A & L Do Summer (17 page)

SOMETHING YANKS ME AWAKE. I LOOK AT MY CLOCK AND RELAX
back against my pillow. It's just after midnight, which means I have twelve more hours to sleep. I told Miss Simmons that I won't be taking Sammy for his walk until tomorrow—I mean this—afternoon. Her hip is so much better that she's hoping to walk part of the way with us. But that's at least twelve long, peaceful hours from now.

Hail peppers against my window like tiny rocks. That's probably what woke me up. Moonlight sends shadows across my bedspread, almost as bright as day. How can it be hailing on a clear night?

Another shower of little somethings clinks against the glass. Could Clay be tossing pebbles at my window to lure me into his waiting arms?

I smooth my hair and hurry to look out. Someone is standing on our lawn, bathed romantically in moonlight. But this someone is much shorter than Clay. And has way bigger boobs.

As quietly as possible, I crank open the window. “Laurel!” I whisper-shout. “What are you doing?”

“Come down here!” Her voice is hoarse with tears. “It's a matter of life and death!”

Not this time. I will not be lured to my doom by another of Laurel's life-and-death emergencies. I begin to crank in reverse.

“Please, Aspen! They're going to murder Cleo!” Whatever else Laurel tries to say is lost in her wild sobbing.

Too bad I don't get paid for predicting the future of Laurel's animal friends. I could use the extra money to bail myself out of jail. But this summer's in the toilet, anyway, and Mom and Dad can't ground me from school.

“Hold on, Laurel. I'm coming down.” Remembering the pig fiasco, I take a second to pull on an extra T-shirt over my sleep tee. And I put on my sneakers instead of flip-flops. Who says I don't learn from my mistakes?

Carmine has been watching me with interest, but this is one adventure I'm having without him. “Sorry, buddy, I have to lock you in.” I back toward the bedroom door, prepared to fight my way out of the room. But he just expels a huge sigh and lays his head on his paws.

At least one of us has developed some common sense.

It's almost scary how good I've become at sneaking out of the house. In less than a minute I'm in the backyard. I find Laurel leaning against the house with her arms crossed over her chest, her cheeks gleaming with tears. When she sees me, she flings herself against me, sobbing.

This isn't Laurel being a drama queen. I pat her back and let her cry until she winds down. With all the noise she's making, I expect Mom and Dad to switch on the outdoor lights and catch us.

“Okay,” I say when she finally stops crying. “Tell me what's going on. And why didn't you call instead of throwing rocks at my window?”

“I forgot to put my phone on the charger.” Laurel rubs her face with her T-shirt sleeve. “I'll tell you the rest on the way there. My car's parked in the alley.”

I open the gate and seal my doom. “On the way where?” The question is just a formality because I already know what she's going to say.

“EggstraGood, of course. Those murderers!” She blows her nose on a crumpled tissue.

It's a typical August night, muggy, still, and smelling of freshly cut grass. A hummingbird moth dips its nose into the lily-shaped flowers of Mom's sprawling moonflower plant. The only sounds I hear are Laurel honking her nose and air-conditioners humming. Our shadows are surprisingly clear, thanks to the full moon.

This is the first time I've seen Laurel's car, which is small, white, and nondescript. As I climb in, I notice the empty cat carrier on the backseat and remember a line from an old western, something about shooting chicken thieves.

“Okay, we're on our way. Tell me what's going on.”

Laurel waits to answer until we pull away from the curb. “Today at work, a couple of the workers starting separating the green chickens from all the other ones.”

“Green chickens? I know chickens come in different colors, but green?”

Laurel shakes her head at my lack of knowledge about all things poultry. “The chickens aren't green, Aspen. They have green tags on their wings.” She turns onto a gravel road. “When I started working at EggstraGood, Steve explained that the tags show when the chickens were hatched so the people at the farm know which ones are the oldest.”

“Let me guess. Cleo is in the oldest group of chickens.”

Laurel bites her lower lip and nods. Her eyes well up with tears. “And tomorrow they're going to pack them into trucks and send them off to be slaughtered.”

“Wait a minute. One chicken can't cost very much. Why didn't you just offer to buy…Cleo?”

“I did.” Laurel sniffles. “But Steve and his father are off fishing at some stupid lake in northern Canada and can't be reached. And when I asked the jerk manager who's in charge until they get back, he said he's not authorized to ‘sell the stock to anyone except pre-approved buyers.'” Tears roll down her cheeks.

