In the United States, spring planting times varied by crop, generally falling between April and June. It was now March, early spring.
Davis Farm's current predicament was that they did not even know where to get the money to buy seeds, while the bank was demanding repayment of the outstanding loan balance. If they could not repay it, the collateral would be auctioned off—in other words, the farm would be sold to cover the debt.
It sounded simple, and in fact, it was simple. The problem was that the Davis family did not have enough liquid cash to deal with it. Not to mention the penalties from last year's disaster, which had still not been fully paid.
In truth, many small farms were like the Davises'. They appeared asset-rich, but most of their assets were real estate, with little cash on hand.
One after another, they lived by borrowing to repay old debts, turning themselves into workers for the banks and tools for middlemen, barely hanging on. Once one link in the chain went wrong, their entire lives faced collapse.
Todd Davis's birth had once brought hope to the family, giving Mr. and Mrs. Davis the drive to keep working.
Then an accident awakened young Todd's mutant abilities. In only a few days, his appearance had transformed into what it was now—butterfly antennae and compound eyes—sending the family straight from heaven into hell.
They faced hidden exclusion from both middlemen and banks. No one openly called it discrimination, but services that had once been perfectly ordinary, convenient doors that had always been open, were closed to the Davis family.
Since no one local was willing to buy their produce, Chuck Davis had no choice but to find a way to sell it elsewhere. Then last year's hurricane struck—
As the