Hit the Road, Manny: A Manny Files Novel (12 page)

The manny’s dad woke us up really early the next morning, even before the sun had risen. He poked his head in the bedroom door and sang, “Schoolboy! Time to wake up and go to school and learn something so you can grow up and be somebody!” It was the same song the manny sings to us to wake us up! Then he said in a normal voice, “Son, I need your help, the old cow is having her calf.”

“We better go help him…schoolboy,” I said to the manny.

The manny hopped out of bed and pulled on his jeans over his pajama pants. I did the same thing. They were all bunched up and uncomfortable, but I guess that’s just how things are on a ranch. Bunched up and uncomfortable.

Clarissa was in the kitchen making coffee. The manny grabbed a cup, and I grabbed a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Roger was already running up to the barn, so we gulped down our drinks the same way guys do in the movies when they get drunk in bars and talk about their ex-wives, who have all their money.

In the garage the manny put on a pair of his dad’s cowboy boots. I put on a pair of cowboy boots that had belonged to the manny when he was little. They were red with black stitching. The two dogs were shut in the garage so that they wouldn’t bother the old cow. Daisy gave me a pitiful look, and I said to her, “Awww, give me your sad face, Daisy!” I caught myself saying it out loud and stopped to see if the manny had heard me talking to a dog. You’re not supposed to be sensitive on a farm. I don’t think he heard me, because he was already heading out the door. We were careful not to let the dogs out.

The fat cow was lying on her side, breathing heavily and making noises that sounded like a mix between a moo and a Yoko Ono album. Sarah’s mom listens to Yoko Ono sometimes when she’s meditating. Yoko Ono was married to John Lennon, but her music is way different from the Beatles’. Her songs have a lot of weird noises and screams in them. They sort of sound like the Halloween CD that Mom bought at Target.

There was a string of syrupy-looking slime coming out of the cow’s back end. Roger called the cow’s back end “the birth canal.” He was rubbing her stomach, which looked like a big, stretched-out balloon. Mom and Dad had come out to see what was going on. Mom had an afghan around her shoulders and a steaming coffee mug between her two hands like she was starring in a Folgers coffee commercial. “‘
The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup,
’” I sang to myself when I saw her.

The old cow stood up, and Roger stood up with her. She made a big noise into the air with her mouth as her ribs moved in and out, and I could see her fat belly contracting. The manny told me to watch her birth canal carefully because pretty soon there would be two hooves poking out, and then a nose and head. I watched closely, and with the cow’s next exhaled breath, out popped a hoof. I waited for the other hoof and the nose and head, but nothing happened. We just stood there for a minute, until Roger yelled for the manny to get a bucket of soapy water and some towels. I followed the manny as he ran toward the house.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The manny answered breathlessly, “I think the calf is breech. The cow needs help giving birth, or she and the calf might not survive.” I didn’t know what breech was, but it sounded serious and made me wonder if we’d have to give the cow a C-section. Mom had to get a C-section with Belly. Maybe Belly was breech. That would explain a lot.

Clarissa gave me a bunch of old towels while the manny filled a bucket with warm, soapy water.

When we got back to the barn, Roger was searching for chains. He said, “Matty, see if you can find the other leg. We’re going to have to pull this calf.” I’d never heard anyone call the manny Matty before. It made him smile, and he looked like his dad had just hugged him.

The manny looked at me with raised eyebrows and said, “Are you ready for this?”

I didn’t know what he meant, but I said, “Sure am, Matty.”

He smiled, rolled his eyes, and said, “GOY!” The manny can joke through anything.

The manny rolled up his right sleeve all the way to his shoulder and rubbed soapy water all over his arm. He stood at the back of the cow and slowly slid his arm into the birth canal. Mom ran inside to get her camera.

Roger came into the pen carrying chains and asked, “Can you find it?”

The manny pushed his arm farther into the birth canal. His entire arm, almost up to his shoulder, was in the back of the cow. Roger held a bucket of grain in front of her to distract her. I couldn’t imagine that that would keep the cow from noticing what was going on at the other end, but she actually started eating. Mom had returned and was snapping pictures. She said she was going to sell them to
Us
magazine for the “Stars: They’re Just Like Us” section.

“Got it!” yelled the manny with a scrunched-up look of concentration on his face. He slowly removed his arm from the cow, pulling a second hoof out of the birth canal. Roger quickly tied the chains around the calf’s legs, and he and the manny began to pull them down toward the ground.

You could see their arms flexing. The manny’s arm was still covered in slime and whatever else might be in a birth canal of a cow. It didn’t seem to bother him. The back legs and hips of the calf slid out of the cow, and then the front end and then the head. Roger held on to the calf, and the manny took his hand and cleaned the calf’s mouth out to make sure that it could breathe. Then he wiped the calf off with a towel.

I hosed the manny’s arms and hands off. He dried them and then took a clean towel and wiped his face. When he smiled at me, there was still something dark and gross on his right cheek, so I licked a clean washcloth and then blotted his face just like Mom does.

Lulu, India, and Belly came running up to the barn, with Daisy and Dipper. Clarissa walked behind them with a group of cats following her like she was Snow White.

