Horse Camp

by Nicole Helget

  And my hands look like constellation charts with all the scratches and peck marks from those hens and roosters that most certainly did not want to have anything to do with getting into the crates. I can tell these scratches are about five seconds from getting infected with staph bacteria. Soon they’ll be pussing, oozing, and spreading, and then I’ll be a candidate for amputation, which I’m sure will be just fine with Stretch, who’d probably love hacking off a limb with a rusty saw or an old pocketknife. Just writing in my diary is opening up the wounds and making them bleed. I don’t mind working, but I don’t think it’s fair for me to risk life and limb just so Percy and June Bug can traipse around the county fair like they’re some sort of preteen chicken gurus. They’re like, Ooohh. See how my bird has clean plumage and beautifully layered feathers? See how pertly she holds her head? How red her comb and wattle are? How puffy her breast? How she doesn’t pick and peck at her skin like she’s got droves of mites and ticks? See how straight and sharp her beak is? Why, she could pluck the eyeball right out of your skull!

  That June Bug. She’s really getting on my nerves again, probably because she’s practically moved in here, too, along with her mother. I thought for a while that she was pretty cool, but, in all truthfulness, she can be totally annoying. She really thinks she’s special. Who cares about chickens?! I happen to know that Percy doesn’t know squat about these birds. He says things like, Uh. Duh. This one has three claws on each leg. Oh. Look, this one laid an egg. As if laying eggs were comparable to juggling or throwing knives at balloons. Show me a chicken that can do that, and I’ll be impressed. I also happen to know that the chickens have no interest in parading their feathers just so those two can get big ribbons strapped to their chests and do more bragging. When I told June Bug that the chickens did not want to get in the crates and go to the fair, she told me chickens don’t have consciousness or understanding.

  June Bug: (Acting like a big know-it-all in her plaid shirt and petting a chicken like she actually cares about it.) Penny, chickens don’t reason. Everything they do is because of instinct.

  Me: How do you know? Did one of them tell you that?

  June Bug: (Looking startled with wide eyes.) Well, no, but I’ve been around farm animals for my whole life.

  Me: Well, I’ve been around the church my whole life, but I wouldn’t run around pretending like I have God all figured out. (I, for one, think that is a really good point.)

  June Bug: (Pretending as though she really cares about me.) No, I suppose not. But I’m not sure knowing stuff about God is comparable to knowing stuff about chickens. Penny, are you feeling all right? You don’t seem to be yourself today.

  She said it like a big know-it-all, and right in front of my brothers because there’s nothing she likes better than to try to be the smartest, prettiest, and bossiest one, particularly to me because she’s probably intimidated by me. I wouldn’t doubt it one bit.

  Anyway, I’m not sure that chickens don’t think. Like, while I was holding this one chicken, I kind of petted its head and stroked its back while June Bug and Percy made a nest for it in the crate. I held it against my stomach and tried to keep its legs still so it wouldn’t claw my intestines out. After a while, it stopped flapping like a lunatic and seemed to rest against me, and it had a look in its eye that didn’t seem nervous. I mean, it must relax because it realizes that I’m not going to hurt it, right? Don’t those reactions indicate some sort of thinking on the chicken’s part? June Bug didn’t even consider what I had to say. She just said no and then asked me if I was turning into a vegetarian.

  Despite my nice, brief chicken moment, I won’t be showing chickens like everyone else around here. Instead, I’m going to do something more original and enter the county fair’s talent contest. I’m leaning toward doing a PowerPoint presentation on something educational. Because I’ll need a few resources for that, I rode into town yesterday with Sheryl to hang out at the library while she worked. When she asked if I minded if she smoked a little tiny cigarette while we drove, I told her yes, I most certainly did. She respected my opinion and did not smoke in the car, which was probably a personal miracle of self-control on Sheryl’s part.

  Sister Alice was there being her usual crabby self. She asked me about a million times if she could help me find something. After I told her no, no, and no, she said, “Well, quit pushing in the all the books you touch. I don’t like when the books are pushed in. I prefer that all the books are a uniform distance from the edge of the shelf.” I pushed in three more and told her, “It’s a free country, lady.”

