Marley Kincaid

A

“Kyle spread peanut butter on a mouse trap yesterday with one of Mom’s butter knives,” Karl said.

     Marley looked into the jar of Jif Extra-Crunchy, then at the dollop of peanut butter on the blade of the butter knife in her hand, then at Karl.

     Karl Kincaid was Marley’s cousin. He and Marley were both eight years old. Karl however, was born in June, the month before Marley. When Kyle wasn't trying to gross Marley out, a task he seemed to live for, he was reminding her of this one month difference, as if it were five whole years.

     Marley spent weekends during summer vacation at her aunt and uncle’s Dairy farm in Bridgeport. Marley loved the Kincaid’s farm, even with Karl on it: the huge barns stuffed with hay and hidden nest of eggs and kittens, the wobbly-legged calves, the garden as big as her whole yard in town, peaches and raspberries and the fishing pond with its frog-lined banks and lazy turtles.

     When she grew up, Marley wanted a farm just like the Kincaid’s, everything exactly the same. Except maybe, Karl.

     Kyle was Karl’s older brother. Kyle was in the eighth-grade, and certainly not beyond spreading peanut butter onto a mouse trap with a butter knife. Worse, Marley thought, Kyle was not beyond wiping the knife clean on his pant leg and placing it back in the drawer with the others.

     But there were a dozen miss-matched butter knives in the silverware drawer. Marley weighed the odds. Only one out of twelve knives was contaminated, if there actually was a contaminated knife, and Karl hadn't made the whole thing up. She liked her chances. 

     "So," she said, spreading the peanut butter on her saltine.