Horse Camp

by Nicole Helget

  Sheryl works at the hair salon in town, and when I couldn’t get the gum out, she told me I’d best get it cut. I didn’t want to give Percy the satisfaction of seeing me upset, so I just acted like I’ve been planning to get my hair cut the whole time. Sheryl brought home a book with lots of pictures of different hairstyles, and I chose one that looks kind of spunky yet classy. I resisted her pleadings that I color it lighter, because my hair is the perfect color already, and I’m never going to change it. In the sunlight, it looks just like a really pretty dark brown color that’s hard to describe but is really pretty. Even June Bug said the haircut flattered my face, which is heart shaped and looks good with just about any hairstyle, anyway. She came into my room when we got home from town.

  June Bug: (Opening my door.) Knock, knock! Are you okay, Penny?

  Me: Yes. I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I’m great.

  June Bug: What Percy did was really mean and immature. But it turned out okay because I think you look so mature with your new hair!

  Me: Really?

  June Bug: Yes, definitely. You look so much older now. I think you could pass for sixteen or seventeen, at least.

  Me: Do you think so? For real?

  June Bug: Yes, I just love it. You’re so lucky. You have a face shape that suits any haircut.

  I have to admit that June Bug can be quite nice and that I like having her around sometimes. I find myself changing my mind about some things lately, which is weird because I try so hard to be right in the first place. It’s hard to admit to yourself that you might not always be 100 percent right.

  Dear Mom,

  Percy stuck gum in my hair on purpose, and I had to have it cut out, so now I have short hair like yours. I’m so depressed! You know how nice my long hair was! I can’t stand it here, and I’m really mad that you disintegrated our nuclear family and that you’re probably going to spend the rest of your life in jail and that Daddy had to go and find a new wife to replace you. How could you do that to me?

  Other than that, I’ve just been busy cleaning up around here. Pauly had a little cold last week, which may or may not have been a reaction to all the allergens on this farm, and believe me, there are lots! There’s horsehair and pollen and hay dust and dust mites and feathers and lots of other things that people are allergic to. I suggested we take him to the doctor in town, but Stretch just said it was a little summer cold and that he’d get over it, like he knows everything there is to know about health. Anyway, I’ve been trying to keep things extra-clean just in case it is allergies.

  Sheryl said that I was nice to have around in the house because I’m so helpful, which was a nice compliment, I thought. Especially since I can see that she’s not what I would call the world’s greatest housekeeper. Like she doesn’t mind if people wear their shoes in the house and only dusts the tops of things once in a great, great while. But I’m going to try to keep helping her because I can see that she gets almost no help from June Bug, who hates to be in the house at all and doesn’t think a thing of hanging out in the smelly horse barn for hours and then coming in the house and sitting on the couch or covering up with a clean blanket. It’s like she doesn’t even consider that she smells and that she’s spreading that smell to everything! She can be really dense sometimes. So I try to help Sheryl, who’s been extra-tired lately, too. She probably is anemic since she doesn’t eat much meat these days and acts like she’s going to gag if she sees a chicken cutlet or ground beef. Everyone around here is so dramatic.

  Anyway, instead of spreading my hair around the vegetable plants, Sheryl said it was too nice and took it to her church, St. Anthony’s Catholic church, in town because they partner up with the beauty salon to donate to Locks of Love. Isn’t it strange that Sheryl’s a religious person? I didn’t even know that because it’s not like she goes to church or anything. When I asked her about it, Sheryl said she’s a Christmas and Easter kind of Catholic, that she only goes along with the parts of the religion she likes, such as sharing with the poor.

  Sheryl: Catholics don’t advertise their religion too much. (She says it in a way that makes me think that she thinks that I might advertise my religion a little too much, which I definitely do not!)

  Me: (I get a little defensive.) Don’t Catholics think that fornication is a sin?

  Sheryl: (Her cheeks turn red, probably from anger, which is one of the seven deadly sins, or maybe from embarrassment.) Why, yes, Penny. They do. But I personally believe that some of the rules don’t reflect modern culture. What if we all had to live by the cultural practices of biblical times. Would you want that?

