What Comes After (28 page)

Drunk Dennis seemed surprised at first, but then laughed and pulled out a wrinkled dollar bill. He lifted his hand toward me.

“Leave her alone, Dennis!” Littleberry yelled, but Dennis ignored him.

He tucked the dollar into my jeans, sliding his hand in my pocket and keeping it there. He pulled me toward him while feeling my leg at the same time.

I stepped back out of his reach, and seized on the only idea I could come up with.

“I’ll need a knife,” I said.

Drunk Dennis snorted. “Yeah. Right. Like I’m going to let you have a knife.”

“How are you going to get the goat home?” I said. “Put him in the trunk of your car?”

“No way,” said Donny. “I just got that car. No way.”

“You want him for your barbecue, fine,” I said, struggling to look as calm as I sounded. “Let me get a knife from the house and I’ll slaughter the goat. I’ll butcher him and bag up the meat. But then you have to leave us alone.”

“I thought you loved him,” Drunk Dennis said.

“I do,” I said back. “Which is why there’s no way I’m letting you be the one to kill him.”

Drunk Dennis looked back and forth between Donny and me. I suspected that this had gone further than he had intended it to. He probably hadn’t had any idea what he wanted to do when he showed up here, except to scare me.

“Keep Dingleberry out here, Donny,” Drunk Dennis said. “I’ll go in the house with this one to get the butcher knife.”

“Get two,” Donny said. “You keep one. In case she tries something.”

“Yeah,” Drunk Dennis said. “Right. Good idea.”

Patsy and the other goats were still crowded together just inside the barn door and wouldn’t let us go past. Drunk Dennis kicked at Patsy, but she lowered her head and he backed off.

“It’s OK,” I said. I rubbed Patsy’s head and scratched under her chin. “You guys go graze. Go play. I’ll do the milking in a little while. I just have to take care of this first.” I didn’t look at Huey.

They let us through, but then it was Gnarly’s turn. He stood guard on the back steps to the house and started barking wildly and trembling, until I shushed him and told him to go. He bared his teeth at Drunk Dennis but then went to the corner of the house and stood watching as we went inside.

Drunk Dennis told me to sit at the kitchen table while he went through the drawers for some knives.

I didn’t sit. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Drunk Dennis said. “You’re going to try to call somebody.”

“The only phone is right there,” I said, pointing to the wall.

“You got a cell phone?” he said.

“No,” I said. I turned my coat pockets inside out to show him.

He looked me over, to see if I might have any other place to hide a cell phone, and decided I didn’t. “All right, go. But I’ll be standing right here in case you’re up to something.”

“I just have to pee,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Whatever.”

I walked down the hall, but instead of going into the bathroom, I opened the closet and pulled out the .22. It wasn’t loaded, but Drunk Dennis didn’t know that.

I held my breath as I turned back toward the kitchen and nervously approached Drunk Dennis. It took him a second to realize what was going on. I stopped five feet away and pointed the .22 straight at his chest. His eyes widened so much they practically took over the rest of his face. His mouth moved, but he couldn’t seem to say anything. I took a step toward him, and he turned and raced out of the kitchen and through the back door.

Gnarly took off after him, snapping at his heels. Drunk Dennis vaulted over the fence into the goat pen, and Patsy and the others attacked him immediately. Gnarly squeezed through the fence and joined the goats chasing Drunk Dennis into the barn.

I heard Dennis screaming at Donny — “Haul ass! She’s got a gun!” — and then they both ran out of the barn. The goats and Gnarly chased them twice around the field, then through the gate. Donny stopped to open it, but Dennis just vaulted over the fence again. The chase continued over to Donny’s car, where Gnarly tore off one of Donny’s tennis shoes and the goats slammed their heads into Donny and Drunk Dennis as they jerked open the doors and wrestled their way inside. Huey and Louie kept butting the doors even after Dennis and Donny locked themselves in.

