by Julie Mata
Margaret reminds me of some of my mother’s chickens, the ones with nasty bald spots on their backs. My mother explained to me once how weird expressions like henpecked and pecking order and rule the roost got invented. Put a bunch of hens together and those clucking, mild-mannered birds will peck one another until their feathers fly, trying to figure out who’s the head honcho hen. They’ll keep pecking until they know everybody’s place, right down to the bottom of the heap. Well, if Lydia Merritt is ruler of the roost, then Margaret Yorkel is definitely the Chicken Little of our seventh-grade class.
I listen to Blake and Paul, wishing there was a way to shut them up. But I know if I say anything, I’ll become the next target. Those two are like pimply bulldogs. Once they grab hold of something, they don’t let go, and I don’t want to be their next victim. Just as I’m telling myself there’s nothing I can do, Lydia waltzes over and grabs the pen from Blake’s hand.
“Can I connect your zits, Nashville?” she says loudly. Everyone nearby laughs. We’re all secretly glad to see Blake Nash get zinged. He flushes red.
“Ha-ha, Merritt,” he mutters. He wisely keeps quiet after that. Blake knows he’ll end up in shreds if he tries to take on Lydia.
She tosses the marker back to him. It bounces off his head before he can catch it, and everyone titters. Ouch. Blake Nash is suddenly having a bad day. I just hope he doesn’t decide to take it out on Margaret the first chance he gets.
I slip into my seat in history class. Lydia put Blake in his place so easily. Of course, she’s the MPG. She doesn’t have to worry about her social standing or whether Blake will harass her—the things most kids have to worry about. Blake probably has a secret crush on her. Most of the boys do.
The funny thing is, sometimes Lydia makes fun of Margaret, too, although never to her face. We’re all guilty of it. The red hair, the freckles, the glasses...she’s a tempting target. But today, Lydia stood up for Margaret. Which Lydia is the real one?
It’s too confusing to sort out, so I start thinking about the footage I shot of Lydia instead. I know the car shots look great, but after that I’m not so sure. Some really creative editing might save the scene. If I show Lydia a rough cut, maybe she’ll get excited and agree to let me grab a few more shots. Maybe she’ll forget about the hens and start talking about my movie again. I liked how everyone laughed at her stories, right up until she mentioned the poop.
I plan and plot all day and I’m feeling pretty good by the time business ed rolls around at the end of the afternoon. I sit next to Alyssa, and she hands me a lip gloss that’s called Berried Alive, which is a lot prettier than Raisin the Roof. Just as I’m settling into my seat, feeling good about things, Mrs. Chapman walks through the door, followed by my mother.
At first I’m confused and I wonder if everything’s okay. Then my mother waves at me, beaming like she’s just jumped out of a magician’s hat. My stomach does a hard flip and my heart starts to pound. She wouldn’t, I think. She couldn’t. I sink into my seat, my mind cranking furiously, trying to find a way to stop the train wreck that’s about to happen.
At least my mother took off her work boots. She looks clean and pretty normal in blue jeans and a blouse and her good sneakers. She even did her hair and put on makeup. She doesn’t look professional like Alyssa’s mom, but at least she doesn’t look like Farmer Bob.
“I didn’t know your mother was coming,” Alyssa whispers.
“Neither did I,” I croak. I think back to my mother’s cheery good-bye that morning. She must have been planning this as a surprise. Well, it worked, I’m surprised—although shocked might be a better word.
Then Mrs. Chapman claps her hands for quiet. “Class, I’d like to introduce Mrs. Jean Walden, Kate’s mother. Mrs. Walden’s career path has taken a very interesting twist lately. She’s gone from business executive to entrepreneur. Does everyone know what that is? An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision and starts her own business, just like Mrs. Walden. As part of Career Week, she’s here today to tell you about it.”
As the class politely claps, I’m riveted to my seat, my face frozen in a glassy smile. My teeth start to ache again. My mother loves what she’s doing, I remind myself. In fact, the day she quit her job she got so excited that she called our family together and marched us outside to the fire pit. She had piled up a bunch of skirts, some snarled pantyhose, and a few pairs of high heels (not her favorite ones, I noticed). She splashed gasoline on them, lit a match, and gave us a huge smile like she was about to light the Olympic flame.
