Chapter 5: Crate Math

The sun came up behind Preston while he filmed me.

I walked straight at the camera, and he lowered it a few inches.

"This is private land," I said.

"It's a Whitaker Land Company lease." He grinned. "Peyton's dad owns it, so I think we're allowed."

The back door of his car opened.

Four of Peyton's friends climbed out, already holding up their phones.

They had come to watch the farm girl in her natural habitat.

I took a breath.

At the packing shed, thirty pickers were lining up for the morning count, and every one of them had stopped to watch.

My father was among them, with his hand on the small of his back.

Chet Brandvold was fifty-one and looked sixty.

He had a bad spine and a worse knee and he never once complained.

He walked over very slowly, and he stood next to me without a word.

"Look at the old guy," Preston said to his camera. "Careful, sir. Don't throw out your back."

My father's face did not change.

He had heard worse from better men.

But I felt something inside me go quiet and hard.

"Preston," I said. "Do you want to bet?"

He swung the lens back toward me.

"On what?"

"On how many crates are on that wagon."

I pointed.

A flatbed sat at the shed door, loaded and stacked and tied with a tarp half pulled back.

"Five hundred dollars," I said. "You guess first. Closest wins."

His friends hooted.

Preston glanced at the wagon.

"Two hundred and ten," he said, smug. "Pay up, Farm Girl."

"Three hundred and sixty-four," I said.

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