Falling Backwards: A Memoir by Jann Arden Page A

that scruffy-looking cow over to the shed and sit on that little wooden stool and milk to my heart’s content. I never did manage to fill that bucket up—in fact, every day I seemed to be getting less and less milk from that cow, and every day that cow seemed to look weirder and weirder. Her hair was coming off in clumps and she seemed bloated. My mom had no idea what was wrong with her, and why would she? We didn’t know anything about cows. We both just stood there looking at this ragged thing, wondering what we were doing wrong.
    I still had a week to go. I walked up there, rounded up the cow, who was now really reluctant to stand still for me, sat on my stool and began to milk her. She wavered around like she’d had a barrel of vodka for breakfast, making very deep, mournful sounds. I kept trying to steady her and squeeze that milk out. All I could manage was a few drops. I felt the cow’s weight suddenly shift from side to side and, before I knew what was happening, she tipped over. She literally kicked the bucket. I screamed and jumped back about ten feet. The Baldwins’ cow took one final breath and blew it out of her nose with such a force that the dirt blew up around her head. She made one last throaty moan, and that was it. Her eyes stayed open; they looked like wet pieces of coal.
    She looked like she’d been crying.
    I could not believe that the Baldwins’ one and only cow had just died, right there on the spot. I prayed that she had just fainted, but she was as dead as a doornail. I cried so hard that I could hardly find my way home. I wanted to run but I couldn’t catch my breath and my legs seemed to fold underneath me. The half mile seemedmore like a marathon. I don’t know what I said to my mother when I came crashing through the back door—it was all a snotty blur. I went to sleep that night seeing the sick old cow tipping over again and again.
    It’s not like we had cellphones back then. There was no way we were going to be able to get hold of the Baldwins on their holiday. They would just have to hear the happy news when they got home. We ended up covering the cow with a tarp and left her where she fell. My dad said that there was no way in hell that we could bury her—it would take a month just to dig a hole big enough, and besides, what if she came to life again? Anything was possible …
    Dale’s dad wasn’t mad at all. He said that the cow had been sick for awhile; I thought, I wish he had told me that. Dale’s little sister Caroline cried a lot over that cow. I guess it was her pet. I didn’t know how in the world a person could ever make up for something like killing a cow. Saying I was sorry didn’t quite seem to cut it. They never asked me to look after any of their animals again and I guess I don’t blame them.
    The summers were flying by. The house was more or less finished and we had been living in it for over a year, but dad still worked on it constantly. I had settled into my new school and things seemed easy. Leonard and Dale and I had been roaming the hills and meadows for three years now and we knew every square inch of the land for miles. It’s funny how one summer can change everything, though. Suddenly the boys didn’t want to shoot or snare things anymore. They didn’t want to play with bows and arrows and they didn’t want to drive around on the go-cart. They were changing. Me? Not so much. They got so tall over the summer between grades six and seven. Their hormones had started to take over their young bodies. They were much more curious about my body. The funny part of itis that they had seen me without a top from time to time. When we swam in the pond we’d often just go in our underwear. They’d seen me pee more times than you could imagine. But now everything was different.
    Apparently there is a big difference between nine and twelve. They wanted to play spin the bottle and Truth or Dare. I didn’t know what to make of any of it. I hadn’t changed at