Cheating for the Chicken Man (13 page)

Everyone in class was turning to look at Curtis, who sat tall, smirking, with his arms crossed tightly across his chest.

“Writing comes from a deep well inside each of us,” Mr. Ellison said. “You can learn a lot about yourself by writing.”

For sure, Kate thought. She had learned a lot about herself by writing. Specifically, that her writing had made her a cheater. It was real. There was no going back. She wasn't a perfect student anymore.

When class was over, Kate was the first person out the door.

“Kate!” she heard Curtis call in the hallway. “Wait!”

But Kate was not waiting or stepping aside for Curtis Jenkins this time. She plowed her way through the crowd at the doors and practically ran down the stairs.

CONFLICTED

S
aturday morning, Kerry sat at the kitchen table eating a warm oatmeal muffin and, with sticky fingers, arranging piles of plastic beads according to color and size. She was still in pajamas, with two long braids, fuzzy and rumpled from sleep, falling forward over her shoulders.

“Not right now,” Kate warned as she reached across the table with a damp cloth and wiped off the breakfast crumbs. “I said after I get my chores done, remember?”

Kerry continued sorting.

“Did you hear me? Hey, and don't get crumbs all over, Kerry. I just cleaned there!” She put Kerry's muffin on a plate and wiped the plastic tablecloth a second time. Then she started the dishwasher and wrapped up half a dozen muffins in tinfoil, a small gift for Jess's mom, who was taking her food shopping later. Kate's job again, since Grandma was away for a while.

It had been two weeks since Kate wrote the paper for Curtis, and several days since Mr. Ellison read it in class. The weekend's arrival was a relief. Yet still, there was a sharp edge to the way Kate felt, a tight feeling in the pit of her stomach. After wiping off the table, she wrung out the dish cloth a second time because she couldn't remember if she'd done it the first time and draped it over the edge of the dish drainer.

“If anyone needs me, I'll be down at the tractor shed,” J.T. said as he came through the kitchen.

Kate watched him put on his Orioles cap and walk out. She grabbed a carrot and a chunk of lettuce from the refrigerator and tapped Kerry on the head. “I'll be back in a few minutes, okay? I need to feed Hoppy.” But what she really wanted to do was find out how school was going for J.T. Was Curtis leaving him alone? Was there at least some payoff for what she had done?

Kate found her brother in the tractor shed standing on a wooden crate so he could pop open the engine lid on the big John Deere. After peering inside, he pulled out a mouse nest from behind the battery and flung it behind him making Kate jump.

“Sorry! Didn't see you!” J.T. apologized. “This tractor hasn't been driven in over a year. It's no wonder the mice moved in. Hey, Kate, while you're here, would you give me the grease gun?”

Kate retrieved the tool from a shelf behind her and handed it to her brother.

“Miss Hatcher is coming this morning,” J.T. said as he started squirting grease on the tractor's joints. “She wanted to take us bowling, but I told her I didn't think we'd have time.”

“Bowling?” Kate crossed her arms. “Your probation officer is taking you bowling?”

“
Us
, Kate. She wanted you to go, too. Duckpins though, on account of her little girl would have to come, too.”

“I have to do the food shopping,” Kate said.

“Yeah, and I've got the new chicks arriving.” J.T. stepped off the crate and kneeled to reach the lower tractor joints. “I'll tell her another time.”

“Another time, for sure,” Kate agreed. “It would be fun. Could we invite Jess, too?” she asked, not forgetting that the sleepover at Olivia's was last night.

“Sure,” J.T. said.

Kate leaned against the wall and watched J.T. work. “So, how are things going at school?” she asked after a while.

“Okay,” J.T. replied. He seemed pretty upbeat. “Did I ever tell you what I'm doing for my science club project?”

“No,” Kate said. “What is it?”

J.T. stood and picked up the crate with one hand so he could move to the other side of the tractor.

Kate uncrossed her arms and followed.

