The Inheritance
By the Power Company
A woman and her daughter discover the origin of Feminox.


I have died and gone to hell.

The young girl was sitting in the passenger seat of a beat up old Volkswagen
bus as it bounced slowly down the highway through a barren dessert. She stared
out the window at the endless miles of nothingness. Her mom was driving,
humming to herself, obviously unaware that they had crossed over into the
realm of the dead.

"Hey, why so glum, Sunshine? We're almost there. If I'm reading the map
right."

The young girl looked at her mother with disgust and just a hint of anger.
Then she resumed her stoic contemplation of the world outside her window.
Everything she knew and loved was hundreds of miles behind them and slipping
further and further away with each unending hour of their journey.
Exasperated, she kicked off her sandals and rested her feet on what passed for
a dashboard, hoping desperately that she could find a position that would
afford her some degree of comfort and coolness. But there was no possibility
of either at the moment. Why, oh why, did she ever leave Oregon?

Was it just last month? Just last month she had been attending high school in
her tiny little town, nestled in the steep hills of southwestern Oregon. It
wasn't a great place to visit, but it was an okay place to live. She had her
friends, she was doing well in school for the first time in, like, ever, and
there were even some boys who seemed to be expressing some interest in her.
But now that was all ancient history.

Within the last month her life had taken a dramatic turn. A turn for the
worse, she thought, as she stared at the vast dessert.

Sunshine Andrews had grown up barefoot and free in one of the last vestiges of
hippy culture - a commune outside of the little town of Applegate in southern
Oregon. Her father had convinced her mother to move there from Nebraska in the
90's, got her pregnant, then ran off with a woman with a motor home. Her
mother made ends meet selling crafts and fruit at the local farmer's market.
They shared a house of sorts with another single mom and her two kids. They
got by.

Then a lawyer from Medford showed up one day looking for Chloe Andrews.
Sunshine thought it was funny that her mom's name was similar, Clover, and
then was astounded to find out that it really was her mother the man was
looking for. He said that he had spent several years tracking her down. It
seems that he was trying to close up an inheritance case. A Mary McCoy had
passed away and had left her estate to her next of kin. After more than a
decade of searching, Mary's lawyer had found the only living relative, Chloe,
now Clover, Andrews, her niece's daughter.

It wasn't a huge estate. Mary McCoy had owned her own home and a little health
food store in a small town called Austin, Nevada. Apparently the house was on
a lot with some out buildings and the whole estate was worth about $300,000
including the contents of the store (if any of it was still good).

Clover was excited by the possibilities of actually owning her own home and
even more excited about running a health food store. So, she packed up what
few belongings she and Sunshine had into her old van and they headed toward
Nevada. Much to Sunshine's dismay.

So here they were, mother and daughter, off on the adventure of a lifetime. Or
so Clover thought of it as one. Sunshine could only stare at the bleak scene
in front of her as the old van slowly bumped along Highway 50 toward some
destination that she could only assume included little red guys with horns and
pitchforks.

"I can't wait to see this city. The lawyer said the store was right on main
street," Clover said, as she stared straight ahead, like she was trying to use
telescopic vision to see the town before they got there. Here we go again,
Sunshine thought as she tried to see anything of interest to look at out the
side window. "I bet it'll be a great location. I've always wanted to run a
health food store." Was this the hundredth or two hundredth time she had said
this, Sunshine wondered.

"Mom," Sunshine began, trying desperately to change the subject before her
mother went through the entire litany of products she could sell at her health
food store and how much she had learned about macrobiotic foods and blah, blah
blah, "what did that guy say about Great Aunt Mary again? How did she die?"

"Sunshine, remember, you're a grown up now, honey, you can call me Clover,"
her mother reminded her. It was also a reminder that although Sunshine was 17,
that was the age her mother was when she was born and her mother liked it when
they were mistaken for contemporaries instead of mother and daughter. She took
her eyes off the road to smile at her lanky daughter.

Sunshine wasn't overly tall, just about 5' 9", but she was all arms and legs
it seemed. Had she been raised by another family, she may have been put in
modeling classes in middle school. Her hair was light brown and wildly curly.
And she reminded Clover so much of herself at that age.

"It seems kind of strange," her mother continued (after the author took time
out for a descriptive passage - it is good to set the scene, you know), "but
he said she was shot to death while in bed. But I'm not quite clear on the
details. I think he said it wasn't her own bed."

