The Unlikely Story of a Pig in the City

by Jodi Kendall

  “Maybe Carlos doesn’t like lollipops?” I said, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew that wasn’t true. I’d definitely seen Carlos have a lollipop before.

  “Na-ah . . . I asked him. He said he didn’t want sugar anymore, that he’d just gotten used to not having it. Like it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Carlos not eating sugar and keeping a pig in the city are very different things,” I told Sully. “Besides. What about Fernanda?”

  “What about her?”

  “Wasn’t she off sugar, too? Did Fernanda eat a lollipop?”

  “She’s not in my gym class, so I don’t know. But now you’re thinking like an investigator.” Sully spun a few pages back in his Case File notebook. He tapped his pencil on a scribbled list, which from my angle looked like a calendar. “According to my notes, I haven’t witnessed the twins eat sugar for three weeks.”

  I sat down on the stoop next to Sully. “I still don’t know what this has to do with Hamlet.”

  “Okay.” He tipped back the brim of his ball cap. “Another example. Your brother came home with a pierced ear on Thanksgiving, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well. Did your parents ever make him take it out?”

  I pinched my lips together, remembering seeing his earring at Tree Day. “Um . . . no. My parents stopped being mad, and I guess we all just sorta forgot about it.”

  Sully grinned. “This is the turning point in the Case for Keeping Hamlet. Your folks are getting more attached to Hamlet every day. They’re not going to want to give her up! Trust me on this. The Three-Week Rule.”

  I stared at Sully’s case notebook, thinking. “Well, Dad did let Hamlet sleep on his slippers the other day . . . and Mom told me that she’s been letting Hamlet out of her Cave sometimes when we’re at school, before her shift at the Community Center. . . .”

  “Aha!” Sully did a fist pump in the air. “See, I’m right!”

  Snow began to fall, lightly at first, and then much harder, like someone was sweeping it off the rooftops. “I gotta go inside,” I told him. “We have this dinner thing, and I promised that I’d clean Hamlet’s Cave and do my homework first.”

  I didn’t tell Sully that caring for Hamlet took a lot more time than I had originally anticipated. Every time I cleaned her Cave, I had to remove the old newspapers, scrub the floor tiles with cleaner, lay down new papers and cedar chips, and then change her litter box. It felt like I was constantly refilling her water and pouring in another scoop of dry pellet feed into her food bowl. And now that Hamlet was getting older and bigger, she seemed to have more energy, too. I had to walk her outside three or four times a day so she could get her wiggles out!

  I got to my feet and hopped up the stoop steps. Even on this side of the door, I could hear the house phone ringing. I started to spin the doorknob, but Sully called out, “Josie, wait!”

  I spun around. Sully stood just a few feet away from me, and I realized that he was actually a lot taller then I remembered. Maybe he was having a growth spurt, too.

  “Heard you got a back tuck,” he said.

  I couldn’t stop grinning, because the truth was, I did get my back tuck. I’d done it perfectly every workout since that first time. A few days ago I would’ve asked Sully who blabbed the news to him: was it Lucy, or Amelia? But maybe it was the magic of Tree Day still lingering in my heart, or maybe it was that I was feeling more confident in my skills, because I didn’t blush or hunch over or look away, like I might’ve done a week ago. Instead, I lifted my chin and kept on grinning.

  “Sure did,” I said. Ring ring! Ring ring! echoed in the distance, but I barely heard it.

  Sully shook the snow off his hat. “That’s really awesome.”

  “Thanks.”

  He flopped his hat back on his head and grinned again. “Three-Week Rule!”

  I watched as Sully turned down the street, past the twins’ place, and up the steps of his townhouse, where a large menorah sat on the windowsill, glowing with six blue lights.

  “You won’t forget?” he called out.

  I suddenly felt lightheaded, but I wasn’t sure why. “Nope!” I yelled back, waving. “See ya, Sully! And Happy Hanukkah!”

  He grinned. My face flushed pink, and I zoomed inside the house, slamming the door closed, and pressed the back of my head against the frame.

  Ring ring!

  Ring ring!

  I snapped back to reality. Hadn’t the phone been ringing for a while already? Where was everybody? Dad’s boss would be here soon.