Roger yelled, “Who let the dogs out?”

And the manny went, “Woof, woof, woof, woof,” like in the song.

Lulu grabbed Daisy, and India grabbed Dipper, and they sat down with them and hugged them around their necks and petted them. Dad lifted Belly up on his shoulders, and she made a loop with her arms around his chin. Roger and the manny had cow poop and blood all over their clothes, but Lulu didn’t seem disgusted by it. She made an “Awwww” sound and covered her mouth with both of her hands when she saw the calf. She does the same thing when she sees the “New Babies” page in the weekly newspaper that shows the new babies that have been born and still look like aliens.

The new little calf didn’t look like an alien. It was red colored, with a white face. It was a boy calf, and when he tried to stand up, he wobbled around and moved like he was stiff, like Bambi did when he first tried to walk. The mother cow stood at the other side of the pen and didn’t seem interested in her baby. She sat down exhausted in the corner.

Roger said, “I was afraid this might happen.” He told us that sometimes when births are difficult or there is a lot of human contact, the mother will reject her calf.

“Ohhhhhh!” moaned India as though she was really in emotional pain, the same way she says it when somebody wears a bad dress to the Oscars. Like she feels badly for them because they tried but they just didn’t get it right.

Roger made the mother cow stand up and tried to get the calf to walk closer to her to nurse. Clarissa told us that the cow’s milk has colostrums in it and that it’s very important the calf drink right away because the colostrums has vitamins in it that will keep the calf healthy. Roger held the calf’s face right next to the cow’s udder. He squeezed the udder and squirted milk all over the calf’s face, nose, and mouth. The calf started sucking sloppily. As the slurps got louder, Roger backed away from the cow and calf. The cow looked confused but stood there anyway.

Belly rubbed Dad’s unshaven cheeks, while Clarissa and Mom leaned against the metal bars of the pen and watched the new baby. The manny pretended like he was going to give Lulu a hug with his dirty shirt, and she screamed. Dad got after her for being loud, even though it was the manny’s fault.

After a little while the cow began licking the calf’s back while the calf still nursed underneath her. We all cheered and clapped. Lulu and India even hugged each other and spun around in a circle together in celebration. Belly played the top of Dad’s head like a snare drum.

The manny yelled, “There will be no rejection of children by their parents today!” and put his fist up in the air like he was a Jet in
West Side Story
.

Roger put his arm around the manny’s shoulders and said, “Thanks for your help, Matty, I’m proud of you. You did a good job.”

“Thanks, Dad,” the manny said, slapping his father on his right shoulder and then keeping his hand there. He and his dad looked at each other eye to eye, like they were speaking telepathically.

“Let’s name the calf Captain Fantastic,” Roger suggested.

“That’s one of my favorite Elton John songs,” the manny said.

“I know,” said the manny’s dad. “Captain Fantastic it is.”

Dad was standing next to me, so I wrapped a hug around his waist, and he bent down and kissed me on the top of my head.

That night I picked two postcards, both with cows on them.

The manny’s mother packed a big brown paper bag full of sandwiches, fruit, and homemade cookies for us to take when we left. The sandwiches were really good because they were wrapped in waxed paper and not in plastic bags.

The adults talked by the RV while I ran up to the cow pen to say good-bye to Captain Fantastic. India went with me. Lulu was walking around the yard with Belly, who was yelling, “BYE, SKIMBLESHANKS!” “BYE ASPARAGUS!” “BYE RUM TUM TUGGER!” to all the cats.

Captain Fantastic was nursing underneath his mother. When the mother cow saw me, she walked over, and Captain Fantastic followed her. He kicked his feet in the air and jerked his head around like he was a rodeo bull. Then he ran over to me and poked his head through the fence.

“I’ve decided that Captain Fantastic is
your
cow.” The manny’s father had walked up behind me.

“Really?” I squealed. “Where will I keep him? How will I get him home? I can ride him to school!”

“Oh, we’ll keep him here, but you have to come visit him. We’ll keep you updated on how big he gets, and if we ever sell him, we’ll send you the money for your college fund or to put toward your first car.”

“Or for tickets to Dollywood!” India joked.

“I don’t ever want to sell him!” I exclaimed, and rubbed Captain Fantastic on the nose. Then I ran down to the RV to tell everybody that I was a cattle rancher now.

Belly got jealous when I announced that Captain Fantastic was mine. “WELL, THE JELLICLE CATS ARE HERS, AND LOLA THE SNAKE IS HERS TOO,” she said, barely keeping herself from sticking her tongue out at me.

Tears ran down Clarissa’s cheeks while we said our good-byes.

“She always does this,” Roger said, but his eyes got watery too as he hugged the manny and kissed him on the cheek. He said something quietly into his ear, but I couldn’t hear what it was. I hope it was “Keats is my favorite.” The manny smiled at his father, and then we all climbed into the RV.

Roger put his arm around Clarissa, and they looked at each other and kissed on the lips.

“Stop it! You’re too old for that!” screamed Lulu. We pulled down the same long road that Cochise and the manny’s father had ridden next to us on when we arrived.

Belly yelled out the window, “MEMORY, LA-LA-LOW AND THE MOONNIGHT!”

