Free Elixir by Eric Walters

to do, too.” That was only half a lie. I’d already done my spelling and written a story. All I had to do now was read, and it was up to me to decide how much or for how long.
    â€œPerhaps another time,” she said.
    â€œMaybe,” I agreed, trying to be polite.
    â€œIt was a pleasure to meet you, Ruth. Until we meet again.”
    She started to walk away. I watched as she got smaller and smaller and then disappeared behind another building. She certainly was nice. And I really would have liked a soda—it had been a long time since I’d had one—but there was just something about her that made me nervous.
    I put the pamphlet into my book to mark the spot where I’d stopped reading. I made sure that it was safely tucked in, with none of the edges showing. Then I dashed back up to the steps and into the building.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    I SLUMPED DOWN  onto the floor beside my little desk. Perhaps it wasn’t ladylike to sit on the floor, but the granite was so smooth and cool.
    I opened my book. The pamphlet, upside down and backward, was looking up at me. There was a drawing—a picture of a dog, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure. Slowly, carefully, I went to pick up the pamphlet. I looked up and down the hall. The only person in sight was Mr. Mercer, and he was dozing off and not paying any attention to me. I picked the pamphlet up and turned it over. The drawing wasn’t a dog, it was a pig— but not like any pig I’d ever seen. It was nothing but skin and bones. The artist obviously didn’t know how to draw. Then I saw the caption underneath: “Deliberately Starved to Death.” I started to read.
    It described how a surgeon had operated on a pig and tied off its duodenum to deprive it of proper nourish-ment. By blocking the flow of food into the stomach, the researcher could study something called “pernicious anemia.” Over the course of months the pig finally died—starved to death.
    I didn’t know what pernicious anemia was. I didn’t even know what a duodenum was, but it did sound awful! The article went on to talk about what people experience when they’re deprived of food and the extreme pain they feel, and how pigs are actually among the smartest animals, so that they probably experience the same reactions—and feelings—as people.
    I tried to think that through. Did animals have feelings? I’d never owned a dog, but I’d had a cat once— Tabby, I called her. One day she just appeared in our garden, and when she didn’t disappear I started feeding her. Eventually my parents allowed her to come inside. She liked everybody, but she seemed to like me the best, and I was positive she knew how I was feeling. Once when I was sick Tabby came up and lay right down on my chest. And other times when I was sad she’d come up and rub against my leg. If she could tell how I was feeling, maybe she had feelings of her own. And if she had feelings then why wouldn’t a dog or a pig? And if a pig had feelings, was it right to use it for experiments … or for breakfast?
    I flipped the pamphlet over to the front and started to read.
    The Ontario Anti-Vivisection Society
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    There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of science as they now do the burning at the stake in the name of religion.
    â€”Henry J. Bigelow, M.D.
    Vivisection is the exploitation of living animals for experiments concerning the phenomena of life. These experiments may involve creating distress for the animals, exhaustion, starvation, baking, burning, suffocation, poisoning, mutilation, inoculation with disease, and surgical procedures which result in protracted pain, agony, and death.
    The Ontario Anti-Vivisection Society is affiliated with Societies across North America and is dedicated to opposing and exposing the evils of vivisection to the public and by doing so ending this barbaric