As soon as I saw Ruth's car backing into the driveway I ran out onto the lawn, and when she opened her door I said, "In urban communities it has been the potato which has almost single-handedly brought about the abolishment of scurvy." Ruth handed me her laundry basket.

"Because of the vitamin C," I said.

"The judges won't ask you any of that," said Ruth. Potato Day was tomorrow, and the pageant, and if anyone knew about it all, it was Ruth. "They like you to be able to apply what you find out about potatoes to our area. So later you can talk about us to the big papers if you win."

"I'm just going to throw it in somewhere," I said.

"Oh yeah," she said, looking around. She stepped farther out onto the driveway and shook her legs. Behind her the garden was bare and black, where our father had tilled it after we'd cleared out the last of the corn. My fingernails still smelled like old leaves. In the tall brown grass by the garden a pile of leaves curled, along with the cucumbers that had gotten too bitter and big.

"We've got sixteen pumpkins," I told her. "We carved up a few of them and froze the rest." We walked on the planks leading from the driveway to the house that our father had put down last spring, to keep our feet out of the mud, although now in October the ridges on either side of the wood were stiff.

"Great."

"I've missed you," I said.

In the kitchen our mother ran in from the hall, in a yellow t-shirt with a glittery patch that said "Arizona." She giggled and hugged my sister.

"What's so funny?" Ruth said.

"Don't you ever laugh just because you're happy?" Mom touched Ruth's head.

"That's stupid." Ruth smiled. She still had her backpack on. I put the laundry basket on the washer in the corner.

Mom giggled again, squeezing Ruth's arms. "Here she is," she said. "The reigning Queen."

"Oh, God," my sister said, but she looked a little happy.

At dinner Ruth said that we should hear the way the kids at college in Minneapolis talked about some things, like Indian reservations. Oh, oh, they said. The Indian reservations: the pow-wows and peace pipes and communal hunts. They asked her whether it was all tundra where she lived, so near to Canada. Did polar bears knock over our garbage cans. Did we live all winter in the dark. Did anything grow in all that ice.

Ruth got quiet and poked her meatloaf with her fork. Mom reached out, squeezed Ruth's hand. Was she getting along any better with her roommate, Mom wanted to know. Ruth said that all the roommate did was have her boyfriend over and smoke marijuana and talk about alternative realities. The roommate was reading Plato and had decided she wanted to be an idea. Mom asked did Ruth hang out with anyone else. Ruth shrugged, and Mom looked quickly over at Dad.

"What do they think about going to school with the Potato Day Queen?" Dad said. He had washed his hands after coming in from cutting up slabs but he still smelled like cold and bark and gasoline.

Ruth tapped her cup. "Why would they care?" Dad looked at her a minute.

I said, "Potatoes delight in a cool, moist environment."

Mom turned from Ruth to look at me and laugh. "Maybe we've got the next one, too."

"I wonder what people would say about that," said Dad. "Ruth crowning her."

"It's not up to Ruth," Mom said. "If the envelope says Carolyn she's got to crown Carolyn."