Jackson Jones and Mission Greentop (8 page)
Read Jackson Jones and Mission Greentop Online
Authors: Mary Quattlebaum
It's been one month since Blood tackled my rosebush. Sometimes he still lets fly with “Bouquet Jones.” I figure that boy is stuck in his pea-brain ways. It's hard for him to change.
So I just draw out the word rose to remind him.
Roosse.
Blood shuts right up. He knows I keep my silence as long as he keeps his promise.
Mr. K. had once told me that a fall rose was special. Little did he know.
On account of Blood's whomping, Mama never did see my flowers. But I managed to save a few petals.
She mixed them into something called potpourri—shriveled plant parts stuck in a bowl.
Potpourri. Another villain for Captain Nemo.
Villains, huh. These days Blood is not the only bad guy keeping a promise. Last week Mailbags delivered a thick brown envelope. It was addressed to Mr. Jones.
Inside were copies of reports and completed forms.
There was a scrawled message on Drane and Company paper.
Mr. Jones,
Plans moving nicely. Looking forward to dedication ceremony in the spring.
A. Drane
Dedication ceremony: a fancy name for a party. There would be speeches and photos, maybe
cookies for all. A plaque for Drane and Company. Nathan Aramack might come with a big TV camera.
Rooter's would be safe. A teeny national park that no one could bulldoze or build on. The mishmash of plots would continue.
Including Plot 5-1, which grows the best weeds in the city. I forked my fingers:
V
for victory.
Yeah, a lot had happened in the past month.
In fact, I had just finished being grounded. No after-school b-ball, no hanging out with Reuben. My mama had grounded me so long I felt stuck as a seed in the dirt.
“You skipped school,” she told me a month ago. “You went downtown by yourself.”
“But, Mama!” I had tried smoothing on strategy.
“Don't even
try
your fast talk with me.” Mama's worry frown had been deep. “Just because things turned out okay doesn't make this behavior right. Understand?”
Yeah, I guessed I understood. Mama didn't want me getting hurt or lost. She didn't want me growing super-sneaky, like Amelia Drane.
At first, Reuben and Juana had been mad at me for tackling Drane and Company without them. But when they saw my stuck-seed, bored state, they got over it. At school, Reuben told me he was working on Nemo's weirdest villian yet.
“Draneco has a bubble head and a shiny cape.” He smiled. “She's scarier than the Unspeakable Z.”
Uh-oh, the Unspeakable Z. Zucchini. Maybe Mailbags and Mr. K. could plant less the next spring. Then there'd be no extra to pass on to Mama. No zucchini baked, boiled, breaded, or fried.
I had till April to figure a strategy.
But the Unspeakable Z was to return sooner. Much sooner.
On my first Friday freed from grounding, Reuben and I moseyed home from school. I didn't even mind moving poke-turtle slow, like Reuben. My man and I needed time to plan the perfect Saturday. Tomorrow we'd play a little one-on-one at
the blacktop. Work on our latest Nemo strip. Even help Mr. K. fill in his holes. I'd already given my five cups of rich dirt to the ficus, I told Reuben. Gift from the garden.
“Jackson grows roses. Jackson grows roses. Big, red, smelly-good ROOSSES.”
I whipped around.
“What?” asked Gaby, all innocent. “I can sing. It's a free country.”
“How about ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’?” Juana suggested.
“Boring,” said Gaby.
“Baby song,” sniffed Ro.
Why
did I make Blood promise not to deck those two? I thought, rounding the corner.
That's when I saw it.
Huge, hulking, green.
I blinked. Zucchini on wheels.
Mama patted it proudly.
Juana giggled. Gaby and Ro made straight for the parked monster.
“Sure is bright” was all Reuben said.
My plant doctor mama had done it. She'd gotten a green ambulance.
One of her teachers had recommended her
for a job, Mama told us. Two offices needed regular plant care.
“This new work is part-time.” Mama's eyes were all shiny-happy. “I can do it before my regular job. Think, Jackson, a little extra money. And the start of my own business.”
Mama had traded our car for a van. She had needed more space to carry her tools.
Mailbags pulled up behind Mama's van. His mail truck hunkered small as a peanut beside a green zuke.
