What a humiliating day.
Adam's father had clearly snapped, driven to his limit with his entitled son, but this was a step too far. Surely child protective services would have something to say about these actions, and that was a phone call Adam was determined to make as soon as he went inside for a meal. He'd been with the pigs in the mud for the entire morning and had missed breakfast. Not wanting to get whipped again--that hurt!--he'd more or less obediently stayed on his hands and knees on the ground, making halfhearted "oink" sounds whenever Henry looked his way.
But now he was hungry and surely that was enough punishment. Crawling to the edge of the pig yard, Adam stood up and began to head inside for lunch.
"Where do you think you're going, pig?" Henry said, running up behind him.
"It's time for lunch," Adam said.
"You bet it is, and yours is right over there." Henry gestured to the trough where he'd just dumped a fresh haul of slop. The other pigs were squealing and snorting their way into position to get the best bits.
"You don't expect me to do that, do you?" Adam was incredulous. Enough was enough, wasn't it?
"Pigs eat at the trough, not inside," Henry said, cracking his whip menacingly at his side.
"Look, I get it. I'll try to be nicer. Help out a bit more. Please don't make me do this anymore. Please!" Adam was begging now. Surely his father wasn't this cruel?
"I don't hear anything but pig sounds coming from you, pig boy, and I don't see my son. Just a lazy pig." He stared at the boy.
Sniveling, Adam knuckled tears from his eyes and got back down on his hands and knees. With one last pleading look at his father, he slowly plodded to the trough where, to his surprise, a couple of the pigs made room for him. "Please, no," he called back to Henry, who only cracked his whip in response.
Sobbing, Adam lowered his head into the trough and began to eat, wrinkling his nose and holding back his gag reflex. One bite down, then two, and to Adam's surprise it wasn't as bad as he'd expected. Three, four, five bites. He nestled in a little closer to the trough, dug a little deeper. Six, seven, eight.
By the tenth bite, Adam had lost a bit of himself, though he didn't realize it. The nose he'd wrinkled when first approaching the trough was now permanently lifted and had slightly broadened. He used it to root around the slop, the idea of using his hands not even crossing his mind. When he found a particularly good apple core, he munched it with a triumphant guttural grunt that rumbled across his chest satisfyingly.