  Me: How do you know that’s not just an excuse to sin? (I stay quiet after that to let the power of my words sink in with her.)

  Sheryl: One good thing about Catholics is that they are generally harder on themselves than they are on other people.

  Me: What’s that supposed to mean?

  Sheryl: They judge themselves before they judge others. They turn their abhorrence for sin inward instead of outward. In my opinion, having personal guilt is way better than being righteously indignant toward everyone else’s sins.

  Sometimes I’m amazed at the words Sheryl knows. Like, if you look at her, you would never guess that she was smart enough to know the word righteously or indignant, much less use them together! Anyway, I plan to dictionary.com that phrase the next time I’m at the library.

  Love,

  Penny

  Chapter 11

  Percy and Violence

  AFTER MY morning chicken-training session, I’m on the riding lawn mower when I drive over some walnuts and one shoots out the grass-blower part and almost hits Pauly, who’s trying to capture caterpillars or something over by this big tree. He doesn’t even notice.

  “Look out, you crazy idiot!” I yell at him.

  He doesn’t even turn around—just keeps scraping at tree bark with a big glass jar I saw him stealing out of the cupboards earlier this morning. He probably can’t hear me over the mower, which sounds like an entire football stadium, if all the fans in it were big fat men with beards who were grumbling because they just got up in the morning. The mower’s probably broke, but that’s the way a lot of stuff seems here on Uncle Stretch’s farm. Either broke or too old-fashioned to work right.

  Uncle Stretch made me mow the lawn, something he usually does, to give me an extra chore as punishment for my revenge thing against Penny yesterday. Funny she didn’t get punished for walking in on me in the bathroom. Funny Pauly doesn’t get punished for being so annoying. Whatever. I keep riding and try to stay away from the walnuts, which isn’t easy. It’s almost like this car video game I used to have in which you’ve got to avoid bombs and other cars on the road but you still have to try to speed in order to win. I veer off into a big overgrown patch of grass and weeds in a part of the yard nobody ever uses. I start writing my name in cursive with the mower. I do the P and the E but the R gets kind of messed up because the mower doesn’t turn very sharp. I make the C and the Y, anyway and start thinking it looks pretty cool when Uncle Stretch comes out the front door, sees me and my work, and shakes his head at me.

  I get back to work mowing straight lines over my name. I don’t mind riding that mower. A four-wheel ATV would be more fun, but of course Uncle Stretch doesn’t have one. I asked him why once, and he said, “That’s what my horses are for.”

  Whatever.

  Eventually, June Bug runs out to me and points to the house and yells at me though I can’t hear. I can tell by the way her lips move that one of the words she’s yelling is lunch. I shut down the lawn mower and tell her I don’t feel like eating with everyone else. She says I should at least take a break, so I say all right and tell her I’m going to be in the granary, relaxing with my thoughts.

  “Maybe I could bring you some lunch out there,” she says.

  “Whatever,” I say.

  When I get up to my room in the granary, I start feeling bad all over again about Mom and Dad. I try not to think about
them much, but the whole situation bugs me. I don’t really even believe Dad got remarried—wasn’t he still married to Mom? I thought divorces took longer to finalize, but it’s hard to know what’s actually happening a world away. And Mom’s jail thing bugs me the most. I think about how I feel like I’m in jail here on Uncle Stretch’s farm, and then I think of Mom being somewhere that’s probably five times worse than this farm, a place where she doesn’t even get to wear her own clothes or eat food that tastes decent. She probably gets lonely and wishes she had a friend or someone to talk to. I wonder if people are mean to her or if she cries, and that gets me crying.

  I go over to the picture of Elle. “My mom’s in jail,” I tell Elle. “That’s why I’m sad. I’m not a wimp or anything.”

  Elle doesn’t say anything, of course, but she looks like she understands. I wish we could hug, maybe even kiss. So I kiss the picture. I wonder what Elle’s mom is like. “She’s probably beautiful like you,” I say. “My mom is beautiful, too.”