The wind blew out the first match. And the second. Some of the gas must have evaporated by then because, after she finally got the pile lit, the pantyhose melted right away but the skirts just smoked a bit. My dad scratched his head. I knew he was adding up how much all those outfits cost, but he didn’t want to spoil her big, triumphal moment. We applauded and tried to look happy.
My mother looks happy now as she thanks Mrs. Chapman. She’s an entrepreneur—that sounds pretty cool. Maybe it won’t be so bad, I tell myself.
My mother takes a deep breath. “I am a chicken farmer,” she says dramatically.
I have to clamp shut my mouth to keep a groan from escaping. From the corner of my eye, I see Emily Foster glance at Lydia and then over at me.
“I used to be a manager at Sun Market Systems, which produces financial software for businesses. It was a good job, but I was starting to feel stuck in a rut. One of my passions is quality organic food. And my dream has always been to work with animals. So I decided to quit my job and raise organic chickens. I sell the meat and eggs to a natural foods chain and to a few high-end restaurants in the city.”
My mother smiles and perches on the desk. “This has meant some big changes, as I’m sure Kate has told you.” The entire class turns and looks at me. If only someone would play a prank and pull the fire alarm. No one does and my mother continues.
“I had to educate myself about raising chickens, everything from housing to chicken feed to processing.”
Nathan Fremont raises his hand. “I thought you weren’t allowed to have farm animals in town.”
My mother nods. “You’re not, but luckily we live outside town on an acreage.”
Then Emily raises her hand. “Don’t chickens poop a lot?” she asks in an overly sweet voice. A snigger runs through the room. Mrs. Chapman frowns at us.
“That’s a very good question,” my mother says brightly. “Disposal of animal waste is a problem in any farming operation. Luckily chicken manure makes excellent compost for gardens. And because our chickens are organic, their manure is organic, too. I have people stop and ask if they can buy manure from me.”
My mother actually smiles happily as a titter goes around the classroom. In a crazed moment, I wonder if she’s doing it on purpose. Maybe she was more upset by my zombie chicken script than I’d thought. But, no, she’s clearly oblivious to the brewing tidal wave that’s about to capsize my life.
“Chicken manure is very high in nitrogen, which is great for gardens. I used it in our garden as fertilizer last year, and we had a bumper crop of tomatoes.”
“Crappy tomatoes,” Blake Nash mutters under his breath, and that sets off another round of giggles.
Lydia raises her hand and I wish a flash flood would sweep through or a freak tornado would touch down, but nothing happens. I’m locked rigid in my seat, and my face feels hot enough to cook something on. I can’t tell which hurts more, my mouth or my head.
“I saw one of your chickens poop.” The blunt way Lydia announces it makes everyone laugh. “Let’s just say it was...fragrant.” She waves a hand in front of her nose and rolls her eyes.
My mother laughs along with the rest of the class. Alyssa, I notice, is laughing the loudest.
“Poop is poop,” my mother says cheerfully. “Yes, it’s smelly, but you get used to it. Kate and her brother help me clean up around the
yard.”
The looks I’m getting vary from amazed sympathy to sneers, depending on the looker. I can’t sink any lower without disappearing underneath my desk, so I doodle on my notebook and pretend my mother’s speaking in Greek. It’s just a scene from a B horror movie, I tell myself. Soon, the credits will roll and it will all be over.
After school, my mother turns and smiles at me in the car. “I think that went pretty well. Your classmates seemed very interested.”
I had told myself I was going to be controlled and mature. I was going to gently explain to my mother how she was devastating my life. But this is too much. My pulse begins to pound like I’ve just downed three Monster Energy drinks in under a minute.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I scream. “I can’t believe you came to my class and you didn’t tell me first!”
My mother looks wary. This isn’t the mother-daughter moment she envisioned. “I wanted to surprise you, honey. I thought you’d like having me come talk about my business.”
