by Jessie Haas
Fifteen minutes later, she was at the picnic table next to Mrs. Abernathy, smelling like Archie and happily eating pie. “It might be on the sour side,” Mrs. Abernathy warned. “Rhubarb is free. Strawberries cost money.”
Joni made a happy noise with her mouth full. The pie was perfectly balanced between sour and sweet. Even the crust tasted good, and crust was not usually Joni’s favorite part of a pie. “Thank you,” she said, spraying crumbs.
“I brought it to thank your father for delivering my lambs,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “But mostly it was an excuse to come here. I miss farming more than almost anything.”
“What part of farming?” Tobin asked.
“Working that hard,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “Haying—three thousand bales in the barn and I’d handled half of them, and I could still walk upright! And I miss the livestock.”
“Sheep?” Joni asked. Could anyone miss sheep?
“We had cattle,” Mrs. Abernathy said, “but the bargain is the same. Your relationship is with the whole herd. You keep them, they keep you. You make their lives sweet, and that sweetness flows into their milk …” She made a face. “Sorry, that’s too poetic. I know what it’s like to be up to here in manure, fixing an electric fence for the third time in an afternoon! Still—I’d trade almost everything I’ve experienced to be back in my twenties and farming.”
Three husbands, Joni thought. A pair of coal-black Morgans.
“We have kittens,” she said, doing her new, change-the-subject thing.
“Ah!” Mrs. Abernathy put her head on one side. “Spoken for? My late husband didn’t care for cats. I’m ready to have one again.”
“None of them have homes yet that I’m aware of,” Mom said.
Mrs. Abernathy said, “Pick me out the slow one, Joni. The one that’s shy and not as bright as the rest. It’s going to be an indoor cat, so I don’t want it to figure out what it’s missing.”
“But your house is way back from the road,” Joni said.
“In my experience, the moment you fall in love with a cat it starts hurling itself under cars, no matter how far you live from the road! But my main reason is that I have a healthy population of songbirds, and I want to keep them.”
“Okay,” Joni said. So, not Chess’s kitten …
As if she heard Joni’s thought, Mrs. Abernathy asked, “Is your friend taking one?”
“They don’t believe in captive animals,” Joni heard herself say. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t. Mrs. Abernathy’s eyebrows lifted, and then she changed the subject.
FIFTEEN
Sheep
The next day during breakfast, the phone rang. Joni answered, and Chess said, “Can I come see them again?” She sounded breathless.
“Um—sure,” Joni said, looking at Olivia. She wasn’t paying attention. “When?”
“Well—I’m almost there.”
Joni looked out the window. Down on the field, a small figure in a lime-green shirt leaned over the handlebars of a bike, toiling along the ruts. Her leg strokes were wobbly but getting more powerful. “Okay, I’ll meet you.” Joni swallowed the last of her toast and headed for the door. “Chess is coming,” she said over her shoulder.
That got Olivia’s attention. She glanced at Dad, who shrugged. Olivia must have showed him the dog crate picture, but he didn’t seem too worried.
Joni walked down to the level spot near the barn. The gravel was marked with Archie’s tracks. Remembering the lesson, she turned, looking with the eyes in her chest, and twirled back around as Chess stopped the bike beside her. “Mrs. Abernathy gave me a riding lesson last night.”
“Mrs. Abernathy?”
“The miniature horse lady.” Joni took a deep breath. She had to try again. Mrs. Abernathy deserved it. “Look, she knows a lot about horses. I’m sure she’s taking really good care—”
But Chess was on her way to the barn.
“They’re not there anymore,” Joni said. “We moved them into the house. But Mrs. Abernathy—”
Chess veered toward the house. Never mind! Just never mind, Joni thought. Chess was never going to listen to her. It was a job for Kalysta. “My room is this way,” she said.
Her room wasn’t the cleanest ever, and it wasn’t cool, like Alyssa’s. No ballet posters, no TV, no bright paint. The walls still had the same bunny wallpaper as when it was Olivia’s room.
