Cheating for the Chicken Man (3 page)

The bucket of dead chicks grew heavy and took the strength of both of Kate's arms to carry it across the yard to a metal shed. Inside the door, she set the bucket down and, trying not to breathe the putrid air, grabbed a shovel and jammed it with one foot into the feathery compost pile to make a hole. After dumping the dead chicks into the opening, she tossed the bucket to one side. Quickly, the palms of her hands touched, and she murmured, “Please take these chicks to heaven!”

Grabbing the shovel a second time, she pushed some manure on top of them and then rushed outside. She took in a gulp of fresh air—well, as fresh as it could be on a chicken farm—and strode briskly back to the house.

REBOOT

I
s there a letter?” Kate's mother asked. She sat looking out a window in the dining room, but there wasn't much to see. It was late autumn, and the harvested cornfields had been left with acres of cornstalk stubble that stretched all the way to a tree-lined river in the distance.

“No letter,” Kate said as she set a pile of mail down on the dining room table and swung her backpack onto a nearby chair.

At least her mother was interested, Kate thought. For a moment, she stared at the back of her mother's head, at the long, dark hair coiled into a neat bun and the blue woolen shawl her mother had pulled tight around her thin shoulders.

“Maybe you need to write to him first,” Kate suggested gently. But she didn't think her mother ever would.

In the seven months following his father's funeral, J.T. never wrote his family a single time. Neither had he called, even though Kate knew he was allowed to make one twenty-minute phone call a week.

Still, Kate did not give up. She wrote her brother once a week—twenty-eight letters total. Sometimes, she handwrote the letters and enclosed them in note cards with pictures of endangered animals. Other times, she used her computer and printed out pages full of updates on the farm and the family.
(They
sprayed the fields t
oday with that chemi
cal, so everything's
brown again and rea
dy for planting. Can
't you just hear Dad
telling us how, in
the old days, he'd p
low and then harrow
before planting? “Da
ngit, now they don't
even turn the soil!
”)

She kept him abreast of the eighth-grade basketball season and groused about math.
(Algebra is ge
tting hard. I'm real
ly going to need you
r help!)
She described the middle-school dance on Valentine's Day.
(Very weird.
Everyone just kind o
f danced in a big gr
oup.)
She even appealed to him for advice.
(Kerry keeps aski
ng me about heaven.
Is there furniture?
What do people eat?
Can they have cats?
Kerry thinks I have
some inside informat
ion on this. What sh
ould I tell her?)

She told J.T. how Uncle Ray, in addition to his own work crabbing and fishing, came twice a day to take care of the chickens. J.T. didn't know that Kate had secretly become a vegetarian, but he was well aware of her love for animals—pandas, polar bears, tigers—the ones the world stood to lose. So once, for lack of anything else to say, but wanting to keep the letters upbeat, she filled him in on the new elephant at the National Zoo—a female named Bozie who had moved from the Baton Rouge Zoo after she lost her longtime partner.
(It was o
n television, the da
y Bozie arrived in a
big white truck. Is
n't it great people
recognize elephants
are herd animals tha
t need other elephan
ts?)
But J.T. never commented on it.

She didn't write about the social scene at school and how the other girls seemed to be moving a lot faster than she was, some of them wearing heavy eye makeup and gossiping about which boys were cute and weekend parties where there was beer. Not that Kate was totally disinterested in parties or boys. But in all honesty, Kate still thought the epitome of cute was the poster on her closet door of a baby black rhino. “The ears especially,” she told Jess, who totally agreed.

Thank goodness for Jess, Kate thought. They still liked a lot of the same things. Beyond that, Jess was always so upbeat, too, insisting, for example, that Kate was lucky because she never broke out and didn't need braces while Kate still saw herself as hopelessly plain. A real Plain Jane. A girl on the skinny side who hated tight clothes, so everything she wore puckered or hung loose. A girl with unexciting brown hair that hung in erratic waves to her shoulders unless she straightened it—and she hated straightening it. A girl who seldom broke out, true, but whose skin was so sensitive she never tanned, only burned and got red.

Only once did Kate write about her mother's troubling behavior.
(She ha
d another panic atta
ck yesterday. She co
llapsed on the front
steps when she was
on her way to the do
ctor with Grandma. N
ow she won't drive,
and ever since that
last panic attack, s
he hasn't wanted to
leave the house, not
even to go to churc
h.)
Nothing prompted J.T. to write back. Didn't he care anymore?

