“Oh wait, the note said something else…” But before Charlie could finish his thought, chaos erupted outside the barn. Someone was shouting, which was promptly joined by the sound of thundering footsteps and more shouting voices. Nora froze. Those were never particularly positive noises. No less than eight possible horrors ran through her mind at once, each less welcome than the last and at least one involving an unexpected tornado.
Phil burst into the barn, his boots heavy on the hay-strewn stone floor. He looked from one twin to the other, face severe, and Nora braced for whatever was about to come.
“Leopold’s escaped,” he said.
Nora had not braced for that.
“Huh?”
“Uncle Vic’s favorite goat. Sired three-quarters of the kids on this farm. Dad didn’t secure his paddock properly and the bastard’s practically uncatchable, apparently. Running all over the fields like a convict on the loose. We need more bodies to corner him. You coming?”
Nora pretended to consider this. “Oh, no, sorry, we have to finish in here,” she said after what seemed like a reasonable length of time. There was no way in hell she was going to go chasing after a rogue goat. That sounded like a surefire way to end up with a horn in places horns had no business being.
“I’m in,” said Charlie, dropping his shovel onto the soiled floor.
Nora tried to toss him a look that said, “Like hell you are,” but he was already halfway out the barn. She threw her head back in exasperation and scampered out after him.
Despite her misgivings that this might have been some weird murder ploy by Phil, there was indeed a large black-and-white goat playing an aggressive game of red rover against a growing crowd of people. Which, in some ways, was worse than a murder ploy. Vic and Patty seemed to be approaching the animal from behind while it geared up to charge at Pickles and Charles, who must have shown up at some point during Nora’s mucking and Charlie’s dabbling in fecal art.
“You two go around that side,” Phil directed as he went to fill in the other side of the circle.
Charlie and Nora did as instructed, heading off the goat from the side closest to them, which only served to take the creature’s attention away from its initial target. Its great head swung in the twins’ direction, horns locking on Nora, and before anyone could advise her otherwise, she was bolting away from Leopold at a full sprint. The goat was instantly on her heels, followed by a parade of frantic relatives rushing after them. She raced across the field and past the riding lawn mower Phil had been working on, engine on and tools strewn in front of it as though he’d been plucked from his duties by the renegade goat.
“Good, good,” Patty called at Nora. “His paddock’s a bit to your right, see if you can guide him there.”
“I’m not doing this for his benefit,” Nora shouted back. If they were planning on killing her as well as Charlie, she’d hoped for something more dignified than being used as goat bait. Still, she could see the upside of getting Leopold back into his enclosure. She veered left. Hoof steps followed, clopping with a small but mighty rage.
“You’ll have to run him into the paddock and do a little U-turn back out, kiddo,” Patty called.
Nora didn’t even like doing a U-turn in a car, when the only horns she had to face were the kind that honked. She rushed in through the open gate, braving a look back to ensure Leopold was still on her tail, then looped through and back out of the paddock, slamming the gate with enough force to rattle the fence around her. The crowd trailing her stopped where they were, Patty offering a polite round of applause for her effort, which felt somewhat inadequate considering how very close Nora had come to having two extra holes in her bottom.
She scanned the field for Charlie, who was catching his breath at the base of the small hill the riding lawn mower sat on. He gave her a thumbs-up, doubled over from what was likely the first run he’d completed since high school gym class. The others had started to disappear from view as Nora struggled to regain whatever passed for her composure at this point. She sagged against the fence, trying to steady herself, before promptly springing upright again at the sound of Leopold’s hooves trotting in her direction. When she turned her gaze back over to Charlie to give him a look that said, “This fucking guy,” what she saw instead locked up her already-tense muscles.
The riding lawn mower on top of the small hill, the one Phil had just been working on, had begun to roll forward, picking up speed as it descended. Charlie was still doubled over, unaware of the vehicle plowing towards him. Nora could clearly see the mower making contact, turning her brother into mincemeat before he had the chance to fully realize what was going on. She was too far away to close the gap between them and push Charlie to safety in time, and calling out a warning with enough detail to get him out of danger would take too long. But maybe she didn’t have to say as much as she thought.
Bubbie always hid the good snacks on the top shelf of the kitchen pantry. Whenever she went out back to garden, Nora and Charlie launched their contraband-retrieval system. Being the timid one, Nora played lookout and held a stool steady for Charlie while he scrambled up and snagged the Hostess snacks, the potato chips or, on one particularly blessed occasion, an entire chocolate babka. As soon as she heard the screen door creaking, her duty was to give the signal, a shout of “albatross,” which would immediately send Charlie leaping off the stool and onto the kitchen rug before the inside door opened. This emergency operation had only been properly put into effect on two occasions, one of which ended with Charlie in a fluorescent orange cast, but they’d practiced so often that the leap at the code word had become a reflex for Charlie. Nora prayed that hadn’t changed.
The mower rushed forward. There was no time for a plan B. The mower was at Charlie’s heels, blades already primed to slash at the backs of his shoes. Nora cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted so hard she thought her lungs might pop out in conjunction with her voice. “Albatross!”
Charlie didn’t even take the time to look up. At the sound ofNora’s code word he dove to the side, landing heavily in a patch of grass and rolling a few feet towards where Nora stood. The lawn mower, for its part, kept rolling into the open field, free from whatever burdens a working mower faced, ready to start a new, independent life. This time it was Vic alone who embarked on the chase, barreling after the machine and shouting obscenities as he ran. The rest of the crew was notably absent, not only from the mower wrangling but from the field itself. Patty made her way over to Charlie, presumably under the guise of ensuring his welfare, but Phil was nowhere to be seen.
Nora beat Patty to Charlie’s side and immediately crouched beside him, looking him over for any signs of uninvited pruning.
“You kids ought to be put in Bubble Wrap,” Patty said as she arrived. Her voice was measured, but her eyes had a frantic quality behind them; the disparity gave her the vibe of a woman possessed by the spirit of someone she would not have gotten along with in life. “I can’t seem to turn my back on you for a minute without one or both of you ending up in harm’s way.”
Nora was a kneeling barrier between Patty and her brother. She could feel her nostrils flaring like a bull ready to charge. “Where’s Phil?”
Patty cast her eyes around the fields. “Search me,” she said. “He’s not going to be too thrilled with whatever new damage that mower ends up with. It was giving him enough of a hard time already.”
“It nearly gave Charlie a much harder time,” said Nora through gritted teeth.
Patty unfolded her arms from where they’d been hugging her chest, appearing to try to soften her presence and failing miserably. She’d barely batted an eye at her nephew’s second near-deathexperience of the day. Aside from a sarcastic quip, she’d hardly acknowledged it at all. And why would she, if she was the one orchestrating it to begin with?
“You’re right,” said Patty. “Are you okay, Charlie? That must have been a harrowing thing to go through.”
Charlie had propped himself on his elbows and was currently weaving his head around Nora to try to catch a glimpse of his aunt, but Nora was having none of it and remained firmly wedged between the two.
“No harm done,” said Charlie, who clearly wasn’t picking up Nora’s simmering animosity or the charade of Patty’s concern.
