CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
I kept my snort to myself and just let my gaze drift over all the different shapes, sizes, and colors.
Most of them were labeled with the type of wood they were carved from.
Cherry, balsam, mango, zebra, red cedar, madrona, beech, apple.
Did people really use wooden spoons that much still?
I remembered Dawn had an oversized wooden spoon and fork that she would use to toss salads with, but other than that, I couldn’t remember her or …
other people in my life ever using wooden spoons.
Particularly not the soup spoon-sized ones that this gentleman had.
The sign in the middle of the table said Man’s Spoons.
“Is your name Man? Or are you just saying you’re a man who makes spoons?” Mabel asked.
“Both,” he replied.
She nodded. “Cool.”
“Why just spoons?” I asked.
Mabel looked at me like I was crazy. “Because he likes spoons, and he’s good at it. Does he need any other reason?”
Man’s stoic face twitched a bit like he was trying to smile.
“I suppose not,” I replied.
“What do you like?” Man asked her.
“Birds,” she said matter-of-factly and without hesitation.
He nodded. “I have ducks.”
“I like ducks. Though, the corkscrew penis and necrophilia thing is a bit disturbing.”
My eyes widened, and I glanced at the older gentleman, but all he did was nod in agreement.
“I like your spoons,” Mabel said before wandering to the next table.
“Thank you.”
I gave him a small, appreciative smile for entertaining my socially awkward child, and followed her to the next table.
“This is cool,” she said, picking up a round piece of wood with a burned-in, realistic image of a heron.
“That’s madrona wood,” said the man, probably in his mid-thirties, from behind the table.
“Do you freehand burn the images in?” Mabel asked him.
He nodded and scratched his rust-colored beard. “Yep.”
“This is very realistic. You have given the bird a lot of detail, and that can be difficult with a woodburning knife.”
How did she know that?
“Do you woodburn?” he asked her.
“No, but I’ve watched videos online. How much is this coaster?”
“They’re twelve dollars each,” he replied.
That sounded expensive to me.
“That doesn’t sound like enough money,” Mabel said. “The time it took to cut the wood, sand it, burn it, and varnish it. Seems like twelve is not enough.”
The guy glanced at me, unsure how to respond to my blunt kid. “I, uh … that’s what I determined was a decent price point for my labor.”
She nodded and slung her black cross-body bag to her front and opened the zipper, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill. “I would like this, please.”
“Would you like it wrapped?” he asked.
She shook her head as he gave her the change. “No. That will offset your costs and income even more. I can put it in here just fine. Thank you.”
He glanced at me again, and I simply shrugged. “She’s a practical kid.”
We continued down the rows of vendors, and even though she hadn’t said anything, I could tell my kid was starting to feel overwhelmed.
Anytime someone bumped her elbow or squeezed in close next to her to look at something in a booth or at a table, she’d take a big step back and glare at the back of their head.
We turned a corner to head into the next row, and she froze. “That’s her.”
I looked up, and the hair on the back of my neck stiffened. Jolene Dandy was busy sniffing a candle at a booth.
“Spinosaurus?” I asked quietly.
She shook her head, but didn’t move her feet.
Jolene hadn’t seen us yet. She was too busy chatting with the candlemaker to notice.
Mabel pulled a deep breath into her lungs, puffed up her chest, and lifted her chin into the air. “She doesn’t deserve to win. I deserve to win. We deserve to win.” Then my kid marched right up to The Island Mouth, and I had to unglue my feet from the grass and chase after her.
“Hello,” Mabel said to an unaware Jolene. “I believe you have wanted to meet me.”
Jolene put the candle back down on the table and looked up at my daughter, since Mabel had at least two inches on the woman. For a moment, Jolene seemed confused, then she saw me coming up behind Mabel and her penny-colored eyes widened in surprise.
“Wh-why yes. Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”
Mabel didn’t respond the way I’d taught her to, with a similar, cordial reply.
“Why did you want to meet me so badly?” my kid asked instead.
“B-because as an Island Elder and the official Island Welcome Wagon, it is my duty to get to know all new residents—and their children. Your father is the new principal. He is working daily with our island children. It is imperative that we know all about him. And in turn, you.”
“I disagree. The previous principal kept it a secret that his grandson went to the school. And from what others have told me, he played favoritism with his grandchild, forsaking other students.”
