The Syrup Bandit by Tevin Hansen
“You there! What are you up to?” said a loud and distinctly girl voice.
When Sack spun around, he indeed saw a young lady standing behind him. She appeared to be about Sack’s age, perhaps a bit older (but not much), and a bit shorter than him (but again, not much.) She stared at him, defiantly.
“You mean me?” Sack looked guilty as he stood amongst hundreds of bags of stolen sugar that were, as of this point, still piled around the trees. “I wasn’t doing anything, as you can plainly see. I was just minding my own business, thank you very much.”
“Oh, yes, I plainly see alright,” said the girl, then she spat.
In all of his twelve years, Sack had never encountered a girl who acted quite like this. All the girls he knew—the ones from the schoolhouse—were well-dressed, well-behaved, and best of all, they smelled of honeysuckle and fresh flowers. This girl was quite contradictory. She wore overalls, spat, and made it quite clear with the fierce look in her eyes that she was not to be toyed with. Plus, she smelled of fresh soil and rhubarb.
“I’ll take half,” said the girl. “We’re going to split the proceeds right down the middle, see? Fair is fair. I saw the whole thing from over there—” She pointed to a small and just barely visible farmhouse way, way off in the distance. “I saw what you done. You stole all that sugar. Pretended to be a train robber n’everything.”
He was quite taken aback. Never at a loss for words, Sack suddenly found himself without a thing to say. On top of that, the girl was staring him down, arms folded, practically daring him to make a counteroffer, or to flat out refuse.
Sack did none of the sort. Wisely, he agreed to the terms.
“Deal,” said Sack as he held out his hand.
Then the girl did something unexpected. She bent down and scooped up a handful of dirt, spat into it, then mixed it into mud using her finger. Then she grabbed Sack’s hand and shook it, much harder than he expected.
“There,” she said. “We made a mud pact. We could’ve made a blood pact, but I don’t know where you’ve been.” Then she walked off, just like that. Calling over her shoulder, she shouted, “Be here tomorrow, Sack Harrum! Around noon! I sleep in on Saturdays!”
How she knew his name, he didn’t know.
Sack Harrum shouted, “A simple please would do!” before he wiped the spit-mud off on his pant legs. He couldn’t say why he liked this girl, but he did. Perhaps it was because she was far more interesting (and intimidating!) than the girls from the schoolhouse. Either way, Sack decided right there on the spot that he would indeed split half the sugar-loot with the strange new girl who didn’t offer her name.
After all, it beat getting caught!
3
But neither Sack or the nameless girl had time to come up with a plan for all those countless bags of sugar. What’s worse, neither one of them would get to taste even a single mouthful of the delicious import—at least not in its crystallized form.
The day after Sack met the mysterious girl in overalls, the same one whom he’d be sharing his treasure with, the sugar was gone! Every last crystal had disappeared.
“Vanished?” said a befuddled Sack. “Vamoosed?” He stood there scratching his chin and looking around at the hundred or so trees he’d placed a circle of sugar bags around. Nothing but empty sugar sacks remained.
“You did something,” said the nameless girl who’d snuck up behind him. She too had shown up early, discovering their train-robbed goods had been robbed once more. “You must’ve told somebody,” she went on in her accusatory tone. “Then that same somebody came in the middle of the night and stole our loot! How could you do such a thing?”
“I didn’t!” Sack shouted back. He didn’t mean to be rude, but he saw no other choice. “I told nobody but you! And I didn’t even tell you! You said yourself that you watched me accidently rob that northbound train from behind those trees over there! We both left here at the same time last night, now we’ve arrived here again at the same time?” Sack scratched his chin. “I declare this a mystery.”
The nameless girl found herself scowling at Sack, having decided that he’d decided to back out of their deal. But then she undecided, deducing that Sack Harrum was not clever enough to carry off that much sugar in such a short amount of time.
“Where in the world did all of our sugar go?” Sack took off his hat and smacked it on his leg, obviously upset by this strange turn. “There were hundreds of bags of sugar here last night? Nobody could eat that much sugar? Not even me! And look—there aren’t even any footprints!”
The girl stepped forward, eyes wide, pointing. “What in the world is that?”
“Where? Is the train returning? Is it the Law?”
“No, look!” She was pointing behind Sack, at one of the trees. In fact, she began pointing at all the trees.
“Oh no!” Sack cried out. “The trees are bleeding! The sugar must’ve soaked into the soil and gotten into the trees and poisoned them! Now the trees are dying! I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Trees don’t bleed,” said the girl. Then she did something else very ungirl-like, scooping up a fingers-worth of the ‘tree-blood’ and tasting it!
“Mm,” said the girl. “Not bad.” Then the two of them went around inspecting the thick paste oozing from the small holes. Each tree was doing the same thing: leaking a strange grey, sappy fluid.
This gave her an idea.
“See you tomorrow morning, Sack Harrum!” she said as she walked off towards the distant farmhouse where she and her father lived. “Set an extra breakfast plate for me! But not too early, I sleep in on Sunday!”
Sack Harrum hollered back, “A simple goodnight would do!”
True to her word, the very next morning there came a knock at the front door. Sack answered the door, seeing that it was the girl whom he’d met days before. Today she looked quite different.
“Why, hello!” said Sack Harrum, having no idea how she’d found him. He’d never once explained to her where he lived, or how far, or which paths to take.
“G’morning,” she said. “I brought you a gift.”
Today, instead of wearing dirty overalls, she was dressed in her Sunday best. She held in her hand a stout glass jar, filled with a thick brownish liquid. On the bottle, carefully etched into the glass, was a single word:
SYRUP
“Well, Sack Harrum? Are you going to invite me in for breakfast or not?” she asked. “It was easy enough to track you down. But a lady should be invited in proper.”
“Yes, come in! Forgive me, please,” Sack said. “Mum? Dad? This here is…um. This is my new friend—” Sack turned to the girl, needing help.
“My name is Emily,” the girl said. “Emily K. Syrup.”
Sack’s mother said, “Please, won’t you sit down, Emily? We were just about to begin breakfast. We’re having pancakes.”
And so…
As you might have guessed…
This is how syrup came to be! It all started with an accidental train robbery, then it was the sugar-stealing trees (which were later named after young Sack Harrum, the saccharum tree ) and finally the girl with the strange last name.
So, if Sack Harrum were around today and saw you, dear reader, enjoying a nice warm stack of delicious pancakes smothered in syrup, he just might say to you…
“A simple thank you would do!”
End
The idea for The Syrup Bandit came to me while pondering some of life’s big questions: “Who am I?”… “Where am I going?”…and the quintessential question that everyone asks during their lifetime, “Where did syrup come from?”
After researching the history of maple syrup, and discovering the name of the actual Maple Syrup tree—Acer Saccharum? Sack Harrum?—this story quickly evolved. Since the conclusive truth about its discovery has yet to be agreed upon (there are several theories) I thought I’d better make up my own history of maple syrup.
This story was written around the time of what has become known as The
The world has a great passion for syrup, especially those Canadians!
Funny thing is…nobody knows exactly where syrup originated from.
Hope you enjoyed reading The Syrup Bandit!
Tevin Hansen
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review!
Other works by this author:
Hole in the Wall
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K8L4QOM
Mr. B
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L2R0JOM
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940149618866
Book of Legends:
The Syrup Bandit
Where Weather Comes From
The Swinging Tree
Evil Mouse Chronicles:
Mummy Mouse
Snickers the Cat
(Coming soon! Part III: Psycho Kim)