A Really Awesome Mess (18 page)

I started heading toward the back of the barn to do my running thing when I suddenly heard Jenny’s voice coming out of the speakers in the barn. “—what happened to me and my friend Wilbur. So enjoy your hot dogs. And maybe think about this: Hit it, Chip!”

I didn’t know what happened, but apparently Chip had managed to pipe Jenny’s voice through every speaker on the fairgrounds. The same ones that announced that the Flying Linguica Family would be performing death-defying feats of aerial artistry in ten minutes, or that the tractor pull was starting, or whatever. Only this time, it was the end of Jenny’s Wilbur story. Followed by one of the worst things I’d ever heard.

“This is a slaughterhouse,” some professional voiceover person said over whatever video Chip found. “And this is the sound of pigs about to die.” The next sound was the sound of a hundred pigs screaming.

At the sound of screaming pigs, all the pigs in the barn went nuts. Happy as pigs in shit just seconds ago—they wanted out.
Now
. And some started throwing themselves against the doors of their pens. The doors that were unlocked.

Suddenly, pigs were screaming and running everywhere. And as the pigs went crazy, people started running everywhere, too. Including the kindly braided gray-haired woman who was going to take Diana to the lost and found. I no longer felt even a little bit guilty about taking advantage of her compassion for a lost kid, because she spun around from Diana and immediately went running toward a pigpen. Nice priorities, lady.

Without even thinking about it, I started throwing more bolts open on the gates of more pens. There was so much noise and screaming and running all around me that it took zero effort to be inconspicuous and walk down the rows, opening gates. And every time I did, another pig came slamming out, and there was more chaos. It was kind of fun. No, it was actually tons of fun. It was thrilling to just do something and get instant results. It wasn’t some medication that was going to take a month to kick in, it wasn’t a therapeutic process that might take years—you just threw the bolt and a pig came running out.

Slowly, calmly, I made my way through the zigzagging, running pigs back toward the center of the barn. Apparently Emmy had the same idea that I did because she was just getting back to Diana also.

Diana had a wild-eyed look and a gigantic smile, and she was raising her hands, one of which was still clutching a gigantic Dora, to the sky.

She looked at us, grinning, and said, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds!”

Emmy and I looked at each other and back to Diana, each of us clearly wondering if Diana had had some kind of psychotic break.

“Jesus, you guys, it’s what Oppenheimer said when they dropped the atomic bomb. I mean, I saw it on the Documentary Channel. Don’t you guys know anything about history?”

“There’s a Documentary Channel? Really?” I asked. Nobody paid any attention.

“Of course I know something about history. I took American History class. But we never got to the twentieth century. We spent an entire quarter on the Civil War. Do you want to know anything about Appomattox? The caning of Sumner on the floor of the Senate?” Emmy asked.

“Who the hell is Oppenheimer?” I asked.

“You guys are idiots,” Diana said. “I was just exulting in the fact that we’ve unleashed terrible destructive power, but you clods
totally wrecked the moment. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We turned to go and got about three steps out of the Barn of Chaos when a squealing piglet came shooting out through Diana’s legs. Without a second thought, she threw herself to the ground and grabbed the piglet, dropping her Dora in the dirt.

“Got an idea,” she said. Piglet still squirming under her arm, she ran up behind some fat guy in tight jeans and a cowboy hat with a cell phone attached to his belt on one hip and a utility knife on the other.

She bumped into him, gave a loud apology, and came back to us. “Here,” she said to me. “Hold my piglet for a second, will ya?”

She held the pig out, and I had no choice but to grab him in my arms. He was squealing and squirming and he was cute as hell. When Diana pulled out the tool she grabbed from the fat guy’s belt, I got a little worried.

“Behold the power of the Leatherman!” she said, unfolding the knife blade from what looked like a big pair of needle-nose pliers.

“Jesus, Diana, what are you going to do? You can’t slaughter a piglet right here! I won’t let you!
We
won’t let you!” Emmy shouted, putting her skinny body between Diana and the pig.

