Chapter 8

Three hours later, Dane was having the time of his life. Yesterday, if someone had told him he would be picnicking with several hundred people today, he’d have asked them for a drug test.

When he’d woken up at four this morning and taken a drive because he couldn’t sleep, he’d thought maybe, if he was lucky, he’d stumble across some interesting barns to photograph or maybe a dramatic sunrise. Never in a million years had he ever thought he’d be judging Potato Cannon Wars.

As he looked around, he couldn’t help the smile. At least a hundred blankets dotted the grass under a copse of huge pecan trees in Susie’s front yard. Children of all ages ran around while the adults talked and laughed. There were seven plastic camp tables lined up end-by-end full of covered dishes. Sweet Louise Harding and her former professional-football-playing son, Devon, manned two smokers and a flattop. The pair had just announced that lunch would be served in twenty minutes.

In the field on the side of Susie’s house sat four rows of potato cannons. Judging would start after lunch. Susie had marked off distances in the field with small orange cones. From what he’d overheard, there seemed to be some stiff competition. He couldn’t wait to see how the kids did.

The best part about today was that everyone accepted that he was cousin Stewart and treated him just like a regular guy. Well, except for Susie’s triathlon teammates. They knew who he was, but they were playing along.

“Are you ready for the judging?”

He turned around to see Susie standing there with a big smile on her face. His heart went all pitter-pat. “As ready as I can be.” He wasn’t sure what was involved in judging, and he didn’t want to disappoint her.

“It’s not hard. Just act impressed. My students worked hard on these and they take pride in them. I warn you, the competition gets pretty heated.”

“I can see that.” He wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t think that was something cousin Stewart should do. “Did I overhear you say something about several former students being here today?”

He’d never met a teacher who’d inspired her students so much that they kept in touch. Then again, he didn’t know that many teachers.

“I keep a wall of fame in my classroom. Past winners like to stop by Potato Cannon Wars to see if their records have been broken.” She pointed out a tall man. “That’s Antonio Gusman. He was the very first long-distance winner. His record still stands. He just graduated from Texas A&M. He’s a structural engineer. He comes every single year and cheers the students on.”

“That’s amazing.” Dane smiled. She was amazing.

“He’s pretty incredible. He was in the very first class I taught.” She rolled her eyes. “That was a learning experience. Now that I think about it, it’s amazing he turned out okay.”

“I’m sure if you asked him he’d have nothing but good things to say about you.” Dane could only think of good things to say about her, and he’d only known her for a few hours.

“I hope so.” She propped an elbow on her crutches and gently grabbed his arm. “We need to do a walkthrough—or in my case, a hobble-through—of the potato guns. We need to award Most Ingenious, Most Likely to Misfire, Ugliest, and Prettiest. We have to do this in case the potato guns don’t make it past ignition.”

“What does that mean?” He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“There is a possibility that they might blow up.” She held up a hand. “It hasn’t ever happened, but it could.”

“Blow up?” He couldn’t see a school sanctioning a possible explosion. He looked around. Which was probably why she held the event at her house. “Has anyone ever gotten hurt?”

“Never. My students design the guns and assemble them without an ignition chamber. I build that. I added them to the guns yesterday. I’m the only one who’s allowed to fire them, so the only person at risk is me. I only use compressed air and not a flammable agent in my ignition chambers.” Her eyes studied the grass in front of them. Her body language—not meeting his eyes—shouted that she was leaving something out.

“What are you not telling me?” He didn’t like the idea of her risking her life for a school project.

“Technically, potato guns are illegal in Texas, which is surprising since we’re so progun, but since this is an educational event and I live in Blanco County and,” she pointed to a man holding a baby off to her left, “I know the Blanco County sheriff, so I have special permission to hold Potato Cannon Wars. The students love it, look forward to it, and learn so much.” She sounded like she was defending it.

“I can’t believe the school board lets you do it.” It was illegal. Wouldn’t that make it a no-no for a public school?

