Chapter 14

The next day after school, Tim and Dana sprinted to the house as soon as they got off the school bus. They were so concerned about their mom that they didn’t even say goodbye to Mr. Horner.

Bursting through the back door, they found their mom sitting at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes for supper. They ran to her and each gave her a big hug.

“Are you okay, Mom?” both kids asked at the same time.

“Yes, yes. I’ll be fine. Sit down and I’ll get you a treat.”

Mom walked slowly to the freezer as Dana and Tim took their usual seats at the table. They sensed bad news was coming.

Mom returned, holding two Popsicles. “Who wants cherry and who wants grape?”

“Grape,” Dana said.

Grape was Tim’s favorite and Dana knew it, but Tim took the cherry Popsicle without complaining. Dana stared at him, confused because she expected him to whine. Mom sat down at the end of the table.

“Grandma said you can’t work anymore,” Tim said.

“Not until after the baby is born.”

“How long is that?” Dana asked.

“Middle of February. Uncle Jack will help us finish the harvest.”

Tim’s melting, untouched Popsicle began to drip on his hand. He was afraid to ask the next question, but had to. “Then what?”

His mom grabbed a dish towel and reached over to wipe Tim’s hand. “Then we sell the farm.”

Tim and Dana sat still, waiting for her to say something different. But she did not. With sad eyes, Mom looked at her two children.

“We’re going to move into town?” Dana finally asked.

“Not right away. We can’t sell the land until spring, so we’re going to sell all the equipment and crops we just harvested at auction to keep us going until then.”

“Sell everything in an auction? Can’t Dad hire somebody to help him like the neighbors do?” Tim asked.

“We don’t make enough money to support ourselves as it is, especially with another mouth to feed and one less person doing the work.”

“I can do the work,” Tim said.

“This isn’t your future anymore, Tim,” Mom said. Then she spoke to both children. “Don’t worry about things right now. Keep doing your chores and we’ll work through it one step at a time as a family. Okay?”

Tim turned his head to hide his tears. Dana sat quietly watching Tim, and then she started crying, too. They got up and walked slowly out of the kitchen and to their bedrooms to change clothes. It was time to do chores.

Tim heard Dana sniffling. “What’re you crying for? Your dream came true—you get to move to town.”

“But I didn’t want to sell our farm,” Dana said.

“That’s stupid. How could we live in town and still have the farm?”

Anger replaced her tears. “Mom never asked me how I would feel about selling our farm!” Dana said.

“It’s too late now, isn’t it, Dee-Dee?” Tim said as he headed to his room.

Dana clenched her fists and screamed at Tim’s back, “Poop Slinger!”

Tim stopped and slowly looked back over his shoulder at his sister. Her face was red with rage as she glared at him. Tim suddenly had no desire to fight back. He hung his head for a moment then looked up at Dana. “Not for long,” he said.

* * *

Because Mom had to rest, Tim’s workload was brutal for the next month. Mr. Slinger showed Tim how to work the milking machines—that way, his son could do the milking and he could spend more time in the fields, getting the last acres of crops harvested before the auction date. Tim didn’t complain because he knew it was all going to end soon, much too soon for him.

Mr. Slinger had taken Tim to a few farm auctions in recent years, and they were always a lot of fun. Since the auctions took place on someone’s farm, there was lots of activity. People interested in bidding inspected equipment, livestock, machinery and even harvested crops. And the food was always plentiful and great.

What Tim didn’t realize when he had attended an auction with his dad was that the family holding the auction was losing their farm—that someone’s way of life was disappearing right before his very eyes. But this time, things were different. This time Tim knew exactly what an auction was all about. It wasn’t an end-of-the-year sale. It was a going-out-of-business sale and this time, it was the Slinger’s turn to be the host.

The family spent the days leading up to the auction cleaning their farm equipment and parking the items where bidders could easily inspect everything. The night before the auction, they left the cows in the milking parlor after their evening milking so they would be clean and presentable the next morning. A truck stopped by and the driver unloaded long tables that would be used for holding food, doing paperwork and other auction tasks.

The next morning, the Slinger farm looked just like what Tim had seen at other auctions. There was a long table full of food for the taking, lots of people and a man—who was the auctioneer—on a platform yelling things to the bidders so fast that Tim didn’t understand a word he said. And there were the kids who rode the school bus with Dana and Tim—they came to the auction with their parents.

Everything seemed to be going well until Tim heard a familiar bark. He pushed his way through the crowd until he could see the platform where the auctioneer was working. There the man stood with Bell, who was on a leash. Tim suddenly realized that fast-talking man was going to sell their dog!

Tim ran through the crowd, shouting for his mom. He spotted Dana sitting at a table, munching on an ear of corn.

“We have to find Mom!” Tim said. “They made a mistake. They’re selling our dog!”

“Which one?” Dana asked. There were two dogs on the farm—Skipper and Bell—and Dana only cared for one of them.

“Bell!” Tim said.

Dana jumped up from the table, shouting, “No! They can’t sell Bell!”

They ran into the house and found their mom making more lemonade.

“They’re trying to sell Bell!” Tim said “You have to tell them it’s a mistake!”

Mom stopped what she was doing and sat down.

“It’s not a mistake,” she said. “We can’t take Bell with us when we move into town.”

“But you said we’re not moving now!” Dana said.

Mom reached out with one arm, put it around Dana’s waist and pulled her in close. “It would be a lot harder to sell Bell later.”

“But she won’t even hunt! She’s gun-shy,” Tim said. “Is that man telling everybody that?”

“Not so loud,” Mom said, afraid someone outside might hear Tim and no one would buy Bell. “That’s not important right now.”

Dana started to sob. Bell was her favorite dog. “Why can’t Bell move with us?”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Mom said. “We won’t have room for two dogs. Skipper will still be with us, though.”

Dana and Tim looked at each other, not knowing what to say. At that very moment, Tim finally knew what this day was all about—they had to get rid of everything that wouldn’t fit into their new life in town.

Dana saw it a bit differently. “Mom, you’re going to have three kids. Is there enough room for all of us or do you need to sell one of us, too?”

“Of course not!” Mom said. “I wouldn’t sell one of my children!”

“What about one kid and two dogs?” Tim asked, giving Dana a dirty look.

“That’s enough! Our lives are changing and you two are going to have to deal with it.”

Mom stood up, picked up the pitcher of fresh lemonade and headed out the door. Tim went to his room and stayed there the rest of the day, not wanting to see anything else he had spent his entire life with disappear.

* * *

The next morning, Tim and Dana were quietly standing at the edge of the road when the school bus arrived.

“You’re not late! What’s the special occasion?” Mr. Horner asked as Tim slowly climbed into the bus, with Dana following him.

“Chores done early,” Tim said without looking up.

“Done forever,” Dana said, following her brother onto the bus.

“So I heard. Sorry,” Mr. Horner said.

Tim and Dana took their seats. Everyone on the bus was quiet—it was as if a family member had died and no one knew what to say. The silent treatment lasted all day in school, too. Tim couldn’t wait to get out of there and back home.

After school, Tim and Dana stepped off the bus and into a different world. It was quiet. No cows mooing, no tractor engine roaring. There wasn’t even any wind blowing.

Tim took his things inside then went to the barn. He felt a little lost with no chores to do. Since the cows were gone, the barn was lifeless. The stray cats had already figured out the free milk was history and they, too, had disappeared. The milk cooler was empty and shut down. There were still a couple of rows of hay bales in the loft, but the tools that used to hang on the walls were gone. Even the junk piled up in the back of the toolshed had vanished. Who the heck would buy a pile of junk? Tim wondered.

The strangest feeling came over Tim. He wasn’t sure what it was at first, and then it hit him. He was lonely.

Tim went into the house where Dana was eating Jell-O at the kitchen table and his mom was washing dishes.

“Want to come out and play with me?” Tim asked.

Dana stared at Tim. “Play what?”

“Anything you want. You decide.”

Dana froze, her spoonful of Jell-O suspended halfway to her still-open mouth. Mom stopped washing dishes and turned to look at Tim, also.

“What?” Tim asked

Dana and her mom exchanged looks. Mom knew Tim was upset, so his offer to Dana to come out and play was not what she expected.

Dana made a suggestion to her brother. “Rope swing?” she asked.

“Okay, you go first.”

Dana dropped her spoon and jumped up from the table, smiling.

“Be careful. I wish your father had never put that thing up there,” Mom said to her children as they ran out the back door.

Dana and Tim burst out laughing as they raced each other to the barn.

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Chapter 15

It didn’t take long for Tim to get used to not having hours of chores waiting for him every day. The farm quickly became a huge playground where he roamed at will, usually with Skipper, scouting likely hiding places for the upcoming hunting season. But he pretty much avoided the farm’s lifeless, empty buildings. With all the animals gone, it felt like they were playing inside coffins.

While Dana and Tim tried to stay outside as much as possible, the weather was beginning to turn bad and there were days too cold, too wet or too something to go outside. That left the old, creaky farmhouse as their only refuge.

A few weeks after the auction, as Tim and Dana rode home on the school bus, an early winter storm rolled in and covered the ground with sleet. It came down hard and pinged on the roof of the vehicle.

When Mr. Horner turned the bus into the Slinger’s driveway, he asked Tim and Dana, “Want to wait until it lets up?”

“It’s not that bad,” Tim said, jumping off the bus with Dana.

They ran to the house, laughing all the way, bumping each other, slipping and sliding on the icy pellets. They headed straight for the kitchen, hoping to find something hot to drink waiting for them, but didn’t find anyone there.

“Where’s Mom?” Dana asked.

Tim spotted a note on the refrigerator from Mom. He read it out loud: “In town getting groceries in case we get snowed in.”

“I’m guessing she’ll be home soon,” Tim said.

“Do you think Dad will be home before the storm hits?” Dana asked.

“I don’t know. I think he’s still out of town, driving a truck for the feed company.”

“It’s cold in here,” Dana said, shivering. “I’m going to my room.”

Tim ignored his sister. He dropped his books onto the kitchen table and headed for the basement to check on the furnace. He had to go out the back door, which was attached to the mudroom. A door at the back of the mudroom opened to creaky wooden stairs that went down into the cave-like darkness of the basement.

Once he was at the bottom of the stairs, Tim flipped on the light switch and two small overhead light bulbs glowed, casting a dim and eerie light on the can-shaped furnace. On one side of the big furnace was a large, heavy metal door. The door faced a pile of black, jagged chunks of coal in the coal bin. A thin film of black coal dust covered everything in the underground world.

To protect his hands from the heat of the furnace, Tim put on a pair of heavy gloves and pulled the large door open. A bed of glowing red embers, with a few small flames popping up here and there, was all that was left of the fire that had been burning all day. Tim picked up a small shovel, loaded it with fresh chunks of coal and tossed the shovelful into the furnace. A spray of red, glowing sparks flew up then disappeared up the chimney. Since heat rises, it kept the rooms above it warm, and more importantly, it kept the Slinger family from freezing when it was cold outside.

