Cheating for the Chicken Man (15 page)

A MONSTER

D
ust and the smell o
f hay as we walk acr
oss fields turned in
to parking lots.

Mer
ry-go-round music. K
ids screaming on the
baby roller coaster
.

A man with tattoos
on both arms hands
us tickets.

The swee
t aroma of cinnamon
roasted nuts.

A woma
n in a wheelchair fa
ce paints a flower o
n the cheek of a lit
tle girl.

Man on sti
lts—so tall he wears
a hat with a basket
ball hoop.

Red, whit
e, and blue ice crea
m—pink cotton candy—
red candy apples.

Th
e sun burns into our
scalps. We should h
ave worn hats!

A sig
n 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, okay?”

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
a
ll
,” 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
A
nimal 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
m
onster
,” 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.

DISTRACTION

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

Kate pondered this question the next day in English class while Mrs. Langley collected homework.

Why was Curtis making her write all these papers about ancient Egypt and
Animal Farm
and yet, when she quietly slipped these assignments into his hands, he didn't look at her and seemed almost
embarrassed
?

“Books closed. Eyes up here,” Mrs. Langley instructed.

But Kate turned to look out the window instead.

She thought back to the time she had talked to Curtis about his room in the basement and his brother, Justin. She recalled his description of the funny-sounding lures he used in fishing and how he explained the backspin in pool. Why did he seem so normal then? Why did he change when Hooper showed up?

A light rain was starting to hit the classroom windows. Kate wondered: If she was nicer to Curtis, if she talked to him more and got to know him better, would it make a difference?

The rain came harder, and Kate narrowed her eyes, thinking. Jess was on her mind, too. She needed to talk to Jess and clear the air—

“Miss Tyler!” Mrs. Langley's voice rang out. “Is the view out
that window distracting you?”

Kate swung her head around. “No, ma'am.”

“Then tell us, Miss Tyler, how you would sum up chapter five?”

Kate swallowed hard. Her mouth went dry, and her heart beat fast. She hadn't been listening. “Chapter five,” she repeated, scrambling while her mind reeled backward. She had finished the book last night. There were only ten chapters in the book, so chapter five was about halfway.

“Yes, chapter five,” Mrs. Langley confirmed.

“Umm. This is the chapter,” Kate began slowly—she'd have to take a chance. “The chapter where Squealer makes the incredible statement that all animals are created equal. But then he goes on to say that the animals might not make the right decisions, so they should trust Napoleon to make the decisions for them. This is so hypocritical, because if all animals were created equal, then Napoleon could make a mistake just as easily as
they
could.”

Mrs. Langley was frowning. “And remind us. Who is Napoleon?”

“The pig who takes over,” Kate replied.

“And what book are you referring to?”

Kate felt her insides drop and the blood rush to her face. “
Animal Farm
,” she murmured so softly it was almost a whisper. She was talking about
Animal Far
m
, not
To Kill a Moc
kingbird
, which is what her class was reading. “I'm sorry.”

“Yes. I think we need to have a chat,” Mrs. Langley said, peering over her reading glasses at Kate. “After school, Miss Tyler.”

Kate pressed her lips together and blinked her eyes, holding
in the tears. She pushed her back against the chair and entwined her hands together tightly in her lap. She was so embarrassed.
So
.
Incredibly
.
Embarr
assed
. Was somebody going to figure out now what she'd been doing? Had she just given herself away?

*

At lunch, Kate wanted to hide out in the library, but she stood bravely at the edge of the huge cafeteria, her eyes desperately scanning the crowd for Jess.

“Hey!” Kate said, approaching her friend from behind.

Jess turned and acknowledged Kate with a quiet “Hey.”

“Can I sit with you guys?” Kate asked, noting that Olivia was already at the table setting down her tray, and that Samantha and Lindsey were there, too.

Jess shrugged. “Sure,” she said, pulling out a chair.

“Kate, you should get hot lunch today. It's Walking Taco,” Olivia piped up.

“Yeah, your old favorite,” Jess said.

True. Walking Taco had been Kate's favorite lunch at middle school. A bag of Doritos on a tray with hamburger meat, salsa, and cheese. What you did was dump the meat and other things into the bag and shake it up. You could eat straight from the bag if you were in a rush. Or, you could sit down and eat it with a fork. But Kate didn't eat meat anymore, and Jess knew that—so why did she say that?