“I'm going to try to see what's in that poultry feed by testing the chicken manure,” J.T. said, stepping back up on the crate. “Our science club adviser, Mr. Stanley, says we might be able to use labs at the community college.”

Kate loved seeing J.T.'s old enthusiasm. “So how are you getting that manure?” And then it hit her. “Hey! Are you sneaking onto other farms at night to get samples?”

J.T. stopped greasing the tractor and looked down at her. “Can you keep something between us, Kate?”

“Of course,” she said.

He stepped down off the crate. “Sneaking onto other farms at night is
exactly
what I've been doing.”

“That's where you've been going at night?”

J.T. nodded.

Kate almost laughed with relief. “I thought it was drugs!”

“Drugs?”

“Yeah, that little Baggie of stuff.”

“You saw that? That was chicken manure!”

When J.T. started to laugh, so did Kate. “Before that, I thought maybe you were out there exercising or something to get in shape.”

“For
what
?”

“I don't know! To fight, maybe. Fight Curtis.”

J.T. rolled his eyes. “Oh, wow. Man, I wouldn't do that, Kate. If I got into a fistfight, I'd get sent back to Cliffside.”

“I know! That's why I worried!” Kate exclaimed. “But stealing manure. I mean, couldn't that get you in trouble, too? Or get those farmers in trouble?”

“No, I'm not identifying the farms.”

“Are you looking for arsenic?”

“What? You knew?”

“You told me about it once, remember? You said arsenic was in the feed bags Dad used to cut open.”

“Oh, yeah, I did. Well, that's the big one, for sure,” J.T. confirmed. “I mean, they're not supposed to put that stuff in the feed anymore, but I wanted to check.” He stepped back up on the crate so he could go back to greasing the tractor joints.

Kate moved closer and crossed her arms. “Okay, here's what I don't get,” she said. “If chickens get fed arsenic, then how come they don't get sick and die?”

“Because it's not poison when it's in the feed,” J.T. said as he worked.

When J.T. saw Kate frown, he paused and came down off
the crate once again. “Look,” he said. “There are two kinds of arsenic—organic and inorganic. Organic arsenic occurs naturally. It's in the soil; it's in our water. The kind of arsenic they might put in chicken feed is organic. They put it in the feed to kill a parasite that may or may not be in the chicken's gut. But in the chicken's body, the
org
anic
arsenic changes into
inorganic
arsenic.”

“It
changes
?”

“Yes! It turns into the kind of inorganic arsenic that's bad, that can cause cancer. Plus, because it's in the chicken, it not only ends up in their meat, but in their manure, which is used on fields to grow vegetables! Then, when it rains, all that chicken manure gets washed into our streams, where it can affect the fish!”

Kate was astonished. “It affects the fish, too?”

“Yeah. What do you think Dad and Uncle Ray always argued about? Mostly runoff from the chicken manure. Dad's business was affecting Uncle Ray's. The watermen and the chicken farmers, they're always fighting. But their whole ways of living are at stake.”

Perplexed, Kate pressed her fingertips to her temples. “So if Maryland and other states already ban arsenic from the feed, why are you looking for it?”

“I just want to check,” J.T. said. “From what I read, no one's testing for it. Wouldn't it be something if I found some? Or something else? Maybe even something worse?”

Kate crossed her arms again. “I still don't understand, not totally, but it sounds important. I just hope you don't get us all in trouble.”

“Don't worry, I won't. But don't tell Mom or Uncle Ray, okay? I don't want them to freak out. Hey, and by the way, my manure samples are in the freezer.”

“Yuck! You put chicken manure in our freezer?”

“No big deal. It's under that frozen lasagna.”

Kate made a face. “Yeah. Well, I'll try not to use it for dinner one night.”

J.T. snorted and went back to work while Kate started toward the house.

“Kate, wait!” J.T. called after her. She stopped and turned.

J.T. came to the door of the shed with the grease gun in his hand. “I just wanted to thank you. I mean, I never did tell you how much I appreciated you getting the trumpet out to me so I could play at Dad's funeral.”