  Then she said to me, “You want a taste of my wooden spoon?”

  I decided not to tell her about corporal punishment being illegal and fixed the books the way she liked them. Sometimes, you just have to let old people have their way.

  I found a number of satisfactory medical dictionaries and books on diseases that were quite interesting. I also looked up that phrase, righteously indignant. Now I wonder if Sheryl was referring to me when she used it, and that just makes me really mad at how judgmental she was being. I’m going to take a hot bath, and no one better bother me while I’m at it, or I swear I’ll go ballistic.

  Dear Mom,

  You know how you and Dad always said that if you can’t say something nice, then you shouldn’t say anything at all (though now that I think about it, Dad said not-so-nice things about people all the time, didn’t he? If you ask me, he was constantly full of righteous indignation.)? Well, I’ve got to keep this letter short since I’m in some sort of a funk this week, so I don’t have much to say.

  Hope you’re having a jolly time working on your appeal.

  Penny

  Dear Dad,

  Have you given any interesting sermons lately? Like maybe a sermon on hypocrisy? Does your new wife like listening to you preach? Does she sit where Mom and us kids used to?

  Lots of love from Horse Camp, from your daughter, the one you sent to Stretch’s farm, the one who always listened to you no matter what, the one who always did whatever you said.

  Penelope

  Chapter 13

  Percy and the Chicken

  ON THE FIRST DAY of the weeklong Red Rock County Fair, Uncle Stretch and Sheryl drop us off at the fowl show, and we’re led into this big barn with our chickens. I must say it’s a bit of a disappointment. The show barn is sort of smelly and dusty, and the seats where I had imagined there would be many people cheering sit empty, which is a bummer. When I visualized my chicken-showing performance earlier this morning, I had counted on a crowd clapping and whistling for me. I always do better in front of a crowd. When I mention this to June Bug, she says only entrants, chickens, and judges are allowed in the judging area, because a couple of years ago, parents were trying to whisper answers to their kids when the judges asked them questions.

  So, without anybody making a big deal of it, we hold our chickens in their individual cages and stand before our judges, who sit in a long row of chairs and call us over, one by one. June Bug and Pauly get friendly-looking judges, but I get an old guy who’s got a grouchy look.

  Trying to stay calm in order to not make my fowl nervous, I take Hercules, my chicken, out of his cage and hand him to the judge, who, first thing, looks at my missing tooth and frowns. For a while now, I’ve been getting weird looks from people when they see the hole in my smile, but I usually take it as a sign of respect. Uncle Stretch tried ordering me to the dentist, but I wouldn’t go. I don’t appreciate the judge’s frown, since it seems like he respects me less instead of more because of my missing tooth. Then he starts firing questions at me like bullets.

  You know how when you’ve studied something really hard, but when it comes time to prove it, your brain forgets everything? Well, here I am, showing Hercules at the Red Rock County Fair, and this old grumpy judge is asking me chicken questions, and all the sudden it’s like I don’t know a single thing, even though chickens have been like my family over the past month! Closer than Mom, Dad, Penny, and
Pauly. Definitely closer than Uncle Stretch, Sheryl, and June Bug. A couple of times, when I fell asleep in the granary at night, I’d even have chicken dreams. In one of them, I was this old, shabby-looking rooster, like Carl. My legs seemed really slow and creaky, and I could barely make any chicken noises, but I must’ve been tough because when the other chickens started pecking at me, I flapped my wings and flew around, pecking them back, one by one, until everyone was dead. I didn’t realize it was so easy to kill other chickens with your beak, but there they were, lying all bloody and still, with feathers all scattered around. It was a weird dream—but just a dream.

  The old judge surveys Hercules and grabs a part of Hercules’s neck like his fingers are a tweezers. “Identify,” he says.

