Part 4 (1/2)
”I know.” Rosa giggled and pulled on a pink tank top and hot pink short shorts.
”Where'd you get those?”
”Online.” She turned back and forth before the mirror. ”I love having clothes delivered to my door.”
”Those shorts barely cover your b.u.m. Don't bend over.”
”Oh stop being a grandma.”
”I'm not!”
”If you didn't have white stick legs, you'd wear short shorts too.”
That stung. ”No. I wouldn't.” Jeri turned back to her book, tears threatening to spill over. Even if she had a ter-ri.c tan, she wouldn't walk around half naked. She didn't see how Rosa could either.
Rosa left in silence, and Jeri buckled down to work on her entry for the media fair. She learned from Mr. Petrie's book that poisonous and safe mushrooms often grew side by side. One particular small brown poisonous mushroom often grew under white pine trees-and they had white pines all over campus! If you ate one of those mushrooms, she read, the reaction time was within an hour. It required stomach pumping and throwing up to get rid of it.
Had someone - somehow - added poisonous mush-rooms to Abby's salad last Sat.u.r.day night?
On the way to the greenhouse to return Mr. Petrie's book, Jeri didn't spot Rosa and Brooke, but there were about a hundred blankets spread out on the gra.s.s. School books lay on most of them, but few girls were studying. Instead they were laughing, napping, reading magazines, chatting on cell phones, and catching some rays.
Out behind the greenhouse, Mr. Petrie was dragging a hose down a row of .owers, soaking each plant for several seconds before moving on.
”Hey, Mr. Petrie!” Jeri called, waving the book. ”Thanks for letting me use this. Want me to put it in your of. ce?”
”No, just park it there.” He pointed to a picnic table. ”Find what ya needed?”
”I think so.” She turned slowly in a circle. There was an acre or more of garden plots back here, some big and some tiny, all staked off. ”Who do all these gardens belong to?”
”I grow food in the big ones for the school.” He . nished watering to the end of the row, pulled off a few yellowed leaves, and then turned off the water. ”My stuff's bigger and fresher than Howard's produce. I dunno why the head-mistress buys so much in town. I also grow .owers for the .ower beds and for bouquets for dinners and banquets.”
”What about those little gardens?”
”The smaller plots belong to students-mostly biology or horticultural. They planted seeds in the greenhouse in February and transplanted seedlings outdoors last month. Each plot's got a stake with a name on it.”
”Mom and I grew a garden back in Iowa too. I ate a lot of sugar peas when I was supposed to be weeding.” Jeri shaded her eyes. ”That's rhubarb over there, isn't it? That's my mom's favorite thing to eat raw. Talk about sour!” Her lip curled.
”Did you know its dark green leaves are poisonous? Use that for your article.”
”Really? What happens if you eat them?”
”Nasty stuff. Trouble breathing, burning in the mouth, vomiting.” Mr. Petrie pulled weeds from a row of bushy plants behind them. ”Lots of ordinary plants are poison-ous, like rhubarb and mushrooms and narcissus and daf-fodil bulbs. And here you have potatoes. It surprises people to know that the ordinary potato can poison them.”
”You're kidding! How?” Jeri asked, grabbing her notebook and writing fast.
”The poison's in the green parts of a potato that aren't ripe and the sprouts-those little 'eyes'.” He knelt and pulled up an unripe potato plant, then pointed to the green parts that were poisonous. Jeri grabbed her camera from her backpack. ”The poison in potatoes is called solanine,” he added.
While Mr. Petrie talked, Jeri got half a dozen photos. This was just what she needed for her article. ”Do you throw up if you eat the green parts?”
”Yup.” He replanted the potato and stood. ”You also might have a burning sensation in your throat, head-aches, pain in your stomach . . . maybe even death.”
”Death?”
”Yes, if you ate a whole lot of green parts. It happens quick - .fteen to thirty minutes -before anyone . gures out it was a potato causing the problem. You studyin' to be a doctor or something?”
”Last weekend some girls in my dorm got sick. I think it was food poisoning. My friend Nikki ended up in the in. rmary.”
”Nikki Brown?” Mr. Petrie asked.
Jeri blinked in surprise. ”Yeah. How'd you know that?”
”When you checked out that book, you wrote Hampton House on the paper. Last month a girl named Nikki from that dorm let her horse get loose and trample some of the gardens. She got mad when her show horse ate some bad weeds and got sick.”
”Bad weeds? Like what?”
”Dunno. He could have eaten milkweed pods or foxglove. Even Jimsonweed. Hard to say. Somehow she . gured her horse eating weeds was my fault. She got real mad.”
”Sounds like Nikki. She's horse crazy.”
”Like half the girls here,” he said, chuckling then. ”Keeping her horse under control would do more good than bellyaching to the headmistress.”
Jeri bit her lower lip. Had Nikki complained to The Head and gotten him in trouble? Was that what he meant? A disquieting thought occurred to her. Under his easygoing att.i.tude, was Mr. Petrie angry at Nikki? Angry enough to want to pay her back? Surely not.
Hmmm . . . Had Show Stopper just eaten some bad weeds? Jeri remembered the stable hand saying Mr. Petrie supplied hay and apples for the horses. Her heart beat faster, and the pulse in her neck jumped. It would be simple to put apples dusted with weed poison into Show Stopper's stall or to add things like green potatoes or rhubarb leaves to the horse's mesh hay bag. Of course, she was a.s.suming it was poisonous to animals too. Maybe not.
She tapped her notebook with her pencil. ”Um, does the food that poisons people also hurt animals-small pets or even horses?”
”In big enough doses, yes. Rhubarb, green potatoes, avocadoes . . .” He paused in concentration. ”Plus mushrooms, onions, and tomato leaves and stems bother horses.”
”What usually happens? Do they throw up too?”
”No, it gives them colic-stomach cramps. Or muscle spasms and trouble swallowing. If a horse eats enough, he'll collapse.”
Jeri kept her eyes on her paper. He sure knew a lot about horses for a gardener. Why? After thanking him for his help, she glanced at her watch and headed straight to the dining hall. Clouds were gathering in the west, and the breeze was cooler. Her stomach growled like an irritated bear.
But supper went right out of her mind the minute she stepped inside the dining hall. Claire James, the junior edi-tor of the school paper the Lightning Bolt slammed into her. Jeri staggered back, waiting for an apology. It didn't come.
”Watch where you're going, kid!” Claire snapped, adjusting her tiny eyegla.s.ses.
”Sorry,” Jeri muttered.
”Well, if it isn't Landmark School's hotshot reporter!” Claire laughed harshly and .ung her long red hair back over her shoulder. ”Did you .nally get smart and give up writing?”
”No.” Jeri took a deep breath. ”I've been busy writing. I'm entering my sixth-grade newspaper in the media fair.”