But Chess looked only at the kittens on their bookcase jungle gym. Joni forgot everything else, too, laughing until her sides ached. When the kittens seemed inclined to nap, she found a piece of baling twine—it was that kind of bedroom—and dragged it for them. That was too frightening, like some kind of hairy anaconda. Even the gray-and-white kitten hissed.
“What is it?” Chess asked.
“You mean the baling twine?” How could Chess not know what baling twine was? It was the most common thing on a farm. If you couldn’t fix something with baling twine or duct tape, you were really in trouble!
A kitten started scratching in the litter box. “Uh-oh,” Joni said. “It’s going to get stinky in here. C’mon, I’ll show you.”
Out at the barn, she explained how the baler compacted the hay and tied it tightly together with two lengths of twine.
“Do you use it over again?” Chess asked.
“No.” Joni pointed to the mountain of used twine on the barn floor. “Dad burns it on the brush pile.”
“Could I have some, then?”
“Sure,” Joni said. “What for?”
“A project. I might need a lot—like that whole pile.”
Obviously, she didn’t want to say what the project was. Joni felt uncomfortable again. She hadn’t made a new friend in a while, but she didn’t remember it being like this—perfectly easy one minute, and the next minute … not.
Downstairs, a sheep baaed. “What’s that?” Chess asked.
“One of the ewes hurt her leg. Dad’s keeping her in for a while.”
“What’s a—”
“Ewe. It sounds like you—y-o-u—but it’s spelled e-w-e. It’s a female sheep.”
“Can I see her?” Chess asked. “Would that be okay?”
Joni shrugged. “Sure!” She led the way downstairs.
In one of the small wooden pens, a lone ewe stood facing toward the back pasture, bleating loudly. “Why is she roaring like that?” Chess asked. “Is she in pain?”
“Sheep don’t like being by themselves.” To stop the noise, Joni grabbed a weed from outside the door. The moment she saw it, the sheep forgot her friends. She scarfed the weed down with a gasping, gobbling sound, and Chess chuckled, the Archie-eating-carrots laugh.
“That’s great! Can I give her one?” And they were back to easy again. The ewe ate weed after weed, and her swift lips and glassy, demented-looking yellow eyes never seemed to get less funny.
“What’s her name?” Chess asked. “I can’t just call her ‘Hey, ewe!’”
“Good one!” Joni said. “She doesn’t actually have a name.”
“She doesn’t have a name?”
“There’s a hundred and fifty of them! Even Dad can’t tell them apart. They have numbers, see?” Joni pointed to the metal tag clipped into the sheep’s ear.
Chess looked suddenly sober. “That must hurt.”
“Like getting your ears pierced.” Joni had gotten hers done last year, but she didn’t wear earrings enough and the holes grew shut again.
“I have pierced ears,” Chess said. “But I decided to. The ewe didn’t want her ear pierced!”
“Sheep don’t want anything, except to eat,” Joni said. “This one wants another weed.”
She plucked one and the sheep inhaled it, but Chess didn’t laugh this time. “Do you shear your sheep?” she asked in a troubled voice.
“Of course!” Joni said. “Otherwise, they’d have wool out to here!”
“But it’s cruel!”
“Shearing isn’t cruel!” Joni said. “It’s a haircut!”
Chess whipped out her
phone. Tap tap tap. “That’s a haircut?” She turned the phone to Joni. It showed a photo of a sheep with almost no wool on its body. Its belly and sides were dark red with blood and scabs.
“That’s not what shearing looks like!” Joni said.
“They don’t get cut?” Chess asked.
“No! Well, sometimes, but—just little nicks, once in a while, and they heal really fast.”
“So that never happens?”
Joni made herself look at the picture. It was a photograph, so it was real. It must have happened to that sheep. “No,” she said. Her voice felt weak. “No,” she repeated more strongly. “Or we wouldn’t do it!”
Chess said, “People should wear cotton, not wool! Let’s give this ewe some more weeds. She’s obviously hungry. Or does food make sheep sick, too?”
Something in Joni’s chest went thin and papery, like a hornets’ nest with the hornets about to come boiling out. Chess did not know her well enough to get sarcastic!
But before she could think of what to say, Tobin popped his head through the door. “Hey, Joni, the sheep on that back meadow are out. Do you know where your dad is?”