  My brain is so blank, I can’t think of anything to say at all! I try to imagine Elle telling me things to say, but even that doesn’t work. It’s like Elle is just worried about her arm falling down and her breast being out there for everyone to see. Then I start thinking about that, too, and it’s like chickens are the furthest thing from my mind. I look down the line at June Bug. Her judge, a smiling older lady, is petting her chicken. I look farther down the line at Pauly’s situation, and something has happened there that is so funny that his judge, a white-bearded guy who looks like a Santa Claus, is laughing and slapping his knee!

  Hercules is looking nervous, jutting his head around like he is listening to crazy music. I don’t think he likes being touched—well, not by the judge, anyway. I chose him because he was the biggest, even though he wasn’t the tamest.

  “Son,” says the judge, waggling Hercules’ neck part between his fingers. “That’s the wattle.” He stares at me like he’s superdisappointed and adds, “One of the most identifiable parts of Gallus domesticus.”

  “Of what?”

  “That’s Latin for chicken,” he says.

  Latin? I think. I barely know English right now. “Uh, okay,” I say. “Do I lose points for not knowing?”

  “Son,” says the judge, “you don’t have any points to lose yet.” He takes up one of my bird’s legs with his fingers, but Hercules pulls it away and starts clucking like he’s real sick of this junk. The judge grabs again but can’t get hold of the leg. “Have you been working with your fowl?” says the judge.

  “What do you mean?” I say.

  The judge stops trying to grab the leg and instead just makes his hands into a big bowl for Hercules to rest in. Hercules calms down after about thirty seconds, and the judge gives me a look like See? I know how to treat your bird better than you! He starts stroking Hercules’s head, smoothing his hand all the way down the back feathers. Hercules gets real still. The judge turns Hercules around so his butt is pointing at me.

  “Identify the anus,” says the judge.

  “You mean the butt hole?” I say.

  “The anus,” says the judge sternly.

  “With … my finger?”

  “What else would you use?”

  “Uh, I doubt I could find it,” I say. “Hercules has got a lot of feathers in that area.”

  “Identify the anus,” says the judge.

  “I don’t think this chicken has one,” I say.

  “It’s right here,” says the judge, his fingers disappearing under Hercules’s feathers. He gets a look on his face like you would if you’re digging into your pants pocket, searching for change.

  Well, you can tell when the judge finds the spot because Hercules lets out a screech and shoots into the air. The judge jumps up, too, to try and grab Hercules, but Hercules beats his wings and hovers there, Ba-Gock! Ba-Gock!-ing. I just step back because I’ve seen chickens get like this before, and it isn’t pretty. But the judge won’t give up. He keeps lunging for Hercules but missing. Finally, Hercules dives right for the judge’s face, clawing and pecking. All the other kids and judges look at us.

  The judge’s head looks like a snowman’s—but with feathers—until finally he grabs Hercules by the neck and slams him down on the ground. Hercules makes a real bad croaking sound, and then lies there, not moving. It’s real quiet in the barn. One of the judge’s eyeglass lenses has popped out, and his forehead has some bloody scratches on it, and his hair is all messed up with some white-yellow stuff that came from Hercules’ anus! Nobody says anything, but you can hear the judge breathing hard. Wheezing.

  “What!” he yells, finally. “That fowl tried to blind my eyes!” Then he steps over the body of Hercules and stomps on out of the barn.

  Some old guy with a big belly hanging over a shiny belt buckle the size of my hand rushes over to Hercules and sweeps him into a five-gallon pail with a hand broom. “Sorry, kid,” he says to me. He tells me to just sit in the bleachers and watch for a while, then he walks off. I don’t know where he takes my poor dead chicken, but I’d sure bet it’s not to some beautiful chicken cemetery.

  When Uncle Stretch asks Pauly, June Bug, and me how the chicken judging went, Pauly and June Bug look right at me. I say that it went just fine. Pauly starts to say something, but then June Bug butts in and says, “Oh, it was fine for us, too. Just fine.”

  Uncle Stretch tells us to meet them at 5 p.m. at the 4-H food stand, then buys us a bunch of tickets so we can go on rides all afternoon. He and Sheryl are going to watch Loose Change, this local country-western band that has this glass-eyed singer, over in the grandstand. Penny is off wandering by herself.