“Well, one year we did have a new school board member who wanted to stop it. She was a vegan and hated what we were doing to the potatoes. I think she called it ‘unethical and cruel.’ Doesn’t matter. Anyway, she was impeached—didn’t know you could do that to a school board member—and replaced by someone who ran on a platform of pro–Potato Cannon Wars. Seriously, his whole campaign was about saving Potato Cannon Wars.” She sounded like she still didn’t believe it.

“You made that up.” There was no way that was real.

With her index finger, she made a cross over her heart. “Cross my heart. The Marble Falls School District loves Potato Cannon Wars.”

“I’m surprised potato guns are illegal in Texas.” That didn’t sound right. “I thought Texas took their guns seriously.” Her great-uncle certainly did.

“I know, right? It doesn’t make sense, and from what I’ve seen, it’s more of a don’t-aim-it-at-anybody-and-it’s-okay kind of a law. Like setting off fireworks in the city limits.” She shook her head. “As long as I don’t let my students fire the guns and I don’t use a potato cannon to assassinate anyone, nobody cares.”

“The Potato Cannon Assassin.” He thought about it. “Nice name for a movie.”

“It does have a certain ring to it. Just think of all of the great potato movie lines.” She grinned. “Instead of ‘I’ll be back,’ it would be ‘I’ll be baked.’” She did the worst Arnold Schwarzenegger impression he’d ever heard. “Or instead of ‘Yippie-ki-yay, mother-effer,’ it would be ‘Waffle-fry-yay, mother-tater.’” Ditto the Bruce Willis impression.

“Those are terrible lines.” He had to give it to her straight. “I think the trunk puns were better.”

“That’s just hurtful.” She made a sad face. “I can do better.”

“Sorry, but I can’t unhear those terrible lines.” He couldn’t help but smile. He liked being next to her, even if her puns were terrible. “Shall we get started with the hobble-through?”

She led him to the first potato cannon. “It looks like a telescope.”

“I think it looks like the gun on top of a tank.” It was huge and painted army green.

She nodded. “Like a machine gun. I see that now.” She pointed to the one next to it. “I like this one. It looks like a lightsaber.”

“How did they get it to light up?” It did look just like lightsaber. He studied the barrel. “It’s pretty small. I hope you’re using fingerling potatoes.”

“You’re right. The barrel isn’t the right diameter.” She looked like she was taking off mental points. “Too bad. I liked the lightsaber effect, but they didn’t follow instructions.”

“Now this one looks like a comic book superhero’s laser gun.” It was electric blue with a silver lightning bolt painted on the side. “I like it.”

“It is a good-looking potato cannon.” She pointed to the one next to it. “That looks like a World War II artillery piece.”

She was right. The cannon was army green and had two wheels, with beams V-ing out of the back like the parts that could be hooked up to a truck to tow the cannon to the battlefield. “The attention to detail is incredible.”

“I told you they take this seriously.” She pointed to the next one. “This is the first year we’ve had a unicorn head whose mouth shoots potatoes.”

“It’s kind of like when tobacco companies created strawberry-flavored cigars to market to kids. It looks kid friendly on the outside, but what’s inside can kill you.” According to the World Health Organization, Big Tobacco was still marketing to kids all over the world.

She studied the pink-and-white unicorn head. “It’s both creative and creepy. It’s creat-eepy, or is it creep-ative? I think I like creat-eepy.”

“You’re right that is both creative and creepy.” He stepped in front of the next cannon. “This one looks exactly like a high-powered rifle. The tripod and scope are nice touches.”

“It looks very authentic.” She hobbled to the next one. “Not sure what this is supposed to be.”

The cannon had three barrels on the bottom and one on top. The barrels were constructed from white PVC pipe. “Holy Grail” was painted on the side in red letters.

Dane crossed his arms and examined it like a curator examining a painting. “What is the Holy Grail part about? It looks like a water sprinkler before it’s been buried under the grass. No decoration, aside from the name, and I’m not sure what the multibarrels get you.” He turned to her. “Can you fire out of all of them at once? Now that would be interesting.”

