Grandpa nods like this makes complete sense, and it roasts my insides to see him taken in again by smooth-talking city folk.
I fold my arms. “But you came here with her. And I saw you sneaking around on the ditch. Seems an awful lot like spying to me.” I wait for him to deny being the man on the ditch that morning, but he doesn’t. I knew it!
“Okay, those are fair points. I can see how it would appear that something untoward might be happening, but as I said, I’m not an employee or even a coworker of Miss Dolly. I’m here for a story.”
Scotty pipes up. “Grandpa tells great stories—even if most of them are made up.”
“Hey now,” Grandpa winks. “You leave my stories be.”
“My job is to find human interest stories,” Mr. Ferro says. When we don’t answer, he tries again. “I’m not here to sell your land. I’m here to tell the world your story. I want people to see what it’s like to walk in your shoes.”
“Boots,” Scotty says.
“What?” Mr. Ferro leans to look around me and address Scotty, but I save Scotty the trouble.
“He’s saying we wear boots, not shoes.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. I want to know the things you know.”
A phone rings, and Mom checks her cell, grimaces at the screen, and turns the ringer off. “Not again.”
A few days ago, she unplugged the house phone too—pinched the cord where it disappears into the phone and plucked it out, leaving it hanging unattached like a little white tail wagging below the dead phone. Someone wants to talk to her real bad, but she doesn’t want to talk back.
“Sorry about that. Go on,” Mom says.
“I’m a journalist.” Mr. Ferro spreads his arms, hat and all. “I’m doing a series right now on the disappearing American family farm. I saw your sign and called the number on the board. Dolly was happy to bring me along.”
The disappearing American family farm? “Our farm is not disappearing,” I say.
“You’re researching!” Scotty slides up beside me, his fingers tapping each other. “To support your theory, you need facts and information.”
“Precisely. And I would love to talk to you about your life here, maybe even spend a few days working with you all.”
“Grandpa says many hands make light work.” Scotty nods.
I eye Mr. Ferro’s dress shoes—probably the same ones that made the marks in the barn the other day. “You gonna farm in those clothes?”
“No, I’ll come back tomorrow in proper attire.”
“It’s settled then.” Grandpa slaps the arm of his rocking chair. “Hope’s feeling a mite under the weather, so if we can take some load off her, all the better.”
“Sounds good. One more thing.” Mr. Ferro looks to Mateo. “You have a paper route, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I know this is a long shot, but a few mornings ago I was walking the canal to get a feel for this area and heard what I thought was a peacock cry. Did you happen to hear anything that morning?”
“Peacocks?” Mateo glances at me. “Ah, I did not hear a peacock a few days ago. No.”
“I see.” Mr. Ferro deflates a little and turns to Grandpa. “Will you keep an eye out for me?”
“For peacocks? Around here?” Grandpa clears his throat. “Whatever for?”
“I know it seems like a silly request.” Mr. Ferro gives a soft chuckle. “But you see, I’m looking for one.”
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning, Mateo, Kimana, and I gather in the barn extra early to get a little planning in before Mr. Ferro arrives. The tricky part is gonna be keeping Mr. Ferro away. Not like it’s booby traps or anything, we just don’t want him to trigger whatever we set up too early.
I think about that for a minute.
Okay, they’re totally going to be booby traps, but still. We don’t want them to go off too soon.
“Did you know you’ve got balloons at the end of the driveway?” Kimana unzips her bag.
“Balloons?” I scowl.
“Pink ones.
I brought the stuff you asked for.” She pulls out Vaseline and some tape. “This will make for some excellent slime, don’t you think?”
“For sure.” I cut rows of twine into two-foot sections. “I’m thinking that would work great on the cows. Nobody wants slimy cows, right?”
“I wouldn’t.” She grimaces.
