The Puzzle Of the Peach Tree

by Jeff Baker

You have to understand about my Uncle Gil. He always meant well. He invented a light bulb he said would never burn out, but it blew out the power for the entire block when we tried to use it. He’d had it plugged into the generator at the old farmhouse outside of town he used as his laboratory.

He tried shooting something into the clouds to make it rain but it just made a bad smell.

Then there was the incident with the peach tree.

Uncle Gil had a bunch of trees on his property, usually fruit trees including one with crab apples which he let the birds get. He said it was part of an experiment and I never found out what. But that was back when I was about nine years old.

Anyway when I was about fifteen he fenced-off one of the peach trees and said he’d been busy crossing and splicing them for years and finally “got the consistency.” The peach tree wasn’t that tall and the peaches were nothing to brag about; they were small and green like the under-ripe ones my brother and I used to pull off the tree in our own backyard. But on closer inspection they were bluish-green under the covering of fuzz.

“They’re perfect!” Uncle Gil said.

He explained that he had crossed a peach tree with cuttings from an African Baobab tree; “a tree that can be used for anything,” he declared.

“And these little gems will save households millions,” he said, holding up one of the little green peaches. It was about the size of the screw top of a bottle of soda.

“What do they do?” I asked.

“They’re laundry detergent!” Uncle Gill said. “Natural laundry detergent! Toss one of these in with the wash with a load of clothes and they’ll be clean as a whistle! Can you imagine how much money people will save by growing their own detergent?”

“Have you tried it?” I asked, eyeing the peach the way I would a big cockroach. I’d seen Uncle Gil’s experiments work and I’d also seen them go haywire.

“Of course I’ve tried it, Jason my boy!” He turned around twice and I realized he was displaying the clothes he was wearing. “I did my own laundry with a peach this morning!”

I had to admit his clothes looked really clean.

“Here, you try it out!” Uncle Gill pulled out a small paper bag and proceeded to plop several off the mini-peaches in and hand it to me.

I managed a “thanks,” wondering what I was getting myself into.

“Remember, just one peach per load,” he said. “Unless you have a really big, dirty load.”

I nodded and rode my bike home, hanging on to the little peach bag.

It was the weekend and Mom and Dad were out so I grabbed my gym shorts, sweatpants and sweatshirt, went downstairs to the laundry room and tossed the clothes in the washer along with one of Uncle Gil’s peaches. (Mom and Dad had made sure I knew how to do stuff like do my own laundry part of “helping around the house.”)

About a half hour into washing I opened the washer and inspected the load. My sweatshirt, shorts and sweatpants in with water and suds. Just like a normal load of laundry. I shut the lid and turned the wash back on wondering if the peach would leave a pit. I’d kept remembering TV shows where a kid tried to do laundry and filled the house with suds.

Two hours later the clothes were washed, dried and back in my room.

Next day in Gym Class I was wearing those clothes when Coach made us run laps outside first thing. That was when I really broke into a sweat as it was one of the first really warm days. And the first I noticed anything was wrong was when Kenny Beasley ran past me yelling “Run!”

A couple of other kids ran past me too and I glanced behind me and saw the line of kids who had been jogging along scattering every which way. And over them was a huge cloud of what looked like little dots swirling in the air, heading my way.

Bees.

After me.

I had already turned on the track and was heading for the gym and I don’t know if I set a school speed record but I made it back inside, tore off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the inside floor and ran for the locker room slamming the door behind me. I hid there until Coach pounded on the door to be let in.

He said bees were swarming around my discarded clothes and I explained all about my Uncle’s crossbred peaches. I wasn’t sure he believed me but he made me shower and change into my street clothes. By then they had somehow shoved my gym clothes (and the bees) outside and left them there.

“An unforeseen side effect,” Uncle Gil said. “Your sweat must have activated something in the formula that made it attract bees. Maybe some kind of hyper sweetness. You know, this could be a boon to beekeepers.”

I never found if he sold the peach tree process to any beekeepers. I just know I gave him back the bag of laundry peaches and went to buy new gym clothes.

But it beat wearing bees!

—end—