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Bertha is loaded with a fifty-pound bag of oatmeal, a twenty-five-pound bag of whole wheat flour, and another of brown rice. We tuck tofu between us on the front seat, lentils on the floor, and dry milk powder in the crawl space behind our seats. Agatha fit right in at the health-food store; I was the only one not wearing moccasins.

“Don’t you eat any meat at all?”

“Not for a long while,” she says, loading a bag of carob chips. “Doesn’t make much sense to me, stuffing myself with dead animals.”

The store is in Dover, two towns away, and as we drive back to Agatha’s, we pass a bank, a bookstore, a whole string of little shops selling ice cream and antiques and doughnuts.

“C-c-c-can you get me a c-c-coffee?”

“Nah,” Agatha says, pulling a thermos from under the seat. “I brought the sassafras.”