Dairy Queen Read online

  Dairy Queen

  Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  ...

  ...

  Copyright

  Dedication

  ...

  Contents

  1. Schwenk Farm

  2. Put to Work

  3. Brian Bails

  4. Amber

  5. Back to Normal, More or Less

  6. Jimmy Ott Steps In

  7. Sunday

  8. People Who Are Crazy and Need to Have Their Heads Examined

  9. Dairy Queen

  10. Wash Day

  11. Training

  12. The Long Weekend

  13. Talk

  14. Talk Back

  15. Epiphany

  16. Heifers Don't Play Football

  17. Family Secrets

  18. D.J. Goes to Town

  19. The Opposite of Flirting

  20. The Most Disgusting Thing I've Ever Heard Of

  21. Whoever Said Love Was Fun?

  22. The Banquet

  23. Mom

  24. Welcome to Schwenksville

  25. Practice Begins

  26. Dog Days

  27. Making the Team

  28. The Scrimmage

  29. That's My Ball

  30. Brian Nelson

  31. The End

  ...

  Reading Group Guide

  GRAPHIA

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

  Boston New York

  To James, and Liz, and Mr. Webster

  Copyright © 2006 by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Graphia,

  an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  Originally published in the United States by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children,

  an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2006.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

  write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Graphia and the Graphia logo are registered trademarks of

  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  The text of this book is set in Dante.

  Book design by Sheila Smallwood

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Murdock, Catherine Gilbert.

  Dairy queen : a novel / by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.

  p. cm.

  Summary: After spending her summer running the family farm

  and training the quarterback for her school's rival football team,

  sixteen-year-old D.J. decides to go out for the sport herself,

  not anticipating the reactions of those around her.

  [1. Football—Fiction. 2. Farm life—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M9416 Dai 2006

  [Fic]—dc22 2005019077

  ISBN-13: 978-0-618-68307-9 hardcover

  ISBN-13: 978-0-618-86335-8 paperback

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  DOM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  4500286585

  To James, and Liz, and Mr. Webster

  Contents

  1. SCHWENK FARM [>]

  2. PUT TO WORK [>]

  3. BRIAN BAILS [>]

  4. AMBER [>]

  5. BACK TO NORMAL, MORE OR LESS [>]

  6. JIMMY OTT STEPS IN [>]

  7. SUNDAY [>]

  8. PEOPLE WHO ARE CRAZY AND NEED TO

  HAVE THEIR HEADS EXAMINED [>]

  9. DAIRY QUEEN [>]

  10. WASH DAY [>]

  11. TRAINING [>]

  12. THE LONG WEEKEND [>]

  13. TALK [>]

  14. TALK BACK [>]

  15. EPIPHANY [>]

  16. HEIFERS DON'T PLAY FOOTBALL [>]

  17. FAMILY SECRETS [>]

  18. D.J. GOES TO TOWN [>]

  19. THE OPPOSITE OF FLIRTING [>]

  20. THE MOST DISGUSTING THING

  I'VE EVER HEARD OF [>]

  21. WHOEVER SAID LOVE WAS FUN? [>]

  22. THE BANQUET [>]

  23. MOM [>]

  24. WELCOME TO SCHWENKSVILLE [>]

  25. PRACTICE BEGINS [>]

  26. DOG DAYS [>]

  27. MAKING THE TEAM [>]

  28. THE SCRIMMAGE [>]

  29. THAT'S MY BALL [>]

  30. BRIAN NELSON [>]

  31. THE END [>]

  1. Schwenk Farm

  This whole enormous deal wouldn't have happened, none of it, if Dad hadn't messed up his hip moving the manure spreader. Some people laugh at that, like Brian did. The first time I said Manure Spreader he bent in half, he was laughing so hard. Which would have been hilariously funny except that it wasn't. I tried to explain how important a manure spreader is, but it only made him laugh harder, in this really obnoxious way he has sometimes, and besides, you're probably laughing now too. So what. I know where your milk comes from, and your hamburgers.

