On the morning of our fair day, Mom picked her giant kohlrabi and left early to help her farmers set up their vegetables. She dropped Asad off at his friend Liya’s house on her way, so he wouldn’t get underfoot.
Then Eleanora and Mr. Z. came by to pick up Rodgers and Hammerstein and wish us luck.
“Are you sure you don’t want to enter them in the obstacle course?” Eli asked. “They get almost halfway through ours now.”
Mr. Z. smiled. “This year, we will let someone else win. But next year…”
Total annihilation, Oma wrote, nodding.
After they left, Eli and I got kind of fidgety too, especially with Oma asking if it was time yet every five minutes. So it wasn’t that long before Dad suggested we start packing things up. Eli’s tap performance wasn’t until five, but Oma and I had to have our entries there by nine a.m., even though they wouldn’t start judging our categories until ten.
Dad helped me pack the jar of sauerkraut and the poster and my computer and peripherals into the restored 1958 Chevy Impala he was entering this year, and buckle Oma’s empty crock into the backseat with us.
When we walked into the gym, I saw a sign on the table by my spot: HD SCHENK, HOMEBUILT COMPUTER. I got a feeling in my stomach, like butterflies that could turn into fireworks, or something magic. Like maybe people would look at me and realize that there was a whole part of me they’d never recognized before, and that what they saw impressed them.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay setting everything up yourselves?” Dad asked, putting his box down.
I nodded. “Yeah, pickles are across the gym, so we’ll help Oma get set up too. We just have to get our badges, and make everything look good, and wait for the judges to come around at ten.”
“I’m over in the garage if you need anything,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “See you at ten. You do know how proud we are of you, right?”
I felt a butterfly twitch and take off as I nodded. “See you then.”
I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave Oma by herself, so Eli and I brought her crock along when we went to the table to get our badges.
“Name?” said the white guy sitting at the table, when it was our turn. He smiled at Eli, but he gave me a look like he didn’t really want to help me at all. Eli stopped smiling and folded his arms.
“Mrs. Marietta Schenk would like me to pick up her badge, please,” I said very politely, setting the crock down.
The guy frowned. “Mrs. Schenk must be present at the time of judging.”
I nodded. “She knows. We’re helping her get set up.”
He gave the pickling crock a look. “There’s not much space on the pickle table,” he said. “Are you sure she needs that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I told him. “Can we please pick up Mrs. Schenk’s badge for her?” My stomach was feeling bad-sick now, not butterfly-strange.
The guy shook his head. “She’s going to have to sign for that herself.”
“Are you saying that because HD’s Black?” Eli asked. “Because you let that white lady before us pick up her kid’s badge. Maybe you should think harder about what’s going into your decisions, because my mom says that is not fair and not okay.”
Oma’s eyes narrowed. “I will handle this man myself.” She grabbed the pen right out of his hand, and signed the form on his clipboard.
“What the—” The guy flinched. He stared at the badges moving in his box. When Oma found hers and pulled it out, not being too careful about how close she got it to his face either, he got to his feet and backed away. Then he turned and ran.
“Come on,” I told Eli and Oma, and grabbed the crock. I didn’t know when that guy was going to come back, but I didn’t want to be there when he did.
That guy was right about one thing, though: There wasn’t much room for pickles. So, Oma moved the other people’s signs over a little bit to make her spot big enough for her poster and her crock.
“We never got our badges,” Eli reminded me. “We’re not supposed to be in here without them.”
“Maybe we should wait awhile,” I said.
Eli went and stuck his head out the gym door. “Don’t worry, that guy is still gone.” He headed out.
“We’ll be back in a minute, okay?” I told Oma, hurrying after him. Maybe nobody would notice her badge floating around the other pickle entries.
When we got there, you know who’d taken that guy’s place? Ms. Stevermer!
“Nice to see you,” I said. “Can we get our badges? We already got Oma’s, but we had to leave before we got ours.”
Ms. Stevermer handed over her clipboard and pen. “Yes, I heard about that. So sorry I wasn’t here to help.”
“That’s okay,” I told her as she showed us where to sign. “Oma’s not that patient, but she’s pretty good at managing.”
Ms. Stevermer handed us our badges. Eli’s said TAP RECITAL on it. Mine said TECHNOLOGY ENTRY.
We put them on and gave each other a high five. We were official now.
“Please tell Mrs. Schenk I wish her the best of luck with her entry,” Ms. Stevermer said. “And of course, I’ll be thinking of you two as well—though you hardly need luck, with all the work you’ve put in!”
When we got back to the gym, Oma floated right over, still holding her badge. “HD, come tell me whether the sauerkraut jar looks better on the right side of the crock or the left….Also, I think the bow on the jar could be bigger. Those pickled beets have a bigger bow.”
I glanced at my watch. Nine-thirty. “Look, Oma, I’ll come help you in a minute, but I really need to set my entry up first. I have to be ready at ten too, remember?”
