9

Rodrick asked the judges for his shoe back, but they said they were gonna send it on to the national competition. So that left Rodrick walking around with only one shoe. I decided to explore the nearby stalls while Rodrick was polishing off his stick of fried butter. But I had a SERIOUSLY close call when I turned a corner and almost ran smack into the entire Beardo family. Luckily, I was able to duck for cover just in time.

Now that I knew the Beardos were on the fairgrounds, I was eager to get out of there. I went to look for Rodrick, but he must've gone back to the van. I decided to head there myself, but on my way out I spotted the top of Mom's head in a crowd under one of the livestock tents. People were packed shoulder to shoulder, and I tried pushing my way through to get to where Mom was. But when I got halfway in, a big cheer went up. HOORAY!!!

When I finally made it up to the front, I was surprised to see Manny standing in the middle of the crowd, holding a piece of paper. Apparently, there was a contest to see who could come the closest to guessing the weight of a hog, and Manny got it exactly right. The prize for guessing the hog's weight was a real live baby pig.

Mom explained to the judge that they'd just entered the contest for fun and didn't actually WANT the pig. But the people in the crowd seemed kind of insulted and wouldn't take no for an answer. With all the commotion this was causing, I was nervous the Beardo family was gonna come over to the livestock tent to see what was going on. Luckily, by then Mom seemed ready to get out of there herself, and we made our way to the exit. Dad was sitting in the van with the air-conditioning cranked up, and when he saw Mom carrying a pig, he was a little taken by surprise.

Mom filled Dad in on how Manny won the pig in the contest, but he didn't seem too thrilled with the news. Dad said we had no business owning a pig and that we needed to take it back to the fair immediately. But Mom said it was too late, because the pig had already "imprinted" on Manny.

Dad still wasn't on board, though. He said a pig is a "barn animal" and could be carrying all sorts of parasites and whatnot. But Mom said a LOT of people keep pigs as pets, and she'd heard they're just as smart as dogs. Then Rodrick got in on the conversation. He voted for KEEPING the pig because he said we could get free bacon from it every morning, the way you get eggs from a chicken. So either he doesn't understand how pigs work, or he just wasn't thinking it all the way through. I was all in favor of keeping the pig if it meant we could hurry up and get going.