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But I was not really sure how to ask Garrett about what he had said. Yeah, they were all chickens, but what did that mean? I sure didn't want him coming down on me again, but it still didn't make sense. Finally I asked him, “You mean there's no rooster?”

“Correctomundo.”

“How can you tell?”

He shrugged. “Roosters strut.”

“Strut.”

“That's right. And look — none of them have long feathers. Or very much of that rubbery red stuff.” He nodded. “Yeah. They're definitely all chickens.”

That night my father got right to the point. “So, son, mission accomplished?” he asked as he stabbed into a mountain of fettuccine and whirled his fork around.

I attacked my noodles too and gave him a smile. “Uhhuh,” I said as I sat up tall to deliver the news. “They're all chickens.”

The turning of his fork came to a grinding halt. “And…?”

I could tell something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I tried to keep the smile plastered on my face as I said, “And what?”

He rested his fork and stared at me. “Is that what she said? ‘They're all chickens’?”

“Uh, not exactly.”

“Then exactly what did she say?”

“Uh … she didn't exactly say anything.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I went over there and took a look for myself.” I tried very hard to sound like this was a major accomplishment, but he wasn't buying.

“You didn't ask her?”

“I didn't have to. Garrett knows a lot about chickens, and we went over there and found out for ourselves.”

Lynetta came back from rinsing the Romano sauce off her seven and a half noodles, then reached for the salt and scowled at me, saying, “You're the chicken.”

“Lynetta!” my mother said. “Be nice.”

Lynetta stopped shaking the salt. “Mother, he spied. You get it? He went over there and looked over the fence. Are you saying you're okay with that?”

My mom turned to me. “Bryce? Is that true?”

Everyone was staring at me now, and I felt like I had to save face. “What's the big deal? You told me to find out about her chickens, and I found out about her chickens!”

“Brawk-brawk-brawk!”
my sister whispered.

My father still wasn't eating. “And what you found out,” he said, like he was measuring every word, “was that they're all… chickens.”

“Right.”

He sighed, then took that bite of noodles and chewed it for the longest time.

It felt like I was sinking fast, but I couldn't figure out why. So I tried to bail out with, “And you guys can go ahead and eat those eggs, but there's no way I'm going to touch them, so don't even ask.”

My mother's looking back and forth from my dad to me while she eats her salad, and I can tell she's waiting for him to address my adventure as a neighborhood operative. But since he's not saying anything, she clears her throat and says, “Why's that?”

“Because there's … well, there's …I don't know how to say this nicely.”

“Just
say
it,” my father snaps.

“Well, there's, you know, excrement everywhere.”

“Oh, gross!” my sister says, throwing down her fork.

“You mean chicken droppings?” my mother asks.

“Yeah. There's not even a lawn. It's all dirt and, uh,
you know, chicken turds. The chickens walk in it and peck through it and…”

“Oh, gross!” Lynetta wails.

“Well, it's true!”

Lynetta stands up and says, “You expect me to eat after this?” and stalks out of the room.

“Lynetta! You have to eat something,” my mother calls after her.

“No, I don't!” she shouts back; then a second later she sticks her head back into the dining room and says, “And don't expect me to eat any of those eggs either, Mother. Does the word
salmonella
mean anything to you?”

Lynetta takes off down the hall and my mother says, “Salmonella?” She turns to my father. “Do you suppose they could have salmonella?”

“I don't know, Patsy. I'm more concerned that our son is a coward.”

“A coward! Rick, please. Bryce is no such thing. He's a wonderful child who's — ”

“Who's afraid of a
girl
.”

“Dad, I'm not afraid of her, she just bugs me!”

“Why?”

“You know why! She bugs you, too. She's over the top about everything!”

“Bryce, I asked you to conquer your fear, but all you did was give in to it. If you were in love with her, that would be one thing. Love is something to be afraid of, but this, this is embarrassing. So she talks too much, so she's too enthused about every little thing, so what? Get in, get your question answered, and get out. Stand up to her, for cryin' out loud!”

“Rick …,” my mom was saying, “Rick, calm down. He did find out what you asked him to — ”

“No, he didn't!”

“What do you mean?”

“He tells me they're all chickens! Of course they're all chickens! The question is how many are hens, and how many are roosters.”

I could almost hear the click in my brain, and man, I felt like a complete doofus. No wonder he was disgusted with me. I was an idiot! They were all chickens … du-uh! Garrett acted like he was some expert on chickens, and he didn't know diddly-squat! Why had I listened to him?

But it was too late. My dad was convinced I was a coward, and to get me over it, he decided that what I should do was take the carton of eggs back to the Bakers and tell them we didn't eat eggs, or that we were allergic to them, or something.

Then my mom butts in with, “What are you teaching him here, Rick? None of that is true. If he returns them, shouldn't he tell them the truth?”

“What, that you're afraid of salmonella poisoning?”

“Me? Aren't you a little concerned, too?”

“Patsy, that's not the point. The point is, I will not have a coward for a son!”

“But teaching him to lie?”

“Fine. Then just throw them away. But from now on I expect you to look that little tiger square in the eye, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, then.”

I was off the hook for all of about eight days. Then
there she was again, at seven in the morning, bouncing up and down on our porch with eggs in her hands. “Hi, Bryce! Here you go.”

I tried to look her square in the eye and tell her, No thanks, but she was so darned happy, and I wasn't really awake enough to tackle the tiger. She wound up pushing another carton into my hands, and I wound up ditching them in the kitchen trash before my father sat down to breakfast.

This went on for two years. Two years! And it got to a point where it was just part of my morning routine. I'd be on the lookout for Juli so I could whip the door open before she had the chance to knock or ring the bell, and then I'd bury the eggs in the trash before my dad showed up.

