Dirty Chick (19 page)

Lish just grinned. “No worries. That's how we do things here. Now get that boy to the loo!”

I guided Silas into the staff toilet, because it was a wide, comfortable room where I could easily help him with his pants. I sat him down on the toilet, and he shrieked, even though he had to go. Then he fought me when I tried to help him back up again. Turning on the water so he could wash his hands, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Bright yellow mustard and brown Coca-Cola stains spattered the front of my shirt. I looked like a drunk five-year-old. And I still had the ridiculous pair of bunny ears on my head, insisting to the world that life was a fucking breeze.

When we came out, Patrice was standing there in the corridor examining an assortment of school pictures from the past few
decades. The photos were all black and white, the kids' hair combed back carefully, rigid smiles pasted on their bright little faces.

“Who is that?” he asked playfully, pointing at one little boy.

I looked more closely. About ten years old, the boy had thick hair that stood stubbornly on end and a wide, cheeky grin on his face—not the dutiful smile of his classmates.

“Oh my goodness.” I caught my breath. “It's Hamish.” He was just a goofy little boy, with the same easy smile I'd seen the night I caught him drinking a beer. I reached up to adjust my bunny ears. “I wonder what happened? To make him so serious?”

Patrice shrugged. “He just grows up,” he remarked with a tilt of his head. “As we must do.”

At the end of the day there was a cake auction, a spectacular display of high-calorie skills. Arrayed on the wooden lunch table were rainbow cakes, chocolate cakes, and coconut creams, but the one that caught my eye from the start was a homemade apple pie.

“Thirty dollars,” I bid, raising my hand in the air.

The auctioneer was a local farmer, in gumboots and a dark leather hat. “Thirty, thirty, do I hear thirty-five, thirty-five, thirty-five, do I hear forty?”

“What?” I looked around accusingly. “Who bid on my pie?”

“We're American,” Peter argued. “We should totally get this.”

“Forty dollars, going once, going twice—”

“Fifty dollars!” I shot my hand in the air.

The auctioneer looked amused. “Fifty dollars for a pie. This must be the best apple pie in the world.”

“Fifty-five,” said a voice behind me. I turned around to see Skin with his good hand in the air, a saucy grin on his face. “My pie,” he mouthed, jabbing at his chest with one thumb.

Beside him, Lish had her head in her hands. “I could buy you
four
pies for that,” she mourned through clenched teeth.

“Sixty dollars!” I yelled, holding my hand up.

“Sixty dollars, do I hear sixty-five? That's sixty dollars, going once, going twice,
sold
to the lady in the bunny ears.”

“You got my pie!” Skin hissed, pretending to be angry. “I want my pie!”

And strangely, that was the last thing he said to me.

OUTNUMBERED

I
t was a good thing Ba stayed home that day, because Calf Club 2013 was a death trap for sheep. Within three days, Amelia's lamb Blake was dead.

“Bloody rhododendrons,” Amanda told me over the phone. “We tied him up next to the rhododendron bush at Calf Club, and the next thing we knew he had this lime green froth coming out at both ends. Then it was coming out his nose, too, like a bright green mucus. We took him to Jackie, and she gave him an injection. Amelia read him a story. But there wasn't anything we could do.”

“What's a rhododendron?” I knew it was a plant thing, but I couldn't picture it in my head.

“Those bright pink flowers, the ones growing at the end of the playing field.”

“But there were all those farmers there! Didn't anyone tell you the flowers were poisonous?”

“It's not like that, in the country. Animals just die. You just have to get used to it, living out on a farm.”

I understood her point, but it still seemed like the death plants might have been pruned before little kids started tying up their lambs nearby.

I didn't have much time to worry about dead lambs, in any case, because now I was working on kimchi. Brewing a jar of fermented cabbage seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, after making wine and cheese. All these concoctions are full of germs and bugs that break down the food for you, making something ordinary into a delicious dish that's pungent and strong. Working on the back deck with my bacteria and molds, I liked to imagine millions of little sex slaves busily reproducing and turning fruit juice into wine.

The basic Korean kimchi ingredients are cabbage, garlic, ginger, and scallions, and from there you can just go crazy. The recipe I tried called for hot chili peppers and dried shrimp, which I managed to locate on a dusty shelf at the back of Whangarei's lone Asian grocery. The shrimp looked like dead beetles curled up in little knots. I opened the bag and sniffed. An acrid, deep-sea scent so strong it seemed to have dimension and mass slapped me square across the face. I snapped the bag shut.

The shopkeeper chuckled. “Very strong,” he reminded me. “Just use very little bit.”

I paid for my shrimp and got back in the car. Miranda, who loves doing the weekly shopping with me, was instantly transfixed. “Mama?” she asked. “What's that?”

“Dried shrimp.”

“Can I try some? I want to try some. Please? Mama, can I please try some?”

So I gave her a shrimp.

“Mmmmm,” she said delightedly, placing the shrimp on her tongue. Just as fast, she spat it out again. “That's disgusting, Mama. That's not a shrimp.”

“I promise you,” I reassured her, “it is. And we're going to take it home and make kimchi.”