“Just so I understand, we're only rescuing Cleo, right? Because if you're talking about letting the whole flock go, I'm out.”

Laurel stares at the road so long I start to ask her again. “Yes, just Cleo.” She dabs her eyes. “I just wish I hadn't gotten to know all the girls personally. It's so hard….”

I remember the five fuzzy yellow chicks my science class hatched in third grade. They lived in a cage in the classroom until they got too big and messy for our teacher, Ms. Voss, to take care of. She gave them to her farmer fiancé to supposedly live out their lives in peace and harmony. It made perfect sense to a bunch of nine-year-olds, but those chickens probably ended up as their Sunday dinner.

“Yeah, it is,” I agree, thinking of those cute little chicks, “but that's what happens to farm animals when they've outlived their usefulness. I know it seems cruel, but farmers can't afford to keep feeding animals that don't produce.”

Laurel's grip on the wheel gets tighter. “So Daisy, Sunflower, and Rose are going to be killed, too?”

Baby steps. We're taking baby steps. “Nah. Those three will spend their days hanging out in the pig pen, slapping mud packs on their faces, and debating which hog has the hunkiest physique.”

A hint of a smile crosses Laurel's face. We ride in silence for a few minutes until the EggstraGood Farm sign appears on our left. Laurel turns off the gravel road onto the asphalt driveway. Then she cuts the lights and engine and we coast until we're out of sight of the main road.

“Okay, as far as I know, there isn't a night security guy,” Laurel says. “All we have to do is climb over the fence, grab Cleo, and get out of there.”

“As far as you know?”

Laurel lifts the cat carrier over the seat back and onto her lap. “Well, I couldn't exactly come out and ask, now could I?”

“I guess not.” There's no point in arguing with Laurel when she's like this. “So, how high is this fence? Is it barbed wire?”

“It's not that high, and it's not barbed wire.” She opens her door. “As soon as we walk over there, you can see for yourself.”

And I was worried that Laurel hadn't thought this through.

We walk together up the winding asphalt drive-way. Fluffy clouds roll across the moon, bathing us in alternating light and shadow. The pungent odor of chicken poop coats the inside of my nose, and a rank river of sweat pours between my shoulder blades. None of the smells bother me that much because I'm too scared to breathe.

When they snap my picture for the Wanted poster, I hope they get my good side.

To our left is a gigantic red barn with a white EggstraGood sign on the side. Laurel veers off the driveway and across a mowed pasture. We stumble over chopped-off weed stalks and hidden rabbit holes until we reach the fence surrounding the chicken yard.

Laurel is right about the fence. It's only about five feet tall and it's not barbed wire. But the red and black warning sign is pretty significant. “Didn't you know it's an electric fence?”

“That sign's just to scare people. I've leaned against this fence a hundred times and never been shocked.” Laurel sets the cat carrier on the ground and grabs the top wire. “See? Nothing happens.” She throws her leg over the top. “After I climb over, hand me—”

Laurel shoots backward and lands on her butt in the weeds. “Crap! Crap! Crap!” she moans as she rubs her inner thigh.

“Are you okay?”

“What do you think?” she snaps, checking her leg for damage. “I was almost electrocuted.”

I help her up. “Electric fences won't kill you. They just give a strong enough jolt to keep out predators. I imagine this one is only on at night.”

Laurel jerks her hand away. “Thank you, Bill Nye, the Science Guy. If you know so much, what do we do now?”

“Since you're getting testy with me, you can take me home and figure it out for yourself.” I turn on my heel and head back across the field.

“Wait, Aspen! Please!” Laurel rushes after me. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm just so worried about Cleo.”

“Well, don't take it out on me.” I stumble on a weed stalk and mentally curse myself for getting sucked into another of her schemes. “This is your chicken rescue, not mine.”

“I know, and I said I was sorry. Now will you please come back with me?”

I keep walking. “Not yet. We can't get over the fence unless we can get past the electric current.”

“That makes sense.” Laurel is clearly trying to get on my good side. “So I drive the car up to the fence, we climb on the hood, and jump over. But how do we get back?”

“Bill Nye would be very disappointed in you.” I open the passenger door and check out the floor mats, which, as I'd hoped, are rubber. “I don't suppose there's any duct tape in here?”

“Dad put together an emergency kit, but I've never opened it.” Laurel flips the trunk release under her dashboard. “It's in the trunk.”

