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According to the rules where we were living, you had to be at least eight years old to bring an animal to compete at the county fair. It felt strange remembering a time when we were just guests at the carnival. But before we joined Barsetti & Son, Mamá and Papá and I never missed the county fair, and we always went to the livestock rings when kids were showing the animals they had raised.
I couldn’t wait to be one of them with a crisp white shirt and a green scarf tied under my collar—even if it meant standing out there in the middle of the ring with everybody watching me. My favorites were the beef projects. The kids would lead their calves, red-and-white Herefords and black-and-white Holsteins, around the ring by halters. Even though they were sometimes taller and always heavier, the animals obeyed, mostly, when the kids nudged their feet into place with pointy-tipped show sticks. And they stood, calm and still, heads raised high, when the judges patted their muscles.
Those kids didn’t get teased for knowing everything there was to know about their animals. They didn’t get laughed at when they could answer questions like How much does this animal eat a day? Can you show us where its dewlap is? Where does sirloin come from?
Instead, they got prizes. It wasn’t like at school, not even close.
This one Sunday, when we were still living at the ranch, Papá and I found an owl pellet out in the middle of the cherry orchard. To tell the truth, Papá was the one who found it. It was just a black lump, like a dirt clod, and I would have missed it if he hadn’t shown me. I brought it to school the next day and passed it around right after lunch recess.
“What is it?”
“It’s called an owl pellet,” I said, standing at the front of the class, trying to speak up the way Ms. Matsumoto was always reminding me to. “After an owl eats, everything it can’t digest, like bones or fur or feathers, gets turned into one of these pellets, and the owl coughs it up.”
It was one of the most interesting things I had ever seen. “If we open it, we can find out the last thing this owl ate. Papá says there is usually a skull inside!”
Nobody gasped in excitement the way I had. No one fought over who would get to tear into the pellet first.
“You like to play with owl puke?”
“Ewww,” they all groaned.
Things would be different when I could join those kids who raised the farm animals, I told myself.
When I was finally old enough to enter the competition, Papá and Mamá said I couldn’t raise a calf after all. They said we didn’t have enough room—even though we still had a barn back then and a pasture for grazing. I wondered if maybe it was because we didn’t have enough money. I had started paying attention to things like that by then. The way Mamá would sew patches over the holes in my jeans instead of buying me a new pair like she used to. The way she started giving Papá haircuts at home in the kitchen. The way they both stood outside, looking gloomily up at the dark gray storm clouds that gathered over our cherry trees. Too much rain could ruin the crop.
They still let me pick out a rabbit to raise, though. I chose a New Zealand White and named her Primavera. I wrote down everything I fed her in a spiral notebook. Every day after school I changed her straw bedding and checked her ears for mites. I scrubbed stains out of her snowy coat with vinegar and warm water. I learned how to lift her out of the wood-and-wire hutch that Dad built in the backyard, and how to position her for judging. See, you don’t lead a bunny around the show ring like you do the bigger animals—even though you can train one to walk on a leash. Instead, you set her on a mat with her legs tucked underneath so she looks just like a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I fed her apple slices when she cooperated. Apples were like candy to Primavera.
But that was the summer we joined the carnival, so I never did get to show her and win a ribbon. At least Primavera got to come along with us and be part of the petting zoo. I still snuck her apple slices sometimes.
The auction schedule was stapled to a wooden post outside the show ring. I ran my finger down the edge and stopped at 4:30. The rabbit auction was about to start. Back on the midway, when Randy said she wanted to go home, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to stop her. The deep-fried pickles hadn’t worked, and neither had the Gravitron. All I could do now was keep her distracted, and the animals seemed to be working.
“Do you want to watch the auction?”
“Sure,” Randy said. “For a little while. But I should get back to Wanda after that.”
“Wanda?”
“She’s our motor home.”
I nodded and hoped the auction would be exciting enough to change her mind.
