The Meadow 165 “Hell of a shot,” my dad says. “He hit it,” my brother says again. I don’t move. I don’t turn around. I stand there dumbfounded and shaken. My brother races past me. He leaps over the creek and thrashes through some grass and then holds up a dead pheasant. “He hit it,” he shouts. “Hell of a shot,” my dad says again. He stands beside me and wraps his arm around my shoulder. The feel of it makes me squirm at first, and then I want to push his arm off me and get away from him. My brother bounds over the creek again and shows me the pheasant. Its head is limp and its body plump. “It’s a beauty,” my dad says. “Game on,” my brother says. “I got to get one now.” Thankfully, we don’t see any more pheasants on the way back through the meadow and the cornfield. The one I shot is bouncing against my dad’s hip. Once we get to the house, we shed our boots and caps in the garage. My dad carries the dead pheasant into the kitchen. When my mom turns around, my dad holds it out to her with one hand while he claps me on the back with the other. “He got it,” he says. My mom looks confused, as if thinking maybe it’s a joke. She glances at me, then at my dad, then at me again. “Oh, my goodness,” she exclaims. She takes my face in her hands and then hugs me. My face squishes against her bosom, which smells of fried meat and peppermint. “Get it cleaned,” she says, “and we’ll have it for dinner.” I don’t want to eat it. I don’t even want to look at it again. I can’t get away. My whole family is standing around me. They’re all staring at me. They’re beaming at me as if I’ve done something great.
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