Free The Year Money Grew on Trees by Aaron Hawkins Page A

joined us. Sam kept pestering Amy and me to teach him to drive the tractor, and finally during our afternoon Shasta break we agreed. The other kids all wanted lessons too, but we said the cutoff age was eleven, mostly because we didn't want Michael driving.
    After his run-in with the Barracuda, Sam proved to be a very careful driver. He was always a little nervous and would drive so slowly, the rest of us would become impatient. Amy pulled him out of the seat before any long trips to the drop-off area.
    Sam was driving the tractor into the orchard's last row with a few hours of sunlight left. Before he could pull up close to a pile of branches, the tractor sputtered a little and then the engine cut out. Instantly my stomach hurt. Amy turned to me and put her hand on my shoulder. I moved reluctantly toward the engine.
    "What's he going to do?" asked Jennifer, who hadn't been around for the first gas line episode.
    "You don't want to know," Michael answered solemnly.
    I unscrewed the hose and pulled it out. When I put the hose in my mouth, the taste of gas came flooding back. I tried sucking very quickly then pulling the tube away
so the gas wouldn't have a chance to fill up my mouth. Nothing happened. I tried sucking a little longer. Still nothing. I sucked until my cheek muscles hurt and still nothing happened.
    "Amy, can you go get your dad?" I said in a defeated voice.
    Ten minutes later she was back with Uncle David.
    "I tried sucking really hard, but I just can't get anything to come out," I explained, holding up the tube.
    Uncle David pulled off the gas cap and looked inside the tank. "That's because you don't have any gas." He stood back and looked at all of us, shook his head, and laughed. "You look like a bunch of war orphans living in the forest or something. If I had some gas, I would give you some just because you look so pitiful." We did look ragged. Almost everyone had a runny nose and scratched-up skin. Sam and Michael both had on "Hang Loose—Hawaii" T-shirts that were almost shredded. My sisters had tiny apple branches stuck in their blond hair.
    My uncle thought for a moment. "Jackson, follow me. I'm going to teach you a little trick your grandpa taught me."
    I followed him alone out of the orchard. He found a two-gallon gas can sitting near one of his cars and then a four-foot length of garden hose. We walked over to my house.
    "I don't think your daddy would mind you borrowing a little of his gas, do you?"
    We ducked behind the car my dad drove to work, and he unscrewed the gas cap. He slid the hose down the pipe that led to the gas tank.
    "This is what we call siphoning. You've got to suck on the hose to start the gas flowing and then put the sucking end of the hose as low to the ground as possible. The gas will start flowing, and then you can fill up the can. Now, I know you have experience with this sort of thing"—he looked at me with a grin—"so I'm sure you can do it. Try to be as fast as you can so you swallow as little gas as possible."
    I wasn't exactly sure whether he was joking or not, but I took the hose, anyway. I gave it a quick suck and then pushed it to the ground.
    "You're going to have to do it a little longer than that," he said with an encouraging voice.
    On the second try, my hands felt the cool gas filling the hose, but I lost my nerve and stopped sucking too soon again. On the third try, the gas poured freely. I spit and coughed as I moved the hose to the gas can.
    "Get any in your mouth?" my uncle asked.
    "A little. Not as much as with the tractor."
    We both giggled as the can filled up, and then we pulled the hose out of the car's gas pipe. He even carried
the can out to the tractor for me and helped pour it into the fuel tank.
    We finished with the branches and parked the tractor back in its spot between our two houses. "So what was it my dad showed you?" asked Amy when we were alone.
    "I'll teach you the next time the tractor runs out of gas," I told her. And I did.