“Maybe we can make them look like zombies. Doesn’t that sound great? Zombie burgers?” Mateo plunks a sack onto a straw bale, and Scuzbag hops up beside it, sniffing. “One soup bone, old jeans, a T-shirt, and three jars of strawberry jam. Check.” He leans toward Scotty. “Mamá would kill me if she knew about the jam.”
“What about me?” Scotty tugs his collar. “I have four jars of arachnids, various arthropodas, and some Schistocerca americanas. That’s muy bien, right?” He grins at Mateo.
Mateo raises an eyebrow at me, but I shrug. Don’t ask me what those long words mean.
“Great job, Scotty.” Mateo pats him on the back. “Que chido! For sure.”
Scotty beams under his praise.
“Where are your jars?” I ask Scotty.
“They’re in the pump house behind the door, where nobody will find them.”
“How long do we have before the lady comes with all the people?” Kimana asks.
“Maybe three hours? But they might come sooner. Miss Dolly didn’t say if they were coming together or separately. I’m not sure.”
“If we had more time, I was thinking I could program a robot to dump Scotty’s spiders on command so we wouldn’t have to be there ourselves.”
“That would be so cool.” Mateo picks up a roll of electrical tape and some wire. “You think they’ll scream? I bet they do. Everybody screams if spiders fall on them.”
A sliver of guilt worms its way into my head. If Grandpa figured out about the grasshoppers, he’ll know for sure that this was me. But if I don’t do something, we’ll end up like the Pruitts, with a lifetime of work, and no farm to show for it.
This will either be the best thing I’ve ever done, or the worst.
I set red spray paint on the straw bale next to a can of fart spray and a bucket of manure. “Here’s the deal. We’re doing the cows first, then the horses, and then anything else we can get to before they come.
“Scotty, you tie your pieces of twine all down the calf fence and paint them with honey and oats. You decide where the best place for your jars might be. Tell me when you’re done.” As he gets up, I touch his shoulder. “But don’t let Mom see you—not Grandpa or Mr. Ferro either.”
“I won’t! Come on, T-Rex.”
T-Rex’s droopy-eyed gaze follows Scotty as he races out of the barn, then sighs and heaves himself to his feet. He’ll follow his boy to the ends of the earth, but sometimes I think he waits a bit, to see if maybe Scotty might change his mind and come back so T-Rex doesn’t have to go quite as far.
“Kimana, there are sugared carrots in the bucket behind you. You think you can get them to the horses?”
“No problem.”
“Okay.” I take a breath and look at my two best friends. “We’re burning daylight. Let’s get this done.”
Mateo peers into the last bucket. “What did you have in mind for this?”
“There are rubber gloves under the bucket, and a garden shovel over there. I don’t know—be creative.”
“Got it.” Mateo lifts the bucket and pockets the gloves. “My dad will come soon for the pigs, though.”
“That’s fine. Just do as much as you can and stop when you have to.”
“Hello?” Mr. Ferro calls from outside the barn, and we all look at each other with wide eyes before tucking bags and spray cans behind straw bales, out of sight.
“Oh gosh.” I hop up and
run to meet him. “Hey, hi. Can I help you?”
“Is your mother with you? I thought she’d be out here, working with you.” He tilts his head to look past me, but I grab his arm and tug him around.
“No, she’s probably in the house. Let’s go find her.”
Without waiting for his reply, I set off for the house. By the porch, I glance at Mr. Ferro’s truck, but must’ve slowed down too much, because he pulls the key fob from his pocket, glances at me, and then presses a button.
Lights flash with a chirrup!
“Never can be too careful,” he says, and winks.
Mom steps out onto the porch. “Asher, good to see you again. Are you ready for this?”
“I’m at your service. Are you feeling better today?” He spreads his hands, and for the first time, I notice he’s not in dress pants and fancy shoes. He’s got jeans and tennis shoes on. If it weren’t for the tiny hat, I might not know he was a city boy at all.
“Much. Thank you.” She nudges a stack of totes on the porch. “These need to go to the barn, and the garden tools by the fence need to go to the toolshed. Paige can show you.”
