Page 47 of The Initial Insult

Chapter 36

Tress

Sixth Grade

Rue is peeling a banana when a truck pulls into our drive. She yells to get my attention, but she doesn’t need to; I was trying to pull some of the larger mats out of Goldie’s tail, and she bolted out from underneath my hands at the sight of the truck to happily greet it, like maybe whoever is here might be coming to take her away, take her somewhere better.

I do what I’ve been told—run and get Cecil. Cecil told me early on that he didn’t much care what kind of grades I got in school, or if I acted up there, either. His only rules were (1) help him take care of the animals, (2) stay out of his way when I’m not, (3) come get him if anybody shows up at the house, (4) don’t come down to the lower acre, and (5) don’t be weird, which I figured out meant sex by the way his eyebrows came together when he said it.

I prefer the animals to him, so rules one and two are not a problem. Rule five I’m not worried about, either, for lots of reasons. Rule three I messed up the first couple times because, if I’m being honest, I’m a little bit proud of the animals—especially Zee, once I got her cleaned up nice. The first time a car pulled in, slowing down after spotting the “Amontillado Animal Attractions” sign, I’d run out to greet them, waving like a kid with a lemonade stand.

Cecil had laid into me for that, said he needed to be the first one to see any visitors because he was the one who had to size them up. Amontillado Animal Attractions doesn’t have any prices posted—that’s because Cecil makes them up on the spot, after evaluating what they’re driving and wearing, their last name, how many kids they’ve got, and—in his words—the cut of their jib.

What that actually means is that he charges more to people he doesn’t like.

I’ve seen him let a minivan full of kids with no shoes come in for five bucks and charge fifty to a curious lady on her own, driving a shiny car. I told him after the family left that it was nice of him to let them in for so little, to which he’d told me that nice didn’t come into it.

“They only had five bucks, kid,” he said, rubbing the top of my head—the only sign of affection he ever allows. “And I wanted it.”

I can say a lot about Cecil, but I can’t say he never taught me anything.

Today, though, there’s something different about the vehicle that pulls in. It’s not a minivan with no hubcaps full of screaming kids, and it’s not a bored soccer mom with an afternoon on her hands. It’s a small truck with a big cage in the back, axles doing their best to keep up with the payload.

I light out for the back acre. There’s a point past where I’m not supposed to go. I’ve been told to just stand and give a yell for Cecil. I’ve caught a whiff of skunk down there once or twice, so I’ve always assumed he’s got some critters down there that he doesn’t want me around. But today the standing and shouting doesn’t work, and there’s an impatient honk from whoever’s behind the wheel of that truck.

So now I’ve got to decide which rule I break—the one about coming to get him when someone’s in the driveway, or the one about not going down to the lower acre? I hear the truck’s engine cut out and the man say something. Whatever is in that cage lets out a shriek, getting one in return from the driver. Goldie comes running in my direction, her tail between her legs and pure fear in her eyes. Which makes my decision for me. I’d rather deal with Cecil and skunks than whatever is in the back of that truck.

I jog down the path, Goldie on my heels, keeping the stream on my left, a field full of ragweed higher than my head on the right. Cecil says there’s no point tilling the back acre, that the soil is shit and that the ragweed keeps pussies with allergies away. I climb a little fence that goes across the path, getting a decent shock at the top that makes me fall to the ground.

“Shit!” I yell, and Goldie goes nuts on the other side of the fence. She’s pacing, panicked, trying to reach me and barking her head off.

“Tress?” Cecil’s voice comes from the field, and he rises from the green rows, pruning shears in his hand. “What the hell you doing back here?”

“There’s someone up at the house,” I tell him, inspecting the burn across my ankle from the electrified wire. I glance up at the fence I fell from to see yellow clips running across the top wire, attached to an electrical box, a trail camera strung up in the tree beside it.

Nice. I’m sure Cecil got a great shot of my face as I fell.

He grabs me by my upper arm, pulling me to my feet. “I told you—”

“You weren’t coming,” I say. “And the guy’s got a cage and . . .” I think of the shriek I heard, unable to place it. “And there’s something in it.”

Cecil lets go of my arm. “All right, hang on.” He goes over to the electrical box, unplugs the wiring and climbs over the fence. My gaze slides off him and over to the green rows. These are shorter. It’s not ragweed, and the skunk smell is stronger down here. Way stronger.

“C’mon, girl,” Cecil yells at me. “Get moving.”

I scale the fence, following in Cecil’s footsteps as we head back to the house, Goldie constantly shoving her nose into my hand, looking for reassurance that I’m okay . . . or maybe that she’ll be okay, that I’ll protect her.

“What is it?” I ask, breathless. “What’s in the truck?”

“Surprise,” Cecil says. “Little something some guy needed to get rid of.”

More like it wants rid of him, I think as we come up into the yard, and the truck shakes on its wheels as whatever’s in the cage makes a lunge at the guy, standing off to the side.

The men shake hands, and Cecil slips him a sandwich bag full of something, then they’re backing up to the new enclosure, the one opposite Rue’s. She starts yelling at them, and throwing some of her stored fruit. An overripe peach bounces off the passenger-side window, splatting all over.

“Shut her up!” Cecil yells at me, but there’s not much I can do. Rue’s got a whiff of what’s in the cage, and she doesn’t like it. She’s all the way at the top of her tree, yelling and letting everyone know she’s not happy about the new development. In the paddock, Zee and Dee have already fled to the far corner, nuzzling together for comfort.

Cecil pulls the gate to the new enclosure open, and the guy backs the truck up as close as he can, the edge of the cage just inside. He cuts the engine, gets into the back of the truck—bringing a high yowl of complaint from inside the cage. Then he climbs on top of it, reaching through the fence of the enclosure to open the cage’s latch.