CHAPTER 28
Popcorn Wars
IT WAS MOVIE NIGHT AT THE COMMUNITY CENTER. Terpsichore and Gloria sat cross-legged on the floor near the front of the audience as the projector whirred into action and the words “Hearst Metrotone News” flickered against the sheet hung on the wall.
The newsreel shocked everyone to silence. In the background was their own Matanuska River. In the foreground was a two-seater plane, ladder set up against the open door. Will Rogers waved good-bye to the hundreds of people gathered to watch him take off.
Terpsichore could barely swallow. “It’s hard to believe that two weeks ago Will Rogers was here.”
“He wasn’t waving good-bye just to Palmer, but to his fans all over the world,” Gloria whispered, still staring at the screen.
After the newsreel flickered off, the community center remained quiet.
As the feature film started—State Fair with their lost hero, Will Rogers—someone tried to lighten the mood. “If I just had a bag of popcorn, I could imagine I was back home in Minnesota,” he said.
After hearing that, Terpsichore hardly paid attention to whether Janet Gaynor, the actress playing Will Rogers’s daughter, was going to fall in love with the newspaper reporter. Instead, she ran calculations in her head. If she sold popcorn at ten cents a bag, and the popcorn and the bags cost her three cents—she’d have to check prices—she might net seven cents a bag. If she could sell fifty bags, she’d clear $3.50 in just one week and it would only take six months to save enough for a whole set of World Book encyclopedias.
• • •
The following week, Terpsichore was ready. With a Shirley Temple movie like Bright Eyes, the community center would be packed. Terpsichore got her father’s permission to put small brown paper bags and popcorn kernels on their tab at the general store. She took over the kitchen all afternoon, popping batch after batch in a pan on the stove and measuring two cups into each sack. She folded the tops over twice and loaded them into Mother’s laundry baskets. Mother and Matthew sat with Pop on the seat of the horse-drawn wagon, and Terpsichore sat in the back with Cally and Polly, holding the baskets steady so none of the popcorn would spill.
Terpsichore stood just inside the entrance to the community center. She was shy, but her sisters and Gloria were not. They called out, “Popcorn, get your popcorn! All profits to the Palmer Library!”
“Selling popcorn—crackerjack idea!” Gloria told Terpsichore. “I bet we could sell twice as much and I could help you make it.”
“That would be keen,” said Terpsichore. “If we sell a hundred bags a week, we’ll have those encyclopedias by Christmas!”
• • •
The next Saturday, Gloria went to Terpsichore’s and she and the twins helped Terpsichore pop and package one hundred bags of popcorn. An hour before the movie started, Pop helped load the wagon with bags of popcorn heaped into packing crates and laundry baskets.
At the community center, Terpsichore led them toward what she considered to be her station just inside the door. But Mendel was in her spot.
“Get your popcorn, fresh hot popcorn!” Mendel already had a card table set up with his pile of popcorn bags.
Terpsichore dropped her basket with a thud and shoved past the line of people waiting to buy popcorn from Mendel.
“You stole my idea. You knew this was how I was raising money for the library.” Terpsichore could feel her cheeks beginning to redden.
“I’m not on the library committee anymore, and I need to raise money too,” Mendel said, avoiding her eyes.
“Well, selling popcorn was my idea . . . you’re a copycat!”
“You weren’t the first person in the world to sell popcorn at a movie, so it’s not like you invented the idea.” Maybe Mendel did feel a little guilty, because his cheeks started to redden too.
“But I was the first person to do it here!” Terpsichore said.
Gloria, Cally, and Polly shoved through the line to stand beside Terpsichore and back her up with fierce nods. “Trip was here first,” the twins said.
Mendel was outnumbered, but he stuck out his chin and said, “Well, you weren’t first today.”
A curious crowd paused at the doorway to watch the showdown before taking their seats.
Terpsichore would not be weak and girly in front of Mendel and all these people. “You’re a dirty rotten thieving claim-jumper.”
Gloria, Polly, and Cally echoed, “Dirty rotten claim-jumper.”
Mendel pointed behind them toward their stacks of popcorn bags. “There’s the real claim-jumper.”
A kid stooped over Terpsichore’s laundry basket heaped with bags of popcorn and held up a bag in each hand. “Hey, guys, free popcorn!” Within seconds, almost half her popcorn was gone.
Terpsichore dashed back through the people entering the community center to protect her inventory. “That’s ten cents!”
Mendel continued shouting like a sideshow barker. “Popcorn, fresh hot popcorn! Get your popcorn here!”
Terpsichore glared at Mendel and shouted even louder, “Best popcorn in the valley! All profits to a new library!”
In between customers, Mendel and the girls traded epithets:
“Spoilsport!” That was the girls.
“Crybabies!” That was Mendel.
“You should be set out on an iceberg!” That was Terpsichore.
A stranger, too old to be a colonist or CCC worker, greeted Mendel. “What are you earning money for, young man?”
“A real dog harness,” Mendel said. “I’m training my dog to be a sled dog.”
“Come see me when you have the harness and I’ll help you,” he said. “Ask anyone out at the Butte where old-timer Crawford lives.”
Terpsichore was trying to think of another insult when the old-timer turned her way. “Here’s another enterprising popcorn seller. What are you saving money for?”
“I’m saving for a set of encyclopedias for the new library,” Terpsichore said, “not for something for myself.” She glared again at Mendel.
“Well,” the man said, “I guess I should buy a bag of popcorn from you too.”
“Who was that, Trip?” Cally asked.
“It’s Terp-sick . . .” Terpsichore’s rebuke about using her nickname trailed off as her eyes followed the strange man as he carried his two bags of popcorn to find standing room at the back of the audience. “I don’t know who it is. Somebody who likes popcorn, I guess.”
Gloria looked up from counting money. “Even with Mendel stealing your spot and wise guys making off with free popcorn, we collected four dollars and eighty cents for the library!”
“Yay, our team,” the twins cheered.