Thud, thud, thud.
Joy smiled, opened her eyes, and sat up in bed.
"Today is Saturday, and the walnuts are falling!" she cried.
"What time is it?" asked Katie.
"Time to rise and shine," said Joy.
She jumped out of bed and ran to her desk.
"Last night I did some figuring."
She opened a small notebook.
"I need one hundred dollars, right?
And the nut-buying station will pay fifteen cents for each pound of walnuts.
So I need to collect almost seven hundred pounds!"
Katie gave her sister a funny look.
"How did you figure that out?"
"Dad helped me," said Joy. "But listen, I'm not done.
Mom says I have to do my homework on school nights.
So I have two weekends before the nut-buying station closes.
Two weekends—only four days to meet my goal!"
"Wow!" said Katie, jumping out of bed.
"We'd better get busy!"
"We?" said Joy.
"Sure! I'll help," said Katie.
"That's what a twin sister is for!"
"Really? That's great, Katie! Thanks." Joy smiled.
After breakfast Katie and Joy stepped out into the front yard wearing old jeans and sweatshirts.
"A perfect day for walnuts!" said Joy. "Look at them!"
The ground under the trees was covered with walnuts in their green hulls.
Grandpa and Magoo came down the driveway with the garden cart.
Grandpa lifted two big buckets out of the cart.
"Here you go," he said.
"I'll see you two at lunch!"
The girls pulled on their work gloves.
Joy picked up a walnut and threw it in her bucket.
"That's one!" Joy said.
Katie tossed a walnut in her bucket. "That's two!"
The twins emptied buckets of walnuts into the cart all morning.
By lunchtime the cart was half full.
By three o'clock the ground under the first tree was clear.
Joy poured her last bucket into the cart.
"It's full!" she shouted.
Then she ran toward the house.
"Dad! The cart is full!"
Joy and Katie watched eagerly as Dad hitched the cart to the car.
Then Katie got in the backseat, and Joy jumped in the front with Dad.
They drove out onto Blackberry Road, with the cart bouncing along behind.
When they got to the recycling center, Dad backed the cart up to the hulling machine.
The twins hopped out of the car.
"Who collected all these nuts?" asked Mr. Ramirez.
"Joy and I did," said Katie. "But they're Joy's nuts."
"I'm going to use the money I earn to fix my great-grandma's fiddle," said Joy.
Dad started shoveling walnuts into the bin, and Mr. Ramirez turned on the huller.
"It's so noisy!" cried Katie.
The girls covered their ears and watched the nuts being lifted into the huller.
Then they ran around the machine and saw the walnuts shoot out into a big bag.
The green hulls were gone.
When the first bag got full, Mr. Ramirez put another bag in its place.
The second bag filled up and then a third.
When the fourth bag was almost half full, the hulling went silent.
"That's all?" said Joy.
"The whole cart fits into four bags?"
"Let's weigh them and see how you did," said Mr. Ramirez.
He peered at the numbers on the scale.
"That's 170 pounds.
So fifteen cents for each pound—that's twenty-five dollars and fifty cents."
"YIPPEE!" cheered Joy.
"I'm glad you brought your walnuts in early," said Mr. Ramirez.
"On Monday morning the price drops to thirteen cents."
"What? Oh no!" cried Joy.