The Vegetable Museum Read online

  Copyright © 2019 Michelle Mulder

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication 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 now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Mulder, Michelle, 1976–, author

  The vegetable museum / Michelle Mulder.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1679-4 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1680-0 (PDF).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1681-7 (EPUB)

  I. Title.

  PS8626 U435 V44 2019 jC813'.6 C2018-904890-5

  C2018-904891-3

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954091

  Simultaneously published in Canada and the United States in 2019

  Summary: In this middle-grade novel, thirteen-year-old Chloë learns about her family’s history while helping her grandfather in his garden.

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Edited by Tanya Trafford

  Cover design by Julie McLaughlin and Rachel Page

  Cover artwork by Julie McLaughlin

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  22 21 20 19 • 4 3 2 1

  Orca Book Publishers is proud of the hard work our authors do and of the important stories they create. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it or did not check it out from a library provider, then the author has not received royalties for this book. The ebook you are reading is licensed for single use only and may not be copied, printed, resold or given away. If you are interested in using this book in a classroom setting, we have digital subscriptions that feature multi user, simultaneous access to our books that are easy for your students to read. For more information, please contact

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  http://ivaluecanadianstories.ca/

  For my family—past, present and future

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  AN EXCERPT FROM “NOT A CHANCE”

  ONE

  ONE

  Five rows of red, yellow and green knitting, stitched onto a Stop sign. This is the most interesting thing I’ve seen since tiptoeing out of our building half an hour ago.

  In Montreal right now, the streets are busy with people scraping ice off windshields, shopkeepers calling out good morning to each other, and neighbors shoveling sidewalks. Here in Victoria, though, everyone’s still asleep, like they can’t stand to face another day of taupe houses, manicured lawns and gray skies.

  I touch the matted, damp yarn with one finger. I miss our old neighborhood—the smells of roasting coffee (like burnt toast until you recognize it) and spicy Ethiopian food, flower gardens sprouting in parking lots, murals appearing in alleyways overnight, and little libraries popping up in public parks. Even the yarn bombing was better there. A few months ago, someone knitted an entire rainbow sleeve for a Stop sign. This tiny little yarn tag is nothing compared to that.

  Dad says I’ll drive myself crazy if I keep comparing where we are to where we were, but I can’t help it.

  “Fine color choice.” It’s a man’s voice.

  I spin around and see my grandfather smiling at me. With half of his mouth anyway. He had a stroke last year, and part of his face is paralyzed.

  I don’t know him all that well—didn’t see him much until we moved in across the street—but he’s an unusual guy. His big passion is growing “heirloom vegetables,” which as far as I can tell means weird ones that no one else bothers with, like black tomatoes, blue lettuce and purple beans. When he first told me about them, I thought he was losing it. Dad said that some people who have strokes wind up with dementia. So when my grandfather first mentioned the vegetables, I half expected him to add that “Jack and the Beanstalk” is a true story, and fairies live in his compost pile.

  “You’re out early,” I say, as if I’m not totally freaked that he snuck up on me like that. (Not that I’m scared of my own grandfather, of course. But I should have heard him at least. Jeez. One week out of the city, and I’ve lost all my street smarts.)

  “Morning walk,” he says. “Never miss it.”

  “So I heard.” He was in rough shape when he first got out of the hospital, but apparently every day he insisted on walking around the block, even if it was pouring rain.

  “Your handiwork?” He points to the wisps of yarn.

  “Nah, I’d have made it bigger and more colorful.” I don’t know why I say this, like I’m some kind of closet yarn bomber. I knit, but only socks and sweaters.

  “Fair enough. The street could use more color.” He surveys the houses, lawns and boulevard. “So which way now? You coming or going?”

  I shrug. “I’m heading home, I guess.”

  He says nothing as we walk. He drags one leg a bit, and I wonder if he has to concentrate to get his body to move. We pass a driveway where a man in a suit is getting into a car. “Morning, Uli.”

  My grandfather’s name is Ulrich, but everyone calls him Uli, even me. Uli waves at the man. We keep walking. At the corner, he glances up at a bare Stop sign. “Another one that could use more color. Orange and yellow maybe. Or a green post with knitted petals around the sign?”

  I study his face for a moment and then smile. I don’t think he’s teasing me. “You’re really getting into this.”

  “Makes people stop and pay attention,” he says. “I like unusual.”

  Like the vegetables. I’ve discovered since moving here that Uli is way more interesting than I’d imagined. Dad never talked about him much. In all my thirteen years, we never once came to visit. The only thing I remembered about Uli was that he was very tall and got really excited about going to the botanical gardens the time he visited us in Montreal. And we went out for ice cream after. That’s it. Every time I asked Dad about him, he changed the subject. Then Uli had a stroke, and Dad decided the two of us should move here. Without Mom. My parents hadn’t been getting along, but I sure didn’t see this move coming.

