Bash’s eyes flashed and flickered like a fuse just before the firecracker blows up in your hand. “You know what we oughta do?”
I kicked a scruffy basketball against the barn. “Plaster your ears in peanut butter and plop you in the pigpen as a chew toy?”
Bash scooped up the rebound, dribbled between his legs and spun the ball to me. “No, doofus—but let’s try that sometime with you. No, we should ride cows to the ice cream stand drive-through.”
I caught the ball and quivered. “We should?”
“Riding dairy cows to a dairy stand—what genius. They’ll probably give us free sundaes or something.”
The ball slipped out of my hands. “We should?” Four nights ago, Bash told me I could tip cows, which I thought we could. Now he wanted us to ride cows, which I thought we couldn’t.
Bash ran a couple laps around me as he babbled. “Clarey’s Burger and Cones is only a mile up the road. I’m surprised nobody’s thought of it before. They’ll probably take our pictures for the newspaper.”
I cringed. “We should?” This had to be Bash’s worst idea yet.
“This has to be my best idea yet,” he hooted.
“I really don’t think we should . . .”
But Bash already was sprinting to the pasture behind the cattle barn. Why did Aunt Tillie saddle me with the impossible job of keeping the little hamster brain out of trouble?
I gathered up the ball, dusted it on my T-shirt and dropped it into the empty grain barrel we’d rolled outside to use as our basket. I trudged to the pasture. Bash perched atop the wooden fence gate waiting for a cow to wander close enough so he could launch himself aboard her back. I climbed the railings and sat beside him, wondering how to get us out of this mess without me getting yelled at again.
A long, fat, black-and-white cow ambled in for a curious look-see. Bash nudged me. “Get ready, Ray-Ray Sunbeam Beamer, this one’s yours.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Jump, Beamer.”
“No way.”
Bash shook his head. “You gotta learn how to have fun, Beamer. All you wanna do is stay inside all day with your dumb comic books.”
“I’d be away from you.”
He punched my shoulder. “You won’t jump because you’re a chicken, chicken, city chicken. Fraidy, fraidy cat.”
“I can’t be a chicken and a cat. That’s stupid.”
“You’re a wimperoni macaroni. Mousey, mousey, wimperoni macaroni.”
“Am not!”
“You’re too scared to jump on a cow’s back. You’re afraid of fun.”
“Am not.” I wasn’t afraid of fun. I was afraid of broken bones. Mine. Still, what boy turns down a dare? I didn’t want to get teased forever.
“Mousey, mousey, wimperoni macaroni rigatoni on fraidy cat and bologna.”
That cut it. “Watch me.” I leaped. And almost made it. My fingers clawed at the cow’s soft, black-and-white hair, grasping nothing. I slid down her rib cage, my nose smooshed against her belly. Cows at close range do not smell like fresh milk. Maybe like a mix of wet grass, dried mud, dog, and a scent I didn’t want to think about—but not like fresh milk. I landed on the thousand pin pokes of a thistle, one of the more pleasant things to fall on in a cow pasture. “Yeow!”
What boy who doesn’t want to get teased forever turns down a dare? One smart enough to not have thistles up his nose, that’s who. When would I wise up to Bash?
“That was great,” Bash gasped between fits of laughter. “You’re a blast, Ray-Ray. We should become rodeo clowns. You could do that every night.”
I pulled needles from my nose. “Shut up.”
“You should try to get her to kick you on the way down. That would be even funnier. We’d get lots of people to watch our show then.”
Why wasn’t I back home with a bag of barbecue chips, sunk deep into piles of pillows on the couch where I could read—safely—the knock-down action of the Batman battling the Riddler? Oh, yeah. Because God and my parents stuck me with this little creep.
I glared at Bash. “I don’t see you trying it.”
A big ol’ cow grazed near the fence, poking her head beneath the bottom strand of barbed wire. Bash whistled. She ambled over like a pokey puppy. He simply threw his skinny leg over her and floated aboard.
The twerp set me up. Again!
“I’ve been practicing with Lulabelle Liechtenstein Daffodil Lee here.”
“Lulabelle Licking whatzit?”
Bash scratched the top of her head between her horns. If cows could purr, she would have.
“Lulabelle Liechtenstein Daffodil Lee. She’s a registered Holstein with a really long official name. I call her Lulabelle Liechtenstein Daffodil Lee for short.”
“Why do you always give your animals such stupid names? Why not Lisa? That’s easy to remember.”
“It’s not distinguished enough for a good riding cow.”
I rolled my eyes. “Weirdo.”
Bash grinned down at me. “You’re the one sitting in a cow pasture.”
Yuck! I popped up and inspected my pants. Nothing but a little bit of mud. Phew.
Fine. I’d show the little showoff. A full-grown Holstein—the black-and-white cows—stands nearly five feet tall at the shoulders, taller than us. But Jerseys—that’s what Bash called the reddish brown cows—are a full foot shorter. A little red Jersey stood daydreaming at the other end of the gate.
“That’s Daisy Nancelene Kalio Kow,” Bash said.
I crept up the boards again, held my breath and gently crawled onto the short cow. She barely shifted. I shuffled about a bit, trying to figure what to hold. I ended up lying along her back, her knobby spine bumping like a row of golf balls into my chest and belly, and wrapped my arms around as much of her neck as I could reach. Cows have big necks.
