Last Licks by Kathleen Gerard

Description:

Spud and Sweet are determined to figure out which one of them is going to be the most favorite potato at the Thanksgiving meal. The problem is, this is one bet that guarantees somebody is going to get mashed. This story is part of the Thanksgiving mystery anthology THE KILLER WORE CRANBERRY.

Excerpt:

I didn’t know what hit me. All of a sudden there was a thud! and a wet splat! that triggered everything to go flying everywhere—atop the sparkly crystals of the gently swaying chandelier; the steaming gravy boat that sat alongside that big, trussed up bird, half of it carved up on a platter; the beads of sweat rolling down the glass water pitcher; and even onto the cheek of this runny-nosed kid, who was sitting in a highchair across from the scene of the crime. After it happened, there was silence. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Every face looked at every other face, pale and stunned. But it wasn’t until one of the tall, wax tapered candles singed and launched a curly ribbon of smoke in its wake, and that snot-nosed kid started crying, that I knew things were bad. Real bad. And here I was, just a few forkfuls away from cleaning up in the betting pool.

It’s a long story that started back when we were surrounded by this oppressive darkness. There was lots of it. The two of us, Spud and me, we had been stuck in a heap for three months, covered by mounds of well-drained, moist-textured soil that smelled of clay and compost. It was a small plot of land tended by folks who had way too much time on their hands and believed in tomorrow. Every morning, noon and night, I could feel their determined footsteps trampling all over us. The ground quaked with their hard work and ambition. The heavier one wore clod-hopper boots whose soles sank into the earth like dull spikes. He got down on his knees and dimly mumbled his prayers aloud while he dug in the dirt until his fingernails turned black.

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread….”

Spud and me, we had no choice but to learn those prayers by repetition and rote all the while we feared for the tip of a trowel jabbing into the earth all around us. Any weeds that might’ve had a chance to hatch above us, were cut down before their prime. And the land, never given a chance to rest, became weary. Over and over, again and again, the raw earth kept turning until the sunshine that had been beating down on us all day warmed us up through the lengthening dark of each night.

Even though Spud and I weren’t able to see each other, or the light of day, we knew we were swelling and growing larger, taking up more and more of that patch as time went on. It was getting crowded in there. We could feel it.

“Hey, listen to that,” Spud whispered to me one morning. We could hear the bright sound of someone whistling above us. “The surface of the earth. It’s getting closer. Can you feel it? Why, that’s the tell-tale sign that we’re growing up, Sweet.”

“Yeah, and that can only mean trouble.”

“Well, maybe they don’t even know we’re still in here.”

“Oh, they know, all right. That praying guy knows his potatoes like Jesus knows his sheep. Trust me. He’ll be relentless in search of saving each and every last one of us. And the strays, like you and me, Spud—we’re the ones he’s dying to get his hands on.”