Then came the day I blew it. Juli'd actually been making herself pretty scarce because it was around the time they'd taken the sycamore tree down, but suddenly one morning she was back on our doorstep, delivering eggs. I took them, as usual, and I went to chuck them, as usual. But the kitchen trash was so full that there wasn't any room for the carton, so I put it on top, picked up the trash, and beat it out the front door to empty everything into the garbage can outside.

Well, guess who's just standing there like a statue on my porch?

The Egg Chick.

I about spilled the trash all over the porch. “What are you still doing here?” I asked her.

“I…I don't know. I was just … thinking.”

“About what?” I was desperate. I needed a distraction.
Some way around her with this garbage before she noticed what was sitting right there on top.

She looked away like she was embarrassed. Juli Baker embarrassed? I didn't think it was possible.

Whatever. The golden opportunity to whip a soggy magazine over the egg carton had presented itself, and buddy, I took it. Then I tried to make a fast break for the garbage can in the side yard, only she body-blocked me. Seriously. She stepped right in my way and put her arms out like she's guarding the goal.

She chased me and blocked me again. “What happened?” she wants to know. “Did they break?”

Perfect. Why hadn't I thought of that? “Yeah, Juli,” I told her. “And I'm real sorry about that.” But what I'm thinking is, Please, God, oh please, God, let me make it to the garbage can.

God must've been sleeping in. Juli tackled the trash and pulled out her precious little carton of eggs, and she could tell right off that they weren't broken. They weren't even cracked.

She stood frozen with the eggs in her hands while I dumped the rest of the trash. “Why did you throw them out?” she asked, but her voice didn't sound like Juli Baker's voice. It was quiet. And shaky.

So I told her we were afraid of salmonella poisoning because her yard was a mess and that we were just trying to spare her feelings. I told it to her like we were right and she was wrong, but I felt like a jerk. A complete cluck-faced jerk.

Then she tells me that a couple of neighbors have been buying eggs off her.
Buying
them. And while I'm
coming to grips with this incredible bit of news, she whips out her mental calculator. “Do you realize I've lost over a hundred dollars giving these eggs to you?” Then she races across the street in a flood of tears.

As much as I tried to tell myself that I hadn't asked her for the eggs—I hadn't said we wanted them or needed them or liked them—the fact was, I'd never seen Juli cry before. Not when she'd broken her arm in P.E., not when she'd been teased at school or ditched by her brothers. Not even when they'd cut down the sycamore tree. I'm pretty sure she cried then, but I didn't actually see it. To me, Juli Baker had always been too tough to cry.

I went down to my room to pack my stuff for school, feeling like the biggest jerk to ever hit the planet. I'd been sneaking around throwing out eggs for over two years, avoiding her, avoiding my father — what did that make me? Why hadn't I just stood up and said, No thanks, don't want 'em, don't need 'em, don't like 'em…. Give them to the snake, why don't you? Something!

Was I really afraid of hurting her feelings?

Or was I afraid of
her
?

After they cut down the sycamore tree, it seemed like everything else fell apart, too. Champ died. And then I found out about the eggs. It was Champ's time to go, and even though I still miss him, I think it's been easier for me to deal with his death than it has been for me to deal with the truth about the eggs. I still cannot believe it about the eggs.

The eggs came before the chickens in our case, but the dog came before them both. One night when I was about six years old, Dad came home from work with a full-grown dog tied down in the back of his truck. Someone had hit it in the middle of an intersection, and Dad had stopped to see how badly it was hurt. Then he noticed that the poor thing was skinny as a rail and didn't have any tags. “Starving and completely disoriented,” he told my mother. “Can you imagine someone abandoning their dog like that?”

The whole family had converged on the front porch, and I could hardly contain myself. A dog! A wonderful, happy, panty dog! I realize now that Champ was never much of a looker, but when you're six, any dog—no matter how mangy—is a glorious, huggable creature.

He looked pretty good to my brothers, too, but from the way my mother's face was pinched, I could tell she was thinking, Abandon this dog? Oh, I can see it. I can definitely see it. What she said, though, was simply, “There is no room for that animal in this house.”

“Trina,” my dad said, “it's not a matter of ownership. It's a matter of compassion.”

“You're not springing it on me as a …a pet, then?”

“That is definitely not my intention.”

“Well, then what
do
you intend to do?”

“Give him a decent meal, a bath … then maybe we'll place an ad and find him a home.”

She eyed him from across the threshold. “There'll be no ‘maybe’ about it.”

My brothers said, “We don't get to keep him?”

“That's right.”

“But Mo-om,” they moaned.

“It's not open to discussion,” she said. “He gets a bath, he gets a meal, he gets an ad in the paper.”

My father put one arm around Matt's shoulder and the other around Mike's. “Someday, boys, we'll get a puppy.”

My mother was already heading back inside, but over
her
shoulder came, “Not until you learn to keep your room neat, boys!”

By the end of the week, the dog was named Champ. By the end of the
next
week, he'd made it from the backyard into the kitchen area. And not too long after that, he was all moved in. It seemed nobody wanted a full-grown dog with a happy bark. Nobody but four-fifths of the Baker family, anyway.

Then my mother started noticing an odor. A mysterious odor of indeterminate origin. We all admitted we smelled it, too, but where my mother was convinced it was Eau de Champ, we disagreed. She had us bathing him so often that it couldn't possibly be him. We each sniffed him out pretty good and he smelled perfectly rosy.

My personal suspicion was that Matt and Mike were the ones not bathing enough, but I didn't want to get close enough to sniff them. And since our camp was divided on just who the culprit or culprits were, the odor was dubbed the Mystery Smell. Whole dinnertime discussions revolved around the Mystery Smell, which my brothers found amusing and my mother did not.