“In theory, yes, but the ignition chamber is only built for one barrel. The students were instructed to make a single-barrel cannon.” It looked like she was marking off more points on her mental list. “Otherwise you’d need an ignition chamber for each barrel.”

He pointed to a two-wheeled cannon in the row in front of them. “That’s an interesting Gatling gun interpretation. If the barrel does revolve, could the ignition chamber support multiple shots?”

“I’d have to reload the compressed air between shots.” She nodded. “There’s always a Gatling gun.”

“This one looks like a grenade launcher. The attention to detail is pretty amazing.” He pointed to the silver potato cannon next to the Gatling gun.

“This one you can wear as a backpack.” She nodded toward another cannon. “Not sure why you’d want to, but still, I guess it makes transport easier.”

“Is that supposed to be a fishing rod?” He studied the potato cannon in front of him.

“Yes, I think the bottom part is the tackle box.” She shaded her eyes from the sun as she looked closer.

“Oh, I see that now.” The brown basket part was meant to be a tackle box. “Execution isn’t perfect, but I like that they thought of something different.”

She picked up another one of the potato cannons and held it out to him. “How do you like the Nimbus 2000 quidditch-broom potato cannon?”

He turned the cannon over, examining the details. “Very creative—or as the British put it, very clever.” He pulled off a very good English accent, if he did say so himself.

“Was that Dutch? It sounded Dutch.” One corner of her mouth turned up in a half smile. She put the quidditch-broom cannon back in its spot in the row.

“That was British and you know it. I’ve played four Brits in my career, and most people think I am British.” He was full-on Brit now.

“I seem to remember thinking you were British at some point.” She hobbled in front of a potato cannon that looked a lot like a 1980s video camera. “What is this?”

“I think it’s a camcorder from the 1980s. I’m surprised and kinda impressed one of your students would know what one looked like.” He turned on the British accent one more time. “Very clever.”

“Now this is creative.” She pointed to a miniature NASA space shuttle. The nose of the spacecraft was the cannon’s muzzle.

“Nice.” He bent down. “It looks so real.” He pointed to the two cardboard-cutout astronauts waving from the cockpit. “This took some time.” He stood and looked around. “All of these took some time.”

“I know. There’s not a slacker in the bunch. Even my slackers go all out.” There was a whole lot of pride in her voice. “It’s a very big deal to my students.”

“You love it, don’t you?” He’d never met someone who was so passionate about her career.

“Love what? Potato cannons?” She looked confused.

“No, teaching. You’re really passionate about it. When did you know you wanted to be a teacher?” He had a feeling she hadn’t followed the typical career path. Nothing about Susie was typical.

“Well, I graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in … wait for it … anthropology. I wanted to go on to get my PhD in nautical archeology, but those hopes were dashed when I went to a lecture by the renowned nautical archeologist George Bass. It was about a shipwreck he’d been working on for decades off the coast of Greece. There were all of these shards of colored glass. He and his team spent something like ten years trying to piece them together, but they never could. Finally, someone asked, ‘Hey, what if this was a ship carrying bins of broken colored glass to be melted down and made into something new?’ That was the moment I put down my excavating brushes for good. No way could I spend all day with a microscope trying to put tiny pieces of glass together, much less a decade. I decided I wanted to be a chef. It was only after I started going to Le Cordon Bleu that I found that the most intriguing thing about cooking was teaching other people how to do it. It turns out that all I loved about cooking was the chemistry involved. I decided to become a mad scientist, a.k.a. middle school science teacher, and here I am today.”

He loved that her life was as offbeat as her mind. “Have you always taught middle school?”

“Pretty much. I get offers all of the time to go up to the high school or down to elementary, but I love middle school. They’re just so wonderfully awkward.” Her passion for her students was written all over her face.

“I’m glad you found teaching.” He glanced at the crowd of people laughing and milling around her front yard. “I can see they appreciate you. They love you.”

She looked around. “You think?”

It looked like that had never occurred to her.

“Look how happy they are to be here and how much they appreciate you. They adore you.” He was finding that she was easy to adore.