"Love God, your God with all your heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got!"
~Deuteronomy 6:5 (MSG)
"Oh great you guys, it's Joey!"
Loud groans echoed from my brothers, all nine of them. Yeah, I have a pretty large family; eleven brothers and one sister. We all get along except for Joey. He is such a show off.
Let me explain. Dad gave him the new Nike shoes, the ones that are like 250 dollars, for no reason at all. Guess what he gave us. Nothing! Can you believe that? Joey was gloating for days.
Now do you understand why all of us hate, no, loathe him?
"Asher, help me with this manure will you?"
I glanced up. Judah had a shovel packed with the disgusting stuff and was stumbling toward me.
Instinctively I grabbed the shovel before Judah fell and a had a manure bath.
"Thanks!" Judah said. "Let's pour this manure on Joey! He deserves it. Then we could lock him the empty horse stall and tell Dad he never came home."
I snickered. It did sound like a pretty good idea.
Reuben, the oldest of all of us, shook his head. "Don't pour the manure over him. That's to cruel."
"Alright." Judah sighed and threw the shovel towards the pile of manure nearly missing Levi, who had was carrying a large sack of chicken feed.
"Watch it will you!" He said. Then, "look who's coming, Joey."
I turned around. Joey was wearing his new Nikes, balancing eleven cans of pop.
"Dad said since you guys have been working all day, you deserve these." He smiled.
Judah snatched his can of root beer away from Joey, almost making him drop the other cans. "Don't give us that perfect brother look!"
"Yeah! And who wears top designed Nikes into a barn?" Levi chimed in.
Jus then an inspiration struck me. Quickly, I snatched up the shovel with manure, the disgusting green stuff still piled high, and 'accidentally' dumped on Joey's new shoes.
There was silence for half a second and then Levi started to snicker. Judah joined in. Pretty soon all three of us were rolling on the ground, holding our sides from laughing so hard. Joey stood there, rooted to the spot, with tears in his eyes.
"These were my favorite pair of shoes." He said quietly, then he ran out of the barn.