Kate was not going to give up. She wanted Jess to know she was sorry. She pulled out the chair beside her friend and rummaged in her backpack for the granola bar she'd brought.

Lindsey was wrapping an apple core in a napkin. “Hey,
Jess,” she said, “can I have one of those Rice Krispie treats you brought?”

Jess's eyebrows went up. “No! They're for the game this afternoon.”

“Please,” Lindsey begged. “I'm
starving
.”

But Jess shook her head. And Kate wondered if she'd remembered to pack a clean uniform and her green and yellow ribbons for the game.

“What's your quote for tomorrow morning?” Samantha asked.

Jess seemed pleased by the interest—but was Kate the only one noticing a silly smile on Samantha's face?

Leaning to one side, Jess pulled a pink index card from the front pocket of her backpack. “I was trying to find something about forgiveness,” she said after she retrieved the card.

Kate cringed a little, assuming that comment was directed at her.

“I wanted a quote about how everybody needs to let go of negative things and move on,” Jess said. “But I'm not sure I found the right thing.”

If Jess only knew the whole truth, Kate thought, as, slowly, she broke off a tiny piece of her granola bar and slipped it into her mouth. She honestly wondered right then if it would be easier to
not
have any friends for a while.

“I don't know,” Jess said, focused on the quote. “Maybe I need to rethink this one.”

Olivia snatched the card out of Jess's hands and put up an elbow to keep Jess from taking it back. “
If you can't live th
rough
adversity,”
she began reading aloud,
“you'll never be
good at what you do
. You have to live t
hrough the unfair th
ings, and you have t
o develop the hide t
o not let it bother
you and keep your ey
es focused on what y
ou have to do.
Maurice ‘Hank' Greenberg.”

For sure it seemed thought-provoking, Kate thought, especially the last part:
keep your eyes focus
ed on what you have
to do
.

Jess grabbed it back, and for a moment, no one spoke or offered an opinion.

“See, I'm just worried it doesn't have anything about forgiveness in it,” Jess said to break the silence.

If Jess was so hung up on forgiveness, then why wasn't she forgiving Kate for their argument at the fair? Why was she acting like she was still mad?

“Well, I think it's dorky,” Olivia declared. “You're going to embarrass yourself, Jess.”

“I agree,” Lindsey chimed in. “It's too long. You ought to just do short and funny. Can I have one of your chips, Olivia?”

Samantha lifted her chin and scrunched up her nose. “And anyway, who's Hank Greenberg?”

*

After the final bell that day, Kate rushed to the upstairs hallway, where she saw Curtis waiting. Discreetly, she passed him the paper, complete with a separate title page and Curtis's name, about how
A
nimal Farm
was an allegory, using specific examples from the story. It wasn't a very difficult assignment, because Kate had remembered how the animals' rebellion against their farmer was supposed to represent the Bolshevik revolution against the Russian czars. The interesting thing that
Kate remembered most about the book was how the animals slowly turned into the thing they had rebelled against.

Curtis took the assignment, rolled it up, and held it in one hand. Would he even read it? She
hated
what she was doing.

“I got in trouble today in English,” she said bitterly.

“For what?” Curtis asked. “Being smarter than everybody else?”

“Very funny,” Kate responded with a straight face. “I got confused about which book we were reading because of the paper I just wrote for
yo
u
.”

“Oh.” Curtis dropped the smart-aleck grin. “Sorry that happened.”

“Really?” Kate couldn't help herself. “How sorry are you, Curtis?”

He looked away. “So I tried to write something about the county fair last night,” he said. “For Creative Writing—”

“We saw you at the fair,” Kate said quickly. She didn't want him to have time to even think about giving her another assignment.

“You did?”

“My friend Jess and I, we saw you hauling trash behind the food tent.”

“Oh,” Curtis said, dropping his head and looking a bit embarrassed. Maybe he didn't want people to know.

“Seems like you could have gathered a lot of details from your job,” Kate said.