When we got home, Rebecca was resting in her sleep-out. She seemed to be spending more time there lately. With just six weeks left to go in her visit with us, it felt as if she were starting to separate from our family. That, and her nail bed was more relaxing than the chaos outside.

I started the kimchi by brining some cabbage, soaking it in a strong saltwater bath and weighing it down with a heavy milk jug. Silas staggered out of his bedroom holding a plastic elephant in one hand. He stumbled awkwardly, as though the room were tipping around him. The seizure medications he was on seemed to mess with his sense of balance. He held up the elephant.

“Eh-faaaah . . .” he told me, with a shy smile. “Eh-faaaaah . . .”

Peter, who was sitting by the window watching the baby goats jump on my car, glanced up. “He used to say that word better,” he noted. “It used to sound more like
elephant
.”

“I know.” I sounded calm, but that's because I was carefully tamping down the crazy lady inside me, the one who was burning cars and screaming. I poured a glass of peach wine and drank. “I don't know what to do about it.”

Silas perched his elephant on the top of a wooden dresser, then tilted his head to view it from a new angle. Peter turned his attention back to the goats. “They're going to break your windshield eventually,” he pointed out. “You realize that, don't you?”

“But they're
so cute
,”
I protested, which seemed like a watertight argument. Moxie took a flying leap at the rear of Peter's car, skidding
across the roof and hooking the radio aerial in one hoof. She slid onto the hood and tore the aerial out of its base. Then Stripe leaped up and started chewing on it.

“That's it. Those goats are going down.” Peter pulled open the sliding glass door and stepped out on the deck, Silas right behind him.

“Eh-faaaaah . . .” Silas chanted.

“That's right, Elephant Man.” Peter took Silas's hand. “Let's go.”

Deciding it was time for a break, I took my wineglass out to the deck. Rebecca had emerged from her sleep-out and was sitting there on the steps, cuddling Ba. Little piles of sheep shit dotted the planks.

“That's so sweet,” I commented, and I meant it. He was an overgrown animal, but Ba still nestled his head into Rebecca's neck, just as he'd done when he was a baby.

Then he stiffened and vomited a stream of rotten grass slime down the front of her shirt.

“Ugh!” She jumped to her feet, grimacing and holding the stinking wet shirt away from her.

“Meeeh,” Ba bleated, annoyed at being dumped on the ground.

“Becca?” Miranda came out on the deck. “My body's talking to you, and she wants you to give her a cuddle.”

“What?” Turned away from us both, Rebecca was frantically rubbing the front of her shirt with a rag. “I think I have to change. This stuff is really stinky.”

“Ew, Mama,” Miranda sniffed the air theatrically. “It smells like poop.”

Giving Rebecca some privacy, I took Miranda's hand and walked her inside. “Not poop, Magnolia. Just grass vomit. Let's try to be accurate.”

The cabbage was still brining, so I turned my attention to the ginger bug, which is the starter for ginger beer, much like sourdough starter is the base for the bread. The finished drink is not alcoholic, but the idea is to ferment it just long enough to form natural carbonation. I started grating my ginger, mixing it with the leftover whey from Pearl's cheese and adding sugar to feed the live cultures.

“What are you making?” Miranda wanted to know. She was playing with an empty soapbox on the floor.

“Ginger bug,” I told her. “We'll use it to make a fizzy drink. It's delicious.”

“Ginger bug?” Miranda considered this. “You can have my bug if you want, Mama. I think it's a little bit dead, but you can have it.”

She handed me the soapbox, which appeared to contain a single dead fly. “Oh, thank you, Magnolia,” I told her, placing the box on a high shelf. “That's just what I needed.”

Peter walked back in the room then, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I tethered the babies,” he announced. “No more dancing goats.”

“Where's Silas?”

Peter turned and looked behind him. “I don't know. He was out with the goats, last I saw.”

A piercing shriek rang out from the paddock. Silas came bolting on the deck, Ba close behind him. “
Home!
” he shrieked. “No. No. No!
Away!
”

I looked over at Peter. “What's he so upset about? It's just a sheep.”

Ba answered my question by slamming his head against Silas and shoving him against the sliding glass door. I threw down my grater. “Save him!” I screamed.

But Peter was already there. He flung open the door, grabbed hold of Silas, and kicked Ba out of the way.

Ba fell back on the deck, bleating irritably.

“Silas!” I grabbed my son. “Are you okay?”

“No, no,” he sobbed, red-faced and frightened. “Away!”

I inspected him closely, but he didn't seem hurt.

“Mama?” Miranda tugged at the back of my shirt. “Ba did bite Silas?”

“I don't think so. I think he's just scared.”

“And Ba would eat him all up,” she decided. “And you will never see him again.”

“I don't think it's quite that bad.”

Peter watched Ba retreat off the deck. “Why's he so aggressive?”

“Well, he did just throw up on Rebecca. Maybe he's not feeling well.” I was still rubbing Silas's back, as his sobs turned to shuddering breaths. “Come on, Miranda,” I took my daughter's hand. “Let's go collect the eggs.”

