You Say Potato…

Gerhardt figured it out four days later. They had all been working outdoors for some days, except Bettina, who was too small to be of use in the field, and either Mirabelle or Annabelle who were needed inside to translate and help in the house. Claire and Adolphus were working the fields every day, ‘sunshine and fresh air’ Adolphus joked, for it was muggy and sulphurous and they never saw the sun or their own shadows. But Adolphus was a good-humored chap, and managed to make the farm hands laugh despite the language barrier. Adolphus was like that; everyone liked him. Even his younger brother, who was as quiet and intense as Adolphus was not.

The morning Gerhardt came to his realization he and Annabelle had been carrying  buckets of cold water from the river, and hot water from the spring. Gwen was preparing food, chopping and mixing, and fussing with the mysterious box. When Gwen made a trip to one of the farm’s outbuildings (which the children had taken some days to notice, as they all looked like shrubbery), Gerhardt seized his opportunity to examine the box.

Inside it was straw, as he knew. He carefully moved the top layer and looked underneath. Potatoes. Red fingering potatoes. Gerhardt picked one up, pondering why anyone would fuss so much over a box of potatoes, when several things happened at once. Gwen returned to the house, and the little potato moved in his hand.

Gwen shrieked, dropped the bundle of reeds she carried, and started yelling at him. He could not understand her words or her passion. He was so startled by both Gwen and the wriggling potato that his hand had closed around it. It squirmed vigorously, so he opened his fingers and looked at it. It had four buds, what he would normally have called eyes, that were sprouting strong red-skinned shoots. The potato waved these in the air as it wriggled. Gerhardt looked up at Gwen, his face alight with understanding, only to find her advancing on him with an obsidian blade.

Luckily for him, Gwen’s shouting brought Annabelle running, and his sister appeared at the door.

“Quick! Tell her I’m sorry and I didn’t mean any harm!”

“What have you done?”

“Just tell her!”

As Annabelle spoke to Gwen, Gerhardt fed her more words. He held the little potato out towards the farm wife, cupped in his hands.

“Say they’re beautiful and I congratulate her!”

His sister stopped. “Congratulate her on her beautiful potatoes?”

“Just do it!” Gerhardt tried to maintain a reassuring smile. Since he was terrified by the prospect of imminent death, it was more of a grimace. “But don’t call them potatoes! Tell her I didn’t hurt it. Ask her to put down the knife and take the baby.”

Annabelle broke off her translation again. “Did you say baby?”

Gerhardt would have screamed in frustration, had he not suspected that would get his throat cut. He laid the baby potato back in the straw and backed away from the box, hands in the air. Annabelle was talking to Gwen in soothing tones. The farmwife snarled at them, but dropped the knife in her apron pocket and ran to the box. Gerhardt slunk around the outside of the room and ran out the door.

Annabelle followed, grabbing Bettina on her way out. She tried to take her hand, but the littlest von Hedwig had a cherry bomb in one hand and a strike-anywhere match in the other. Annabelle waited until they were outside to praise her readiness to defend her brother, and convince her the crisis was over, for the moment.

Obsidian blade photo by Wolfgang Sauber