“How’d you two like blueberry pancakes and bacon?” she asked. Lester, making a snuffling noise, said it was okay with him. Bert just smiled hungrily and rubbed his stomach. She got up and found the bacon, blueberries and eggs that she had hidden in the refrigerator behind a bottle of prune juice and a head of wilted cabbage. All she had to do was put things where they didn’t belong and her husband would never find them, lacking even that much imagination. She brought the items back to the counter, and along with some milk and flour, started mixing the pancake batter.

Lester said sourly, “You know what nickname they started calling me yesterday? Weedpuller. It really sucks being in this family.”

“Les, honey, I’m sorry. Just ignore them.”

“Weedpuller!” Bert yelled out. “Ha!”

Lydia shot him a look that silenced him, then went back to stirring the batter. After a long moment Lester asked if he was really going to have to become the Caretaker when he turned twenty-one.

“No, honey, you won’t.”

“’Cause I don’t want to do that. Spend all day pulling weeds like some retard.”

“You ain’t going to have to.”

“Dad keeps saying I will. That it’s in his stupid contract.”

Lydia turned, her eyes hot enough to have ignited a can of gasoline. “That contract can go to blazes,” she said.

Chapter 2

Each morning Jack Durkin would make a quick walk through the woods bordering Lorne Field before starting his weeding. He never found any Aukowies growing there and didn’t suppose he ever would. Those suckers probably had to grow up straight, either that or they didn’t have sense to try to find a less obvious place to push up out of the ground -but you’d think after three hundred years they’d catch on that coming up into Lorne Field wasn’t doing them any good. Or maybe they just wanted to do it on their own terms, expecting to eventually wear down the generations of Durkins who weeded them out. He knew looking through the woods was a waste of time, but it had become a matter of habit with him so he performed his morning ritual and, as usual, found the area free of Aukowies.