Lost Goat Lane Read online

  Lost Goat Lane

  ROSA JORDAN

  Published by

  PEACHTREE PUBLISHERS, LTD.

  1700 Chattahoochee Avenue

  Atlanta, Georgia 30318-2112

  www.peachtree-online.com

  Text © 2004 by Rosa Jordan

  Cover illustration © 2004 by Julie Monk

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by Loraine Joyner

  Book design by Melanie McMahon Ives

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jordan, Rosa.

  Lost Goat Lane / written by Rosa Jordan.–1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Two families–one white, one black–living near one another in rural Florida overcome their suspicions of each other and find ways to work together, with the help of their children and a few goats.

  ISBN 978-1-56145-754-0 (ebook)

  [1. Family life–Fiction. 2. Goats–Fiction. 3. Race relations–Fiction. 4. African

  Americans–Fiction.} I. Title

  PZ7.J76815Go 2004

  {Fic}–dc22 2004005343

  For my brothers,

  Alan and Duane

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedicaton

  1—Alligators

  2—Goat Love

  3—Turtles and Trophies

  4—The Worst School Year

  5—Almost a Friend

  6—Hurricane

  7—Kate Alone

  8—Chip Alone

  9—Justin Alone

  10—Booker and Everybody

  11—Mom’s Secret Past

  12—Playing Ball with Booker

  13—Partners

  14—Trouble on Wheels

  15—Ugly Old Motorcycle

  16—Work, Not Fun

  17—Billy-the-Bad

  18—Red Velvet

  19—Chip’s Revenge

  20—Looking Good

  21—Downtown

  22—Betrayal

  23—Christmas Eve

  24—Goat Christmas

  1

  Alligators

  Kate peered through the weeds. Most animals are cute when they’re sleeping, but not alligators, she thought. How could anything be cute with such cruddy skin? And those fangy teeth hanging over where their lips ought to be? Though, of course, an alligator doesn’t have lips, just a mouth so big you could shove a basketball in it. They also have bad breath, because they swallow their food whole and it lies there in their bellies till it rots. Kate and her brothers, crouched in the high grass on the bank above the big canal, weren’t close enough to smell the alligators’ breath, but they were close enough to see them clearly. Alligators’ legs are so short it’s a wonder they can lift their bellies off the ground to run. But they can, and when they do, it’s scary how fast they move.

  The littlest alligator was about the size of Chip, who was only seven. The middle-sized alligator looked to be five feet long. When Kate turned thirteen at the beginning of the summer, her mom had measured her and that’s exactly how tall she was: five feet. Kate often wished she wasn’t so skinny, but she’d rather be skinny than shaped like an alligator, fat in the middle and pointy on both ends.

  Justin, her big brother, was fourteen. He was taller than Kate. He was skinny like Kate and had long legs. When Justin sprawled out on the couch with his head on the armrest, his feet didn’t reach the other end. But the biggest alligator was way bigger than him. If that biggest alligator were to lie down on their couch, he’d hang off both ends.

  Justin picked up a rock to throw at the alligators.

  “You crazy?” Kate hissed. “You’ll wake them up!”

  Chip sneezed, and his dog Go-Boy let out a yap. The alligators woke in a flash. The two small ones slid down the bank into the water. But the big one rose up on his stubby legs, ready to charge. He swiveled his big ugly head around and looked at the exact spot where Kate was hiding. Before Go-Boy could let out a second yap, Kate, Justin, and Chip were on their feet, running toward home with Go-Boy in the lead.

  Justin quickly passed Kate on the trail and kept going. He was almost around the bend and out of sight when he stopped.

  Justin cupped his hands to his mouth and called back to them, “Run! He’s right behind you!”

  Kate slowed to a walk. She wasn’t stupid. If Justin had quit running it was because there wasn’t anything to run from.

  She turned and called to Chip, “It’s okay. There’s no gator chasing us.”

  Chip, still running, looked back over his shoulder. When he did, he stumbled and fell. He hit the ground, whump! hard on his stomach. But he didn’t cry. One thing you could say for Chip, he didn’t cry about every little thing. Kate went back and helped him up.

  Justin laughed. “Should have seen your face! You thought that old gator had you by the seat of the pants.”

  “I wasn’t scared,” Chip said in a loud voice that told Kate he had been scared. “Go-Boy was right behind me. He wouldn’t let that gator get near me.”

  “Ha! Go-Boy’d be no more than a mouthful for a big gator like that.”

  Chip balled up his fist and punched Justin in the stomach. Justin bent over laughing. “Ow! Ow! You broke my belly.”

  “I hate you!” Chip said. “I wish you’d disappear.”

  Justin’s laugh stopped like somebody had pushed the off button. “Maybe I will, brat. Someday I will.” Justin started up the trail, walking fast.

  “It’s okay,” Kate said to Chip. “He’s just …”

  She didn’t know just what Justin was anymore. He used to be the easiest one in the whole family to get along with, but lately he had changed. He seemed to get mad about something every day.

  Kate ran to catch up with him, Chip trailing behind. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Just what I said. I could leave anytime.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “Anywhere I please.”