When we open the Rubbermaid box in the back of Laurel's car, I say a prayer of thanks for the male obsession with duct tape. Laurel and I pull the four floor mats out of her car and haul them back to the fence along with the two rolls of duct tape from her emergency kit. We rip the tape with our teeth—probably undoing my two years of wearing braces—and fasten all four mats together.

Thanks to Laurel, we know that the top wire isn't electric. So we drape the mats over the second wire from the top so that they hang down and cover both sides of the fence. The mats don't quite reach the ground, so we're going to have to be extra careful not to touch the bottom wire, just in case.

“Okay, guinea pig,” I tell Laurel. “You first.”

She rubs her palms on her shorts, takes a deep breath, and grabs the top wire. I give her a boost until she's straddling the fence. Then she maneuvers her right leg over and drops down on the other side.

“That was brilliant, Aspen!” She pumps her fist in the air. “I promise never to make fun of you or Bill Nye again.”

“As your future cellmate, I'm going to hold you to that.” I hand her the cat carrier. Getting over the fence with no help from behind is tricky. I have to shinny over on my stomach, turn around, and slide down the mats on the other side.

When I'm safely over the fence, I eyeball Laurel to make sure she's not secretly recording me. If this shows up on YouTube, she's a dead woman.

WITH THE FENCE BEHIND US, LAUREL AND I WALK ACROSS THE
chicken park to the barns where they roost. According to her, the green chickens are in the building that's farthest from the fence. Of course they are.

Aside from the sound of chicken poop squishing under our feet, everything is quiet. No security guards rush out waving guns. No Rottweilers or pit bulls attack us with dripping jaws. No floodlights snap on to illuminate our wrongdoing.

Our little misdemeanor is going too smoothly, and it's making my skin crawl. We've forgotten something critical, but what?

“Okay, Laurel. Walk me through this.” Even though nobody's around, I can't help but whisper. “Once we're inside the chicken house, what's going to happen?”

She brushes an insect away from her face. “I pick up Cleo and put her in the carrier. Then we leave.”

Now I know what we've forgotten. “How are you going to tell her apart from all the other chickens?”

Laurel smiles. “That's easy. You can't see them in the dark, but there are red plastic streamers tied around some of these fence posts. Before I left today, I sneaked one of them off and tied it around the tag on Cleo's wing.”

“But if we can't see the streamers out here in the dark, how will we see the one on her wing?”

She stops with her hand on the chicken house doorknob and glares at me. “Why are you always so critical of my ideas?”

Because they suck?

The door swings open and I follow Laurel inside. It's at least ten degrees warmer in here. Dust hangs in the air, and the chicken-poop smell is overpowering. Except for moonlight slipping through crank-out windows near the ceiling, the huge building is dark. Even so, I can see feathery lumps sitting wing to wing on shoulder-high roosts from one end of the building to the other.

“Okay, Laurel.” Sarcasm is leaking from my pores. “Grab your good friend Cleo and we're out of here.”

Laurel turns slowly, taking in the hundreds of snoozing hens. “I didn't know there'd be so many,” she wails, “and it's so dark. I'll never find Cleo now.”

The chickens nearest to us rustle their feathers and make sleepy clucking sounds. Their restlessness is contagious, traveling along the roost like an old-fashioned game of telephone.

“Shh! You're waking them up.”

Laurel covers her mouth with her hands, but that doesn't stop tears from dripping down her cheeks. Even though I'm pissed, I can't help feeling sorry for her. Besides, I didn't risk my freedom to come away empty-handed.

“Pull yourself together, Laurel,” I hiss in her ear. “Cleo's life depends on it.”

She takes a deep breath and wipes her face with the heels of her hands.

“Good. Now, imagine that Cleo is hanging out with the other…girls, and you're trying to get her attention. What do you do?”

“Nothing. I mean, when she sees me in the yard, she just runs over to me.”

Be patient. Violence is not the answer.

“Okay, but suppose she's looking the other way. Then what?”

Laurel shakes her head sadly. “Seriously, I don't do anything.” Then her face lights up. “Wait. She likes it when I whistle.”

Now we're getting somewhere. “So Cleo comes when you whistle?”

“No. Not really,” Laurel says. “But sometimes she sings along.”

Why am I not surprised? “Whatever works. Pucker up and go to it.”

So help me, if Laurel asks what tune she should whistle, I'll wring her neck. But, either she senses my mood or she and Cleo have a favorite song. She licks her lips and starts whistling.

