Brutus is also the name of the Ohio State mascot, which is a person in a costume with a scarlet-and-gray-striped sweater and a big nut head, but the name still sounds tough.
I ran into the pen, yelling and stomping, but the pheasants kept at it. I kicked at them even though I didn’t know if that was allowed and scooped up the attacked bird. He’d been on his feet when I’d come in, screeching and flapping, but then he fell into my hands with his wings tucked in. The attacking birds didn’t scatter right away and bobbed their heads, still wanting to peck.
The bird felt like a piece of grocery store chicken in my hands, except it was long and feathered and it smelled. It didn’t move. Its head was a dark and shimmering blue, like a puddle of gasoline, and a white ring went around its neck like a dog collar. Around each eye was a big red circular flap of skin. It looked lacy, like something in my grandma’s house. Its feathers were broken or ruffled or plucked out, and blood oozed across its chest, and the fresh red blood blended in with its feathers. The body of a male pheasant is like the color of a mountain covered in fall leaves. Rust and yellow and brown.
With those colors it seemed like pheasants ought to be magnificent. I guess they are, since people pay to hunt them and stuff them and put them over their fireplaces, but I think they’re goofy. Long legs. A long, outswept tail, like a broom or a rudder. They like to run from danger, not fly. They’re like giant roadrunners playing dress-up.
“Go. Go on.” I kicked at the pheasants still hanging out at my legs. They were probably just waiting for me to refill their food and water. Pecking birds to death: just another day at the office. “Get.” They didn’t.
Reaching into the orange bucket I carried for the dead check, I set the bird down gently. “Hey, bird,” I said, “do you believe in luck?”
Except he’s a bird with a bird brain so he never thought about anything much either way.
I pressed my lucky peanut shell to the white ring around his neck.
It didn’t work. My lucky peanut shell. I knew that. I’m too smart for that. It’s not like I could think otherwise, standing there in my wet and stinky clothes and holding a dead bird. Once, though, I believed it worked. For a while after I’d found the shell it was as though I’d figured out how to ignore the itch. It had seemed like magic. By the time I realized I still itched, carrying the peanut shell had become a habit. Habits are serious. Habits are burned into the animal part of your brain. So it doesn’t always matter what the thinking part of your brain thinks because it might not always be in charge. So that was why I carried a good-luck charm that didn’t work. Still, I was sorry. For the bird.
Mr. Epple was in the brooder barn, checking chicks and heat lamps. He was always checking chicks and heat lamps. If it was too cold, the chicks huddled up on each other and suffocated, and they’d die if it was too hot.
“Hey,” I shouted, because I always needed to shout to get his attention. “Hey, Mr. Epple.” I stepped into the barn with my bucket.
When Mr. Epple didn’t answer I banged my fist against the rough wood of the barn. “I got a dead bird here.”
Mr. Epple was tall and solid and I couldn’t tell how old. Grandfather old. But a tough old grandfather. He had short white hair that stuck up straight like a scrub brush and a flat face that my dad said meant he’d been punched a lot. My dad said he’d been a boxer.
“Mr. Epple?”
I waved my arms around, and when Mr. Epple finally came over I held up the bucket and showed him the bird.
“The others were pecking at him.”
“What?”
“Bird fight. This guy lost.” I might have told him more—there were three, they didn’t want to stop, I kicked them away, I didn’t know if that was allowed—but I knew extra words were useless. I wasn’t always sure he was paying attention to me.
He nodded. “Yep.” He took the bucket and poked at the bird. Giving the bucket back to me, he grabbed a shovel. “Follow me.” He said it loud enough. I wondered if he thought I was stupid.
We took the bird out back to the fence line. A stretch of blue tarp was spread out on the ground and weighed down by rocks. Mr. Epple rolled the rocks away with his booted feet and then pulled the tarp back. There was a row of perfectly round holes, already dug, just waiting for dead birds. My mom had told me about stuff like this before I started working here. It was a farm job, she said. That meant the animals were not pets. “Just so you understand,” she told me.