“Will you relax,” Diana said. She grabbed Dora, laid her faceup on the ground, and, using the Leatherman, sliced Dora from forehead to crotch. “There. I think that’s just about enough space for our chubby friend,” she said, folding up the knife.
“Don’t worry, Emmy, I’m talking about the pig. Give him to me, will you, Justin?”

I handed the pig back to Diana, and she swaddled him inside of Dora. “I mean, you might get stopped trying to walk out with a pig under your arm, but nobody’s going to stop a precious little girl with a big stuffed Dora.”

“Or even a red-eyed psychotic hell demon with a big stuffed Dora,” Emmy said.

“Yeah, that either,” Diana said, grinning. “Come on, kids, let’s go home. It’s past your bedtime.”

Cradling the Dora-encased piglet, Diana started walking toward the parking lot, where we all agreed to meet up.

“Wait. Why are you stealing a pig?” I asked.

“To give it to Jenny. Duh!” Diana said, and Emmy started to laugh. “What the hell’s so funny, fatty?”

“You did something for someone else,” Emmy said. “You finally thought of someone else. You sliced up your precious Dora to do something nice for Jenny, and you didn’t even think twice about it.”

Diana looked momentarily puzzled, then gritted her teeth at Emmy. “I’d advise you not to tease me about it,” she said. “I do have a knife now.”

“And a pair of needle-nose pliers,” I chimed in.

“That should scare you more than anything else, needle-dick,” Diana said. And then a really weird thing happened. All three of us laughed together.

“Let’s get the hell out of this shithole,” Diana said, and we all headed toward the exit.

There were pigs running everywhere, and people chasing the pigs, and other people chasing the people, and it was awesome. Kids were screaming in delight, pigs were squealing because that’s what they do, adults were yelling, cops were running around: Pretty much all hell was breaking loose.

We walked out into the parking lot and found Chip, Jenny, and Tracy. “You missed it guys,” Tracy said. “Lots of puking. I mean, a
lot
. They’re just gonna have to hose the whole place down.”

We walked back to the Assland van. The doors were open, there was terrible hippie music playing, and Tina was on top of the van on a blanket. With a guy.

Diana started making porno music noises. “Bwaw-chicka-waww-waww,” she sang, and Tina scrambled down off the top of the van, followed quickly by the guy, a skinny-jeans-wearing guy with long hair and a big scraggly beard that went down his neck.

“Uh, hey, you guys are early,” Tina said. “Wasn’t, um … thought you and our fearless driver wouldn’t be back for another hour.”

“Yeah, well, we’re early. Only so much fried dough and pigshit you can stand in one night, you know? Who’s the King of Leon?” Diana asked.

“Hey guys,” the neck-bearded guy said. “I’m—”

“Leaving,” Tina said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Can I ask you something?” I said. “I mean, isn’t the beard growing out of the neck kind of gross? I mean, how do guys like that get girls?”

“Not—um. Boundaries. Professionalism,” Tina said.

Tracy grinned. “Those are nouns, Tina. We need a verb in there somewhere for it to be a complete sentence.”

Tina sighed. “Okay. How about this. I’ll call Jeff to drive us home, and let’s just go back to school. You don’t ask me anything else about what you saw and I will pretend I think the sound of approaching sirens has nothing to do with you. Deal?”

“Deal,” we all said. We climbed into the van to wait for Jeff, or, as I still thought of him, Not Tiny, figuring it would probably be better to not be visible when the cops showed up, and Diana said, “Hey, Jenny, I got you a big Dora.”

Jenny scowled at Diana, but then she saw the piglet nestled inside the big-headed cartoon star, and she grabbed it and pulled it close. She didn’t say anything, but she started to cry.

I wanted to hear all about how Chip and Tracy and Jenny pulled their caper off, and I wanted to brag about all the chaos we unleashed at the pig barn, but that was all going to have to wait until we were away from prying ears.

