When he was nine years old, Jonathon Timberlake joined his local chapter of the 4H club in Tennessee. At first he did things like ride horses, grow bean plants, and learn how to make "real, honest-to-goodness, like, made in our own oven, Justin, by me" bread. But then the county fair was coming up and, because the rest of his friends were doing it, Jonathon wanted to show an animal.

"I’m going to raise some sort of animal, Justin," Jonathon said on the phone one evening. "It’ll be all my own. Mom said I could. It’s going to win so many blue ribbons, the mantle ‘ll be overflowing."

"That’s great, Jon," Justin said.

It wasn’t until Justin went back to Tennessee for his semi-annual visit with his father, Lisa, and his two little brothers, that he realized how serious Jonathon had been.

"Do you want to see my pig, Justin?" Jonathon asked, eagerly tugging at his older brother’s hand. "Steven calls it Babe, you know, after the movie, but I call it Oscar."

"Oscar?" Justin asked. He gently detached his hand from Jonathon’s and stuffed it in the pocket of his shorts.

"Because of the song!" Jonathon said as he bounced towards the pig pen. He started singing, horribly off-key. "I wish I were and Oscar Meyer wiener…!"

"Okay, okay," Justin said quickly. He smiled down at Jonathon. "That’s a good name."

"Well, Mom said that pigs make hot dogs, so…"

"Good name," Justin said again. He looked at the small pig housed in the pen in his parent’s backyard. He smiled down at Jonathon. "It looks like an Oscar."

"It’s a pot-belly," Jonathon said proudly. He motioned at the pig. "He does look like an Oscar, doesn’t he? And he’s going to rake up all sorts of prizes at the county fair next week."

"County fair?" Justin asked. "Next week?"

Jonathon nodded. "You will be there, won’t you, Justin?" He opened his eyes widely and pouted.

Justin nodded, slowly, and smiled as Jonathon’s pout disappeared.

"You should come, B," Justin said. He was leaning back on the bed in the guestroom of his father’s house. The portable phone was pressed to his ear. "It’ll be fun."

"It’s just a county fair, Justin," Britney said. The snap of gum was audible through the phone connection. "Won’t there be, like, dirt and stuff?"

"We went to that one in Florida once," Justin said. "You didn’t complain then."

"We went to the carnival," Britney said. She sighed. "And you won me that teddy bear. That was romantic, Justin, not—"

"Come on, B," Justin said. "I want to see you and I promised Jon I’d be here."

"I don’t know, Justin," Britney said. "You know I want to see you, but—"

"I’ll win you another teddy bear," Justin said. "Please?"

Britney sighed. "Okay, honey, I’ll be there."

Justin nodded happily, said goodbye, and hung up the phone.

"See how he does whatever I tell him to do?" Jonathon asked. He looked over at Justin as his older brother was sitting on the back porch. Jonathon was guiding the pig around the yard using a stick. "We’re so going to take this thing."

"You’ve done a really good job with him, Jon," Justin said. "And Brit and I, and mom and dad will all be there to see you win first place."

"Brit-ey’s come-ig?" Steven walked out onto the porch. He clapped his hands once, then again, happily.

"Yeah," Justin said. He grinned widely. "She really wanted to see you guys, and—" Justin looked over at Jonathon, "—see you on your big day."

Jonathon puffed up, sticking his chest out and strutting around behind Oscar as the pig meandered around the garden. "Well, I’ll win a ribbon for her. How about that?"

Justin nodded, crinkling his eyes up as he smiled. "I think she’d like that a lot."

Britney arrived on a Tuesday. She had a purse clutched in her hand as she walked off of the plane and with her other hand she tugged at the handle of one of those rolling suitcases.

"Baby," she said happily, giving Justin a big kiss on the mouth. "It is so good to see you."

"I missed you, too," Justin said. He stepped away from Britney and let Jonathon step forward.

"I’m going to win a blue ribbon for you," Jonathon said proudly.

Britney smiled, pink lipstick covered lips forming a perfect grin, and bent down to give Jonathon a hug.

"Well, isn’t that just the sweetest thing," she said.

Justin and Britney didn’t go to the fair the first day, instead choosing to go to the local mall where it was cool.

"We’ll pick you up at six," Justin said when they dropped Jonathon off that morning.

When they picked him up at six, though, Jonathon was red-faced, lethargic, and completely unexcited about anything he’d seen.

"Yeah," was his answer to most questions, with an occasional "nope" thrown in. He didn’t even nod very enthusiastically when Justin asked if Oscar was going to kick all the rest of the piggy-ass at the fair, just said a quiet "yeah," and proceeded to fall asleep in the back seat.

Lisa, being the in-tune mother that she was, knew Jonathon was sick as soon as Justin carried him into the house. She bustled about, taking Jonathon’s temperature, getting him in the bathtub to clean up, and then tucking him into bed.