We tromp up the stairs, and I lift one tote, but when he picks up two, I drop mine on top of the last one and heave them both up.
“You got that?” Mr. Ferro asks. “We can come back for it.”
“I’m good.” Even with my arms all the way down, I can just barely see over the top. I slide my toe forward, searching for the edge of the porch. “I got this.”
He hurries down and waits for me at the bottom—the show-off.
“That’s right. Step. And another one right there. Step. Two more. Step. Last one . . . and you’re down. Good job.”
By the time I hit the bottom, I’m thinking picking up both totes wasn’t the smartest choice—not that I’d ever admit that to him. He’d probably put it in his paper somewhere.
Walking beside me, he matches my pace. “I hear your neighbors down the road sold their farm back to the bank. What do you think of that?”
“It’s sad.” I grunt, trying to ignore the way my fingers are going numb.
“Sad because they’re leaving or because it’s being developed?”
I lean against the pump house, propping my totes up against the wall long enough to shake out my hands before we walk on. “Sad because it won’t be a farm anymore.”
“But why do you care if it’s developed or farmed? If the family’s not going to be there, what does it matter what happens?”
“Gimme a sec.” I hurry the last few yards to the barn, check to make sure it’s empty, and set the totes down against the wall. Red indents score my fingers, and they’re kind of stuck curled in. I rub them against my jeans, stretching out my fingers.
Behind Mr. Ferro, Kimana scurries into the horse barn with the bucket of sugar carrots in tow.
He starts to turn to follow my gaze, and I blurt, “Okay! It’s like . . .” I bend my fingers with my other hand, back and forth, thinking fast. “Imagine your family had the best place in the whole world to look at the stars, and every night you watch them twinkle and light up the sky. You know the names, the stories of every constellation—and you know exactly where to find them because they’re like family to you, the way they come back year after year.”
“Okay.” He watches me, and I head for the garden tools.
“Now imagine someone comes in and builds a parking lot with those bright lights all around your house—right on top of your stargazing place. What would your night sky look like then?”
“In the middle of a parking lot?” He matches my stride. “Like nothing. The lights would be too bright to see much past them.”
“Exactly, and your stargazing spot is gone forever. You can’t use it, but no one else can use it either. Farming’s like that—except worse because you can’t just cut the power and get it back. Once they pave over fields, it’s done. There’s no going back.”
We round the corner, and T-Rex stands beside Scotty, who ducks behind a bale of hay by the calf corrals. A hundred feet away, Mateo stands frozen with the soup bone in one hand and a can of spray paint in the other.
“So!” I tug Mr. Ferro’s sleeve so he’s looking at me and not to his right. “How long have you been a journalist?”
“About twenty years. Worked for about ten of those with my ex-wife—she’s a photographer back East.”
“You’re married?”
“I was.”
I wait to see if he’s gonna say more, but he doesn’t.
When we get back to the yard for the garden tools, Miss Dolly’s standing on the front porch, talking to Mom. With jeans new enough to still have the sticker mark up the side, and boots sparkly enough to decorate a Christmas tree, Dolly waves from the porch. “Paige! Are you ready for the big day?”
I grimace. “Not yet.” But I will be.
The worn handles of the garden tools are smooth in my hands as I set them aside one after the other, but none of them are Dad’s shovel. I’m starting to think maybe I’ll never find it.
Mr. Ferro takes a little more than half of the tools from me and carries them over one shoulder like a fishing pole. “What do you do for fun?”
“I farm.” The hoes and rakes over my shoulder clink together with every step I take.
“No, for fun. Do you play basketball? Softball? Soccer? Are you in dance? What do you do in your spare time?”
Spare time? I barely have time to sleep. “I told you. I farm. If I have spare time, I spend it fixing things. There’s loads to do and only one of me.”
“But you’re not doing this alone, right? Your mom and grandpa farm with you.”
