The Goatnappers

by Rosa Jordan

  Justin stuck the bandanna-wrapped knife under his books and lunged for his locker, hoping to slide everything out of sight. But before he could get to it, a fat, freckled hand covered with reddish-gold hair reached out and slammed the locker door shut. It was a hand he knew very well: it belonged to Mr. Simmons, his social studies teacher.

  “I’ll take that.” Simmons’s other big hand reached under the books and took the knife. “You will come with me now, Justin. You, too, young man.” Apparently he didn’t know Brad’s name. Justin snuck a look at his friend. His face was so white he would have looked like a ghost if it hadn’t been for the red zits.

  Seconds later they were in Principal White’s office. When Mr. Simmons showed him the knife, the principal looked at it like it was a live rattlesnake. Brad told them right away that it didn’t belong to Justin. He admitted that it was his and started babbling about why he had it. Mr. White didn’t say a word; he just pointed to the wall that separated his office from that of the vice principal.

  “Mr. Bowls,” he said in a strained voice, “handles matters of discipline.”

  Justin and Brad spent the entire rest of the afternoon in the vice principal’s office, being beat over the head with scary words like “press charges,” “call your mother,” and “automatic suspension.”

  When Justin got home, Kate was waiting for him on the porch. “What happened?” she asked in a frightened voice. “I saw Mr. Simmons taking you to the office.”

  “None of your business.” Justin headed for the kitchen.

  Kate followed. “How did they find out?”

  “Find out what?” he snapped.

  Kate sat down at the kitchen table and started biting her nails—something he hadn’t seen her do in over a year. “You’ve got to tell me! If we’re in trouble …”

  That was when Justin realized that his sister thought the trip to the principal’s office had something to do with the goatnapping.

  “We are not in trouble,” Justin told her. “Brad is.”

  “Oh. For what?”

  “Bringing a knife to school.”

  “A pocketknife?”

  “A switchblade. A honkin’ gigantic switchblade.”

  “Oh my gosh! Why did he do that?”

  Justin sighed. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to spread it all over school. In fact, promise you won’t tell anybody.”

  “I won’t, Justin. I absolutely promise!”

  Kate had gotten Justin in trouble more than once by tattling. But he knew that if she said she wouldn’t tell, she wouldn’t. He took a deep breath.

  “It started a couple of weeks ago when Brad discovered his dad was carrying a pistol around in the glove compartment of his car. And, well, it freaked him out because of how his parents are always fighting. Especially since the divorce. So he told his mom, and then she got a gun. Brad was afraid that one of them might, you know, lose it. So he got a knife.”

  “That’s nuts! What good is a knife if both of them have guns?”

  “I know,” Justin said. “It doesn’t make sense. I guess he’s just scared. He probably would’ve tried to get a gun but he couldn’t, not right away at least. He figured a knife was better than nothing. Only they took it away from him, so now he’s back to nothing.”

  “He never should’ve brought it to school!” Kate exclaimed. She stared at Justin for a moment, then asked, “How come they dragged you in with him?”

  “He was showing it to me. I saw a teacher coming and tried to hide it. Old Simmons. He thought it was mine. Luckily they believed Brad. Not at first, but after he told them the reason.”

  “That’s awful!” Kate said, and Justin could see that she felt genuinely sorry for Brad. “They’ll probably expel him.”

  “They suspended him. Which means his parents will go ballistic and blame each other and something terrible will happen, just like Brad was afraid it would. Only now it’ll be his fault.”

  As if he hadn’t been interrogated enough by the vice principal—and afterwards by Kate—he was grilled all through supper about his weekend with Charlie. Mom hadn’t said much about it when she picked him up at the bus station the night before, just asked if he’d had a good time. Tonight, though, she wanted to hear about everything they had done. Kate wanted to know what kind of a place Charlie lived in, and Chip wanted to know what it was like at the racetrack. “When the car Dad worked on wins,” he asked, “do they give him a silver cup like they give the jockeys who win horse races?”

