The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne Read Free Book Online

Your job is to feed the chickens and to look for eggs. It’s the most important job here. Hector’s there just ’cause I love ’im, but I make money from the chickens. I’ll show you how to feed them and then we can look for eggs. It’s easy, you’ll catch on and then you can do that every morning before school. That’ll be your job.”
    The coop stretched back for fifty yards. Some of it was covered, but then the rest was open. Daniel watched her as she took handfuls of feed and sprinkled it in the open part of the coop. She told him to try and so he copied her, scattering the feed.
    “That’s corn,” she said. “The farmer two over gives it to me for a box of eggs. Not too much of it mind. One or two handfuls is enough. They get the kitchen scraps and then there’s the grass and weeds that they like too. How many do we have here, do you think?”
    “ ’Bout forty,” he said.
    She turned and looked at Daniel in a strange way, her mouth open a little.
    “Well done, smarty-pants. We have thirty-nine. How could you tell that?”
    “Looks to be that many.”
    “All right, now while they’re busy eating, we go and look for the eggs. Take this . . .” She handed Daniel a cardboard tray and they stepped into the covered space. “You can see where they’ve been sitting,” she said, “see, look. I got one here. Lovely big one that is.”
    Daniel didn’t like the farm and her house, but he found that he liked this task. He felt a brisk thump of joy as he searched for and found the eggs. They were dirty, splattered with hen shit and stuck with feathers, but he liked the eggs. He didn’t want to break them, as he wanted to break the porcelain butterfly and kick the chickens. He kept one, secreting it inside his pocket. It was a small brown one, and he felt it, still warm.
    When they were finished, they counted the eggs. There were twenty-six. Minnie started to move about the yard, preparing Hector’s feed and talking to the chickens that clucked around her ankles. There was a fork against the wall and Daniel picked it up. It was almost too heavy for him, but he lifted it above his head like a weight lifter. It fell to the side.
    “Careful, love,” she said.
    Daniel bent and picked it up again. She was bent over, her massive skirted bottom in the air. Holding the fork near his head, he stepped forward and pricked her on the backside with it.
    “Here,” she said, standing up suddenly. “Put that down.” Her accent was funny, especially when she said words like down.
    Daniel grinned back at her and wielded the fork, taking one step toward her and then another, the tip of the fork raised toward her face. Again, she didn’t back away from him.
    Daniel felt a sudden jolt as his pelvis was smacked into his spinal column. He dropped the fork and then it came again. The goat rammed him a second time in the lower back and he went forward, falling on top of the fork, face into the mud. He got up right away and spun around, fists tight and ready for a fight. The goat lowered his head, so that Daniel could see the fine brown horns.
    “No, Danny,” she said, taking him by the elbow and pulling him back. “Don’t! He’ll go through you like you wouldn’t believe. The old goat’s got a soft spot for me. He wouldn’t have liked what you did there. Just leave him, now. You get gored with one of those horns and that’ll be you.”
    Daniel allowed himself to be pulled away. He walked toward the house, walking sideways so that he was facing the goat. As he reached the doorstep, he stuck his tongue out at Hector. The goat charged again and Daniel ran into the house.
    Minnie told Daniel to get washed and get ready to go out. He did as she asked, while she stood in the kitchen, washing the eggs and repacking them.
    He washed his face in the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then crept upstairs. The egg was still whole in his pocket and he put it in the drawer by his bedside. He sat it on a glove and placed three socks