Tim tossed three more large shovelfuls into the furnace until the fired roared, like a monster. The heat spilled out the door and onto Tim’s face. The warmth felt good.

* * *

When Tim was warm enough to get rid of the chill in his bones, he shut the furnace door and headed back upstairs. He saw Dana sitting in her room.

“Is that all you’re going to do—just sit—until Mom gets home?” he asked.

“Yes. My room is the warmest room in the house,” she said.

“Because it’s the smallest,” Tim said.

Dana reached out and pushed her door shut. Tim knew she was right about her room being the warmest room in the house. The heat ducts from the old furnace only went to four rooms in the house—the kitchen and bathroom to keep the water pipes from freezing and the two first-floor bedrooms, one that was his parents’ room, and the other, Dana’s. Tim’s bedroom was on the second floor. It took five blankets to keep him warm when snowflakes blew in around his drafty window.

The only way any heat made it to Tim’s room was through a large, round iron grate right in the middle of his bedroom floor. The grate was directly above his parents’ bedroom.

Tim decided to inspect the grate to see if there was a way to get more warm air to come through it. That’s when he made a startling discovery—he could lift the iron grate right out of the hole in the floor!

He set the grate next to his bed then got on his hands and knees, crawled to the edge of the hole and looked down. He was directly over his parents’ bed, which was roughly six feet below him. What an opportunity for some fun! Tim thought. I can drop to the first floor through the hole!

But first, Tim had to do a test run. There were a few toys, books and clothes tossed about his room, but nothing suitable or as heavy as he was to drop onto the bed below. Then he had an idea. He ran downstairs, burst into Dana’s room, grabbed her huge teddy bear and ran back upstairs, with Dana chasing after him. “Give my bear back!” she said, quite upset with her brother.

“Okay. But you have to go into Mom and Dad’s room and I’ll give it to you,” Tim said.

Confused, Dana went downstairs. She’d do anything to get her bear back. Tim crawled to the edge of the hole and looked down. There stood Dana, next Mom and Dad’s bed, staring up at him. “Where did the hole come from?” she asked.

“It’s always been here. I just uncovered it.”

“What’re you gonna do with my bear?”

“Watch,” Tim said. He dropped the bear through the hole. Dana screamed as her friend bounced on the bed. She reached out and grabbed her bear, holding onto it for dear life. “You hurt my bear!”

Tim swung his legs over the edge of the hole. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to use your bear again.”

“Are you crazy?” Dana asked, staring up at him in shock. She instantly knew what Tim was going to do next. “Mom said we can’t jump on her bed anymore!”

“This is different,” Tim said. “She never said we couldn’t drop through the floor on it, did she?”

Dana eyed Tim suspiciously as she backed away from the bed.

“You want to try first?” Tim asked

“No rope this time?” Dana asked.

“It’s a bed, not the barnyard.”

“You first,” Dana said.

Tim took a deep breath, closed his eyes and slid his butt over the edge. Suddenly, he was flying! Then wumph, crack, crash! Tim was sitting in a hole formed by the collapsed mattress. It was sagging so far down that it touched the floor.

Dust swirled around the room. Dana stared at Tim, showing no emotion whatsoever. Then she said, “I think I’ll go play with my bear,” and walked out of the room.

“Dad is going to kill me!” Tim said, thinking about his punishment for ruining his parents’ bed.

Tim struggled to climb out of the collapsed bed. Once he did, he looked underneath it to see what had happened. The mattress had been sitting on springs which were, in turn, sitting on thin boards that went from one side of the metal bed frame to the other. One of the boards had broken.

Tim needed to prop the broken board back up before his mom got home, but with what? He ran to his room and searched frantically for anything that would work. But there was nothing! Then he went into the spare bedroom, which was right across from his room. This is where guests stayed and also where the family stored a lot of junk, especially things they used during the summer months.

And that’s when he found it—a large rubber ball. That might fit under the bed, Tim said to himself.

Heading downstairs to his parents’ room, Tim slid under their bed, pushed the broken board up, and then squeezed the ball under it. It was the perfect height and fit to keep the board in place!

Tim crawled back out and decided to do another test run. He carefully crawled across the bed to see if the ball would hold up the mattress, and it did! Tim then straightened the blankets so there would be no sign of mischief. Breathing a sigh of relief, he left his parents’ bedroom confident that they wouldn’t notice the broken board. But it never occurred to Tim that two full-grown adults might weigh a lot more than a 10-year-old boy.

* * *

Tim went to his bedroom extra early that evening and anxiously waited for his parents to go to bed. But because of the storm, Mrs. Slinger stayed up late to make sure Mr. Slinger arrived home safely. It seemed like an eternity before Tim heard the pickup pull into the driveway and the back door open. After a brief conversation, his parents entered their bedroom.

Tim crouched on the floor over the grate, staring through it at the bed below. Tim’s mom lay down first. She always stayed right at the edge of the bed. There was no sign of trouble—so far, so good. Then his dad plopped down on his side of the bed and rolled to the middle. That’s when Tim heard the ball pop and saw the bed sag nearly to the floor.

“What the heck!” Dad said, putting his arm up to keep his pregnant wife from rolling on top of him.

Tim jumped up and into his own bed, pulling his bed covers over him. When he heard his parents coming upstairs, he knew he was in for the whooping of his life. Tim pretended to be asleep as they entered his room.

“Wake up. You have to sleep in the other room tonight,” Mom said.

Tim sat up, rubbing his eyes like he had been asleep. “Why?” he asked. He was a little confused when he saw his mom—she didn’t look unhappy or mad.

“Your father broke our old bed,” Mom said. “Now we can finally get one that doesn’t give me a backache every night.”

Tim gladly went into the spare bedroom and crawled into the extra bed. Slipping under the covers, he felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. Tim had no idea that his mom hated their bed—if he had known that, he could have broken it years ago!

Very early the next morning, Tim woke up to the horror that the ball—the evidence—was still under the bed! He thought about waiting until it was light outside to get it, but decided that would be too risky. So he quietly slipped out of bed and peeked across the hall into his room. His parents were sound asleep. Tim then tip-toed downstairs, holding his breath the entire time. He slowly let it out when he finally reached the bottom of the staircase.

Tim went into his parents’ empty bedroom and crawled under their broken bed. It was so warm underneath the bed that he wished he could go to sleep right there. But knowing his butt was at risk of getting a whooping again, he grabbed the deflated ball and gave it a tug. It came out from under the broken board easily.

As Tim started backing out from underneath the bed, he was startled by a voice. “What’re you doing down there?” Dana asked.

Tim nearly had a heart attack. He spotted Dana in her pink flannel pajamas, holding her teddy bear. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Scare me like that. Go back to bed.”

“What’s that?” Dana said, pointing at the flattened ball in Tim’s hand.

“Just an old ball.”

“You’re so weird sometimes.”

Dana went back to her room and Tim took the ball to the kitchen, threw it in the trash and tiptoed back up to bed. As he started to fall asleep, another revelation hit him—Dana knows I broke the bed! He worried she would tell on him. Will I ever have any peace when it comes to Devil Dana?

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Chapter 16

Time passed quickly as the holiday season approached. Tim looked forward to the family’s traditional Thanksgiving dinner at his grandparents’ home. He loved sitting in the living room, watching football with the men, while the women stayed in the kitchen, cooking and visiting.

However, during this year’s Thanksgiving feast, things were very different when it came to the men—they hardly noticed there was a close, hard-hitting football game on TV. Instead, they talked about Tim’s family moving into town and the baby’s arrival in February.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Tim spent time with his father and grandfather. The three of them roamed the nearby fields and woods, hunting for small game so they could put fresh meat on the table. While the two adults each carried a gun, Tim did not. He wasn’t old enough yet, but was fast approaching an age when he would be allowed to hunt. Tim still had a lot of learning to do to become a safe hunter.

There was a light snowfall that evening, making Sunday morning a perfect time for hunting rabbits—they were easier to track because of the footprints left in the snow. Tim’s dad and uncle had other business to tend to that day, so it was just Tim, his grandfather and his grandfather’s hound dog, Bounce, on the morning hunt.

The three headed for the brush line. The air was so cold that the fresh snow crunched under their feet as they walked and looked for rabbit tracks.

“When will I be able to hunt with you, Grandpa?” Tim asked.

“When you’re 12. That is, if you can do it right.”

“I know how to hunt,” Tim said.

“Okay. Let me ask you this—when do you load your gun?” Grandpa asked.

“After you leave the house.”

“How do you carry your gun?” Grandpa asked.

“You hold it with both hands, with the barrel pointing toward the ground or the sky.”

“Why?” Grandpa asked.

“So it’s never pointing at people,” Tim said. He was proud he had answered quickly and confidently. Tim could almost feel his grandfather thinking about what to ask him next.

“What do you do if you have to climb over a fence or a fallen tree?” Grandpa asked.

“First, set the gun on the other side, a few feet away from where you’re going to climb over. Then climb over and pick the gun up,” Tim said. “Because it’s hard to climb over anything with a gun in your hands and you don’t want a gun in your hands if you fall down,” he added, before his grandfather could ask why.

Grandpa looked at Tim and smiled. “Good job. Tell you what, next time, I’ll let you carry the double-barrel—unloaded, mind you—a couple of times first to see how you do.”

Tim was so excited! The first day of hunting was a rite of passage for every farm boy, a part of growing up and taking responsibility. Tim longed for the day he would be able to hunt with his grandfather, a day he would no longer be a spectator during their hunting adventures. But Tim worried that moving into town would keep that day from ever happening, just like he would never learn to operate a tractor in the fields.

* * *

It wasn’t long before Christmas Day arrived. Tim and Dana typically declared a truce during the holidays, as the threat of getting a lump of coal in their stockings was very real, considering there was a coal bin in the basement.

On Christmas morning, Tim and Dana sat on opposite sides of the Christmas tree, waiting for their mom to give the signal to begin opening their presents.

When Mom entered the room, Dana began ripping the wrapping paper off a long tube.

“Mom, she cheated!” Tim said. “She’s opening her presents before you said it was okay.”

“Just go ahead,” Mom said. Wearing her large fluffy bathrobe and holding a cup of coffee, Mrs. Slinger felt very pregnant and wasn’t in the mood for any arguing or bickering. She slowly lowered herself down onto the couch and watched her children open their presents.

But before Tim opened his first gift, he watched Dana—he was curious about the mystery tube she was unwrapping. What could it be? Tim wondered.

Dana popped the end off the tube, tipped it and out fell the oddest thing. It was a thin steel rod with rubber tips on each end, and both tips were hard as a rock.

Dana held the gift up by one end. Puzzled, she asked her mom, “What is it?”

“It’s a baton, like the band leaders and baton twirlers use,” Mom answered.

Dana frowned until she eyed an empty box. She tightened her grip on the baton and wham!—she destroyed the box in a single, vicious blow. Dana slowly raised the baton-turned-club again, looked sideways at Tim, and smiled a devilish smile.