We found seats near the top of creaky wooden bleachers. Randy picked up an auction paddle someone had left behind, No. 210, and fanned herself with it.
“So how come you don’t bring any of your animals out here? Chivo’s sweeter than any of the goats we saw back there. He’d win all the prizes.”
Chivo was no showman. He was scrawny and scruffy and would rather play hide-and-seek than follow me around a ring. But it wasn’t just that.
“You have to enter in your home county. We’re never in one place long enough to have one. Anyway, they don’t give prizes for being sweet.”
A boy carried the first rabbit to the middle of the ring.
“First up,” announced the auctioneer, “is Christopher Joseph with a five-and-a-half-pound fryer.”
The auctioneer’s voice revved: “Let’s! Start! With! Five!”
Then burned rubber: “I see five, that’s five. Who’s gonna show me six? Now six? Six! Now seven, looking for seven, who’s gonna show me seven?”
Only, it sounded more like horseflies do when they’re stuck between the screen and the window and buzzing wildly to get out.
Randy wrinkled her nose and leaned forward. “What is he even saying?”
“He’s trying to make the price go higher.”
The auctioneer pointed into the audience as paddles popped up like groundhogs. “I have eight, that’s eight. Now, nine. Who’s gonna show me nine?”
Randy still looked confused, so I tried to explain. “A lot of times friends and family work it out beforehand who’s going to bid and how much. That way, pretty much every kid gets a good price. They can use the money to buy another animal next year.”
“Parents are always trying to work things out beforehand.” Randy shook her head. “But maybe he could’ve figured it out on his own. Maybe he could’ve figured it out better.”
I thought about Mamá and how she had decided for me that I should go back to school. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Christopher cradled his bunny, staring straight ahead as the price rose.
“And sold!” the auctioneer announced finally. “At twenty-one dollars, a record for Dinuba. Congratulations, young man.”
The bleachers rocked as the whole crowd, Randy and me included, stood up and cheered.
With everyone still clapping, Christopher left the ring, shoulders drooping. He wiped a tear off his cheek with his white shirtsleeve.
“What’s the matter?” Randy asked, sitting back down. “Didn’t he just set a record?”
“It’s probably because the rabbit is not his anymore. Someone else bought it.”
It was all part of the process. You knew it going in. Some kids didn’t even name their animals. They didn’t want to get too attached before it was time to sell them.
Still, knowing you’re going to lose something doesn’t always make it any easier when you finally do.
A girl stepped into the ring, stroking the ears of her golden-brown Palomino.
“Next up is Lucinda Mendez with a four-pound fryer. Let’s start the bidding at five, do I see five?”
An auction paddle sprouted up from the second row.
“Must be her parents,” Randy said, as though she had suddenly become a junior livestock expert.
Lucinda’s long, dark hair was pulled back in a braid that hung over one shoulder. She looked at her feet. She kicked some pebbles with the toe of her boot.
“We’re at five, I have five,” the auctioneer chanted. “Who’s gonna show me six? What about six?”
People fidgeted with their paddles, but no one bid. Lucinda looked up at her parents with wide, glassy eyes. She scratched the rabbit behind its ears.
“How about five and a quarter, then? Five twenty-five, now, five twenty-five. Let me remind you folks that this is all for a good cause. Every cent goes back to the children. Five twenty-five.”
Randy learned so far forward I thought she might topple over.
Lucinda’s white shirt was big and blousy on her, shoulder seams halfway to her elbows, cuffs folded over twice. Mamá used to buy all my clothes too big like that—so I wouldn’t grow out of them so fast.
The green uniform scarf fluttered out behind her like a tiny cape. I remembered how badly I wanted to wear that uniform, how much I wanted to belong.
And then I just could not help it. I could not let her stand there feeling like everyone was watching and no one was on her side.
I snatched the auction paddle that Randy was holding and stood up, waving it. “Right here!”
The auctioneer pointed. “Good! I have five twenty-five, five twenty-five. Now five fifty. What about five fifty? Who’s gonna show me five fifty?”
