
“I know it. Hey! Look!”
A car had stopped. A woman got out. She bought four ears of corn.
“Tia! We earned a dollar!” I cried.
At four-thirty, Tia said, “I have to be home in half an hour. I better go.”
“Oh.” I groaned. I was very tired. Even though Tia and I had only sold two heads of lettuce, those ears of corn, and a bunch of beans. We had earned $2.59.
“How will we split that in half?” asked Tia.
“I get … let’s see. I get one dollar and thirty cents, and you get one dollar and twenty-nine cents,” I said. “The extra penny is mine because the vegetables came from my garden.”
“Okay,” agreed Tia.
Tia and I took the leftover vegetables back to Granny. We carried the chairs and the table to the house.
“You know what?” I said as Tia climbed onto her bicycle. “K-T Vegetables did not make much money. But it was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Gigundo fun,” said Tia. Then she added, “Partner!”
New Babies
“Guess what, honey,” said Grandad at breakfast one morning.
“What?”
Grandad sounded excited, but I felt sad. It was Wednesday. In three days I would have to go home. I would have to leave the farm. Boo.
“The chicks are about to hatch,” Grandad told me.
“Really?” I cried. “Really, really, really?”
“Really,” replied Grandad.
“I have never seen anything hatch. I have never seen anything be born. Well, maybe on TV. But that doesn’t count. Can I invite Tia over?”
“Of course,” said Granny. “But remember that Tia has grown up on a farm. She has seen chicks hatch. And she has watched kittens and puppies and calves being born.”
I called Tia anyway. She said she wanted to come over.
“See you this afternoon,” she said.
“This afternoon! But the chicks might have hatched by then.”
“No, they won’t,” said Tia. But she came over before lunchtime.
Well, those chickies certainly took their time. Tia and I watched them for hours and nothing happened. Sitting around in the brooder house was boring. And hot.
“What’s keeping them?” I asked Tia.
“They’re not ready yet,” she answered. “They have to be ready.”
A little while later, Granny and Grandad joined us. We waited some more.
“Look at that,” whispered Grandad. “It’s starting.”
I started at the eggs. I saw that one was moving. A chick was poking its way out. It looked like it was working hard.
“Ooh,” I said softly. Then, “Gross! What’s wrong with it?”
A scrawny, dark, wet thing was struggling out of the egg. And it was not the only one. Some other eggs were hatching. And all the chicks were scrawny and dark and wet. And ugly.
“That’s how chicks look when they’re born,” said Granny.
“I thought they would be fluffy and yellow and cute.”
“They will be soon. First they have to dry off. The inside of an egg is wet. The fluid helps the chick grow and develop. You watch the chicks, now.”
I watched. When the chicks were dry, they looked just right.
“Fluffy!” I said. “And cute…. Grandad?”
“Yes?”
“Could one of the chicks be mine, please?”
“Yours? I don’t know. Well, I suppose so. It would have to live here on the farm, though.”
“It would?”
“Honey, you can’t take a chick on an airplane. Besides, chicks are happier living on farms with other chicks.”
“Oh.” I had thought a chick might make a good pet for Andrew.
Granny saw that I was disappointed. “There’s one other thing,” she said. “Remember that chicks grow up.”
Oh, yeah. I decided that a chicken would not make a very good pet.
I smiled at Granny and Grandad. “Thank you,” I said. “I would really like to have a chick of my own. And I would like it to grow up in Nebraska.”
“Which chick would you like?” asked Grandad.
“That one.” I pointed to the fluffiest chick of all.
“It’s yours,” said Granny.
My very own chick! “I will name it Tia,” I announced.
“I Don’t Want to Come Home!”
The rooster was crowing. Do you want to know a secret? Crowing does not sound a thing like “cock-a-doodle-doo.” I do not know who decided that. Crowing sounds more like “er er-er er-er.”
I rolled over on my tummy. “Boo,” I said out loud. “Boo, boo, boo.”
It was Friday. The next day would be Saturday, and I would go home. I would have to say good-bye to the state of Nebraska.
I got out of bed. I put on my overalls. I carried my straw hat downstairs and into the kit
chen.
“Good morning,” said Granny and Grandad.
“ ’Morning,” I replied. “Do I really have to go home tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Granny.
“Then I am going to be very busy today.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Last things. I have to do everything one last time. I have to play in the hayloft, and invite Tia over, and we have to invent another game. I have to say good-bye to all the animals. And, Grandad, can you give me one last ride on the tractor? And can you show me the fields one last time?”
“Certainly. If you will make me one last salad.”
“Certainly.”
Grandad did his morning chores. I fed the chickens. Granny made a cherry pie. She said it was for dessert that night.
When we were finished, we took a tour of the farm. Just like we did when I first came to Nebraska. Only this time, I took Granny and Grandad on the tour.
“Here are the pigs,” I said. “And here are the cows. This is the barn. This is the hayloft.” (I stopped to play.)
Granny and Grandad pretended they had not been to a farm before.
After lunch, Tia came over.
“Here we are. The Invention Sisters!” I cried. “What shall we invent today?”
“A game called Save Our Planet,” replied Tia.
“Oh, that’s good. It will be about saving energy and not littering.”
Tia and I worked very hard on Save Our Planet. Then we played it three times. Tia won once. I won twice.
“Let’s go see the chicks,” I suggested.
So the Invention Sisters ran to the brooder house. On the way, Tia asked, “How is Tia doing?” (She meant Tia the chick.)
“She’s fine,” I said.
“How can you tell her apart from all the others?”
“You’ll see!”
In the brooder house, Tia and I stood in front of the new chicks. “Find Tia,” I said to Tia.
Tia looked and looked. She began to giggle. “There she is!”
“Yup!” I had painted a tiny red dot on each of Tia’s claws.
“I hope the paint is waterproof,” said Tia. Then she checked her watch. “Oh, no, Karen. I have to go home now.”