“Making cheese,” Joni said. “I’ll get him.” She took off running, not even looking back to see what Chess did. Because who cared? Really, who cared?
White rubber boots were lined up beside the door of the cheese house. Joni slipped on a pair and walked inside. Olivia was dipping curds out of a vat and packing them into a strainer. Dad pressed on them to squeeze out the whey, and Rosita watched. The whole room smelled sweet and milky and clean.
“Sheep are out,” Joni said.
“You ready to take over?” Dad asked Rosita. She nodded, and he walked out with Joni, back across the driveway to Tobin, Chess, and the truck. “Who wants to ride along?” He whistled for the dogs.
Joni didn’t. She’d had enough of the Chess/sheep combination. “There’s no room,” she started to say, but Tobin hopped up in the back and reached his hand down to her. “Come on, Joni, there’s plenty of room.” In a moment, they were all packed into the back of the pickup with the border collies. The truck bounced across the grass. The dogs hung their heads over the sides, looking toward the sheep.
“Is that safe?” Chess asked. “What if they jump out?”
“They won’t!” Joni said. No dog on this farm had ever jumped out of the truck and hurt itself. But Chess believed the worst about everything.
Tobin said, “Don’t worry. These dogs are smart. The only reason they aren’t driving is that they can’t work the clutch!”
That brought a thin smile to Chess’s face, but she still kept an eye on Millie and Zip. They began to tremble when they saw the sheep, spread across the back field and eating fast as if to make the most of their stolen time. Dad stopped the truck and got out. “Wait!” he told the dogs.
He and Tobin went to disconnect the electricity and fix the fence. The dogs stood in the pickup bed, staring intently at the sheep. Millie shivered; Zip whined. Chess stroked them, but they paid no attention.
Across the field, Dad called. “Millie, Zip! Come by!” The dogs rocketed over the side of the truck and streaked across the grass. The sheep flung their heads up. Bunched together, swirling and baaing, they wheeled toward the opening in the fence. Dad whistled, and the dogs flattened on their bellies as the sheep streamed between them into the pasture, all bleating loudly.
Chess said, “The dogs love it, don’t they?”
“More than anything!” Joni said.
“How do the sheep feel?”
Heat flashed over Joni from head to toe. “I don’t know how the sheep feel! Sheep are—”
“No,” Chess said, half-turning toward Joni. “I didn’t mean—I want to understand. I thought the sheep would be really stressed out. Like, terrified! They’re being chased by dogs! And I don’t know anything about sheep, maybe I’m wrong … but they don’t look stressed. Are they?”
Maybe I’m wrong? Had Joni heard that right? “They went right back to eating,” she said. “How stressed can they be?”
“So why do they run?” Chess asked. “Because—I mean, it almost looks like a game.”
“Yes.” But that sounded like she was mad. Joni tried again. “It’s kind of like—the dogs agree to chase and the sheep agree to run. But there’s one old sheep that won’t run. She butts the dogs when they try to make her. They hate that! Dad does, too. It messes everything up.”
Chess chuckled. “I’d like to meet that sheep!”
And things were easy again! But this was hard work. Joni was ready for a break. “Actually, even that sheep is pretty boring. Can we do something at your house tomorrow?”
“But …” Chess hesitated. “Sure. We could do that.”
SIXTEEN
Baling Twine
Chess stayed till almost lunchtime. In the afternoon, Joni rode Archie over to Danae’s. Alyssa was there, and already it was starting to be like last summer. Danae would begin a sentence and Alyssa would finish it and Joni wouldn’t understand. Like when Danae said “I think we should—” and Alyssa said “go fishing!” and they both laughed. After that, “go fishing” was the end of every sentence, and they couldn’t explain because they were laughing too hard. “Go fishing” had happened since yesterday.
At least Danae was interested in last night’s riding lesson, and Joni was able to show off. The head-turning technique didn’t work as well without someone to mold her into the shape of a perfect rider. But when Joni pretended she was Mrs. Abernathy, she was able to turn Archie with a lot less effort than normal.
