Anna Analyst by Patti Edgar

Author:Patti Edgar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781773370576
Publisher: Great Plains Publications
Published: 2021-04-16T21:46:32+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Deviations and Peculiarities

On Sunday morning Dad reminded me about our appointment with his old roommate to see his farm. We drove outside the city and passed lots of farmers’ fields. My dad likes to moo as we drive by cows, which is a habit you’d think he’d have outgrown by now. At a turnoff onto a dirt road, a huge scarecrow hung out by the ditch, forever chewing on the same piece of hay. We passed a sign for a petting zoo. I liked places like that once. What little kid doesn’t like a petting farm? Brushing friendly goats. Patting grass-munching ponies. Fleeing from crazed peacocks determined to snatch a sandwich out of your hands.

But when the road ended and we passed a set of gates, I realized that the petting zoo was the old roommate’s farm. I panicked. The small parking lot was full. Parents fussed over little kids who rubbed slimy noses with their sleeves and threw hats out of strollers. All those grimy little hands could be touching my tortoises’ shells and force-feeding them Goldfish crackers and Cheerios.

“I’m not getting out of the car,” I said.

Dad took off his seatbelt. “Okay, so this isn’t quite what we expected. But if the tortoises lived here, you could visit anytime.”

“I don’t want to visit them. Our house is their home.”

“Let’s just check it out, okay? We drove all the way out here. He’s expecting me.”

I yanked off my seatbelt and pushed open the car door, stepping onto the gravel. “Only if we’re quick,” I said, slamming the door.

Dad’s old roommate wore a checkered bandana around his neck and had a black moustache that bounced up and down while he talked. Dad shook his hand and they spent a few moments catching up beside a pen that swarmed with kittens and about a hundred kids trying to scoop them up. I thought a kitten might get stepped on or strangled, but Frank didn’t seem bothered. He kept glancing over at a horse that was standing by a fence.

The red barn behind the horse looked exactly like the ones in cartoons. Something about it seemed fake, like it was cut out of a picture book about Old MacDonald’s Farm and pasted on a blue cardboard sky. The whole place smelled like straw and manure, and the kids shrieked so much that I wished I’d brought earplugs. One kid nearby was bawling because a goat had not only eaten all the pellets his mom had bought him, but the paper cup the pellets came in too.

Frank seemed really interested in Nachos and Salsa. “I’ve been missing those old gals. And they’d be a real hit with the kiddos.”

“Can you show me where you’d keep them?” I asked. “What kind of habitat you would have for them?”

“I hadn’t given it much thought. I’m sure we’d make do. We could put them near the pond.”

“They’re tortoises,” I said. “They’d drown!”

Dad furrowed his brow. “Would the kids go into the habitat? Like with the kittens?” he asked.

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