Cheating for the Chicken Man Read online

  In that quiet moment when everyone was absorbing the refreshing idea of a new business—a whole new beginning—Kate heard the ding of a text arriving. While the others were talking, she pulled the phone from her pocket and read the message:

  Curtis: So how much do I feed these guys?

  ~29~

  MAYBE

  Weeks went by. The jack-o’-lanterns on the porch steps rotted, sank in on themselves, and had to be tossed. The leaves had fallen, and the trees were mostly skinny and bare, although from the back upstairs bedrooms, a view of the river was possible now. Geese were still picking through the harvested cornfields, but the soybean fields lay flat and brown under an often cloudy November sky the color of slate.

  J.T. progressed from the wheelchair to crutches, but his injured leg remained weak, and he tired easily. Doctors advised him not to go back to school until after the holidays.

  “You are joining the marching band, no question about it,” Ashley kept telling him when she stopped by with books and homework assignments. But despite her unflagging optimism, a doctor had warned J.T. that he might always have a significant limp.

  The chicken feed project was put on hold, too, so J.T. could focus on makeup work and physical therapy. Valley Shore and the Tylers, by mutual agreement, ended their contract anyway. Kate’s mother paid off the mortgage, but borrowing money to start a new business wasn’t so easy, and the chicken houses remained empty.

  Brady came over one Saturday afternoon. The two boys pulled an old video game called Star Craft off the shelf in J.T.’s closet and spent hours together building space civilizations. Kate was amazed—and delighted. She surprised them by making their favorite nachos, melting cheese over corn chips in the microwave. It was like nothing had ever happened between the two boys. Too good to be true, Kate thought. And it was—because weeks went by after that visit, and Brady never came again, not even over Thanksgiving vacation when everyone had five days off. Neither did he call or text.

  “I guess he’s not over it either,” J.T. told Uncle Ray one evening when he and Aunt Helen brought the girls for cake and ice cream to celebrate Kerry’s seventh birthday. They were the only two left in the living room after the party. The girls had all run outside despite the chilly December evening to see Kerry’s new bike, and the others were cleaning up in the kitchen. Kate just happened to overhear because she was putting things away in the pantry, a small narrow room between the kitchen and the living room.

  “Truth is,” Uncle Ray said to J.T., “none of you boys will ever be over it. You all have to learn how to live with it. You and Brady—Digger, too.”

  Kate froze with a box of tea in her hands upon hearing Digger’s name. He was the friend most responsible for sabotaging the red kayak that had caused so much tragedy.

  “Digger will be home soon, I hear, and then you three will have to figure out the next step,” Uncle Ray continued. “In answer to your question, though, I don’t know if a real friendship is ever possible again. Maybe—if you find a way to forgive one another. But for sure you got to give it more time. If it’s gonna work, you’ll have to ease back into the friendship slowly.”

  It gave Kate goose bumps listening to her uncle. Her eyes teared up, too, because he sounded just like their father. Uncle Ray’s advice was the kind of advice Dad would have given J.T. if he were here. She put a hand on her heart.

  “Thanks, Uncle Ray,” J.T. said. “Thanks for talking with me about it. It’s been hard. Real hard . . .”

  When J.T.’s voice broke, Kate looked down, almost ashamed to be listening.

  “Don’t you ever think twice about it,” Uncle Ray told him. “It’s what family’s for. I’m here for you guys. You know that.”

  *

  Grandma and Kate’s grandfather both came up to Maryland for Christmas. But there was one more visitor before J.T. returned to school after the holidays. Curtis stopped by.

  From the kitchen window, Kate watched him walk down the hill to the shed where J.T. was changing the oil on one of the tractors. They were in the shed together for a long time while Kate stood staring at the two pairs of tracks the boys had made through the snow. Because he still used crutches, J.T.’s tracks were a mess of lines and boot prints, but the snow didn’t stop him, or slow him down, and neither did his injured leg. Kate hoped Curtis had come to deliver the long-awaited apology, but when she asked J.T. about it later, he didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Just stuff,” he said, stomping snow from his boots. “No big deal.”

