Cheating for the Chicken Man Page 13

  What in the world was happening? Kate wondered. “You may want to include some other details,” she added. “Like what does it smell like in the basement? Is it messy? Do you have a TV down there?”

  “No TV,” Curtis jumped in to say. “But there’s a pool table! Yeah! My brother, Justin, and me, we played a lot of pool. He taught me how to backspin the ball. Do you know what that is?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “That’s when you hit the cue ball with the cue stick at the base of the ball. It makes the ball move forward, but when it hits another ball, it suddenly reverses direction and comes back.”

  “It hits and then comes back?” Kate asked.

  “Yeah. It’s really amazing!”

  “Interesting,” she said, thinking to herself that the whole meeting with Curtis was like a giant backspin. What was it with him?

  She tried to think of some more questions. “So when you lie in bed, what else do you see besides the pool table? Pipes in the ceiling? What’s on the walls?”

  “My fishing rods,” he said. “I got all my fishing rods lined up on the wall. Then, on my bureau there’s a picture of my brother and me when I caught that thirty-two-inch rockfish. Remember I told you about that? And there’s a picture of Justin when he graduated from basic training.” He paused, and his eyes fell away from hers. “I look at that picture every night before I go to sleep.”

  His brother again. There was something about his brother.

  And then suddenly, Hooper Delaney was there. Silently, and without a greeting of any kind, he stood a few feet behind Curtis, like a shadow, and leaned against the wall. He was half the size of Curtis, a short, skinny kid who wore glasses and a large, dark sweatshirt with the hood up so Kate couldn’t see his face very well. His hands were stuffed into his pockets, and he didn’t have a backpack or anything. Kate couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to be leering at them. Did he know what was going on? Had Curtis told him they were going to meet here?

  Curtis glanced at him over his shoulder. “Hey, Hoop,” he said flatly.

  Hooper didn’t respond.

  It was creepy, Kate thought. Hooper was really sketchy. Didn’t he have anything better to do than hang out and cheer on the bully? When he started biting on a fingernail, Kate began to wonder if there was something wrong with him.

  And then, the strangest thing happened: Curtis’s demeanor began to change. He crossed his arms and frowned like he was angry. “So anyway, Kate,” he said, his voice suddenly loud. “Your next assignment is for English.”

  Was this a joke? Because it seemed like he was playacting. He had gone from laughing and asking for her advice to asking her to cheat again? Was he serious? Or was he showing off for Hooper? Kate was confused.

  “I know you must’ve read Animal Farm in eighth grade like everyone else,” Curtis said, “so this shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

  He was serious. Kate started walking backward.

  “But some of us dummies are just now reading that book.”

  Kate turned and started running down the stairs.

  “It won’t be that hard! I’ll text you the assignment!” Curtis called out over the second floor railing.

  Kate went so fast that on the last step, she fell, scraping her knee. It wasn’t a bad cut, not really, but she’d hit the edge of the step, and it drew blood, giving Kate an excuse to head for the nurse’s office. When she got there, she said she’d fallen and didn’t feel good. The nurse led her into the back room, where she pushed aside a curtain revealing a bed.

  All morning, Kate hid out, curled up on the bed in the sickroom. She even stayed through lunch, letting the nurse bring her a tuna fish sandwich and some cold French fries on a tray. Would Jess miss her at their table?

  Poor Jess, Kate thought, so innocent, chattering away on the bus that morning about the Halloween costume she was going to make, not knowing what Kate was about to do. And Kate not responding at all because she was still miffed about the sleepover. Kate, did you get my text? I’m going to be a cupcake! I saw a picture in this magazine at the orthodontist yesterday. It’s really cool. You use, like, cardboard for the cupcake paper, right? Then you stuff white tights with rags and loop them around and around for frosting. And you glue on cut-up colored straws for sprinkles! Kate? Are you even listening . . . ?

  Kate put a hand over her eyes. She was going to lose her best friend in all this, too. Things were slipping away, because what about the interview with Mr. Ellison for the school newspaper?