  Though I’m supposed to stick with Pauly and June Bug, I get sick of hearing how great their chickens did at the judging. When we’re supposed to be getting on the Ferris wheel together, I act like I gotta go to the bathroom. I tell them I’ll meet them when they get off, but instead I just avoid them and ride on the Scrambler twice, the Tilt-a-Whirl four times, and the Bullet nine times. Then I play some games and buy a corn dog and some minidonuts with the five bucks Uncle Stretch gave me. As much as I could go for a big snow cone or a milk shake, my broke-out tooth won’t let me eat really cold stuff. It makes me look tougher, though, so I don’t mind much.

  I ask some old lady what time it is, and she says 5:15, so I hustle over to the 4-H food stand.

  When I find everybody, they’re all sitting there, eating pie and ice cream. Uncle Stretch gives me a bad look, and I can tell June Bug and Pauly told him about how I ditched them. Uncle Stretch starts in by saying, “So where were you all afternoon?” but Sheryl says, “Oh, Stretch, the boy’s here now—let this one go.”

  Uncle Stretch doesn’t want to let it go, I can tell, but he whips out his wallet, fishes out a couple of bucks, and shoves them under my nose. “You go get some pie and ice cream,” he says roughly.

  I point to my missing tooth. “No ice cream,” I say. “Too sensitive.”

  “Well, pie, then,” says Uncle Stretch, slapping the money into my hand.

  When I get back, Penny talks and talks about some horse she made a connection with over in one of the barns. June Bug talks about her own chicken so much I don’t have to say anything about Hercules. We finish up at the food stand and head over to the grandstand for the results of the chicken judging. It’s not a big crowd, but in addition to the kids who showed birds, about twenty of us, some parents, brothers and sisters are there, too. Maybe close to a hundred people in all, including the judges, though my judge is nowhere to be seen.

  A man in a cowboy hat and old-fashioned mustache steps up to a podium and says, “I am pleased to announce our five purple ribbon winners and our grand champion in the annual Red Rock County Fair Fowl Show. All participants not awarded purple ribbons or grand champion will be awarded green ribbons for participation. Everyone,” he adds with a smile, “is, in some fashion, a champion.”

  June Bug looks at her mom and rolls her eyes.

  “If your name is called, please come up to the podium to receive your ribbon and gather for a photo shoot.” He unfolds a paper. “Purple ribbons go to … Danny Blanchette, Riley Minion, Sherylynn Johnson, Jeff Juvie, and Buddy Herding.”

  People applaud, and June Bug gets
a big smile.

  “Come on up, kids!” the man in the cowboy hat says, and the kids make their way to the stage. Pauly claps hard for June Bug.

  “And our grand champion and entrant into the Red Rock County Fair … is … Perseus Pribyl.”

  Grand champion? Me? Whoa! I’m running down to the platform before I know what’s happening. People are slapping me on the back and shaking my hand and taking my picture and pinning an oversized blue ribbon onto my shirt. Camera flashes make me see stars.

  Uncle Stretch and Sheryl and June Bug and Pauly and Penny eventually make their way up to me. Penny gives me a big hug. Uncle Stretch shakes my hand and laughs.

  “Wow!” says Sheryl. “Grand champion.”

  June Bug smirks and shakes her head. “Congratulations,” she says.

  Pauly says, “What’s so gweat about a dead bohd?”

  “What dead bird?” asks Uncle Stretch.

  I smile my toothless smile, much too caught up in admiring my big blue ribbon to answer such a question.

  Chapter 14

  Penny and the Talent Show

  Dear Diary,

  It’s a few days before the fair.

  Even though the costume component is only worth ten points in the Red Rock County Fair Talent Show, Sheryl and June Bug have been staying up late night after night. They’ve been running the sewing machine so loud and long that none of the rest of us could get a wink of sleep, in order to put together the tackiest, trashiest country-western outfit ever! June Bug is going to wear a red satin shirt tied up in a knot to bare her midriff (of course!) and a pair of cutoff jean shorts with little balls stitched all around them that look like they were ripped right off some old grandma’s lamp shade. When June Bug dances, Sheryl says, the little balls will add extra interest.