“Chickens, Mom?” I screech. “You really think I want you to come and talk to my friends about chickens and their poop?” I see her hurt look and I know I should shut up, but I’m so mad there’s a supersonic buzzing in my head.
My mother’s face grows carefully composed. This is her “I’m an adult, you’re a hormonal preteen throwing a tantrum” look, which sets me off even more.
“Didn’t you hear them laughing? They’re all laughing at me, at our family. They think we’re total weirdos!” My voice rises and breaks on the last word.
“They do not think we’re weirdos,” my mother crisply replies. “I simply told them about my new business. I’m sorry if this embarrassed you.”
I know my mother planned this out as a fun surprise, and I know I’ve hurt her feelings, but I just wish she would consider my feelings for once. She’s so in love with her chickens that she hardly pays attention to anything else, including me. No, especially me. We don’t speak for the rest of the car ride.
As soon as I walk in the door at home, my cell phone rings. “Wow,” Alyssa says. “So that was interesting with your mom. You didn’t know she was coming to class?”
“Are you kidding?” I feel a surge of gratitude that Alyssa called so quickly to sympathize. I actually feel tears prickle behind my eyelids, and I’m about do a major emotion dump when I hear a giggle, very soft, in the background. “Do you have me on speakerphone?” I ask suspiciously.
“No,” Alyssa answers, but there’s a false note in her voice.
“I gotta go.” I hang up, feeling dizzy. Has there been a sudden shift in the space-time continuum? Am I suddenly living in an alternate universe where my best friend just pretended to be nice while actually laughing at me behind my back?
Paranoia is creeping into my bones, fogging my brain. I need to shake it off. I probably imagined the giggle. Suddenly I feel guilty that I suspect Alyssa of such a low deed. “Get a grip,” I mutter to myself. I grab a ball and take Wilma outside. She immediately goes nuts, yapping and jumping into the air and running in circles—all over a dirty, grungy tennis ball. I wish my life could be so simple.
I throw the ball and she streaks across the yard, her little legs pumping so hard they’re a blur. What Wilma lacks in size she makes up for in determination. She once came trotting up to me and proudly dropped a dead mouse at my feet. At first, I thought it was a piece of tree bark, but when I leaned down I saw the curled tail, the tiny ears. It looked so small and gray and...dead. I’m sure Wilma thought I was screaming with joy, because she sat down, cocked her head, and grinned at me.
“She’s a terrier,” my dad explained. “That’s what terriers do; they catch vermin.” He gave her a dog treat, but all I could think of was Stuart Little trying to zoom away from Wilma in his little red car. Sometimes life sucks that way. One minute you’re minding your own business, tooling along in your sports car, and the next moment the jaws of fate are snapping at you, grinding you up for a snack. And of course, nobody knows until it’s too late that they’re about to become the next meal.
The next morning starts off nice, kind of like in Titanic when the orchestra’s playing just before they hit the iceberg. (It took me forever to persuade my parents to let me watch that movie. My dad finally watched it with me and fast-forwarded through all the steamy parts.)
First, I decide to try a new hairstyle that Alyssa showed me last week. She’s always after me to try something different with my hair, so I know she’ll be pleased. Then, my mother makes chocolate chip pancakes, and she casually tells me that she went ahead and fed the chickens for me. I know she feels bad about our fight the day before. So do I, so I eat an extra pancake to show my appreciation. When I miss the bus because I took too long styling my hair, my mother doesn’t get mad. She gives Derek and me a ride to school and tells me I get to pick the radio station, even though Derek insists it’s his turn.
I make a quick pit stop at my locker and am hurrying down the hall when I hear a shriek behind me. I turn and there are Alyssa and Lydia walking together, with Emily and Sara tagging along. And Lydia’s pointing at something on the floor behind me. “What is that?” She says it so loud that kids turn and stare. “It fell off your shoe!”
That’s when the sinking feeling starts. It feels like the chocolate chips are turning into lead pellets in my stomach. I turn around and see what looks like a clod of dirt on the floor behind me.
“Just dirt,” I announce, and try to kick it away. But Lydia and her entourage are already there, and it bounces off Lydia’s foot.
