Cheating for the Chicken Man (4 page)

Pausing with her pen poised over the journal page, Kate looked back at a word she'd just used—
tamped
, a recent vocabulary word. She knew it meant “to pack or push something down, especially by tapping it repeatedly.” Which was exactly how she felt. All those weeks of joyous anticipation and crossing the days off on her panda calendar had collided with a cold courtroom where she couldn't hear the judge and had to endure
the sight of her brother, thinner than ever, with his hair buzzed off and an electronic bracelet on his ankle. It was no wonder he was so quiet. It was like it was all supposed to be over, but it wasn't.
The
windshield wipers th
umping
 . . . Not by a long shot.

*

When they arrived home, Kate's grandmother was waiting on the porch with her hands on her cheeks and tears in her eyes. Kerry rushed down the front steps and plowed into J.T., wrapping her skinny little arms around him while Tucker went crazy barking and jumping up and down. Seeing Kerry and his dog, J.T. fully smiled for the first time. He buried his face in Tucker's fur and let the dog practically lick his face off.

Inside the house, Kate's mother stood stiffly in the living room with a plate of warm brownies in her hands. When she didn't say anything, Grandma took the plate from her hands. “Extra chocolate chips and
no nuts
!” she announced cheerfully. Everyone knew that was the way J.T. liked his brownies. Kate thought surely that would prompt a small “welcome home” from her mother, but no such luck. The plate was passed around, but it turned out that, just then, no one was hungry for brownies.

“I've gotta get back. Take care, Angela,” Uncle Ray said to Kate's mother. To Grandma, he said, “Good to see you again, Sarah.”

It was always funny to hear someone call her grandmother Sarah, or Mrs. Gunter, Kate thought.

Uncle Ray turned to J.T. “Good to have you home, son. I'll see you tomorrow.”

At dinner, J.T.'s favorite meal was put on the table: spaghetti,
a green salad, and a loaf of hot, buttered garlic bread. Grandma said grace, thanking the lord for J.T.'s safe arrival home, and as soon as she finished, Kate watched her brother wind up a big ball of spaghetti on his fork.

“You don't know how good this tastes,” he said around a mouthful.

Kate spooned sauce over her pasta, carefully avoiding the lumps of meat.

“Was the food not very good at that place?” Grandma asked.

J.T. shrugged and swallowed. “It wasn't that bad,” he said, “But nowhere near as good as Mom's cooking.”

Even though Grandma was the one who made the sauce, no one pointed it out. Instead, they all turned to look at Kate's mother, who sat quietly, picking at her food as if she hadn't even heard the compliment. The air felt heavy. There was an open wound in her family, Kate thought. When was somebody going to make it better?

“Mommy, how come you don't talk to J.T.?” Kerry asked. It took a six-year-old to do it. “Aren't you glad he's home?”

Kate's mother lifted her head to look at J.T. “You never wrote to us.”

J.T. met his mother's eyes. “No. I didn't think you wanted me to.”

“You weren't here at the end, when your father got so sick.”

Just then, the cat, the bell on its collar jingling, jumped off the extra chair at the table, as though sensing the tension, and ran from the room.

J.T. put his fork down. “I don't know what you want me to
say, Mom. I'm sorry for what happened. I'm sorry Dad died and I wasn't here. I am sorry for everything. You think I'm not ashamed of it?”

This was her mother's chance, Kate thought. If only she would say “I understand” or “Let's start over.” But she didn't. She just sat there, silent as a stone, with a pained expression, like she didn't know what to do or say.

Kerry's little voice broke the silence again. “Well, I'm glad you're home,” she told J.T. “So is Tucker. And so is Jingles!”

“Me too,” Kate added.

“We're all glad you're home, dear,” Grandma said. She reached across the table to touch both J.T.'s and Mom's hands at the same time. “Angela, please. It's time to forgive. It is time to move forward.”

Kate's mother looked up again. Her eyes glistened and then closed. “I am trying.”

Another heavy, dead silence followed. Kate wished her mother would try a little harder and say something. But this was how it was now. She knew her mother wasn't well, but it wasn't the kind of sickness you could cure with antibiotics or a week of rest. Something inside her mother was broken.

