“Ms. Kandila and I call us that! It’s our family nickname.”
“It’s not. Stop saying it.”
“But Given really is famous.”
“I know.” Nicholas looks deflated. “It’s like she belongs to the whole school.”
Just then, Travis saunters by on the way to his bus and calls, “Hey, Nicholas—does your famous cat know you’re a kickball crybaby?”
“Hey, Travis,” I call. “Remember that time we asked for your opinion about anything? Me neither!” I check to see if Nicholas thinks that’s a good one, but his face is a blank.
“You should see if Caroline can photoshop you a better personality, Becket!” calls Travis.
“Didn’t mean to push your buttons, Travis—I was looking for ‘mute’!”
Travis gives me one last sour face and darts away to his bus.
I am breathing hard. “There’s a reason Travis’s best friend is a SuperSquid,” I say to Nicholas.
“Becket, I wish you wouldn’t get into it with Travis,” says Nicholas.
“Hey, when it comes to my twin, I feel protective.”
“I know, but”—Nicholas has taken out his happy-face stress ball, which he uses whenever I’ve hidden his fidget spinner—“sometimes you and Travis can remind me of each other.”
“What? I’m not anything like Travis! I’m just taking care of you!”
“Yeah, but”—Nicholas shrugs—“you both are kind of looking for attention, and you’re both kind of know-it-alls.”
“Actually, attention finds me, whether I’m looking for it or not,” I assure him. “Also, I’m nothing like Travis. Not even one tiny speck!”
Nicholas just squeezes his stress ball and says nothing.
Chapter 11
Animal Circus
“Given’s so sassy!” exclaims Mai when she and Daisy are over later in the week. Zane is here, too. Everyone wants to spend time with our famous cat, who is giving head-boops to any hand that reaches out to pet her.
“Did you see that Mr. Culpepper made a sign of Given for his music room?” says Daisy. “The caption is ‘Don’t stop me-ow!’ ”
“Saw that!” says Caroline. “My photo turned Given into a star. I think it’s because of the balanced composition.” She is flipping through one of Gran’s National Geographic magazines, studying the nature and animal photos. Lately, Caroline has a lot to say about photography. She loves talking about lights and darks, or warm and cool tones.
“Soon it will be Dibsie’s turn to bedazzle,” I say. Dibs is curled up in his saucer, not wanting to bedazzle anybody, and I am sketching him. I’m working very hard on his asparagus tail. Maybe if I capture him with extra cuteness, Ms. Lemons will put my sketch on her gallery wall.
Then Dibs could be as famous as Given!
Caroline leans over with her phone for a pic of Dibs, but when I ask to see it, he just looks like a scraggly-tailed pillow. I scroll through Caroline’s phone photos to check if she’s captured any better Dibs poses.
Nope, nope, nope.
Caroline tried, but Dibs is either a blurry bounce or a penny-colored lump. He doesn’t like to look into the camera, either.
“Photos don’t do him justice,” says Caroline. “He’s all about real life.”
Maybe so. “I’ll find a way to make you a star, Dibsie,” I tell him, sketching some extra flourish into the asparagus.
So many people are over that Dad decides to make pizza. “Play-date pizza!” he says, and everyone cheers. But Caroline’s face is now burrowed into her magazine, and I know she’s embarrassed by Dad using the term play date.
Dad is serious about his pizza. He rolls his own dough, and we get our mozzarella from Jayne’s Dairy, just down the road. Buying local is good for the environment, because the cheese is not coming in after a long-distance truck trip. Also, the basil is from our garden.
“C’mon, Dibs.” I close my sketchbook, give a little whistle, and slice off a chunk of mozzarella before I go outside, where Zane is running all around with Given.
“Given can chase a ball!” Zane says to me. “Can Dibs?”
“Working on it,” I say as Dibs and I settle on the bottom porch step. I pull some mozzarella from my slice and toss it up in the air. Dibs catches it in his mouth like a seal. I take a bite for myself. I pull off another chunk.
“Sit?” I coax. Dibs cocks his head and waits.
