Cheating for the Chicken Man (18 page)

When I le
t the chicks loose,
the three older bird
s didn't move or eve
n seem interested. W
eird, but those chic
kens never have acte
d normal. Some of th
e chicks tried to fo
llow me out the door
, but I shooed them
back. While I was th
ere, I found my jour
nal and the pen outs
ide the coop where I
'd dropped them yest
erday when I ran to
help J.T. I put thos
e things in the empt
y box and returned t
o cull the other hou
se. So now I have an
other secret. Plus,
I'll have to keep th
em alive.

Kate set down her pen and closed up the journal, frustrated
that writing didn't bring the closure, or comfort, she was seeking. She pushed the notebook deep inside her backpack and glanced at the clock. It was close to three
P
.
M
. She needed to hurry. After pulling her sneakers on, she set off down the driveway to meet Kerry's bus.

A THEFT

K
ate squinted as she peered out the living room window. Was she seeing right? Was that Jess riding a bicycle up the driveway? Jess lived five miles away. They didn't ride bikes back and forth because of the highway. But it was Jess. Did her mother know she'd ridden over?

“Hey! I tried to call you last night!” Jess said, hopping off her bike as Kate walked out to greet her.

“How come you're not at school? At field hockey?” Kate asked.

“Practice got canceled. Coach had to do something.”

Jess set the bike down on its side, and the two girls embraced. Jess's face was beaded with sweat, and her cheeks were bright pink.

“You never answered my texts,” Jess said.

“Sorry. My phone died,” Kate told her. “There was too much going on.”

“Gosh, I know. How are you? How's J.T.? All we know is he won't lose the leg.”

“He'll be okay,” Kate said. “He lost some muscle tissue, and he has about a million stitches, plus some sort of a metal rod and a bunch of plates holding things together. It'll be a long recovery. The doctor said he'd be in a wheelchair for a while, then on crutches, and he'll have to do a lot of physical therapy.”

Jess grimaced and put a hand to her mouth. “Poor J.T.,” she sympathized. “And
you
, Kate. I mean I can't imagine how awful that was, trying to stop the bleeding. I could
not
have done what you did.”

“Yeah, you probably could have,” Kate countered gently.

“No way,” Jess said.

The two girls walked toward the front porch. “You'd be surprised what you can do when you have to,” Kate said. “There's no test for it, you know. There's no way you can find out what you can really do until you're in it.”

“That would make a great quote,” Jess said. “Finding the strength you didn't know you had.”

“You should use it!”

Jess shook her head as the two girls sat down on the porch steps. “I'm not doing the quote thing anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Not worth it,” Jess said. “Everybody was making fun of me.”

“That's a mistake, Jess. Your quotes were good. You shouldn't let Olivia and the others change your mind. You've got to be true to yourself.”

“Yeah, well, it's hard to be true to yourself when people are making fun of you.”

She'd have to agree, Kate thought, thinking of how hard it was for J.T. to get his life going with all the bullying.

“Nice pumpkins!” Jess said, spotting the two carved pumpkins on the top step behind them. “But what's that?” she asked, pointing to the stepladder set up nearby, each rung holding a reclining doll.

“That's the doll hospital,” Kate explained. “It's a high-rise
building, like the one J.T.'s in.”

“Cute,” Jess said. “And just so you know,” she said after a while, “some of us are going to ask Coach Dietrich if you can come back on the team.”

“No. Don't,” Kate said. “I didn't show up for the game before J.T.'s accident even happened, so there's no excuse. I already had an e-mail from the coach telling me I was off the team.”

Jess looked disappointed.

“Hey! Did I see you had green wires in your braces?” Kate asked, trying to lift the mood again.

Jess gave her a big, toothy grin. “You like 'em?”

Kate wrinkled her nose. “Actually, it looks like mold. It looks like you have moldy teeth.”

Jess slapped her playfully. “Dummy. I have yellow on the bottom, see?” She showed her. “Green and gold for school. For the field hockey tournament!”

Kate's smile faded. It was an instant reminder that Kate was no longer on the team. Emotions were ricocheting back and forth.

“Hey,” Jess said gently, “we're still going to North Carolina this summer, right? To that place where we can hold a baby tiger?”

Kate looked at her friend. “Absolutely.”