“It's okay,” J.T. said. Then he asked for the bread basket, which got everybody moving forward again.

The bigger disappointment came after dinner, when J.T. wanted to go to bed early and Kate's grandmother had to fetch the key to unlock his room. Kerry followed, and so did Kate, bracing herself because she knew the bed had never been made.

“I had no idea!” Grandma gasped, scooping up dirty socks
from the floor and sending Kate to retrieve fresh sheets. “Give us five minutes,” she told J.T.

He went to sit on the stairs.

Kerry, cradling the docile black cat in her arms like a baby, went to sit beside him. “Do you want to hold Jingles?” she asked.

“Five minutes!” Grandma called out to him again while she and Kate hurriedly tucked the bottom sheet around the mattress corners. “We'll have this place fixed up in a jiffy!”

Kate glanced out the door, but all she could see was J.T.'s back, hunched over, unmoving.

UNSPOKEN

I
n the morning, Kate's phone woke her with the ding of an arriving text. She reached out from the covers to grab her phone from the night table.

Jess:
You up? Mom's taking
me to the mall. Sun
glasses and a new ba
thing suit. Want to
come? We can get ped
icures! She'll pay!

Kate hesitated. She and Jess had talked about getting new bathing suits together. Would Jess go without her? Just like that? Kate sat up so she could text back with both hands.

K
ate:
JT's first day
home.

She set the phone down and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Should she ask Jess to hold off on buying the suit? They hadn't even decided one piece or two. And Jess was going to help Kate find some of that lotion that gave you an instant tan. Why couldn't she just wait?

Jess:
Is JT okay?

Kate picked up her phone. She wasn't going to get into what had happened yesterday.

Ka
te:
Fine.

Jess:
Sure
you don't want to c
ome?

Kate was imagining the pedicure. She and Jess and two other friends had gotten pedicures for Jess's eleventh birthday, and
Kate had enjoyed the trip to the salon, picking out the color, getting the foot massage, seeing her toes transformed. Reluctantly, she texted back.

Kat
e:
I should stay hom
e.

Jess:

Kate:
Sor
ry

Jess:
ttyl

Downstairs, everyone else was already up. J.T. was even dressed and handing his mother a note at the breakfast table.

“I wrote down all the things Uncle Ray did for us. I can take over now,” he said.

As she passed by, Kate peered over her mother's shoulder at the list:

CULLING

CHECK THE FEED

CLEAN THE STANDPIPES . . .

“Thank you,” Mom said softly.

J.T. put on his baseball cap, giving it a tug front and back, and said, “Uncle Ray won't need to come anymore. I know he's here this morning to mow, but I told him I could learn how to do that, too.”

Suddenly, Kate felt hopeful. Quickly, she ate a bowl of cereal and got dressed so she could follow J.T. outside.

“Gassing up for Uncle Ray,” he said when Kate approached the pump down by the tractor sheds where he was standing.

Kate smiled. “I'm glad you're home.”

“Me too. You have no idea.”

She waited for him to hang up the nozzle and cap the tractor's fuel tank.

“Sorry about Mom,” she said, eager to talk. “I mean, the way she is now.”

J.T. wiped his hands on a rag he pulled from under the tractor seat. “It has a name, you know. What Mom's got.”

“You mean why she won't leave the house?”

“Yeah. She has agoraphobia,” J.T. said. “She's afraid of having another panic attack in public, so she doesn't want to go anywhere. She only feels safe in the house. I talked to Miss Laurie, my counselor at Cliffside, about it.”

“I didn't know it had a name,” Kate said. “I know she takes medicine.”

J.T. caught his sister's eyes. “We have to help her, Kate. Grandma can't keep coming up here all the way from North Carolina. She's got a life with Grandpa. He needs her, too. I know that Mom is their only child, but we can't expect Grandma to give up her life for us.”

Kate's lips remained parted. Her brother's compassion was unbelievable.

“Wait!” she said when he started walking away. It had been nine long months since they'd had a conversation, and there was a lot she wanted to talk about. “I wanted to tell you that I got an e-mail from Brady on my birthday.”