  Uli stops in front of his little house. It’s the third of three almost identical gray stucco houses with different-colored doors. Uli’s is the one on the corner, with the green door. If you drive by quickly, it looks like an ordinary place. But from here on the sidewalk, you can see that the green stuff growing in the front yard isn’t grass. It’s some other kind of plant, one you don’t have to mow. Uli calls it “creeping thyme.” He says that in summer, when you step on it, it smells like pizza. (That was another moment when I thought my grandfather might be completely nuts, but Dad told me later that lots of people put thyme in their tomato sauce.) To the right of the front walk is a big tree. It doesn’t have any leaves on it yet, but Uli told me it’s an apple.

  A huge cedar hedge extends out from both sides of the house and frames the backyard. There’s a solid woo
den gate in the hedge, just behind the apple tree, and through there, in the back, is where Uli grows his vegetables. I haven’t gone through that gate yet though—or been into the house either, for that matter, which is a bit weird. Another thing Dad won’t explain. Uli says there’s nothing to see in his garden right now anyway because it’s still winter, but that doesn’t make me any less curious. On my way to school, I walk past the sidewalk side of the hedge, and one time I noticed a bit of a hole near the far corner. I pushed a branch aside and stuck my head in, but all I could see was the back of a greenhouse. I didn’t dare go farther in, in case someone spotted me.

  “Here, let me show you something.” Uli points at one of the cherry blossom trees that the city planted between the sidewalk and the road. It’s all bark and pink blossoms right now, even though other trees—like the apple in Uli’s yard—are still completely bare. The blossoms were the first thing I noticed when we got here last week. I took a picture to send to Mom, because she’d told me about them. She’s been to the west coast for conferences at this time of year. She said sometimes whole streets are lined with pink blossoms. If you walk under them, they shower petals on you, and it’s called a pink-out because it happens while everyone else in the country is battling winter blizzards and whiteouts.

  These trees look different from the ones Mom showed me in pictures though. These ones have two kinds of flowers. Most of them are super frilly, but the blossoms on the lower branches are simpler and a different shade of pink. Uli reaches up and cups a few of the less-frilly flowers in one hand. “Around July, these’ll turn into cherries. The dark kind. Delicious.”

  Huh. I thought Dad said cherry blossom trees were just for show. No fruit. And he should know. He grew up on this street, after all. Again I study my grandfather’s face, looking for a hint that he’s teasing. If he is, I can’t tell. “This is my public artwork,” he adds, like he planted the trees himself. Maybe he did, for all I know.

  “They’re beautiful,” I say.

  “I don’t mean all the blossoms.” He waves a hand at the tree. “Just these ones here at the ends. I grafted on fruit-bearing cherries. Every tree for the next four blocks is fruit-bearing now. The cherries come out right at picking height, perfect for snacking in July.”

  I follow his gaze down the street. Sure enough, every light-pink tree has different flowers on the lower tips. “Grafting?” I ask. “Isn’t that for skin? Like for burn victims?”

  He nods. “Yes, but it works for trees too.”

  “That’s actually pretty cool,” I say. “Like yarn bombing with live plants.”

  “Yarn bombing? That’s what the knitting on the sign posts is called?” He shakes his head. “Should have a less-violent name. I’ve lived in bombed-out cities. A burst of color on a drab street is nothing like that.”

  “You were in a bombing?” I ask.

  He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. Now you need to get ready for school.”

  I don’t argue. In five minutes, I’ve already learned more about my grandfather than I ever did from my dad. I give Uli a quick hug. “See you later. Maybe after school?”

  When I reach the other sidewalk, he calls my name. I turn to see him moving slowly toward me. I go back to save him a trip.

  “This neighborhood might look plain at first,” he says, “but I know you’ll find its heartbeat. I hope you’ll be very happy here.”

  He talks like this is a permanent move, like we’ll be here forever. I don’t want to disappoint him, but as far as I can tell, we’ve only come to Victoria to wait. For any number of things. For Uli to be fine on his own again. Or for Dad to find a better job. Or for him and Mom to want to live together again. Or all, or none, of the above. As soon as we’re done waiting, we’ll go back to Montreal and continue on with our lives.

  I don’t want to hurt Uli’s feelings though. Instead I think about the cherry blossoms and how getting to know my grandfather might be the only decent thing that comes out of this temporary transplant to this side of the country. “Thanks.” I put a hand on his weak arm. He clasps my hand with his good one.

  TWO

  I know the apartment will be empty when I get back. A few months ago, you’d never have caught Dad awake before eight. (Early mornings are Mom’s department. She’s out the door by six thirty because, as she says, she does her best thinking before everyone else gets to the university.) Dad used to roll out of bed as late as possible. He could dress, shave, comb his hair and grab a smoothie from the fridge in about ten minutes. When I heard the front door open, I’d run down the hall, grab my backpack and follow him out.

