“Hey, that’s really neat! Do you think she’d follow me, too?”
“I think so. Why don’t you take her over there and put her down, then walk away from her?”
“So I did. I picked up the fat little pig even though she tried to get away, and I put her down beside the big maple tree. I started to walk away, but Lumpy didn’t even move. Then I walked back and started to walk away again, and she followed me! Was I ever surprised. She followed me all the way back to where Jennifer was standing. But then she left me and went over to Jennifer. We sat down on the grass, and Lumpy munched around us.
“Why don’t you try it with Munchkin and Grumpkin? Here, we can put Lumpy back inside the wire and we can each take one of yours and try it, okay?”
So we did. I took Grumpkin because she’s harder to handle, and Jennifer took Munchkin because she likes her better anyway. We tried to make them follow us. It was sooo frustrating. First they wouldn’t follow us at all, then they’d follow for about two steps, then veer off to the right or the left, and it was just hopeless!
“I guess my pigs are just hopelessly untrainable. Maybe they’re perceptually handicapped, or something.”
“Don’t be silly. They’re just as smart as Lumpy!”
“Which isn’t saying too much, since Guinea pigs are notoriously stupid.”
“Oh, come on now, who says that, anyway?”
“Everybody does. They aren’t very smart, really.”
“Okay, they’re not. But they are lovable, aren’t they? And your pigs don’t do it because, remember, I taught Lumpy when she was just a baby piglet. Yours are full-grown now, and that makes a difference.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Like you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But Jennifer, about their being lovable. I know they feel like that when you hold them, but sometimes I get so mad, like they don’t respond or anything, you know? Sometimes, I’d like them to come when they’re called, or show me in some way that they like me, but they don’t. My mom says they’re not really capable of anything like that, like they’re too low on the scale of animal evolution or something. Don’t you ever wish they were different? Like they could love you back?”
“Sure. I know what you mean. But what’s the use? My mother hates dogs and cats and I could only get a Guinea pg. So I figure I might as well make the best of what I’ve got. After all, neither of us especially needs something to love, like my mom says. We get plenty from our families. My mom says that animals that respond are a conscience-sop from parents who don’t love their children enough.”
“Maybe, maybe you’re right.”
The days started getting warmer and warmer, and it got so it was really awful being cooped up in school all day long. Worse if it was a rainy day, and spring is rainy-season, so there were a lot of rainy days. Sometimes the rain was so heavy that we weren’t allowed to go out for recess. And then all we could do was hang around the hallways and main open areas, and it was like, a real drag. Sure, we talked a lot and did have some fun, but it got kind of stale, after awhile. Know what I mean?
The crocuses came up in the front garden at home and the Johnny-jump-ups were all nodding their heads in the flower triangle, before we knew it. The trees in the park and in our backyard were getting little green leaf-bits on them.
Soon enough we were outside more often in the afternoons. We began to spend all our spare time, other than doing homework, outside. The squirrels started coming around more often for handouts, and before long, they were as sassy as they were the summer before. A month ago they looked really raggedy when they came to the side door for peanuts. Like with patchy fur and runny eyes and stuff, but now their pelts are thick and shiny.
We go out bicycle riding after school almost every day now, me and Jennifer, and sometimes Donna and Diane, too. Sometimes we meet Laura and Sally out riding too, and sometimes they join us, and we go over to someone’s house for a while to talk, or throw a ball around in the back, or something like that.
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