Mr. Epple pointed at the bucket and then one of the holes with his dirty hands. He handed me the shovel. “Cover it up.” He made each word slowly and carefully. “Dirt, then tarp, and then rocks.”
He headed back to the barn, and I followed my instructions. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner, bird.” Guess I wasn’t as bloodthirsty as Dylan. The sun was full yellow and hot, and shoveling in the dirt to cover the hole was hard work. My jeans hadn’t dried yet. They stuck on me. At first, it kept me cool, my wet jeans and T-shirt, but then the more I moved and the hotter I got, the more they aggravated me. Like my clothes were going to get the itch started and do the itching for me. I didn’t want the itch anywhere, but especially not here. No itching at the farm. It would be my third rule.
The second rule of itching is don’t itch if there are witnesses. The first rule of itching is do not itch.
Yeah. Wish me luck with that.
CHAPTER 5
THE FOLLOWING DAY at lunch, the new kid sat next to me. “You’re Itch,” he said.
“That’s me.”
We were in the art room. The room stank like paint. Wet paintings hung on a clothesline in front of the chalkboard. There were a lot of drippy yellow and orange suns.
“Hi.” Homer spread a paper towel over the paint-splattered table and arranged his lunch on top. Drink, sandwich, an apple, and a pack of chocolate chip cookies. Homer said, “You’re the other allergic kid.” He was smiling.
“Nope,” I answered. Because we had no cafeteria and had to eat lunch in classrooms, we had to follow classroom rules, which meant no tree nuts, no peanuts, and no peanut butter. With peanut butter banned, I didn’t know what to eat and had two slices of plain bread in a stack for my lunch. I ate them like a regular sandwich. “That’s Sydney.”
Sydney sat across from us. She lifted her sandwich and waved with it. “Yep,” she said, “that’s me.”
“Oh,” he said. “Hi.”
I asked, “Do you want to move?” Because maybe he wanted to sit by Sydney.
His smile was gone. “Should I move?”
“You don’t have to.”
“Sorry. I thought you were the other kid with allergies. Why do they call you Itch, then?”
Nate, calling from the other end of the table, answered. “Because he itches. He itched so much one time he looked like a dead fish on the beach.”
Homer looked me over.
Daniel piped up. “You ever see a dog just go crazy itching? He’s got his tail thumping and he’s whining and he’s spinning himself in circles on the floor? That’s Itch.”
“Sheesh, come on, Daniel,” Sydney said.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything about how when it had first happened I’d been sitting at my desk, not on the floor. I didn’t say anything about the dog because if I could have itched like a dog, I would have. That’s what it’s like. That’s the itch.
Homer turned and looked at me straight-on and apologized. He talked like he’d written it out ahead of time. “I’m sorry for thinking you were the other classmate with food allergies, and I apologize for the assumption I made about you. It’s embarrassing.”
Sydney said, “No worries,” and so I said, “Yeah, sure.”
“Good. Great.” He started eating his lunch. “What are you allergic to, Sydney?”
Sydney said, “Dairy and peanuts. Sesame seeds. You know, EpiPens in the nurse’s office.”
“Oh,” Homer said, pointing to a big lump in his pocket. “I carry mine.”
Sydney tossed her braid over her shoulder. “Yeah, I heard all about it. I can’t believe the guys thought Nate needed it.”
Homer said, “They were trying to help.” He turned to me and asked, “What are you allergic to?”
I told him I wasn’t allergic to anything.
“He’s allergic to jeans,” Nate said.
Homer looked at my legs. I was wearing jeans.
Nate wasn’t done. “He’s allergic to school. He’s allergic to the air. He’s allergic to nothing.”
That’s when I got it, how summer friends and summer rules and school friends and school rules are different. Nate wouldn’t have said that when we were hanging out on our bikes with Sydney, but when we fell into place for the sixth grade, we didn’t fall into the same places we were in the summer.
