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Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Books by Elizabeth Camden
  3. Title Page
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Historical Note
  47. Questions for Discussion
  48. In 2020, look forCaroline Delacroix’sstory in
  49. About the Author
  50. Back Ads
  51. Back Cover

Heaven help her, she knew what he was about to ask. Approaching Gray for a favor was unthinkable, but how could she turn down a request from the world’s leading plant explorer? There wasn’t a lot of money for plant exploration, and Gray could help them. All he had to do was collect some rice and put it in a test tube.

“He’s already going to be there,” Mr. Fairchild said. “I understand that he’s not an enthusiastic supporter of the Department of Agriculture, but if you have a special friendship . . .” From his bag he pulled a set of empty test tubes, offering them to her.

She didn’t want to touch them. “How did you know that? That he’s going to Madagascar?”

“He’s seeking cargo for his ship. Flyers are posted all over the port.”

“We don’t have a special friendship,” Annabelle said. “I may be the last person on earth who could persuade him to collect those samples.”

If Mr. Fairchild was disappointed, he did not show it. He merely set the wooden box of empty vials on her lap and refused to take them back.

“Huge swaths of our country are lying fallow because they aren’t suitable for wheat or corn,” he said. “Rice may be the answer. Rice is nutritious and easy to store and can feed millions of people. Whatever personal tiff you have with Delacroix pales in comparison to that.”

It was true. Somehow Annabelle was going to have to find the gumption to track Gray down and get him to agree.

Twenty-Five

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At the rate they were moving, Gray figured he and Otis would conclude their clandestine task by midnight. They worked quietly in the townhouse kitchen after Mr. and Mrs. Holder had gone to bed, for he didn’t want any witnesses.

He still couldn’t help smiling as he pasted another label onto a jar of the Magruders’ “applesauce.” They had over a thousand jars to label, and it was slow going. Otis reported it had taken him and Luke two full days to steam the original labels from the glass jars, but Luke’s arrest had prevented them from moving on to the next step of relabeling.

Luke had designed the comical label using his own artwork. A full-color drawing showed a large pumpkin with the top cut off. A pair of happy mice perched on the pumpkin’s open rim and gleefully poured chemicals from test tubes into it. The name on the label was “Magruder Mash That Tastes Like Applesauce.”

Most damning was the list of ingredients printed on the back of the label: Pumpkin stewed in cider vinegar, sugar beet glucose, chrome yellow dye made with pure lead nitrate and potassium chromate, and a hint of formaldehyde to keep food eternally fresh. Product is guaranteed to contain no apples!