“Mom! Really! A weapon?” Tim said, nearly in tears. Not up for the argument she knew would be coming, Mom stood up and walked out, mumbling to herself.

Realizing he was left to fend for himself, Tim frantically searched for the biggest present under the tree with his name on it. He hoped he would get a shield or maybe a suit of armor, anything to protect himself from his sister.

Scared but trying to remain calm, Tim found a present that was about three feet long and really heavy. I hope it’s a toy metal sword! Tim said to himself. Please, please, PLEASE!

Tim turned away so Dana couldn’t see him opening his big present. But he could feel her icy stare on his back as she confidently held her baton club, ready for war.

Slowly peeling off the wrapping paper, Tim realized that the gift was probably the fishing pole set he had asked for. Crud! A fishing pole won’t protect me! But when he saw the letters on the brightly colored box underneath the paper, Tim’s fears instantly evaporated and he quickly ripped away the remaining paper. He was so happy that he gave the box a hug—his wish had come true. It wasn’t a toy metal sword, but something even better!

Still with his back to Dana, Tim stood up and slowly turned around until his little sister got a full view of Tim’s gift—a Daisy 50-shot BB gun! Dana screamed loud enough to break the windows. She dropped her baton and ran to her room, slamming the door shut.

Mrs. Slinger came back into the living room to see what the commotion was all about. There stood her son, holding his new gun. “Thanks, Mom! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Tim said.

Without saying a word, Mrs. Slinger went to Dana’s room. She spoke to her through the door. “You don’t have to worry, Dana. He’s not allowed to shoot it in the house.”

“I’m not coming out until you take it away,” Dana said.

“Do you want me to take your baton away, too?” Mom asked.

“I don’t care!”

Dad walked in from the morning milking to find Tim next to the Christmas tree beaming over his new BB gun and Dana locked in her bedroom. “What’s going on?” Dad asked.

“Dana’s really afraid of my new BB gun,” Tim said, smiling.

Dana’s shrill voice came right through her closed door; “No, I’m not! I’m afraid of you!”

“Tim, take the BB gun out in the barn and put it in the storage room with my shotgun. You can’t use it inside the house,” Dad said.

“But what about her baton club?” Tim asked.

“Her what?” Dad asked.

Mom, who had returned to the living room, picked up Dana’s present. “This,” she said, handing the baton to her husband.

Mr. Slinger studied it for a moment then shook his head. “You’re worried about that thing, Tim? Give me a break. Now do as I said and take the BB gun out to the barn so we can enjoy our last Christmas here without you two fighting.”

“Fine,” Tim said, wishing his dad had seen Dana beat the snot out of the empty box with her innocent baton. Then he would understand that “thing” was a weapon, too.

Tim walked to the back door, put on his coat over his pajamas, slipped into his boots and stomped out to the barn in foot-deep snow.

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Chapter 17

When the winter weather cooperated, Tim spent the rest of the holiday break outside, practicing his hunting skills. With his new BB gun in hand, Tim and Skipper roamed the Slinger’s land, looking for random, non-living things to shoot, like old tin cans.

Dana had little time to play with her brother, as she was busy helping Mom get ready for the birth of her new little brother or sister. It didn’t matter much to Tim. The empty barn offered little protection from the winter weather for them to play in together anyway. There wasn’t enough hay left in the lofts to act as insulation and keep the cold out. He couldn’t even play on the rope swing—a leak in the barn’s roof had gotten the rope wet and it had frozen stiff as a board.

The baby was born on Valentine’s Day, right on schedule. It was a boy and he was named “Matt.” Dana’s prediction that Tim would be charged with baby duty was exactly the opposite of what actually happened. Dana was so fascinated by Matt that she eagerly helped her mom take care of him.

Tim’s sense of loss over the family farm became stronger as winter left and spring arrived. Gone was the annual mad scramble to get the farm machines in shape to prepare the fields for planting. And gone was the repair to buildings damaged by harsh winter storms. Instead of row after row of perfectly spaced little green sprouts of baby corn, wheat and oat plants filling dark brown fields, thousands of randomly scattered weeds had popped up all over. Even the dirt lane leading to the fields was covered with weeds.

Spring passed quickly and suddenly, it was the final day of school. As Tim and Dana stepped off the school bus for the very, very last time in their lives, they were more than lost. They were devastated.

“What’re we going to do now?” Dana asked her older brother as they got off the bus.

“What’d you mean?” Tim asked.

“Now that school’s done and there’s no work to do—what are we going to do?”

“I’m not sure,” Tim said. Trying to be positive, he thought of something fun. “I was thinking about building a hunting blind in the woods. That’ll be great.”

“Why? We won’t be here that long, will we?” Dana asked.

“Why would anyone want to buy this place now?” Tim asked. “Look at it.” He pointed at the family’s lifeless barn, with holes in the side of it from missing boards caused by winter storms, and the barnyard, empty except for many weeds.

“I know. I don’t even want to live here anymore, with it like this,” Dana said.

They went inside the house and found Mom in the kitchen, feeding Matt.

“I’ve got some good news,” she said.

“We’re going to start farming again?” Tim asked, raising his eyebrows hopefully.

“No. We sold the farm and bought a house in town,” Mom said.

“That’s good news?!” Tim asked.

Dana ignored her brother’s comment. “When?” she asked.

“In about two weeks. I put some boxes in your rooms so you can start packing.”

Stunned, Tim and Dana walked to their rooms without saying a word.

* * *

On the morning of moving day, the entire family sat quietly at the breakfast table, eating pastries and drinking milk.

“I’ll never get used to this store-bought milk,” Tim said.

“You’ll forget all about this place after a few months in town,” Dad said.

“I don’t think so,” Tim said.

When they finished eating, Mom rinsed off the dishes and placed them into a box.

“Time to go,” Dad said.

“I’ll get Skipper,” Tim said.

When Tim stepped out the front door in search of the dog, he found Skipper lying in the corner of the porch with his back to him. Normally, Skipper would happily greet whoever opened the door, hoping to be let into the house. Today, the dog didn’t budge. It was then that Tim knew Skipper wouldn’t be moving with the family. Skipper had died.

Tim stared at his lifeless pet and a tear ran down his cheek. He wiped it off, took a deep breath and went back inside. He quietly told Dad the news, making sure Dana couldn’t hear him.

“I’m sorry, Tim. Let’s get the family to town and then I’ll come back and take care of Skipper,” Dad said.

Tim nodded. He helped load up the car and as the family drove away, Tim looked back and saw Skipper on the porch. Deep down inside, Tim felt as if a part of him had died, too, having to leave the only home and life he had ever known.

* * *

When Mr. Slinger pulled into the driveway of their new home, Dana and Tim plastered their faces against the car windows to get a better look. Their “new house” wasn’t a newly built house, but the white-frame building was a lot newer than the stack of unpainted boards they had been living in on the farm.

Tim and Dana jumped out of the car the instant it stopped and raced to be the first to get inside. Tim easily beat Dana to the front door. He grabbed the door handle and gave it a yank. But nothing happened. “Hey! It won’t open!” he said.

Dana shoved Tim aside. “Let me try.” She, too, struggled with the handle. “The door’s broken,” Dana said to her mother, who was holding baby Matt on one hip.

“It’s not broken. It’s locked,” Mom said. She took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door.

“Locked? Why?” Tim asked. He couldn’t remember if the farmhouse even had a lock on the door. If it did, they had never used it.

“So people we don’t know can’t go inside when we’re gone,” Mom said.

Dana and Tim gave each other the same puzzled looks. Why would strangers want to go in our house when we’re not home? Tim wondered.

Mom unlocked the door. “What’re you waiting for?” she asked, holding the door wide open. “Either go in or get out of the way!”

Dana pushed Tim through the door and together they explored their new home. The house had many more rooms than their farm house had. There was a front room, a living room, a den, a dining room and a kitchen. And they hadn’t even found the bedrooms yet.

“Where’s my room?” Tim asked.

“Upstairs on the right. Dana’s is on the left,” Mom said.

They both ran up the stairs, shoving each other side to side as they went. Dana ran into her room and stood right in the middle of it. Tim glanced through the door at his sister’s room for a moment—it looked pretty small.

Oh, no! My room has to be bigger than hers! Tim worried. He slowly walked down the hall a few steps, found the door to his new room and went inside. The room was so huge! It had three windows and two doors! It was time to brag! “My room’s bigger!” he yelled to his sister.

Dana came running through Tim’s door an instant later. She stopped after two steps, staring at the huge space now under Tim’s control. His bed was at the far end under one of the windows. His dresser was against a wall between the other two windows. And in the other end of the room, near the second door, was Matt’s crib!

“Oh, what’s that, Tim?” Dana asked in her devilish tone.

Tim stared at the piece of furniture, absolutely confused. Then his heart sank to his stomach. “Mom, what’s Matt’s crib doing in my room?!” Tim yelled.

“You have to share,” Mom called back from downstairs.

The biggest smile Tim had ever seen spread across Dana’s face. “I’m going back to my very own room,” she said as she triumphantly walked out.

Tim ran downstairs to plead his case to his mom. “But he cries all night!”

“He does not,” Mom said. “Only when he’s hungry.”

“He’s always hungry.”

“Well, if it bothers you that much, you can learn to get up and feed him,” Mom said.

“What?!” Tim couldn’t believe it. They had only been in town less than half an hour and Tim had already lost his privacy and his freedom.

His stomach was feeling a little queasy. Tim needed some fresh air. “I’m going outside to look around.”

“Good idea, but stay on the block,” Mom said.

“What does that mean?”

“You can go anywhere you want as long as you don’t cross a street,” Mom said. That sounded reasonable to Tim. Back on the farm, he could go a mile in almost any direction without crossing a road.

Tim went outside and stood on the sidewalk in front of the new house, deciding which way to go—left or right? He picked the right and took off running. He ran for about 10 seconds, turned right and ran for 15 seconds, turned right again and ran for another 15 seconds, turned right again and ran for 20 seconds, turned right one last time and stopped. In all of 60 seconds, he was standing back in front of his house.

“Mom! This isn’t going to work!”

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Chapter 18

A few days after moving into town, Tim noticed there was a girl about his age living next door. Since his cousin Roxy had been his best friend while growing up, Tim figured he could be friends with the neighbor girl, too.

He spotted her a few steps ahead of him, walking to the corner store with a girlfriend. He walked a little faster until he was close enough to hear them talking.

“Who’s that boy who moved in next door?” her friend asked.

“You mean ‘skunk perfume’?” the neighbor girl said, giggling.

Tim had no idea why she would call him “skunk perfume.” But the way she said it made Tim realize that is wasn’t a compliment—she was calling him a mean name.

“Well, have you ever smelled a skunk?” Tim asked.

The two girls spun around and saw Tim. But they weren’t the least bit interested or embarrassed. They turned back around and kept walking and talking.

“You think a skunk smells bad? Trust me—if you compare that smell to the smell of a dead chicken baking in the sun for three days, you’ll realize a skunk smell is just like fancy perfume!” Tim said.