I ask him to sit a few more times, but when he starts whining, I give up. He gulps the cheese and settles back on top of my feet.
“He needs more training,” says Zane.
“Yep,” I say sadly.
When the pizza is ready, Dad brings it out to the porch table. Everyone trails him. “Outside pizza has extra zing,” I tell Dibs, offering him the tiniest bit of crust. “It’s a Beautiful Alert combination of cheese, bread, and fresh air.”
“A win,” agrees Daisy, pressing on my nose freckle. I like when she does that. It’s a secret, sparkly Beautiful Alert whenever I get to hang out with Caroline’s friends. It makes me feel like I could almost be mistaken for a seventh grader.
“Look what I taught the celebri-cat,” says Mai. “Watch this!” She crouches down on the lawn in front of Given. “Shake hands?”
Immediately, Given offers a paw.
Wow! We all give Given a round of applause.
“Given is amazing,” says Caroline. “She even shakes paws! Why isn’t Nicholas here to see any of this?”
“He must smell that tomato sauce,” says Dad.
“He’s upstairs,” says Zane. “He told me he needed peace over pizza.”
Dibs and I go looking. Upstairs, Nicholas is lying down in the empty bathtub. He’s fully dressed, with his headphones on and a pillow behind his head.
The empty bathtub is my twin’s happy place, and I know he is listening to his cello lesson, because he’s playing invisible notes with his fingers. He takes off his headphones when he sees me.
“Hey,” I say, sitting on the edge of the tub. “Why are you hiding in your tub lounge?”
Nicholas sighs. “There’s too much fuss around Given. Travis even said it—my cat is too cool for me.”
“Travis! Who cares what Travis says?”
“I do, when he’s right,” says Nicholas. “I think Given is the best cat in the world. She’s brave and fun, and everyone loves her. The thing is, I thought my very own cat would belong to me the most. I imagined her in my room, watching me do homework. But Given thrives on being with lots of people. She doesn’t want to miss out on anything.”
I look down at Dibs. “Well, I thought I’d have a friendly dog who’d play with everybody,” I admit. “But Dibs doesn’t want to make friends with anyone else. He’s shyer and more skittish than I imagined, and he’s hard to train, too.”
As if he knows we’re talking about him, Dibs starts thumping his tail. His eyes are warm and sweet like cocoa. Oh, Dibs! My heart hurts with love for him.
“At least you don’t understand Dibs any better than I get Given,” says Nicholas.
What? No! Of course I understand Dibs!
Don’t I?
Do I?
Animals come naturally to me. After all, I’m the one who changes Pickle and Chew’s straw bedding, sweeps out their stable, and keeps their salt lick clean. I’m the one who waters the hens’ water trough, scooping out bugs, and who soaps the floors once a week to make sure there’s not one bit of mold or mildew. I’m really good at my animal chores.
But when it comes to my dog, maybe I haven’t totally figured him out.
Maybe Nicholas is right.
After all, while trying new recipes comes naturally to Dad, he treasures his cookbook shelf and he’s always listening to Gran’s tips. Caroline’s great at photos, but she spends most of her time looking at other people’s pictures for inspiration and examples.
And it’s not like Nicholas woke up knowing how to play his cello, Clive. He takes lesso
ns after school, and he’s always listening to concerts.
Also, when I knew I was bad at sketching tails, I got help from Ms. Lemons.
So maybe, maybe . . . I could use a hand with Dibs.
Chapter 12
All Together Now
The next morning, I’m changing into my coveralls to go collect eggs when, from my bedroom window, I see Caroline carrying a straw basket and walking down the path to the henhouse.
That’s strange. Gathering eggs is not Caroline’s morning chore—it’s mine.
After I let Dibs out for his business, he does his sniffing and circles, and then he wants to come with me to feed the chickens. I take him into the kitchen instead.
“Stay,” I command. But then he yowls. I back away. He keeps yowling.
So I return, and hug him.
I feel so bad for him that I just don’t know what to do.
