“I’m SO excited,” said Gracie.
“I know,” said Harry. One arm was at the wheel; the other clutched the car door as if afraid it would fly away without him.
“I mean, you’ll get to see the family!”
“I’ve met your family.”
“Yeah, but like, REALLY see them. The great goose is when the town really comes alive, y’know?”
“Sure,” said Harry.
“And I mean you can feel the difference in everyone. You’re going to love it so much.”
“Yeah. Hey, where do we park?”
“Oh just up ahead and turn right.”
“That’s a field.”
“Yeah! The McClures let people park in it during the great goose.”
“This is a new car,” said Harry in a very patient and understanding voice that was more filled with hate than any mere venomous sneer.
“Oh it’ll be fine, it’s all clean! Come on, we’ve got to get in before the lines are too long if you want to grab a big sausage!”
“Pardon?”
“You’ll see! You’ll love it SO much!”
***
The lines were thirty deep and two wide.
“Oh good we’re still early!” said Gracie.
“Great,” said Harry. “You can get us these. I’m going to go get us beer.”
“It’s a little early in the day for that, and-”
“Three hour car drive, it’s late enough for beer.”
“Okay sweetie. What do you want on your sausage?”
“Nothing.”
“Plain?”
“I don’t want one,” said Harry. And he was off, trudging into the dewy post-dawn greyness of a drizzly day in a coat that was NOT a rain jacket.
Nobody was selling umbrellas.
“Getting a bit damp happens,” said Gracie when she found him again an hour and forty-nine minutes later, sitting on a particularly uncomfortable rock underneath a fall-dappled tree. “It’s all part of the fun. Here’s your sausage!”
“I don’t want a sausage,” said Harry.
“It’s a local special. See? They hollow out the baguette and put it right in there. All home-made, delicious! And it was only five dollars.”
“You have mine.”
“It’s got onions in it.”
“I hate onions.”
“You’ll love them like this if you try them. And all the rest, I’m sure – there’s like a thousand things to do here!”
“Great,” said Harry. “Great. Great.”
The tree bent gently in the wind and dropped a bucket of water on him.
***
A thousand things were indeed available at the Galviston goose festival. Provided you were willing to count each of them a few times each.
There were carnival games, which Harry said were a waste of money. Gracie won him a little teddy bear, which he quietly threw out when she was in the toilets.
There were toilets, arranged in neat rows and rows and rows. Harry went in the bushes and was accosted by an irate parent for being next to the playground.
There were playgrounds and bouncy castles for the young and for the parents to have a quiet smoke. Gracie asked Harry how he felt about kids again, and he pretended he was suffering from earwax buildup again.
There was a first-aid tent, well-stocked. Harry slipped the guy a twenty to say he’d cleaned out his earwax, and got a lollypop into the bargain. He gave it to Gracie, and that kept her mouth shut until they reached her parents.
There were Gracie’s whole family, cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, parents, siblings, grandparents, great-uncles, great-aunts, and god-knows-whats, all of them loud and happy and cheering and urging them to get into the good seats they’d gotten right at the front of the pier, overlooking the corn barge.
There was the corn barge.
“What the hell is this?” asked Harry.
“It’s the corn barge!” explained Gracie.
“Great,” said Harry. “When are we eating it?”
The Great Goose touched down at the other end of the lake.
***
It was a small event in the grand scheme of things, but in the local scheme of things that meant a brief but spirited twelve-foot swell that set the corn-barge slamming against the docks like a gong, a gale that stripped the red-and-orange leaves from the trees, and Harry’s heart nearly stopping in his chest.
“WONK,” said the Great Goose. It paddled gently forwards, crossing the entire lake in about four seconds. “WONK.”
“Holy fucking shit piss Christ fuck,” said Harry.
“Language,” giggled Gracie. She nudged him. “I told you this’d be great! How you like the Great Graviston Goose Festival now, eh?”
“How does nobody KNOW about this thing?”
“WONK,” said the Great Goose, who was investigating the corn-barge cautiously. It rearranged all its feathers three times.
“Well, we try to keep it zipped. Nobody wants it getting popped by a hunter, right?”
“With what, a fucking cannon? Jesus Gracie. What the hell is wrong with this place?”
“Oh, nothing you haven’t already seen,” she said airily.
“What if it gets cranky? We’re leaving.”
“Sure! It’s about done now anyways.” Gracie’s little hand smoothed down the back of his jacket one last time. “Anything else?” she asked. “Another sausage? More popcorn? A beer?”
“Just shut up for a moment,” he muttered. His eyes felt like they were too big for his skull.
“Alrighty!” she said, and gave a little shove with that little hand, helped by a few anonymous arms from various cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, parents, siblings, grandparents, great-uncles, great-aunts, and god-knows-whats.
“Farewell, sweetie!” she sang out.
“Hooray!” cheered the crowds.
“WONK,” thundered the Great Goose.
“mmlrooph,” mumbled Harry through litres and litres of corn, buried head-first.
“WONK,” replied the Great Goose. And then it reached down and bit Harry and twisted, and it bit Harry and twisted, and it bit and twisted and bit and twisted until there wasn’t really anything left. It nibbled aggressively at the corn bin for twenty minutes before a rapturous audience, ruffled its feathers, shook its wings, and – filled with spite and maize – produced a single, glorious pellet of barely-digested poop.
Then it said “WONK,” and took off again.
The feces were carted away and praised and prayed over and spread over the fields for a good harvest, that sort of thing.