This was usually a fun part of our day, when the three of us went down to look for eggs in the chicken nests. Gathering eggs is one of the harmless, picturesque parts of farming, the sort of gentle activity we'd imagined when we first moved to the countryside.

Except now it was a blood sport. Rogue animals roamed the property, lusting for fresh meat. At the very least, they threatened to jump on our cars, frighten the children, or charge us head-on. We tiptoed down to the chicken coop, dodging Pearl and her babies on the way. Cinnamon and Lil' Lady were under the quince tree, munching grass and watching us warily.

Miranda stepped into the chicken coop. “I think there will be five eggs today, Mama. What do you guess?”

“Wait, Magnolia,” I urged. “It's best to take the garbage lid with you, just in case—”

There was a flapping sound. I looked up to see Jabberwocky pouncing, talons extended, looking to seize my daughter in a cloacal kiss.

“Ow, Mama!” Miranda screamed. “Help!”

“That's it, you bastard!” On instinct, I grabbed a discarded two-by-four that was leaning against the side of the coop and lunged inside, beating at the bird with one end. “Miranda,” I yelled, “get outside.
Now!
”

Still screaming, she scuttled out of the coop, and I slammed the door behind her.

“Mama?” Miranda asked. “Next time? If Jabberwocky does get me? Then will you get a gun and dead him?”

“It's looking that way,” I told her. “It's just a matter of time.”

We had dinner at Autumn and Patrice's that night. It was a simple meal, with corn from their garden and mussels that Skin and Patrice had picked off the rocks at the seaside the day before. Patrice was lit up and grinning, tending the wood fire to grill our mussels. “It was so beautiful. It was his land—tribe land. You cannot go there unless you are with someone from that Maori tribe. And there was no one there!” He prodded the embers and blew, nursing them back to life. “The water was so clean you can't believe it.”

“So Skin's Maori?” I hadn't really thought about this before. Tribal identity isn't race based in New Zealand—some Maori are blond and blue-eyed, and a person with dark skin might be from anywhere: Papua New Guinea, Fiji, or even South America.

“Yep, Ngapuhi
*
I think. They've invited us back tomorrow,” Autumn said, her pale skin milky in the fading light. “There's no
school on Monday, so we're all going to camp. Skin says he'll show Titou how to catch a big snapper.”

It sounded great. I'd so much rather think about catching fish and grilling mussels than the mess of wild animals I had back home, or the storm systems raging in my son's brain. I looked over at Silas, wrapped in a blanket on the grass. He always seemed so tired these days.

“I think we have to kill our sheep,” Peter said, changing the subject. “He went after Silas today.”

“And the rooster,” I reminded him. “Actually, all the animals are getting a little scary. I'm starting to feel outnumbered.”

Autumn sipped her wine. “You know, they're not meant to be roaming free. We do have fences here in New Zealand.”

“I know, I know.” I sighed. “But the fences keep breaking, and then they escape.”

The embers were now white-hot, and Patrice started placing mussels on the grill. They popped and sizzled, releasing a smell of wood fire and briny ocean. “That rooster is a motherfucker,” he observed in his thick French accent. “A rooster like that, coming to a small child—it's like fighting a super villain with claws and a beak. You remember, Autumn?” he asked. “When your mother pulled the head off a rooster?”

Peter looked impressed. “Straight up ripped its head off? What did it do?”

“Oh, God.” Autumn laughed. “She didn't mean to. She was trying to wring its neck, and she wanted to do it right on the first go. So she pulled a little hard, and the head came right off in her hands. She was just standing there, holding a bloody rooster head. It was awful.”

Peter winced. “I think we'll use an axe on Jabberwocky.”

But Autumn wasn't finished. “You think you lot have trouble with chickens. The next chicken she had was standing in the doorway of the coop, and the door blew shut and squashed its head in. Then her dog got the last one, and she thought,
Shit, I don't have any chickens
.”

The mussels had all popped open. These were meaty, green-lipped mussels, each one the size of a small steak. Patrice set them on a platter with tongs, the tender flesh bubbling in the simmering juice.

Autumn went on with her tale. “So she rang up the free-range chicken farm to get some more chicks, and the people asked her what had happened to the chickens she had, and I guess she was too honest, 'cause she told them. And they said, ‘Ah nah. We've got no chickens for the likes of you.' She couldn't even give them money!” Autumn reached for a mussel. “It was so embarrassing.”

I picked up a scorching shell and slurped down the meat inside, an exquisite combination of hot smoke and sea.

“‘No chickens for the likes of you,'” I repeated. “Somebody should have said that to us years ago.”

The next morning, I got back to work on my cheeses. I had a few jugs of Pearl's milk on hand and I wanted to try making a Camembert with goat milk, rather than the more traditional cow's milk variety. But my cheese boards, squares of kauri that Peter had carefully cut and sanded for the purpose, appeared to be glued together. I peered more closely. They were cemented with clumps of pale brown mortar, and when I twisted the boards apart, the “mortar” crumbled. Dozens of dead spiders tumbled out, among them, several glistening gray larvae.