Fortune's Magic Farm by Suzanne Selfors (rainbow fish read aloud .txt) 📕

if Mrs. Wormbottom was darning a sock or if the twins were playing marbles. Mama Lu didn’t want to spend any extra money. “Good night, Isabelle.”

“Good night, Grandma.”

“I love you, dearest.”

“I love you too.”

Then a whisper floated through the darkness. Grandma Maxine’s voice was quivery and sad. “How will you take care of yourself when I’m gone?”

Isabelle removed the tray. “Don’t worry about that. You need to get some sleep.”

Grandma Maxine rolled over and started to snore. The sound comforted Isabelle, for a person who snores is not gone.

She sat on the edge of her grandmother’s bed, her mind racing, thoughts turning from her grandmother’s health to the day’s weird events. Finding an apple beneath a cat could be simply a matter of luck. Having an apple dropped on one’s head could just be a coincidence. But having a sea monster sneeze an apple onto one’s lap seemed deliberate. The fact that all three apples had appeared on the same day, in a place where apples did not grow, seemed… miraculous! No doubt about it—Isabelle was smack dab in the middle of a mystery.

She crept to the window and leaned on the sill. That strange person in the cape had gone. The lights in Gertrude’s Boardinghouse had also shut off. Gwen’s window was on the back side of the house. She’d be in bed, like the others, probably crying over her lost apple. But wouldn’t she be surprised in the morning when Isabelle presented her with a lovely, sweet chunk?

Isabelle tucked the partially eaten apple under her pillow. How easily she could have eaten the entire thing, stem, seeds, and all. How nice it would have felt in her stomach. But she was determined to share it with her friends.

She curled her legs beneath her only blanket. Tomorrow would bring another long day of peeling labels and pressing them onto boxes. Did they have factories in Nowhere? Did everyone in Nowhere grow mushrooms between their toes and lichen on their heads? Did apple trees… grow… and… plum… trees…

Sleep tugged at Isabelle’s thoughts. But just as she closed her eyes, a scream shot up the stairway.

Isabelle crept down the dark stairway, her bare feet gripping the cold planking. The Limewigs poked their heads out of their bedroom and whispered nervously as she hurried past. “Someone screamed.”

The Wormbottoms huddled on the second floor’s landing. “What’s going on?” Mrs. Wormbottom asked. “Are we being robbed?”

“Don’t go down there,” Mr. Wormbottom said. “It might not be safe.”

Curiosity is a powerful force, so Isabelle didn’t heed his wise advice. She slipped between the Wormbottoms and continued down the stairs.

“You’ve ruined it!” Gertrude screeched. Light spilled from the kitchen. A cloud of black smoke drifted by. Isabelle tiptoed cautiously to the kitchen’s entry and peeked around the wall.

The apple, now golden brown, sat in a pan on top of the oven. Sugar bubbled at its base and juice dripped from the hole where the stem used to be. A slice was missing.

“I didn’t ruin it,” Mama Lu insisted. “Look at it. It’s perfect. Ya just got a bad slice. Try again.”

Gertrude frowned. Oddly, her lips had turned black. The front of her bathrobe was black, too. She stuck a knife into the apple and carved another slice. Then she plunged a fork into the slice and held it at arm’s length.

“That slice looks just fine. Go on. Give it a try,” Mama Lu urged.

Watching those greedy women gobble up the beautiful baked apple would be torture, but Isabelle didn’t turn away. Gertrude blew on the steaming slice and with a shaky hand, cautiously brought it to her mouth. But just as her blackened lips opened, the slice made a high-pitched sizzling sound. Then, BAM! It exploded. Gertrude screamed and dropped the fork. All that remained of the apple slice was a puff of black smoke.

Gertrude shook ash from her hair. “You ruined it,” she snarled. “You overcooked my beautiful apple. You burnt it.”

“It ain’t overcooked,” Mama Lu snarled right back. “Look at it.” She pointed to the golden apple. “It ain’t burnt one bit. I’ll prove it.” Mama Lu stuck a fork into the apple and lifted it from its pan. She didn’t even bother to blow on it. She opened her mouth to take a great big bite.

Sizzle. SIZZLE. BAM!

This time both Mama Lu and Gertrude screamed as the apple exploded. The fork fell to the floor. Mama Lu’s eyes popped even wider than the time she had found a family of slugs vacationing in her whipped cheese spread.

An enormous black cloud arose, blocking Isabelle’s view. Coughing, the landladies ran from the kitchen straight into the parlor, where they gasped for air. Isabelle searched desperately for a hiding place and found it behind the hanging rain slickers. She snickered to herself, remembering Mama Lu’s expression, then peered between yellow sleeves.

“You owe me an apple,” Gertrude said, coughing.

“I owe ya nothing. That was a bad apple. Ain’t my fault ya don’t know the difference between a good apple and a bad apple.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” Gertrude asked, shaking ashes from her bathrobe.

Mama Lu wiped soot from her eyes. “I ain’t calling ya nothing. All I know is that it don’t take much brains to know a bad apple is a bad apple.”

Gertrude growled. “All I know is that it don’t take much brains to know how to bake an apple.”

“Are ya calling me a bad cook?”

They balled up their fists and stood, smudged face to smudged face. Isabelle delighted in the sight. They had gotten what they deserved for taking that apple from Gwen. Maybe they’d start punching each other. Oh, how she’d love to see that, but if the landladies caught her spying she’d be in huge trouble. How could she get back upstairs without being seen? The distance between the hanging slickers and the stairway stretched before her, where squeaky floorboards lay like landmines. It was too risky, but so was standing in the entryway with her feet