Dibs is still yowling like an opera star when I go outside and shut the kitchen door. I open it. Just one more hug. “Dibs, I love you, but you take up too much of my time,” I tell him. “You are my hardest chore by far.”
Dad, who’s making egg-and-cheese biscuits in the kitchen, says I should feed Dibs before I head for the hens. “Pro tip: Get that dog on an early breakfast schedule, and he won’t yowl nearly so much.”
So I feed Dibs, which calms him down. The morning is cold enough for one more layer, and Dad says he doesn’t mind if I take his barn jacket. It’s olive green with a flannel lining, and it falls to my knees. I button it up and it’s like a Dad hug.
Outside, there’s a spicy-woodsmoke and crisp-apple-y scent in the air. It’s a Beautiful Alert shout for my nose.
In the henhouse, Caroline crouches by the nest box, where Wilma and Betty, our Rhode Island Reds, are roosting. Caroline’s face is serious. When I check on her basket, there’s only one egg—and I’d bet my last banana she took it from an empty nest, and not a sitting hen.
I scooch down next to her as I place my finger on my lips. Then, without speaking, I show her how to slide a hand carefully underneath Wilma’s fluffy feathers to her undercarriage.
I withdraw an egg. Presto!
Caroline makes a face. “It seems so rude!” she whispers.
“Not to me. I’m friends with hens,” I say. “But why are you here?”
“Because of the pet spa.” Worry makes her eyes look sad. “I keep imagining Sunday in a nervous way. Mai and Daisy won’t like if I’m unhelpful with the dogs.”
“You should tell Mai straight up that you don’t want to do the animals part. Also, handling the money isn’t as simple as they think. Gran taught you how to make change and use the credit card machine at the store.”
“I guess.” Caroline’s cheeks flush as her hands grip the egg basket. “What’s wrong with me? I live on a farm, and both our parents are vets!”
“You’ve just got to make people listen up about the things you’re good at,” I say. “And stop caring about what you can’t do. That’s my forever advice! Now, look and learn.”
Caroline watches me collect the rest of the eggs. Every time I have to scoop under a hen, I can tell that it ruffles Caroline’s feathers.
As we come into the kitchen, Dad’s got breakfast ready and Nicholas has set the table. But Mom is on the phone, pacing back and forth, with what turns out to be troubling news. Principal Vera’s border collie, Rosie, might have broken her leg.
“Principal Vera, as in the middle school principal?” asks Caroline.
Mom nods. “The farm is on the way to Boggs Hollow. If we leave now, I can splint Rosie’s leg before I drop you all off at school.”
Vet emergencies don’t happen often, but when they do, we all pitch in. Sometimes, it means making our own dinners, if Mom and Dad are in a surgery. Sometimes, it means being stuck at the clinic while Mom and Dad tend to a patient. This time, it means we grab our breakfasts to go, and we’re all in the car in less than a minute. Dad’s following behind with Mom’s vet bag, which she forgot.
When Nicholas comes running out last—biscuit sandwich in hand—sneaky little Dibs slips outside along with him. Dibs is yowling away.
Dad just scoops up Dibs as Mom pops out of the car. Dad gives her a little kiss on the cheek as he hands her the vet bag.
“Unbreak a leg,” he says as Nicholas slides in next to me.
“Turn the kitchen radio on for Dibs,” I shout out the window, and we’re off.
“When you said you’d be here right away, you meant it!” Principal Vera looks relieved when she opens the front door of her house. “My goodness, it’s the whole crew.”
“We might be a one-car family with two working parents and three kids,” says Mom. “But we know how to move as a unit if we need to.”
“I’ll say.” Principal Vera beams. “Rosie’s just in here. She hurt her leg jumping over the rail fence.” She looks over at us. “You’re more than welcome to join my husband and Piper. They’re around back, herding the sheep from the front pasture into the back pen. Without Rosie, they’ll need all the help they can get.”
“That sounds pretty fun!” I say. I did not know when I woke up this morning there’d be some sheep herding slipped inside my day!