“Eeuuw, yuck!” the girls said in unison. They took off running, leaving Tim standing alone in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Hmmm. Maybe they have smelled a dead chicken before,” Tim said aloud, wondering if he should have picked a different way to introduce himself.

Tim walked back home feeling confused and wondering if he had done something wrong. He had spent his whole life around farm kids or relatives, none of whom had rejected him for any reason.

When he entered his house, he saw Dana playing with a new doll. He sat down on the floor next to her.

“Want to play dolls?” Dana asked.

“No. I want to ask you a question.”

“What?”

“Has anybody in town called you ‘skunk perfume’?”

Dana gave Tim a disgusted look. “Of course not. Only boys are called ‘skunk perfume.’ ”

“How would you know?”

“My new friend Cindy told me all about it.”

“What did she say?” Tim asked.

“When the farm boys come to town with their dads to pick up supplies or deliver something, they smell like the farm. The only thing close to town that smells bad are the skunks that get hit by cars along the road.”

“What’s that got to do with me? I haven’t smelled like the farm since we sold the cows.”

Dana put her doll down. “I know. But now, ‘skunk perfume’ is a nickname for all farm boys.”

“That’s not fair,” Tim said. “What’d they call farm girls?”

“Cute,” Dana said.

Tim got up. “Thanks for nothing, Dee-Dee.”

“They think you’re stupid, too,” Dana said.

* * *

A few days later, Tim met some neighborhood boys. Since he was new to town and didn’t know anyone, the boys talked him into trying out for Little League. Tim thought that was a good idea because it would give him a chance to meet some new kids before school started.

But there was a problem. Tim didn’t own a single piece of baseball equipment. He rode his bike to his grandparents’ house, went up to their junk room and dug out his dad’s old baseball glove from the 1940s. It was one of those gloves that looked like five stiff sausages glued to a doughnut.

When Tim walked onto the tryout field and put on his glove, everyone laughed, including the coaches.

“Where did you get that thing?” a boy asked.

“It was my dad’s,” Tim said.

“You better go tell your dad to get you a new glove then come back tomorrow so you don’t get hurt,” one of the coaches said.

Embarrassed, Tim left. He went home to talk with his dad, but learned he would be out of town the rest of the week. Tim didn’t want to wait, so he hopped on his bike and returned to his grandparents’ house.

When Grandpa got home from work, Tim didn’t even let him get out of the car before telling him what had happened at tryouts. Tim’s grandpa listened then shook his head.

“Well, get in. We gotta go shopping!” Grandpa said.

Tim ran around the car and jumped in. They went to the store and Grandpa bought Tim the best glove they had.

The next day at Little League tryouts, no one laughed at Tim’s new glove. They laughed because Tim couldn’t throw, catch or hit the ball. Frustrated, Tim didn’t know what to do. What genius thought it was a good idea to invent a game that required a batter to hit a round ball with a round stick? Tim thought as he rode his bike home after tryouts.

There was one thing Tim could do better than any of them though—he could run the bases. And that’s what got him onto the team. All those years of chasing his sister and running away from his dad were finally paying off.

The only problem with being a great base runner was that you had to get on base. Tim had only made it to first base two times the entire season. The first time was from a walk. Tim was terrified to swing, so he just stood there. Lucky for Tim, the pitcher wasn’t very good. After four pitches that weren’t strikes, Tim got to go to first base. But the next batter struck out, as did the next and the next. Tim never got to second base.

The second time Tim actually made it safe to first base was during the very last game of the season. There was one inning left in the game, his team was one run behind and the coach put Tim in the game. His coach had an everyone-plays policy, but the rest of the team thought winning was more important than Tim playing.

“We’ll lose for sure if he gets up to bat,” one of the boys said.

Tim was tired of being laughed at. I’ll show them.

All the pitchers in the league knew Tim was afraid of the ball. Whenever he got up to bat, they always threw their first pitch in really close, if not right at him. Tim always jumped out of the way, but it made him scared of the remaining pitches, even if they didn’t come really close to him.

But this time Tim stood there and refused to move. The pitcher wound up and threw the ball. Tim watched it flying straight at him and he let it hit him in the ribs. It stung, but wasn’t nearly as bad as a cow kick. The umpire told Tim to take his base. Why have I been afraid of that stupid little thing? Tim thought as he trotted to first base.

Because he had never got past first base all season, none of the players on the other team knew Tim could run. They didn’t even look at Tim as he stood on first base. The pitcher threw the next pitch and the instant it crossed home plate, Tim sprinted for second. The catcher was so shocked to see Tim heading for second that he couldn’t get the ball out of his glove before Tim stepped on second base. That was easy!

Tim looked at the third-base coach, who was moving his hands around in strange motions, all excited. The catcher looked at Tim once, but not too seriously. Nobody ever tried to steal third base.

Tim watched the next pitch whiz across home plate then sprinted to third base. The catcher jumped up in a panic and threw the ball to the third baseman. It was too late. Tim was standing on third before the ball got there.

“What are you doing? I was signaling to you a hit-and-run play,” the third-base coach said to Tim.

“What’s that?” Tim asked.

“Never mind, good job. We’ve got two batters left to get you home. With your speed, you should be able to score on a sacrifice play.”

“A sacrifice play?” Tim asked. The base coach just shook his head.

Tim crouched on third, ready for action. He was going to get to home plate and win the game, he just knew it! He stared down the catcher then focused on the pitcher. The pitcher glanced at him, held up his glove and the pitch was away! Tim watched the ball, and the moment it crossed the plate he took off, streaking toward home. Instantly, everyone began screaming and yelling things he had never before heard.

The catcher took his eye off the ball for a second to look at Tim, and that’s when he dropped the ball. The catcher was picking it up when Tim put his shoulder down and charged into him at top speed.

People in the stands screamed and groaned as bones crunched, helmets flew and the two boys spun off each other then hit the ground hard, landing in the dust. The ball went rolling down the first-base line as the crowd and Tim’s team cheered wildly.

As Tim’s teammates spilled out of the dugout to congratulate Tim and celebrate their victory, the other team’s first baseman picked up the ball, walked over to Tim and touched him with it.

“You’re out!” the umpire said.

Tim glared at the umpire and shouted, “What?! He dropped the ball!”

The umpire took off his mask and put one hand on Tim’s shoulder to calm him down. “You never touched home plate, son. Sorry.”

Tim’s team sulked back to the dugout, leaving Tim alone. The other team and their fans cheered wildly.

Covered with dirt and blood running from his nose, Tim was in shock at what had happened. Mrs. Slinger walked out from behind the backstop and gave her son a tissue for his nose. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” Tim said.

His mom put her arm around her son’s shoulders and walked off the field with him.

Dana came down from the stands to join them. As they headed home, Dana asked, “Using your bloody nose trick again?”

“It’s not a trick, Dee-Dee.”

“Poop Slinger.”

“I wish,” Tim said quietly so no one would hear him.

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Chapter 19

For the remainder of the summer, Tim spent as much time as he could at his grandparents’ home. Their house was at the edge of town, next to an old apple orchard and a swamp overgrown with brush.

Walking through the trees and brush with his grandfather’s dog, Bounce, almost felt like being on a farm. But being there all the time meant he didn’t make any friends in town. Tim wasn’t looking forward to going to a new school when summer ended.

On the first day of school, Tim walked along the tree-lined street by himself. All the other kids walked together in groups and some of the younger kids walked with parents. Tim realized that this was the first time he had ever walked to school in his entire life. As much as he had hated riding the school bus every day, at least he had been with people he knew.

Tim was entering the sixth grade, which had its classrooms in the same building as the junior high school. But unlike the seventh and eighth graders who were on a rotating bell schedule—they went from class to class every time the bell rang—the sixth graders stayed in the same classroom the entire day.

Tim sat quietly near the back of the room as the teacher introduced herself and talked about what they would be doing during the school year. Later, after lunch, each of the students had to stand up and introduce themselves. Many shared a lot of information about who they were and where they lived, which made Tim uncomfortable. There was no way he was going to tell everyone he grew up on a farm.

When it was Tim’s turn, he stood and said, “I’m Tim Slinger. I live on Southeast Street.” Then he quickly sat down.

That’s when he noticed a cute girl with curly brown hair in the front row. She was wearing a fancy yellow dress. She looked back at him several times after his introduction, which made Tim suspicious. He wondered if she were planning a skunk-perfume episode.

At the end of the day, Tim waited until all of the other students had left before he walked out. But the girl surprised Tim—she was standing outside the door.

“Hi,” she said.

Tim thought about ignoring her, but she stood right in front of him, making it impossible for him to pass without having to push her out of the way. He braced himself for the worst and said, “Hi.”

“I saw you at the Slinger farm auction last year. Was it your farm?” she asked.

Tim stared at her for a moment before responding, wondering how she knew anything about the auction. “Yeah, why?”

“We bought your cows,” she said.

“What?!” Tim asked, confused. He couldn’t believe that the cute girl in his class would know anything about farming, much less anything about cows. “I don’t understand. Who are you?”

“Niki Hiller.”

“I know your name. I mean, why would you buy our cows?”

“Didn’t you listen to my introduction? I live on East Dairy Farm #6, right across from the new high school.”

Tim was stunned. He had never seen anyone who lived on a farm dress as nicely as her, even for school. “You live on a farm?”

“That’s what I said. Was Patsy your 4-H calf?” Niki asked.

Tim’s mind raced. What is she up to? Then he answered her. “She was supposed to be.”

“Well, you took good care of her. I’m impressed.”

She sounded sincere, but Tim was still suspicious some trick was lurking just around the corner. “How would you know?” he asked.

“I won second prize in the county fair with her this summer.”

Tim decided she really was trying to be nice to him after all. But in a way, he wished she were making fun of him. He was much better at being teased than complimented. “Good for you. I was supposed to take her there.”

“Want to come see her?” Niki asked.

Tim couldn’t believe his ears. “You mean come to your farm?”

“Yes. Can you come Friday after school? I walk home instead of riding the bus on Fridays.”

“Um, sure, I guess. But I need to ask my mom. I’ll let you know tomorrow, okay?” Tim asked.

“Sure. I’ll ask my mom to call your mom tonight. I have to catch the bus. Bye.” Niki took off for the bus, leaving Tim standing alone. His teacher nearly ran into him outside the classroom door.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Everything’s great!” Tim said. He took off for home on a dead run.

Covering the half mile in record time, Tim burst through the front door, barely out of breath. Dana walked out of the kitchen eating a grape-flavored Popsicle.

“Somebody chasing you again?” she asked.

“No! Where’s Mom?”

Just then, Tim’s mom walked out with a Popsicle for him. He took it from her then quickly asked, “Can I go home with a friend after school on Friday?”

Dana crinkled her nose at Tim. “You have a friend?”

“Shut up, Dee-Dee.”

“Ha, ha. That doesn’t bother me anymore,” Dana said.

“Who is your new friend?” Mom asked.

