by Rolli –
Everyone has a favorite tree. Mine is the big bushy one in the middle of the park because it’s better at making shade than any tree I’ve ever met. Sometimes I sit against it and read all morning or afternoon. It’s pretty great.
One day I was reading in the park and a leaf fluttered down and landed right at the end of chapter two.
“Miss VeDore,” I whispered. Then I closed my book (leaves make perfect bookmarks) and headed home.
In case that sounds mysterious, I’ll explain. Falling leaves mean fall. Fall means Halloween. Halloween means pumpkins. And pumpkins, as everyone in Star City knows, mean Miss VeDore.
The tall house on Main Street that looks abandoned is actually Miss VeDore’s house. It was a real live mansion once, according to my Uncle George, long before the paint flaked off, the chimney rotted like – well, a pumpkin – and the lawn grew up and decided it wanted to be a forest. The round window on the third floor has been broken for years. Once, I saw a raccoon staring out of it.
Most people call Miss VeDore “The Pumpkin Woman,” because she grows pumpkins and sells them. Most people, too, are just a little bit frightened of her (including me). In fact, there’s only one person I know who isn’t scared of Miss VeDore a bit – and she lives in a cave on Main Street.
I actually hadn’t seen too much of Kabungo since she’d fallen in love with Bun, her new kitten. I’ve noticed that when people are in love, they act like they’re in a snow globe. You can shake it as hard as you want and they just go on floating and smiling. Well, it’s the same with cavegirls and kittens. I thought I’d stop by the cave that day, though, just in case. The one good thing about love is that it eventually gets moldy.
But that didn’t seem to be the case. There was no answer when I banged a stone on the side of the cave, and when I let myself in, Kabungo was so busy playing with the kitten—they were batting something around on the floor—that she didn’t notice me for a whole minute.
“Oh Belly,” she finally said, standing up. “Play?”
I couldn’t quite see what they were playing with, it was so dark in the cave. At first I thought it was a mouse toy. But no, it was a mouse.
“Umm, I’ll pass, K,” I said.
“Oh kay,” said my friend. Then she dove to the floor in time to snatch the mouse from Bun.
I rolled my eyes.
“Kabungo?” I said. When I use her full name, she sometimes pays attention.
“Ya?” she said, getting up again, twirling the mouse around by its tail.
“Umm. Do you want to go with me to Miss VeDore’s?”
Kabungo lifted her nose up and squinted. That’s her way of saying, “I require more information.” So I told her that Miss VeDore was that friendly old woman on Main Street, and that if we went to her and asked her nicely, she’d give us each a pumpkin. Of course, I had to explain what a pumpkin was too.
Kabungo looked down and unsquinted. She had sufficient information.
“Nnn,” she said, shaking her head. “Vibbles. Not tasty.”
Call them vegetables or call them vibbles, Kabungo isn’t a big fan. I explained to her the pumpkin wouldn’t be for eating, and what a jack-o-lantern was, and how amazing it would look on Halloween if she sat one in front of her cave.
Kabungo bit her finger hard. She was thinking.
“Oh kay,” she said, finally, flinging the mouse into the corner. “Wego. Stay Bun kay?”
“Mi,” was all Bun said, chasing after the mouse. I wasn’t sure if that was a promise.
We’d just left the cave when Kabungo darted around it into the bushes. I wondered what she was up to. A second later she reappeared, dragging the rusty old wagon she uses to haul fire-wood.
“For vibbles,” she said.
I nodded. I was impressed. For a cavegirl, Kabungo comes up with some pretty good ideas.
And off we went.
It’s always sunset at Miss VeDore’s, even when the sun is high in the sky. I guess it’s because of the trees. There’s so many of them and so many shadows that whenever you walk past 318 Main Street, it’s like the sun slipped down the couch cushions.
It was just after lunch when we strolled up to Miss VeDore’s. It was so dim and still, though, you’d swear it was after dinner. The only sounds I could hear were an owl hooting and the squealing of the rusty wagon. In a lot of ways I’m a nervous person.
