Chapter Thirteen
Beryl and Francine moved further into the produce section of the Supernova Supermarket. It smelled fresh and clean, just like it always did. The strawberries were a big problem. The two of them slowly returned to the pyramid of perfect strawberries.
“I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before, but now that I’ve seen them, I can’t un-see the perfection, you know what I mean?” Francine said.
“Yep.” Beryl realized this might be another really long day. And it had started out so joyful. “I cannot even make up a story for how these particular strawberries ended up here.”
Francine snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute. I was just coming in when they were delivered this morning.”
“You were? Who delivered them?” Beryl asked.
She paused, as if thinking through something troubling. “Actually, I didn’t put it together before now,” Francine said. “The truck that delivered the strawberries was one of the Alienn Mining Co. bauxite trucks.”
“The mine?! Why? We don’t get produce from the mine.”
Francine shrugged. “I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t fully awake when I saw it. I didn’t sign for them, one of Lex’s early morning workers did. I just saw a sticker with a picture of a strawberry on the side of one of the boxes that came out of that truck.”
Lex Stanley was the Supernova Supermarket’s warehouse manager.
“It’s okay, Francine. You don’t have to say sorry. It’s not your fault.” Beryl forced herself to calm down and looked around to ensure no one could overhear them.
Beryl took a deep breath. “Let’s pull these and take them back to the stockroom. We need to sequester all the boxes and check inventory to make sure none of these pints of strawberries got sold to the general human population.”
Francine nodded. “I’m hopeful because the one container we found by the checkout was in the return basket, probably because it wouldn’t ring up correctly.”
“Fingers crossed, but I will need a full accounting to ensure none of these are out and about in Alienn’s human world being consumed. Especially since we don’t know where they came from, not exactly anyway.”
Francine grabbed an abandoned grocery cart from nearby and together they stacked all the pints of strawberries in it, quickly pushing them back to the stockroom.
There were twenty-two pints from the pyramid and one from the return basket, which equaled twenty-three pints.
That odd number did not reassure Beryl that there wasn’t at least one carton of perfect strawberries out and about somewhere in town.
But if they had not been rung up at a cash register, that led to a thought that perhaps one box had been stolen.
“When was the last time a crate contained an odd number?” Beryl said, knowing she sounded resigned to the fact she was going to have to play mystery sleuth searching out where the twenty-fourth box of strawberries had gotten to today.
A chore she did not relish.
Francine didn’t answer right away, but her expression was filled with concern when she said, “Uhm, that would be never. Here’s hoping that perhaps one of the pints of strawberries never made it out of the stockroom. Maybe it was damaged.”
“Yep. I’m simply hoping it wasn’t stolen and taken out of the Supernova Supermarket to parts unknown.”
That made Francine’s expression even more concerned. “Yeah. That would be the worst-case scenario.”
They pushed the basket of strawberries to where delivery trucks offloaded their cargo.
Beryl saw a pallet with three full crates of strawberries and an empty one. Sure enough, the side of the crate had a sticker that stated each container held twenty-four pints of strawberries.
Francine bent over and grabbed a piece of paper that was on the floor next to the pallet.
She said, “This looks like it came with the crates. It says a bunch of stuff that I can’t read because of poor penmanship, but there’s a line here at the end about these four crates being misdelivered to the mine and forwarded to the Supernova Supermarket. ”
“Do you see a stray pint of strawberries anywhere around here?” Beryl asked, scanning the vicinity and seeing nothing red. “If not, I’m going to have to round up a search party.”
Francine looked around and shook her head. “I didn’t see anything else opened up. Let me go look by the produce section of the stockroom and see if there’s anything over there.”
Beryl pulled her tablet from her pocket again and selected the inventory section, trying to see if she could find the entry log for the strawberries this morning and if indeed twenty-four had been put out, or twenty-three with an explanation for where the final one was.
After a frustrating two-minute search, she didn’t see any strawberries loaded anywhere in the system. This was a nightmare. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to five, hoping she’d have a better attitude when her eyes opened.
When Beryl popped her lids open, she jumped back a step in surprise. Jett, the eldest triplet and wiliest of all her siblings, stood in front of her, arms crossed, amused expression shaping his features. “What are you doing, sis?”
“I’m having a quiet heart attack because something bad has happened.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Actually, yes. Could you possibly explain to me why someone at your mine sent that pallet to my store this morning?”
“First of all, it’s our mine, don’t pretend you’re not part-owner, too. Second of all, I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Jett glanced down at the pallet, then his gaze moved over to the shopping cart of perfect strawberries. His response was a shrug. He picked up the handwritten note and turned it around to face her.
Before he told her what she already knew, she said, “I know what the note says. What I’m wondering is why a shipment of strawberries was ever sent to the mine before being sent here.
I’d ask where they came from but I have a pretty good idea.
Why didn’t they come off the Alpha-Prime air cargo ship and go directly to the basement of the Big Bang Truck Stop? ”
Jett stared at her for a long moment, then pulled his phone out and made a call. “Let me check with whoever sent them from the mine. Okay?”
Francine came running back into the stock area. “Hey, I think I know where the other box of strawberries might be.”
“Where?”
“Unless you already checked, in the employee lounge.” Beryl’s expression must have told Francine she hadn’t thought to look there, because her friend took off. Beryl followed.
As the hurried to the breakroom, Beryl said, “Tell me a human didn’t eat those strawberries.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you that but I might be lying.”
They raced into the breakroom in time to see someone taking the container of strawberries out of the refrigerator.
“Hey, where did you get those strawberries?” Beryl shouted excitedly.
Startled, Clement tossed the strawberries in the air. They crashed to the floor, cracking the clear packaging wide open. Suddenly, perfect strawberries were rolling across the breakroom floor in every conceivable direction.
“Holy moly,” Clement said. He whipped around, his face turning as crimson as the berries escaping from him. “I was just moving them out of the way so I could get my lunch bag.” He pointed to the still open refrigerator door with a single brown paper bag waiting for him.
“Sorry,” Beryl said and calmed down. “These strawberries were recalled. I didn’t want anyone to eat any and get sick.”
“I swear to you on my mama’s life, I didn’t even touch them, except to move them away from my lunch bag.”
“I believe you,” Beryl said. Francine had grabbed the cracked clear container and scooped up most of the strawberries. Beryl helped her gather the last few and they were out of the breakroom and away from a traumatized Clement in no time.
When they got back to the storeroom, Jett said, “Hey, a guy in receiving at the mine said he was sorry. It was his mistake. He forgot where they had come from and sent them to what he considered the logical place they should go.”
“Do you believe him?” Beryl asked.
Jett shrugged. “I mean, yeah. I think so. He seemed sincere.”
“Okay. Will you do me another favor and maybe do a little investigation and confirm procedures are put in place to ensure that this never happens again?”
Jett grinned. “Sure thing.”
Beryl didn’t think he’d do anything like what she had asked anytime soon. And if he ever did set up any new procedures, it would be about six months from now, if ever.
She was grateful to have avoided a big problem today, but couldn’t help but feel like she’d just dodged a bullet aimed in her direction.