“Niki Hiller. She lives on the East Dairy Farm #6 and Patsy is her 4-H calf. She got second place at the fair showing Patsy,” Tim said.

Dana asked, “Did you tell her you’re a Poop Slinger?”

“Ha, ha. That doesn’t bother me anymore,” Tim said, copying Dana’s high-pitched voice. Dana stuck her now purple-dyed tongue out at him.

“You want to see that cow you complained about endlessly when she was your responsibility?” Mom asked.

“I just want to be back on a farm with farm kids around,” Tim said.

“Yeah, where they like skunk perfume,” Dana said.

“Smells better than the stuff you’re wearing,” Tim said.

“What stuff?” Mom asked, confused.

“I borrowed some of your perfume today,” Dana said.

Mom’s eyes got as big as saucers. “What makes you think it’s okay for a nine-year-old girl to use perfume?”

“My friend, Cindy, does,” Dana said.

“But it doesn’t stink on you like it does on Dana, Mom,” Tim said.

Tim’s mom grabbed Dana by the arm and began leading her out of the room for a talk about what little girls are, and are not, allowed to do. She stopped at the door for a moment. “Tim,” Mom said, “that place isn’t the kind of farm you lived on.”

“It can’t be that different,” Tim said.

“Go ahead. You won’t understand until you see it for yourself,” Mom said. She turned back to her daughter. “Dana, we need to talk about you ‘borrowing’ my things. Come with me, young lady.”

Tim was confused by his mom’s warning. What is it I need to see for myself?

* * *

It took forever for Friday to arrive. Niki didn’t talk to Tim the rest of the days leading up to Friday, spending recess and lunch with her friends. All the boys hung out together, so Tim mostly wandered around the schoolyard by himself.

Finally, the bell rang. The school week was over! Tim met Niki at the door.

“Ready?” Niki asked.

“You bet!” Tim said.

They walked down the sidewalk for a bit then crossed over to a road and followed that one for a while.

“Why do you walk home on Fridays?” Tim asked.

“The East Dairy plant is on the way. They hand out free ice cream to the dairy family kids on Fridays.”

“And their guests?” Tim asked.

“Of course.”

The sidewalk ended, so they walked in the gravel at the edge of the pavement. The houses got farther apart and fields began to appear on the other side of wire fences as they headed out of town.

“Have you always lived on the East Dairy Farm?” Tim asked.

“No. We moved here a couple of years ago,” Niki said. “Why did you sell your farm?”

“Mom was pregnant and hurt herself. She had to stop working before my brother was born, and couldn’t work after that, either,” Tim said. “Dad said we couldn’t afford to hire someone and I wasn’t old enough to do the field work.”

“I understand.”

Tim looked at Niki—her smile had disappeared behind a sad face. “You do? Maybe you could explain it to me,” Tim said.

“We moved here two years ago after selling our farm. It was a century farm,” Niki said.

“What’s that mean?” Tim asked.

Niki hung her head a little and let out a sigh. “It was in our family for more than 100 years.”

Tim wasn’t sure he should say anything more about it, but he couldn’t let it go. “That’s sad. Do you miss it?”

“Not as much as my brother does. He’s in seventh grade.”

“At least you’re still on a farm.”

“Not really. Look—there’s the dairy plant,” Niki said, pointing across the road at a cluster of several large buildings.

Tim was a little surprised at Niki’s answer. How can East Dairy Farm #6 not really be a farm? he wondered as he followed Niki to a door that had “Employee Entrance” painted on the outside. They went inside and walked down a short hall to an open door that had “Lunch Room” painted on it.

“Hi, Niki. Have a guest today?” a man behind a counter asked.

“Tim Slinger,” Niki said.

“Yes, I know his father,” the man said. He then asked Tim, “How’s your dad doing?”

“Fine, I guess,” Tim said.

“I have something special for you today,” the man said.

Tim and Niki sat down at a counter and watched as the man walked back to the freezer, opened it, took out two small plates with slices of ice cream on them and brought them back to the counter. The vanilla ice cream slices were about the size of a slice of bread, but twice as thick. And printed in the middle of each slice was a pair of blue ice-cream bells.

“What are the bells for?” Niki asked.

“A special batch we made for a wedding this weekend. I kept a couple of slices for you.”

“Looks good,” Tim said. He and Niki finished off the ice cream quickly. It was so good, Tim secretly hoped for seconds, but didn’t ask.

Getting up to leave, Tim thanked the man, as did Niki.

“You know you’re always welcome,” the man said. “Tim, let your dad know that Ken said ‘hi.’ ”

“I will,” Tim said.

Instead of leaving the way they came in, the two went through a door that led to the plant.

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Chapter 20

Niki led Tim through a maze of pipes, steam, whining motors and steel tanks and Tim was in absolute awe over all the equipment. He wanted to just stand still and take it all in—it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

“Come on, let’s go,” Niki said, pulling him through a door that led outside.

Adjusting their eyes to the bright sunlight, the two stood at the edge of a large hay field with a dirt trail running across the middle. On the other side of the field were more farm buildings. “Short cut,” Niki said.

Tim instantly felt at home in the field of waist-high alfalfa. Bees hovered over the purple blossoms dotting the tall green plants and sparrows occasionally darted out on the trail in front of them. A gentle wind tilted the tops of the plants in sweeping waves across the large field.

When they got closer to the farm buildings, Tim spotted a huge herd of cattle surrounded by an electric fence. “How many cows do you have?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Four or five hundred,” Niki said.

“Wow, we only had 40 milking cows on our farm,” Tim said.

“Same with us when we had our farm,” Niki said.

Niki led Tim to a white, single-level, wooden farmhouse and they went inside. A woman was inside, working in the kitchen.

“Mom, this is Tim.”

“Hi, Tim. Would you like to stay for supper?” Mrs. Hiller asked.

“Um, sure,” Tim said. He thanked her for her kindness.

“Niki, I need some greens from the garden,” her mom said.

Niki’s brother walked in from another room, nearly bumping into Tim.

“Who’s this?” asked Frank Hiller.

“Tim Slinger. The dairy bought their cows when they lost their farm,” Niki told her brother. Frank shook his head, understanding what she was saying. “Take him to see Patsy while I help Mom.”

“Sure,” he said to his sister. He extended his hand to Tim and the two shook. “Hi, I’m Frank. Come on.”

The two boys walked down a gravel lane toward a large pole barn. Inside were cattle pens.

“When did you move here?” Frank asked.

“Beginning of summer.”

“Must’ve been a long summer,” Frank said.

“You have no idea.”

They stopped next to a pen with one young cow in it.

“This one’s Patsy,” Frank said

“Are you sure?” Tim asked. He stared at the well-groomed cow. She was three times bigger than the last time Tim had seen her.

“Yep. There’s her ribbon from the fair hanging on the wall,” Frank said, pointing to the back of the pen.

“She sure looks great!” Tim said.

“Yeah, I still can’t believe Niki worked so hard on her. She never wanted to go near any of the animals around this place until she saw Patsy being sold at your auction.”

“Why would she care about a calf East Dairy bought at our auction?” Tim asked.

“East Dairy didn’t buy Patsy. When Niki saw her being auctioned, she made Dad buy it for her,” Frank said.

“I don’t understand,” Tim said.

“She said Patsy wasn’t supposed to be just another cow in the herd. Dad thinks it was because it made her feel like we were still on our own farm,” Frank said.

“I don’t understand. Isn’t this a farm?” Tim asked.

“This isn’t a farm. It’s a milk factory. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Frank led the way across the huge barnyard to the milking parlor. They walked most of the way through foot-deep dirt, with the last part being cement.

“Wow, this would be a great place for cow skiing,” Tim said.

Frank stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Tim. “Did I say something wrong?” Tim asked.

“I’ve never met anyone else who has tried cow skiing. I thought I was the only one!” Frank said. “Seriously, you cow ski?”

“Yeah. But I haven’t done it in a long time.”

“Ever try a double?” Frank asked.

“What’s a double?”

“You hold on to two cow tails at the same time. It’s like riding in a Roman chariot.”

“Awesome!” Tim said. He could hardly believe he was having this conversation.

“Yeah, until the cows go on opposite sides of a tree,” Frank said. “Ouch!”

“Try landing in a rock pile. I can still feel where that boulder bruised my ribs.” Tim said. Then he asked, “How are you able to get away with cow skiing around here? My dad said he’d kill me the next time he caught me doing it.”

Frank shook his head sadly and looked down at the ground. “I don’t. I got hurt real bad once and had to quit.”

“What happened?” Tim asked.

“Dad caught me and beat the heck out of me,” Frank said.

“Sounds familiar,” Tim nodded.

They continued their walk to the milking parlor. Pointing to a huge field of alfalfa, Tim asked Frank, “How much of that belongs to East Dairy?”

“East Dairy owns all of it now, as far as you can see. It used to belong to four different families. A couple of the families now rent the two farmhouses on the side closest to town, but the farmhouse on the far side is an empty wreck. On cold days, I use it to get out of the wind when I’m hunting.”

“It must take forever to harvest all of that,” Tim said.

“No time at all. They hire a harvesting company that has a bunch of machines, and they roll right through it,” Frank said.

Tim was beginning to understand why Frank and Niki said they didn’t live on a farm. “So all you guys do is take care of the cows?” Tim asked.

“We only milk them,” Frank said. “Here’s the milking parlor. Come on in.”

They entered a large, building made from cinder block and stopped a few feet inside the large doorway. Tim stood and gawked. The room in front of him had pipes, black hoses and clear tubes running all over the ceiling and down to each of the 40 milking machines hanging on poles behind the rails that held the cows. In the center of the room was a concrete trench deep enough so the person attaching the milking machines to the cows didn’t have to bend over. And the gutters where the cow poop fell had water lines that automatically washed the gook out into a holding tank.

“Whoa. This is nothing like our farm,” Tim said.

“Like I said, this is a big milk factory and we’re the hired help.”

Tim looked around at all the equipment as he thought about what Frank had said, about being the hired help. Frank still lived and worked on a farm, and Tim never wanted to leave. “Still beats playing in Little League any day,” Tim said.

“Got that right. Hey, wanna spend the night? I’ll bet cow skiing isn’t the only thing we have in common.”

“Yeah! Let’s go call my mom!”

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Chapter 21

Tim got to spend the night at the Hiller’s house and had a great day on Saturday, exploring the land owned by East Dairy with his new friends. He even helped them with some of their chores, which brought back memories of doing his own farm chores.

Much later that day, as the sun was beginning to lower in the western sky, Tim frowned. He knew it was time to go. “I better get home before Mom starts to worry,” Tim said.

“Okay. We had a great time! See you in school,” Frank and Niki said, waving goodbye.

Tim took off running along the road leading into town. He ran part of the way then slowed to a walk—it only took him 30 minutes to get home. While Tim was anxious to tell his mom what a wonderful time he had with his new friends, he wasn’t sure how she would feel about him being around the dangers of a farm again.

He went inside to find her, but found Dana first.

“Have fun being a Poop Slinger again?” Dana asked.

