Steering Toward Normal

by Rebecca Petruck

  “You’re going to flunk eighth grade,” Wayne said.

  Diggy calculated how much feed Joker would need after April 1 rolled around.

  “That means no 4-H,” Wayne added.

  Diggy looked up. He hadn’t thought of that. No 4-H meant no county fair and definitely no State Fair. “I won’t really flunk.”

  “How will you not?” Wayne gestured at the unfinished homework.

  Diggy slammed his notebook closed. “Do you work at ruining my day, or does it come naturally to you?” He picked up his huge, boring social studies book. Why couldn’t the teacher have asked true-or-false questions? He hated all these answer-with-sentences things.

  Wayne tapped his pencil on his notebook, over and over and over, until Diggy looked up again. “Stop it.”

  “We have the same homework,” Wayne pointed out.

  “So?”

  Wayne waited.

  Diggy thought. They only had math and science together, but the same teachers taught the other classes. They probably gave the same homework for all seven classes. His and Wayne’s notebooks were probably filled with the same notes. They probably answered the same questions every week. His eyes widened. Wayne was a teacher’s kid. For him to even hint what he was hinting was mind-boggling. More important, Diggy was usually the one with the plan. He should have thought of this ages ago. “I’ll do math and science.”

  “No way,” Wayne protested. “I don’t like English or social studies any more than you.”

  “You get all A’s.”

  “That doesn’t mean I like it.”

  “And how are you at Spanish?”

  “Crappy.”

  Wayne sighed. “If we each do every other question, then check the other’s work when we copy it, we should improve our odds of getting most of the answers right.”

  Diggy didn’t like having to check over the work. But it would be better than actually doing it. Plus, he really had been doing particularly crappy in school lately. “I’ll take even numbers.”

  “I’ve already done half the math homework. You do the rest, and I’ll start odds on science.”

  They worked for a while. Pop ducked in, left, then came back with glasses of milk and a bowl of baby carrots. “Brain food.”

  Diggy and Wayne exchanged pages to copy the other’s work, but copying didn’t take much brain space, and after a while Diggy caught himself tapping his eraser against his notebook. He tried to focus on the task, but soon the pencil was tapping again.

  Wayne looked up.

  Diggy cleared his throat, straightening a little in his chair. “Has your dad called or anything?”

  Wayne looked back at his work. “I told him not to, remember?”

  Was the heater always so loud? Its hum was broken by periodic ticks.

  Wayne pushed his books back, leaving a messy pile. “Done. I’m going to the barn.”

  Diggy planned to follow, but he ended up sitting a bit, the eraser tapping.

  AFTER DINNER, DIGGY DRAGGED WAYNE OUT TO THE BARN AGAIN.

  “I was coming out anyway. We always do,” Wayne said, tugging his arm away.

  Diggy checked to be sure Pop hadn’t followed them, though he rarely did.

  “What’s with the secret-agent business?” Wayne said.

  “The Ides of March are upon us,” Diggy intoned.

  “You don’t even know what that is.”

  “I watch TV.”

  “Right,” Wayne said. “So? Ides?”

  Diggy faked a wildly exaggerated sigh. “It’s March, Wayne. You know what that means?”

  “That it’s March.”

  “And soon it will be April.” He nodded meaningfully, waggling his eyebrows.

  “Are you having a seizure?”

  This time Diggy didn’t have to fake the big, fat sigh. “April, Wayne. April one. As in April first. April Fools’ Day? We’ve got to plan.”

  Wayne laughed. “No way. You two are bad enough year-round. I’m not getting in the middle of anything.”

  “Wayne, Wayne, Wayne.” Diggy shook his head sadly. “So young. So innocent.”

  Wayne crossed his arms.

  “You’re in the red zone, buddy. You can take the hits, or you can fire back.”

  “Pop dipped your toothbrush in salt!”

  “And that’s a level-one prank. Do you want to do nothing while Pop preps a level ten?”

  “Ten? What was switching the hot and cold water lines?”

  “An eight,” Diggy replied.

  “You guys are crazy.”