Danae wanted to try it, too. She got Pumpkin out, and Joni tried to explain how Mrs. Abernathy had aligned her. There were too many words, though, too many details. “Pretend you’re that plastic cowboy that goes with the gray model horse,” she said at last. The cowboy sort of plugged into the horse’s saddle. Pretending to be him, Danae looked plugged in as well. But Pumpkin still wouldn’t do the magic turn.
“Pretend you’re—” But Danae didn’t know Mrs. Abernathy. “Pretend you’re a queen!” Joni said.
Danae’s chin came up. Her face looked stern, she turned her head commandingly, and Pumpkin turned, too, as if the two of them were one. Danae pumped her fist. “We are going to rock 4-H camp! I can’t wait!”
That was a good visit. But all the way home, the image of that scabby sheep kept coming back to Joni. She couldn’t not see it, and it made a spot in her chest feel bad, like it had gone rotten.
Dad was mowing hay, and Olivia, Tobin, and Rosita were going swimming. They asked Joni to go with them, but she was sick of being the little kid in the middle of their conversation. Instead, she helped Mom spiff up the farm store.
Mom had painted the inside last weekend, a creamy, cheesy white. Joni helped her hang the blue-and-white-checked curtains and spread a cloth on the sample table. She filled a basket with plump skeins of yarn—People should wear cotton, not wool!—while Mom slipped the new Boston Globe article into a frame.
Then she got out Dad’s grazing journal and opened it to the right page. It told where the sheep had been grazing when today’s cheese was made, and what plants they were eating. Dad’s journals were what got Mom interested in him in the first place. Reading about clover and mint, and finding hints of them in the cheese, she fell in love, as she always did, with good writing. Anyway, that was what she’d told Joni, who obviously wasn’t around back then. That was right after he got divorced, when he was lonely and had time to write extra-long entries in his pasture journals.
Joni dusted and straightened the pictures on the wall—A very young Dad proudly displayed one of his first cheeses. The caption read, “Not As Good As It Looks!”
The picture of Dad in France, with three old men in black berets, was captioned, “It Gets Better.” Kate and Olivia, around Joni’s age, held a Cheese Society blue ribbon and plaque; Dad handed a slice of cheese to Julia Child; Dad held baby Joni in one arm and a large cheese in the other, with a big bronze med
al on it. And there were half a dozen photos of contented sheep, pictures beautiful enough to go on a magazine cover.
No pictures of shearing, though.
But there could be, Joni thought. Shearing was pretty enough even for a store picture. Joni loved to see Dad peel back the dingy gray outer wool, showing the clean wool underneath. It was creamy white like the walls of the store, soft and wavy with a strong smell of sheep, and no blood, ever. Once in a while, Dad accidentally made a tiny nick in a sheep’s skin, but the blood didn’t even trickle—
Joni squeezed her eyes shut, but that scabby sheep was inside her head. She couldn’t close it out, and when she opened her eyes, Mom was looking at her. “What’s wrong?”
Joni told her about the picture. “Why would that happen?” she asked. “I mean—that never happens!”
“I can’t imagine,” Mom said. “Shearing a sheep isn’t hard—I’ve done it! I’ll bet it’s propaganda, Joni. Do you know what propaganda is?” Joni shook her head. “It’s misinformation, or half-truths, designed to sway people’s emotions. Propaganda tries to make you so mad or scared that you don’t think. You just react, without pausing to ask yourself, ‘How do I know that’s true?’”
Joni said, “It was a photograph.”
“Photographs can be altered easily,” Mom said. “And you know, give me a can of dark red spray paint and I could make a scabby sheep for you! So I don’t know if the sheep was really hurt. But the point is, neither do you, and neither does your friend Chess.”
“I wish we were shearing now,” Joni said. “Then she’d see.”
Mom said, “She’ll learn soon enough. I’m glad there’s another girl in the neighborhood. It will be nice for you to have a friend so close.” Mom totally understood the Danae and Alyssa thing.
As they arranged the jelly jars, a car pulled into the parking area. A moment later, Chess’s mother opened the door. “Oh, hello! I’m just—I didn’t think you staffed the store.”
“Usually, it’s self-service,” Mom said, “but here we are!” She explained that eggs and cheese were in the refrigerator, along with cheese samples.