Curtis gazed skyward. “Use your five senses, right? Okay. Well, about the only thing I
heard
all day was that guy's chain
saw. The guy making birds and bears out of wood? As for
smell
? Three smells. When I was inside the tent, it was burgers and grease. When I was outside dumping trash, it was wood chips. There was so much sawdust in the air I was coughing by the end of the afternoon.

“What did I
s
ee
? Not much other than that black, smoking grill. I burned myself three times.” He stuck out his arm so she could see the pink, blistered skin.

“I worked all day without a break,” he went on. “So all I
felt
was tired. Tired and hungry 'cause I was supposed to get, like, fifteen minutes to eat, but it never happened, so I didn't
taste
anything neither. Get this—when a homeless guy showed up at the back and asked if there was anything in the trash he could have, I gave him a burger on a roll and told him to beat it, quick.”

The words had come in a rush. When he finished, he ran a hand through his hair.

“Wow. You could write a really good piece, Curtis,” Kate said quietly.

“What? You think that's interesting?”

“Of course it is. Most kids don't have a clue what it's like to have to work hard like that.”

“I have to work. Every weekend I work for that guy at his barbecue place. Got to keep up the truck on my own—gas and everything. Nobody helps me with that. And my truck—that's my freedom. I can get away from things in my truck.”

“Maybe you could write about how you felt working when other kids your age were walking around eating funnel cake and corn dogs,” Kate suggested.

Curtis shoved his free hand into the other pocket of his jeans. He was struggling with something. When she averted her eyes, she saw the pile of books he had set on the floor.

“Why do you have
Huckleberry Finn
?” she asked. “I thought you were reading
An
imal Farm
.”

Curtis straightened up. “We are,” he said. “This is what we're reading next.”

Kate had a sinking feeling. She hadn't read Huck Finn.

“It's the first novel to ever be written entirely in dialect,” Curtis said.

But Kate wasn't interested in hearing about it. “I need to go.”

Suddenly, Curtis pulled his hand from a pocket of his jeans and held out a small piece of paper. “Look, I hate doing this.”

Kate backed away. “Then
stop
!”

“I can't,” Curtis said.

“Why not?” Kate demanded.

“You don't understand.”

“No, I don't! Why can't you just do your own homework—and leave my brother alone?”

Curtis peered around nervously. Who was he looking for? Hooper?

“Kate, please. It's, like, out of my hands.”

She scowled. “What do you mean, it's
out of your hands
?”

“I can't explain it right now. I'll make this assignment the last one, okay? I promise. If you don't do it, J.T. will get hit hard with some bad stuff.”

Kate's arms and hands fell limp at her side. What was going on? She didn't understand. But did he just say this would be
the last time? She let Curtis lift one of her hands and set the folded paper in her palm. In a very odd gesture, his fingers gently made her fingers curl around it.

They looked at each other, and Kate felt a rush of mixed emotions. Not hatred or anger. Confusion, mostly. Enormous confusion and an incredible yearning to bring the whole thing to a close.

“Do you promise this is the last one?” Kate asked him.

He held her gaze and nodded.

Curtis took his hand away from hers. “Don't you, like, need to go to field hockey or something?”

Kate suddenly remembered the meeting with Mrs. Langley. “Oh, my gosh, yes!” she exclaimed, a hand to her forehead. “But you need to explain this to me, Curtis!”

“I will. I promise.”

Kate whirled around. Already late for her meeting with Mrs. Langley, she half ran the rest of the way, her hands on her backpack straps to steady her, her mind spinning. What did Curtis mean when he said she wouldn't understand? So strange, how Curtis's large, rough fingers had closed around her hand. . . .

*

The session with Mrs. Langley was not as painful as Kate feared. She told her teacher she'd been up late doing homework, and had read
Animal Farm
to help her brother. She figured Mrs. Langley wouldn't know enough about her brother's schedule to question what English class he had. Yet another lie thrown on the heap. She topped it all off by saying, “I'm so sorry, Mrs. Langley. It was almost a year ago today my father died. I guess I was distracted.”

It worked. Mrs. Langley didn't give Kate a detention, just a warning.

Outside the classroom, Kate closed her eyes for a two-second silent prayer to her father asking him to forgive her for using him as an excuse, then glanced at her watch and took off toward the gym. She was twenty-five minutes late for practice.