Expiration Date

Chapter 1 "Tessa! Hey! Guess who I saw at the mall--" Tessa Gibson turned. But before she could respond to her twin brother, Tod, who was just getting off his bike, a terrible force struck her from behind and sent her flying. "Oooww!" she cried. "Baaa." KERWHAP! She hit the ground so hard that her eyes filled with tears and her mouth filled with dirt. For a second she didn't know what had hit her, and that was scary. Then she did, which was even worse. Once again she'd been outsmarted--by a goat. He stood there staring at her without the slightest remorse as she sat up, groaning. Twist, the most beautiful of her grandfather's prized Patagonians, was silky-coated, curly-horned, straight-legged, and golden-eyed. He was also as mean as a snake. This was the second time in a week he'd butted Tessa. He and his sister, Shout, were showing her no mercy, and Tessa had the black-and-blue marks to prove it. "You used to be bad. Now you are evil," she told him, half-wishing he'd choke on the organic carrot he was chewing. In response he wiggled his goatee. Tod dropped his bike and hurried over. "My fault," he said. "Sorry." He helped her up. "It's okay," Tessa mumbled, wiping her eyes quickly. "You can't turn your back on him," said Tod as Tessa brushed hay and dirt off her shorts and out of her curly reddish hair. "He holds grudges, remember?" "What's his problem, anyway? I wasn't torturing him, I was just trying to tag him." The twins' grandfather, Lou, planned to show the goats at the Middle County Livestock Fair next week, and they had to be tagged to enter. Every time the twins tossed a coin for the job, Tessa lost. "You called him Butthead yesterday," Tod reminded her. "Maybe it made him mad." "He is a butthead. Besides," she added as they walked to the house, "when did goats start understanding English?" "These are no ordinary goats," said Tod, doing a pretty fair imitation of their grandfather. Lou tended to be semimystical, especially about his goats. He talked to them and sang to them, and lately he'd started wanting to win blue ribbons with them. Meanwhile, his wife, Lulu, ran an organic dessert business and wrote cookbooks. Lou and Lulu were old-fashioned hippies. They loved nature, believed in karma, and danced around the kitchen to old rock and roll. "No joke," said Tessa. "They've gone over to the Dark Side." She had just started reading some of Tod's old Star Wars books. Tod stopped. "That reminds me!" he said. "Guess who I saw at the mall today?" "Darth Vader?" "No. Jack!" Tod was usually calm and self-contained, but now there was a note of real excitement in his voice. "Gemini Jack?" Tessa's eyebrows flew up and her cheeks turned pink. "Really?" Tall, courteous, many-fingered Jack was from a faraway twin planet, but he sometimes managed a store at the mall, which was where Tod and Tessa had met him. They were the only ones who knew he was an alien. Most shoppers assumed he was dressed up for a promotion. "I thought he was on Gemini, fighting the Vorons," said Tessa as they walked into the kitchen. "The who?" asked their grandmother Lulu, breaking eggs into a bowl. Tod and Tessa exchanged a quick glance. "Aliens from a television show," said Tod, and Lulu smiled absently. The Double L Goat Ranch was surrounded by suburbs, but Lulu and Lou knew next to nothing about television, movies, fast food, or the other essentials of normal life. They lived in a world of their own. Lulu's smile faded. "Tessa, honey, is that hay in your hair? And why's your face all dSpinner, Stephanie is the author of 'Expiration Date' with ISBN 9780440415602 and ISBN 0440415608.