Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4), Nick Pirog [classic children's novels .TXT] 📗

dry, and I asked, “Can they have another one?”

“Not right now. They could have gone a day or more without food, so we don’t want to overwhelm their systems. You can feed them again in a few hours.”

“Me?” I scoffed. “What do you mean?” I had assumed I would leave the piglets with her.

“When you take them home.”

“But they’re not my pigs.”

“Then go find out whose pigs they are and give them back. Any farmer out here will be happy to take them.”

My brow furrowed. “And what will they do with them?”

“Depends. Breed ‘em, eat ‘em, or sell ‘em. There isn’t much else.”

“But—”

She looked at me.

“Okay, I guess I can take them.”

She told me she could give me enough formula for the next two days, but I would have to go to the feed and supply store to pick up more. Then she told me about some website I should visit so I could read all about how to care for them.

“I don’t have the internet.”

“Even on your phone?”

I shook my head.

She sighed, her third by my count, and said, “Okay, I’ll print some stuff out for you. Meet me up front.”

Five minutes later, she met me at the reception desk with a ream of printed pages. She put them in a bag with the formula, then rang me up for the visit. All of $40.

I said, “It’s got to be more than that.”

“First-timer’s discount.”

I set the piglets down and reached for my wallet.

I groaned.

In all the piglet hullabaloo, I nearly forgot I was lucky I wasn’t paralyzed.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sarah asked.

“I fell out of a tree.”

“Oh.”

“And then I fell off a ladder.”

She fought back a smile. “Really?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“Want me to take a look?”

“Uh, I’m a human.”

She narrowed her eyes at me.

I can be annoying.

“Do you want me to take a look or not?”

“Yes, please.”

She came around the counter and asked, “Where does it hurt?”

“My whole left side, butt, ribs, and shoulder.”

She ushered me out of the lobby and a few feet into the hall. Then she said, “Okay, pull down your pants.”

I raised my eyebrows and said, “Isn’t that second visit sort of stuff?”

She gazed at me. I knew the look. It was the I wish I had access to a time machine so I could go back and never have met this guy look.

“Sorry.” I unbuttoned my pants and pushed my jeans down halfway. On my right quadriceps, a half inch below where my boxer briefs ended, there was a nickel-sized area of dimpled skin. There was a similar scar on my left shoulder.

Bullets will do that.

Sarah cast her eyes to the scar, but said nothing. She checked the bruise on my butt and thigh, then said, “Now, lift your shirt.”

Err.

“What now?” she said, throwing up her hands.

“It’s just, I’m kind of chunky right now.”

She forced down a smile.

I think I was growing on her.

That happens sometimes.

“Just lift your shirt.”

I did.

She prodded my ribs.

“Yowee!”

“Are you always like this?”

“I think I might have PTSD.”

“I think you have brain damage.”

I laughed, which hurt, but appeared to make Sarah happy.

After another minute of pressing, prodding, and overall pain infliction, she said, “Well, first off, for falling out of a tree and falling off a ladder, you are incredibly lucky. It’s probably a good thing you’re, as you say, ‘a little chunky.’”

“I’m joining Weight Watchers.”

“Good for you,” she said, then rolled her eyes.

Three sighs, two eye rolls.

“Anyhow, like I was saying, you might have a couple hairline fractures in your ribs, but there isn’t much you can do for that except grin and bear it for six weeks.”

“Six weeks?”

She walked around the counter and pushed through the door. She returned thirty seconds later with a Ziploc bag containing a handful of white pills.

“This is Hydrocodone. It should help alleviate some of the pain and help you get some sleep.”

It wasn’t quite as powerful as Percocet, but it would do the trick.

I thanked her and asked, “What do I owe you for it?”

“Nothing. It’s from my personal supply. But if you crash your car in a ditch, you didn’t get them from me.”

“Deal.”

She told me to get my pigs and go.

Back in the car with the piglets, who were now both sitting on my lap, I realized a couple things.

First, the pills Sarah gave me were not Hydrocodone. They were Tylenol. And second, the flowers on the counter. They were yellow.

Yellow tulips.

I left Pink and Tan in the car when I returned to the farm. Then I spent ten minutes making sure there weren’t any more piglets in the hay loft.

Hey, little piggies.

Come here, little piggies.

Are there any more little piggies hiding in the hay?

Satisfied that I’d saved all the little piggies I could for the day, I made my way back to the car and opened the front door. Both piglets were sitting on the driver’s seat. Pink was sitting down, gazing up at me with her big brown eyes. Her nose was pink with a black ink spot, and she wiggled it from side to side. Tan was lying on his back, glaring up at me with as much disinterest as he could muster.

“What am I going to do with you guys?”

The logical answer was to put them in the pigpen, but the small fence would first need to be repaired.

“I suppose I could put you guys in the chicken coop?” I said, thinking out loud. “That might work.”

The final option was to lock them in the barn, but there was an opening somewhere I would first need to block. Also, I didn’t want them in there with their dead mother. Speaking of whom, I would need to find a way to get down from the loft at some point.

I let out a long exhale and said, “Well, I suppose you can come into the house with me for tonight.”

I had to feed them every few hours anyhow.

I grabbed a piglet in each arm and carried them into the house. I set them down, then went