Chapter 3

Tyler looked a little awkward. "Edmund, it's not that folks don't keep their word. It's just… there's no way around it. Nobody's got it easy."

"The whole town's counting on these raspberries to turn things around."

"Take Glen here. Two sons waiting to get married."

Glen nodded along, hard.

"The Millers, they've got old folks and little ones both to feed. The Suttons need this money to sign their kid up for school."

"Old Mrs. Parsons is counting on it to pay off her debts."

He rattled off one hardship after another, like I was supposed to foot the bill for their poverty and troubles.

I waved a hand and cut him off. "Mayor Glass, their troubles aren't of my making."

"Let me ask you something. How much did the villagers actually put in? The seedlings were mine. The pest control was mine. I paid for the spraying across the whole town out of my own pocket."

"The special organic fertilizer, I got through a dedicated channel from the state agricultural college, at eighty percent of the market price. I covered half, the villagers covered the other half."

"All they did was pull weeds and manage the drainage."

"Each household put in maybe three thousand dollars. I put in close to three hundred thousand."

Tyler had nothing to say to that. His face went pale, then red.

I kept going. "And another thing. Back when the whole town made me sign that pledge, what were you all thinking then? If the raspberries failed, I'd have owed ten thousand an acre."

"That works out to over three million!"

"My risk was a lot bigger than yours. If it weren't for the fact that we're all neighbors here, I never would have done this in the first place."

That got Tyler's head down. But Glen gave a cold snort. "Edmund, don't make it sound so pretty."

"You only signed that pledge because you were sure of yourself. I don't buy that you did it out of the goodness of your heart."

"If you hadn't seen a profit in it, would you have come around pushing us to grow raspberries?"

I glanced at him. "That's my business. The deal was set from the start. I carry the risk, I take ten percent of the profit."

"And now you want to back out?"

Glen's face darkened. "Not backing out. Just talking it over with you. Ten percent's too much! That's bleeding us dry."

"Five percent, that's the most you're getting. If you don't believe me, I'll call the whole town over. Ask them yourself, see who's willing to pay it."

I looked at Tyler, still hanging his head. "Mayor Glass, is this your position too?"

Tyler cleared his throat and mumbled, "It's… it's what all the villagers want. It's not my call to make."

I nodded. "Fine. Then let's settle this today, right here."

Glen fired off a message in the co-op group chat right away. "Everyone get down to the Dickerson yard, now."

I didn't stop him. I just carried a chair out to the yard and sat down to wait.

Five minutes, tops, and a crowd of three-wheelers and motorcycles came pouring into the yard.

A dark wall of people, every eye locked on me.

Wayne texted me. "Edmund, I'm sorry. My parents don't show up, the town'll freeze them out. But don't worry, they won't push you on this."

I gave a small, grateful smile. Only Wayne knew right from wrong.

One person from every household in town had come.

Glen raised that big voice of his. "Neighbors, friends, these past two years we've all been out there breaking our backs. Grew these raspberries till we barely looked human anymore."

"Every last family is counting on these raspberries to get by."

"And now the Dickerson boy, Edmund, opens his mouth and wants ten percent. You all okay with that?"