  I'll always remember the day it all started because Joe Namath was so sick. Dad names all his cows after football players. It's pretty funny, actually, going to the 4-H fair, where they list the cows by farm and name. Right there next to "Happy Valley Buttercup" is "Schwenk Walter Payton," because none of my grandpas or great-grandpas could ever come with up a name for our place better than boring old "Schwenk Farm."

  Joe Namath was the only one left from the year Dad named the cows after Jets players, which I guess is kind of fitting in a way, seeing how important the real Joe Namath was and all. Our Joe was eleven years old, which is ancient for a cow, but she was such a good milker and calver we couldn't help but keep her. These past few weeks, though, she'd really started failing, and on this morning she wasn't even at the gate with the other cows waiting for me, she was still lying down in the pasture, and I had to help her to stand up and everything, which is pretty hard because she weighs about a ton, and she was really limping going down to the barn, and her eyes were looking all tired.

  I milked her first so she could lie down again, which she did right away. Then when milking was over I left her right where she was in the barn, and she didn't even look like she minded. Smut couldn't figure out what I was doing and she wouldn't come with me to take the cows back to pasture—she just stood there in the barn, chewing on her slimy old football and waiting for me to figure out I'd forgotten one of them. Finally she came, just so she could race me back home like she always does, and block me the way Win taught her. Smut was his dog, but now that he's not talking to Dad anymore, or to me, or ever coming home again it seems like, I guess now she's mine.

  When I went in for breakfast Curtis was reading the sports section and eating something that looked kind of square and flat and black. Like roofing shingles. Curtis will eat anything because he's growing so much. Once he complained about burnt scrambled eggs, but other than that he just shovels it in. Which makes me look like I'm being all picky about stuff that, trust me, is pretty gross.

  Dad handed me a plate and shuffled back to the stove with his walker. When things got really bad last winter with his hip and Mom working two jobs and me doing all the farm work because you can't milk thirty-two cows with a walker, Dad decided to chip in by taking over the kitchen. But he never said, "I'm going to start cooking" or "I'm not too good at this, how could I do it better?" or anything like that. He just started putting food in front of us and then yelling at us if we said anything, no matter how bad it looked. Like now.

  "It's French toast," Dad said like it was totally obvious. He hadn't shaved in a while, I noticed, and his forehead was white the way it'll always be from a
ll those years of wearing a feed cap while his chin and nose and neck were getting so tan.

  I forced down a bite. It tasted kind of weird and familiar. "What's in here?"

  "Cinnamon."

  "Cinnamon? Where'd you get that idea?"

  "The Food Channel." He said it really casual, like he didn't know what it meant.

  Curtis and I looked at each other. Curtis doesn't laugh, really—he's the quietest one in the family, next to him I sound like Oprah Winfrey or something, he makes Mom cry sometimes he's so quiet—but he was grinning.

  I tried to sound matter-of-fact, which was hard because I was just about dying inside: "How long you been watching the Food Channel, Dad?"

  "You watch your mouth."

  Curtis went back to his paper, but you could tell from his shoulders that he was still grinning.

  I pushed the shingles around on my plate, wishing I didn't have to say this next thing. "Dad? Joe's looking real bad."

  "How bad?"

  "Bad," I said. Dad knew what I was talking about; he'd seen her yesterday. I hate it when he acts like I'm stupid.

  We didn't say anything more. I sat there forcing down my shingles and doing the math in my head. I'd known Joe since I was four years old. That's more than three-quarters of my life, she'd been around. Heck, Curtis was only a baby when she was born. He couldn't even remember her not existing. Thinking stuff like that, there's really not much point to making conversation.

  After breakfast me and Curtis disinfected all the milk equipment and worked on the barn the way we have to every day cleaning out the calf pens and sweeping the aisles and shoveling all the poop into the gutter in the barn floor, then turning on the conveyer belt in the gutter to sweep it out to the manure cart so we can haul it away.

