Flashback Pigs Are People Too
TRIXIE
Seventeen Years Earlier
Iwas sprawled on a blanket underneath the Japanese maple tree on the front lawn of our new house, pretending to read. Mostly I was watching the movers and trying not to think about how nothing here was familiar.
New house. New state. New school in a few weeks.
At least Lulu was here. My best friend had moved to Colorado a year ago, and the twelve months without her, my ride or die, had been the loneliest of my life. I’d be in her school now. That part I was excited about. The rest of it made my stomach hurt.
A woman was headed up our driveway with a baby on her hip and two boys trailing behind her.
She was tall with dark hair and a warm smile, and something about the way she moved, confident but unhurried, made me sit up straighter.
The older boy, maybe around my age, carried a basket.
The younger one had a football tucked under his arm.
“Hi there.” The woman waved at me. “I’m April. We’re your new next-door neighbors. Are one of your grown-ups around?”
Before I could answer, my mom came out the front door. “Hello! I’m Becca Moore, and this is my daughter Trixie.”
“So nice to meet you both.” April’s smile got even wider when she looked at me. “Trixie, what a great name. Is that short for Beatrix?”
I nodded, surprised. Most adults didn’t ask.
“I love it. Very literary.” She winked at me, then turned back to my mom. “My husband Bridger and I live right next door. We wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. Chris, give Mrs. Moore the basket.”
The older boy stepped forward. “Hello, ma’am.” So polite. He handed my mom a basket covered with a checkered cloth.
“Oh, how thoughtful.” My mom peeked under the cloth. “Did you make these?”
“Chris and I baked them this morning,” April said. “Fair warning, the snickerdoodles are his specialty, so he might come asking for reviews later.”
Chris’s cheeks went pink. “Mom.”
“What? You should be proud. Most ten-year-old boys can barely make toast.” April ruffled his hair affectionately, and he ducked away, embarrassed but smiling.
I decided I liked her. “I’m ten too.”
“Oh, that’s great. Maybe you and Chris can be friends. This little guy is Isak,” April continued, bouncing the baby on her hip. He had big greenish eyes and a drooly smile. “And that’s Everett hiding behind the football.”
“I’m not hiding,” Everett said, stepping forward.
“He has six brothers,” April stage-whispered to me, like it was a secret. “Our house is basically a zoo. You should come over sometime. We can always use more estrogen in the mix.”
My mom laughed. “We just moved up from California after my doctorate. I’m still figuring out where everything is.”
“Oh, I remember those days. We moved here from California too, about ten years ago now. Texas before that.” April shifted Isak to her other hip. “It’s an adjustment, but you’ll love it. The people here are wonderful, and the mountains...” She gestured vaguely at the horizon. “Well. You’ll see.”
The moms kept talking, something about schools and grocery stores and pediatricians, and I found myself looking at Chris. He was looking back at me with eyes that matched the clear Colorado sky.
“Whatcha reading?” he asked.
“Oh, um. Anne of Green Gables.” Boys didn’t usually ask me about books. Or even ask me anything. Boys are dumb.
“Anne with an e?” He smiled.
I smiled back, surprised. “You’ve read it?”
“My mom read it to us. All of us, even the boys who complained.” He glanced at April with obvious affection. “I like Anne. I think if I had a sister, she would be like her.”
“You really have six brothers?”
“Yeah. Six of them.”
“Six.” I said it louder than I meant to, and both moms looked over, laughing.
“It’s a lot,” April agreed. “But we love it. Minus the part where they eat us out of house and home. So much spaghetti.” She caught Chris’s eye and smiled at him in a way that made something wiggle around in my chest, like she was sharing a private joke with him, like he was her favorite person in the world.
Chris introduced his brothers properly. “Isak’s the youngest, and a little like that baby in the Marvelouses. Except he doesn’t actually burst into flames.” Isak cooed. “But sometimes he smells like he does.”
His other brother laughed and nodded like he agreed a whole lot.
“This is Everett, he’s—.”
“I’m the third oldest, I’m seven.” Everett said proudly.
“Third oldest doesn’t count, Doofus.” Chris rolled his eyes and so only I could see. Like we had our own inside joke already.
“Well, I think you’re really tall for a seven-year-old.” I said to Everett trying to cheer him up, and ignoring the fluttery wiggles in my tummy.
“Tall enough to hang out with a ten-year-old?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows dramatically. His brother shoved his shoulder and I laughed for real for the first time since we’d left California.
“I don’t have any siblings,” I admitted.
“That must be quiet.” Chris sighed, like quiet was a dream.
“Yeah. It is.” I thought about eating lunch alone every day last year. “And lonely sometimes.”
“Well, you can always come over to our house. Too many people to get lonely. We have a whole room full of books, and you’d like game night.” He said it fast, like he was nervous I’d say no. “You wanna come over now?. I promised Ev we’d throw the old pigskin around, and—“
“That’s mean!” The words burst out of me. “You shouldn’t call it a pigskin. Pigs are people too!”
The silence that followed was excruciating. Way to go, Beatrix. This boy is trying to be nice and you yell at him about pigs.
But Chris didn’t look annoyed. He looked genuinely sorry. “Oh—I didn’t mean—I don’t think they’re made from actual pigs anymore? I think it’s cows now...”
I glared at him.
“That’s not better, is it?”
“I’m a vegetarian. And an animal activist.”
Everett’s eyes bounced between us like he was watching a tennis match.
“Well,” Chris said slowly, “I’m sure we have some vegetarian footballs. We have a lot of footballs. Maybe you could show me which ones are okay?”
I knew he was just being nice. There was no such thing as a vegetarian football. But he was trying so hard, and nobody tried that hard with me except Lulu.
“Yeah. Okay, that would be...cool,” I said.
Chris’s whole face relaxed. “Cool, good. It would be fun to have a friend next door.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It really would.”
April appeared beside us, Isak now sleeping against her shoulder. “Chris, why don’t you show Trixie the tire swing while I finish talking to her mom? And Everett, no tackling. We’re making a good impression.”
“I never tackle,” Everett said, clearly lying.
April laughed and squeezed my shoulder as she passed. Her hand was warm, and she smelled like vanilla and something floral. “I have a feeling you’re going to fit right in around here, Trixie.”
All I knew, standing in the Colorado sunshine with my new neighbors, was that my stomach finally felt okay. Better than okay. It felt like tiny bubbles...the good kind.
“Come on,” Chris said, already heading toward his yard. “The tire swing is really high. You’re not scared of heights, are you?”
“No,” I said, following him. “I’m not scared of anything.”
It was a lie, but Chris didn’t need to know that yet.