  “Excuse me, but could you get a message to one of my teachers?” Kate asked the nurse in a panic. “I’m supposed to interview him at lunch, but there’s no way I can do it.” She grimaced. All those questions for nothing: Where are you from? Where did you go to college? Do you like to write, too? She had agonized over the personal stuff, uncertain whether it was rude to ask if he was married and had a family.

  “Sure,” the nurse said.

  “Oh!” Kate sat up and rummaged in her backpack pulling out a roll of paper towels and a bag of beans. “Can you take these to the office, too? My lab partner, Marc Connors, needs them for lab. Mr. Rutkowski’s biology class next period.”

  The nurse took the items but hesitated and gave Kate a second look. Did she suspect Kate was faking it? She moaned a little and lay back down.

  What about field hockey? she wondered, draping a hand over her eyes. Could she go to practice if she hadn’t been in class all day?

  The nurse sounded concerned. “Are your cramps usually this bad? Should I call your mother?”

  Yet another lie added to her heap of lies. The pile was getting so big Kate couldn’t see over the top. “No,” she replied. “My mom doesn’t drive, so she can’t come. I’ll be okay. The Aleve will help, I know it will.”

  ~17~

  A MONSTER

  Dust and the smell of hay as we walk across fields turned into parking lots.

  Merry-go-round music. Kids screaming on the baby roller coaster.

  A man with tattoos on both arms hands us tickets.

  The sweet aroma of cinnamon roasted nuts.

  A woman in a wheelchair face paints a flower on the cheek of a little girl.

  Man on stilts—so tall he wears a hat with a basketball hoop.

  Red, white, and blue ice cream—pink cotton candy—red candy apples.

  The sun burns into our scalps. We should have worn hats!

  A sign for camel rides.

  Kate and Jess looked at each other. “Camel rides?”

  “You’ve got to put that in your notes!” Jess insisted, tapping the edge of Kate’s notebook. “Since when does Maryland have camels?”

  “I want a camel ride!” Kerry exclaimed.

  Kate smiled and wrote that down, too.

  “How many things do you need?” Jess asked, peering over Kate’s shoulder.

  “He didn’t say how many. He just said use your five senses to describe the county fair.”

  “Fun,” Jess said. “I wish I’d taken Creative Writing.”

  “I do! I want a camel ride!” Kerry whined.

  Kate rolled her eyes at Jess. “I hope this wasn’t a mistake,” she said behind her hand to Jess. The afternoon with Jess was important to Kate. She had looked forward to the fair all week. Taking Kerry along had been Mom’s request at the last minute when Jess’s mother drove into the yard. But no one had had the heart to say no, not even Kate.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jess said. “She’ll be fine. We’ll have fun.”

  Kate didn’t say anything, but she noticed how Jess not only had mascara on, but a shimmery blue color on her eyelids, too. It was actually kind of pretty, Kate thought. It brought out Jess’s bright blue eyes.

  She turned back to her little sister. “Let’s walk around first and see some stuff. Then we’ll get tickets, and you can ride the camel, oka
y?”

  The girls walked past a hot tub display and then a booth where the spicy smell of sizzling peppers, onions, and Italian sausages filled the air. But in the exhibit hall, endless rows of preserved tomatoes, pickles, and jams got boring really fast.

  “Kerry, come see the honeybees,” Kate said.

  “Ewwwww! Will they sting us?” Kerry asked.

  Jess snorted. “Well, maybe, if you break open the glass and stick your hand in there!”

  Kerry pressed her nose against the display glass. “What are they doing?”

  “They’re making honey,” Jess said, kneeling down to explain. She was always so good with Kerry, Kate thought. Probably because she didn’t have a little sister or brother of her own. Jess even remembered Kerry’s birthday every year and always brought her a bunch of balloons—all different colors, which Kerry adored and held onto for weeks, long after they’d lost all their helium and languished on the floor.