  Dad lost his job at Brockhurst in November. He’d been the Social Studies teacher at my school since before I was born, and every day after he left, I had to listen to kids rehashing the details of him getting sacked. All my life, he’d spent our drives home ranting about young people who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but he’d always kept his views under wraps at school. Then one day he caught Kaitlin Green showing off her new phone when she was supposed to be working on her Industrial Revolution assignment. He snapped. Kaitlin ran out of the classroom in tears, and a week later Dad was eating ripple chips on the couch.

  My best friend—her name’s Sofia—and I tried to convince my parents to let me transfer to our neighborhood school. Actually, we’d been trying for ages, because I’d never really fit in at Brockhurst. Everyone else who went there lived in a mansion and had a driver to bring them to campus. I showed up in Dad’s twelve-year-old hatchback. Everyone knew we weren’t rich enough to really belong, but most of my school fees were covered because Dad worked there. Until he moved to Ripple Chip Land, that is.

  In the end, none of Sofia’s and my efforts mattered anyway. In January, Dad announced that he’d found a job in Victoria and that I was going out west with him. Mom agreed that it was for the best, since she travels so much for work, and she said she’d come visit me in March. No one asked me what I wanted. When I threatened to disappear just before the plane left, my parents both laughed. Together. As a unit, for once.

  I would have thought a job good enough to move across the country for would be a real humdinger, as my grandfather would say. One that came with a big salary, amazing benefits and incredible job satisfaction. But my dad’s gone from teaching at one of the most prestigious private schools in Montreal to managing a dumpy apartment building across the street from where my grandfather lives. The Suffolk Arms is as old and hideous as the faux-fancy name suggests.

  Our hallway smells like a chain-smoker. So does our apartment. I fumble in the dark for the light switch, and the bare bulb in the hallway flicks on. Except for a few coats and shoes in the closet, our place is mostly empty because we only had a suitcase and two small backpacks when we got here. Dad didn’t want us to bring anything more because he didn’t want Mom to feel like we were leaving her. (Uh, hello?) I said we should at least bring the houseplants, on humanitarian grounds—I once found a cactus in Mom’s office that died from lack of water—but Dad said we needed a fresh start. So here we are, furnitureless and fresh in a crappy apartment. We each have a mattress now and a few dishes, but that’s as far as we’ve got in the interior-decorating department. Dad has big plans for this place, but as far as I’m concerned, no matter what he does to redecorate, it’s still going to be a dumpy place with views of a parking lot.

  The door opens behind me. “Up and dressed already!” Dad wipes his forehead on the back of his hand. He’s drenched in sweat, but he’s got a smile on his face, two things that rarely happen together. My dad’s a big man, and he used to be some incredible outdoor endurance athlete when he was a teenager. But in my lifetime, I’d never once seen him intentionally exercise. Until we moved here. “Looks like we’re both turning over new leaves.”

  “I went for a walk,” I say.

  “Discover anything interesting in the ’hood?”

  I don’t mention the fruit grafting. Dad hasn’t warned me awa
y from my grandfather, but he hasn’t exactly encouraged me and Uli to get to know each other either. Even though we’ve moved across the country because of Uli, Dad is still very particular about our time together. We run errands. We go to restaurants. I haven’t been inside my grandfather’s house yet, and he hasn’t come over here. I’ll keep our early-morning conversation to myself for now.

  I guess Dad takes my silence for complete disgust with my surroundings. “Give it time, Chloë.” He claps me on the shoulder. “It’ll get better.” Then he tells me how he met one of our neighbors running along the beach this morning. The guy has a friend who’s moving and wants to sell his furniture. “By the time you come home from school, I might have this place all decked out!”

  He’s so excited that I can’t help but smile. One happy parent is better than none, right? I keep telling myself that. Maybe by the time we move back to Montreal, I’ll believe it.

  Apart from Mom, the person I miss most right now is Sofia. We were neighbors in Montreal and have been best friends since I was two. Other families on our street came and went, but ours were permanent fixtures. On schooldays she always showed up on our doorstep about five minutes after Dad and I got home. We did homework together, ate supper at whichever house had the best menu and hung out until bedtime. The first few days after I left, we were texting all the time, but that made me feel even farther away.

  This street only has two kids my age. One apparently lives in our building, but he’s off visiting relatives, so I haven’t met him yet. The other guy lives in the little gray house with the brown door, next to my grandfather’s. On my second day here, I noticed him sitting on his front steps, playing with a black rat on a leash. Rats creep me out, but Sofia challenged me to introduce myself to one new person a day. So when I saw the same kid in my math class at school, I got up the nerve to talk to him. “Hi, I’m Chloë. I just moved into the building across from your house.”