  “Planning is key.” Diggy’s eyes gleamed. “With two of us, we can go big.”

  “Oh, crap,” Wayne groaned. “What have you got planned?”

  Diggy cleared his throat. “Nothing yet. That’s where you come in.”

  “No,” Wayne said again. “I’m staying out of this.”

  “You’re kidding yourself if you think you can. Pop will prank you—I guarantee it. He’ll do it so you won’t feel left out.”

  “And I’m supposed to be the idea man? You’re the one with all the experience.”

  “Exactly,” Diggy explained. “I’ve pulled enough pranks that Pop knows my style. We’ll surprise him this year. You’re an unknown factor in the equation.”

  “I’m not that unknown,” Wayne mumbled. “I’ve been here six months.”

  That took Diggy aback. Had it been six months? Some days, it felt like Wayne had been there forever. Six months was a long time.

  The calves bawled at getting no attention, so the boys went through the routine, blowing dust out of the hair, rinsing the steers down with cold water, then blowing them dry again, training the hair to bloom nicely. The drone of noise prevented secretive conversation but was good for thinking.

  Diggy mentally put together a decent list of low-level gags for the big day. Ideas for the prime prank, however, continued to range from subpar to positively crappy. So he was ecstatic when he turned off the blower and Wayne announced, “I have an idea.”

  Saturday, when July skidded into their drive, Diggy’s heart rodeoed. He ran out to greet her, wishing Wayne didn’t follow, but skidded to a stop himself when he saw her face. She slammed the door, hard, and marched to them.

  “I know you wouldn’t do this,” she snapped. “But I want to hear it straight from you.”

  Diggy didn’t think he’d ever seen July mad. He blinked like a deer in headlights.

  “That’s good, Diggy,” July said. “I want you to be surprised. I want you not to know what I’m talking about at all.”

  “I don’t,” he assured her, wide-eyed at her tone. “What’s going on?”

  “Apparently, two boys, driving a truck like Pop’s, were seen hightailing it from Goodhue County.”

  “Goodhue?”

  “You remember the Goodhue chapters,” July said sarcastically. “Lots of great exhibitors, good steers. Do well at the fair each year.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Seems a couple kids’ steers were shaved.”

  “We’d never do something like that!” Diggy protested.

  “Wayne?” July asked.

  “I didn’t even know Goodhue was a county.” He frowned.

  “But?” July glared.

  “Nothing like that!” Wayne looked at Diggy. “Doesn’t one of your pamphlets say something about shaving the hair for better hair growth?”

  Diggy shook his head. “Not in March. It will be getting warm soon.” If an exhibitor buzzed a steer at the start of winter, the hair was said to grow back thicker, but July had never done it, so Diggy never had, either.

  July continued to give them the eyeball.

  Diggy felt like his heart was under her boot heel, and she was grinding it into the ground. “We would never, ever hurt a calf—you know that. Or cheat. How could you think so?”

  She relented. “I couldn’t. But the description was pretty specific and sounded exactly like you two. The police called Pop.”

  “They did?” Diggy
squeaked.

  July threw an arm over his shoulder, grabbed Wayne, and headed to the barn. “So, how are your calves doing?”

  “They’re not really calves anymore,” Wayne pointed out. At seven months and nearing eight hundred pounds, the steers looked more and more like the show animals they would become.

  She smiled. “Oh, they’ll still be your calves when they’re fourteen months and twelve hundred and fifty pounds.” She asked Diggy, “You got your grain mix ordered?”

  As of April 1, the calves would start on finishing rations, filling out for the fair. Diggy talked percentages of protein, grain, and mineral supplements with July, but for possibly the first time ever, Diggy didn’t do everything he could to keep her around longer than she wanted to stay. His ears rang with the words, The police called Pop.

  Diggy didn’t even watch July drive away like he usually did. He was too busy crashing into the house, Wayne trailing behind. “Pop!”

  “In here,” Pop said from the dining room. “Is there a fire?”

  Diggy flung himself through the door. “What? No.”

  “Then let’s try for a more reasonable entrance and tone of voice next time, all right?”