"Was she sleep walking and ended up in someone else's house? I mean, he said
she was born in the 1920's or something. She must have been in her 70's when
she died," Sunshine was still staring out the window as she was mentally
calculating the years. Anything to keep her mind off the endless expanse.

"Well, I suppose your right, Sunshine," Clover returned her attention to the
long ribbon of road in front of them. "But I'm sure the lawyer said that the
woman who shot her was in her 30's. And that she shot her own husband, too.
Out of jealousy..."

Clover just left that last statement hang in the air. Sunshine screwed up her
face trying hard to decipher the puzzle that her mom's Great Aunt Mary was
becoming.

Austin, Nevada was named for the city in Texas, but any similarity with that
city ended with its name. Austin is a tiny little town that once was a mining
mecca. In the 1800's the place was a bustling little burg. When Clover and
Sunshine finally pulled into town all they were greeted with was a small row
of shops, more closed up than open, that made up the main street. It wasn't a
ghost town, but it wasn't far from becoming one.

Clover pulled up at the address that the lawyer had given her for Aunt Mary's
health food store. The windows were so covered with dust and dirt, the two new
entrepreneurs could barely even see in. Sunshine looked around at the other
shops that were open. On one side of her mother's store was JJ's Garage that
advertised any kind of car repair and towing. She wondered if he had ever seen
a Volkswagen bus before since most of the vehicles she had seen on the way
into town were good old American trucks. On the other side was another empty
shop. But next to that was a small gym, the Muscle Mine. There were no cars in
front of it. It looked as deserted as the rest of the town.

"Isn't this exciting?" Clover wiped some of the dust off the door window as
she tried the keys in the lock.

Sunshine leaned against the building, not too hard, she thought to herself, I
might knock the old thing over. She was just about to disagree with her mother
when a young man's head popped out of the Muscle Mine. Then the rest of his
body followed. And Sunshine started feeling some of that excitement her mom
was talking about.

"Hey, how're you doing?" the strapping young man walked over to the two
ladies. He was at least four inches taller than Sunshine and built like a
young bodybuilder with wide shoulders, narrow waist and thick legs. He was
dressed in jeans and a tight t-shirt.

Sunshine unconsciously dragged her fingers through her hair as she stood up to
her full height. "Uh ... hi," she replied. God, I must sound like an idiot,
she thought.

"I heard that someone had inherited old Mary's store." He was talking to
Clover, but definitely checking out Sunshine.

Sunshine just smiled for a second. "Yeah ... yeah ..." she paused. Okay, now
he knows that I'm an idiot.

"Hi, I'm Clover," the older woman said as she stuck out her hand to the boy, "
and this is Sunshine."

The young man finally tore his eyes away from Sunshine and took Clover's hand,
"Oh ... nice to meet you Clover ... and ... Sunshine. I'm Justin ... Justin
Kim. My dad owns the Muscle Mine down the block. I guess that makes us new
neighbors, huh?" He smiled a big, healthy smile that Sunshine took an
immediate liking too.

Justin spread out his arms, "Do you need any help moving anything?"

"No, thanks, Justin," Clover replied. "We just wanted to look around the store
first, then we're headed out to Aunt Mary's house. Do you know where she
lived?"

"Mary McCoy? Well yeah ... she was pretty famous ... I mean, she was pretty
... well, she was known to ... well I heard some stories ..." Justin was
blushing. "Umm, yeah ... see, you go down the highway for another mile past
town and then turn left on McCoy road. It's the only house on the street."

"Well, thanks Justin," Clover said as she opened the door, "It's nice to meet
the new 'neighbors'."

"Yeah, likewise," he smiled again at Sunshine, "I'll see you around sometime.
Just holler if you need any help!" and he walked back towards the gym.

Clover and Sunshine stepped into their new store. It was semi dark inside
because of all the dust on the windows. But they found a light switch by the
front door and were happy to discover that the electricity was still on. After
exploring around the store for a good half hour, they headed back to the van
to continue their tour of their new town.

As the pair drove past the Muscle Mine, Clover saw Sunshine take a quick look
inside. "He's a nice boy, isn't he?" Clover asked.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"And kind of cute, too."

Sunshine didn't reply, she just smirked and looked straight ahead. As if she
were trying to look into the future. It looked a lot more promising than an
hour ago.

Aunt Mary's house was nothing spectacular, but it looked like it could become
home to Sunshine as they pulled up to it. It was a modest two story farm house
on a couple of fenced acres. There was a small barn next to it and another
building in the back. The keys that the lawyer had given Clover opened the
door easily. The two women entered into the house and immediately felt like
they had stepped back in time one or two generations.