“No!” J.T. snapped, stopping abruptly and whirling around. “Do
not
be mentioning Brady to me—or Digger either! Do you hear?”

Surprised, Kate drew back.

“Sorry,” J.T. said quickly, lowering his voice. “I didn't mean to yell. And I'm sorry I didn't write to you.” He lifted his hands and then let them drop. “I didn't know what to say.”

“You could've just told me what you did,” Kate suggested gently, recalling how desperate she'd been for even the tiniest bit of information. She lifted her shoulders. “Like what you had for breakfast—”

“But I didn't want to talk about it,” J.T. said, cutting her off. “I
still
don't, so just let it go, okay?”

“Okay,” Kate instantly agreed. But she couldn't help herself. When he walked away, she trotted after him. “Can I tell you something I did? That Mom doesn't know?”

“What? About sending the trumpet?” J.T. asked, smacking at a deerfly on his arm while he kept moving. “I knew you did it behind Mom's back.”

“You did?” Kate was surprised.

“Of course I knew.”

But how?
Kate wondered, slowing down. And why hadn't he thanked her?

“Well, that's not it!” she called after him.

J.T. kept going.

“I became a vegetarian,” Kate declared when she caught up to him.

Her brother finally stopped and stared at her. “What?”

Kate nodded vigorously. “Yeah. I don't eat meat.”

“Why?”

“I saw a film, J.T. It showed how they slaughter animals—how
awful
it is. Not just the chickens, but the cows and the pigs—and the lambs. I cried so hard. I swore I'd never eat meat again. I wish no one would eat meat.”

Her brother's face softened. “Kate,” he said, opening his hands. “You
live
on a chicken farm!”

“I know.” Kate screwed up her face. “
I know!
”

“Mom hasn't noticed?”

She shook her head. “Grandma hasn't either. Jess is the only one I told.”

“Are you getting protein and stuff?”

“Sure, it's not a problem. I researched it. I eat a lot of peanut butter and beans. It's easy, 'cause I'm the one who does the food shopping
and
most of the cooking when Grandma's not here. Did you know that? Every other month, she goes home to North Carolina. I go to the grocery store with Jess's mom. I take the bags and everything.”

J.T. stared at her. “You didn't tell me that.”

“It's hard sometimes,” Kate went on, glad to have a sympathetic ear. “Like when we drop Jess off for a piano lesson on our way to the Food Lion. Nobody else I know has a mother who won't drive.”

“How do you know what to cook?” J.T. asked, apparently still stuck on the fact that Kate was preparing entire meals now.

Kate raised her eyebrows. “Grandma and I wrote up dinners on index cards. Every meal has a protein, a starch, and a vegetable. The cards are in a rubber band on top of the bread box, if you want to see.”

J.T. frowned and rubbed his chin.

“Don't tell Mom I'm not eating meat, okay?” Kate pleaded. “Don't tell Grandma either.”

“I won't,” he said, hesitating. “Look, Miss Hatcher's coming any minute. I need to be out front.”

On the porch steps, they sat side by side, staring down the long driveway. The sun felt good on Kate's face. They had shared
a secret. They could talk now, she thought. The hopeful feeling was coming back.

“Are you looking forward to school?” Kate asked gingerly.

Her brother shrugged. “I'm glad I'm not at Cliffside anymore,” he said. “But I don't know about school.”

Most kids hadn't seen J.T. in more than a year, and while everyone knew he'd been sent to a juvenile detention center, Kate hoped no one would hold what he did against him or say mean things, especially since J.T. had been bullied in middle school. A boy named Curtis Jenkins used to call him Chicken Man. Curtis had stuffed chicken feathers into J.T.'s locker and once accused him out loud of stinking up the classroom by not cleaning the chicken manure out of his shoes (only he didn't call it manure).

“Guess I worry about it,” he added.

