“You could catch flies with that mouth, baby girl. What are you thinking so hard about?”

“I want to make something amazing for the pie contest.” I point to the books. “But everything’s already been made.”

He walks over to the counter and flips a couple of pages. I see a bruise on his arm as big as a quarter. It’s plum purple and I wonder how he got it.

“Well, as the Good Book says, there ain’t nothing new under the sun. Seems to me like you’ve got to pick what speaks most to you.”

I think on that for a minute. He’s right, of course. The problem is, nothing’s talking at the moment.

“Think of it this way,” he says, and drinks down a cold glass of water from the sink. “If you were a pie, what pie would you be?”

I haven’t got the first idea. He sees my face and laughs and pats my shoulder on his way back out.

“Don’t worry about it, Alice baby. You’ll figure it out.”

He hasn’t called me Alice in weeks.

13 Bert’s Tiny Town

It’s damp and dark, but I don’t reach out to pull the cord dangling from the light bulb. Nobody knows where I am. I wasn’t even sure my wheelchair would fit down the ramp.

But it did, so I’m sitting in the quiet in the pitch black of the canning shed. I don’t need the light to know that rows and rows of mason jars sit on the shelves higher than I can reach. Mema’s set mousetraps everywhere, so I don’t hold out a hand. But I know what’s here. Beans and okra and tomatoes and peaches and blackberries and strawberries and apples and squash. Everything from the garden, waiting to be brought out into the light.

Somewhere in here something’s got to speak to me.

Or not.

Because after twenty minutes in here, I still don’t know what in the world to do, so I back on out when I hear Mom calling and move on to plan B or C or W or whatever I’m on now. I get her to drive me over to Bert’s.

We pull up, and I feel a little hesitant for a minute. I’ve never actually been inside his house. It’s beautiful, baby blue all around and white porches, like it could be on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens. If Better Homes and Gardens ever featured a trailer.