  Glad to be free for another minute, Kate moved on to the next display and took more notes: hand-knit sweaters, a beautifully carved walking stick. Quickly, she surveyed the flower arrangements until a single, giant pink zinnia caught her eyes. Instantly, it reminded Kate of a lotus blossom . . .

  The ancient Egyptians said the Nile River’s delta looked like a lotus blossom, because of the way the water seasonally overflowed its banks and fanned out before it emptied into the Mediterranean Sea. When the river flooded, then withdrew, it left thick layers of silt that enriched the land.

  Kate had researched the paper on the Nile River in the library last Monday on her lunch break. The Egyptians became excellent farmers, who irrigated their land and trained oxen to pull a wooden plow. . . . She had written it up that night and printed it out before she even started her own homework. They grew fields of wheat and other grains. . . . She had been up for hours after she finished that paper for Curtis because she’d had an essay to write for English, two chapters to outline in American history, and a math quiz coming up.

  Her mother had tapped on the door at midnight.

  “Kate,” she said, poking her head inside the door, “you need to get some sleep.”

  It was nice that her mother cared, Kate had thought, even if she didn’t know why Kate was up so late.

  “I will, Mom. I’m just finishing.” But it was another hour before Kate darkened the room at one A.M., and even then she hadn’t studied the math.

  *

  “Kate? What is it?” Jess rushed over. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” Kate said, not even realizing she’d put a hand on her chest and was leaning forward as the flashback washed over her. “I was just thinking.”

  “Geez, I thought you had a stomachache. It looked like you were going to throw up!”

  “I want to go to the rides!” Kerry insisted, jumping up and down.

  “I’m okay,” Kate assured Jess. “Let’s take her to the rides.”

  As the three girls walked between food stalls toward the midway, Kate forced herself to take more notes.

  “Look, three kinds of funnel cake now!” Jess exclaimed. “Chocolate, pumpkin, and glazed! We’ll have to try all three for your sense of taste!”

  After they bought tickets and put Kerry on the merry-go-round, Jess put her hands on Kate’s shoulders and turned her around.

  “Okay, Kate Tyler. Look at me. You need to tell me what’s wrong. What is going on?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong’?”

  “Just what I said. You’ve been on another planet! I mean, I see you on the bus. I see you in math. I see you at field hockey. But it’s either too noisy or there’s never time to talk. And you don’t eat lunch with us anymore!”

  Kate was caught off guard and unsure how to respond.

  “Don’t go telling me it’s worry over J.T.,” Jess said, “because I see him almost every day in the cafeteria now, and he’s always eating with either Steven O’Connell or that girl Ashley. So what is it? You even missed field hockey practice, and you never miss practice!”

  Kate dropped her eyes. “I had a lot to do,” she mumbled.

  “A lot to do? Like what?”

  “Like homework!” she shot back, starting to get annoyed that Jess wasn’t backing off.

  “Everyone on the team has homework!”

  “I know, Jess, but I had a lot. And I didn’t have study hall because I had to make up the bio lab I missed.”

  “Yeah, and I know you didn’t pass that last geometry quiz. What’s with that? We could have studied together.”

  Kate looked away and didn’t answer.

  “Kate, you’re different.”

  “Well, so are you,” Kate argued. “I mean, you didn’t used to wear all that makeup and stuff.”

  Jess pulled back and seemed hurt. “We’re in high school,” she said softly. “All the other girls are wearing makeup.”

  “Not all,” Kate countered.

  “No, not all,” Jess said, shrugging slightly. “I just wanted to try it. It was Olivia’s idea. But anyway, what’s so wrong with trying some mascara and eye shadow?”

  Nothing. Nothing was wrong with putting on a little makeup. Kate hated herself for what she’d just said. Truth be known, she wanted to try some, too! But she didn’t know how or when to try it. And she didn’t have the money. Kate sighed and dropped her head. She wished she could tell Jess that in addition to her own homework and field hockey and all her chores at home last week, she’d had to go on a hunt for her copy of Animal Farm(thank goodness she found it in J.T.’s room). Then she’d had to reread the first six chapters so she could write a summary, all in one night. Not only that, but two days later, she’d had to create a timeline on ancient Egypt as well as write an essay describing the social pyramid that placed the pharaoh on top and the slaves at the bottom. An essay, no kidding, that made her feel like a slave!