Kate nodded softly in agreement. “Me too.” She didn't have much faith that the anti-bullying campaign in middle school had sunk in deep enough to carry over into high school. It was a nice effort, for sure. A “Words that Hurt” program took up an entire afternoon with students acting out roles on the stage in the auditorium. The students designed T-shirts and crafted posters. Kate and Jess made one together:
D
ON
'
T STAND BY
—
STAND
UP!
But Kate felt flat about the anti-bullying stuff now. She suspected that for a lot of kids it was all a halfhearted gesture, like the fire drill or the canned food they brought in at Thanksgiving. Just something you had to do at school that day.

She shifted her position on the steps to face her brother. “You should try out for marching band,” she said brightly.

“Why?” J.T. asked.

“Because you play the trumpet!”

When J.T. didn't respond, Kate tried again. “Band camp's in August, and maybe you'd get to know a few kids before school started.”

Pressing the tips of his long fingers together, J.T. looked down. “I don't ever want to touch that trumpet again.”

Kate just stared at him like,
what in
the heck does that
mean?
She didn't get it.

But J.T. got up and walked off across the yard, because Miss Hatcher had just turned up the driveway.

It wasn't going to be easy, Kate was realizing. And while she didn't want to admit it so soon, she knew her brother was different now. You couldn't talk about Cliffside with him. And you couldn't mention Brady and Digger. Both of which Kate could understand. But the trumpet? Why would J.T. not play it anymore and refuse to join the marching band? It just didn't make sense.

*

By noon, Miss Hatcher had left, and Uncle Ray had finished the mowing and turned off the tractor. In the quiet that followed, Tucker stretched out, his dog tags clinking on the wooden porch floor, while Kate lay on the porch swing, pushing herself back and forth with one foot. An open book lay on her chest, but her eyes were closed as she wondered if Jess had found her bathing suit and whether she and her mother also got lunch at the mall. Maybe even sweet potato fries in the food court. Jess and Kate always got a batch and split them. Sometimes, it was all they ate.

“Uncle Ray, what you got there?”

The sound of J.T.'s voice prompted Tucker to scramble and dash from the porch. Kate held the book and sat up. She could
see that, down at the tractor shed, J.T. and Uncle Ray had something in their hands.

“What is it?” she asked, after running to where they stood.

In the sweaty T-shirt he'd taken off, her uncle held a sorrowful sight: three dead baby bunnies, their little bodies mangled and bloodied. He didn't need to explain it. The mower blade had hit their nest. It had happened before. Kate winced and started to look away but saw that J.T. held something, too. A single survivor, a tiny brown cottontail missing one leg, was cradled in the palm of his hand.

“What are you going to do with him?” Kate asked.

“Best thing to do, Kate, is just put him out of his misery,” Uncle Ray said. “I'm so sorry. I told J.T. I'd take care of it.”

“No!” Kate protested. “Can't we help him? I'll do it! I'll take care of him!”

Her uncle hesitated and looked from Kate to J.T. “What do you think?”

J.T. met Kate's eyes.

“Please,” Kate begged again.

Her brother turned to Uncle Ray and shrugged. “I say let her try. Let her find out how much work it is to raise a baby rabbit, let alone one without a leg!”

“You'll have to dab ointment on that stump, Kate, to keep away infection. And this little, you'll have to feed it several times a day,” Uncle Ray warned. “We'll have to get special formula at the feed store, and even then there's no guarantee.”

“I understand,” she said, pressing her hands together. “Really!”

Within the hour, Kate had a baby bunny, encased in a fuzzy
sock and snug in her hand, accepting droplets of warm formula from a plastic syringe. She'd already texted Jess twice to come see him as soon as she got back.

“Will he live?” Kerry asked, sitting tight against Kate on the living room couch. On her lap she held the baby bunny's new home: a flannel-lined shoebox.

“Don't know,” Kate said. “I hope so.”

“I promise I'll keep Jingles away,” Kerry said.

Just then Kate's cell phone alerted her to a message. It was from Jess, but no response about the bunny. No words at all. Just a picture of a bathing suit on a dressing room bench. The suit was dark blue. Two piece.

“Someday this bunny and Jingles can be friends,” Kerry said.

“He'll be hopping around one day, you wait and see,” J.T. said, surprising the girls that he stood behind them.