  Justin gave short answers to their questions. He wished he could just tell them all to shut up and leave him alone.

  “You look tired,” Mom said to him.

  “I am,” Justin admitted. “I didn’t get much sleep at Dad’s.”

  “Oh?” In a flash, Mom’s tone of voice turned suspicious.

  “It was the neon light outside our bedroom window,” Justin explained. “It kept flashing on and off and there were no curtains.”

  “Well, go to bed early tonight,” Mom said as she left the table and headed off to take her bath.

  Chip, who had already had his bath, flopped down in front of the TV. Justin asked Kate to hurry up with the dishes—it was her night to wash and his to dry—because he had a lot of homework.

  When they finished, Justin went into the living room to get his books and Kate sat down beside Chip on the sofa. A couple of minutes later Mom walked in, wrapped in her terry-cloth bathrobe. She said to Chip, “Didn’t I tell you to go to bed? You’re not supposed to be watching that program anyway.”

  Justin glanced over at the TV screen. It was a cop show. One of the characters was saying, “We got a full set of prints from the windowsill. If they match those of the suspect, this time we’ll put the punk away.”

  “Can I just watch to the end?” Chip asked Mom.

  “No, you may not. Go on now, it’s past your bedtime.”

  Mom gave each kid a quick kiss and went on to her room. Chip edged out into the hall, then stopped. Kate and Justin could see him through the doorway, standing there, his eyes still glued to the screen. Kate grabbed the remote and snapped off the TV.

  “It’s just make-believe!” she told Chip.

  “You mean they don’t catch thieves by their fingerprints?”

  “Only if they’ve been arrested before, and if their prints are on file.”

  “Oh.” Still Chip stood there, staring at the blank TV screen.

  Justin put down his books. “Listen, mutt. Let’s say somebody breaks into a place, and later the police find fingerprints on the windowsill. That doesn’t do them any good unless they know whose fingerprints they are.”

  “Then how do they catch people?”

  “Well, like Kate said, if the person had been arrested before, his fingerprints would be on file. Then the police could look in the file and find the prints that matched the ones they found on the windowsill. But if the person had never been arrested, and never got into trouble again, the prints wouldn’t mean anything,” Justin said, hoping that what he said was true.

  “Oh,” Chip said again.

  Kate, looking worried, put her arm around Chip’s shoulder and led him off to bed. Justin knew what she was worried about, because the same thing had occurred to him. If Chip got so scared that he told Mom about the goatnapping, then they’d all be in real trouble.

  When Kate came back, Justin gave her a questioning look.

  “He won’t tell,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I told him that if anybody finds out, Little Billy would get sent back to Grimsted’s.”

  Justin picked up his book bag and slung it over one shoulder. “That’s probably true,” he said.

  “Justin?”

  “What?”

  “Did Dad let you drive his car while you were there?”

  “No. But he said that if I go live with him he’ll get me one of my own.” Justin immediately wished he hadn’t let that slip out. He hadn’t meant to tell anybody, but it had be
en on his mind all day. He started toward the kitchen, hoping to avoid any more questions. No such luck.

  Kate blocked his way. “Where does he live anyway?”

  “That’s just it,” Justin admitted. “He’s always on the move.”

  It was clear to Justin that if he went to live with his dad he would never be anywhere long enough to get on any school baseball team. And making the varsity team had been his lifelong dream. He went into the kitchen and dumped the books out of his bag onto the table, hoping Kate would take the hint. She didn’t.

  She stood in the doorway, chewing on the end of her stringy blonde hair. “Are you going to? Go live with him, I mean?”

  “Well, if I get kicked off the team I’m sure not sticking around here.”

  “What’ll you do about Little Billy?”

  Justin dropped his head onto the pile of books. “Kate, will you please shut up? Don’t you think I have enough problems?”

  The words came out angry and Justin knew he had hurt her feelings, because she turned around and left without another word. His sister thought he was angry at her, and he was, but not just her. He was also angry at Brad, at Chip, at Mom, at Coach Donovan, at Mr. Jackson, at Mr. Simmons, at the vice principal, at just about everybody he could think of.

