The Ticket with Two Stamps

On the last day of the apple harvest, the Hollow Farm holds its picking contest. Every picker gets a book of paper tickets. Each full crate earns one ticket. The clerk at the weigh shed stamps it with a blue circle. At sunset, the person with the most stamps wins the Golden Ladder and a bonus for the week.

For three years, the winner has been either Zuri or Yaw. They work in neighbouring rows, and they hate to lose.

This morning, they stand side by side at the gate, looking at the trees. The orchard stretches up the hill in neat green lines. The air smells of cut grass and sweet fruit.

"You have been practising," Zuri says.

"I have been resting," Yaw says. "It is a different thing. You should try it."

"I rested last year. It cost me the ladder."

"I know." Yaw smiles. "It was a beautiful ladder."

Then the horn sounds, and the contest begins.

By ten o'clock, both of them are moving like machines. Zuri works with long, smooth reaches. She twists each apple off the branch and lays it in the basket without a bruise. Yaw is quicker but rougher. He climbs his ladder four times for every one of hers. His basket is always full before hers.

But the clerk checks every apple, and Yaw loses points for the bruised ones. The two of them trade the lead all morning. At noon, they sit under a tree and eat sandwiches without speaking. Each of them counts a small number in their head. Neither of them says it aloud.

In the afternoon, the pace grows even faster. The sun slides lower, and the shadows of the trees stretch down the hill like long fingers. People call out their numbers from row to row. A boy cheers for Yaw. A group of older pickers cheers for Zuri. Neither of them hears a word.

At half past five, with one hour left, Zuri brings her next crate to the weigh shed. The clerk is a quiet man with a rubber stamp and a very tired wrist. He weighs the crate and takes her ticket.

Thunk, goes the stamp. Then, without thinking, he does it again.

A second blue circle lands on the first.

Zuri looks at the ticket. The two circles sit almost on top of each other.

"You stamped it twice," she says.

"Did I?" The clerk looks at the paper. "Oh no. I am so sorry. My hand is on automatic."

"So, does it count as two crates?"

"No." The clerk shakes his head firmly. "Absolutely not. The rule says a double stamp makes the ticket void. It is nothing. It does not count at all."

"That is not fair," says a voice behind her.

It is Yaw. He has just arrived with his own crate, and he heard everything. He takes the ticket from the clerk's hand and holds it up to the light.

"She picked that crate fairly," he says. "I watched her pick it. Look at the weight on the card. It is the biggest crate of the day."

Zuri stares at him. She does not expect this from her biggest rival.

"I know it does not help me," Yaw says. "But the clerk made the mistake. She should not lose for it."

"Thank you," Zuri says slowly. "That is very decent of you."

"Do not get used to it," says Yaw.

They both look at the clerk. He looks at his stamp, and then at the two pickers, and he sighs.

"I cannot change the rules," he says. "But I can ask the owner."

The owner of Hollow Farm arrives five minutes later. She is a big woman in muddy boots, with a pencil behind her ear. She looks at the ticket for a long time. Then she looks at the tally board, where the two names stand side by side.

"Forty for Zuri and forty-one for Yaw," she says. "Interesting."

"With the double ticket, I would have forty-one," Zuri says.

"Then it is a tie. Without it, Yaw wins by one." The owner scratches her chin. "A tie is boring, and a void is unfair. I have an idea."

She points up the hill with her pencil. At the very top of the orchard, a single row of old, tall trees stands against the sky. They are the Winter Queens, the oldest trees on the farm. Their apples are the best of the harvest, pale and golden and heavy with juice. But the branches grow almost eight metres above the ground.

"Nobody picks the Winter Queens," the owner says. "My best ladder is too short, and the ground up there is stony. The apples are going to waste. Pick one full crate from those trees before the horn, and I will honour this ticket."

"By myself?" Zuri asks.

"One of you on the ladder, and one of you holding it steady," the owner says. "Because nobody climbs those trees alone. If the ladder moves, the person on top falls."

Zuri and Yaw look at each other. Neither of them speaks.

"We have fifty minutes," Yaw says at last.

"I am lighter," Zuri says. "I should climb."

"I am stronger," says Yaw. "I should hold."

"If you let go, I will never forgive you."

"If you drop the apples, I will never forgive you," Yaw says.

They race up the hill together, carrying the empty crate between them. It is the first time all day that they have walked side by side.

The ground under the Winter Queens is stony and uneven, just as the owner said. Yaw plants the ladder carefully and pushes the legs into the earth. He puts his shoulder against it and plants his feet.

"Ready," he says.

Zuri climbs. Each step makes the ladder shiver, and Yaw leans in harder. Higher and higher she goes, until she is among the branches. The fruit hangs round her like lamps.

"Left a little," she calls down. "No, your left. Good. Hold it there."

"I am holding it. I am holding it. Are you picking or talking?"

"Both. Catch."

She drops the first apple. He catches it neatly in the crate. Then comes the second, and the third. They find a rhythm that neither of them has used before. She picks, he catches, and the crate fills.

Every few minutes, Yaw moves the ladder to a new branch. Each time, Zuri waits patiently, her feet steady, and each time he says, "Ready." The word starts to sound like a friend's name.

When the light turns orange, they have one crate. When the horn sounds in the valley, they have three.

They carry the crates down the hill, one handle each, in two trips. The clerk is waiting at the door of the weigh shed. When he sees the pale golden fruit, he lets out a low whistle. He takes the old ticket and presses the stamp down once, with great care.

A last, careful stamp falls.

"Forty-one for Zuri," he says. Then he stamps two new tickets, one for each of them. "Forty-two for Zuri. Forty-two for Yaw."

The owner steps out of the shed with the Golden Ladder under one arm. It is smaller than Zuri remembers. It has a tiny silver ladder on top. Below it is a plate with room for exactly one name.

"The farm has a problem," she says. "I only have one trophy."

Yaw looks at Zuri. Zuri looks at Yaw. A slow smile spreads across her face.

"So," she says, "who gets to carry it home?"