Саманта Сильвер - Lipstick On A Pig

“You never know what’ll happen at the end of the eleven days,” I told her, laughing as I grabbed an extra piece of fencing to start splitting the place into three. It took Sophie and I about five minutes to decide how to best split up the area, and fifteen minutes later we had a beautifully set up petting zoo with three distinct sections where visitors and their children could come through and meet all the animals.

I made my way back to the truck. “All right everyone, your homes for the next twelve days are all set!” I said enthusiastically, and was met with a cacophony of questions.

“Awesome! A new home!”

“Why can’t we just go back to the farm?”

“Will there be hay?”

“Can I get an area where I can’t see the pigs?”

“How many people are coming to see us?”

“Is there Wi-Fi? Also, what’s Wi-Fi?”

Deciding I didn’t have the energy to answer all the questions, I opened the cage that held the chickens and carried them, two at a time, to their new home. Bee hissed as I walked past.

“You didn’t say there’d be farm animals here,” she scowled at me. She had settled into her bed and was now curled up into a little ball. Her complaint took the form of her looking up at me from this position, and as a result her voice was slightly muffled, which made her complaints seem a little bit more pathetic.

“Yes, Bee, what did you think a petting zoo was?”

“I thought it was just going to be me and the shelter animals,” she muttered. “I didn’t realize I’d be sharing my space with them ,” she continued, looking at the chickens.

“Well, you can ignore them. Just like you do with everything else you don’t like.”

“Farm animals are loud. And annoying. So uncouth. Why can’t they be dignified, like I am?”

I rolled my eyes and forced myself not to answer that as I carried the chickens into their new enclosure.

“What does the cat know about dignity?” one of them asked the other. “I bet she doesn’t even lay her eggs in a box.”

I looked to make sure Bee hadn’t heard the comment, but thankfully it looked like she’d immediately gone to sleep after I’d walked away. Babysitting animals for twelve days was definitely not going to be a vacation, even though the vet clinic was closed during the festival. I still had my cell phone number up, in case of any emergencies. Sophie, having heard the conversation, grinned at me as she brought over two more of the chickens.

“Are things not going perfectly in animal-land?”

I sighed. “I swear, you are so lucky the only animal you can talk to is Sprinkles.”

Sprinkles was Sophie’s dog that she’d adopted after his owner had been murdered. Sophie’s mom was a witch, and while we all believed for years that Sophie had no magical powers whatsoever, we discovered that she could speak with Sprinkles. That was though, as it turned out, the limit to her magical abilities.

“All right, goats, your turn,” I said, moving toward their hutch.

“Good, we should get to go first. You hear that, son?” asked a large brown goat with white patches to a little white kid standing between its legs. “Goats are the most important animal. We always go first.”

The kid bleated his agreement, and I rolled my eyes. Obviously the mother goat hadn’t noticed that we had already loaded the chickens into the coop. This was going to be a long day.

Chapter 2

Three hours later we had all the animals ready to go in the petting zoo. Emily, from the animal shelter, had shown up with a half dozen dogs who were all much better behaved than the farm animals. Bee fell asleep and then promptly began to ignore everyone who came to the petting zoo, much to my relief. Even the cries of “look at the kitty!” from little kids couldn’t make her stir.

Around eleven, my boyfriend Jason showed up with a vanilla latte from Betty’s café , the best coffee shop in town.

“You’re amazing!” I told him as I grabbed the cup with gusto. It had been that kind of morning. I left Sophie in charge of collecting donations and letting people into the petting zoo, and walked along the side with Jason.

“Are you talking to me, or the cup of coffee?” he asked, his face breaking into a giant grin. Jason had dark hair and eyes, and a smile that made my legs—as well as other parts of me—melt completely. He a shad over six feet tall, it was obvious he worked out, and I couldn’t help but notice the roaming eyes of a number of the women in the park were on him. Well, it was too bad for them. Jason was mine. We’d started dating a couple of months ago, and while I had initially found Jason to be incredibly infuriating to be around—it hadn’t helped that I’d suspected him of murder for a while—it turned out he was actually a pretty good guy. And funny, too. Who would have guessed?

“Why can’t it be both?” I replied, happily taking the drink from him and closing my eyes while I enjoyed my first sip of the soothing drink. “You have no idea what kind of morning I’ve had.”

“It was probably worse than mine, I spent the morning watching surfers on the beach and listening to tourists tell me how much they love Willow Bay for the articles I’m writing.” Jason worked for the local paper, the Willow Bay Whistler.

“Show off. I spent the morning trying to convince my cat that she has to lie there and not claw people, then I had to split up some piglets and goats that really do not like each other. I’ve had two people complain they stepped in animal droppings and one kid who peed himself in the middle of the enclosure. And we’re not even halfway through the first day.”

Jason laughed. “I hope all that’s on the record, I want to include it in my article.”

“That is absolutely not on the record,” I replied, punching him lightly on the arm, “and you know it. Reporters. You’re all the same—always out for the story.”

“You caught me,” he replied with a shrug, then wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I saw at least three women glaring at me. “Seriously though, do you want me to bring you anything? It’s not like interviewing people for a bunch of personal interest stories for the Whistler is exactly a taxing job. I could even help Sophie out for a little bit if you want a break.”

“Thanks, I think we’ve got it covered, though. Hey, just out of curiosity, how many of the people that you interviewed this morning were women?”

“I dunno, probably most of them? Why, am I not allowed talking to the opposite sex anymore?” he joked.

“No, but seeing as how four women just glared at me when you put your arm around me, I was curious.”

“Ah, well, that’s part and parcel of dating such a dashing specimen as myself. I generally have to fend women off with a stick.”

I giggled as I took another sip of my coffee. “Well, I’m glad you decided to put your stick away when you saw me.”

“How could I not? A woman who thinks I’m a murderer straight away? That’s a keeper!”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

Jason laughed. “If by ‘let that go’ you mean ‘let you live that down’ then no, I’m not going to.”

I stuck my tongue out at him before resting my head against his shoulder. He was so comfortable. His firm, muscular body just felt so safe and comforting when I rested against it; I closed my eyes and let the warm summer breeze brush my face. This was absolutely perfect.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t take the whole afternoon off. A few minutes later I told Jason I had to get back. He promised to come back again later when we closed off the petting zoo, around five.

“Thanks for coming,” I told him with a smile.

“No problem,” he replied with a wink as he headed back out to find himself the big scoop of the festival. I made my way back to Sophie and plonked myself back down on the chair next to her. In the petting zoo behind us I could hear two of the piglets behind us arguing about who had the biggest snout. I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the end of the day without getting a migraine.