When Olivia arrived on Saturday, Katie was sitting on the front porch.
She was moving her foot in the air.
"What are you doing?" asked Olivia.
"Check this out.
What does this spell?" said Katie.
Olivia's eyes followed Katie's toes as they moved through the air.
"That was an A," explained Katie.
"This is a B. Watch carefully."
She moved her foot around some more.
"Dr. Howarth says I have to write the alphabet several times each day.
If I do, my ankle will get strong.
Then I can go to the hayride on Friday."
"Great!" said Olivia. "You keep writing.
I'll go pick up walnuts."
"Don't let the ticks bite you!" said Katie. Olivia laughed.
Joy had been collecting walnuts since after breakfast.
When she saw Olivia jogging up the hill, she ran to meet her.
"Here I am! Ready to help!" said Olivia.
"Thank you!" Joy pulled her over to the cart.
"There are a million walnuts under these trees," she said.
"See how many I've picked up?
Dad says when the cart's full, we can go to the nut-buying station.
Then we can fill it up again!"
"Let's see who can fill her bucket first!" said Olivia.
She picked up two walnuts at once.
For several minutes, the only sound was the thud, thud, thud of walnuts dropping into buckets.
"Done!" said Joy. "I win!"
"Let's do it again!" said Olivia.
They emptied their buckets into the cart and started grabbing more walnuts. Thud, thud, thud.
"Done!" cried Olivia. "It's a tie!"
The girls laughed.
They were working, but it was fun!
As the morning sun rose higher, Joy moved closer to the woods.
Olivia worked her way toward the pond, filling bucket after bucket.
"The grass is kind of tall there," Joy called.
"It's a good spot," said Olivia.
"Lots of walnuts have rolled down here."
"Just watch out," said Joy.
"Watch out for what?" said Olivia.
"Oh, poison ivy and stuff.
Ticks. You know. Whatever."
Olivia was picking up walnuts as fast as she could.
She filled her bucket quickly.
"I'm going to set a new world record!" she said with a laugh.
Then she screamed.
"A snake!" she yelled.
She tried to stand up, but she slipped back down into the grass.
She screamed again.
"It's just a black snake," called Joy.
"There it goes.
See? You scared it."
"I scared the snake?" cried Olivia.
She ran toward Joy.
Just then a strong breeze blew through the trees.
A walnut fell on Olivia's toe.
"Ouch!" she cried and looked up into the tree.
A walnut fell right on her nose!
"Oh! That really hurt!"
She rubbed her nose and screamed again.
"My nose is bleeding!"
Soon Olivia was sitting beside Katie on the front porch.
"Keep holding your nose for ten minutes," said Grandpa.
"And no more walnut collecting today," Mom said.
"You shouldn't bend over for several hours."
"Another damaged walnut picker," said Katie.
Joy was heading back out for more walnuts when Dad's truck drove up the driveway.
Joy stopped and talked with him for a moment, and then continued toward the pond.
Dad joined the rest of the family on the porch.
"Bad news for Joy," he said.
"This morning the nut company lowered the price again—to ten cents."
"Oh, poor Joy!" said Mom.
Grandpa shook his head.
"She's running out of time," he said.
"Do you think she can still reach her goal?"
"I don't know," said Dad.
"Now she needs more than five hundred pounds."
"Now she needs a lot more helpers," said Katie.
Olivia pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.
"Now we need to make some phone calls!"