Jolene’s mouth hung open, but no sound came out.
“Do you think snooping around my house and banging on our door is an appropriate way to meet me?”
Jolene’s face was getting redder by the second, and it had nothing to do with the sun overhead, since she was wearing a big, floppy, straw sun hat.
I came to stand beside Mabel so I could get a better read on her face.
A muscle ticked in the corner of her jaw, and she was stimming a bit with her fingers, rubbing her thumbs and the pads of her middle and index fingers against each other like she was trying to snap her fingers.
Jolene noticed, and her brows furrowed a little in confusion.
“Well, now you’ve met me,” Mabel said. “You can stop harassing us now.”
“I-I w-was not harassing you.”
“My dad had to drive to your house to ask you to leave us alone. You were harassing us.”
Jolene glanced at a few people who seemed interested in her interaction with my kid, then plastered on a big, fake smile and focused on Mabel again. “I’ve heard you’re thirteen, dear. Correct?” Her eyes flicked to me. “And how old is your father?”
Mabel didn’t flinch. “Does it matter?”
Jolene looked up at me, and all I did was lift my brows, driving home my daughter’s question of why my age mattered. “W-well, the island is just curious.”
“The island? Or The Island Mouth?” Mabel asked.
The woman behind the candle table snorted and had to cover her mouth with her hand and turn away.
Jolene’s mouth dropped open again.
“Because that is what you’re called, right?” Mabel asked. “The Island Mouth?”
“I … I … I don’t know. I have never heard that before. That’s rather rude.”
“No. It’s factual,” Mabel said, her tone still deadpanned.
“Even though it’s not physically possible for an island to have a mouth, the term is used in a manner to suggest that you gossip.
You spread rumors and talk about other people.
I didn’t come up with the name. I was told it by other people. Warned of you by other people.”
“Who?” Jolene demanded.
“Doesn’t matter.”
While we hadn’t exactly drawn a crowd, people who otherwise would have probably kept moseying along past the vendor tables seemed to be covertly sticking around to listen in.
“You’ve met me. So now we’re good. Please leave me and my dad alone. Let us live in peace, and we shouldn’t have a problem.” Mabel gave Jolene a nod, then turned to face me. “Snow cones, then Spinosaurus.”
“Snow cones, then Spinosaurus,” I repeated, following my kid off toward the snow cone tent.
Her teeth chattered a little as she rushed toward the line for the snow cones. “I don’t like that woman,” she said, with a slight shake in her voice. She was getting more and more dysregulated by the second. Maybe staying for snow cones wasn’t such a good idea.
“You did phenomenal, kid,” I said, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and giving her a tight squeeze.
She shuddered in my arms. What she needed right now was deep pressure to help calm her nervous system.
She’d just done something so out of character and was in a big crowd of people she didn’t know; the overstimulation was piling up.
“Spinosaurus?” I asked. “We can skip the snow cones.”
She leaned into me, and I squeezed her harder. “No. I want a snow cone. I want grape.”
“You’re sure?”
She glanced up at me and nodded. “Yes, Dad. I want grape.”
“Then grape you shall have.”
“Did we win?” she asked me, still feeling like a live wire, jittering and trembling in my embrace.
“We didn’t, kiddo. You did. You vanquished that dragon lady like a warrior. You should feel very proud of yourself.”
“We’re a team. We won.”
And here I thought I couldn’t love this kid any more than I already did. Damn, she was amazing. “Okay, then. Yes, we won.”
Mabel nodded, but it was a bit absentmindedly. “Are you getting green apple like always?”
“No sense deviating from the norm,” I replied as we moved with the line.
“I don’t want to see people for three days after this,” she said. “Just you and birds.”
“Just me and birds. You’ve got it.”
She was doing her box breathing exercises to help calm herself down. So I matched her breath and we did it together as we patiently moved with the line, waiting for our snow cones.
“Do you think she’ll leave us alone now?”
“I hope so.”
“I want to go see Oakley.”
“I thought you didn’t want to see people?”
“Tom said I could go to his house and see Oakley without them being there. They’re all at the winery for opening weekend anyway. He gave me the code for the gate and the house.”
“Wow. That’s trustworthy.”
“I like that family.”
My heart warmed at her words. “Yeah, kiddo. Me too. Me too.”