Finally, in her last letter, Kate let J.T. know that her birthday had come and gone in April.
(
I'm thirteen now! A
teenager—yikes! Kids
at school still tea
se me about being th
e class baby, but th
at's because Jess an
d I skipped a year w
hen we entered publi
c
school, remember?
)
Again, no response from J.T.

Nine months J.T. had been away. It went so slowly—and yet, so quickly, too. Because suddenly here she was, Kate thought, sitting in the school gym, at the end-of-the-year eighth-grade assembly. Tomorrow J.T. would be home. In three months, she and J.T. would be in high school together. Maybe by then, life would be back to normal.

“Our next award goes to Kate Tyler!” Mr. Coburn announced, startling Kate. Her heart jumped—she hadn't been paying attention—and just then, the microphone screeched, making everyone cringe before the principal continued.

“Not only did Kate write some beautiful poems and insightful essays this year, but she conceived the idea of Corsica Middle School's first literary magazine,
Wingspan
, to promote creative writing. Thirty-two of you Herons were published and left your tracks with poems, illustrations, and essays in the first editions of
Wingspan
. Kate worked closely with faculty adviser Heather Landon on all three issues. Let's give them both a big hand!”

Jess elbowed Kate, then squeezed her arm and clapped enthusiastically. Kate, embarrassed by the attention, reluctantly stood, then picked her way down the crowded bleachers and padded across the wood floor. Mrs. Landon gave her a hug, and then the principal shook her hand and gave her a certificate along with a Blue Heron mug filled with Hershey Kisses.

“We need to celebrate the end of school,” Jess said as the two girls walked toward their bus. “How about if I talk my mom into taking us over to the Annapolis mall? We could watch a movie and get frozen yogurt. We could go shopping for sunglasses!”

“This weekend?” Kate was not sharing Jess's excitement. “That would be great, Jess, but remember, J.T.'s coming home tomorrow morning.”

Jess grimaced. “Oh, my gosh, Kate. I
totally
forgot.”

Just then the two girls were jostled and separated, then forced into a haphazard line to board the bus.

Kate hadn't forgotten J.T. was coming home. She had seen her brother only once since the funeral seven months ago. The week before Christmas, Kate's grandmother had driven them out to the detention center. The journey was long—six hours— because snow flurries had slowed them down.

Their visit took place in the prison's small cafeteria. J.T. couldn't take any gifts or food back to his dormitory, but he was allowed to eat during the visit, so Kate and her grandmother had stopped at a Subway shop along the way and picked up J.T.'s favorite sandwich, along with a bag of potato chips, a giant chocolate chip cookie, and a soda. Kate remembered thinking her brother would be excited to see them and ravenous, practically inhaling his favorite food, but he was neither. He was quiet as he sat across from them and seemed tired, taking only a couple bites before he wrapped the meatball sub back up and told Kate to eat it on the way home.

“Those sunglasses can wait,” Jess said when she and Kate found a seat together on the bus. “Don't worry about it.”

Kate turned, a slight frown wrinkling her brow, before she remembered what Jess was talking about.

*

The next morning, Uncle Ray stopped by the house early so Kate could go with him to the nearby courthouse to pick up J.T.
who had been driven there for his official release.

“Good luck,” Kate's grandmother said as she stood in the doorway beside Kate's silent mother, their arms linked. Had Grandma forced her mother into the doorway?

“You ready, Kate?” Uncle Ray asked, settling his Nationals baseball cap back on his head. He didn't always wear that hat, and Kate wondered briefly if it was to get a rise out of J.T., who was an Orioles fan.

“Yes—oh, no! Wait a minute!” Kate exclaimed, suddenly remembering. She dashed back upstairs and grabbed a paper bag of clothes for J.T. from the top of her desk so he wouldn't have to wear his prison uniform home. The outfit included J.T.'s T-shirt that said
KEEP CALM A
ND REBOOT
, which Kate thought was incredibly appropriate, a pair of his favorite jean shorts, some white ankle-high socks, and old sneakers. Sitting beside her uncle in the truck, Kate clutched the bag of clothes on her lap and prayed silently all the way to town that her brother would still be the same inside.

