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

because they were trying to save a buck. They had no longer wanted to shell out the money to send the dioxin barrels to Louisiana where they could be properly disposed of.

They had been found responsible. Forced to pay $200 million. They had paid for their sin.

But what other secrets did they have?

How many other Simon Beaches had they gotten away with?

I knew one thing for certain: whatever one of these secrets was, Neil Felding had found out. And that’s what killed him.

I thought back to what Sheila said when I asked what Neil had been working on.

She’d only said one word.

Terminator.

Chapter Twenty-One

“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing May’s shaking body. “They’re just fireworks.”

There was a loud explosion and May’s pink-and-ink-spotted body jerked. She let out a loud whine. Harold, who was curled up under a pile of hay, lifted his tan head slightly and squealed.

Earlier in the day, I’d driven into town to check out the Fourth of July festivities. Half the town was blocked off as the high school marching band, several fire trucks, and a stream of different floats paraded down Main Street, then wended their way through the many side streets. The sidewalks were cluttered with residents in lawn chairs, drinking beers, not to mention little kids running amok with sparklers in hand.

It was all very celebratory, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was too preoccupied with analyzing everything I’d learned at Lunhill HQ three days prior. There was no doubt in my mind that Neil Felding had stumbled onto something he shouldn’t have. It could have been any number of things to do with Lunhill: dioxin, GMOs, fraudulent political practices, something to do with the EPA or the FDA, or possibly something that Neil had been working on—something that had to do with the movie Terminator.

I had stayed in town just long enough to watch the parade, then I’d headed back to the farm. That’s when I noticed the front door to the farmhouse was ajar.

At first I thought of Caroline, but unless she’d teleported off the float she was riding on in the parade, then it wasn’t her. And it couldn’t have been Randall; he and his family were spending the holiday at a lake a few hours north. It possibly could have been Wheeler, but her truck was nowhere to be seen.

After combing the house and half the farm for the two piglets, I finally found them hunkered down in the far corner of the barn.

My best guess was that someone from one of the neighboring farms had been shooting off fireworks, and in their angst, the piglets had pushed up against the front door of the farmhouse and somehow gotten it to open. Then they’d made their way into the barn.

I’d been trying to coax them back into the house for the past several hours without much luck.

A series of fireworks exploded, and after May recovered from another shaking fit, I asked, “You sure you guys don’t want to go back in the house?”

I tried lifting Harold out of the hay, but he dug himself even deeper.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll stay in here.”

I fluffed up some hay until I was comfortable, then I pulled out my phone and hit play.

I’d watched so much television the past six months that the thought of spending two hours staring at a screen disgusted me. But I had to watch it. I had to know what Neil Felding’s coworker, Sheila, meant when she uttered the word “Terminator.”

Two hours later, I was no closer to understanding.

Was she saying that Neil Felding was the Terminator? Or that Neil Felding was John Connor? Or Sarah Conner? Was Lunhill Skynet? Had Lunhill been working on time travel?

What did it all mean?

But maybe I hadn’t heard all of what Sheila said. Maybe she actually said, “Terminator II.” Or maybe even “Terminator Genesis.”

How many movies were there?

I did a search on my phone.

There were five.

Five fucking movies!

“I’m not watching the one with Christian Bale. I’m just not,” I said out loud.

I put the phone down.

The fireworks had fallen silent an hour earlier and both the piglets were asleep.

A few minutes later, I was too.

“Welp,” I said. “That’s a lot of chickens.”

There were probably close to fifty running around, squawking, flapping their wings at one another.

It was July 6th and Randall had returned from his little vacation. He chuckled and said, “I told you I had a good chicken guy.”

I grinned, then asked, “So will the chickens just go into the coop on their own?”

“Yeah, just watch, they’ll play around for a little while out here, but they’ll find their way into the coop eventually.”

“Where are the roosters?”

“Roosters?”

“Yeah, you know, the birds that knock these chickens up so they start laying eggs.”

He slapped me on the shoulder. “You don’t know shit, do ya?”

“What?”

“Chickens don’t need to get knocked up to lay eggs.”

“They don’t?”

“No. They do that all on their own. Now if you want those eggs to actually turn into little chicks, then ya got to get a rooster.”

“Oh.”

He glared at me for a long second then said, “You want a rooster, don’t you?”

I did. Mostly because there was a rooster in the picture I colored. I didn’t dare tell Randall this.

“Don’t worry,” he said, giving my back another nice hard slap. “I got a rooster guy too.”

Unlike the Brush Hog, which was pulled behind the tractor, the tiller was attached up front.

Randall had been behind the wheel for the past thirty minutes, and we’d already tilled close to an acre. This would be a far easier task than the brush removal.

According to Randall, the purpose of tilling was to break up the hard crust of the dirt and to oxygenate the soil.

The tractor did a tight turn, and from the passenger seat of the tractor, I gazed across the several rows of tilled dirt.

I took a deep breath and shouted over the rumble of the tractor engine, “What do you know about Lunhill?”

The tractor slowed, then came