Daniel said, “Itch is allergic to spelling tests,” which was amazing because Daniel never remembers anything. He’s the guy who likes to smack his forehead to show off just how much he can forget, but he remembered this. He was right too. The first big itch had happened during a spelling test. I still remember the words. Vacant, cavern, punish, legal, fatigue. I don’t even like those words. I get itchy just seeing those words.
“I am not,” I said. “I’m not allergic to tests.”
“Oh,” Homer said, and then he went through the list of what he was allergic to again. “I’m allergic to dairy, peanuts, and tree nuts. I’m allergic to pretty much all the nuts people eat. But not acorns. Not that I want to eat acorns, but I guess I could. If I wanted. I don’t. I mean, who does?”
Nate said, “I’ve eaten acorns.” Everybody laughed, but he was probably telling the truth.
Homer looked concerned. “I hope they weren’t raw.”
Nate shrugged.
Homer said, “When I was a one-year-old, all I could eat was coconut milk, rice, mangoes, and avocadoes. Avocadoes are very nutritious, if you didn’t know.”
Daniel asked, “What’s avocado?”
Tyler said, “It’s green. It’s guacamole.”
Daniel pretended to gag.
Sydney said, “My mom would have a heart attack.”
Homer shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m a good egg.”
“It sounds like it really stinks,” I said.
The new kid took a sip of something that wasn’t milk and said, “My mom says, Get better, not bitter.”
“Hear that, Itch? All you got to do is get all better. Cured.”
Homer’s eyes turned sharp on Nate and he said, “That’s not what it means at all.” He turned to me. “What are they talking about?”
I took a bite of my air sandwich. Two pieces of soft bread. I chewed and chewed so I didn’t have to talk.
It wasn’t like I could explain it to Homer. It was hard enough for me to understand.
Here’s how the itch happens: no one knows how it happens. The word for it is idiopathic, which means it just happens, it’s just me, there is no specific known cause to explain it.
It shows up out of nowhere. Or if I’m cold. Or if I’m warm and the room is cold. Or maybe just because I’m pressing my arms on my desk during a test. Or if I think about itching. Maybe the itch starts with my pinky finger. It might feel colder than my other fingers, and then, bam, it’s filled with heat and itch. Even if I don’t itch, it feels like my skin is too tight. One size too small. Like my bones are growing but not my skin.
Sometimes it’s a spot on my foot that itches.
Or a red spot at the base of my thumb.
If I touch that red spot, it’s like a switch that turns everything on and sends out a signal—a hot, electric web of itches all throughout my body, running over my skin and getting as deep into me as it can. I give up and I give in, let it ride through me like a supernatural being, and itch and itch and itch until that beast is loose.
Itching it makes it all worse. The first time it happened, though, I didn’t even know to think about not itching. I felt an itch so I did what any one would do and scratched. Fingernail to the palm of my hand. Maybe I should have known something was up, because isn’t that a strange place to get an itch? But I didn’t even think about it. I itched. And then I itched and I itched and I itched.
Everywhere I itched turned swollen. It started as puffiness, and then my hands were fat, my knuckles gone. I couldn’t even make a fist. I still managed to itch, though, and rubbed my hands on my legs, rolled my toes in my shoes, pressed one foot on top of the other until it hurt. Streaks of itch flamed across my cheeks, and by then I had my shoulders up, trying to press them against my face. The itch ran down my arms, my back, my legs. Everywhere. I could feel it spreading, growing, every time I touched my skin, anytime anything touched my skin.
The teacher came over and I must have looked hideous because she whispered, which is unusual for a teacher. Or maybe she didn’t whisper. My ears itched too, and maybe I was swollen there and maybe I couldn’t hear.
The school nurse called my mom, who took me to the emergency room. At the ER I got antihistamines.
