The Thing About Luck

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next morning I woke up first to cook. It was Sunday, so that made it a full-breakfast day, with all twelve of us looking forward to our weekly treat. I was still in a happy mood because Robbie had liked my brownies. In fact, I started to think that perhaps they were the best brownies I had ever tasted. And to tell the truth, I mistakenly put in a little more sugar than the recipe called for.

Jiichan walked into the kitchen and stared at the pan I planned to use to scramble thirty eggs. It was made of Teflon. We didn’t have anything made of Teflon at home because Jiichan refused to eat anything cooked on weird pots and pans that were coated with who knew what kind of chemicals. Jiichan stumbled backward with a hand on his heart. I knew it was because of the Teflon. I waited for him to recover. “Don’t worry,” I said. I took out a smaller stainless-steel pan to cook his three sunny-side-up eggs in, using the special oil we’d brought for him—a mix of butter from grass-fed cows, organic coconut oil, and organic extra-virgin olive oil. Jiichan ate as much junk food as anyone, but he balanced it with this magical oil.

Unfortunately, dishwashing was one of my chores both at home and on harvest, so I had scraped quite a few pans in my life and pretty much thought that whoever had invented Teflon had done the world a big favor. I wondered if the inventor of Teflon was someone like Jaz, some brainy dude locked up in a lab twelve hours a day while he chewed gum and blew bubbles exactly the same size, over and over.

“I got very bad feel about Teflon,” Jiichan said. “Teflon invented by someone who care more about easy than about good.”

I cooked everyone else’s eggs at the same time and toasted and buttered a loaf of wheat bread. I fried thirty sausages and started the coffee and the hot water for tea. I radioed the Parkers. “Breakfast is ready,” I said. Then I felt kind of shy about going over to the drivers’ quarters. Finally, I crept forward and peered into their room. “Breakfast,” I said, but not loudly enough to wake anyone. I took a big breath. “Breakfast!” I said, even more loudly than I’d meant to.

“Girl, we’re not deaf,” Mick said. The guys started getting out of bed, some of them in their underwear. For half a second I stared, but then I hurried from the room. There was hair all over their chests! A lot!

Obaachan was setting the kitchen table. Breakfast was always indoors, I didn’t know why. I guess that was just the way Mrs. Parker liked it. No harvesting operation I had ever heard of cooked a hot breakfast for the workers, even on Sundays. But like I said, the Parkers had started out as drivers themselves, so they really liked to take good care of their team.

Rory, Sean, and Mick came into the kitchen at the same time. I sat down with my plate and slid to the very end of one of the benches. I didn’t know whether I wanted Robbie to sit next to me or not. It was kind of stressful sitting next to him. On the other hand, it was also fun and exciting. Mick took some eggs and five sausages and slid in next to me. He hadn’t bothered brushing his hair, and tufts of it stood up on his head.

“Summer. What’s the craic?” he said.

But I couldn’t stop staring at his plate. Who eats five sausages? I thought. Now there were only twenty-five left for everyone else. But I could make that work by not eating any until after everyone else had eaten theirs.

“Summer?” Mick asked.

“The usual,” I replied. “Got up at six.”

“Summer, is there milk in it?” Rory asked.

“Yes, in the fridge.” I forgot what exactly “in it” meant to Irish people, but it didn’t exactly mean “in it” like we thought.

“Jaykers! Ya want milk? The amount of milk ya drink, ya’re going to turn into a cow,” Mick exclaimed.

“What’s that? I like milk, all right? My ma always gave me a lot.”

“Ah, still a mama’s boy, are ya, then?” Mick teased.

“I like milk, sure. It doesn’t make me a mama’s boy,” Rory retorted, slipping in next to Mick.

“Well, these long days’ll make a man out of ya.”

“If it doesn’t break him,” Sean said, thumping his plate on the table. Sean had taken four sausages. Well, the sausage situation wasn’t my fault. I had made exactly as many sausages as Mrs. Parker had said to in her binder.

Obaachan poured a glass of milk for Rory and passed it down to him.

I felt more comfortable with them than with the two American drivers. I wasn’t sure why, but maybe it was because I felt closer in the pecking order to the Irish guys. The Americans were older, so I had to show them more respect.

Mrs. Parker swept into the camper, her chin rising a bit as she sniffed the air, a lot like Thunder would do.

I looked over at Jiichan and saw him closing his eyes the way he often did when eating. It was like he was savoring his magic oil.

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept it basic. “So what’s it like where you guys live?” I asked the Irishmen.

“Oh, it’s lovely, beautiful countryside,” Mick replied, his voice suddenly catching fire. He was the most talkative of the three.

