Jiichan picked up the speaker. “Everything fine. I just thinking.”
“Thinking, ya said?”
“Yes, I need thinking.”
Mick didn’t reply, and Jiichan engaged the combine again. We hit a patch of weeds. I could smell them being cut up and shot out the back, and I could hear the combine grumble as the weeds went through the machinery.
I looked at Jiichan’s gloomy face. He was a happy man. I had rarely seen him so gloomy. It made me want to cry. Jiichan seemed to be weighing his options. But he didn’t speak again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A few hours later Obaachan, Jaz, and Thunder rode into the field in the pickup. Obaachan’s handbag was full of vending machine goodies: trail mix, candy bars, Fritos, water, and other drinks. “Now, there’s a nutritious meal,” Mick said, biting into a Snickers. Jiichan drank some Gatorade, but he said he didn’t feel like eating. I ate some stale trail mix.
Once we were ready to return to work, Obaachan asked, “How you feel, old man?”
Jiichan swatted at the air in annoyance.
Obaachan drove off to take the cut grain to the elevator. Thunder howled out the window. Sometimes he did that when we were separated.
Jiichan and I climbed back into the combine, and he drove without comment. Things were going smoothly except that sometimes Jiichan’s jaw was slack and his head tilted slightly. I knew he would like nothing better than to climb into bed. It was around five when we took our next break, and I could still feel the warm air on my face. We stood together in the middle of the field, the wind blowing hard around us. Jiichan reached for the sky and leaned back with his eyes closed. I focused on the air, searching for mosquitoes. But there were none.
After a few minutes we returned to the combine. My grandfather started the engine, honked twice, and then sat there for at least a full minute. Then he said, “I no can drive no more.” He sunk down in his seat. “Turn off.”
“Me?” I leaned over and carefully took hold of a lever. I pulled the lever back into middle position. I saw out the glass that Mick was driving on. The farmer’s fields were long and somewhat narrow.
“Your
I gingerly picked up the radio. “My grandfather is finished.”
“Is he all right, then?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.
“You drive back to pickup,” Jiichan said. “I no can. Then you drive me in pickup to motel.”
Doubt fluttered through me. “But the pickup is a stick shift,” I said. “I don’t think I can drive it.” In Kansas you could get your learner’s permit at age fourteen. So I’d practiced driving with my father, but our pickup was an automatic. I looked at the expanse of wheat still uncut. I looked at the sky, which was getting overcast. I hoped the rains didn’t come early. I looked at Jiichan.
“Then drive me in combine to motel,” he said.
My heart was pounding as I climbed out onto the platform, Jiichan following. Then we got back into the combine, me first, sitting behind the steering wheel, him in the passenger seat. I felt very small. I suddenly knew what it must feel like to be a mouse. I took the combine out of idle and slowly headed across the field toward the pickup. I checked Mick’s combine through the side mirror.
The land here was more terraced than the land on the Laskey farm. This made the going slower. There was no way one combine could cut all the wheat that was here in only a few days. Even though it was a small farm, right then it seemed like the biggest farm in the world. The combine shook as I rolled into a trench hidden beneath the remnants of cut wheat. That shook me up, and I had to go into idle again.
Jiichan had closed his eyes. “Jiichan?” I said, but he didn’t answer. When we reached the pickup, I turned off the combine and just sat there. With Jiichan asleep, I wasn’t sure what to do. On the farm across the street, I saw someone else’s combines driving through the wheat fields. I wondered if we would have to offer our job to them in order to be finished on time. And if we did that, how much would it cost the Parkers? And would they dock our pay? I pocketed the key so nobody could steal the combine.
The radio came to life. “Is he quitting, then?”
“Yes,” I answered. “He wants me to drive him to the motel in the combine.”
“I’ll handle it,” Mick said. “Just wait there.”
I sat and watched Mick bring his combine in. He climbed down the ladder, hopping down the last few rungs and hurrying over before climbing up our combine. He flung open the door and studied Jiichan, who appeared to be sleeping.
“I won’t be able to get him down the ladder. Can ya wake him?” Mick asked.
“Sure.” I shook Jiichan gently. That didn’t work, so I leaned over and said, “Jiichan? Jiichan!” His head rolled over to the left. “Mick’s here. He can take us to the motel in the pickup.”
Jiichan opened his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Mick.”
When we got back to the motel, Mick helped Jiichan into our room, where he crumpled into his bed. “Let me know if ya need anything,” Mick said. “Here, write down my cell phone number.”
I got a pen and wrote his number on a Wheatland Motel pad of paper. Then he was gone. I sat on the bed I was sharing with Jaz. Obaachan, Jaz, and Thunder were still at the elevator. In a minute the phone rang, startling me.
“Hello?” I said.
“It’s Mr. Parker.”
“Hi!”
“Is your grandfather going back to work?”
Mick must have just called him. “Uh, not exactly. I mean, not right at this moment.”
“Tell him we don’t have much time.”
I glanced at the clock—it was almost six in the evening.
“He’s going back out tonight,” I lied. “He didn’t get enough sleep.” I just felt like I wanted to get off the phone.
“A short rest is acceptable,” Mr. Parker said crisply. “But tell him to try to make it short. Can you do that? It’s just a nap he needs?”
“I hope so,” I said honestly.
Mr. Parker sighed, then fell silent.
“Hello?” I said.
“Bye.”
I could almost feel Mr. Parker’s torment pulling him every which way.
I went outside with some homework. I looked around. I missed Thunder. A mosquito landed on my arm, and I scrambled up, screaming. A man opened the door of the office down the way. “Was that you?” he called out.
“It was nothing.”
“A scream like that for nothing?”
“It was ... a mosquito.”
He just stared at me for a moment before returning to the office.
I went inside our room, took a shower, and spread DEET all over myself. My stomach hurt. If we messed up