  Justin was walking so fast that they had to trot to keep up with him.

  Chip said, “Mom wouldn’t let you. Would she, Kate?”

  “She wouldn’t even care,” Justin retorted.

  “She would!” Kate argued. “You know what she says about family sticking together.”

  “Yeah? Like her and Dad?”

  That was a low blow. “It wasn’t her fault he never came back,” Kate said.

  “So whose fault was it? Ours?”

  Kate felt sick to her stomach when Justin talked like that. She stopped trying to keep up and let him walk on ahead.

  Chip stopped and squatted down to rub Go-Boy’s curly head, and the small black dog put out a pink tongue and licked Chip’s cheek. Chip stood up and tucked his hand in Kate’s. Even though it was sticky-dirty, she held it, because she knew that was something he only did when he felt bad or when he thought she felt bad.

  They walked together without saying anything, crossing the highway to a dirt road called Lost Goat Lane. There wasn’t a sign or anything like that, but that’s what everybody called it. To Kate it seemed like a silly name. As far as she knew, the only goat along the road was her own, and it was in a pen you could barely see from the highway.

  Just on the other side of the highway, where the school bus stopped, their own short driveway turned off Lost Goat Lane. It ended in the side yard of their house. It was a small house, just one story built low to the ground, with a front and back porch. There were flower beds all the way around, but most
of the flowers had died or gone scraggly because Mom didn’t have time to tend them anymore. Two big shade trees in the front yard dropped leaves, which nobody ever bothered to rake. Between the front yard and the highway was a pasture for their three calves and a small drainage ditch. Behind the house were two small sheds. One was for the ducks, and one was for Kate’s goat, Sugar.

  “Ba-a-a!” the goat bleated as they walked up their driveway. “Ba-a-a!”

  Chip looked up at Kate and said, “Sugar’s calling you.”

  Before Kate could answer, Mom hurried out the front door and headed for the car. They could tell by the way she walked, fast without smiling, that she was annoyed. Kate and Chip started to run and got to the car just as she was pulling away.

  “How many times do I have to tell you kids I want you home before I leave for work? Do your chores, then get in the house and stay there till I get home,” she called out the car window, and drove off without asking where they’d been.

  “I don’t know why she thinks she’s got to remind us to do the chores,” Kate grumbled. “How could we forget?”

  The calves crowded along the fence making snorty noises at Justin, and the ducks, all quacking at once, waddled toward Chip. Sugar stood on her hind legs against the fence, still saying, “Ba-a-a! Ba-a-a!” Every animal on the place was telling them in its own loud voice that it wanted supper, now.

  Kate had just finished milking Sugar and was headed for the back door when she saw the black car coming. The driver was staring at their house. Justin must have seen it, too, because he left the calf pen and walked over to where Kate stood with her pail of milk. Chip came out of the duck shed with a basket of eggs. The three children stood there in a line, with Go-Boy at the end next to Chip, watching the man who was watching them.

  The car bounced down the unpaved driveway toward them. It pulled up close—a few more inches and it would have run over their toes. The driver, a thin man with very white skin, the kind you see on people who never go out in the sun, rolled down his window. A cool breath of air-conditioned air floated out.

  “Your mother here?” he asked.

  “No sir,” Kate said. “She’s at the dairy where she works.”

  “I thought she got home at noon.”

  “She does,” Justin said. “But she has to go back at four for the evening milking.”

  “What day is she off?”

  “Cows have to be milked every day. Twice,” Justin explained.

  “You mean she works every day?” The man said it like there was something wrong with working every day.

  “Even birthdays,” Chip told him.

  “Well, here’s my card.” The man handed a card to Justin. “Tell her I stopped by.”

  For a minute the man sat there in his car, looking around. He pointed to the fence that separated their one acre from the surrounding cornfields owned by big farmers.

  Kate saw how he pushed his lips together as if he already knew that was the property line.

  “Not much to it, is there?” he said.

  So what if it wasn’t a real farm, just one little acre! she thought angrily. She remembered Dad saying once that the yard might not be much of a yard, but it was big enough for him and his kids to play ball in without hitting one through the neighbor’s window. She could have told the man that the little farm was also big enough for goats and calves and ducks, animals that families living in town weren’t allowed to have, and she personally would rather have Sugar for a pet than any other animal alive. She also could have told him that when they wanted to build a bonfire to roast hot dogs and marshmallows on a summer night, they could do it without the police coming like they did to Mary Ellen’s birthday party, and making her parents put it out because night bonfires weren’t permitted in city limits.

  When nobody answered the man’s question, he rolled up his window as if he wanted to keep all the cool air inside for himself, and then drove off.

  Kate peered over Justin’s shoulder and read the card he was holding. “‘Arnold Tate. Bank Appraiser.’ What do you suppose he wanted?” she asked. “Why do you think he drove all the way out here?” It seemed like the man could have waited till Mom came into the bank. Something about all this made her worry. Especially when he sat there looking around in that critical way.

  Justin looked worried, too, but he didn’t answer. He just put the card in his pocket and said, “We better start supper.”