“Tell her about yer crop circles, then,” Rory said, elbowing him with a laugh.

“Ya can make fun about it, but it’s an honest day’s work,” Mick shot back, returning the elbow.

“Last year, and the year before that, he took people on tours of crop circles all over Ireland,” Rory explained, setting down his fork. “Mostly Americans, and he charges them a thousand euro a tour. He probably makes the circles by himself!”

Mick chewed on a sausage, unperturbed. He swallowed and turned toward me. “It’s a mystery, and they want to see a mystery. I join together a mystery and someone who wants to see a mystery. That’s all it is.” He spoke wearily, as if he had said this many times before. It struck me that he was basically a salesman, selling a mystery to Americans. He then speared another sausage and put the whole thing in his mouth at once.

Rory laughed loudly. “He can talk for an hour about nothing but crop circles. But don’t get him started, because he might bore ya to death.”

“I don’t even know what a crop circle is,” I said.

Rory groaned. “Now ya’re going to get him started.” Rory was a skinny guy with curly red hair—on his head and his chest!

Robbie entered the kitchen next, asking, “Is there coffee?” Obaachan said I couldn’t drink coffee because it would stunt my growth. I wondered if she was taking note of how tall Robbie was. Although, I have to say that once, Obaachan had let me taste some, and it was so awful I had no plans to ever drink any again. I had been looking forward to drinking coffee my whole life, but after that I had to cross it off my list of things I wanted to do one day. Actually, I didn’t really have a list. It was more like things I made mental notes of. Right then I made a mental note to start keeping a list of things I wanted to do one day. Honestly, I would be happy if I could just visit the Badlands once a month or so. I think that would help me settle my personality.

Mick leaned forward and said, “Robbie, can ya get me a couple of sausages?” That meant he was eating seven sausages so far. Seven! Then he turned back to me. “A crop circle is a huge, geometric pattern that appears in a field, usually a wheat field. They’re mostly in England, but we get them in Ireland, too,” he said.

“So why do people want to see them?” I asked. I saw Mrs. Parker leaning over the sausages and counting.

“Because no one knows how they got there. Every one is different, and some are as big as two or three hundred meters. Even the complicated ones are perfectly symmetrical,” he said, starting to get excited. “We don’t know if it’s the earth trying to communicate with us or what.”

“Some people are gobshites,” Rory said. “Gobshites” were gullible people. I had picked that up during the last harvest we’d worked. “But ya know, I think Mick is becoming a gobshite too. He actually believes everything he tells his customers.”

Jiichan looked up from his plate. “What ‘gobshite’?”

“It’s someone gullible,” I told him.

Jiichan looked surprised. “Nothing wrong with gullible. How you be happy if not gullible?”

Everyone looked at him silently for a moment, but he didn’t explain.

“Some circles are not a mystery. They’re made by humans as hoaxes. But others are mysterious, to be sure,” Mick went on defensively. “Personally, I believe the earth is talking to us, but we don’t know what it’s saying.”

“Tell her about that one couple, Micky,” Rory said.

Mick set his fork on the table. “One American couple gave me a four-hundred-euro tip at the end of the tour. Can ya believe it? They said they were transformed, they did.”

“Ya’re such an eejit,” Rory said. He hit the top of Mick’s head with his palm.

“What’s an eejit?” I asked.

“Ya know, an eejit. Someone who’s lacking in the brain department.”

“Oh, an idiot.”

“That would be himself.”

Mr. Parker walked in. “How’d you sleep, boys?” he asked. “It was so windy, our camper was shaking. Hard to get a good night’s rest.”

“Nobody can sleep, anyway, because Rory snores so loud,” Sean said, almost ruthlessly. “He’s useless, he is.”

“He’s an excellent worker,” Mr. Parker said.

“Ah, teacher’s pet,” Sean said to Rory.

Mr. McCoy rambled in, looking seriously like he needed more sleep. I felt bad for him. He even swayed a bit as if he were going to fall over. He took three sausages, and then Mr. Dark came in and took three more. Then Mick asked for more. Unbelievable.

Jiichan started chuckling. Everyone fell silent, again waiting for him to explain. But he didn’t say anything. Then he began laughing quite hard. Everybody was looking at him. “Got a good joke, then, Toshiro?” Mick said.

Jiichan looked at Mick in surprise. “Joke?”

“It’s just that ya were laughing so much,” Mick replied.

Jiichan said, “Oh, I laugh because one day two year ago, I drive all the way to grocery store before I remember I no need grocery. I supposed to go to dentist.”

