Gaff by Shan Correa

Author:Shan Correa [Correa, Shan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781561459933
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

When I woke up, my alarm-clock rooster, #43, was crowing. I knew I’d miss him if we stopped with the roosters and Uncle Porky sold him off. Yeah, he was a squawky “beeg mout,” but I liked him anyway. A couple of other guys started in crowing then, just like always, and things seemed okay again.

I opened my eyes and started thinking about Honey. She’d be happy with me when I told her what happened. What I’d decided to do. I think Honey knew what I was feeling all along. I thought I knew how I felt when I talked to her, too, but that was before the fight. Now, I can honestly tell her that our connections with the cockfighters will be over soon.

I wasn’t too sure how Sal would feel about our wanting to get out of the rooster business, though. Probably surprised. I just hope he’s okay with it, too, when we have a chance to talk.

On the way to school, Sal didn’t say anything about Ray, or about yesterday. I was glad about that. Oh, yeah … he did just say his parents weren’t very happy with him or with Ray when they found out where we went while they were gone.

Maybe that’s why Sal didn’t keep on saying how exciting the fight had been. Or maybe he’d been thinking about it, and he was starting to feel more the way I felt. I hoped that was it.

For most of the ride, we just talked about our science project. We were going to have to work more on it after we got back home from school. Collect the first eggs from the broody hens and wash and sterilize them and get them all set up in the incubator. Most of our research was done already, so the experiment itself—hatching the roosters, writing up our findings, and making the display—would be the fun part.

The first time I had a chance to talk with Honey was at lunch. I waited until she got in line at the cafeteria, and I got in right behind her. She turned around and said, “Hi, Paul. It’s lasagna today. Not too bad, huh?”

“Yeah. Mondays. Usually it’s not too bad on Mondays. Maybe Mrs. Cabrerra and her cooks have a good rest on the weekend so they plan some good stuff for a change.”

Honey held out her plate and the lunch lady splatted some lasagna right in the middle of it. “Right,” she said. “And then by Wednesday they’re tired and take it out on us with the awful canned salmon stuff. Or what they call teriyaki, but it has that gruesome, really salty sauce.”

The moment she said teriyaki, the smells from the grills at the cockfight came back. When Honey asked if I’d had a busy weekend, I said yes, and we looked around to find someplace to sit together, which we did. Clear in the back. Before I even started eating I gave her a condensed version of my Sunday adventures. Not all the stuff she’d say was gruesome, but some of it.

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