She shrieks like it’s a dead mouse and yells, “It’s dried chicken poop! Dried chicken crap fell off your shoe!”
The lead pellets start churning in my stomach as I realize she’s right. My mind flashes back to the day before, when I was throwing the ball for Wilma in the yard. The chickens must have planted some poop right where I was sure to step in it, knowing it would harden in the crevices of my sneaker overnight. And now everything’s gone exactly according to their diabolical plan. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the chickens had a long-range detonation device to make the clod fall at exactly the right moment. How else would it drop right when Lydia is behind me?
Now everybody’s staring at this piece of crud and laughing as they kick it at each other. It breaks up into pieces, which causes more screams, and finally Blake Nash picks one up and flings it at Lydia. “Have some of Kate’s crap!” he calls. Lydia deflects it with her books; she’s laughing so hard she can’t even shriek anymore.
Blake starts smelling his hands and making throw-up noises. “It reeks!” he shouts. “These crapkates reek!”
I guess he means like cupcakes, or crabcakes—I don’t know, but everyone thinks it’s really funny. They all start shouting, “Have a crapkate!” as they kick pieces at one another, and you have to wonder, are these kids really about to enter eighth grade next year?
And where are the teachers? Are they in on it, too, standing behind their doors, sniggering? Is the whole town in on it? Has it been named National Get Kate Walden Day without my knowing it? Which just shows my paranoia is in full swing, but can you blame me? It turns out the jaws of fate have picked me for their next cosmic snack. They’ve plucked me from my jazzy little red car and are crunching on my bones. Finally Mr. Greuschen sticks his head out of his classroom and yells for everyone to quiet down and get to class.
Through this whole sordid scene, Alyssa has been laughing while trying to look sympathetic and failing utterly. She shakes her head at me like, Hey, it’s just a little joke, but a knot the size of Mount Rushmore is lodged in my throat. I just stare at her like I don’t know her. It turns out I don’t, because Lydia grabs her by the arm and drags her away, and Alyssa doesn’t even try to stay behind with me. She looks back and rolls her eyes like, What can I do? Even worse, I hear Lydia say, “I haven’t laughed that hard since”—she pauses and glances at Alyssa—“
since yesterday!”
And I know—I know for sure what I probably deep down knew all along, that I did hear a giggle on the phone yesterday, and that giggle was Lydia. Still, I can hardly believe it. Alyssa—my best friend of six years, my ding-dong ditch conspirator, my lemonade stand partner, the star of all my movies, who loves SpongeBob SquarePants and can eat half a can of Easy Cheese in one sitting just like me, who adores scary movies, and who told me all about her creepy uncle even though she’s not supposed to tell anyone—my Alyssa, who braved the water tower, just abandoned me for Lydia.
Remember the snowball effect? Some pathetic cartoon character gets kicked into snow and starts rolling down a mountain. He turns into a humongous snowball and finally hits rock bottom and explodes. That’s kind of how my day goes. Everywhere I go I hear crapkate! Even the sixth graders are saying it. I’m dreading lunch most of all, so when the bell rings I duck into the bathroom and stay there until it gets quiet. I consider sitting in a bathroom stall all period, but my stomach is rumbling so hard it hurts. Finally I can’t stand it any longer. I head for the cafeteria and get a tray of food.
Even though I’m mad at Alyssa, I still look for her because we always sit together and sitting alone is out of the question. A tiny part of me hopes that maybe, just maybe, there’s a good reason why she ran off. Maybe she will apologize and explain everything, just like she did before.
Alyssa is sitting with Lydia and her friends. Mimi and Lizzy are there, too, chatting happily away, and there are no empty seats. No one saved me a seat. I’m so in shock I think my mouth actually drops open. This has never happened before. Most times, people won’t even ask to sit in the seat next to Alyssa, because they know it’s saved for me. And vice versa. But today she’s rubbing shoulders with Lydia, laughing it up. I’m pretty sure she sees me out of the corner of her eye, but she ignores me.
It feels like everyone in the cafeteria is staring at me except Alyssa. Even Mimi and Lizzy shoot glances my way. The seats around them are full, but they don’t try to make room for me.