Despite the late May heat, it was almost cold in the courtroom because of the air-conditioning. Uncle Ray took off his hat, and the two of them chose seats toward the back. When J.T. walked into the courtroom, Kate gasped. It was still a shock to see her brother's hair buzzed off. His hair was so short she could see the shape of his skull. He seemed thinner, too, if that was possible. And even with the air-conditioning on, he was dressed way too warmly in boots, long blue pants, and a sweatshirt that hung on his lanky frame. Still, Kate ached with happiness that her brother was finally coming home. She was
doubly glad she'd brought those clothes for him, even if she did have to surrender them to a deputy, who promised to give them to J.T. after his court appearance.

The judge, the master of the court, cleared her throat. “All right, then. We have here Jeremy Tyler,” she began, opening a folder on her big desk.

Kate leaned forward, struggling to hear, and turned to her uncle with a puzzled look.

“It's all just protocol,” he whispered.

Kate rubbed her arms to get warm and made a mental note to look up that word,
protocol
, later.

There was one order Kate heard clearly and that was when the judge sternly reminded J.T. that the state retained legal custody of him until he was twenty-one.

“If you get into any trouble whatsoever, we can send you right back,” she warned. “Do you understand me, Jeremy?”

“Yes, your honor,” he replied.

After J.T.'s case was over, Kate and her uncle waited outside the courtroom in the hallway. When a
clanging
noise startled them, they turned to see J.T. coming out of the nearby men's room in the shorts and T-shirt. Kate smiled, figuring the prison uniform had been chucked into the metal trash can, which was fine with her.

Her brother had a funny grin and a soft twinkle in his familiar brown eyes, but his joy was mostly silent. After setting down a lumpy, black plastic bag full of his belongings, he gave his sister a hug, although not the crazy big one she had imagined.

When he stepped away to embrace Uncle Ray, Kate saw
it: the electronic ankle bracelet, a short black leather belt wrapped around J.T.'s ankle with a little box attached. While it wasn't a complete shock—he'd worn one before his trial last summer—it bothered Kate to see it again. Maybe because it was a reminder that J.T. was still perceived as some sort of a criminal. Back at the house, a unit was already connected to the telephone line so it could communicate with the ankle bracelet and monitor J.T.'s movements, twenty-four hours a day. He'd be allowed to go to doctor appointments and meetings with his probation officer, but only certain times that were cleared ahead of time. If he didn't “honor” the perimeter, an alarm would go off, and the police would come.

J.T. saw Kate staring at his ankle.

“Just for two months,” he said.

She propped up another smile. At least it would be gone before school started.

A woman approached with paperwork in her hands. “Hi there, Jeremy,” she said, extending her hand to J.T. “I'm Miss Hatcher. I'll be your PO.”

Right away Kate liked Miss Hatcher because she said “PO” instead of “probation officer.” It didn't sound so official—or so mean.

“Is this your family?” Miss Hatcher asked.

“It is,” J.T. said. “This is my uncle, Mr. Ray Tyler, and my sister Kate.”

Miss Hatcher shook hands with them. Then she turned back to J.T. “Welcome home,” she said. “I'll be out to your farm tomorrow morning to see you, and we'll have us a talk, okay?”

Kate watched J.T. swallow and nod. She knew he was
nervous. Maybe tomorrow, when he and Miss Hatcher had their talk, he could ask her to call him J.T. and not Jeremy. Maybe that would help a little.

J.T. picked up the black garbage bag.

Uncle Ray said, “Thank you kindly, ma'am.”

When his uncle put his baseball cap on, J.T. noticed and said, “What? You think the Nationals have a chance this year?”

“Darn right I do,” Uncle Ray said. “It's a new year, a whole new ball game.”

J.T. started to smile, and Kate beamed.
A whole new b
all game
. She liked that phrase. Uncle Ray put one arm around J.T.'s shoulders and his other arm around Kate, and they headed for the door.

Kate wrote in her journal that night.

W
e three squished int
o the front seat of
Uncle Ray's truck.
It was a long ride hom
e for such a short d
istance. Uncle Ray d
oesn't have AC, and
it was raining, so m
aybe the heat and hu
midity tamped us dow
n. Plus those windsh
ield wipers thumping
made a lot of noise
. Uncle Ray would as
k a simple question,
like “How you feeli
n'?” or me, “Are you
hungry?” and J.T. w
ould just mumble a q
uick answer like “ok
ay” or “not really.”
Then we'd hear thos
e windshield wipers
thump back and forth
again.