someone engineering the potatoes?”
The woman next in line tapped the young mother on the shoulder. “Did he say something about bug poison?”
“Poison?” cried Lilith over in Lane 1.
“Poisoned potatoes?” echoed Charmey in Lane 7.
And just then a deep, amplified voice boomed out over the PA system.
“Attention shoppers! Did somebody say POTATOES?”
The loud reggae version of “Here Comes Santa Claus” drowned out the Christmas carols and silenced the crowd. They turned and stared at the apparition dancing toward them.
It was Mr. Potato Head, twirling a candy-striped cane as he pushed a shopping cart bearing an enormous boom box toward the cash registers. Now, Mr. Potato Head was not just any old spud. He was a sweet, sporty potato, friendly and dapper. He had big, googly eyes and lozenge-shaped ears, as pink as Pepto-Bismol. He wore a green leisure suit and a Santa Claus hat perched on the top of his bald, orbicular head. He hung his cane over one arm and did a spudly little soft-shoe on his spindly green legs.
He positioned his cart in a central location in front of Lane 5, then danced along the aisles, distributing paper daisies and leaflets. By now the children, tired of waiting with their moms, were laughing and clapping. They ran to him and tugged on his burlap hide. They jumped up and down.
The Seeds quickly followed suit, passing leaflets to the customers in their lanes. Then they pushed their shopping carts forward, circling Mr. Potato Head’s boom box like a wagon train shoring up defenses. Frank started joining the carts together with inconspicuous lengths of precut baling wire. The barricade would not be much of a deterrent to the police, Geek had explained, but it would make their arrest more spectacular. When the cops showed up, the Seeds would close ranks and cordon themselves off in the center. In order to reach them, the cops would have to tear the shopping carts apart or tip them over—a noisy business. Crude and violent. Very impressive.
Charmey, meanwhile, had opened a bag of Idaho bakers and tossed a couple of spuds to Y, who juggled them and threw them to Lilith, who added a squash, and before long, dozens of potatoes, zucchinis, squashes, and even tomatoes were tumbling through the air in precise, intricate arcs. Mr. Potato Head returned to the center of the circle and continued his soft-shoe amid the flying vegetables, and the children started to clap and cheer.
Frank finished securing the carts and stood to one side, scanning the store. He caught sight of Shawna talking to a fat fuck named Phil who had once been Frank’s supervisor at Mickey D’s. Shawna pointed one long green nail in Frank’s direction. Phil narrowed his eyes and headed back toward the glassed-in office area, where Frank saw him pick up the phone. Frank headed toward Y.
“Yo, dude. The manager’s back on site, and he’s making the call.”
Y nodded. Without missing a beat, he walked to the boom box and slowly faded down the volume. On cue the jugglers snatched the vegetables from the air. When the music was quiet, Mr. Potato Head took up a small microphone.
“First we want to thank Thrifty Foods for opening its doors to us,” he said. He turned to the kids, wiggling his rosy, discoid ears. “Who wants to play a game with Mr. Potato Head?”
The children had formed a circle around him. He pulled out a big red tomato and held it up for them to see.
“What’s this?” he asked. “Can anyone tell me?”
“A tomato!” cried a little girl in front.
“Very good!” said Mr. Potato Head. “You think it’s a tomato. Now, how many of the rest of you think it’s a tomato?”
The others nodded in agreement. It was a tomato, all right.
“Well, what if I told you it wasn’t a tomato?” Mr. Potato Head pulled out a chiffon scarf and draped it over the tomato.
“What if . . .”
He held the scarf out in front of him for the kids to see.
“. . . I told you . . .”
He circled slowly. “. . . it was . . .”
The kids held their breath.
“. ..a flounder!” And with that he yanked off the scarf to reveal a large, slimy fish. Charmey had defrosted it the night before and daubed it with glycerin to make it drip and glisten. A clamor went up from the circle of kids.
“Yuuuuck!” they cried. “Gross!” They screwed up their noses.
Mr. Potato Head raised his black, sluglike eyebrows. “You said it, kids.” He tossed the fish over his shoulder to Charmey, who caught it neatly in a burlap sack.
“Now try this one. What’s this?” He held up a potato. This time the children weren’t so sure.
“A potato?” asked a little boy.
“Nope.” Mr. Potato Head stepped forward. “It’s not a potato. . . .” He reached behind the boy’s ear and pulled out a candy cane.
“Ooops, it’s not a candy cane.” He handed it to the boy and tried again. He reached behind the ear of a little girl. This time he pulled out a plastic Christmas tree.
“Oh, dear! It’s not a Christmas tree either,” he said, handing it to the girl, who gave a little skip and turned around to show her mother.
“No, my miniature friends,” he continued, holding up the potato and draping it once again with his scarf. “This potato is not a potato at all.” He leaned over the heads of the children and invited a mother to pull off the scarf. “It is . . .”
The woman giggled, then gave a yank.
“. . . bug poison!”
And sure enough the potato had been transformed in his hand into a large spray can of household insecticide, which he held up for all to see.
“This, my friends, is the perverted magic of biotechnology.” Mr. Potato Head’s voice grew serious now, as he addressed the mothers over the heads of their offspring. “But genetic engineering is no joke, not when it comes to the food you feed your children. As of 1997 over thirty genetically engineered crops were approved by the U.S. government for sale, including potatoes that are genetically spliced with a bacterial pesticide and tomatoes crossed with fish genes to increase their resistance to the cold. Then there’s corn, canola, soybeans, squash. . . .”
He had the mothers’ attention.
Frank, meanwhile, was counting. He figured they had about five minutes before the cops showed up. He looked around for Charmey. He tested the strength of his wire.
“Approximately sixty to seventy percent of processed foods now contain some form of genetically modified corn or soy. That means infant formulas, baby foods, pizza, soda, chips. . . .”
The mothers scanned the contents of their carts.
“And it isn’t just vegetables either. . . .”
Frank looked out the window and realized he was wrong again. Five-O was pulling into the parking lot. Three squad cars. He alerted Y, then stood close to Charmey in case things got rough. Y passed the word on to Mr. Potato Head, who started speaking faster now.
“Who here drinks milk?” He looked around at the circle of children, then to the mothers behind. There wasn’t a woman without a gallon and a child.
The assistant manager ran to the door as the police approached.
“Po-po’s here, dudes,” Y said. “Hang on. Here we go!”
The Seeds retreated to the center of the circle of carts. Frank secured the opening with the last of the wire, then took Charmey’s hand, forming, along with Lilith and Y, a tight line of defense around Mr. Potato Head, who raised his cane