Page 30 of Pete and His Precious

I’ve seldom hear Aunt Arley be this nice. And I don’t mean that unkindly. She’s definitely in her element. All the kids come along, grab a handful of feed from the bucket, and follow in a single file line as Verity leads them to the goat pen.

Goats are not my favorite animal on the farm. I do understand how some people really love them. They are adorable when they’re babies, and they definitely don’t kick as hard as cows do.

Billy goats smell, and goats can sometimes be a little tricky to raise, because they’re susceptible to so many things, including worms. Aunt Arley’s goats are healthy, but I know for a while she struggled to get them to gain weight.

I am busy watching the bucket, trying to make sure that the children are able to get a handful of feet out. The goats will burn through that fast, and I’ll throw the rest of it in when they’re all done. I don’t notice that Zoe has waited until the end, until I look up and she is the only one left standing there.

“Hey. I wasn’t expecting to see you here today,”

She speaks in that voice that sends shivers right down my spine.

The way she talks should be illegal.

“Same. When I said I was busy today, and you said you were, it never occurred to me that we were going to be busy doing the same thing.”

“Yeah, I should have ask you what you were doing.” She seemed to pause for a moment, realizing that we couldn’t have ridden together, and it wouldn’t really have mattered if I had known if she was coming or not. It wasn’t like I was going to dress up for her anything, and I’m sure it is the same with her. We are friends, tentative friends, maybe. After a rocky start. But, I would rather have a tentative friend than a definite enemy, and I feel like we were probably more in that latter category up until yesterday.

“Have you ever fed goats?” I ask, since, after all, this is the farm tour.

“No?” she says, wrinkling up her nose a little bit.

“You live in a small town. You mean, you’ve really never fed a goat before?”

“Maybe I have on a school field trip, but I don’t remember.”

“I think you’d remember if you did it. Here, grab a handful of feed. You can do it if the kids can.”

“All right,” she says, putting her hand in and scooping some feed up. I notice her long, slender fingers. Her nails are not polished, but neatly trimmed.

“So what else do you do besides voice acting and taking kids on field trips?” I say as we walk behind the last child over toward the goat pen.

“I also waitress at the diner in town. They close at two, so I know I’m not going to be working in the afternoons. That means I can volunteer to read stories after school at the library, and do tutoring, and also have time for my voice acting in the evening.”

“You’re pretty busy. That’s a lot of different jobs.”

“This isn’t really a job. This is me volunteering and giving back to the community. It’s rewarding.”

“I guess I would prefer to give back to the community in a way that didn’t involve children,” I say, and then I think I probably shouldn’t have. She probably loves kids.

“I didn’t used to be very comfortable around children. I have a niece, and I adore her, but it took me a little while to be comfortable hanging out with her. I’m much happier now that she’s older. Little kids are... Hard to relate to.”

“I think I could relate to twelve-year-old boys pretty well, but other than that, I probably am not very good.” I wonder if she’s heard what books I borrowed from the library. If Calvin and Leo did, it’s almost a given that Zoe would have. After all, she’s friends with the librarian. But, maybe they don’t talk about that. I almost hope not. I... I’m a little bit embarrassed. I could tell her that the only reason that I did it was because I was trying to avoid her, and at this point in our relationship, I think she’d find it funny.

I’m not entirely sure though, so I don’t try.

We get to the goats, and there are still some children waiting to give them a handful.

I see Buttercup in the back. She’s a younger goat, and the other ones pick on her a bit. I know this probably isn’t a popular thing to say, but animals have hierarchies. Have you ever heard of a pecking order? It’s a thing. There is a pecking order in the chicken coop. There is a chicken who’s at the top, and there are chickens at the bottom. The chicken at the bottom typically doesn’t have a whole lot of feathers. It’s a sad fact of life, but it’s absolutely true. The stronger and more bold animals bully the weaker ones.

“Buttercup is one of my favorites, although goats are not my favorite animal,” I say to her in a low voice. After all, I don’t want all the kids to hear that I don’t really like goats. That kinda defeats the purpose of the farm field trip, right?

“Buttercup. Is that her back there?” She points to Buttercup who is standing in the back.

“Yeah. If we go over to the side, we might be able to get her to come over,” I say.

She motions to a couple of kids who are beside her, and they all go around the side.

Buttercup gets several handfuls of feed, while the other, bigger goats are occupied getting most of it from the kids at the front of the pen.

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