Oma blinked, and looked across the gym at my spot. “I see.”
“I can help you, though,” Eli told her, practicing his second solo grand finale. He slid to a stop right in front of her entry.
“Thanks,” I told him, and left before Oma could argue.
It felt good to set my computer up in the spot with my name. I plugged the monitor into the computer, and connected the keyboard and mouse up again. I plugged the power strip I’d brought into the outlet, and plugged everything else into the power strip. Then I double-checked that all the connectors were secure. I arranged the keyboard in front of the monitor so they lined up neatly, put the Black Panther mouse pad that Dad got for me under the mouse, and stacked up my index cards. Everything was ready.
I checked my watch: nine-forty. I hurried across the gym to see how Eli and the ghost were doing.
“See, none of the other pickling people have any visual aids at all!” Eli was telling the ghost. “You’re going to do great, Mrs. S.”
“Let me get my pencil.” The ghost tried to clip her badge to her pajamas. It fell right through her and landed on the gym floor. She looked up at me. “HD, I need an accommodation for my badge.”
It took us a minute to find some supplies, but by nine-fifty I’d made a pretty good badge holder for my great-great-grandma out of a broken shoelace and a paper clip.
The ghost put it over her arm and wore it like a purse. It didn’t fall through her shoulder. “How do I look?” She did a little ghostly twirl.
“Very, uh, like a master pickler,” I told her, smiling.
Eli was staring at her badge holder. “How is that working?”
I shrugged. “Maybe her pajamas can’t handle as much weight as she can?”
“We’re going to need to design a new experiment….” Eli trailed off. “Hey, Mrs. S.? You’re going to say bye to us before you leave, right?”
“What do you mean?” Oma asked, frowning.
“You know, when you win the fair and go to the next level,” Eli said. “Should we say bye now, just in case? Or will you come over to clap for HD’s computer before you disappear forever?”
I swallowed. I’d been working so hard to get things ready for this day, I forgot that this could be it. “You’re going to stay for the award ceremony tonight, though—right, Oma?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly. She looked at me, and then down at her stack of index cards. “Perhaps I will not win after all.”
I looked out across the gym at my computer. It was still really important to me. But Oma’s sauerkraut was important to her too. What if she missed her chance because they couldn’t hear her? Maybe I could help Oma with her presentation and still do mine….After all, the judges couldn’t visit all the entries at once.
“I have an idea,” I said. “Eli, can you come help me talk to Ms. Stevermer again for a minute? Don’t go anywhere yet, Oma—we’ll be right back.”
We ran back to the registration table. “We think Oma might need my help presenting her sauerkraut,” I told Ms. Stevermer. “We helped her make a poster, but the judges probably can’t hear her, so I might need to tell them what she says.”
“As an accommodation,” Eli added.
Ms. Stevermer thought about that for a minute. “Well, I’ve never seen anything about ghosts not being allowed to enter the fair, so let’s proceed as we would for anyone else who was entering. Would you say she’s missing her vocal cords and larynx?”
Eli and I nodded. “Yeah, she’s missing her whole body,” I said.
“If an entrant needed an accommodation due to a missing body part, we would of course accommodate her, and I don’t see why a missing body would be any different,” Ms. Stevermer said. “You’ll only be telling the judges what she said, correct? And she’ll need to sign for herself.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s her presentation.”
“And you know she can write just fine,” Eli said.
Ms. Stevermer nodded, and wrote a note on a piece of scratch paper. “Have her sign this. It will let the judges know you’ve been approved to help her.”
“Thanks,” I told her, taking the note. We hurried back to the gym.
“Okay, so here’s the new plan,” I told Oma. “If you sign this note, I can help you out by telling the judges what you’re saying.”
Oma straightened up and smiled. “Wonderful!” She picked up her pencil and signed the note.
“A group of judges will be coming in any moment now,” I told the ghost. “If they start with the technology side of the gym, I’m going to go present my computer first, and then come back and help you. If they start with this side—”
“You will help me explain how I made my sauerkraut first,” the ghost said, nodding. “Thank you, Hans Dieter.”
The ghost wrapped her arms around me, and I hugged her back. When I opened my eyes, I saw some lady look at me, then look away fast. But you know what? I didn’t really care. Just because she couldn’t see everything in the world around her didn’t mean I had to do anything differently. Sometimes you have to do what’s important to you, no matter what anybody else thinks.
“And if they have any questions, I’ll help you answer them, before I go present my computer,” I said. “But, try to stick around long enough to say goodbye to everyone, okay? I mean, I know you’re probably impatient to move on, but…We’re going to miss you.”
Eli grabbed my arm. “We have a problem,” he said. “Look.”
Two different groups of judges had arrived, instead of the one group we’d planned for. One group had clipboards and big buttons with canning jars on them, and they were moving toward the first pickle entry. Another had buttons that said STEM, and they were moving toward the first technology entry.