  I rushed to the phone hanging on the kitchen wall. “Hello?” I said breathlessly, dropping the mail on the countertop and double-checking that my registration letter was safely tucked away in my pocket.

  “Josie? Sarah?”

  It took me a second to recognize the voice on the other end of the line. “Oh! Dr. Stern? It’s Josie.”

  “Yes, hi there, Josie. How are you?”

  “Great! Are you looking for Lou? I don’t think he’s here.”

  “Oh, no, thank you. Lou’s upstairs in his room now. I’m actually calling about Hamlet. I’m glad I reached you.”

  I spun around, trying to get a better look into Hamlet’s Cave. I could barely see her from this angle. Maybe she had burrowed under the newspapers. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything’s okay! I just wanted to let you know that Hamlet’s blood tests came back negative and assure you she seems perfectly healthy.”

  I tried to stretch the phone cord as far as I could to get a better look at Hamlet. It looked like her head was bobbing up and down, the way it does when she’s flipping an ear of corn around to eat all the good parts.

  “Okay, well, that’s good!” I said, breathing a sigh of relief.

  Reason #7 for the Case for Keeping Hamlet: She’s a Very Healthy Pig.

  “Now,” she continued, “I want to speak with your parents about this, too, but I have a friend out in Zanesville who may be interested in taking Hamlet off your hands. . . .”

  I felt my heart skip a beat. Hamlet had barely just gotten here—I wasn’t ready to give her up! Plus, I was still working on my parents. What if Sully’s Three-Week Rule was right and I just needed another week or so for them to become attached to her?

  I needed to stall Dr. Stern!

  “Um.” I twisted the phone cord around my finger. “They want her as a pet pig, right?”

  “For the time being.”

  My breath caught. “So only in the beginning? And then what?”

  “It’d be more of a trial basis, Josie,” she said.

  “Um. I’m not sure.” This was happening too fast. My hands began to shake just imagining someone coming to our house to take her. No! “I’ll think about it, okay? Thanks so much for calling—”

  “Josie, I know how attached you are to Hamlet,” she broke in. “But trust me, they’re a very nice family and Hamlet would be lucky to live on their farm. As long as the pig doesn’t show any aggression toward humans, they will keep her as a companion for their other barn animals. They’re willing to come by in the next week or two and pick her up. They don’t live in one of those farms outside the city—they’re a bit further out. Your father didn’t answer his cell, and I was hoping to speak with your parents about this tonight. Are they around?”

  My heart began to race. This week or next? No way. I needed to focus on my routines—I couldn’t worry about this right now!

  Right then I spotted a note taped to the door of the fridge: Josie, I went on a quick grocery store run with Amelia. Ellen and Sarah will be home soon from the library. Dad’s on his way . . . Please finish your chores & see you in a bit! Love, Mom.

  “We’re having company tonight for dinner, so they’ll be back soon,” I told Dr. Stern. “I’ll let them know you called.” Right then I overheard Lou yelling in the background, something about being a ninja. Hi-YAH!

  “Okay, thank you—Lou, wait one moment, I’m on the phone!—Good-bye, Josie. Please don’t forg
et.”

  “I won’t.”

  We hung up the phone and I wandered over to Hamlet’s Cave. Math homework could wait. Right now I had a million things to think about. I climbed over the baby gate, where Hamlet’s face was pressed to the ground. She spun around to greet me, oinking loudly and licking my legs.

  Her snout was soaked!

  “Hamlet!” I scolded her. She had flipped over her water bowl, and the layers of newspapers on the floor were drenched. “Scooch over,” I said, and she lowered her head, the way Sugar does when we catch her napping on the couch and she feels guilty.

  I pulled up all the wet newspapers and tossed them, retrieved a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and soaked up the excess water on the floor. After I dried off Hamlet’s hooves and snout, I laid down a fresh layer of newspapers and curled up next to the pig on the floor.

  “Oh, Hammie,” I said, scratching behind her ears. “I’m going to have to wait to give you more water until dinnertime. I can’t risk you flipping your bowl again when Ms. Coburn is here!”