Everything was neat and tidy. A place for everything and everything in it's
place. It looked like Mary McCoy had just stepped out for a quick run into
town. The only thing that gave away the passage of time was the layer of dust
on everything.

"Oh ... my ... god," Sunshine said as she looked curiously around the living
room. "Where do we start?"

"First, we find some bedrooms and some clean sheets. Then we'll look through
the cupboards for any canned foods that might still be good. And cleaning
materials ... lots of cleaning materials."

Sunshine had never known her mom to be a domestic type of woman, so she was
surprised to hear her talking like this. Like she had a plan. Like she even
knew how to keep house!

The next morning, Clover was in major cleaning mode. Everything was aired out,
wiped down, washed, dusted, and vacuumed. The whole time, Sunshine worked
right alongside her mom. It felt good to be doing something simple and yet
productive. By early afternoon, the two women were exhausted, but pleased with
their work. But something kept tugging at the back of Sunshine's mind.

She had noticed pictures of people, mostly couples and some groups, that Mary
had hung around the house. There was even a picture of her grandparents from
before her mother was born. In the living room were three photos that looked
to be from the 1930's, carefully framed and apparently loving displayed on the
fireplace mantle. They showed a young couple, a strapping young man and a
frail young woman. In all of them, their happiness and joy seemed to radiate
from their faces. The oldest photo was taken at the coast, at an old-time
boardwalk carnival. With the sun rising over the ocean, it was clearly taken
on the east coast.

Two other photos were taken outside of another house, but not the one that
Clover and Sunshine had just inherited. This was a small bungalow and from the
looks of the landscaping, it was probably located in California. In the last
one, the young man was dressed in a military uniform. And the young woman
looked even more frail and weak than before, smiling, but clearly being
supported by the man.

What really puzzled Sunshine was that in the room that she had claimed for her
bedroom, she had found a trunk the night before. She spent an hour looking
over a box full of photos taken much later. Some were labeled with dates, some
of the color photos had dates stamped on them from the developing process.
There were pictures from the 1950's through the early 1990's.

They all had the same woman as the ones on the mantle. Sunshine could only
assume that she was Great Aunt Mary. But there was a profound change in her
appearance. Instead of the frail woman from the early pictures, she seemed to
be vibrant and alive. In some of the photos she even seemed to be rather buff.
And she was with a different man in each photo. Some of the men looked to be
her age, but others looked quite a bit younger.

Another thing that Sunshine noticed was that Mary didn't seem to be aging all
that much. Maybe she was coloring her hair and using tons of wrinkle cream,
but the pictures taken of her in her 70's didn't look that much different than
those taken when she would have been in her 40's!

Sunshine thought about this all day as she cleaned house, but didn't mention
the pictures to her mom. She figured she would do a bit more sleuthing on her
own before she discussed her mysterious relative with mom. Besides, nothing
like a little mystery to solve to liven up an otherwise deathly boring
situation.

After a quick bite to eat for lunch, Clover and Sunshine headed back into town
to look over the store again. Sunshine did mental calculations about the ages
of Mary McCoy in the pictures she had found while her mom went on about
possibilities for the store. But the fatigue that had crept in on the pair
after their whirlwind morning, kept coming on. They were only able to clean a
few shelves and inventory a few of the items in the back room before calling
it a day.

After dinner, Sunshine retired to her room, sore, and exhausted from the long
day. Why had her mother dragged her away from her beloved Oregon to die like a
slave in this desert? She slept that night like a log, not even bothering to
investigate the trunk any further.

In the morning, Sunshine slowly eased her way out of the bed and down the
stairs toward the kitchen. It felt like every muscle in her body was ready to
go on strike. Even playing basketball in PE didn't leave her this sore.

Clover, meanwhile, was happily humming and bustling around the kitchen,
preparing a big breakfast for them. Sunshine sat astounded, cradling a cup of
hot tea, as she watched her mother bounce around the room. What was this woman
made of, she thought to herself. How can she have so much energy, when I feel
like dying?

"Mom..."

Clover kept on humming and bustling.

"Mom," Sunshine said with all the energy she could muster this day, "what is
going on with you? Don't you feel sore? I fee like an elephant has been
rolling around on me all night and you look like that ... that battery bunny,
thingy, whatever it is ..." Her voice trailed off. Even talking was tiresome.
She went back to sipping her tea and trying her best to ignore her mother.