  “Excuse me, no big deal?” Kate asked.

  J.T. shrugged and hobbled over to the sink to wash the oil off his hands. Kate figured he wasn’t going to share anything about the visit and started to walk away. But she stopped and swung around when her brother commented, “I told him it was all ancient history.”

  *

  When J.T. returned to school after the holiday break, Kate stayed by his side, carrying his things. She was surprised to see Brady waiting at her brother’s locker. “Here, I’ll take his books,” Brady said to Kate. He grinned at her when she handed over J.T.’s backpack. “Ashley’s going to take over at lunch,” he said.

  So the boys had been in touch again, even though J.T. never said anything. Kate smiled back at Brady and, too anxious to think clearly, said simply, “That’s great.”

  Brady hoisted J.T.’s backpack over one shoulder, his own backpack over the other, and went to work, clearing the way for J.T. to maneuver his way down the busy hall on crutches. Kate stood watching, wiping at her eyes once, until the two boys, their heads bobbing above the crowd, finally disappeared through the double doors that led upstairs.

  Later, when Kate saw Curtis outside the cafeteria, she stopped to thank him for coming over and talking to J.T.

  “No problem,” he said. “Long overdue.” Suddenly, he pulled Kate’s missing journal from his pile of books and handed it to her. “I was waiting for a chance to give you this. Got it back from Hooper over the weekend, just before he moved.”

  Kate hugged the journal to her chest, but her eyes never left Curtis’s face. “Hooper moved?”

  “He went down to Salisbury to be with his mom. She enrolled him in a school down there, where he’ll get some kind of special help. He didn’t want to talk about it much, but he seemed glad to be going. Anyway, I went over to help him get his things together.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. I bagged up all the fish in his aquarium for him. We put them in an insulated cooler for the trip. Then I washed out the aquarium and put it in the back of his mother’s car.”

  “Wow. Mr. Nice Guy,” Kate teased.

  “Look,” Curtis said, leaning in toward Kate, “Hooper never squealed about what we did. We should just move on.”

  “I suppose,” she agreed.

  “It’s better for J.T., too,” Curtis added. “How do you think he’d feel if he knew what we’d done?”

  Kate’s eyes met his and, somewhat reluctantly, she nodded in agreement.

  “So how are my chickens doing?” she asked, eager to change the subject.

  “We are really enjoying the eggs!” he told her. “My mother’s boyfriend, especially. Ol’ Zeke really got into it. He’s the one who built most of that new coop, you know. He takes care of those chickens more than I do. You need to come over and see them one day.”

  “I will,” Kate promised.

  *

  Things were looking up again. Hooper was gone, J.T. was back in school, and Jess had a little surprise of her own. “You were right about the cheating,” she said to Kate one morning on the bus.

  Kate whirled around to face her. “What?”

  Jess looked down. “Yeah. You said I was cheating myself, or something like that, by not being true to myself and giving up Quote of the Day.”

  “I did?” Relieved, Kate let her breath out. “I said that?�
�

  “Yeah! ‘Time discovers the truth,’” Jess said, smiling.

  Kate frowned, confused.

  “‘Time discovers the truth’—it’s my first quote!” Jess explained. “It’s from a Roman philosopher named Seneca. I have my old job back!”

  Kate beamed. “I am really glad, Jess!”

  “Yeah. I needed to do it for myself. Especially after I found out the truth about how much Olivia was making fun of me. Not just to my face either, but behind my back!”

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Kate said.

  “No. I mean, she did say she was sorry, and I think we’re still friends. But still. She didn’t have much respect for what was important to me. It made me look at her a little differently.”

  Kate didn’t say anything, but as the school bus rumbled on and she turned her attention forward again, she had to wonder deep inside about Jess’s new quote. Was time going to discover the truth of what Kate had done? And if people, including Jess, found out about the cheating, would they understand? Would they look at her differently?