  Hamlet oinked and wiggled up next to my chest, where she likes to hear my heartbeat. We lay there for a minute, just listening to each other, while I worked through the worries on my heart. I knew I should finish up my homework and get ready for our dinner guest, but I felt so drained of energy.

  Will my parents pay the gymnastics registration fee?

  Is there a chance Hamlet will be taken away from us?

  I should be focusing on my gymnastics meet, but now I had two big things to tell my parents. And I didn’t want to talk to them about either one.

  Chapter 10

  BIG BOSS DINNER

  I tried my best to be pleasant, but Dad’s boss—Angela Coburn—had an opinion about everything. Our Christmas tree was too colorful and gave her a headache (we turned off Doug’s lights). The crab cakes were too hot (Dad brought them back into the kitchen to cool). The house was too cold (Ellen cranked up the heat).

  I promised Mom that I’d keep Hamlet in her Cave, but then Amelia blabbed the news to Ms. Coburn—of course—so when she asked to see the pig, even Dad couldn’t say no.

  Hamlet was much heavier now and harder to control in my arms, but she didn’t start kicking me with her hooves until Ms. Coburn leaned closer to her, examining the pig like she was a cell under a microscope in Science class.

  “Hmmm.” Ms. Coburn frowned, deepening the wrinkles around her mouth.

  I wasn’t quite sure what hmmm meant, but I could tell from the way Dad coughed into his closed fist that it wasn’t a good thing.

  “The crab cakes should be cool by now,” Dad said. “Why don’t we go take a seat in the living room?”

  “Yay!” cheered my little sister. She turned to Ms. Coburn. “We never get to eat crab cakes. Only on special occasions.”

  “Yeah, my dad’s crab cakes are the best!” I added, hoping the conversation didn’t steer toward Hamlet. As they moved down the hall, I carefully set the pig back down in her Cave. I understood how it felt to have people snickering about me, too, and I wanted her to know that she was a good pig. It wasn’t her fault that some humans just aren’t animal people.

  “Guess boss lady isn’t really into pigs,” I whispered to her, giving her a pat on the head. She lifted my hand with her snout, making me laugh.

  Looking down at Hamlet now, I was amazed by how big she looked. In pig years, she could’ve been a teenager! Her Cave used to be the perfect size, but now it was getting harder for her to turn her body around and comfortably lie down.

  I gave her another pat. “I’ll come back and check on you later.”

  I washed up and returned to the living room, listening to Ms. Coburn drone on and on about her son who had recently moved to Chicago and gotten an important job at a law firm.

  “Oh, you must be so proud,” Mom said. “Shrimp cocktail?”

  I looked at the bored expressions on my sisters’ faces and considered retreating back to Hamlet’s Cave, but Mom called us to the table. The sweet aroma of onion soup, baked bread, and meatloaf caught my nose. My stomach growled. I’d been so busy this afternoon I’d barely eaten anything! I couldn’t touch the meatloaf, but at least the soup and bread were fine. I’d sneak some cheese out of the fridge later if I was still hungry.

  Mom had secretly assigned our seats before Ms. Coburn arrived so that she would feel “more comfortable.” Us girls were supposed to sit on one end of the table and the adults on the other. But somehow we got all switched around, and Ms. Coburn took the seat next to me. A little groan escaped my mouth, and Mom must’ve overheard it because she narrowed her eyes at me. Whoops.

  Out of all the kids, Ellen handled our guest the best. When Ms. Coburn talked about quality control issues surrounding a recent toothpaste reformulation, Ellen seemed to understand some of the unusual terms that sounded like a different language to me, words like sourcing and recall.

  “It’s good to see your daughter has a strong, curious mind,” said Ms. Coburn, nodding toward Ellen in approval, as if Sarah, Amelia, and I weren’t even in the room. “Reminds me of myself when I was young. What are your plans after graduation?”

  Ellen sat up straight. Talking about life after high school was one of her favorite subjects. “I just sent off my college applications.”

  Ms. Coburn tugged at the sleeves of her sweater, right along her wrists. “Hope we can count on you to be a Buckeye,” she said to my sister.

  It wasn’t a question. Ellen’s face turned a slight shade of pink, but instead of explaining why, Sarah chimed in. “Yeah, right! Ellen hates the Buckeyes.”