Everyone was crankier than usual as we drove through Yellowstone. Lulu had on her earbuds and refused to listen to anybody, even Mom when she asked her to help Belly rebuckle her seat belt. Mom ended up screaming it so that Lulu could hear over “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

“Stop yelling,” Dad scolded Mom, and put a finger in his ear like his hearing had been damaged.

“You’re yelling louder than I am,” Mom yelled back even louder than she had before. They sounded like Lulu and me fighting over the front seat on the way to school.

Lulu took out her earbuds and told Dad that he should stop at the next gas station to get some coffee because he and Mom were both cranky.

“I’m going to drive us into the Firehole River,” Dad said, halfway joking.

“NOT THE HELLHOLE RIVER! HER DOESN’T WANT TO!” Belly squealed, and pretended to cry.

Lulu screamed, “It’s called the Firehole River, Belly, and stop calling yourself ‘her.’ It’s ‘I don’t want to go into the Firehole River.’ Get it right. You’re old enough to know.”

Belly’s pretend cries turned into real tears and then sobs.

“Why do you have to be so mean?” India glared at Lulu.

Mom punched Dad in the arm and glared at him for starting mass panic in the RV. The manny and I looked at each other like we were in the middle of a stampede and we didn’t know which way to go.

India tried to comfort Belly and crossed over into Lulu’s marked-off space.

“Get out!” Lulu screamed, and pushed India. India turned around, grabbed the conduct mark board, and ripped it in half.

“This is anarchy!” screamed Lulu. “This is why we have these rules!”

“Okay! Enough!” erupted the manny like Old Faithful. I’d been waiting to use an Old Faithful analogy since we visited it earlier that morning. The RV got silent. We had never really heard the manny yell, unless you count the time he stepped on one of my LEGOs and dropped a tray of oysters on the floor. He served us oysters once for an after-school snack just to mix it up. But that was a yell of pain. This was different. And oysters are gross.

Dad pulled into a scenic overlook next to the road and walked into the back of the RV. Then the yelling started up again with Lulu. “I’m so tired of being trapped in here with all these babies!”

India rolled her eyes at her.

“I’m almost in high school, and I shouldn’t have to spend my whole summer with little kids. I need to have some adult time!” Lulu went on.

I said, “You mean like with Fletcher when you kissed!”

“How do you know about that?” Lulu whirled toward me.

I shrugged, even though I had overheard Lulu talking about it to Margo on the bus.

“OOOOOOOH,” said Belly like they do on television shows when teenagers kiss.

“What?” Mom chimed in.

“Nothing, Mommy,” said Lulu, putting on her sweet-child voice and look, the same ones she does when she wants to order a new shirt online from Urban Outfitters. She always says, “Mommy? Can I order a shirt? It’s really pretty.” She never calls Mom “Mommy” unless she wants to order something. Mom always falls for it.

“Did you give him the tongue?” I asked, not really knowing what “giving the tongue” meant.

“Keats!” Mom slapped my leg with her hand. “Don’t talk like that ever!”

“Well, excuuuuuse me!” I said snottily. We’ve all picked up a little bit from Lulu.

Dad said, “Look, this is a vacation! Can we please try to have some fun and get along?”

“I’m having fun, Dad,” I said, taking the opportunity to show him that I’m his best child. I really wasn’t having much fun. Mom was glaring at me because of my tongue comment, and I could tell that it would be awhile before she would forget about it.

“I’m not!” shouted Lulu so loudly that Dad shushed her and glanced out the window to notice that a family in a brand-new white Mercedes station wagon had pulled up next to us. Lulu looked to see what Dad was looking at. They looked like the perfect family. Perfect haircuts. Perfect teeth. Perfect collars popped up on their golf shirts. I popped up my collar too.

The station wagon had a mom and a dad in the front seats and three kids about the same ages as Lulu, India, and me in the backseat. The window was cracked about half an inch, and the dad was yelling something at the mom about not being able to read a map. She was yelling back at him and called him stupid. The girl Lulu’s age saw Lulu and rolled her eyes and shook her head toward her parents. The kids in the car looked miserable and weren’t even talking to one another.

“If that dad were riding in here, he’d already have three conduct marks,” said Lulu.

Mom laughed and so did Belly, even though she didn’t know what was funny. Dad settled back into the driver’s seat and we stopped arguing.

The manny looked at the girl Lulu’s age in the station wagon. He put his pointer finger under his chin and lifted his head with it. It means “Keep your chin up.” The manny made the same motion to Belly one time during a Bible school program. Belly goes to Bible school with her friend Adam. Belly had one line in the program at the end of the week: “God loves cheerful givers!” She practiced it all week, but during the program she stood up and yelled into the microphone, “GOD LOVES CHICKEN LIVERS!” The audience started laughing really loudly, and Belly’s face got red and she looked like she was going to cry. That’s when the manny made the “Keep your chin up” sign.

After the program the manny told Belly, “God probably does love chicken livers.”

“And chicken nuggets,” Belly added.

The girl in the station wagon smiled, waved a forced wave to us, put on a pair of sunglasses, and sank lower into her seat.