“More fun than you, Dee-Dee.”

Dana tossed her hair back. “How would you know how much fun I’m having?”

“Who cares? Where’s Mom?” Tim asked.

“Fixing supper,” Dana said.

Mom walked in from the kitchen. “About time you got home,” she said.

“I had a great time. Frank is really cool!”

Dana squeezed her eyebrows together, not sure she heard Tim correctly. “Frank? I thought you went to see your girlfriend?”

“Niki isn’t my girlfriend. She’s a friend who lives on a farm. Frank is her brother,” Tim said.

“So you stayed all night with your boyfriend?” Dana asked.

“Stop it, you two. The yard needs mowing and there’re dishes to wash,” Mom said. Tim headed for the back door and Dana sulked as she walked into the kitchen.

* * *

The rest of the weekend seemed to drag on forever. Tim looked forward to getting back to school so he could hang out with his new friends. And deep down inside, he tried to convince himself he was excited because he could talk to Frank at lunchtime, but there was no hiding his excitement about seeing Niki again, too.

That Monday morning, Tim got up an hour earlier than normal so he could pick out the best-looking clothes he had to wear. It didn’t take long, as he only had one really nice outfit, which was usually reserved for special occasions. This will have to do, he said to himself as he got dressed.

He walked into the kitchen trying to act like everything was normal. Dana was sitting at the table while their mom cooked breakfast. Mom turned her head to say good morning, but did a double take before saying anything.

“Is it school picture day or something?” Mom asked.

“No. I felt like dressing nice for no reason,” Tim said.

“Why?” Mom asked. “I usually have to force you into that outfit.”

“He wants to impress his girlfriend,” Dana said.

Tim clenched his fists and glared at Dana. “Do not!”

“My friend, Cindy, has a sister in sixth grade and I told her you have a girlfriend who likes cows,” Dana said.

Tim ran around the table, ready for a fight. “Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you!”

Dana screamed then ducked under the table as Mom grabbed Tim by his arm. “Stop that! Sit down and be quiet, both of you!” Mom said. “Dana, you better keep your mouth shut now or you’ll regret it later. Trust me. Don’t you dare do or say anything to embarrass your brother at school.”

Tim pulled his arm from his mother’s grip. “I don’t want any breakfast. I’m going to school.”

“You need to eat something,” Mom said.

Tim ignored her, picked up his books and headed out the door. As he walked to school, Tim looked at every girl his age, wondering if she was Cindy’s sister. He wondered how many other girls might be gossiping about him, too, thanks to Dana’s big mouth. His stomach started to churn, not from missing breakfast, but from worry.

The kids who rode the school bus—like Niki and Frank—hadn’t arrived yet when Tim entered his classroom. So he went straight to his desk and sat down. His teacher walked in a few minutes later and stopped when she saw Tim. “You’re early this morning,” she said.

“Traffic was light,” Tim said.

“Your parents drop you off today?” she asked.

“No, I walked. But I didn’t have to wait to cross any streets because the traffic was light.”

His teacher nodded her head and sat down at her desk while Tim stared at the door.

When the school bus kids started entering the classroom, he tried to catch a glimpse of Niki before she saw him. One by one they entered and sat down until nearly every chair was taken, but there was no sign of her.

Tim worried Niki had changed classrooms because of the gossip Dana had started. Then she appeared in the doorway, wearing a white blouse with a little pink flower on it, a plaid red-and-gray pleated skirt and a red ribbon in her hair. She looked straight at him, smiled and then took her seat at the front of the room.

Tim let out a sigh of relief and opened his math book to prepare for the first lesson of the day. Tim and Niki didn’t see each other at recess, but when lunchtime came, Niki waited at the classroom door until Tim got there.

“I had a good time this weekend,” Tim said.

“Me, too. My parents like you a lot. Frank asked me to tell you to come out Saturday morning if you can. He has a big surprise for you,” Niki said.

“Isn’t he going to be in the lunchroom?” Tim asked.

“He has the early lunch,” Niki said.

Tim wasn’t sure what to say next. He’d planned on the three of them chatting about the fun they had over the weekend. The idea of sitting alone with Niki at lunch seemed a little awkward. “Oh. So, do you, I mean . . . are we going to eat . . . or talk at lunch?”

“Not today. Too many people are saying you’re my boyfriend. Mom says I’m too young to have a boyfriend,” Niki said.

“Sorry. My little sister, Dana, started those rumors,” Tim said.

Niki raised her eyebrows in an expression of surprise. “Started what rumors?”

“Dana told her friend Cindy who has a sister in our grade that I have a girlfriend, and it’s you.”

A look of disgust crossed Niki’s face. “I know who Cindy’s sister is—it’s Grace. She’s trouble and not very nice. Don’t worry about it,” Niki said. “And guess what? Frank’s telling everyone in seventh grade that I’m in love.”

Now it was Tim’s turn to be surprised. “Why would he do that?”

“To get even with me for teasing him about his girlfriends,” Niki said.

A smile crossed Tim’s lips as he remembered his mom’s comment to Dana that morning, about starting rumors at school about Tim—he’d get even with Dana when she grew up and had her first boyfriend. “So that’s what Mom meant when she told Dana she’d be sorry.”

“What are you talking about?” Niki asked.

“Never mind. Tell Frank I’ll be there bright and early,” Tim said.

“Okay.” Niki started for the lunchroom, leaving Tim standing alone in front of the classroom.

“Hey, Niki,” Tim called.

Niki stopped and looked back over her shoulder.

“We’re still friends though, right?”

“Of course,” Niki said.

Tim suddenly realized he had left home without picking up his lunch sack. Since it was pointless to go to the lunchroom, he went back to his seat in the classroom and put his head down to rest until the lunch period was over.

* * *

When Saturday morning finally came, Tim gulped down his breakfast, jumped on his bike and made the two-mile ride to East Dairy Farm #6 in record time, anxious to see what the big surprise Frank promised was all about.

Tim rode into his friend’s driveway out of breath and dropped his bike on the grassy yard. No one was around. He waited a bit and when no one showed up, Tim walked around back toward the barn. He spotted Niki carrying a sack of something toward the house.

“You’re early,” Niki said.

“Where’s Frank?” Tim asked.

“He’ll be here in a couple of minutes,” Niki said.

“Need any help with that?” Tim asked as he started walking to the house with her.

“No, I can handle it,” Niki said. “I’ll see you later. I have to get my chores done before Jerry comes.”

Tim stopped walking. “Who’s Jerry?”

“A friend from school. He’s never seen a farm,” Niki said, without stopping.

Before Tim could say anything more, the high-pitched whine of a small engine echoed between the buildings. Then out popped Frank, screaming down the lane on his new Ducati motorcycle! He slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop right in front of Tim, throwing gravel in every direction.

“Wow! Is it all yours?” Tim asked.

“Yep. Just picked it up yesterday. Hop on!” Frank said.

Tim didn’t give Niki another thought as he jumped on the back of the motorcycle. Frank clicked the gearshift, revved the engine and popped the clutch, sending the machine flying down the lane into a stubble field of fresh cut alfalfa. Tim could see the makings of a racetrack where Frank had been riding all morning.

Frank headed for the track, gunned the engine, shifted into high gear and sped down the straight-away section. They made the complete circle around the huge field quickly. Sliding to a stop, Tim slid off the back then Frank hopped off and killed the engine. “Your turn,” Frank said.

“I don’t know how to ride,” Tim said.

“I didn’t know how either until two hours ago. Get on. I’ll show you what to do,” Frank said.

Tim climbed timidly onto the cycle, placing his hands on the handlebars. Frank went through all the things Tim needed to do to operate the machine, pointing to the different levers as he explained them. When he was finished, Frank said, “Okay. Start her up!”

Tim squeezed the clutch, snapped the kick start and twisted the throttle as the engine came to life. He tapped the shifter with his toe to put it in gear and slowly released the clutch. The motorcycle jerked forward a few inches then stalled. Tim’s next few attempts at releasing the clutch had the same results. He was so embarrassed that he wanted to get off the bike and hide in shame.

“Don’t give up. It took me 20 times before I got the hang of it,” Frank said.

Determined not to fail again, Tim started the engine, revved it up, popped the clutch and felt the rear wheel spinning underneath him as the motorcycle lurched forward. He was moving!

“Shift! Shift!” Frank shouted.

Tim popped the shift lever up with his toe, cranked the throttle and was on his way around the track. They spent the next hour having a blast timing each other on their laps. But, alas, there’s always work to be done on a farm. Tim spotted Frank’s dad standing with Frank as he finished the last turn of his fastest lap yet.

“We need to take some tools back to the wheat field. The combine broke again,” Frank said.

Tim scooted back on the seat and Frank jumped on to drive. Together, they rode to the toolshed and went inside to look for the tools they needed. Frank grabbed a bag of wrenches and handed it to Tim. “Hold these.”

Tim jumped behind Frank on the motorcycle and held on for dear life as Frank raced across plowed fields, through ditches and over rocks. Tim thought it was a miracle they reached the combine without crashing, or at least his being tossed off the back. Tim hardly had a chance to catch his breath before problems developed with the repair of the broken farm machine.

“You brought me every wrench but the one I need,” the farmhand, who was working on the combine, said to the boys.

“Which one do you need?” Frank asked.

“A three-quarter-inch box end. The long, heavy one,” the farmhand said.

“We’ll go get it,” Frank said.

“One of you stay here,” the worker said. “I need some help prying this thing up.”

“I’ll stay and help,” Tim said, not quite ready to go bouncing around on the rough fields again.

“No, I’m getting paid to help,” Frank said. “You go get the wrench.”

Tim stared at Frank in disbelief. “You get paid?”

“Yeah. How do you think I paid for that motorcycle?” Frank said.

Tim’s eyes opened wide in shock. “You bought it yourself?!”

“Of course, now get going,” Frank said. “I don’t want to be stuck out here fixing this stupid machine all day.”

Tim jumped onto the motorcycle and headed across the fields at a much slower pace than Frank had driven. He wondered what it must be like for a 12-year-old to earn enough money to buy a motorcycle. The most Tim ever got paid was a dollar for mowing his grandpa’s huge lawn.

As he rolled onto the gravel lane that went to the toolshed, he spotted Niki walking with her new friend, Jerry. Tim changed course and headed straight for them. He gunned the engine then slammed on the brakes, skidding sideways to a stop right in front of them, throwing a wave of dirt and gravel across their shoes.

Jerry—who Tim recognized from school—jumped back, scared for his life. Niki didn’t react at all. Realizing he had looked like a scaredy-cat in front of Niki, Jerry tried to act casual. He shook the dirt off his white tennis shoes then asked Tim, “So, what’re you doing here?”

“I’m here all the time,” Tim answered. Then he asked Niki, “Where do you keep the big wrenches?” Tim knew darn well where they kept the big wrenches, but he wanted to make Jerry feel as out of place as possible.

“In the toolshed,” Niki said. “Mom wants to know if you can go up north with us next weekend.”

