Sprout

front door. I had to sleep in the barn.”
    “I guess that explains the hay,” I said, although what I was looking at was the bruise on his face, the others concealed beneath his stained, straw-covered shirt.
    Ty picked a piece of hay off his shirt. “You kind of like pointing out the obvious, huh? When you don’t got nothing to say? Anyway,” he cut off my protest, “here’s the plan: cut around the southern edge of the Andersens’ pasture to avoid that stupid dog—”
    “Do we know the stupid dog’s name, by the way?”
    “Do we care about the stupid dog’s name, by the way ?”
    “It’s just easier than calling it ‘the dog,’ or ‘the Andersens’ dog,’ or ‘Vernon Andersens’ stupid—’ ”
    “What’s easier is if you shut up and listen to the plan , so that way you don’t get your head shot off by my dad .”
    There was a pause here, while I waited for Ty to laugh, and Ty waited for me to realize he wasn’t going to laugh. Something—talking or chewing—had caused the cut on the side of his mouth to open, and after a moment he touched a finger to his lip, looked at the blood, licked it off. My eyes flickered to the bruise on his face. Noted again that it was the size of a fist, with knuckle-shaped scalloping following the line of his cheekbone like lace at the edge of a bra.
    “Okay?” Ty’s eye twitched a couple of times above his bruise, less wink than tremor. A flush had pinked his cheeks, and for a minute I thought he might actually cry. But all he did was say:
    “So.” He gulped. Then: “So,” he said again, “follow the Andersens’ fence all the way to Tobacco, then walk up the road till you get to this line of hedge on the west side. There’s a sign on the fence that says it’s electric, but that’s a lie. Go through it, but make sure to keep the hedgerow between you and our house. When you get to the end of the hedge you’re gonna have to cross this big open field, kind of a valley like, with a couple of little willows and mesquite at the bottom you can use for cover, if you make it that far. My dad’s usually in the barn when we get out of school, so make sure he don’t come outside, cuz that’s only about a hundred feet away from the field and he keeps a thirty-ought-six hanging by the door in case of terrorists or taxmen. Anyway, once you get across the field, you have to make your way up the hill to this linden tree that grows about halfway up. It’s the only tree, you can’t miss it. It’s half dead cuz it’s so dry up there, but it’s tall enough that you can use it to get over the fence, which is electric, even though there’s no sign on it. There’re a couple of places you can go under, but my dad’d probly spot you before you found ’em and then, well, then you’d be dead, and we wouldn’t get to have no fun. So anyway, get yourself over the fence and then go far enough down the other side that no one can see you from our property, and then wait for me. And try not to make too much noise, or you’ll rouse the ostriches.”
    In the time it’d taken Ty to say all this a spot of blood had welled up on the side of his mouth and then run down his cheek. It didn’t run straight down, however, but veered left into the hollow between his lower lip and then spiraled around the point of his chin. It seemed just about to drip onto his white shirt when he suddenly finished talking and wiped his face on the back of his hand and, after inspecting the smear of blood with an almost proud expression, licked it off. I was so transfixed by the blood’s progress that I missed most of what he said, and in fact only really remembered the last word, which, since I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I now repeated:
    “Ostriches?”
    “The back of our property butts up against the Regiers’ ostrich farm. You seen the sign? ‘GOOD MEAT OSTRICHES’?”
    “Uh, yeah. I’ve seen it.”
    “They’ll rip your throat out if they’re in a mood. There’s a pretty thick stand of sandhill plums just over the hill. If they come at you, just go in there, they can’t get in. At least I don’t think they can. Whatever you do, don’t try to outrun ’em. They can do forty miles per, easy.”
    “Wipe your chin,” I said, and then: “You ever tried ostrich meat?”
    Ty wiped; looked; licked. Shrugged. “My dad shot one once. He told Regier that it got on our property, but that was a bald-faced lie. He said if God wanted ostriches in America, He’d’ve