Turn Left at the Cow by Lisa Bullard

grin—what I was starting to think of as the Kenny Grin. “Besides, Iz is the smartest kid in school. And I ain’t exactly Einstein. I made her swear she’d do whatever it takes to get me passing grades next year so they don’t bust me off the football team.”
    I thought about that a minute. “Okay, I won’t ask you to fill in the blanks in the family soap opera. I guess it’s not really my business. But I gotta tell you—Iz is right about my family having money. At least my stepfather seems to have a whole big bunch of it—and I’m not exactly living happily ever after.”
    Iz had reached shore. Kenny cut the motor back even more, and the two of us sat in the boat and watched her climb up the ladder, up the dock, up the sloping yard, and into Kenny’s house. She never looked back.
    Kenny waved his hand in the direction Iz had vanished. “I’m just saying, keep your head down and you’ll be safer around her. It’ll be all right; you’ll see. She never stays ticked in the end.”
    Even as he said it, Iz was hurrying back down the dock toward us. She looked as if she’d worked off her anger; in fact, she looked a little freaked.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you now?” Kenny asked.
    She gave me a scared look and kind of hugged herself. “Trav, I think you better get over to your grandma’s house. There’s a sheriff’s car sitting in her driveway, and my little sister says the deputy was over here asking where you were.”

CHAPTER 8
    For, like, a minute after Iz told me about the sheriff’s car, I completely froze; all I could focus on was this series of film clips playing across the Trav’s-Head Cinema—outtakes from every show I’d ever seen where the cop comes to the door to deliver the news that somebody’s croaked. Who was dead? Gram? Ma? Then somehow, without really knowing how it happened, I was standing in Gram’s kitchen looking at her and this big dude in a uniform sitting at the table with coffee mugs and cookies in front of them.
    â€œIs something wrong with my mom?” I had to push the words out past an invisible hand that was around my throat, choking me.
    â€œYour mother is fine,” said Gram. Her face had its usual unreadable expression and she didn’t look as if she’d been involved in a five-cow pileup or any other kind of emergency.
    The guy got to his feet. “You’re Travis?” he said, only it wasn’t really a question. “I’m Deputy Anderson. Why don’t you sit here so we can have a little talk.”
    He towered over me, making it clear I didn’t have much of a choice. I sat on the edge of the chair across from Gram, and he sat down at the head of the table, where he could keep his eyes on both of us.
    Gram spoke up. “Deputy Anderson and I have been discussing—”
    But he interrupted her. “Thank you, ma’am—I can take it from here.” I had been waiting to see if he was good cop or bad cop, but it seemed as if he had everything mixed up. Interrupting an old lady put you in the bad cop camp, right? But then sticking the “ma’am” in there kind of muddied the water.
    Deputy Dude kept on talking. “I got a call after lunch from Mr. Svengrud down at the Big Store. Said you’d been in today spending a bit of money.”
    Far as I could tell, there weren’t any hidden question marks anywhere, but it was clear he expected an answer from me.
    â€œUh—yeah?” I couldn’t resist turning my answer into a somewhat snotty question even though I was pretty sure that was a Taser on his belt. I mean, was it against the law to spend money around here?
    Deputy Dude tossed me a look that convinced me to dial it down a notch. “Where else did you spend money in town today?”
    â€œI bought some stuff for Gram at the grocery store, and I stopped for some burgers at the