Tim couldn’t believe Niki was asking him right in front of Jerry, but he wasn’t about to miss a chance to get in another dig. “Wouldn’t miss it,” Tim said. He then popped the clutch and roared off to the toolshed.

Frank and Tim finally got the combine fixed and made it back to the house a few hours later, hungry, dirty and tired. Frank stopped the motorcycle in the driveway in front of the house.

“Go tell Mom we’re back while I put the tools away,” Frank said.

“Okay,” Tim replied.

“Hey, Tim!” Niki called from the back door then started walking toward the two boys.

“Uh, oh. You better head to the toolshed now. This isn’t going to be pretty,” Tim warned Frank.

“What’s her problem?” Frank asked.

“It’s my problem. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sticking around—I don’t want to miss this one,” Frank said.

Tim slipped off the back of the motorcycle, bracing himself for a scolding from Niki about how he had treated Jerry. Frank sat on the bike, ready for his little sister to go crazy.

Niki walked up so close to Tim she was nearly touching him. Then she smiled. “You were great!” she said. “Jerry was so jealous of you he asked me to meet him at the roller-skating rink tonight.”

Tim was speechless as Niki wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed him on the lips then happily bounced away to the house.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” Frank said, leaning on the handle bars of the motorcycle. “What’d you do to deserve that?”

“Acted like a real jerk, I guess,” Tim said.

“You must be good at it. I never saw her kiss anyone before.”

Tim held his hands out in a cocky pose and smiled, “Hey, if you’re going to do something, do it right!” he said. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

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Chapter 22

Tim returned home just before dark that Saturday evening. He was so excited about everything—especially the kiss—that it felt as if his feet would never touch the ground. Tim didn’t know how life could get any better.

Dana was sitting on the front steps when he rode up the driveway. He hopped off the bike and leaned it against the steps.

“Guess what happened to Dad,” Dana said.

“Something wrong?” Tim asked.

Dana gave Tim a smile, beaming with excitement. “Nope, he got a new job at a big dairy near a city! Can you believe that? A city!”

Tim was stunned. It couldn’t be true. “You’re lying!”

“Am not! Ask Dad.”

“Where is he?”

“In the backyard,” Dana said

Tim ran through the house and out into the backyard where his dad was sitting in a lawn chair, sipping a beer.

“Tim! Good news, I landed a great job in a big dairy plant not too far from Chicago,” Dad said.

Tim felt tears coming to his eyes. He knew this meant his life was about to get turned upside down—again. “But I just made friends here!”

“Well, you can make some new friends there, too,” Dad said. “And we’ll be able to do a lot more things as a family since I won’t be on the road, driving a truck, all the time.”

Tim stomped his foot on the ground hard. “I don’t want to live in a city!”

Tim’s mom came home and walked out the back door with Matt in her arms. Tim started running to her and nearly ran into her.

“What’s going on out here?” she asked.

Tim stopped, clenched his fists and yelled, “I’m not leaving!” He then ran inside and upstairs to his room, slamming the door shut. A few minutes later, Dana quietly walked in, holding two ice-cream bars.

“Mom told me to bring this up to you,” she said as she held one out.

“She can’t buy me off with ice cream this time,” Tim said.

“Take it anyway. I’m not eating both of them.”

Tim took the ice-cream bar from her and reluctantly bit off a tiny piece. Dana sat down on the bed next to him. They each nibbled on their treats quietly for a while then Dana frowned and glanced at Tim. “What’s your problem with moving into the city?” she asked. “There will be lots more to do.”

“They hate farm kids,” Tim said.

“They don’t hate me,” Dana said.

Tim stuck his nose up at her. “Because you don’t act like a farm kid.”

“Exactly. Nobody there will know you lived on a farm if you don’t tell them,” Dana said.

Tim took another tiny bite of his ice cream. “I don’t know how to do anything the city kids like to do.”

“You can learn, like I did,” Dana said. She then decided to change the subject. “Mom said you and I are going to stay with Grandma for a couple of months while she finds a new house for us.”

“I don’t want to leave!” Tim said. “You can go to that stupid new city when Mom finds a house and I’ll stay here with Grandma and Grandpa—forever!”

Dana stood up and gave Tim a smug look. “Fine, if you want to keep on being skunk perfume, go ahead. But don’t tell anybody you’re my brother,” she said, leaving the room.

* * *

A week later, Mr. and Mrs. Slinger left to look for a new home in the city. They took Matt with them, leaving Tim and Dana with their grandparents.

Tim spent every weekend over the next two months on the East Dairy Farm with Niki and Frank. Frank taught him how to drive one of the tractors and run the milking equipment. The three of them explored the abandoned farm buildings on the far side of the East Dairy property—the area reminded the kids of their own family farms. And Tim helped Frank with all his chores. Those were two of the best months of Tim’s life, which made the thought of leaving that much harder.

“We’re taking you to your new house Saturday morning,” Grandma said when Tim and Dana walked in after school one Monday afternoon. Dana dropped her books on the floor and threw up her hands. “Finally!”

Tim stood quietly for a moment, trying to keep from crying. “What do we need to pack?” he asked.

“Just your school clothes,” Grandma said.

“What about my hunting clothes?” Tim asked.

“Leave them here. The only time you’ll need them is when you come to visit us,” Grandma said.

Tim went through the rest of the week in a daze. He didn’t have to do schoolwork anymore since he wouldn’t finish the semester before leaving school. He didn’t have time to visit Frank on the farm after school because he was busy getting ready for the trip. And Niki found someone else to entertain her at school, which made Tim very sad.

It was almost a relief to see Saturday morning arrive. The four of them—Dana, Grandma, Grandpa and Tim—climbed into the old station wagon. As Grandpa backed out of the driveway to take them to the new house their parents had bought, Dana asked him, “How long does it take to get there?”

“Just a few hours,” Grandpa said. “It’s close to Lake Michigan. You can go fishing with your dad on the big lake.”

The road heading out of town took them right past East Dairy Farm #6. Tim spotted Frank riding across a field on a tractor and Niki working in the garden. He so wished he was out there with them, doing chores, working on the farm and having the life he wanted to live.

As they headed out of town, Tim looked out the back window. He had the strangest feeling the car was standing still while the farm was drifting away, like a ship passing over the horizon on the ocean. Tim’s mind replaced the distant images of Frank and Niki with images of himself and Dana. He could feel his childhood being left behind as they drove farther and farther from his old life.

Now Tim understood what his mother had told him—that farm life was not a part of his future anymore. What she had not told him, though, was that he would never be able to escape his past. Tim would keep a part of the farm deep inside him for many, many years to come.

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Chapter 23

“Where are we going?” 10-year-old Billy Slinger asked his father.

“Someplace important,” Tim Slinger said.

Billy looked out the window as their Lincoln luxury car thumped along a narrow gravel road. On each side of the road were fields filled with rows of tiny green plants. He wondered what could be so important out here—in the middle of nowhere—as they quickly passed by a windowless, paintless, abandoned farmhouse.

A few miles later, Tim slowed down and turned into an old, dirt driveway that was overgrown with tall grass. Billy saw the skeleton of a two-story farmhouse, with weeds growing through the boards of its large front porch. Is this what Dad brought me to see? Billy thought to himself.

Tim drove past the farmhouse to a huge, sagging, weather-beaten barn. He stopped the car next to the barn’s large, broken sliding door.

“What’re we doing here?” Billy asked.

“This is where I lived when I was your age,” Tim said.

Billy opened his door, got out and met his father next to the barn door. “How could you live in a place like this?” he asked.

“It wasn’t like this when I lived here,” Tim said. “It was full of life. It had a purpose.”

“Was it painted?” Billy asked.

“No, that much is still the same,” Tim answered, happy over the thought that something hadn’t changed on his family’s old farm. “Come on—let’s go inside.”

Tim reached for the rusted handle.

“You sure it’s safe?” Billy asked.

“It was never safe,” Tim said. “But we’ll be fine.”

He leaned against the door to force it open against the squeaking, rusted hinges. Billy hesitated for a moment then followed his father through the old door.

It was quiet, dim and dusty inside. Golden beams of light came through holes from missing boards in the sides of the barn, and also across the empty caverns of the hayloft. Some startled pigeons exploded from the rafters, shattering the silence with their wildly beating wings and escaping through the frame of a missing loft window.

“This way,” Tim said. He walked toward some concrete steps that went up into a room to their left. “This is where we stored the milk until the truck came and picked it up. There was a 1,000-gallon stainless-steel cooler sitting right here.”

“Was that a lot of milk?” Billy asked.

“Not enough for us to live on,” Tim said, explaining that the milk sold didn’t cover all of the family’s expenses.

Billy looked around at the decaying surroundings, spotting some rusted pipes on one wall and some bare electrical wires running down another wall to a plug dangling just off the floor.

“Did the milk come in through the pipes?” Billy asked.

“No, it went out to the truck through the pipes,” Tim said. “We carried it by hand from the milking parlor to the tank. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Billy followed his father out of the storage room, across the center section of the barn and down a set of stone steps into a much larger room.

“When I was four, I rode my tricycle down these steps and broke my nose,” Tim said.

Billy stooped down to study the steps closely.

“What are you doing?” Tim asked.

“Seeing if there are any blood stains left,” Billy said.

Tim laughed then patted Billy on the head. “That was 47 years ago. The stains are long gone, but my nose still bleeds real easy if I bump it hard.”

Billy walked the rest of the way down the steps and spotted a row of 20 steel structures in the milking parlor. They looked like traps to him. “What are those?”

“Those are steel bars. We used the small pens to keep the cows from moving around while we milked them. They stuck their heads through like this,” Tim said, stepping through one set of vertical bars, “so they could eat the grain we put in front of them.”

“Okay, but how did you keep them in?” Billy asked.

“Well, then we closed the bars like this,” Tim said, grabbing the bar that was made to slide over the cow’s neck. But the bar wouldn’t move. “This bar kept the cows from getting out or hurt while they were being milked. I guess it’s so old now, it’s stuck,” Tim said.

“Did you milk all the cows, Dad?” Billy asked.

“No. My job was at the other end, over here,” Tim said. He stepped out to a shallow gutter in the concrete floor. “This is where the cows pooped while they ate. My job was cleaning it out after every milking.”

Billy jumped back, away from the gutter. “Yuck! How could you stand it? Didn’t it smell gross?!”

“It wasn’t the worst job I had, but I did hate it,” Tim said. “Aunt Dana used to call me ‘Poop Slinger.’ ”

“Poop Slinger!” Billy shouted then giggled.

“Don’t you ever tell your mother my nickname. Understand?” Tim said.

“I won’t.”

Tim pointed to a pile of rotting boards in a corner. “Over there is where the calf pen used to be. Patsy was my personal responsibility from the day she was born.”

Billy stared at the pile of boards while he thought about having a pet calf. “How do you play with a pet cow?” he asked.

“You don’t play with it. You feed it, clean out its pen, wash it off and brush it.”

Billy gave his dad a disgusted look. “You call that a pet?”