  Diggy scowled. “The cops called?”

  Pop huffed out a long breath. “I forget how small this town can be.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because it wasn’t you, and it was ridiculous for them to think so in the first place.” Pop held together with one hand a half-assembled motor part to something while he sorted through pieces spread out on the table.

  While he regained his breath and his mental balance, Diggy pocketed a wad of elastic shock cord meant for his model rockets that had somehow found its way downstairs. Pop hadn’t asked them about the steers getting shaved because he didn’t need to. He trusted them. “Thanks, Pop.”

  Pop frowned. “How did you hear about it at all?”

  “July came out,” Wayne said.

  “She was ticked.” Diggy grinned.

  “I suppose it makes sense she’d have heard about it,” Pop admitted. He groaned and let the pieces he held together fall apart. “I’m done. Dinner in front of the TV tonight? I’m actually in the mood for one of your brain melters.”

  That’s what Pop called the low-budget sci-fi movies Diggy liked to watch.

  The three of them chowed on two frozen pizzas in front of a movie about giant lizards running around and eating people at night, unlike any other cold-blooded animal that would be more active during the day. Such a basic, huge mess-up was only a taste of yet better screwiness to come. Even Wayne got into the act when the people who were soon to be reptile dinner lost the generator that powered the compound but still somehow had lights on when the lizards came. At night.

  “People got paid to make this,” Wayne said.

  Diggy sniffed. “I love America.”

  “This is more like a Japanese kaiju film,” Pop said.

  Diggy gaped at Pop. “Kaiju? Where do you come up with this stuff?”

  Pop tapped his temple. “Kidneys, man, kidneys.”

  Diggy thumped his head on the chair’s back cushion.

  “Is this a conversation?” Wayne asked. “It feels like dialogue from one of these movies.”

  Diggy snorted.

  When the lady with big boobs got eaten, Diggy started yawning. Waking up at dawn sucked for having late-night plans. Though he felt it his duty as a teenager to stay up until all hours, he just didn’t have the energy for it.

  Waking up at dawn had its perks, though. He and Wayne felt safe enough in the barn to plan their April Fools’ Day.

  THE PRIME PRANK REQUIRED A CALL TO GRAF. WAYNE SEEMED OKAY WITH IT—even a little relieved. When Graf showed up in person to report on his end of the deal, Wayne didn’t say anything about his having told his dad to stay away, and Graf didn’t ask if it was okay that he was there. Diggy shook his head at the it-never-happened routine, but it had its perks. No drama, and the boys got their prank. The whole thing depended on Graf and his friend.

  But prank planning took a backseat when he got to school on Monday and Crystal asked him about the shaved steers. He didn’t have time to find out what she knew before the first bell rang, and he didn’t hear anything the teachers talked about in his morning classes. He raced to the cafeteria, picking up Wayne along the way, and would have skipped the lunch line if his stomach wasn’t already rumbling.

  “What’s going on?” Wayne asked.

  “Crystal already heard something about the shaved steers.”

  Diggy got to the usual table first and bounced his leg while he choked down his chicken sandwich. Wayne took the seat next to him, but he didn’t eat so much as swirl the “zesty Mexican dip” with a carrot.

  When Crystal and Jason finally sat down, Diggy asked, “So, what did you hear?”

  “Wayne,” Crystal said in that way that was kind of “Hi” and kind of “What the heck are you doing here?” She might have gotten used to him at their 4-H meetings, but it wasn’t like they all hung out together during them.

  “Just tell us,” Diggy said. Supposedly, Wayne was Diggy’s partner in crime—Wayne needed to hear whatever Crystal was about to say, too.

  “I heard you two went out and shaved some steers.” Crystal scowled.

  “You heard it was us?” Diggy yelped. He knew Crystal had heard about the shaved steers, but it hadn’t occurred to him that his and Wayne’s names would have gotten out. He looked at Jason for confirmation, but Jason just hunched over his food and shook his head. Which was weird. Jason was always part of the conversation, even if he only listened, and this was big.

  “Anyone who’s friends with Diggy wouldn’t believe it,” Wayne said.