  *

  On the home front, things took another step forward when Kate’s mother was able to obtain a loan from the bank so she could start a new business.

  Maybe things would finally get back to normal, Kate thought.

  Maybe.

  “I thought we’d visit Arlington National Cemetery at Easter when Grandma and Grandpa come back up,” Kate’s mother said one evening at dinner. “We could take some of the early blooming daffodils down by the tractor shed. Dad always liked those—the yellow ones with orange centers. And J.T.’s never seen the grave.” She glanced at her son across the table, and her voice grew soft. “I’m so sorry I didn’t allow you to come that day.”

  J.T. shrugged. “It’s okay, Mom,” he said, briefly catching Kate’s eyes. Some things, they both seemed to agree, were better left unsaid.

  ~30~

  SECRETS

  They arrived on a warm spring day in late March. A Saturday, as it turned out, so Kate, J.T., and Kerry were able to go, too, when the post office called.

  “We’ll be right over to pick them up,” Kate’s mother said.

  They left the breakfast dishes until later and jumped in the family van. Kate’s mother drove.

  As soon as J.T. opened the heavy glass door to the post office, they could hear them peeping. Two women at the front window chuckled.

  “Not every day we get a delivery like this!” the woman on duty commented. She hustled into the back to get the first of several shipping crates with the noisy cargo and brought it out front to the lobby, where she carefully set it down on the floor.

  Kate’s family bent over to peek in at the newborn chicks through the many breathing holes on each side of the crate. More and more cartons joined the first one, and soon the small post office lobby was awash in a cacophony of peeps!

  A woman with a package in her arms paused to look, and a man getting his mail came over to see. “How many chicks?” he asked.

  “Five hundred Rhode Island reds,” Kate’s mother said. And Kate thought she said it rather proudly.

  “They came overnight from New Mexico!” Kerry added, clapping her small hands in excitement. “They flew on an airplane!”

  “What do you know,” another customer chuckled. “Rhode Island chickens from New Mexico!”

  “They didn’t need food and water?” someone asked.

  “Just hatched, they can go for seventy-two hours without food and water,” J.T. explained. “It’s because they’re still ingesting their yolk sacs. It’s all the nourishment they need.”

  Kate shook her head and smiled. Leave it to her brainy brother to know something like that.

  Back at the Tylers’ farm, one of the chicken houses had been prepared for its new inhabitants. The floors were scraped and scrubbed clean. The feeders and drinkers were filled with starter feed and water. Perches for sleeping at night were set up, and lines of cozy boxes for egg-laying were installed above conveyor belts that would gather and move the eggs. While the windows and doors were closed for the time being, they would be open soon so the growing chicks could go outside during the day into a huge grassy yard that had been enclosed with electric fencing. Small benches were in place so the chickens would have shade, and several shiny CDs were hung on strings as modern-day scarecrows to frighten away predators like hawks and eagles with their bright reflections.

  Everyone was onboard for the new journey.

  *

  About the same time the new chicks arrived, Kate and Jess began softball practice after school—and Jess got her braces off. “Look at these teeth!” she kept saying, thrusting her toothy smiles at Kate. “I was gorgeous under all that wire, but no one knew it!”

  Kate laughed. “Your modesty surprises me!” she said sarcastically.

  “Time discovers the truth,” Jess said. “Remember?”

  “Time is not the only thing that discovers the truth. Jeffrey Brown discovered your true beauty, too,” Kate quipped.

  “Oh, my gosh, he is so incredibly sweet,” Jess said. “But you should talk! I know Brady’s been helping you with math.”

  “Just a little.”

  Jess narrowed her eyes with concern. “Hey, what happened to your arm?”

  Kate glanced at the pink blotch of skin below her wrist and rolled her eyes. “Burned it on my flat iron.”

