Page 107 of Worth the Trip

“Yep.”

His eyes widened.

The little girl with purple beads folded her arms. “Can we read?”

I looked at her. “Finally. Operational focus.”

The kids settled around me.

I held up the book.

“What y’all think this is about?”

“A garden.”

“That’s what the cover says. What else?”

Purple Beads studied it. “Maybe fixing something people gave up on.”

I nodded. “Now we talking.”

We read.

They interrupted constantly.

I let them.

One kid predicted the ending wrong and accused the author of cheating. Another volunteered information about his father’s failed tomato garden that I was pretty sure his father had not authorized for public distribution.

When the boy in the story got told he was too young to make a difference, I stopped.

“What would y’all tell him?”

The Langston kid raised his hand. “Start small.”

“Exactly. You don’t have to fix everything to improve something. Handle the piece in front of you.”

Across the shop, Nolani looked up from the register.

Our eyes met.

She had a scoop in one hand and a cup in the other, but she stayed right there for a second.

I smiled.

She smiled back.

The child beside my knee tugged at my leg.

“You skipped a page.”

I looked down.

Two pages had stuck together.

“Serious allegation.”

“You did.”