  But Kate couldn’t confide any of that, so the two of them stood there, silent, not knowing what to say, until Kerry came running back and grabbed one of Jess’s hands and one of Kate’s and, walking backward, pulled them toward the food. Jess bought a warm pumpkin funnel cake covered in confectioners’ sugar that came on a paper plate. The three of them pulled it apart and ate it in small, messy bites. When they finished, they cleaned their sticky hands and wiped their mouths with napkins dribbled with bottled water. Then more rides: the Tilt-A-Whirl twice, and, for Kerry, the whirling teacups, which almost made Kate sick for real. Surprisingly, however, things actually seemed a little better.

  After the midway, they walked through the petting zoo, where aggressive, hungry goats bleated for handouts and an angry llama laid its ears back and looked like it was ready to spit. Kate gazed at three little pigs in the pen and couldn’t help seeing them all with names like Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer—the pigs in Animal Farm. She imagined them taking over the petting zoo and revolting against the owner, who kept them in tiny enclosures and ferried them from fair to fair.

  “Whoa! Look at me!” Kerry called out from atop the camel’s hump. She sat in a specially designed seat that had low rails to grab for safety.

  “Hold on!” Jess told her.

  “Five dollars for a three-minute ride,” Kate grumbled after using the last of her cash to pay for Kerry’s ride. But she and Jess took pictures with their smartphones and joked about the camel’s whiskers and its long, beautiful eyelashes. Suddenly it hit Kate. What was this camel doing in Maryland? What kind of a life was it having, traveling to small-town carnivals and giving rides?

  She should have been outraged about the camel. She and Jess both! But there were other issues now—and a wall between them: Jess wondering why Kate had changed, and Kate unable to tell her.

  As they left, walking back through the exhibits and food stalls, they paused to watch a man use a chain saw to sculpt a blue heron from a log.

  “Oh,
my gosh, look!” Jess said. “Isn’t that Curtis Jenkins?”

  Kate squinted and stared. It was Curtis, all right. Behind the chain-saw artist and the haze of flying wood chips was the back of a food tent, and Curtis, wearing a white apron, was hauling out bags of trash.

  “Looks like he’s working hard,” Jess said.

  “Curtis Jenkins is a monster,” Kate blurted.

  “Oh, come on!” Jess said, pushing her arm playfully. “He’s not a bully anymore.”

  It was hard for Kate not to respond.

  “My mom said he had a really hard time after his brother died,” Jess said. “Maybe he was angry about it. Maybe that’s what made him so mean.”

  “What did you say? When his brother died?”

  “Don’t you remember? His brother was that army guy who came to talk to us in the fifth grade. He told us what it was like being a soldier in Afghanistan.”

  “I remember the soldier,” Kate said. “We wrote letters and sent his unit a big Christmas package, right? But I didn’t know that was Curtis’s brother.”

  “Yeah, it was. My mother said he died, like, the next year or something. We prayed for him at church.”

  Kate was slowly shaking her head. “Why don’t I remember that?”

  “Maybe that was the same time your dad got sick.”

  “But even if Curtis was angry about what happened to his brother, it didn’t give him the right to bully my brother!”

  “No, it didn’t,” Jess agreed. “But that’s over, isn’t it? You told me yourself that things were fine.”

  Kate couldn’t deny that.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what’s got into you,” Jess went on. “You didn’t use to hold a grudge like this. And anyway, Kate, just remember this—inside every monster there’s a human being.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should make that one of your quotes!”

  “Yeah! Well, maybe I will!” Jess said, spinning away.

  ~18~

  DISTRACTION

  Could Jess be right? Could there be a human being inside the monster that was Curtis Jenkins?