  It makes me upset to think of my beautiful mother in a dirty, scary jail where there are people who murdered other people living right next to her. I go over and grab a few extra horse blankets and pile them on top of myself and just sit there and bawl for a while. I imagine Elle crying along with me, but because there’s a big ocean in the picture behind her and since she’s wearing a swimsuit, people just assume she’s been swimming and has ocean water on her face, not tears. I wish I could jump in an ocean.

  When June Bug shows up with a sack of food, I stop crying pretty quick and stand up. She smiles at me and takes out a sandwich. The good thing about my mom going to jail is that everybody’s been nicer to me after I started crying when we all watched that news show. They think I’m all fragile or something, which is what I heard Sheryl whispering.

  “Feeling bad?” asks June Bug. Her skin is so brown now from the summer sun, she looks like Pauly. A cute version of Pauly, that is, since Pauly’s weird looking. Not that I think June Bug’s cute or anything. I’m just saying that even though she’s got a short, boy-like haircut and lots of freckles and looks kind of tough, she looks like a decent girl. She has girl eyes and long eyelashes. She has a soft smile. Not that I’m really looking at her.

  I wipe my eyes. I don’t say anything back. She’ll probably be even nicer to me if I act more hurt than I really am. I take a couple of deep breaths in the shaky way people who’ve been crying a long time do.

  She throws the sandwich at me and says, “Bologna.”

  “Thanks,” I say, not even mentioning I hate bologna.

  June Bug takes out a sandwich for herself and starts eating it. “Gimme one of them blankets you’ve got over there,” she says.

  “They’ve probably got horse crap on them,” I say.

  “Or cat pee,” she says. “Just give one, anyway.”

  I throw her one and she props it against a wall and leans back against it. “Or dog drool,” I say.

  “Or mad cow disease,” she says.

  “Or avian bird flu,” I say.

  She pretends to lick the blanket. “Mmm,” she says, “tastes like rabies.”

  I snort at that one. “You sure it doesn’t taste like goat hair?” I say, which turns out not to be that funny.

  June Bug examines the blanket up close. “I think I see some bull boogers,” she says.

  I laugh good at that one, but I can’t think of anything more. I blurt out, “It’s probably got some of Roland’s butt germs on it,” but then I wish I hadn’t.

  June Bug doesn’t laugh. “That’s sorta mean,” she says.

  She’s right, but I don’t like her telling me that. It’s quiet for a minute, and then June Bug starts talking chicken. She can talk about them all day, and sometimes does. While some of the stuff is interesting, my mind wanders off, and I just nibble at my dumb sandwich and say nothing for a while.

  Somebody comes clomping up the stairs. It’s Pauly, and he’s got that stupid red Kool-Aid ring on his upper lip again. I think it’s always there because even when he’s not drinking Kool-Aid, he’s licking his lips. He’s wearing the new cowboy boots that Uncle Stretch bought for him.

  “Hey, guys,” he says. “Can I play with you?”

  “God, Pauly!” I say. “We’re not playing!”

  “Easy, Percy,” says June Bug.

  Pauly walks across the room to the exercise bike I fixed up enough so you can actually pedal it. I’ve been working out on it every other day. He looks at it, and then hops on. “Can I twy it?” he asks and starts pedaling.

  “If you break that, I swear I’m going to kill you!” I say to him.

  “Percy!” says June Bug.

  Pauly can’t really reach the pedals right, so he nudges forward off the seat and stands on the pedals. He starts cycling them with his boots, but he looks like Carl the chicken trying to run fast but not doing it. Some metal starts scraping and just like that, one of the pedals falls off and so does Pauly. The bike crashes over on its side.