I hadn’t swelled up on the inside. My breathing was good. My heart rate and blood pressure were fine. In four hours, it was all over and I’d learned my lesson. Do not itch. Under any circumstances. Even if it’s impossible. Even if it’s the hardest work of my life. Even if I can’t do it—even if I can’t not itch. Itching is not the answer. It is never the answer. It was the most important thing I’d learned from all of the fifth grade.
Remember the first rule of itching? Do not itch.
Itching doesn’t solve anything. Itching an itch doesn’t make it stop itching. It’s a trick, and I fall for it every time. It doesn’t matter that I know better. It doesn’t matter that I have a lucky peanut shell. My dad says that’s insanity. He says insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and thinking you’ll get different results. That doing the same thing will make something else happen that didn’t happen the last time. Itching always does the same thing to me. It makes my skin go hot and streak with red and swell, first in hives and then in welts that grow together until I’m puffy and swollen and nothing but nostrils.
“The only thing that matters,” Nate said to Homer, “is if you’re allergic to the Buckeyes.”
“Not the nut,” Sydney said. “The Ohio State University Buckeyes.”
“Yeah,” said Tyler, “because if you’re allergic to the Buckeyes you can’t sit here.” Tyler wore a sport T-shirt or jersey every day. Today he wore a Cleveland Cavaliers shirt.
“That’s the only thing,” Nate repeated.
Homer said what everybody in Ohio always says. “I bleed scarlet and gray.”
From across the room, Abby called out, “Go Bucks!”
Homer’s grin still hung on his face. “You guys know the Buckeye Bus? That’s ours. Well, my dad’s. My dad’s and my uncles’. We share. Most of the time.”
“No way!”
“I’ve seen it!”
“That’s you?”
“I can’t believe it!”
Everybody knows the Buckeye Bus. It drives around town on Thursdays and Fridays, and on Sundays after a win. It’s not around on Saturdays. On Saturdays it’s in Columbus at the football stadium, the Horseshoe, or somewhere near there, tailgating. It’s an old gray school bus decked out in Ohio State colors with a scarlet stripe down its middle to look like a Buckeye football helmet. Sure, there are plenty of special red-and-silver cars driving around with special stickers and flags and all sorts of stuff, but around here the Buckeye Bus is the biggest and best of them.
“Have you ever taken it Up North?”
Up North is our archrival. When you’re talking football, you don’t ever say the name of that school or its state. It’s north of Ohio. We share a border. It’s the one everybody lik
es to say is shaped like a mitten.
“My father has. One time, after OSU won, the Buckeye Bus broke down. No one stopped to help. He said not even the state trooper that drove by, but I think he was exaggerating.”
Sydney said, “I’ve seen it around town. It’s really cool.”
Homer nodded and told her, “Thank you. The bus has had more mechanical problems than we can fix. This might be our last season. So, you know, we’ve got to be National Champs.”
Daniel and Tyler fist-bumped. “National Champs, baby!”
Nate took a bite of cold chicken nugget and said what I’d been waiting for him to say. “The only person who’s allergic to the Buckeyes around here is Itch.”
CHAPTER 6
DAD WAS WAITING for me on the porch when I got home from school that afternoon, so I was glad I hadn’t taken my helmet off early like I do sometimes. “Hey there,” he said, smiling through the scruff of the new beard he was growing.
“Hey.” Now that I’d stopped riding the bike—my own personal wind machine—the sweat caught up with me. Dad met me on the front step and, reaching down, grabbed the handlebars and hauled my bike the rest of the way up.
“Do you have homework?”
“Not much.”
Looking at his watch, he said, “You’ve got time to clean up before the barbecue at Sydney’s tonight. And then homework and talk to your mom.”
“Did Mrs. Warren say if there’ll be brats?”
That made Dad grin. “She didn’t, as a matter of fact, but I’ve never known them to serve anything else at a barbecue.”
“I won’t tell Mom if you don’t tell Mom. She hates brats. She says they’re unhealthy.”
Dad held his hands up and said, “I’m not keeping any secrets from her. Besides, as soon as we tell her about the barbecue she’ll know what we ate.”
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