  Jess’s face melted into a silly smile as she poked Kate in the ribs. “I thought you didn’t like using that hair straightener!”

  Despite all the new beginnings, Kate struggled inside. The cheating hung on her like a heavy, but invisible, tattered coat. No one else could see it, but Kate knew the ugly thing was there, and it weighed her down.

  She often thought back to her father’s funeral and J.T.’s secret playing of the trumpet for taps. No one else knew . . . No one else would ever need to know. And she wondered, why not regard the cheating in the same way? Did anyone need to know? If so, then why? What difference would it make now?

  Everybody had secrets, Kate told herself. Her grandmother once said that before she died, she hoped she would know the secret about who really was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Her family would likely never learn the details of her father’s war injury, because he had never wanted to talk about it. Nor would they ever know if it was malevolent dust from chicken feed that had caused his kidney cancer. Curtis would always wonder why his brother had killed himself. And, Kate couldn’t help but think, unless scientists—or people like J.T.—did research to check up on factory farm secrets, people would never know what they were eating!

  Why couldn’t Kate’s cheating be one of those things people didn’t know? J.T. wasn’t bullied anymore. The bullying had been cruel and unfair, and she had stopped it. Didn’t the ends justify the means? Kate wanted to think so, but she couldn’t be sure. There didn’t seem to be a black or white answer. And that reminded her of something.

  Her mind drifted back to the day their father had shown J.T. how to do the culling and she had run away, unable to watch anymore. That night, when she and J.T. were sitting on the roof, Dad had startled them by squeezing through the bedroom window to join them. He was a big man, and it wasn’t easy for him, especially with his bum knee, but he pulled through anyway, scraping his work shoes against the shingles. He plunked himself down heavily between the two of them and put a thick arm around each.

  “I wanted to tell you something,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that there are a lot of times in life when you’re not sure what’s right and what’s wrong. A lot of things aren’t pure black and white, and that’s because people look at things different. There’s a lot of gray areas out there. So sometimes, you listen to your heart, and sometimes, you listen to your head because you have to be practical. You have to respect how others feel, too. But then you do the best you can, n
ot only for yourself, but for your family.”

  Of course, Dad had been talking about killing chickens, not cheating at school, but Kate seriously wondered if it came down to the same thing.

  Time discovers the truth. Should she confess before it caught up with her?

  Her head said yes, but her heart said, no.

  *

  During the last week of school, Kate saw an opportunity. She and J.T. had stayed after school for Kate’s last softball game. J.T. had hurt his leg again trying to do too much too fast and was back on crutches. The plan was that after the game, they would clean out his locker, and Kate would carry a box of his things out to their mother’s van. Kate was in the hallway, heading to J.T.’s locker, when she passed the main office and saw the principal standing at the front counter with a teacher.

  Still in her softball uniform, Kate stopped and shifted the duffel bag on her shoulder. She had been thinking more and more about talking to Mrs. Larkin before school ended. The timing was good, she figured, because a whole long summer stretched before them—plenty of time to forget, and forgive. She had just turned fourteen, but she already knew, thanks to Brady and her brother, that time had a way of softening the edges, however sharp they once had been.

  Turning her head, Kate could see J.T. far down the hallway, kneeling in front of his locker and pulling things out. The principal, meanwhile, ended her conversation with the teacher and was walking away.

  Surely Mrs. Larkin would give Kate a minute. She might even invite Kate into her office to sit down. It wouldn’t take long. Kate knew how she’d begin the conversation, because she had already written the first words in her head. All she had to do was repeat them.

  At the beginning of ninth grade, I cheated. I wrote an essay in Creative Writing for Curtis Jenkins. I wrote papers assigned in English and ancient history for Hooper Delaney. I did it so those boys would leave my brother, J.T., alone and give him a chance to start over. It worked. I know that doesn’t make what I did right . . .

  J.T. was standing up in front of his locker, getting the crutches back under his arms.