“That no funny,” Obaachan said. “We have to pay dentist for missed appointment.”

There was another brief silence at the table.

Mr. Parker reached for four sausages. Finally, Mrs. Parker couldn’t stand it anymore. “How many sausages were cooked?” she blurted out.

“We made thirty, like you instructed,” I answered.

Robbie sat down and drank his coffee just like a grown-up.

Obviously slightly annoyed with me, Mrs. Parker said, “Well, Robbie loves meat. It’s his favorite part of breakfast. For this one thing, I give you permission to alter the number of sausages specified.”

“Yes, boys need meat. Very important,” Obaachan said. “It very bad tragedy if he no have meat for breakfast.” She shook her head. “Tragedy, tragedy.”

I knew Obaachan was being serious, because boys needing meat was one of her most important rules in life. But Mrs. Parker couldn’t seem to tell if Obaachan was agreeing with her or mocking her.

Mr. Parker pushed away his plate and said, “We’re in a tight situation here. One of our customers up in Oklahoma called this morning before dawn to say their wheat is ready to cut. And they’re expecting rain. We’ll need to work late tonight—probably until two again. If we don’t get up there soon enough, I’ll have to find other cutters to take our place, and I don’t want to lose that job.” He stood up and glanced around. Even though Jiichan hadn’t finished eating, he got up and stretched his back and neck to ready himself for work. Jiichan ate very slowly, so I was worried he hadn’t gotten enough to eat.

Mr. Parker didn’t say another word, but all the other workers got up too and readied themselves to leave, taking along the sandwiches I had already prepared for them for lunch.

Everyone left at once, except for Robbie. Obaachan got on all fours, resting the top of her head on the linoleum. This was something new. Robbie watched her with interest. I started stacking the dirty breakfast plates.

“Obaachan, are you okay?” I asked.

“No, I think I dying. This is it. Don’t forget make more meat next Sunday. If I die, I won’t be here to remind you.”

Robbie was studying my grandmother. “Shouldn’t she go to a doctor?” he asked.

“She’s gone to seventeen different doctors, six chiropractors, and three acupuncturists, and nobody knows exactly what’s causing the pain.”

I turned to place the plates in the sink.

“Don’t you ever stop working?” Robbie asked.

I spun around and was startled by how close he was. He was about a foot away from me, right inside my personal space. “Cooking is supposed to be my grandmother’s job, but she’s got her horrible back pains. She fell on her back when she was a little girl, but she wouldn’t tell me how. Jiichan said, however, that she fell climbing out of a window. He didn’t enlighten me as to why she was climbing out this window, but clearly she had been a troublemaker.” I could feel my face in flames.

He looked at me in a perfectly normal fashion, as if girls always blushed fiercely when they talked to him. I swallowed some saliva. Next he took out a quarter from his pocket, flipped it into the air, and caught it before slapping it on the table. He looked at the coin. “Heads. I guess I’m doing schoolwork.” He lingered a moment. “Are you going to cook Japanese for us one day?”

“We’re doing shabu-shabu one day. Your mom said we could.”

“What’s shabu-shabu?”

“It’s thick noodles with thinly sliced beef and vegetables. I mean, the vegetables aren’t thinly sliced. You cook it in a pot in front of you, and after you’re done eating, you drink the broth, and, oh, I forgot to mention there are two sauces you dip everything in, and it’s just so good. We brought the sauces with us from home, and we’re going to cook it all on the stove before serving it. We even brought our special meat slicer. The reason we own a slicer is that my mother works cooking in a hunting lodge in the off-season, and a lot of the customers there like shabu-shabu, so we need the meat slicer for that. It’s a really good one. We paid, like, a million dollars for it, because we eat shabu-shabu once a week.” I couldn’t get myself to shut up. I was babbling like an eejit! I pressed down on my lips to keep myself from talking more.

“I had some cooked sashimi once in Oklahoma. It was pretty good.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. Cooked sashimi didn’t make sense, because sashimi meant “raw fish.” It was like saying cooked raw carrots. But I didn’t want to insult him. “I mean, it’s kind of unusual, but unusual things are really cool because of their unusualness, even if they’re, you know, unusual.” I was sounding dimmer by the moment.

“Do you want me to show you something amazing at the barn?”

I glanced at Obaachan, the top of her head still resting on the floor. “Sure, yes.” I went rushing out the door before Obaachan had a chance to stop me. Thunder, as always, followed me.

