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"Steenie decides that Josh needs some lessons on how to survive in Sagrado. He enlists to help of Marcia, the daughter of the local minister. They are without doubt the two best poeple in town to teach Josh how to survive in Sagrado. Steenie read all his father's medical books and knows all the Latin and Greek medical terms for all the parts of the body. He can cuss you out for ten minutes, and you'll never have any idea what he really said--and what's better, neither will his teachers! Marcia, on the other hand, is a typical "preacher's kid," she specializes in dirty jokes. Every year she goes to church camp and comes back with a whole year's supply--the worst ones in town! Marcia and Steenie decide that the first thing Josh needs to learn is how to play Chicken, Sagrado-style.
On Saturday, they take him out to lunch: the greasiest, hottest tacos and burritos they can find--as many as Josh can eat, and really more than he wants. (Remember, Josh is from Atlanta, and his stomach isn't used to Mexican food.) Then they go for a walk. Josh isn't used to the high altitude, and he's lagging behind, panting for breath, his stomach feeling worse by the minute, when he notices that Steenie and Marcia have stopped and are talking. They're at the top of this little rise and are pointing to something below them, and saying things like, "Boy, this is gonna be a great game of Chicken--the best we've had in a long time!" "Yeah, Josh is really gonna learn to play the right way!" "He's one lucky fellow--it wasn't this good when I learned to play," and so on. Josh is really wondering what's going on, till he gets to the place where they're standing and looks down. There in front of him is the town dump, and in the middle of the dump is a dead horse, a very dead horse--bloated, covered with maggots, and smelling horrible.
The object of the game is to walk, or run, up to the horse, touch it, and walk, or run, back to the starting point, which is back just far enough that you can take a deep breath without throwing up. If you walk up, you have to walk back, which takes longer, but you aren't so likely to get out of breath. If you run up, you run back, which won't take as long, but you may lose your breath, and have to take another. Marcia says, "Ladies first!" Marcia is a walker. She walks up to the horse, touches it-"nice horsie"--and walks back. Steenie is a runner. He dashes up to the horse, gives it a kick-"Hey horse"-and runs back.
Josh just can't believe this stupid game! And he's so busy thinking about these small-town kids and their dumb games that he doesn't see the empty beer bottle lying right in front of the horse-the bottle Steenie and Marcia have very carefully avoided. He trips and falls and slides right into home plate, which is, of course, the horse.
Now, what do you do when you fall down suddenly? You lose your breath. And what do you have to do when you lose your breath? Take another one. Well, that's what Josh does, he can't stop himself, and that's when he loses both his lunch and the game of Chicken. When he gets back to where Steenie and Marcia are, they're still howling with laughter, hardly able to talk. But when she gets her breath back, Marcia says, "You know, Josh, we've been playing the game wrong all these years. You're not supposed to just touch the horse--you've got to get in there and hug him like a brother!" "
-Red Sky At Morning by Richard Bradford
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