“I didn’t say she was a pet. I said she was my responsibility,” Tim said.

Billy walked to a hallway in the end of the barn. “What’s in there?”

“I’ll show you,” Tim said.

Billy followed his dad through the short hallway to a tall, curved wall with a line of three-foot-square holes running up its side. He stepped a little closer and looked up through an opening in the roof. The curved wall formed a cylinder like a huge, round oatmeal box.

“It’s called a silo,” Tim said. “We filled it full of chopped corn stalks and other feed in the summer to feed to the cows all winter.”

“How’d you keep the corn from falling out of the holes?” Billy asked.

Tim looked around the hallway then walked over and picked up a slab of wood. It was about the same size and shape as the holes in the curved wall and had two lever-like handles on it. He carried it over to the silo, inserted it into the lowest hole, twisted the handles to lock it in place, and then stepped back. “We put those in all the way up to the top when we filled it up. During winter as we emptied corn out of the silo, we took them out to get to the next lower level.”

Billy stared up at the top of the silo. To him, it was so tall that he was sure it was scraping the clouds. “How’d you get all the way up there when it was full?”

“We used the handles like a ladder,” Tim said as he grabbed one of them.

“Looks dangerous,” Billy said.

“Try doing it in the rain with a pitchfork in one hand. I fell down from the fourth level once and the tines of the fork fell on top of me, stabbing me right in the knee,” Tim said. “My leg was so badly injured that I spent the Fourth of July waving sparklers from the porch.”

Billy was stunned. “You could’ve been killed!”

“I heard that a lot. Let’s go back outside,” Tim said.

Billy followed his dad back through the milking parlor, up the stone steps and to the door. Then his dad stopped suddenly, turned around and stared into the rafters above. “Well I’ll be—it’s still there.”

“What is?” Billy asked.

His dad pointed a finger at a rotting piece of rope that was hanging down a few feet from the highest rafter. “The rope swing.”

Billy stared at it, confused. “How’d you swing on that?”

“It used to hang all the way to the floor. Aunt Dana and I would swing on it for hours,” Tim said.

“How’d it get up there?” Billy asked.

Tim started to smile as he remembered the day he tied the rope swing on the wooden beam, but his mom blamed his dad for pulling the climbing stunt. “I crawled out on that rafter and tied it there.”

Billy’s eyes bugged out as he stared at the rafter in the shadows high above him. “You’re crazy!”

“I heard that a lot, too,” Tim said.

They went back to the car. Tim stared at the barn thoughtfully for a few minutes. Billy looked at his dad then at the barn, trying to figure out what he was staring at. “Do you wish you still lived here?” Billy asked.

“No, but I wish somebody lived here now, with children having the same experiences and learning the same lessons I learned growing up,” Tim said.

Billy shook his head in wonder. “It’s pretty amazing you became a senator after living here.”

Tim thought about it for a minute before answering. “No, it isn’t. The lessons I learned here are why I was able to become a senator.”

“What lessons?” Billy asked.

Tim thought about all the adventures he had on the farm as a child, all the work, all the responsibility, all of the family members who came to visit, and how he felt when it all ended. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the car. “You get out of life what you put into it.”

Billy frowned as he looked back at the barn. “I don’t understand.”

“I know, but maybe seeing how I grew up will help you understand someday,” Tim said.

Billy studied the barn and the mess that surrounded it, wondering how he could ever understand what it meant to his father.

“There’s something else I don’t understand,” Billy said.

“What’s that?” Tim asked.

“Why was Patsy your responsibility if she wasn’t your pet?”

Tim smiled again as he remembered the first time he saw Patsy. “I saved her life when she was born.”

Billy thought he was going to throw up. “You didn’t give the cow mouth-to-mouth, did you?”

Tim laughed and put his arm around his son’s shoulders. “No, it’s a little more complicated than that. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

“Home?” Billy asked.

“Nope, to the East Dairy outlet store for the best ice cream you’ve ever tasted,” Tim said.

They got into the car, backed out of the driveway and headed down the bumpy gravel road.

“Okay, tell me now. Tell me how you saved a cow’s life,” Billy said.

“Well, it all started the first time my dad showed me how a calf was born . . .”

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GLOSSARY

4-H Club > teaches farming and life skills to kids (return)

180-degree turn > turn and go in the opposite direction (return)

agape > wide open (return)

athleticism > being fit, strong and good at sports (return)

auction > a sale where people bid against each other on items for sale and the highest bidder wins (return)

auctioneer > the leader of an auction who talks really fast and tries to get bidders to bid higher on each item (return)

bellowed > to cry out or for a cow to moo loudly (return)

back forty > 40 acres of land, about the size of 40 football fields(return)

bidders > a person who offers to pay a certain price for something, often raising their bid when someone else offers a higher price for the same thing (return)

bovine > another name for a cow or bull (return)

briar patch > a bunch of weeds with lots of stickers (return)

bushel > a measurement equal to 64 pints or 8 gallons (return)

caper > a funny or crazy activity (return)

cat’s-eye boulders > larger clear glass marbles with a swirl of color inside that some think looks like a cat’s eye (return)

cinder block > concrete blocks that are stacked on top of each other (like bricks) to create walls for buildings (return)

coal > a black rock like charcoal burned to heat homes (return)

combine > A large farming machine used to harvest crops such as wheat (return)

confidently > being sure of one’s skills or knowledge (return)

consequences > the good or bad results from doing something to someone or to something (return)

cow chip > dried blob of cow poop (return)

Daisy 50-shot BB gun > spring-powered rifle that shoots small BBs; used mostly by kids learning gun safety and target practice (return)

dead run > running as fast as one can (return)

double-barrel > a shotgun with two barrels side-by-side most often used for hunting birds. (return)

drafty > having holes or gaps that allow cold air through (return)

ducts > metal tubes for square pipes that carry hot air from a furnace or heater to the different rooms of a house (return)

dusk > the time between when the sun sets and when it finally gets dark outside (return)

dynamite > an explosive often used on farms to remove large tree trunks from the ground and break up huge rocks (return)

embers > the hot and often glowing coals of a dying fire (return)

feed company > store that sells food such as hay for livestock (return)

fertilizer > natural products such as cow manure or special chemicals used to make plants grow faster and bigger (return)

feud > a long time argument or fight, often between neighbors (return)

furnace > a heater that burns coal, oil or gas and is used to heat a house or other building (return)

Gene Autry > known as the “singing cowboy,” he made many cowboy movies in the 1930s and 1940s and a TV western in the 1950s (return)

golden palomino > a horse having a yellow or golden-colored coat with a white or cream-colored mane and tail (return)

gored > to be stabbed in the body by a bull’s horn (return)

grate > heavy metal screen that allows air to pass through (return)

grazing > cattle or other livestock eating grass in a field (return)

gun-shy > a hunting dog that jumps, cries or tries to hide everytime a nearby hunter shoots his gun (return)

harvest > cut, pick or in some other way remove crops growing in a field or orchard (return)

hay chaff > small pieces of hay, straw, corn husks or other plants (return)

hayloft > an upstairs area in a barn used to store hay (return)

Holstein > a black-and-white dairy cow (return)

horseshoes > game where horseshoes are tossed attempting to land them around or very near a steel pin stuck in the ground (return)

host > the person holding or in charge of an event or party to which people are invited (return)

insulators > often made of glass or plastic and used to hold electric wires along a fence (return)

intimidating > frightening or scary (return)

loft > a small room or space above the main floor of a building (return)

logging chain > heavy chain used to wrap around and move logs (return)

manure > cow poop, often used as fertilizer for plants (return)

manure spreader > a machine that breaks up and spreads cow manure on a farm field for use as fertilizer (return)

military-grade > high quality that can be used by the military (return)

milking machine > used to take milk from cows using tubes and suction (return)

milking parlor > area for holding cows for milking with a milking machine (return)

molasses > thick brown liquid made from raw sugar (return)

mudroom > small room or porch where wet and muddy boots and clothes can be removed before walking into a house (return)

nitro > short name for nitroglycerin, a liquid explosive also found in dynamite (return)

pasture > a grass field where cows and other animals can graze (return)

periscope > a long tube with mirrors inside that allows someone to see up and over something without being seen themselves, such as from a submarine (return)

rafter beams > the long and thick pieces of wood that hold up a barn’s roof (return)

ravine > a narrow gorge or canyon with steep sides (return)

referee > a person who makes sure everyone follows the rules of a game (return)

resourcefulness > being quick and creative in solving a problem (return)

rite of passage > an event or ceremony marking an important stage in a person’s life (return)

rodeo > contest where cowboys compete in riding and roping cows, bulls, calves and bucking horses (return)

roost > a high place where chickens like to spend the night (return)

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans > husband and wife singing cowboys who starred in many movies and TV westerns in the 1950s (return)

rustlers > people who steal cattle (return)

saloon > a place where cowboys went to drink whiskey and beer (return)

senator > an elected member of the Senate, which is part of the United States government (return)

sequined > small, shiny disks sewn onto clothing (return)

silo > a tall, cylindrical building used to store corn, wheat and other grains after they are harvested (return)

six-shooter > a gun popularized by cowboys that held six bullets and was kept in a holster (return)

sleet > rain that falls as ice, often with snow, similar to hail

smirk > smile in an irritating or silly way (return)

smoldering > still burning slowly (return)

stubble field > a harvested field where only the short cut-off stubs of cornstalks remain standing (return)

sulked > being silent, unhappy or bad tempered (return)

supper > some people call their evening meal supper instead of dinner (return)

Tinker Toy > children’s building toy made up of round wooden sticks and other pieces that can be put together in different shapes (return)

udder > the mammary sack on a cow, goat or other mammal where milk comes from (return)

urban dwellers > people who live in cities (return)

vicious > violent, mean, dangerous (return)

wallop > strike or hit hard, packing a punch (return)

water trough > a long, narrow container, similar to a bathtub, that holds drinking water for cattle and other animals (return)

whooping > spanking (return)

Wild Kingdom > popular television show that began in the early 1960s featuring wildlife from around the world (return)

World War II veteran > member of the military who served during World War II, 1939-1945 (return)

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About the Author

James “Jim” Butler spent the first 11 years of his life on his family’s Midwest dairy farm. Those years were filled with hard work, adventure and periodic suffering. He then moved to a town far away from country life where he became an excellent student and a track star, setting two school records. All the running he did on the farm really paid off!

Writing always fascinated him, even in grade school. In 1963, for a sixth-grade English assignment, he attempted to write a book about traveling to the moon. He got a “C” because the assignment was late and unfinished. But he kept writing, getting “A’s” in English and winning a writing award in college. During those years, Jim often told funny stories to friends and relatives about things he did with his sister on the farm—things that often got them both into trouble or put them in sticky situations.

Five years ago, Jim wrote a few stories about his early farm adventures and sent them to a publisher. The publisher loved them and asked if he had more! He had a lot more, and those stories became the basis for The Cow-Pie Chronicles, his best book yet.

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