  He turned out the kitchen light and headed to his room. He didn’t even bother to open his math book.

  Justin didn’t feel any better the next morning. In study hall he worked hard to catch up in math, but he had missed more than he realized—not just homework, but things explained in class when he wasn’t paying attention. Justin tried to focus, but it was no good. As soon as he finished reading a problem, he’d just have to read it again, because all the other stuff on his mind kept crowding out the math.

  Then there was ball practice. It didn’t go at all well, and not because he wasn’t trying. Justin honestly did his best, but his best wasn’t that good. It just seemed like he’d lost his coordination or something.

  And of course, there was no Brad around to hang out with. Justin felt totally alone. Maybe he was to blame for some of his problems, but there was trouble coming at him from all sides, and it wasn’t all his fault.

  16

  COMPLICATIONS

  Justin hadn’t been to the Old Place to see Little Billy since that first day. He couldn’t go there in the morning because he had to leave early to get to school on his bicycle, and he couldn’t go in the afternoon because of ball practice. He’d left feeding Little Billy and the rabbit to Chip, Luther, Lily, or Kate.

  However, during the week that started so badly—Brad getting suspended, Mr. Jackson threatening to fail him in math, and Coach putting him on probation—Justin took to riding over to the Old Place after baseball practice. By the time he got there, the others had already come and gone. He went partly to see Little Billy, but mainly so he could be alone for half an hour before he rode home and hit the books.

  Something besides the problems at school was bothering Justin. Sometimes he felt guilty for having stolen Little Billy. Sometimes he didn’t. He knew stealing was wrong, but wouldn’t it have been wrong to leave Little Billy there, where he was being mistreated?

  Justin knew that Mom certainly would have been upset if they’d told her Grimsted was abusing Little Billy, but it was more complicated than that. He also knew his mother believed that once you sold an animal, that animal belonged to the person who bought it. What they did with it was their business—even if they wanted to turn the animal into hamburger, like what had happened with the calves.

  Justin was pretty sure he couldn’t count on his dad for understanding either. Charlie didn’t even understand why they wanted to have their own goats, let alone why they would have stolen one. More than once, when Charlie was picking Justin up or dropping him off, he’d said, “I don’t know why your Mom keeps those smelly animals around! I’d get rid of them in a minute!”

  The first Monday after the really bad week, afternoon ball practice was canceled because Coach Donovan had to go to a conference. Justin was about to cycle past his house and on to the Old Place to see Little Billy when he decided he’d better make a quick stop first and pump up the front tire on his bike. He parked the bike on the shady side of the house and went inside to get something to drink.

  He’d completely forgotten that it was his mom’s day off. Mom and Ruby were sitting on the floor, fabric, paper patterns, and half-finished outfits scattered all around them. Kate was lying on the couch. He guessed she’d been trying on something because all she had on was her underwear. She held up a magazine that showed an actress wearing a denim jacket with velvet and lace patches.

  “Look at this, Mom. It’s like the one you made me for Christmas.”

  Ruby took the magazine out of Kate’s hand, glanced at it, and handed it to Mom. “If movie stars are wearing them,” Ruby said, “we can sell them.”

  “Hi, son,” Mom said as Justin passed through on his way to the kitchen. To Kate she said, “Go get dressed, honey.”

  Kate didn’t move, except to roll over on her stomach so she could look at the magazine over Mom’s shoulder.

  Justin got some milk from the fridge and stood looking out the kitchen window as he drank it. Out in the yard, Chip and Luther were scuffling over the tire swing, each boy yelling, “My turn! My turn!” Somehow Lily managed to get hold of the tire and climb up so she could sit on the top. From there she kicked at them and shouted, “Let go, both of you! It’s my turn.”