I shrug. “Sometimes.”
“What about cell phones? Kids these days are usually glued to their phones, but I haven’t seen you pull yours out once.”
“It’s in the kitchen. I don’t like carrying it.”
“My kids would probably have theirs surgically implanted if they could.” He rubs the back of his neck. “At the kitchen table, in the bathroom, you name it—they gotta have their phones.”
“Where are your kids?” I set the tools inside the toolshed.
“With their mother in Boston.” His tools plunk beside mine, and he laughs softly. “We video chat a few times a month, but they like it better where they are. What’s next?”
Hmm. What will take him the longest time? “We could put the garden tractors away. I’ll show you how to start them.”
As far as tractors go, the two garden tractors aren’t much bigger than a riding lawn mower, so they seem a safe bet to keep him busy. “These are good for all sorts of things. We rototill with them, and plant peas, and they’re great for mowing too.” I pat the seat. “Jump on up here.”
“You want me to drive?”
“Sure! You drive a pickup, right? This is way easier.”
His long legs poke up from the sides like a grasshopper as he folds himself into the seat.
“Push your left foot down on the clutch—like that, yeah—then make sure it’s in neutral.” I wiggle the stick to be sure it’s out of gear. “Then start her up.”
He cranks the key and grasps the steering wheel as the engine rumbles to life.
“See?” I lean closer, yelling over the engine noise. “Easy! Now put it in first gear and go park it in the shop. Then come back for the other.”
“How do I stop it?” The way he’s grinning, you’d think I stuck him on a speed racer instead of a tractor with training wheels.
“Just turn the key. It’ll die.”
He gives me a thumbs-up, and I run off to find Kimana.
I spy her in the horse barn, but before I can reach her, Mr. Ferro motors right past—definitely not in first gear—and cruises into the chicken barn.
“Hey! Wrong building!” I run after him. “Not in there!”
>
But he’s already inside, the clanging engine noise bouncing off the metal ceiling. If Royal sounded an alarm after Mateo hit the wall with a little stick, what will he do when a whole tractor roars inside his house?
“No, no, no,” I chant, but even before Mr. Ferro cuts the engine, Royal’s emergency calls ring out, “Honk! Honk! Honk!”
I’m only ten seconds behind him, but it’s enough. I burst into the barn as Mr. Ferro pulls open the tarped door to Royal’s cage.
“Honk! Honk!”
“No!” I yell, but it’s too late.
An explosion of feathers launches at Mr. Ferro, and he ducks.
Using Mr. Ferro’s back as a springboard, Royal leaps into flight.
Wings spread wide, his gold-tipped flight feathers catch rays of sunlight, and his blue-and-green tail flaring behind.
I raise my arms to stop him. “No! Wait. You’re safe here!”
But his brilliant blue head angles and he banks out of reach, wings pumping, rising up and up, soaring over my head and out the door.
Chapter Eighteen
The peacock rises over the toolshed and circles the silo. Magpies and swallows flee before him, as his enormous train and wingspan dwarf all other birds on the farm.
“Don’t leave. Please don’t leave.” I grasp my wishstone and bring it to my lips. “Stay. Please stay.”
“Did you know that peacock was in there?” Mr. Ferro jogs up beside me and shades his eyes with one hand. “I thought I heard it before, but I couldn’t find where the cry had come from.”
I rub the stone and slide it into my pocket, my eyes never leaving Royal’s flight. He banks and dips, then settles into the top branches of our giant cottonwood tree. “Ha, ha, heyo!”
“That’s it exactly! That’s what I heard.” His hand squeezes my shoulder, and he grins like a kid seeing fireworks for the very first time. “I thought he was long gone.”
“Gone from where?”
“My grandfather raised them, but this one got loose weeks ago. I thought I’d never see him again. What luck!” He glances at me, then at Royal, and back again, his smile fading. “You knew, didn’t you?”
The Wish and the Peacock Page 13