Kate started to smile. “You're welcome.”

Just then, a huge flock of honking Canada geese flew close overhead, moving toward the cornfield across the street. As the flock's shadow passed over, Kate and J.T. leaned their heads back to watch and listen as the air was stirred by hundreds of wings. It was an awesome sound. Kate loved it when the geese came. There was something reassuring and hopeful about their arrival. J.T. grinned and seemed to be thinking the same thing.

An arriving text message interrupted her thoughts.

“Gotta get going. See you up at the house,” Kate said as she pulled out her phone.

Curtis:
I need to talk to u
.

What? A message from Curtis with a smiley face?

Kate:
ST
AY OUT OF MY LIFE!

Angrily, Kate shoved the phone back in her pocket, but it
dinged again.

Curtis:
Don't have to yell.
Since u don't want t
o talk, the new assi
gnment is what role
did the nile river p
lay in early civiliz
ation? 2 pages doubl
espace due tuesday.

Kate's eyes grew large with disbelief. She texted back so fast her fingers hit all the wrong letters and she had to delete everything and start over.

Kate:
No! Our deal is done.

Curtis:
U stop u kno
w what happens.

Fuming with anger, Kate marched up the hill and stomped into the kitchen where Kerry looked up expectantly. “Are you ready now?”

Kate's shoulders slumped. “I can't, Kerry. Not now!”

“You said!”

“I know I did, but something's come up.”

“But we were going to make a necklace!”

“Kerry, please—”

“You promised!” Kerry wailed.

“All right!” Kate held up both hands. “But just
one
, okay?”

Kerry's face showed instant relief. “First, you have to pick a color.”

Kate surveyed the piles of beads, but what she was really trying to decide was whether or not she needed to deal with this new assignment from Curtis. If she didn't, would the bullying start again? Would things get worse? Just when they were getting better for J.T.!

She felt trapped.
What's
the word for this?
she wondered, staring over Kerry's head.
Blackmail
?
Extortio
n
? She would have the text message to prove it! But then she'd be in trouble, too. And
would that really help J.T.?

“How come you're mad?” Kerry asked.

Kate shook her head. “I'm not mad.”

“Then how come you're standing up, and you're not smiling, and you're not talking?”

“I'm sorry,” Kate said, putting a hand over her eyes. “I guess I'm tired.”

“But we just got up!”

Kate took her hand away and suddenly felt sorry for Kerry, who had been waiting so patiently for her. “How about blue?”

“Okay!”

*

When the necklace making was over, Kate rushed to her bedroom and closed the door. She reread the text.
The new assignmen
t is what role did t
he nile river play i
n early civilization
? 2 pages doublespac
e due tuesday.

What was she going to do?

She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the floor. She got up and paced the room. She lay on her bed and looked out the window. She even folded her hands in prayer. But no clear answer appeared.

Her eyes fell upon the pile of books on her desk. Kate was not a cheater. She was an honest person who worked hard and got straight A's. She needed those grades so she could get a scholarship and go to college and make her mother proud.

She chewed on her lip and decided to ignore Curtis Jenkins. If he texted again, she wouldn't read it.

Her phone dinged again. Kate couldn't help but glance at it. This time the message was from Jess:
“I
know what I'm going
to
be for Hallowee
n!”
No reference to the sleepover. Did she think Kate had forgotten?

She set her phone aside and sat at her desk, frustrated about what to do, then flipped open her assignment notebook to scan the work that was due: twenty problems in math and three pages of dialog in Chinese. A chapter in biology and preparation for the lab they would start on Tuesday studying the effect of acid rain on the germination of seeds. Kate needed to buy dried beans and paper towels for the experiment. She texted her lab partner, Marc, reminding him to bring Ziploc bags and stick-on labels. Then she made two notes:
questions for the newspaper interview
with Mr. Ellison
and
pack a clean unifor
m for the field hock
ey game
.