“Nice rig.” He smiled.
Mama smiled back, flourishing open a door. “Who wants a ride?”
Gaby and Ro scrambled in.
“Jackson,” they yelled, “now we can go EVERYWHERE with you.”
Juana hopped inside, followed by Reuben. Even Mailbags took a seat. Their heads bobbed together like a bunch of wildflowers.
Wild
flowers, to be exact.
Mama touched my arm. “What do you think?”
I eyeballed the van. I lived in a jungle,
talked to a tree. Now I had to ride in a vegetable.
“Mama,” I said, “my life is getting too green.”
Mama nodded seriously. “I've thought hard about all your help, Jackson. And how my studies have taken over.”
Where was
this
headed?
“I plan to take just one class from now on till I finish,” Mama went on. “Free up some time. Can't have you being a guy Cinderella.”
My feelings exactly.
Mama and I slapped skin. She didn't do it right. But she tried.
“When I cook, you can clean,” I suggested.
“Starting tonight.” Mama smiled.
I climbed into the van, very cool. “I know the
perfect
first job for your van.”
“That so?” Mama started the engine.
I nodded. “Let me show you the way.”
Down the street were
gallons
of dirt. Reuben and I had planned to tote them tomorrow. But with a van and all these helping hands—why not do it today?
Gaby started in on her Jackson-grows-red-roses song.
I grinned. Wait till Mr. K. saw us. Arriving in Mama's zucchini-mobile.
A garden surprise, for sure.
During World War II, nearly 20 million Americans planted vegetable gardens to help provide adequate food for those at home and U.S. soldiers overseas. These victory gardens came in all shapes and sizes. They were planted in window boxes, vacant city lots, backyards, and schoolyards. With so many fathers, uncles, and older brothers away at war, the children in many households helped sow seeds, tend plants, and harvest and preserve produce. They grew carrots, turnips, spinach, tomatoes, and many other vegetables and fruits.
Most of these gardens disappeared after the war— but a few continue to flourish. They might be considered living history, a testimony to the idea that history is made not just by presidents and generals but also by ordinary children, women, and men. For years, my husband and I tended a plot in our city community garden (the Melvin Hazen Community Garden in northwest Washington, D.C.). This garden began as a victory garden and is now part of Rock Creek Park, one of the largest urban national parks in the United States. Whenever I planted, weeded, and munched home-grown lettuce and radishes there, I thought about the numerous others who had worked this same small plot of land.
With much gratitude to the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities under the National Endowment for the Arts, for a creative writing grant during the time this book was written. Thank you to Elizabeth Judd and Annie Thacher for sharing gardening thoughts, and to the Melvin Hazen Community Garden in Washington, D.C., for many good gardening years. Thank you to Kevin Mohs for kindly answering questions related to an earlier draft. Many, many thanks to Leslie Buhler, executive director, and Jill Sanderson, education director, for information on Tudor Place, a historic house and garden in Washington, D.C. I am also deeply grateful to Nancy McCoy, education director of the National Museum of American History, for insights on victory gardens and the National Park Service, and to Perry Wheelock, Rock Creek Park's cultural historian, for information on the community gardens in this national park. Big thank-you bouquets go to Jen Carlson, Jennifer Wingertzahn, and Françoise Bui for seeing the manuscript through, and to Christopher and Christy David for their continued support and good cheer.
Mary Quattlebaum is an award-winning author of picture books, poetry, and novels for children, including
Underground Train, Grover G. Graham and Me,
and
Jackson Jones and the Puddle of Thorns,
winner of the first Marguerite de Angeli Prize, the
Parenting
Reading Magic Award, and other accolades. She writes frequently for the
Washington Post
and teaches creative writing in Washington, D.C., where she lives with her husband and daughter. For years Mary Quattlebaum tended a plot in a city community garden, where, like Jackson Jones, she found both weeds and good fellowship.
You can read more about the author at her Web site,
www.maryquattlebaum.com
.
Published by
Yearling
an imprint of
Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
Copyright © 2004 by Mary Quattlebaum
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press.
Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
eISBN: 978-0-307-53303-6
December 2005
v3.0