Lucinda’s parents stood up and stared into the audience, trying to figure out who had raised their bid. But by then, I had sat back down and covered my face with my hand. Peeking through my fingers, I saw Lucinda’s dad raise his own paddle again.
“That’s five fifty, now five seventy-five.” What a relief.
Just as I was starting to stand up to leave, Randy grabbed the paddle off my lap. “Six fifty!”
The auctioneer’s low, steady cadence stopped short. “Six fifty?” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and started up again. “Looks like we skipped ahead to six fifty, folks, six fifty. Do I have six seventy-five? Someone show me six seventy-five.”
I caught Randy by the elbow and pulled her back down. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer. Lucinda’s parents had raised their paddle.
“That’s six seventy-five. Now, seven. How about seven?”
Randy sprang up again. “Seven!”
Lucinda smiled. She held her rabbit up a little higher.
“How about seven twenty-five?”
Lucinda’s parents looked at each other. They looked at the auctioneer. They shook their heads.
“We’re still at seven, I have seven. Do I see seven twenty-five? Going once, twice, and sold! That’s seven dollars to Number 210, way up in back. Seven dollars to Number 210. Thank you for supporting our young people.”
I took back the paddle before Randy could cause any more trouble. “We have to get out of here.” I put my head down and tottered across the bleachers. Randy pranced down after me.
“What were you thinking?” I asked when we were back outside. The auctioneer had just announced the next rabbit.
“Same as you. We couldn’t leave her hanging there, not when that boy before her set a record. Great idea, by the way.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples.
“But, Randy, that was a real auction. If you win, you have to pay.”
Her eyes widened, and she stuck her thumbnail in her mouth. “So what do we do?”
I flipped the auction paddle over, front to back, back to front, then flipped it into a trash can. There wasn’t much we could do. “Let’s just hope whoever had this paddle likes rabbit stew, I guess. Come on.”
Since we couldn’t stay at the auction, I thought I could try to stop Miranda with food again. Maybe one of the Cantaloupe Fair specials like cantaloupe gazpacho or shrimp tacos with cantaloupe salsa.
“Wait, what do you mean, rabbit stew?”
“I mean, I hope they enjoy the rabbit you bought them.”
“Enjoy having a new rabbit to cuddle, or…” Her black eyebrows were almost touching.
“No. Enjoy having the rabbit… for dinner. Now, we should really get out of here in case anyone noticed us.”
She did not move. “They’re going to eat the rabbit?”
“Someone is going to. Why do you think they called it a fryer?”
She cringed. “No.”
Kids visiting the ranch always made faces like that when Dad told them we ate some of the animals. Like we’d done something terrible. It was not fair. “Where do you think your chicken nachos came from?”
She bit down on her thumbnail again. “Well, I know. But it’s different. I didn’t know that chicken.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but the thing of it was, I understood what she meant. If there was one good thing about never taking Primavera into the show ring, it was that no one else ever got to put her in a stew pot.
“Why can’t we just pay for it? I still have nine dollars in quarters left.” She patted her pocket, and they clinked.
“If I hadn’t found you when I did, Mikey would have made sure you spent every last one at the Water Gun Derby.”
She was bouncing on her toes again. “Still, it’s enough, isn’t it? I only bid seven.”
“No, you bid seven dollars per pound.”
She slumped.
Joe might still be willing to pay us to carry those giant stuffed animals around. But this late in the afternoon, it wouldn’t be his usual fee. We could go back to the Water Gun Derby and help Mikey and Johnny. At fifty cents a customer, it would take us until closing time to even come close to earning enough—which could be exactly what I needed to stop Randy from performing. She seemed pretty serious about making sure that rabbit stayed off the menu, and to be completely honest, I sort of wanted to save him too.
But before I could tell her my plan, Randy clapped her hands in front of her nose. “Wait, I’ve got it. I know what to do. We have to hurry, though. It’s getting late.”