Her mother stopped to consider Sunshine's question. She had on an apron and
was holding a spatula that she was using to tend the eggs and hash browns.
"You know, come to think of it, I do feel pretty energetic today. I certainly
didn't start the day off that way though." She went back to her cooking, "I
was sore, too. Could barely move. But I found a bottle of vitamins in Aunt
Mary's medicine chest. Maybe that's what making me feel so good, now!"

"A vitamin can do that? In just a few minutes?" Sunshine didn't want to sound
too condescending toward her mother, but everyone new that vitamins didn't
really do that much or work that fast. "Besides, wouldn't that bottle of
vitamins have to be almost a decade old by now? It could end up making you
sick or something."

"You worry too much, little one," Clover regarded her daughter with an over
the shoulder glance and an eye-roll.

God, she hated that. She was the one who had perfected the eye-roll. And she
always hated it when her mother would use it against her. "Well, I'm not going
to take any expired drugs." Sunshine reported as she held her cup up to her
lips with both hands. "I don't even like taking aspirin. Besides, what's in
this wonder drug, hmmm? Have you ever heard of it before?"

Clover shrugged her shoulders, "The label doesn't say much, but it must be
okay. You know how sensitive I am to any kind of drug. And I feel okay! No,
actually, I feel better than okay. I feel really alive for the first time in a
long time." She turned and smiled at Sunshine with her hands on her hips.

Suddenly, Clover walked away from the kitchen. In a few moments, she
reappeared with a large vitamin bottle in hand. She placed it on the table in
front of her daughter. "There you go, it's called Feminox." Clover motioned to
it with her spatula which reminded her that she had food cooking on the stove.

Sunshine took the old glass vitamin bottle in hand and looked at the label. Or
rather lack of a label. There was a simple sticker on the bottle that read:
Feminox Super-Vitamins. Just One a Day for STRENGTH and VITALITY. 1000
tablets.

That was it. No list of ingredients. No place of manufacture. Not even a date
to tell you when they expire.

"And here's the really crazy part. Remember that trash can that we filled up
yesterday? How both of us could barely get it outside? I lifted it by myself
this morning and put it over by that old barn! What'dya think of that? Hmm?"
Clover lifted her arms and flexed her muscles in a pretend show of might.
Except this time, before Sunshine looked away, she could have sworn she saw
some actual muscle in her mother's usually extremely thin arms.

Sunshine dismissed it as 'before tea morning blurry vision'. She went back to
her steaming cup. But something was beginning to add up. She was just to sore
to make sense of anything just yet, and tea and some food would help clear the
cobwebs. Mystery solving would have to wait.

Clover's annoying perkiness kept up all through the morning. Everything she
did seemed calculated to bother her daughter, or so Sunshine thought.
Whistling while scrubbing the front porch that had been collecting dirt for
ten years, humming to herself as she pruned some bushes in the heat of the
day, trying on some of Aunt Mary's clothes (and being pleasantly surprised
that the old clothes fit and looked fashionably out of style - just like
Clover liked to dress).

Like the day before, they spent the afternoon cleaning and arranging the
store. Today, though, Sunshine kept her eye out for something she had noticed
the day before. Working in the storeroom, she moved several boxes of expired
vitamins and supplements to uncover two plain crates. "I thought I had seen
that label before," she said to herself while picking up one of the bottles.
It was a Feminox Super-Vitamin bottle. Both crates were filled with them. She
replaced the bottle and lifted the top crate to show her mom. Well, attempted
to lift the crate. She barely moved it and was afraid she would drop it, so
she replaced it back on top of the other crate. Doing a quick calculation, she
figured that each bottle weighed about one pound and that with three layers of
fifteen bottles, the crate must weigh over 45 pounds. Better wait until mom
can help me, Sunshine thought. She went out front to get her.

"Hey Mom! I found some more of your "Super-Duper-Vitamin-Stuff" in back."

"Oh good!" Clover said as she set down her cleaning cloth and joined her
daughter in the storeroom.

Sunshine pointed out the crates, "These two are filled with bottles of the
stuff."

"Awesome!" her mother exclaimed as she reached for the crates, "Let's move
this out to the front and find a display case for it." Clover casually grabbed
the hand holds on the lower crate and lifted both with ease.

Sunshine was about to stop her mother and offer assistance, but all she could
do was stand with mouth agape as Clover walked confidently back to the front
of the store with the crates.

