Educational Experience

Part II--Chapter 15

After the daring rescue earlier, the "little women" just vanished. Now, they're back to tell their story. A story "ripped from the headlines," so to speak, as we battle with immigration laws. Laws that Wyatt understands with heart and soul from sad experiences past...and that makes Colt's movie seem, as he says, like a "trivial pursuit" by comparison...

The first one we saw with a little bowl of it, Hugh and I, was Joie, strolling out of the little house licking a spoon.

She held up the bowl and said, “Magic!”

And when I said, “Magic what?” she strutted up and shoved a spoonful of dark purple goo at me and said, “Taste!”

“But what is—“

She shoved the spoon almost in my mouth, and I licked the little bit that stuck to my lips. I didn’t know what it was. Some sort of really rich, really delicious pudding or something. I knew I wanted more, though.

So I grabbed the bowl and spoon from her and said, “Well, it’s mine now.”

She slapped me on the shoulder, looked up at Hugh and said, “His woman’s in there killin’ it.”

I held up the bowl to Hugh and said, “Stick your finger in there, dude. It’s insane.”

Hugh sampled it and a brow went up.

“Pudding?”

“For the kids,” Joie said. “The other ones were running around with all this crap she knew you wouldn’t want them to eat. So she raided the big kitchen out of all this fruit and whatnot, and came over here and got crazy busy.”

Aisha must’ve heard us, because she came out nibbling on a fruit roll up thing—fruit leather, I think they call it.

She tore a piece off and said, “Check this out. Tia in there watchin’, too. She talkin’ about sellin’ this stuff—better’n’ candy.”

The leather was sticky and sweet and melted in my mouth. And there were bowls and pots full of goopy stuff all over the island in the middle of the kitchen when Hugh and I got there.

Tia was tasting what I assumed was the latest batch with a big wooden spoon. Bonnie and Kelli were gobbling something down, too, over by the stove. Kelli opened the stove to check on some pans of that leather that they were drying in there, I gathered.

“Wyatt gone wild,” I said. “What’s goin’ on here?”

Wyatt was peeling an apple on one of those old timey things fastened to a counter across the kitchen from us. Ty and Taylor both let out a squeal as the peel snaked its way down onto the counter top where they were sitting, really watching the apple turn around and around.

Mike and Cat were all into it, too. Mike dangled the apple peel snake in front of Taylor and both babies started laughing and trying to catch it every time she snatched it away.

And as I went over to the island by Tia, she looked up from chopping up something on a board and said, “It’s good! Did you taste that?”

“I did.”

“Most women don’t have time to do this themselves,” she said. “Those city folks who come down here for the farmers market at church, those ones who are so picky about their food, they would buy it like crazy. Father will be here today. I’m going to talk to him about that. We could make this and raise a lot of money, if I learn how from her.”

“Have you asked Wyatt about that?”

Wyatt said, “I’m happy to help,” as a “back off” to me.