Bash waved his ball cap. “We’re the Cowback Kings. Let’s ride ’em, Cowboy King Beamer!”
“Shh. You’ll wake her.”
“Aw, she’s not sleepin’. Watch.”
Cowback King Bash somehow steered Lulabelle toward the gate. Hanging from her side, he unlatched it and swung it open. Lulabelle plodded through. Daisy What’s-Her-Name woke up and followed.
“Daisy Nancelene Kalio Kow tags along wherever Lulabelle Liechtenstein Daffodil Lee goes.”
I didn’t want to tag along. But I had no choice. Bash never explained how to steer a cow.
The Basher kicked at the gate. I couldn’t see if it closed. And away we lumbered.
Bash perched just behind Lulabelle’s front shoulders, holding on to the knob at her neck, steering her with taps of his high-tops just behind her white forelegs. As long as there weren’t any interesting weeds poking up, she took direction well.
“Shouldn’t we ask your Mom and Dad if it’s okay to ride the cows?”
“’Course it’s okay. Ma and Pops won’t get me a horse. So I ride what’s here. They see me ridin’ cows all the time. I’m a real cow-boy.”
I clung to Daisy’s neck. “Don’t you have any bridles so we can steer these things?”
“Don’t need ’em.”
I started sliding down the side of beef and had to practically run up the cow’s ribs to regain my spot stretched out along her back.
“Ray-Ray Sunbeam Beamer, you gotta lean with the cow, roll when she rolls and bounce when she bounces.”
“Stop calling me that and get me some glue.”
The cows ambled down the driveway and onto the road.
“Um, Bash, do your parents let you ride cows on the road?”
“Why not? If I’m riding a cow to the backfield, I have to use the driveway to get there, right? So if I’m riding a cow to the dairy stand, I need to take the road. They know that. Duh.”
“But they don’t know we’re riding cows to the dairy stand.”
“They let me ride my bike to the dairy stand. A cow’s just a big bike without the wheels. C’mon, let’s go.” Bash grabbed Lulabelle’s head by her cream-colored horns and aimed her north. She slogged forward.
“Bash, this is crazy. We can’t . . . oof.” Daisy hopped onto the road and fell in line behind Lulabelle. Like it or not, I was on my way to the dairy stand. Riding a cow.
We hoofed it more or less in single file, sometimes on the left shoulder, sometimes in the left lane.
Oof. Ow. Oof. Ow. I bumped about the Jersey’s back with every rolling clomp of the hoof. Cars whizzed by in the right lane. Oncoming cars swerved around into the right lane, too, with furious honking of horns.
I ducked. “Um, how do we navigate to the other side of the road?”
“Don’t be such a city boy. Pedestrians face traffic. The cows are walking, so they face traffic. Besides, it’s really cool to get a look at the drivers’ faces.”
“But we’re on the road. You don’t walk on the road. You walk on the side of the road.”
“Well, duh. If we move off the road, the cows would fall into the ditch.”
An oncoming red pickup truck almost forgot to swerve to miss us, then just about clipped a sports car screeching the other way.
I buried my face into Daisy’s red shoulder. “The ditch would be nice.”
“Fine, city baby. Lulabelle Liechtenstein Daffodil Lee, ho!” With that, Bash steered his cow in front of a screeching car to the other lane. Daisy plodded along behind.
“Why did the cow cross the road? Because the city slicker wanted to get to the other side!” Bash thought his joke hilarious.
The cows marched along but kept wandering off the shoulder and into the traffic lane as if no one would care. Drivers did.
“Look at that, Beamer. We’ve got eight cars lined up behind us and another semi’s coming. We’re making a parade. Awesome.”
I peered back. “That guy in the blue car looks kinda mad.”
“He’s just wishing he’d thought of this great idea first.”
He was wishing something all right, judging by the veins popping on his neck. But I don’t think it was for a cow to ride.
The cows kept walking. Cars kept honking as they whipped around us, their drivers either laughing or yelling. Mostly yelling. Every time I peeked, I quickly scrunched my eyes again. My arms hurt from clutching Daisy’s massive neck. My legs ached from trying to wrap my sneakered toes into her sides.
My jerk-face cousin sat straight, tall, and proud atop Lulabelle, cackling like a madman in ball cap and patched jeans. If I survived, I planned to stuff the little creepazoid’s socks full of wriggly worms and extra slimy slugs.
“Look, we’re riding on genuine cowhide leather seats. Mine’s even two-tone.”
“Ugh.” I needed to load more than worms and slugs in his socks.
“And check out these dual horns.”
I was trying not to get too close to the dual horns, myself.
“Four on the floor!” Bash yelled.
I looked up and snorted. I couldn’t help it.
“Automatic flyswatter.”
“Cut it out, dork. I’m trying to hang on.”
“Four cylinders!”
“Huh?”
“Cows have four stomachs, city slicker.”
“Oh.”
“And don’t forget the onboard drink dispensers.”
“Yuck.”
I wasn’t pelted with poor puns for long. We were about to actually ride dairy cows through the dairy stand window.