Sunshine followed her mom, truly worried that she may injure herself lifting
such a heavy load, "Mom ... uh Clover! Wait! Do you know how much those crates
weigh?"

Clover hefted the crates a couple of times, trying to estimate their combined
weight, "Oh, I don't know ... maybe 25 ... 30 pounds. Nothing I can't lift by
myself." She set the crates down and saw the concerned look on Sunshine's
face, "I'm okay, honey, it's not really that heavy."

Sunshine stared at her mother, sure she was high on something. Then she
reached past her and took another bottle out of the top crate. She placed the
bottle on a scale that had been used to measure bulk foods in Aunt Mary's
heyday. The bottle weighed one and a half pounds.

"Mo ... Clo ... Mother," Sunshine sputtered, "one and a half pounds each and
there are 45 bottles per crate, do the math, Mom! That's over ..."

She never finished her math lesson. Suddenly there was something that sounded
like an explosion on the other side of the side wall of the store and the
whole wall shuddered. Carefully arranged shelves of bottles and boxes came
crashing down, some glass bottles shattered on the concrete floor of the
store.

Clover and Sunshine could only gasp in fear and anger as their hard work lay
strewn on the floor around their feet. Both women ran outside to see what
could have caused the explosion. there was nothing and no one in any
direction. The town looked as deserted as usual. Only the door to JJ's Garage
was open and they could hear someone talking. That was the side of the
building that the explosion had come from, so they peered inside to see if
everything was okay.

A large, obviously heavyset man was bent over, reaching into a refrigerator.
Either his pants were slung too low, or he hadn't bothered to find a shirt
that was quite long enough. This allowed a goodly portion of his rather hairy
lower back and butt crack to greet the town's newest residents. He stood back
up pulling open the tab on a beer can.

"Hello? Is everything okay?" Clover tentatively asked.

The grimy man stared mutely at her for a second. Then he took a big gulp of
beer and belched. "Who the hell are you?" he asked as he wiped a line of beer
off his chin with the back of his hand.

"I'm ... I'm your new next door neighbor," Clover got out after recuperating
from his rude question. "I ... we ... thought we heard an explosion." Clover
timidly stepped further into the garage. Sunshine followed at a safe distance.
"I'm Clover Andrews," she said, extending her hand, "and this is my daughter,
Sunshine."

"I'm sure you are," was the reply as the burly man ignored the extended hand
and took another slug of beer. "And I suppose with names like," he paused for
another juicy belch, "Clover and Little Miss Sunshine, you're the ones who're
gonna open up that fucking health food store again."

Clover and Sunshine stood silent in the face of his verbal assault. "Well, let
me introduce myself, 'neighbor.' I'm JJ and this here's my garage." He stepped
up to his old tow truck, "And this here is Lulu, my towwer. Any explosion you
heard must have just been me parking Lulu. See, she's got these big ass
bumpers on her, kinda like my girl, Cindy." He motioned toward a room that
passed for his office and a woman in her late thirties stood at the door.
Although she was quickly getting past her prime, the most noticeable assets
that Cindy bore were two huge breasts that stretched her sweater almost
unnaturally. She waved a little at Clover and then disappeared back into the
office.

"And the only way that I know I've got Lulu all the way in, is if her bumpers
touch the wall. So," JJ took another swig, "that's probably what you heard. No
explosion. Nothing to worry your little bitty heads about."

"Well your parking job just knocked one of my displays over!" Clover was
feeling really hot with all of JJ's condescending attitude and was getting a
little bolder.

"Oh, did Lulu knock down a few of your vitamin bottles?" JJ turned away from
the women and shuffled over to his office. "I'll tell her to be more careful
in the future. And lissen, we need a health food store here like we need
another fucking hole in our heads. So why don't you just pack up your bus and
head back to San Fran or Berzerkley, or wherever the hell you're from."

"We're from Oregon." Sunshine replied coldly.

"Oh, sorry, princess. Get the fuck back to yer commune, then!" he yelled as he
slammed the door.

Clover and Sunshine were left seething. But instead of pursuing the matter
with this caveman, Clover stomped back to her store and threw herself into
cleaning things up. Sunshine pitched in and both women worked in silence for
the rest of the afternoon.

Later that night, Sunshine dug out a diary that she had found under the photos
in the trunk in her room. As Sunshine suspected, it told the story of Mary and
her true love, her husband Allan. Mary was sickly, so they moved to Southern
California for the clean air. Allan went off to WWII and died there. Mary
almost died herself, of a broken heart.