  “You idiot!” I say and spring over to where Pauly’s lying. I punch him in the head, and when he covers it, I punch him in the guts and when he covers those, I go for the head again. “Idiot!” I yell. “I told you not to break it!” I rear back for another punch but before I can swing, I get bowled over by a big horse blanket swung by June Bug. I go rolling but get up fast and come at her. I take a swing at her, but she ducks and the next thing I know, her fist is blasting me in the stomach and taking all my air away. I fall to my knees. I can’t take a breath, and it feels like I’m dying. June Bug pushes me all the way down and sits on my chest, pinning my arms with her knees. I don’t even try to fight back because I can barely breathe!

  “C’mere, Pauly,” she says.

  Pauly gets up and runs over. He’s not crying or anything, just rubbing his head where I punched him.

  “Go ahead, Pauly,” says June Bug. “Punch your brother in the face.”

  “Weally?” says Pauly.

  I scream, “He’s not even my brother!” Then Pauly’s little fist thumps me in the eye.

  “Oww!” I say. “Let me up, June Bug!”

  “Punch him harder,” says June Bug.

  “I weally don’t want to,” says Pauly.

  “Fine,” says June Bug. I think she’s going to let me up, but then I see her hand moving quickly, and then I feel it stinging my face. “That’s for trying to hit a girl,” she says. She slaps me in the face again, harder. “That’s for treating everyone around here like crap,” she says.

  It hurts, and I feel like crying, but I also feel embarrassed, so I don’t. I’m probably in shock.

  “Let me up!” I say.

  She slaps me again.

  “Let me up!” I scream. “Let me up!”

  She sits there, looking at me. “Stop taking out your problems on everyone else. You don’t have a mom and a dad here? So what? I don’t have a dad around, either. Pauly’s parents abandoned him when he was a baby. Stretch lost his son. You’re not the only one with problems.”

  “I hate you!” I say. “I hate being here! I hate this place!”

  Above me, June Bug pulls her hand back again. Then she drops it. “This place isn’t so bad, Percy. Your life isn’t so bad.”

  “Get off me!”

  Out of nowhere, a cowboy boot kicks me in the mouth. It feels like my lips and teeth have exploded.

  “Pauly!” yells June Bug.

  She finally gets off me. I roll over, and blood is gushing out of my mouth. I can taste the blood, and my tongue feels something else in my mouth. I spit on the floor and out comes something white—a tooth!

  “Oh, no!” says June Bug.

  I look at Pauly. He covers his mouth with his hand. “Sowy, Pohcy,” he says.

  I pick up the tooth and run my tongue around my mouth. There’s a hole where one of the top two teeth should be.

  “Lift up your lip,” says June Bug. “Smile at me.”

  I feel like punching rather than smiling, but I do what she
says.

  “Whoa,” she says. “Your front tooth is gone.”

  I don’t know what to do, so I just sit down on the horse blankets. There’s blood all over my shirt and hands now, and my whole head feels like a giant heartbeat. It hurts, but I’m not crying.

  “You don’t look so good,” says June Bug. “There’s gonna be trouble.”

  Chapter 12

  Penny’s Many Moods

  Dear Diary,

  Now that Percy’s front tooth is out, he looks like a hillbilly and makes a really annoying whistling sound when he laughs. Not only that, but there’s something going on behind my back. One minute, Percy hates Pauly and can’t wait to insult or hit him. Next, they’re in Percy’s room in the granary with June Bug, doing God knows what. And then Percy comes out missing his front tooth, and Pauly’s staring at his new boots, and when I ask what happened, they all look at each other and start laughing like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Then Percy ruffles Pauly’s head and says that he tripped over a horse blanket and knocked out his tooth on the floor. And, this is the real kicker: Percy gave the tooth to Pauly to put under his pillow so the tooth fairy brings Pauly money! Has everyone lost their minds?

  By the way, here is my mood today: crabby!

  I’m pretty sure there’s something seriously wrong with me, like I might have stomach cancer or an ulcer or twisted bowels. This dull, drumming ache started yesterday while we wrangled those dang chickens into their crates for shipping to the fair. I’m sure it has something to do with Sheryl’s cooking, which is all potatoes, beets, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and everything else that’s come right out of the garden and has not been washed properly. Since she’s practically moved in and is living in sin with Stretch, I’ve gained ten pounds!