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Awesome.”
     
    ***
     
    Sara Watson wasn’t joking about the rooster.
    Casey shook my shoulder and grunted something about getting up. When I headed for the outhouse I saw two pair of boots waiting for us outside the cabin door, compliments of the Watson family.
    I heard voices on my return, Casey’s and Willie’s, and paused out of sight, not wanting to interrupt.
    Okay. I wanted to hear what they were saying, curious if they’d had some kind of fling, or something.
    Not that I cared.
    Casey said, “I don’t blame you for being mad.”
    “ I confess that I was hurt Casey, uh, Cassandra. A man doesn’t like to be played the fool,” I heard Willie say. “But after I thought about it for a while, I saw that you only did it as a protection for yourself. I don’t know why your father or brothers let you go off on your own, and it’s not my place to judge. But I understand it would have been foolhardy for you to travel alone as a girl. Uh, woman.”
    Casey had been disguising herself as a boy. I remembered Willie’s comment now, at the breakfast table the day before. But I found it hard to believe that Willie could’ve fallen for that, given Casey’s obvious curves. But her jungle boy description was pretty convincing. I decided to give Willie the benefit of the doubt.
    “ So, we’re still friends?” Casey asked.
    “ Friends.”
    I stepped out in time to see them do an awkward hug. Definitely no romantic sparks there, which I found oddly relieving.
    I chided myself. I had a girlfriend. Besides, Casey wasn’t interested in me.
    Casey left for the house and I followed Willie, not at all looking forward to making a fool of myself, which was inevitable. I’d never stepped inside a barn before in my life.
    I was hit by the pungent smell of sweaty farm animals–horses, cows and goats from what I could see. The cows mooed in anticipation. Willie opened a gate and let two of the animals out.
    Cows are bigger than you think when you’re standing right up beside them. They have bony back ends and wide-eyed faces with nostrils the size of quarters.
    Willie prodded them into two stalls and motioned toward the one for me. I’d never milked a cow before, but I did know where the milk came from. I decided it would be good to make friends before I touched her in sensitive places. I patted her on the head.
    “ Hey.”
    She snorted, blowing bovine snot over my shirt.
    “ There’s a stool and a pail,” Willie said, pointing at the side of the stall.
    He carried a short three legged stool to the broad side of his cow, and placed the tin pail under long, slimy looking teats.
    I did the same and felt my face grimace. Now, I loved milk, drank a jug a day. I knew it came from cows, but I just never thought about it that much.
    I mimicked Willie’s posture, and wrapped my fingers around a teat. I wouldn’t lie. The wet, wrinkly, ropy thing grossed me out. In the stall beside me, Willie hummed a tune to the rhythm of the thunk, thunk, thunk , of milk shooting into the pail. It seemed to have a soothing effect on his cow.
    My cow shifted nervously. She could tell I was a fraud with no clue. I pulled cautiously on one teat and then the other, but hardly anything came out, just a few drops. It would take me three years to milk her at this rate.
    I squeezed and pulled, trying to get a rhythm. I hummed We Will Rock You , hoping to calm her down, hoping to calm us both down, but she didn’t seem to like Queen. She kicked at me sideways, knocking the pail over. What little milk I’d gathered dribbled out. I stood quickly to get out of her way.
    Willie jumped to my aid, coaxing the cow back into the stall. He eyed my pail suspiciously. “Everything okay?”
    “ It’s been awhile,” I mumbled.
    “ Since you milked a cow?”
    How could I explain this? “I was sickly as a child?”
    “ Oh, I just expected since Cassandra...”
    “ Case, uh, Cassandra milks cows?”
    Willie’s eyebrow arched, probably wondering why I knew so