The chickens closest to us are unimpressed, so Laurel begins walking along the roosts. I walk behind her, watching the chickens for signs of musical talent. Because of all the dust, Laurel has to keep stopping in mid-whistle to muster up more spit. At this rate, she's going to run out of saliva before Cleo chimes in with her part of the duet. Unless this human/chicken bonding is another figment of Laurel's wild imagination.

Walking through a barn full of snoozing chickens is a major snore. My eyes are drooping and I can't stop yawning. Every time I do, about a hundred gnats fly into my mouth. It's during that quiet time between yawning and spitting out gnats that I hear a faint “
bawk, bawk.”

I grab Laurel's arm and hold my finger to my lips. Then I circle my index finger near my mouth and nod for her to begin whistling. One silent step at a time we move forward, and I hear the
bawking
again. While Laurel keeps whistling, I track the
bawk
to the far end of the roost. Looking closely, I see a scrap of ribbon hanging from one of the hens' wings.

Cleo would never make it past the first round of
American Idol
auditions, but her
bawk
is music to my ears.

Laurel slides her hands under Cleo's stomach and lifts her from the roost. I hold my breath, expecting chicken hell to break loose, but Cleo doesn't raise a squawk. She seems content to snuggle into Laurel's arms and go back to sleep.

I let out a long breath of relief that we've made it this far. “Okay, you've got her. Let's go.”

With Cleo cuddled against her, Laurel looks up and down the long rows of sleeping chickens. “Good-bye, girls,” she whispers. “I'm sorry I can't save all of you. But I promise I'll never eat chicken again for the rest of my life.”

As much as I love Mom's fried chicken, I silently take the pledge, too. I couldn't chomp down on a creature I've practically had a sleepover with. Then I pick up the cat carrier by the handle, hold Laurel's upper arm, and steer her toward the door. “Don't look back. That will only make it worse.”

Outdoors, all is still quiet although thick clouds have obscured the moon. Laurel snuffles and wipes her eyes on Cleo's back.

“Don't you want to put Cleo in the carrier?”

“No. Let's wait until we get to the fence.” Laurel scratches Cleo under the chin…beak…whatever. “I don't thi—”

A monstrous, dark shape whooshes past our heads, startling her to silence. It passes so close that the breeze from its wings stirs my hair.

I start to say, “What was that?” when Cleo sets up a frantic chatter, squirms out of Laurel's arms, and hits the ground running. Wings flapping, she zigzags across the chicken park, squawking her beak off.

“No, Cleo! Wait!” Laurel shouts, taking off after her. But it's clear from the start that her running is no match for Cleo's wing-assisted velocity. I drop the carrier and go wide, trying to cut Cleo off before she ducks through the fence and escapes. It doesn't look promising.

The owl swoops in on enormous wings, its round yellow eyes gleaming. It plunges toward the screeching Cleo, who is circling back toward us.

Laurel screams and shields her face. I cover my eyes.

There's a rush of wind, followed by a blood-curdling squawk and a thud. Then silence.

I uncover my eyes, steeling myself for the sight of Cleo's twisted and blood-soaked body. But except for a few stray feathers, there's nothing. The owl made a clean kill and carried her away. At least Laurel is spared the sight of her friend's bloody corpse.

Laurel's face is buried in her hands, and her shoulders are heaving. My arms hang helplessly at my sides. After all we went through, we still lost Cleo.

“Laurel, I'm so sorry.” It sounds lame even to me, but there's nothing else to say. I walk over and pull her head against my shoulder. The raw sobs tearing from her throat bring tears to my eyes, too.

To everyone except Laurel, Cleo was just a chicken. But we love who we love—an annoying friend, a goofy dog, a spoiled-rotten skunk, even a plain old chicken. And losing who we love hurts like hell.

“Come on. Let's get out of here.” Laurel's crying so hard, I don't think she can hear me. I pat her shoulder and ease her away from me. Every second we stay puts us in danger of being caught. I'll feel much better when we're over the fence and off EggstraGood property. If Laurel's too upset, I can drive us home.

Wearily, I shuffle over to pick up the cat carrier. The wire door popped open when I dropped it. I crouch to close it and see a shape inside.

“Cleo?” I murmur, and hear a muffled
bawk
. I'm not fluent in poultry, but it sounds like a
bawk
of relief to me.

“Cleo's in the cat carrier! I think she's okay!”

Laurel's there in an instant. She pulls Cleo out and pats her from head to tail. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” she says over and over as she hugs the chicken.

I say a silent prayer of thanks. “Now we're seriously getting out of here. But this time Cleo goes in the carrier—and stays there.”