  “I am his friend,” Crystal snapped. “I’m saying, be careful. Someone’s setting you up.”

  Jason choked on his chocolate milk, but Crystal quickly thumped his back.

  “Do you think we can find out who?” Wayne asked before Diggy could.

  Crystal studied Wayne as if she could read his brain waves. “Are you worried about being in trouble?”

  Wayne frowned. “I don’t like anyone thinking we’d do something like that when we’ve been working so hard. Diggy’s been raising steers practically his whole life.”

  Diggy stared at Wayne. It was almost like the guy was defending him.

  Jason grunted and nudged Crystal. She elbowed him back, distracting Diggy. “What’s going on with you?” Diggy asked.

  “Nothing,” Crystal said, giving Wayne a weird look.

  Diggy tried to pry more details out of her, but Crystal said she didn’t know anything else. Wayne picked at the edges of his sandwich bun until Crystal huffed and told him to just eat already. Before Wayne could say something back, Jason asked about their presentations for 4-H, and lunch was pretty much back to normal, even with Wayne there.

  Diggy worked on plotting a few private pranks for Pop and Wayne, but it was hard to concentrate with the accusation of steer shaving hanging over his head. Fortunately, he was able to keep busy, because March was the last sure month the calves could get out in the cold much. Regular people groaned about winter, but steer exhibitors loved it, because that was when their animal’s hair grew best. Spring and summer were the tough times, because higher temperatures and sunlight discouraged hair growth. It was logical—steers didn’t need thick hair to keep warm in summer—but inconvenient. Diggy often wished the State Fair was in April rather than the end of August, the hottest time of the year.

  Diggy took Joker out every night and began to toughen up his nerves by walking him into the tree line. Though the steers didn’t seem spooked anymore when they heard Kubat’s dogs barking, Diggy wouldn’t let them anywhere near the woods alone—even less so now, with someone out there shaving steers. He had rigged a bunch of cowbells on the barn door so he would hear if anyone tried to get in there.

  Wayne didn’t always lead Fang into the woods when Diggy took Joker, because some nights the
steer just wouldn’t go. But tonight Fang was following lead pretty well. The four of them walked close enough to the trees and bushes that branches rustled just over the steers’ heads, and leaves brushed across their sides. The point was to get them accustomed to unusual sights and sounds, because the show ring would be full of them.

  Diggy liked being out in the dark. Sounds were different. Smells were different, too, damper and more distinct. And, of course, things looked different at night. They had more meaning. In sunlight, a tree was a tree. In moonlight, a tree was a shadow that whispered strange secrets. Daylight was easy.

  “Did you used to do this alone?” Wayne asked.

  “I walk the steers,” Diggy said, confused.

  “I mean, without another person,” Wayne explained. “It’s creepy out here. It doesn’t get this dark in town.”

  “You don’t have trees in town.”

  Diggy practically heard Wayne roll his eyes. “Town doesn’t mean wasteland.”

  “Where do you want to be when the zombie apocalypse hits? In a crowded town with lots of easy pickings for the living dead or in our wide-open countryside, where we can see them coming and defend ourselves?”

  “That’s your criteria? A zombie apocalypse?”

  “You’ve got to plan for these things, Wayne.”

  Wayne laughed like he didn’t want to.

  When they headed out of the woods, they saw Graf’s truck in the drive first, then Graf himself. He stood at the barn door, looking out into the darkness. He didn’t spot them until they were close enough to hear; then he quickly walked out to meet them.

  “You boys okay?”

  Diggy glanced at Wayne.

  “Yeah,” Wayne said slowly. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

  Graf looked from side to side like a burglar in an old cartoon. “Let’s get the steers back inside. Lawson know you’re out here?”

  “Of course,” Diggy said, not liking Graf’s shiftiness. “What’s going on?”

  “Shh,” Graf said. “Wait until we’re inside.”

  Diggy and Wayne rushed the steers in and tied them up but left off the brushing and washing routine. Diggy crossed his arms and waited for Graf to talk. He had a very bad feeling.