There wasn’t a gate or a driveway anywhere around the house that I could see—just a forest of bushes and trees. We abandoned the wagon and were about to fight our way through them when I noticed something. It was a white flash of something in the trees. Kabungo saw it too and perked right up, like a dog. We moved closer to where we thought we saw it—we pushed through a hedge, even—and found ourselves in the middle of a curving path. So we started down it, turned once, and stopped.
I gasped. That’s generally what I do when something surprises me.
“Woo!” said Kabungo. That’s always what she does when something surprises her.
There’s really nothing frightening-looking about Miss VeDore. It’s just easy to be scared by something when you’re not expecting it. And I was not expecting a pale old lady in a long dress to be standing there smiling when I turned around the corner.
Before I could say “Hi,” Miss VeDore whispered, “The pumpkins are waiting. This way. This way.” And she walked down the path. You couldn’t see her feet – her dress just dragged in the dirt – so it was a little like she was floating. I tried not to think of that as we followed her.
After the second bend in the path, Miss VeDore stopped, covered her mouth with one hand, and pointing with the other whispered, “Look. There. Isn’t…he…darling?”
She was pointing through the trees, at, well, I couldn’t tell what, at first. It looked like a tabby on her doorstep. I squinted. It wasn’t a tabby. It was a raccoon. He was just sitting there, licking his paws, like a house cat that wanted back in.
“Good meat,” said Kabungo, taking a step forward. But I managed to drag her back to the path before anything drastic happened.
Miss VeDore had vanished in the meantime. So we just kept following the path as it curved around the front of the house, the side, and into the backyard. Of course, it really wasn’t what I’d call a backyard. It was more like one enormous pumpkin patch. There had to be a million pumpkins from the size of my fist to the size of a dishwasher, almost. There were vines growing and twisting around every tree and stone like snakes. They were even twisting around an empty rocking chair in the middle of the garden. I don’t think you could’ve rocked it if you wanted to.
But there was still no sign of Miss VeDore. There was a sign – a big wooden sign next to the rocking chair that said, “Miss VeDore’s Pumpkin Hollow” but she was nowhere in sight. So I told Kabungo if we took our time picking out pumpkins, Miss VeDore was bound to show up sooner or later. Kabungo seemed to think that was a good idea. Right away, she went around sniffing and tapping on pumpkins, like those strange people in the supermarket.
Actually choosing a pumpkin, though, was harder than I thought it would be. They were all great pumpkins. A few were so big you could live in them. One looked just like my Aunt Helen. Finally, I saw one that seemed to have “me” carved all over it. It was skinny and intelligent-looking and not too big. I twisted it off the vine then went to find Kabungo.
But there was no sign of Kabungo now, either. I looked behind every pumpkin, behind the sign, under the chair, but no Kabungo. I called her. The only answer was the vine-leaves rustling in the breeze.
When I get nervous, it’s like there’s a large spider in my stomach trying hard to climb out. Well, when I couldn’t find Kabungo, the spider in my stomach was enormous. It was a tarantula. I told myself Kabungo was probably fine and not doing anything crazy, and that I was overreacting, and – the raccoon. I remembered the raccoon.
As I raced back down the path, I heard a loud squeaking. I wasn’t sure what sound a raccoon would make if it was wrestling with a cavegirl, but just in case that was it, I ran even faster. But when I got to the doorstep there was no raccoon and no Kabungo, either. The front door, though, was open wide. As it blew back and forth, it squeaked.
Somewhere deep in the mansion, a glass smashed.
Somewhere deep in my stomach, a spider scurried.
I didn’t want to go inside. But I knew I had to.
I took a deep breath, swallowed spider legs, and slipped through the front door.
To be continued….
Question Time
- How does Beverly know it’s fall time?
- Where does she and Kabungo go to get pumpkins?
- What does Kabungo see when they get to the pumpkin patch?
- What happens when Beveraly can’t find Kabungo?
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