*

Surprisingly, it was almost a comfort to be back in school. News of the accident had gotten around. All of Kate's teachers expressed concern for J.T.—and for Kate, too, wondering if there was anything they could do to help.

“It's really awful about J.T.,” Curtis said, waiting for Kate to come out of Creative Writing.

“Thanks,” Kate replied.

“Look, I have to explain something to you,” he said, leaning in toward her as they walked. “Can you meet me after school by the labs?”

“It needs to be quick,” Kate said. “I have to catch the bus, because I'm not staying for field hockey anymore.”

“How come?” Curtis asked.

“I missed a game, so I'm off the team.”

Curtis kept pace with Kate, but only for a few steps. He didn't say anything more, and Kate didn't turn around, but she had the feeling he was watching her as she walked away.

*

They met in the usual spot between restrooms on the second floor. Kate hadn't noticed earlier, but Curtis had a haircut, and his hair wasn't down in his eyes the way it usually was.

Because she had all her books for the work she had missed over the past couple days, Kate's backpack was heavy, and she let it drop to the floor. She stood in front of Curtis and crossed her arms.

“Okay,” she prompted.

Curtis fidgeted with his hands. “So anyway, you don't have to do that last assignment.”

“No. I wasn't going to,” Kate said.

Curtis nodded like he'd expected that response. “Is J.T. going to be okay?”

She could have said,
Why would you care?
But she didn't. She took a deep breath. “He has a long road ahead of him, but he'll
be all right.”

“Good,” Curtis said. He was nodding again. It must have been a nervous gesture, Kate thought. “Good,” Curtis repeated, “because man, that was pretty awful. When I heard it was a Bush Hog, I didn't think he'd come through in one piece.”

“Well, he didn't really,” Kate said. “His leg will never be the same, because of the muscle he lost.” She uncrossed her arms, but still kept her eyes averted.

“Gosh, I didn't mean to say that. What I meant is he's lucky he's not dead.”

Kate nodded, but tears slowly welled up in her eyes after the reminder of what could have happened.

“Look, I know the feeling,” Curtis said. “When my brother's tank got hit—over in Afghanistan—I couldn't sleep. I couldn't even eat.”

Kate looked up at him. “Is that how he got killed?”

“No. He got injured in the explosion. A bad head wound, but he lived. He came home then. He got a Purple Heart.”

“My father has a Purple Heart,” Kate said.

“What? Your dad was in the service?” Curtis asked.

“He was in the Gulf War. That's why he's buried at Arlington.”

“Oh. Wow. I didn't know your dad was gone.”

“A year ago, just after J.T. got sent away,” Kate said. She frowned a little. “You didn't know that?”

Curtis shook his head slowly. “No. I didn't. How would I know?”

“Look,” Kate said, “I really have to get going—”

“Okay,” Curtis replied. He pulled his hands back out of his jeans pockets and opened them, but then he didn't seem to know what to do with them and hooked his thumbs in his two
front pockets. “So I said I'd explain. I just want you to know that it wasn't me. All those weeks, making you cheat, it wasn't for me.”

Curtis looked over her shoulder to peer down the hallway. “Kate, can we just step around the corner?”

Kate looked down the hallway, too, but there were just a couple kids, walking in the opposite direction. “What are you afraid of?”

“I'm not afraid of anything. I just don't want to be seen.”

“By
who
?”

Curtis didn't answer.

“Are you afraid Hooper is going to see you here?”

Curtis hesitated, but then he nodded. “Yeah.”

“I was cheating for Hooper, wasn't I?”

“What? You knew?”

“I figured it out,” Kate said.

“He's got something on me. I'm sorry, Kate. I should never have let this happen.”

“No. You shouldn't have! I totally agree!”

“I am so sorry.”

“You
shoul
d
be sorry!”

Curtis dropped his head, and despite all the anger that she had felt in the past, Kate felt flat. Maybe because all the anger that had been building up had been blown away by J.T.'s accident. That, or else maybe she was tired of being angry. At least the bullying was over and she had her apology.

“So what does Hooper have on you?” Kate asked.

“He knows stuff.”

“He knows stuff,” Kate repeated. “Like what?”

“He knows stuff about my brother. Like if I didn't make you write those papers he was gonna make a Facebook page and put it out there.”

Kate narrowed her eyes at Curtis. “Put
wha
t
out there?”