  “Hmm.” Ms. Coburn’s eyes narrowed, giving my sisters and me a once-over, as if we were all traitors as well.

  “I don’t hate the Buckeyes, Sarah,” Ellen said through clenched teeth. Then she turned to Ms. Coburn. “I’m hoping I’ll get into Columbia. Er”—she met eyes with my mom—“on scholarship. They have an excellent English program. I want to be a book editor.”

  “Book editor?” Ms. Coburn almost choked on a sip of wine. “Why on earth would you want to do that? We need more strong, smart women in the business world. That’s where you should focus your efforts—not on literary nonsense.”

  “But Ellen likes dragons!” Amelia said. “And princesses, but only if they have swords, because she never wanted to watch Sleeping Beauty with me. But we did make my gingerbread house more of a gingerbread castle this year. There’s even gumdrop dragons near the front door.”

  “Gumdrop dragons, hmm.” Ms. Coburn shook her head in disapproval, and my oldest sister’s face turned bright red.

  “Dr. Stern is a super strong smart woman,” Amelia continued. “She neuters and picks up poop and diagnoses cancer, and once she even removed a sock from an esophagus!”

  Ms. Coburn coughed into her napkin. “And Dr. Stern is . . . ?”

  Amelia beamed. “Our vet. She’s my best friend’s mom!”

  “Cheese?” Dad returned from the kitchen, and Mom’s tight expression softened in relief. Dad passed around the platter of baked bread, cheese, and fruit—and not just the regular orange cheese, either, that comes in the clear little plastic wrappers: these were fancy white cheeses with peppers in them, and fruits that we never ever get to eat, like pineapple and mango, and fresh-baked bread that I know my mom picked out special just for tonight.

  “I’m off simple carbs,” said Ms. Coburn, waving her fingers over the bread before grabbing the serving fork and spearing herself a pineapple wedge.

  “Oh?” Dad said in a forced light tone.

  “Can I eat my gingerbread castle now?” asked Amelia, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Growing food first, Millie, you know the rules,” said Mom with a smile. Then she turned to Dad’s boss. “So, any holiday plans, Angela?”

  “I always spend a few weeks at my house on Buckeye Lake,” Ms. Coburn said.

  “A few weeks? Really.” Mom unfolded her napkin on her lap. I wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking—th
at it’d be super nice to go to a lake house for a few weeks. We never get to take vacations like that.

  “Have you been before?” Ms. Coburn looked around the table, like we were parasites and not real people.

  Mom passed around the salad bowl. “Not as a family, but Sarah, didn’t you visit Buckeye Lake with one of your school friends, sweetie? Last summer, maybe?” My sister nodded, but she kept her mouth shut, which was probably for the best.

  “Then you probably saw our house,” said Ms. Coburn, reaching for the salad tongs. “The biggest on the lake. Made sure of it when it was built. Don’t want a bunch of ruffians to take over the area.” She grabbed the saltshaker and hovered it over her lettuce. Shake, shake.

  “What’s a ruffian?” asked Amelia, cocking her head sideways. Sarah kicked her foot underneath the table. “Ow! What was that for?”

  “More bread?” Mom gave the plate a little shove across the table and Amelia snatched up an end piece, always her favorite, and that shut her right up.

  An awkward silence followed. I desperately wanted Dad to fill it with reassuring words, but he didn’t. He seemed just as uncomfortable as the rest of us.

  When Mom placed a bowl of onion soup in front of me, I was lost in my thoughts and started slurping it up right away.

  “Good soup, Mom!” said Amelia. I rolled my eyes. She wasn’t even eating it, she was just swirling her spoon around, creating a big whirlpool inside the bowl. She was probably hoping Mom would break off a piece of her gingerbread castle as a reward.

  “Yes, delicious!” Ms. Coburn agreed, rubbing her lips together in thought. “Is this beef broth, Emily? You must give me the recipe.” She reached for the saltshaker again. Shake, shake.

  “Pepper?” Sarah offered, a smirk on her face.

  My spoon clinked against the bowl. Tears stung my eyes. I looked at Mom, my eyes wide with concern.

  “There’s beef in this soup?” I asked Mom.