Was this a date? That thought made me take off my apron and stuff as much of it as I could into my back pocket. We strolled toward the barn, which was made of some kind of reddish wood. The roof was painted brick red. When we went inside, we stopped in front of a blond bull in a standing stock in the middle of the barn. “They’re going to enter him in the state fair,” Robbie said. “He’s one of those bulls they wash and blow-dry and all that to get them ready. They put a little rose water on him too, but just a small bit. They want him to smell good, but not girly. They even trim some of his hairs.”

I wondered how Robbie knew so much about this bull. “My grandfather worked as a cattle fitter for a while. He’s a nice-looking bull,” I said. “But he’s not standing right.”

“They hired another fitter to help with that,” Robbie said. I nodded. “But that’s not what I wanted to show you,” he continued.

We passed a few stalls until he stopped at an especially big one. And there stood the tallest horse I’d ever seen. Maybe it was an illusion, but he looked like he could be twenty hands. I knew he couldn’t possibly be that tall, because the tallest horse in history was about twenty-one hands. I had read that in my brother’s list of the biggest animals in history. He’d made the list when he was eight years old.

“Cool, huh?” Robbie said. He rested his face on a metal bar. He seemed in awe.

“I saw a huge shire horse at a county fair once, but this one is definitely bigger,” I said. This horse was black with white feet and a skimpy black mane. He eyed us calmly.

“The height’s in his legs,” Robbie said. “They’re so long, he looks kind of gawky. Usually shires are stockier.”

We stood awhile. I felt like time had stopped in here, like we were kind of floating in time. Robbie stepped back from the stall and touched my upper arm, making it tingle. “I better get to studying,” he said. “I have a whole algebra workbook I have to finish over the summer. I love algebra. I think about it all the time.”

Ugh. Algebra. I mean, all I thought about was my family, Thunder, my friends, and mosquitoes that killed maybe a million people a year—a million people!—but struck about three hundred million. Did you ever wonder how many diseases are carried by mosquitoes? I never did, until I got sick, and now I sure as heck know. Besides malaria, dengue, and encephalitis, mosquitoes can spread a couple of disgusting worms: helminth parasitic worms and dog heartworm, like my previous dog, Shika, had had. But not every mosquito carries diseases. Many of them are kind of innocent, for mosquitoes.

Anyway. We stepped back out into the sunshine, a warm breeze blowing into my face. Robbie was closing the barn door when I realized that Thunder wasn’t with us. “Wait, where’s my dog? We must have left him inside.” Robbie pulled open the door. I didn’t see Thunder, and there was nowhere to hide, just the long row of stalls, with the standing stock in the center. Still, I called out, “Thunder! Thunder, come!” I went back outside. “Thunder! C’mere, boy!”

Robbie was scanning the yard. “I don’t see him anywhere.”

“Weird. He’s very good about coming when I call. I trained him really well.” But as I said that, a feeling of dread hit me out of the blue. It was immediately followed by a ruckus that sounded like a bunch of chickens going crazy. I ran like mad toward the sound, but I already knew what I’d find.

On the other side of the barn, chickens were squawking all over the place. And there was Thunder, holding a speckled hen in his mouth, shaking it wildly. He looked ecstatic.

“No!” I shouted. “Down!” He pranced away. “No. Bad boy! Stay!” I stomped toward him and grabbed both sides of the chicken hanging out of his mouth. “No!” I yanked the chicken out and threw it down. Then I turned to assess the damage. It looked like there were three dead birds. “Bad dog! Bad, bad dog!” Thunder cowered and whined.

“Let’s get out of here,” Robbie said urgently.

He ran off, and I followed, holding Thunder firmly by the collar. This wasn’t the first time that he’d killed chickens—it had happened once at a neighbor’s farm back home. The farmer had said that the best way to cure a dog of killing chickens was to tie a dead chicken around its neck for a week and let the chicken rot. My parents had refused to do that, and fortunately, Thunder had not ventured into the neighbor’s farm again.

But this was worse—much, much worse—because for a cook or a combine driver, the farmer was like the king. When we reached the campers, we came to a halt, looking around furtively.

Robbie laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault,” he said. “It was all my idea.”

“No, Thunder’s my responsibility. I should have kept my eye on him. I can’t believe I didn’t.” I thought of all the times my mother had said to me, “Summer, what were you thinking?” This time I knew exactly what I had been thinking—how cute Robbie was.

“Okay, listen,” Robbie said, dropping his voice. “I didn’t see anyone else around. Unless someone saw us, it should be okay. Just don’t tell anyone.”

“We have to tell someone! Someone has to pay for the dead chickens.”

“Don’t—tell—anyone,” he warned. “I don’t want my parents getting in trouble.” He glared at me, then turned and walked away.

“See ya,” I called out, but he didn’t answer.