Nicholas, Caroline, and I run over to the field while Mom takes a look at Rosie’s leg.
“Piper is trying, but she’s still a puppy. Rosie is still teaching her the ropes,” says Mr. Vera as he points out the stumpy-legged corgi running in circles around and nosing at the huddles of sheep. “I’ve got about half of them herded. Just help me run along the edges. They’ll get the picture.” Mr. Vera’s cheeks and the tips of his ears are as red as a boiled hot dog! He looks like he’s already been huffing and puffing out here for a while.
It’s cold and bright here in the Veras’ field, and the air smells like pasture. Caroline moves carefully at the very outside hem of the herd, mostly keeping away from the sheep while still managing to be, technically, on the field. Nicholas runs along the sides, near the stragglers. But I move in close. I’m a sheepdog! I urf at the sheep, listening to my voice spread wide over the entire meadow, as I reach out my hands to brush against their woolly backs.
They baaaaaa and baaaaaa whenever Piper nips their legs.
What a fun chore this is turning out to be!
It takes effort, but eventually we get the last sheep penned.
Then Mom comes outside with Principal Vera, who signals a thumbs-up.
“Thanks, kids,” says Mr. Vera as he walks over to the car with us. “Rosie thanks you, too.”
“And me too,” says Principal Vera. “All this cooperation!”
“We have a saying in our house: ‘Many Branches, one tree,’ ” says Mom.
“Well, I feel like I’ve just seen the Branch family’s superpower!” says Principal Vera. “See you in school, Super Branches.”
Super Branches! I like that! We climb back into the car and head to school. “I guess you and Dad have got us kids all pretty well trained, don’t you, Mom?” I ask as we drive away.
“ ‘Trained’ is probably not the word we’d use,” says Mom. “I think of us more as all pulling together. Because we’re all on the same team, right?” She smiles as she gets a glimpse of me through the rearview mirror.
“Team Super Branch?”
“Team Family,” she answers.
chapter 13
Needers and Weeders
After school, the first thing I do is make a couple of additions to the chore board, squeezing two extra names above Caroline’s. I’m a Branch who’s going out on a limb, but I think this plan might work best.
Then I take Dibs outside.
“Listen,” I tell him. “You’re also part of the Super Branches, Dibs. We’re all on one team. No special rules for you—not even when you howl, or when you look at me with those melty chocolate eyes. If you’re my chore, then I’m your chore, too. Let’s start with Stay.”
Dibs doesn’t like Stay. He’s doe
sn’t like to watch me backing away from him. We work on it. When I see Dad walking up from the driveway, I signal him to join us.
“Will you help me train Dibs?” I ask. “I want him to start trusting your voice.”
“Sure thing,” says Dad.
Together, Dad and I work on Stay. We practice Angel’s balancing trick, too. Dibs still prefers me to Dad, but he likes the way Dad scratches him under the collar.
“See you this time tomorrow, okay?” I ask Dad. He first gives me a look like I just told him to go make his bed. But then he answers, “Sure.”
“Hey, Becket,” calls Nicholas to me from the doorway. “Mom says come inside and weed out stuff in your room to donate to the Pumpkin Patch pop-up thrift shop.”
“Did you do it?”
“Yup, but I’ve got a system,” he says. “If I haven’t used something for a year, then I don’t need it anymore.”
That does not sound like the right system for me. “Let’s go, Dibs,” I say.
Mom is in the upstairs hall. She points to the big cardboard box in front of her. “Weed out things you don’t need. The school is doing a pickup tomorrow.”
“I’ll try,” I say. “But I’m more of a needer than a weeder.”
Mom smiles. “Here’s a trick. If you see something to donate but you’re not positive, touch it and think of a reason why it should stay. If you can’t, out it goes.”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Oh, also, you might want to check the chore board? I’ve made some additions.”
Mom looks puzzled, but she says, “I’ll be sure to do that, Becket.”
My room is a good balance of tidy and messy. My bed is made, but my pajamas drape over my chair like Flat Stanley. My desk always looks like I’m in the middle of a cool art project.
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