Without support and in failing health, Mary turned to whatever work she could
find. She ended up in a Chinese 'pharmacy' in LA working for a man named Mah
Ti Ling. This man was said to be a healer who used ancient remedies. He was
known throughout Chinatown. Mary wasn't too keen on alternative medicine at
the time and thought the whole thing was just a lot of snake oil. Still a job
was a job and she tried to be a good employee.

It wasn't long until Mr. Ling offered to help his worker. It was obvious that
she was sickly and he said he could mix up something that could ease her
ailments. He gave her a box filled with small packets of white powder with the
instruction to take one per day.

The effect was immediate and dramatic. From the very first day, Mary felt
better than she had since her youth. She continued to take the formula and
kept on improving. Mr. Ling was only too pleased to make more of the compound
and soon Mary was researching ways to turn it into a pill.

Mary discovered that the pill's effects lasted almost exactly 24 hours (that's
good to know, Sunshine thought) and that they seemed to double her strength
(duly noted, again by Sunshine) and that after years of taking them, she had
steadily grown naturally stronger, even a little stronger than most women her
age.

By the mid-1950's she had started hanging out with some of the bodybuilders
down at the beach near Santa Monica on the weekends and had tried lifting
weights with some of the guys. She had always been kind of cute in a little
sister sort of way, so some of the men were more than glad to help her with
her training. She found that the stronger she was without the pills, the
greater the effect was when she took the pills. And surprisingly, as her
physique responded, so too did her sexual drive. Soon she was dating the
bodybuilders who were 10 - 15 years her junior.

Then tragedy struck one night as she was closing up the pharmacy. A large man
pushed his way into the store, brandishing a gun, and demanding all of the
money in the till. Mah Ti came out from the back room with and began to argue
with the robber. Mary reached for her pills and popped two more in her mouth,
hoping that they would give her a little more strength and courage. To her
great surprise, her strength seemed to double and then double again.

Just then the gun went off and the old man stumbled back and fell to the
floor, mortally wounded. Mary lunged at the robber. She grabbed the wrist that
held the weapon with one hand while she grabbed a handful of his jacket with
the other and effortlessly lifted him off the floor. Before she realized what
she was doing, she snapped the interloper's wrist and shoved him through the
front window. Dazed and in terrible pain, the man ran off as fast as his feet
could carry him. Sunshine's heart was beating faster and her head was spinning
as she read the account. Could these little pills really do that?

Mary turned her attention back to her aged mentor. For all her formidable
strength, she was powerless to save him. As he lay dying, he confided in her
that the formula he had made for her was part vitamin and part magic which
Mary had already suspected. He told her where to find his hidden notes and
encouraged her to help others. With his last breath he entrusted his shop and
secrets to her.

After mourning the loss of another man in her life, Mary quietly sold the shop
and moved to Nevada. She set up a small factory at her house to manufacture
her vitamin pills that she called Feminox. She made sure that Mah Ti Ling's
secrets would be safe, but she didn't specify what she had done with them.

Then the diary turned to Mary's rapacious sexual appetites and her exploits in
a small town. Wild nights spent with much, much younger men. Apparently, the
Feminox had another affect; it kept her looking and acting decades younger
than she really was. The entries got fewer and farther between. Mary wrote
less and less over the years until her finally entry two years before her
death.

Sunshine figured from the dates of the entries that she may have bedded most
of the men in Austin and the surrounding area. Until that night she was
caught, that is. It all finally made sense. But where would Aunt Mary hide her
secret formula?

A cool wind came up and blew through Sunshine's window. She set the book aside
and went to close the drapes. In the moonlight she saw the old barn behind the
house. Maybe in there, she thought.

Silently, Sunshine crept down the stairs and found a flashlight in a box of
stuff they had brought with them from Oregon. Then she slipped out the back
door and crossed to the barn. The door was locked, so she fished out the set
of keys her mother ... oh yeah ... 'Clover' had given her. God, I'll never get
used to that, she thought, kids shouldn't be so informal with parents. It's
not like she's a buddy or something.

She finally found the right key and with a little persuasion, the old lock
opened. Using her flashlight, she searched the blackness for a light switch.
"Sure hope Aunt Mary believed in using electricity," she mumbled to herself.
After a brief search, she found several switches.

The first one she tried lit an outside light. She quickly extinguished that
and tried the next on. Success! The inside of the barn blazed with overhead
lights. But what Sunshine saw in the barn shocked her so much she nearly
dropped her flashlight. (to be continued ... )