Page 73 of Pen Me

Menace

The next morning, I found some netted sacks in a junk drawer and took Sammy on her first mushroom hunt. I walked slowly, keeping an eye on her in case she became easily exhausted. She’d assured me several times already that her doctor said she was free to bathe, and do all the normal things, but still—I worried about her.

She didn’t show any outward signs of exertion or pain, though, so I kept moving along, squatting down to survey the forest floor every now and then.

“There,” she said, pointing to a big one, near the base of a tree.

“Careful where you step, there will be another. Always is,” I predicted, and sure enough she sucked in a breath and plucked one between her and the first.

I held out the sack and she deposited the Morel, gently into the sack.

“Those things smell funky.”

“Earthy,” I corrected her.

“You sound like a pothead saying that.Earthy. That’s what Sauce used to say about his weed, I don’t know what Earth he was sniffing. Shit always smelled like a skunk’s ass to me.”

I snorted, shaking my head.

“Leave Sauce out of this, he’s a good kid.”

“I miss him,” Sam huffed.

She was quiet for a moment, as we found another patch and set about picking and squinting.

“How sure are you that Auggie hasn’t taken Rumi and reported us being here?”

“Auggie ain’t no snitch. She’s a hardass sometimes, a little too overprotective of her bestie, but she's a stand-up chick.”

Sam nodded, like she wasn’t sure she accepted my words as fact, but she didn’t argue. Soon, the net sacks were full, and we headed back to the house. I tended the mushrooms and packed them up while she showered.

The best I could tell, we had about two pounds. It wasn’t bad for a day's work.

“Why did you put them in so many bags?” She laughed, looking over things with an odd expression. “You could have just put them in a gallon-sized one.”

“Nah. They’re more likely to sell if you give folks the option of buying a half of a pound instead of the more costly pound.”

“Sell?” She squinted.

“Mhm.”

Sam slowly looked around the room and then back at me, “We just gonna stroll through the farmers market?”

“No.” I shook my head gathering the baggies and looking back at her. “We grabbed your purse; do you have cash?”

Her brow rose and I laughed.

“I’m not asking how much, just– If someone needs change, can you make it happen?”

“Oh.” she nodded.

“Good. Put a hoodie on, put the hood up, you can sit at the end of the lane.” I found a cardboard box, cut the sides off and scribbled Morels across the top. Beneath it I wrote the price. Half of a pound for forty dollars or a whole pound for seventy.

She laughed, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she stared at me.

“I’m not sitting out there all day! Nobody is going to stop for eighty-dollar fungus, get the fuck out of here.”

I snorted, staring at her. “You ain’t never lived in a rural area, huh?”

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