  Back when Grandpa Warren was alive, the barn just shined it was so clean. He'd spread powdered lime on the floor every day to keep everything fresh, and wipe down the light bulbs and the big fans that brought fresh air in, and whitewash the walls every year. The walls hadn't been painted in a long time, though. I guess Dad was hurting too much these past few years to do any real cleaning, and I sure didn't have the time. So the barn looked pretty crappy, and smelled it too.

  Whenever I passed by Joe Namath I'd take a minute to pat her and tell her what a good cow she was, because I had a pretty good idea what was coming. When I heard a truck pull into the yard, I knew it was the cattle dealer come to take her away. I gave her another pat. "I'll be right back," I said, like that would help, and went out to say hello at least. Delay it. Curtis followed me out because we don't get that many visitors.

  It wasn't the cattle dealer standing there, though.

  Dad came out of the kitchen pushing his walker, this satisfied look on his face. He spotted me. "I'm sure you know who this is?"

  Yeah. I did. Curtis right behind me whistled between his teeth, only it wasn't whistling so much as blowing, like the sound bulls make when they're really mad. Because standing in front of his brand-new Cherokee in his brand-new work boots, looking about as much a part of our junky old farmyard as a UFO, was Brian Nelson.

  2. Put to Work

  Let me explain. See, Red Bend is my town and my school, and neither one is very big. There are about 130 kids in each grade—128 of us are starting eleventh grade next fall—and if you figure half of them are girls, and some of the skinny boys do cross-country, and some of the others have jobs or play club soccer, or I don't know, there's something wrong with them, that leaves about 20 guys to try out for the football team. Plus the other three classes, including the freshmen who are mostly still too little, and then you cut all the players who aren't any good, and the kids on JV, and you've got a team that's not the best there ever was, even with our league playing eight-on-eight instead of eleven players to a side like you see on TV.

  Well, right next to us is Hawley, and Hawley has 200 kids in a class, which means that they've got almost twice as many guys to make up a football team. And for years, ever since these two towns were named, almost, Red Bend and Hawley have been enemies. Since they invented football back at Yale and Harvard, Red Bend and Hawley have been enemies. (I wrote a paper last year on how football was invented, which is why at least I didn't flunk history.) And Hawley almost always wins everything. That's why I was so mad about having to quit basketball last year, because us Red Bend She-Wolves had already beat the Hawley Tigresses once and we probably would have beat them again. But we lost, I mean our team lost, but I wasn't on it anymore—I was stuck working both milkings because Dad was so sick—and Red Bend lost in double overtime. That was the only time I ever saw Amber—my best friend—it was the only time I ever saw her cry.

  Anyway, their football team is really good, and our football team is as good as it can be considering how small our school is, and the Hawley kids, and some Hawley grownups too, act like we stink and they're the best. Which isn't true. Four years ago when Win was a senior and Bill was a sophomore, Red Bend beat Hawley in the most completely amazing football game I have ever seen. My brother Win, even though he was quarterback and wasn't even supposed to be kicking, went in at the last second to attempt a field goal because this was his last game for Red Bend and he was just about the best player Red Bend has ever seen except for my other brother Bill, and he kicked it right through the goalposts like kicking a football was the only thing in life he'd ever done, and we won and, well, there isn't really any way I could describe what it was like, how everyone was screaming and my dad and mom were both crying and how Win was carried around by the whole team and then right there on everyone's shoulders he waved his hand up to the clouds because that's what we do to remember our Grandpa Warren who Win was named after, and then I started crying too, and it was—it was just a pretty amazing experience. Sometimes when I start thinking about how screwed up our family is, or when it's cold and I'm milking and the machines won't work and a cow steps on my foot and my hands are so cold I keep dropping things, then I remember how I felt at that moment and I feel a little better.

  But most of the time when I think about Hawley all I feel is pissed off.