I stood on the back steps with the gun, trembling hard from adrenaline, or fear, or both. I had to sit down.

Littleberry stood in the doorway of the barn, shaking his head. He looked dazed.

Drunk Dennis and Donny drove off, spitting gravel out from under their tires, nearly losing the road at the first curve in the long driveway before the car righted itself and they disappeared into the trees.

The pitchfork had torn holes in Littleberry’s jacket and shirt, and raked a two-inch cut across his chest. I had to coax him into the house to let me clean it. He didn’t say anything the whole time, except “OK” and “Thanks.” I felt vulnerable — and angry that Drunk Dennis and Donny had made me feel that way. Neither of us could talk about it just yet.

I loaded the .22 and brought it with me to the barn. I gave it to Littleberry, and he held it while I milked the goats and fed Gnarly and the chickens. Then we went back over to the house, where I hid it under the porch steps.

We were both silent on the drive back into town, except when Littleberry gave me directions to his house. He’d left his scooter at school, but he said he’d get a ride the next day with his mom. So much had happened that afternoon, I thought it should be midnight by now, but dusk was just settling in. I worried about leaving the goats and Gnarly out at the farm, but didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t stay there with them — not overnight, anyway.

I pulled into Littleberry’s driveway. I saw the shapes of people in the living room. There was a warm orange glow to the house. It had a red door, blue shutters, and a white fence around the small front yard.

I grabbed Littleberry’s arm before he could climb out of the truck.

“You OK?” I asked.

He nodded. “
You
OK?”

I nodded, too.

He looked at me then for the first time since the barn. His eyes were watery. He swallowed and blinked. I put my hand on his cheek and kept it there.

Mr. Tuten wasn’t back from work yet when I got home. Mrs. Tuten was cooking dinner. I walked into the kitchen and gave her a hug — my arm over her shoulder.

She smiled. The only other time we’d hugged was the day I found out Book and Aunt Sue had confessed and I wouldn’t have to go to court.

“Well,
Iris,
” she said. And that was all. But she was still smiling after I pulled my arm away.

“Anything I can do to help?” I asked.

She waggled a spoon toward the laundry room. “We’re a little past due cleaning the litter box and putting down some fresh litter. And Hob and Jill need their walk.”

Mrs. Tuten followed me into the laundry room. I scooped up some ferret pellets so she could do her inspection. She sniffed them, sifted through them with a toothpick, stabbed the toothpick through a pellet as if it were a cocktail wiener, examined it through her glasses, and then nodded her approval.

Hob kept trying to chase cats during the walk, but Jill didn’t want any part of that business, so they pulled hard in opposite directions. I needed some time away to think, though, so we did a couple of laps around the block. I couldn’t tell the Tutens about what had happened with Drunk Dennis and Donny. I couldn’t tell anyone, not even Mr. DiDio, who didn’t know I’d gotten permission to take care of the goats. But how was I going to protect the goats and Gnarly? And how long could I keep up this secret life, anyway? The Tutens were nice people; they would be so hurt to find out I’d been deceiving them — no matter what my reasons, no matter how desperately I needed to save the animals. I had almost enough money to give to Aunt Sue on Thanksgiving to cover the December bills, but what about after that? It was getting colder. Fewer people would be going to the farmers’ market. One bad weekend, one rainy Saturday, one snowstorm, one power outage on the farm — a thousand things could go wrong.

Littleberry found Drunk Dennis the next day at school and hit him in the face. Drunk Dennis was a lot bigger. Littleberry got a black eye and a bruised jaw. People who saw it said that Littleberry would have kept fighting if a couple of teachers hadn’t broken it up.

I heard all about it during fourth period and rushed to find him as soon as the bell rang for lunch. He was waiting for me under the stairs.

“Are you all right?” I touched his bruised face, and he flinched.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. They’re probably going to suspend me, though. They called my mom. She’s coming once she gets off work. I’m supposed to be going to the bathroom right now, but I wanted to see you before I go back to the office.”

