Scott Nicholson - The Farm

"What's the hurry?" came a girl's voice behind her.

Jett wheeled to face Bethany, who was as cool as Mentos in her short skirt and blue halter top with bra straps showing. "No hurry, I just have to do my homework before math class."

"But class starts in four minutes."

"That's what I mean. I don't want to disappoint Mrs. Stansberry. She's the only cool teacher I have."

"Did you sleep okay? You look like you're late for your own funeral. Or maybe your eye shadow's a little thick today."

"Thanks for the compliment."

"No, you're good. This Goth thing looks bitching. I wish my parents would let me get away with it."

"See, that's just it. You don't ask your parents, you tell them. Have to show them who is boss right from diapers."

"I'll bet yours were black."

"Well, not while they were clean."

"Ooh, yuck." Bethany crinkled her overly pert nose.

"What are you doing after school?"

"Feeding the goats."

"I hate those cloven-hoofed little monsters. They scare me."

Bethany laughed. "They're okay. The males, the billy goats, stink unless you cut their balls off. My dad has a metal band that you put around them, then leave it for a few weeks. The balls swell up and turn black and gross, and then they fall off. Problem solved."

Jett shuddered. She wasn't an expert in male anatomy, but she was under the impression that the testicles were the most vulnerable spot on their bodies. Which is why you tried to kick there in an emergency. But causing their balls to rot seemed like the sort of punishment that should be reserved for the very worst of them. Creatures like Tommy Williamson.

Jett decided she wouldn't complain about her own chores for a while. Sweeping the living room didn't seem so bad when compared to forking hay to a goat. "Well, I've got to get to that homework. Say hi to Chuck for me."

Bethany's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Your boyfriend. The Chuckster."

"You don't even know him."

"You told me all about him. Chuck steak, one hundred percent lean."

"And don't forget he's mine." Bethany frowned and turned, then was swept away in the tide of students. Jett looked at the clock on the wall. Two minutes to solve six math problems. And me rest of her life to solve all the rest of her problems.

September was a melancholy month for Alex Eakins. It was the month his childhood mutt rolled himself under the wheels of a FedEx van, the month he'd lost his virginity after a high school football game to a girl who later ditched him for a married man, the month his dad and mom separated, the month he'd been kicked out of Duke for lousy grades and attendance. Since he'd moved to the mountains and spent his trust fund on a little piece of south-facing land on the mountain above Solom, September had been a time of dying.

He sniffed the air, which was sweet with the sugar of red maples and crab apples. The stench of decay should have been there, but the only rot came from the black innards of his composting toilet, where bacteria performed its thankless job of turning shit to dirt. Nature was just beginning to accept that winter was on the way, that every living thing would soon be asleep or dead. He wondered which of those he would be.

Alex had embraced organic gardening as a lifestyle, earning enough by selling produce at the county farmers' market to pay his property taxes. He had studied all the latest sustainable building techniques, and his own house was a mix of technologies both primitive and new. Since he lived off-grid and wasn't beholden to the building inspection and permitting process, Alex had used cob and straw bale construction for part of his house, which was cut partly into the bank. From the outside, the structure looked as much like an aboriginal mud hut as anything, but it was incredibly energy efficient. A small cluster of solar panels on the roof ran a dorm-sized refrigerator, and a woodstove system circulated hot water through the house. Alex had fixed a generator to a paddle wheel in the creek that gushed along one side of his property. The generator, along with a miniature wind turbine, fed a bank of alternating-current batteries, so he was covered no matter what the weather.

The system was put together in the aftermath of Y2K, when all the doomsayers had realized the world wasn't going to end after all and had sold their survival gear. Well, the world may have ended already, for all Alex knew. Because it was autumn again, and the tomatoes were turning to mush on the vines and the corn was getting hard. The cool-weather greens like collards, spinach, and turnips still had a few weeks to go, but soon enough the market would close for the season. Alex had a truckload of pumpkins to sell for Halloween, and one more good haul of organic broccoli, but after that, he would have to go back to work. Or else sell a little of the marijuana he cultivated.

But that meant dealing with people.

The same idiotic people who had driven him to the isolation of his mountain retreat Despite the added pleasure of end-running the government and the lure of the world's last free-market economy, selling dope was almost as much trouble as having a square job.

Alex dumped a bucket of table scraps onto his garden compost heap and looked over the valley below. The trees were just starting to turn color along the highway, where the roots were stressed by construction and carbon monoxide. A gravel road ran past the Ward and Smith houses before disappearing into the thicket and winding up to Alex's house. The road got a lot bumpier and rutted past Gordon Smith's, because Alex believed in inhibiting curiosity-seekers. Not because he was antisocial as his mom had claimed or a stubborn asshole as his dad had believed but because he didn't have the patience to deal with accidental tourists and uninvited guests. Plus, the government might have an interest in finding him.

Besides, he wasn't antisocial. Just ask Meredith, the earth chick he'd met at the farmers' market who had occupied half of his bed on and off since April. But April was a green month and October was red and golden, so he expected her to light out before the first killing frost.

Her voice came from the wooden deck. "Honey?"

Honey. That reminded him, next year he planned on setting up a honeybee hive. With all the pests that attacked honeybees, the real stuff was getting more and more valuable. Alex was sure he could do it right, and have the fringe benefit of his own tiny, winged army of blossom pollinators-

"Alex?"

He put down the scrap bucket and picked up the heavy hoe. 'Yes, dear?"

"Are you mad at me about something?"

"Of course not." Down below, through the trees, a thread of gray smoke rose from the Ward chimney.

"You only call me 'dear' when you're mad at me."

"That's not so."

"And you say it out the side of your mouth, like you're talking on automatic or something. Like you're miles away."

Gasoline was pushing two-fifty a gallon, thanks to the military-industrial complex that ruled the country, and that had to be fac-tored against the profit from a load of pumpkins. Maybe he'd drive the load to Westridge. The college kids had plenty of money. He should know, as much grass as he'd peddled to them over the last couple of years. "Everything's fine, dear."

"See? There you go again."

"Huh?"

"You said 'dear' again."

He turned and squinted up at the deck. The day was bright, though cool. Meredith stood in a gray terry-cloth robe, her blond hair wet and steaming. No doubt she was nude beneath, and Alex thought of those nipples that were the color and consistency of pencil erasers. He could almost smell her shampoo, the hippie-dippy expensive stuff she bought at the health food store. He tight-ened his grip on the hoe.

"Sorry," he said. "I was thinking about autumn."