  Getting supper ready was another chore they had to do every night, and every night it was the same. Kate strained Sugar’s milk into a jar and washed out the milk pail. Chip put the duck eggs in their slots in the refrigerator. Justin got some green beans out of the fridge and started snapping them. Kate set the table. Chip climbed up on his step stool at the sink and started washing potatoes for baking.

  “I’m sick of taters,” Chip complained. “I want some meat.”

  “Yeah!” Justin said. “How about duck-burgers?”

  Chip threw a potato at Justin. It hit Justin in the back, then fell and rolled across the floor. Justin kept on snapping beans like he didn’t even feel it. All he said was, “That one’s yours.”

  “Stop teasing him, Justin,” Kate said. “Chip, wash off that potato before you put it in the oven.”

  Chip picked up the potato and flung it on the pan. “I know which one it is, but you don’t,” he said defiantly, shoving the pan into the oven.

  Kate opened the oven door a crack and looked in at the potatoes. Chip was right. There was no way to tell which was the dirty one. “Oh well. Go take your bath, brat.”

  When Chip finished his bath, Justin took a shower, and then Kate had her bath. After that there was nothing to do but hang around in the living room waiting for Mom to get home.

  Chip lay on the floor using his pajama top to play tug-of-war with Go-Boy. Kate tried to read, but lately she had lost interest in the kind of kid books, mostly about animals, that she used to like. But she really wasn’t into teenage romances, and the grown-up books she had tried to read didn’t hold her attention either. If there were any good ones, she hadn’t found them yet. She looked over at Justin. He had one foot up on the sofa and was clipping his toenails. The clipped pieces were flying all over. He wasn’t bothering to pick them up.

  “Justin, you remember when we went over to Mr. George’s house for dinner that time, and afterwards we watched TV?”

  “What about it?”

  “On TV they showed a man from the bank selling some people’s farm.”

  “Yep,” Justin said, and clipped another toenail.

  Chip said, “Wish Mom would get our TV fixed.”

  “Remember, Justin?” Kate said. “The bank took everything.”

  “What for?” Chip asked.

  “Loans,” said Justin. “If you don’t pay them back, the bank gets everything.”

  Chip put his arms around Go-Boy’s neck. “Everything? Even the animals?”

  “Even the kids,” Justin said solemnly.

  Just then they heard Mom’s car pull in.

  “You’re lying!” Chip yelled. “I’m going to tell Mom!”

  “Oh, Chip,” Kate moaned. “Can’t you take a joke?” She grabbed Chip by the hand and pulled him up off the floor. “Put your pajama top on and help me get supper on the table.”

  Justin took the potatoes out of the oven and dropped one on each plate, so now even Chip didn’t know which was the dirty one. Kate put the green beans in a bowl and poured glasses of goat milk. Chip got a dish of butter and a lump of goat cheese from the fridge and climbed into his chair.

  Mom kicked off her muddy boots on the back porch and came into the kitchen in sock feet. She washed her hands at the sink, then sat down at the table and smiled. “Hi, kids,” she said in a voice that sounded cheery on the top but tired underneath.

  She took a long drink of goat milk. “Mmm, I do love goat milk!” she said. “And goat cheese.” She reached for the saucer. “Here, Chip, you want some on your baked potato?”

&n
bsp; “I like the yellow kind,” Chip mumbled.

  Mom stopped pretending to be cheerful. “Goat cheese is what we have, and it’s better than store-bought.” She plopped a big spoonful on Chip’s potato and passed the cheese to Kate.

  Kate knew Chip didn’t mind goat cheese and milk and potatoes and green beans. But they had that same meal, or something almost like it, so often nowadays that they were all getting sick of it. Mom hardly ever bought groceries anymore. She kept saying they had to get by on what they could raise themselves.

  “What did you do today?” Mom asked, trying to sound cheerful again.

  “Nothing,” Kate said. She didn’t look up from her plate.

  “Hey, Mom,” Chip said. “Dad used to hunt gators, didn’t he?”

  “Hunting gators is against the law,” Mom snapped, her lips tight. “And dangerous. You kids stay away from that big canal, you hear me?”

  Kate held her breath. The next question was sure to be, “Have you been hanging around down there?” If they told the truth then they’d get into trouble, and if they lied she would probably find out and they’d get into trouble. Either way, they were doomed. They might get grounded for weeks. To ward off the question she didn’t want to answer, Kate said quickly, “A man came this afternoon. From the bank.”

  Mom sighed.

  Justin took the card out of his pocket and laid it by Mom’s plate. She barely looked at it.

  “What did he want?” Kate asked.

  “I’m behind on the payments, that’s all. I’ve asked for an extension on our loan. They have to reappraise the property before they can decide. Chip, stop playing with your food and eat.”

  Kate thought of how the man had looked at the fence and how disappointed he had seemed that the place was so small. She was pretty sure that he had appraised the property and decided it wasn’t worth anything without even bothering to get out of the car.

  Mom pushed back her chair and stood up. “That was a nice supper, kids. Now I’ve got to have a bath.”

  As soon as Mom left the kitchen, Chip stuck his plate under the table for Go-Boy. The plate came back squeaky clean.