Not Tiny showed up, looked at us with his usual surly suspicion, and started driving us back to Assland. I looked out the window and saw black nothingness. There were probably
cornfields out there. I was totally wired from adrenaline, but I guess a lot of other people were pretty beat, because I could hear snoring within about ten minutes, and a few minutes after that, Emmy’s head flopped against my shoulder. I didn’t know if she was asleep or not, and I didn’t care. I looked out at the darkness and smiled.

I WOKE UP WITH A START AND REALIZED I’D BEEN DROOLING ON
Justin’s shoulder for God knows how long.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” I mumbled, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. “I guess the Whopping Wiener also puts people into a whopping coma.”

“No problem.” He was still smiling, peering out the window somewhere into the blackness.

“Why Mr. Sunshine all of a sudden?” I asked. I was used to Justin being Mr. Heckle, Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Mopey, and Mr. Angry. But Mr. Content and Peaceful? It was certainly different.

“I was just thinking how fucking awesome that pig frenzy was. Like, we created some major mayhem and I don’t even have to pretend to feel bad about it because we did it for a good reason, right?”

A little snort came from the seat behind us, so I turned around to see what was up. Diana and Jenny were vying for the attention of the little piglet that was resting on the seat between them inside the eviscerated doll. The cutest little snout I’d ever seen was poking out from around Dora’s tool belt.

“Man, that was epic, wasn’t it?” Diana said, followed by positively angelic-sounding giggles. It was like our caper had turned her back into a little kid, the one she might have been before all that bad crap happened to her.

“Shhhhhh!” I warned her.

The last thing we needed was to get busted now. We were lucky enough to have been able to dust that place before the cops came, asking any questions. It would be a total bummer to have to give up our little prize and get thrown into demerit hell now, when we were so close to getting away with it all.

“Don’t worry,” Justin told us. “Not Tiny is behind his plastic divider again, and Tina fell asleep with her headphones on before you even started to drool. It’s cool.”

“Shut up!” I said, looking for any accidental spit stain on his shirt. There was none.

He looked a little sad.

“Don’t worry, I only tease people I like,” I said, nudging him in the ribs. “I’m very second grade like that.”

And then he smiled at me like Mason used to. It was great and scary all rolled into one. I almost thought he might kiss me
then, but Diana busted up the potentially magic moment.

“Me and Jenny, we have a plan,” she whispered, even though Justin had just assured us Tina wouldn’t hear a thing short of a nuclear explosion.

“Jenny doesn’t seem like she’s in a talking mood anymore,” Justin said, and he was right. She’d been totally quiet since her big speech.

“Fine, if you want to get all technical—me and Jenny have an
understanding
,” Diana retorted. “I laid this out to her, and she nodded, so that means she agrees. We are going to share custody of Little Willy here on a fifty-fifty basis. One night in my room, one night in hers. Since he’s still a baby, I figure he’ll spend lots of time sleeping. The only thing we still have to work out is how to get enough food to feed him.”

I’d never had a pet pig before, so I had lots of questions. “What about exercise?”

Diana snorted loudly, which apparently Little Willy found hilarious, because he followed suit. “What, you want to put a leash on him and walk him around the cornfields at Assland?”

I shrugged, clueless. Maybe Little Willy
would
like a walk in the cornfields. How would I know? “I guess I’m just thinking he might get a little bored being cooped up in our room alone all day. And he’ll have to poop once in awhile.”

“Bored, schmored. Geez, look at his teeny head. He’s no Einstein. You honestly think there’s a big brain in there?” Diana
asked, then barreled ahead without waiting for an answer. “And just look at his cute little butt. Small ass, small poops, right?”

I stared at Little Willy and decided he looked very smart for a pig. Maybe he was smart enough that if we made him a little litter box, he could deposit his little poops there?

I changed tactics. “What about the Staffies checking our rooms, then?” I asked, thinking for sure this would put a kibosh on the crazy plan.

“Once you get level two on Monday, they usually don’t do that anymore,” she said. “They have too many level one newbies to worry about. So you better get moved up, Skeletor, if you know what’s good for you.”