Fortune's Magic Farm by Suzanne Selfors Read Free Book Online

face.” Both girls giggled, arare sound in Runny Cove. “But there’s more good news. Look.” Isabelle reached beneath her slicker, into her shirt pocket, then handed Gwen a chunk. “I got an apple too, but mine didn’t explode.”
    Gwen didn’t bother asking questions. She eagerly popped the chunk into her mouth. “It’s sooooo good.”
    As they walked, and as Gwen chewed, Isabelle told her about the sea monster with the dangly nose and about Leonard’s cat.
    “That’s so weird,” Gwen said.
    “It’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened.”
    “Except for you being left on a doorstep.”
    “Yeah. Except for that.” Isabelle wiped rain from her eyes. “We need to talk to Leonard. Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
    They turned off Soaked Street and started up the steep gravel road that led to the factory. Suddenly, an eerie sensation crept over Isabelle, tickling the back of her neck, but not in a nice way. Why did she feel as if someone was watching her?
    “Gwen?”
    “Yeah?” Gwen wiped a slug from her sleeve.
    “There was this man wearing a cape, standing on Gertrude’s porch last night. Does she have a new tenant?”
    “No. Maybe she has a new
boyfriend.
” Gwen rolled her eyes and pretended to upchuck. Isabelle giggled again. They loved making fun of Gertrude’s boyfriend, Mr. Hench.Whenever he kissed Gertrude, the slurping sound was so loud it seemed as if he might suck her face right off.
    BEEP, BEEP.
    Startled, Isabelle and Gwen scampered to the roadside, expecting a delivery truck to pass by. Trucks delivered supplies to the factory store, the only place in Runny Cove to buy food and sundries. Trucks hauled boxed umbrellas from the factory, taking them to towns that the workers had never seen.
    BEEP, BEEP.
    But it wasn’t a truck. Mr. Supreme’s sleek black roadster sped up the road. The license plate read: IMRICH . Mr. Supreme occasionally visited Runny Cove to inspect his factory. He didn’t live in the village. He didn’t have to.
    BAROOO!
    The factory’s horn sounded the five-minute warning. Mr. Supreme’s roadster churned up mud, splattering the fronts of the girls’ rain slickers. He neither stopped to apologize nor offered the girls a ride. He didn’t care about manners. He didn’t need to.
    “We’d better hurry,” Isabelle said, coughing from the thick exhaust fumes.
    The girls ran toward the factory.
    And as they ran, the seed, still tucked inside Isabelle’s sock, began to vibrate.

A fter hanging up their slickers and tying their grimy aprons around their waists, the girls lined up with the other workers along the wall of a huge cement room. The apple seed continued to vibrate, just enough to make Isabelle want to scratch her leg. Mr. Hench stood on his security balcony. A metal badge shone on his gray uniform. Isabelle tapped her boot on the water-stained floor, trying to shake the seed into a less itchy position. Leonard stood at the far end of the line.
I can hardly wait to tell him,
she thought. He waved but there wasn’t time to give him the apple chunk. Mr. Supreme had sauntered into the room. Everyone froze.
    Mr. Supreme handed his black umbrella to one of his many sniveling assistants—a nameless cluster of men who wore long white coats and stuck to the boss like barnacles. Mr. Supreme plunked a yellow hard hat on his head, then dropped a cigar stump onto the floor. His glossy black trench coat crunched as he walked up and down the line, twirling his driving gloves as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps having lots of money made it possible to live a life without worry.
    Isabelle didn’t like Mr. Supreme, not because he sprayed mud on girls without apologizing, but because he was stingy. As owner of the Magnificently Supreme Umbrella factory, he controlled the paychecks of almost every personin Runny Cove and he barely paid them enough to survive. As owner of the only store in Runny Cove, he supplied life’s