I sat down next to him on the dirty floor and leaned against the wall. “I wish you hadn’t done it.”

Littleberry rubbed the back of his right hand. “I had to do
some
thing.”

“Well, you didn’t help things much,” I said. “You just got yourself beat up.”

“I hit him a couple of times.”

“Great. And now people are going to ask questions. They’re going to want to know why you got into a fight with him.”

We didn’t say anything else for a while. Littleberry wiped his palms on his jeans, then inspected them. Then he leaned against my shoulder.

“Sorry, Iris.”

I kicked at an old empty milk carton. “I guess it’s OK,” I said. “I appreciate you standing up for me. Just don’t do anything dumb like that again.”

Littleberry tried to grin, but I could tell it hurt his face.

Shirelle caught up with me after English and wanted to know about the fight.

“Dennis is telling people you pointed a gun at him, out at your farm,” she said. “What’s up with that? Is that why they got in the fight? And what the hell are you doing with a gun?”

I said I didn’t want to talk about it, but Shirelle was persistent. “We’re teammates, Iris. So tell me. If you’re in some kind of trouble, maybe I can help.”

“I can handle it,” I said. “But thanks.”

“Maybe you can and maybe you can’t. But sometimes you got to let your friends help you, and they can’t help you if they don’t know what’s going on.”

She picked up my backpack and slung it over her shoulder, then we walked down the hall together. She handed it back when we got to my locker, though she didn’t let go right away.

“Sometimes you just got to trust people, Iris,” she said. “At least a little.”

So I told her — about the deal with Aunt Sue, about hiding what I was doing from the Tutens, about Drunk Dennis and the field party and the vandalism — and about what had happened at the farm.

Shirelle was so mad, she was ready to fight Drunk Dennis and Donny herself.

“I never could stand those boys from the second I ever met them,” she said. “They’re not even first string. Donny, he’s like the water boy or something. Dennis plays on special teams, and that’s about all.”

She said she’d talk to her cousin, whose name was Tyreek. She said he played tight end on offense and linebacker on defense.

“Tyreek will definitely straighten out those boys.”

“But you just said he’s on the football team.”

“So?” Shirelle said. “They don’t all think the same way about everything, you know.”

“They don’t?”

Shirelle shook her head. “Not Tyreek. He’s no knucklehead. He went to Boys’ State last year, and you have to have the grades for that.” She rubbed her hands together. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I’ll make sure Tyreek has a word with Dennis the benchwarmer and Donny the water boy.”

Littleberry was waiting for me again that afternoon, sitting on the hood of my truck.

“So?” I asked.

He threw gravel at a spare tire mounted on the back of somebody’s Jeep. “So I’m suspended for three days.”

“What did you tell them?” I asked. “About why you got in a fight.”

Littleberry blushed. “I just told them it was about a girl.”

That made me smile, even though I was still worried. “And Drunk Dennis — what did he say?”

“Same thing. I said it first, and he did his snorting thing, but then he said it, too. I guess he didn’t want them finding out he was trying to commit arson.”

I didn’t ask why Littleberry wasn’t home or how much trouble he was in with his mom. It couldn’t have been too bad if he was here waiting for me. He got into the truck before I could ask if he wanted to, and we drove out to the farm.

I did the milking and gathered the eggs and started new cheeses, then I pitchforked up old goat turds out of the barn to inspect them — the same way Mrs. Tuten examined Hob’s and Jill’s. They were all nice, round pellets, which meant everybody was OK. I’d been reading one of Aunt Sue’s goat books, and it recommended checking the goats’ eyes, too — something I remembered Dad always doing — to make sure the tissue under their eyelids was red. If it was white, that could mean the goats had parasites that were stealing nutrients out of the food they were digesting, not leaving the goats with enough for their red-blood-cell supply, making them weak and sick.

They all looked good. We wheelbarrowed the turds over to the manure pile next to the barn.