Lemons

The search for Bigfoot gets juicy in this funny and touching story that’s perfect for fans of Kate DiCamillo’s Flora & Ulysses and the movie Smallfoot!
 
Lemonade Liberty Witt’s mama always told her: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But Lem can’t possibly make lemonade out of her new life in Willow Creek, California—the Bigfoot Capital of the World—where she’s forced to live with a grandfather she’s never met after her mother passes away.
 
Then she meets eleven-year-old Tobin Sky, the CEO of Bigfoot Detectives Inc., who is the sole Bigfoot investigator for their small town. After he invites Lem to be his assistant for the summer, they set out on an epic adventure to capture a shot of the elusive beast on film. But along the way, Lem and Tobin end up discovering more than they ever could have imagined. And Lem realizes that maybe she can make lemonade out of her new life after all.

"Melissa Savage's astoundingly good debut novel is packed with humor, mystery, friendship, family secrets, and even Bigfoot! I think you'll love it, too." —Karen Cushman, Newbery Medalist for The Midwife's Apprentice

1

 

 

One Woolly Monster and a Weirdo Kid

 

 

Bigfoot.

 

It’s the very first thing I see when we pull into town. A gargantuan wooden statue of the hairy beast, stuck right smack in the middle of the square, like he’s the mayor or President Ford or someone real important like that.

 

“Where are we, anyway?” I ask the social worker who came to get me all the way down in San Francisco.

 

I’ve only met her once before this and I can’t remember her name. I think it starts with a W. Maybe an M. There were two of them who came to visit. I can’t remember the other lady’s name either. This one must have drawn the short straw to have to drive me all the way up to this Podunk place.

 

“We finally made it, Lemonade.” Her eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “They say Willow Creek is the Bigfoot capital of the world.”

 

“You mean like that thing actually lives here?”

 

She smiles and makes a left turn down Seventh Street. “We’re almost there, should be just up this way a piece.”

 

This place is nothing like home. And I already know I’m going to hate it.

 

Tall pines instead of skyscrapers, dirt instead of sidewalks, and one woolly monster lurking somewhere in the forest. With my luck, his main food source is ten-year-old girls.

 

“I want to go home,” I mutter under my breath. “Why couldn’t I have just stayed with my teacher?” I call up to the front seat. “Miss Cotton said she loves having me there. She even told me so.”

 

“I’m sorry, Lemonade,” she says, keeping her eyes on the road this time. “I’m afraid that’s not an option right now. There would have to be forms completed for that to happen permanently.”

 

“She would do that,” I tell the lady. “She always has our papers corrected by the very next day. Just ask her, she’ll tell you.”

 

“I’ve already spoken to her about it, honey,” she says. “Believe me, if things change, you’ll be the first to know.”

 

“I’ll make sure and remind her. She promised to call me sometimes and write me letters, too. At least until I get to go back.”

 

This time the lady doesn’t say anything.

 

I lay my head back on the seat and stick my arm out the window. The warm summer air grabs it, and my hand hangs ten on a wind wave. I breathe in deep.

 

It smells like grass.

 

Dirt.

 

And bugs.

 

At home, the air smells like ocean mixed with car exhaust and the glorious crispy fried egg rolls from Mr. Chin’s restaurant on the corner. He makes the best egg rolls in town. The sign in the window even says so.

 

The sky is a fire orange, even though the sun is just about out of sight behind the trees, leaving long, dark shadows between the pines that line the road.

 

Which is the reason why I almost miss him.

 

Some weirdo kid darts through the trees with binoculars hanging from his neck.

 

He’s wearing a floppy tan safari hat folded up in front and held on by a strap under his chin. Across the underside of the brim are some kind of hand-painted letters. I can tell they say something real important, too, because why else would you have hand-painted letters anywhere?

 

But he’s running so fast I can’t read what they say.

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

The Second-Worst Day of My Life

 

 

“Lemonade,” the old man says slowly, like he’s trying it on for size.

 

He eyes me from under unruly gray eyebrows in the front hall of one of the old farmhouses lined up on Seventh Street.

 

The lady turned up the driveway of the medium-sized white one with yellow shutters on it. We walked up five wooden steps and onto a great big porch wrapped all around it, with a bright yellow swing just to the left of the front door.

 

Inside, it’s nothing like our apartment in the city--it’s cold and dark and smells like old books and coffee beans. At home we live on the third floor of a Victorian walk-up. Mama painted every wall pink and hung white fluffy curtains at all the windows and there were always fresh daisies on the kitchen counter except in the winter. She had the record player going all the time too. Usually Simon and Garfunkel or Cat Stevens and sometimes James Taylor.

 

This place doesn’t have anything playing, not a television set or a radio or anything. And the walls are just plain white ones with only boring wooden blinds at the windows.

 

“We meant to get here by four, but the traffic in the city was awful,” the social worker tells the man.

 

It’s weird that I can’t remember her name, since we only drove for six whole hours to get to this place. We even played a round of the alphabet game until my eyelids got so heavy I couldn’t keep them open anymore. I was winning up until then, after spotting a Q on a liquor store sign outside Redding.

 

“Not a problem,” the man tells her, continuing to eye me.

 

I eye him right back.

 

He’s missing the middle part of his hair, like someone divided his head up into thirds and subtracted the center.

 

I’m real good at math. I got an A in Mr. Mahoney’s math class, and everyone knows Mr. Mahoney gives the hardest tests at Sherman Elementary.

 

“Lemonade,” the man says again, running a hand through one of the thirds of hair that’s still there. It’s black and wavy with speckles of gray mixed in. There’s a short beard right around his mouth that has even more gray in it than the ring around his head. He has on a checkered short-sleeved shirt and long tan shorts with hiking boots and tall white socks that come up to his knees.

 

“Lemonade Liberty Witt,” I say, standing straight. “Lem for short. I’m ten and three quarters. I’ll be eleven on September sixth.”

 

“Uh-huh.” He pulls horn-rimmed glasses from the checkered shirt pocket and slips them across his nose to examine me some more. There’s a bright silver ring on his finger. “Small for ten and three quarters, aren’t you?”

 

He’s full of the kinds of questions that don’t seem to want answers.

 

So he doesn’t get one.

 

I cross my arms and glare at him instead.

 

“Same green eyes . . . and”--he clears his throat--“those red curls.”

 

I swallow hard.

 

“Can you tell us where Lemonade will be staying while she’s here, Mr. Witt?” the lady asks with a straight-lipped smile stretched across her teeth.

 

He sighs and stuffs his glasses back in his front pocket. “This way, second door on your right,” he grumbles, making his way down a dark hall just past the kitchen. “Grab your suitcase,” he calls over his shoulder.

 

My fingers curl around the handle of Mama’s pink suitcase, but the lady waves my hand away and grabs it for me. I follow it, my eyes fixed on the bouncing red tag that’s...