Freaky Fast Frankie Joe by Lutricia Clifton

pasture. “You get used to it after a while. Except Mary never did. That’s why she planted all them lilac bushes.” He waves an arm toward the row of shrubs next to the pasture. “Lilacs hide the smell of manure. Too bad they don’t bloom year round.”
    FJ shakes hands with Mr. Puffin and introduces me. “Frankie Joe’s my oldest boy . . .”
    Yeah, I think. The dumb, insensitive one.
    â€œ. . . and he’s staying with us for a spell.”
    I can see the curiosity in the old man’s eyes, but he just holds his hand out to me so I can shake it.
    â€œPleased to meet you,” I say. “Sorry to hear of your loss.” I give FJ a how-was-that? look.
    He gives me a smile, then looks toward the pasture. “When are you gonna give up these cows, Harvey? I doubt they’re making you enough to pay for their keep.”
    â€œProbably right, Frank. But I got nothin’ better to do, now Mary’s gone.”
    I trail behind FJ and Mr. Puffin as they pull ears of corn off stalks, peel back husks, and talk about how the ears are filling out. Watching them puncture kernels with their thumbnails to test for moisture, I ask if I can try.
    â€œSure thing.” Mr. Puffin pulls another ear off a stalk and hands it to me. “You know why too much moisture’s bad?”
    â€œFrankie Joe’s not from around here,” FJ says quickly, “so he doesn’t know about such things . . .”
    I feel my shoulders droop. I’m back to being dumb.
    â€œ. . . but I’m sure he’d like to learn.”
    Mr. Puffin turns to me. “You don’t want too much moisture ’cause then the corn has to dry before we can store it. You don’t, it’ll mold.”
    â€œI know what mold is.” I think about of our refrigerator back in Texas. “Mold grows on food, and you have to throw it out. Except on cheese; you can cut it off of cheese.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Mr. Puffin says. “What about shrink on corn? You know what that is?”
    â€œNo sir.”
    â€œIt’s the weight loss that occurs during the drying process. It’s better if the corn dries natural in the field, else we have to use mechanical processes to dry it out. That’s costly, affects your profit.”
    I push my thumbnail into a kernel to see how dry it is.
    â€œSmell it,” he tells me.
    â€œThe corn?”
    â€œYeah. See if it smells musty or sour or garlicky.”
    Garlicky? I take a sniff as he tells me about other things that can affect profit, like smut balls and insect infestation.
    â€œSmut’s a fungus that looks just like what it’s called—black soot—but it’s really a parasite.” He grins. “And I’m sure you know what bugs like to eat.”
    â€œCorn and beans,” I say, grinning, too.
    After the corn, we move to another field and do similar kinds of tests on soybeans. I learn how to pop open the shells and run my thumb inside the pale green pods to break the beans loose. I also learn about orange ladybugs that eat tiny insects called “aphids,” which suck the sap out of plants. We walk up and down rows of soybeans, eyeballing the leaves and plants for signs of fungus and insect damage, which can stunt the plant and affect yield.
    â€œGood shrink on the corn, Harvey,” FJ says at the end of all the eyeballing and squeezing and smelling. “Beans look good, too.”
    The old man looks pleased when FJ makes his final assessment. We walk back toward the house through corn so tall the sky all but disappears. The long leaves on the corn wrap around me, making me feel invisible.
    A person could disappear in all this corn. . . .
    Before I know it, I’m thinking about my plan to light out for Texas. Seeing my friends again. Telling Mr. O’Hare about the farm machinery inside the big barns. Describing the color of the