Free Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers by Cynthia Voigt Page A

matter?”
    â€œWhat about summers?” Ann asked. “What do you do during summers?”
    â€œI weed, I harvest. My brother and I also raise chickens.”
    â€œRaise chickens? How do you raise chickens?
    â€œOh, well, we buy the chicks. There is a woman in Huger Ford who will hatch out the eggs for us in June. Then, we feed them over the summer as they grow. In August, we sell them to the dealer.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, sell them to the dealer, how do you transport them?”
    â€œThat is simple. We pack the truck bed with ice and straw, and put the chickens upon that. You must do it early in the morning, or they will spoil.”
    â€œThey’re dead?”
    â€œOf course, she does not want them alive.”
    Ann couldn’t see it. Hildy eluded her imagination. “How do you do it?” she asked. Meaning, how could you bring yourself to kill another living creature.
    â€œI hold the chicken down and my brother cuts off the head. That is quick. Then we dip them into boiling water and pluck them. That is the part we don’t like. You must work fast, and you are covered with sweat and feathers. Usually, he will gut the carcasses and take off the claws while I pluck.”
    Ann stared into Hildy’s face, trying to see it in a place, the slaughter, the evisceration, the defoliation, and Hildy’s face and hands working. Niki interrupted: “It’s not the kind of thing our Annie likes to think about,” she said. “Annie thinks chickens emerge, somehow, by spontaneous creation, as fryersand roasters, breasts and drumsticks. She doesn’t want to hear about how they get to the grocer’s, Hildy.”
    â€œThat’s not it,” Ann protested. Sometimes, she thought Niki deliberately misunderstood; only, of course, Niki was too close to being right.
    â€œIsn’t it?” Niki asked, her chin jutting at Ann. She explained to Hildy: “She’ll never understand. She doesn’t really want to.”
    â€œThen why does she ask about it?”
    Niki couldn’t answer.
    But Ann couldn’t have answered either, because what she had found out did not enlighten her about what she wanted to understand. She noticed, however, that Niki also questioned Hildy. In a different way but, Ann suspected, to the same purpose.
    â€œWhy do you talk so funny?” Niki demanded.
    â€œDo I?” Hildy asked, looking up blankly at her dark roommate. Ann also lifted her head from a book to follow this conversation.
    â€œCan’t you hear it?” Niki asked. “You do. Ask Annie.”
    The face turned to Ann, who offered, “Not exactly funny, but—”
    â€œYou do talk funny and your mother dresses you weird,” Niki announced.
    â€œYou understand what I say,” Hildy answered.
    â€œI wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Niki muttered.
    â€œWhy not?” Hildy asked.
    Niki couldn’t answer that, either. The expression on her face was part interest, part rage. Hildy went back to her work, but raised her head after a few minutes to say, “I think, sometimes, there is so much talking here. At home, we are working and there is no need to speak. In the evenings, my father will read to us from the Bible, while I sew and my brothers oil the machinery or replace the rushes on the chairs. Of course,” she added, “that is only in the winter In the summer we go to sleep.”
    â€œWhat about at school?” Niki demanded. “You must have talked to people at school.”
    â€œNo.” Hildy shook her head. “To my friend when she was free from class. Not often.”
    â€œWhat about the other kids?”
    â€œWhat should I talk with them about? We were there to learn.”
    â€œDidn’t anybody ever tell you you talk funny?” Niki demanded.
    â€œOh yes,” Hildy said.
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    â€œI asked if they could understand me,” Hildy answered patiently,