“Information about my brother!”

“Your brother in the army?”

Curtis pressed his lips together and looked uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “Hooper was gonna tell the world that my brother didn't die a hero like everybody in this town thought. You know, they wrote that article about him in the local paper, and there was a scholarship in his name at his high school, from people who donated money.”

Kate recalled only that Curtis's brother had visited her fifth-grade classroom. She had never known about the newspaper story or the scholarship. Things happened to other people, and sometimes you just didn't know.

“He didn't die a hero,” Curtis went on, “because he killed himself.”

Curtis wiped at his eyes, and Kate could see how much this hurt him to talk about. She wondered what Justin had done to kill himself—and
w
hy
. She had every reason in the world not to care a whit about Curtis, who had been so mean to her and J.T., but she couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him, too.

“Look, I think maybe you've built something up in your head,” Kate suggested. “I don't mean to make it sound like it wasn't huge, but honestly, Curtis, I don't think most people around here would make a big deal out of that.”

Curtis frowned. Like maybe that hadn't even occurred to him.

“I mean, your brother didn't grow up here or go to Corsica
High.”

Suddenly, there was the sound of running footsteps.

Curtis and Kate both stepped around the corner and saw Hooper smack open the double doors at the far end of the hall and disappear with Kate's backpack.

“Stop!” Curtis yelled.

“Oh, great!” Kate said, holding up her hands. “Now, why did he do that?”

“Just to be a pain in the butt,” Curtis said. His eyes flashed, and there was a hard, determined set to his jaw. “Don't worry—go catch your bus. I'll get it back.”

When Curtis stomped off after Hooper, Kate glanced at her watch. If she didn't run, she wouldn't make it to the bus on time.

*

Nervous, Kate chewed on her bottom lip the entire ride home. All her books and assignments were in the backpack. How was she going to get her homework done? Should she call school when she got home and report the theft? If she did, would she mention Hooper's name? And then would it all come out about the cheating? Did she want that to happen?

Kate decided it was best to just chill for a while and hope Curtis could get it back. At least she had her cell phone in her denim skirt pocket and her purse was safely on her shoulder.

When she got off the bus, Kate saw that a big combine had started harvesting the soybeans and was stirring up a huge cloud of dust. She hurried up the driveway. Inside the house, she listened to a voice mail from her mother letting her know that she and Kate's grandmother would be home from the
hospital around seven. Her mother asked her to take out a meat loaf from the freezer, do the evening check on the chickens, and be sure Kerry changed her clothes after school and did her homework.

An hour, then. Kate had one hour before Kerry got home. Quickly, she took out the meat loaf, then changed into jeans and went down to the chicken houses to scrape a small amount of feed from the feeders and put it in a plastic bag. She avoided the field being harvested and walked over to Beck's on the road.

When she got to the coop next door, some of the little chicks ran to greet her, but the two with broken legs had died. She was relieved, because she knew they had to have been suffering. After dumping the chicken feed into two pie tins, she put the two dead chicks in the plastic grocery bag to take back with her.

She returned home the same way she went, by walking along the road, and was surprised to see a green truck waiting in her yard. Was it Curtis? Quickly, Kate stashed the dead chicks under a bush. She was glad no one else was home.

Curtis came to meet her as she walked up the driveway. Unbelievably, he had her backpack in his hand.

“Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for getting it back!” Kate exclaimed.

“It wasn't too hard,” Curtis said. “Although I had to chase that joker's bus all the way to the other end of the county. When he got off, he just handed it to me with this stupid little grin on his face.”

“Well, I appreciate that you got it back so fast. I hope that now we can finally be done with all this.”

“Me too. Like I said, I am truly sorry, Kate.” He nodded toward the backpack in her arms. “You want to see if everything's in there?”

“I'm sure it is,” Kate said, feeling the weight of the pack. “But I'll check.” She set the pack on the ground and kneeled to unzip it and root around inside. “All my books are here: math, biology, English, my Chinese workbook . . .”

She paused. A bad feeling was seeping into her veins. She kept looking. Where was her journal? She had written in it yesterday and stuffed it in her backpack. Yes. But that was her personal journal, she suddenly realized, not her school one. She had written about the culling and that she couldn't do it, and she remembered how, frustrated, she had shoved the notebook into her backpack afterward.