  Suddenly it didn’t matter whose turn it was, because a big car with a star painted on the side pulled into their driveway. Chip and Luther stopped squabbling and stared as Sheriff Dallano got out, a sturdy man in a brown uniform, his silver badge flashing in the sun. Then the person on the passenger side got out. Justin choked on his milk when he saw who it was. He backed away from the window, hoping they hadn’t seen him. The sheriff walked toward the house, Mr. Grimsted right behind him.

  Justin glanced toward the back door and considered making a dash for it. But he desperately wanted to know what Sheriff Dallano and Grimsted were going to tell Mom. If he stayed out of sight in the kitchen he figured he could hear everything.

  The first thing he heard was “eeek!” as Kate, still in her underwear, made a dash for the bedroom.

  “Can I help you?” Justin heard Mom ask.

  “Mr. Grimsted here has lost his goat,” Sheriff Dallano drawled.

  “Not lost! STOLEN! And not just the goat, either. They took my rabbit, too!” There was no mistaking whose voice that was.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Mom asked.

  “Mr. Grimsted claims he saw your kids hanging around his place a few days before his goat disappeared,” Sheriff Dallano explained.

  Justin’s heart sank. Then he realized what the sheriff had said: a few days before. That meant Grimsted hadn’t actually seen them that day.

  “Mind if we take a look in the outbuildings?” the sheriff was asking.

  “You got a search warrant?” That was Ruby’s most unfriendly voice, the one she used with people she thought were being disrespectful.

  Mom didn’t sound all that friendly either. “I can’t imagine why anyone would make an accusation like that, but go right ahead, Sheriff Dallano. You look till you’re fully satisfied that this so-called stolen goat is not here. Then I’d thank you to get him off my property!”

  The only person still speaking in a polite voice was the sheriff. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Martin,” he said, and clomped off the porch.

  Through the kitchen window, Justin watched the sheriff stroll over to the tire swing, Grimsted with him. The little kids looked scared stiff.

  The sheriff asked Chip, “Son, ya’ll got any goats around here?”

  “Three. Right over there.” Chip pointed to the pen where Sugar lived with her two daughters, Honey and Go-Girl.

  “Them the only goats ya’ll got?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Good boy, Chip, Justin thoug
ht. Now just clam up!

  But of course, Chip didn’t. “We used to have another one, a little billy. But my brother sold him. To that man.” He pointed at Grimsted.

  “Then stole him back!” Grimsted yelled. “I saw that brother of yours biking up and down in front of my house. I saw him.”

  “If you don’t mind,” said Sheriff Dallano, “I’ll handle this.” But before he could ask Chip another question, Grimsted took off toward the goat shed.

  “I hope you’re not going to take that kid’s word for it!” Grimsted called over his shoulder. “I want to see what’s inside the shed.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re gonna do, Mr. Grimsted,” the sheriff said, hurrying along behind him.

  It took barely a minute to see that there were only female goats in the pen, and no goats at all in the shed.

  “I didn’t reckon we’d find your billy out here,” the sheriff told Grimsted. “Tell the truth, we don’t get too many cases of livestock being stolen in broad daylight by a boy on a bicycle.”

  “I guarantee you, this bunch has got my goat,” Grimsted said angrily. “They probably saw us coming and hid it in the house.”

  Grimsted headed for the front door, walking fast. The sheriff, who was already at his car, called, “You can’t go in the house, Mr. Grimsted. This search warrant is just for the outbuildings.”

  Justin lost sight of them, but he heard Grimsted crossing the porch. Then the front door banged open. “Get out of this house!” Mom yelled. “Officer Dallano! Please get this man out of here!”

  Justin heard the sheriff stomping up the porch steps. “Mr. Grimsted! Mr. Grimsted! You come out of them folks’ house, you hear me?”

  “Don’t come in here!” Kate shrieked from down the hall.

  Justin guessed his sister had been too busy watching them search the goat shed to get dressed, and now it was too late. He opened the kitchen door a crack and peered out.

  “Don’t come in here” had been exactly the wrong thing to say. Grimsted was heading straight for the hall leading to Kate’s bedroom. Ruby jumped in front of the intruder and blocked his way.