2. Prescription For Love

Moving carefully in the near dark from the little bit of illumination from the flashlight, Blake straddled a wooden kitchen chair and folded his arms on the back. He rested his chin on his arms. “What are we doing?”

“Look,” Margie said excitedly.

Rooster landed in the doorway, swiveled his head back and forth a few times, and hopped into the kitchen. He fluttered his wings and pooped.

Blake winced. “Oh boy. Something tells me he’s probably not supposed to be in here.”

“Crap.” Margie laughed. “But there are extenuating circumstances, right?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to be a lawyer?”

“Family of doctors, remember?” Margie said. “Besides, I’m not interested in verbal arguments. I like doing things.”

Rooster one-legged it over to the box of chicks. Blake got ready to jump. Weren’t male animals— birds, whatever—supposed to be dangerous around babies? “He won’t hurt them, will he?”

“I wouldn’t ordinarily put the babies in with the big ones, but Rooster’s not your ordinary chicken.

Let’s see what he does.”

Margie sounded calm, but Blake wasn’t so sure. Rooster peered over the box, trumpeted a few more earsplitting screeches, and fluffed up his feathers. A few more screeches and he hunkered down beside the box and appeared to go to sleep.

“All good,” Margie said. “Anyhow, I’ve been thinking I might be a vet.”

“Yeah,” Blake said, “I can see that. It’s still medicine, but you’d be outside more, and animals are so cool.”

“More cool than people sometimes.” Margie moved the flashlight and set it upright between them, enclosing them in a circle of light beyond which the night ruled. “Wait till you’ve spent some more time with some of the bigger animals.”

“I’d like that.” Blake had never thought about learning about animals, but then why would he. He grew up in the city and did what city kids did. He didn’t know anything about farms or animals, and the idea of finding out hadn’t interested him. Until now. The only other time he’d ever felt quite so happy inside had been when he’d escaped into a fantasy world between the pages of a book. Spending more time with Margie would be cool. She was smart and logical, but adventurous too. She was just fun to be around. “You said the other day I could go to the 4-H thing with you. I could still do that, right?”

“Sure. You live here now. I’ll take you with me when we go to the convent to look after the kids.” “Whoa, back up a minute. Convent kids?”

Margie smirked. “The nuns over at St. Mary’s raise goats, and it’s kidding season. At least the second round of kids for this year. 4-Hers volunteer looking after the babies—feeding them and holding them and stuff. Makes them friendly and calm. Some of us show them at the county fairs. They’re way cute, and it’s really fun.”

“Okay, sure. If you think it will be all right.”

“Trust me, everybody likes volunteers.”

Blake worried he’d stand out. The new kid. The different kid. The weird one. “I’m not gonna know anything.”

“You will before long.” Margie nudged his foot. “I’ll teach you.”

“Thanks.” He sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the chicks scrabble about and then slowly quiet. The night grew heavy with silence, like the air was growing thicker. “Weird, without any noise—nice.”

“You miss the city?”

“Not so much. I mean, I miss having everything I want being really convenient—restaurants and shops and movie theaters and things like that. But I don’t miss how crowded and dirty it is. You don’t really notice it when you live there, until you get out here and there’s no garbage on the sidewalks.” “No sidewalks.”

Blake laughed. “Yeah, that too.”

“I guess it’s hard leaving your friends and school and everything, though.”

Blake’s heart jumped. He really liked Margie, and he didn’t want to screw up being friends, but he hadn’t really had anyone to talk to except his mom for a while. The support group was okay, but it was different talking to the group. They understood where he was coming from, which was super, but they weren’t there when he went to school every day. They weren’t part of his everyday life like Margie might be, weren’t maybe going to be friends like she was. He hoped. Margie was different, special. He wasn’t sure how far he could go. What was safe to say. “I miss a couple of them, yeah.” Margie tilted her head, watching him like she was waiting for more.

“You know, some of the kids I went to school with, my friends, they had a hard time with the trans thing.” There, he’d said it out loud. Trans. He’d owned it. Now he just had to wait to see what happened. Again. A sick feeling rolled through his stomach. Maybe he’d just screwed up.

“Why?” Margie asked.