Excerpt
One Green Fermented Chapter

A Pickle Sandwich
or
the Pickle Sandwich
or
one Pickle Sandwich
or
THE PICKLE SANDWICH!
Whichever you choose,
all I know is that it started with a/one/the/THE Pickle Sandwich.
And a fish.


Two: The Beginning(s)

Corie: tall, thin, scruffy, female, student, blondish, smart, creative, outspoken, trouble-finding, precocious (whatever THAT means), eager, mature, silly, immature, messy-roomed, imaginative, animal-loving girl.
Corie lives in a suburb of a big city in the Northeast. Want to know which city? Well, I can’t tell you that.
The house she lives in:
*is painted white;
*has many rooms including, two and a half bathrooms (Corie still wonders where the other half went);
*has a big, big, big, huge front yard;
*has an even bigger, bigger, bigger, more huge back yard;
*is old;
*contains two irritating older but not more mature brothers;
*has the neatest boy-you-can-get-messy-and-in-big-trouble-after-playing-in-it-and-going-into-the-house-and-lying-upside-down-all-muddy-on-your-bed-to-read-a-book-even-though-reading-is-good-for-you stream next to it;
*has plenty of food;
*contains one dog (although, it is often asked, “Why we can’t have fifteen dogs? That’s silly. I’ll take care of them.”);
*is happy;
*looks good in winter;
*has great snakes in the yard, but that’s another story;
*has a fox who visits the yard;
*is also visited by white-tailed deer, as well as one weird deer with no tail and a goofy limp who eats mushrooms and doesn’t run away when you go outside and look at him;
*and contains a mother and a father.
That snake story is pretty interesting, and I wish I could tell you more about the trouble that whole thing caused but I can’t right now.
Anyhow, anyhoo, anywhatever...
Whenever I get off track and try to tell you something else or go off and tell another story—like the time Smelly Timmy, too young to sled, went down the “world’s most incredible slippery, slidey, sled run in Corie’s back yard that only costs a quarter to use all day” and broke his wrist and lost a tooth, and Corie got mad because she never got her quarter but got in more trouble than he did, even though he welched—whenever I get off track like that and I remember what I was supposed to be doing, I end up saying, “Anyhow, or anyhoo, or anywhatever,” and then try to get back to the story.
I think.
Anysomething.
It’s a nice house in a nice neighborhood with nice parents and irritating brothers and Corie.
And a pickle and a fish.


Two: The Beginning(s) Some More

The pickle.
Listen. Dad, who is not so, so bad as dads go, actually likes pickles. He was home making late lunch, or maybe early dinner, and Corie was Corie-ing around, not doing anything really, but kind of doing it wrong anyway. Dad was making lunch/dinner, and Corie said for the ten-thousandth time, “What’s to eat?”
Dad finally said, “Pickle sandwiches,” even though Corie hates (or as Mom says, “dislikes immensely”) pickles.
The pickle in question:
*was green—and not a nice shade of green like the green stuff that came out the time Corie threw up all over the bedroom after the birthday party thingy happened;
*was wrinkled (aren’t they all?);
*smelled;
*was some new kind that was even bigger than the old kind;
*came from a jar;
*was cold;
*and wouldn’t be eaten by the dog who ate ASOLUTELY ANYTHING (Corie knew this because she had tried feeding the dog ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING).
I’m not going to tell you the name of Corie’s dog. She thinks if you know the name of her dog and what a great pull-you-in-the-sled, chase-you-through-the-house-and-the-muddy-stream, and eat-the-vegetables-you-pass-her-under-the-table-except-for-pickles dog she is, you’ll come to the Northeast and steal her.
That’s why I can’t tell you the name of Corie’s dog and have to just call her “Corie’s dog,” because you might steal her.
Corie’s brothers’ names are Robert and James.