  So when Brian Nelson stepped out of his fancy new truck in his fancy new work boots that his mother probably bought him at Wal-Mart, I was just about as angry as I've ever been. Brian Nelson's a Hawley quarterback. Hawley's backup quarterback, but still. Quarterbacks are always pretty full of themselves—even Win was sometimes, though he had a right to be—and Brian Nelson is just about the worst. He gets top grades and his father owns a dealership so of course he has a new Cherokee, and all the girls are after him, and last year he had scouts looking at him even though he wasn't a starter because his grades are so good that he'd raise the team GPA, which coaches always like. But ever since I've been watching him play, ever since junior high even, whenever he fumbles or messes up or gets intercepted, he always right off the bat blames someone else, which is really annoying to me and I bet it's even annoyinger to everyone else on his team who's working so hard. He's the very worst that a lazy, stuck-up, spoiled Hawley quarterback could be.

  But there he stood in his fancy new work boots and his Hawley Football cutoffs and his Hawley Football T-shirt. "Hey, Mr. Schwenk, how's your hip doing?"

  "Not too bad," said Dad, shaking his hand. "You know my daughter D.J., and my boy Curtis?"

  "Hey." Brian nodded at us, and I could see just by the way he moved his head that he was thinking about all those games Hawley has won over the years and about how he had a new truck and new boots but we were just dumb farmers with a bunch of rusty old machinery and cow manure on our clothes who couldn't even pass sophomore English because we were so busy with farm work. Well, one of us was, anyway. Not that I thought Brian knew about that, but standing there I sure was aware that I'd gotten an F, right there on my year-end report card, and that he never would.

  There was a really long silence.

  Dad eyeballed me. "D.J., you gonna say hello?"

  "No." That was great. Sometimes—well, all the time—I can
't think of what to say because I'm so dumb and stuff, and then maybe I think of it like five days later. But I'll remember that one. For the rest of my life I'll remember that "no." Because if nothing else, it got a little bit of that smirk off Brian's face.

  There was another long silence. If I had to make this into a movie, I'd have everyone count to twenty-five before saying anything. That's how long the silences were.

  Brian cleared his throat. "Jimmy Ott thought I could, you know, help you guys out with haying."

  "Jimmy Ott sent you over?" I asked, very suspicious.

  He shrugged. "For the day."

  Dad adjusted his walker. "D.J. here will put you to work."

  Brian shrugged like it didn't matter to him one way or the other, and I shrugged the same way. But I wasn't quite so mad now that I knew Jimmy Ott had sent him over. I could put Brian to work. Heck, I could sure do that.

  I jerked my head at Brian to follow me. "You know anything about tractors?"

  Brian snorted like it was the dumbest question he'd ever heard. I knew he didn't.

  "How about power takeoffs?"

  He didn't even bother answering that one. Instead he just patted Smut, who ate it up, the traitor. "What's her name?" he asked.

  "Smut."

  "You're kidding. That's her name?"

  I didn't bother answering.

  For a while Brian stood there watching me hook the hay wagon to the tractor, but he wasn't helpful at all and besides, I was so busy showing off how good I was that I almost broke my thumb and then I had to pretend nothing was wrong, which wasn't so great for my mood. He ended up playing tug of war with Smut. Smut would play tug of war for two straight weeks until she collapsed of starvation and died. It really ticked me off that she was playing with him instead of staying next to me getting in my way and sticking her nose in my butt whenever I bent over. Not that I enjoyed that part, but she was my dog after all.

  Right when I finished, the cattle dealer pulled in and I went to get Joe.

  She was still lying in her stall right where I'd left her, chewing her cud with this really tired look on her face. I thought about the day she was born and how Grandpa Warren let me bottle-feed her for a couple days just because bottle-feeding is so much fun for little kids. I unhooked her, telling her how great she was and what a great milker she'd always been, and helped her stand up because her legs didn't work so good, and led her out to the yard one last time. There was no way in this universe I was going to let Brian Nelson of all people see me get all mushy over a cow. So I just handed her to the cattle dealer and he loaded her up in his wagon and off they went, Dad and I standing there to see her off.