"Such a shame," she said. "I don’t think he’ll be better in two days to show Oscar." She sighed heartily. "He’s going to be heartbroken."

Justin gave Britney a concerned frown and she delicately lay her hand, pink, perfectly painted nails first, on his forearm.

Jonathon’s room was dark when Justin knocked quietly. He heard the quiet croak of acknowledgement, though, so he pushed the door open.

"How you doing, Sport?" Justin asked. He sat down on the edge of Jonathon’s bed and ran the palm of his hand up over his little brother’s forehead.

"Mom says she doesn’t think I’ll be better by Friday," Jonathon said. He sounded as if he were going to cry. "I’ve got to be, Justin. I’ve got to show Oscar."

"It’s more important that you get better," Justin said. "There will be other fairs, you know."

"But not this year!" Jonathon wailed. "We were supposed to win this year."

"I wish there was something I could do." Justin placed his big hand over Jonathon’s smaller one.

Jonathon nodded slowly, tiredly. Suddenly, through his fever-dulled features, a smile popped through. "You could show Oscar," he said.

"What?" Justin asked. He nearly stood up from the bed, but managed to make his limbs remain sitting. "What are you talking about, kiddo? I can’t show Oscar."

"Sure you can," Jonathon said. "You can show him and win all of the ribbons we were meant to get."

"I don’t know the first thing about showing pigs, or any animal for that matter. That’s why."

"But you could learn," Jonathon said. "It’s not that hard. Really."

"Jon—" Justin started to say.

"Please, Justin?" Jonathon’s voice had approached a whine. "Please?"

Justin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Fine," he said shortly. "If you’re not better, I’ll show Oscar."

Jonathon leapt out from underneath his tightly tucked covers and squeezed Justin using all of the strength in his small arms. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you. You’re the coolest big brother ever. Thank you!"

Justin gave his little brother a half smile before he proceeded to re-tuck Jonathon in. "Now go to sleep, little man, before Lisa comes in here and yells at both of us."

Jonathon nodded, looking suddenly sicker again, and was almost immediately asleep.

Lance was sitting calmly in the living room of his Mississippi house when the telephone rang. He looked at the time—after ten p.m.—and wondered who would be calling him at that hour.

"Bass speaking," he said when he picked up the phone.

"Hey, man." Justin’s voice was shaky over the telephone connection.

"Justin!" Lance said. "Hey! What’s happening?"

"Um," Justin said. Then he was silent.

"Justin?" Lance’s voice was concerned. "What’s the matter? What happened?"

"Do you know anything about showing pigs?" Justin asked quickly, running the words together.

"Do I know what?" Lance asked. He laughed loudly. "Do I know anything about showing pigs? Is that what you asked me?"

"Yeah," Justin said. It was obvious from his voice that he was both blushing and embarrassed.

"Why, if I may ask, do you need to know how to show a pig?" Lance wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of his eye.

"Jonathon’s sick," Justin said. "He was supposed to show his pig Oscar at the county fair on Friday, but now he’s not going to be able to. And I promised him I’d show Oscar in his place. And now I need to know how to show a pig. So, do you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Lance said. "You don’t get through 4H without learning. But I can’t exactly tell you over the phone, you know."

"I know," Justin said. He paused. "I was hoping you’d come here, to Tennessee. Brit’s here, so you could see her, and I know my family would love to see you."

"Go to Tennessee to show you how to show a pig?" Lance sighed. "I’m busy, Justin."

"Think of this as your vacation." Justin’s voice was ingratiating, wheedling. "No FreeLance, no Happy Place, no—"

"Fine," Lance said. "I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon, early."

"Oh thank god," Justin said, "because, um, I don’t really know how to clean its pen or anything at the fairground, either. Or what I’m supposed to do to get it ready for the show on Friday, or."

Lance sighed loudly before he hung up on Justin, not even saying goodbye.

Lance was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and cowboy boots when he showed up at the Timberlake house just slightly after noon on Thursday.

Justin pulled him into a quick, brotherly hug. "Thank god you’re here, man. You are a lifesaver. Totally."

"I know," Lance said. He nodded sagely and turned to greet Britney and the rest of the Timberlake family. Then he turned back to Justin. "You owe me bigtime, Timberlake."

Justin nodded quickly and enthusiastically. "Anything you want, Scoop. Anything at all."

Smiling, Lance followed Lisa as she showed him to the third guestroom in the house.

"Now this," Lance said, his hand wrapped around the wooden handle of the shovel, "is a shovel." He had changed into a pair of overalls and a white t-shirt. He had on ratty cowboy boots in place of the new ones he’d worn on the plane.

Justin rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "I know that, dumbass."

"You said you didn’t know how to clean out his pen," Lance said. He shoved the handle of the shovel in Justin’s direction. "This is how you clean out the pen."

Justin, frowning, took the tool and stuck it into the piles of hay in Oscar’s pen. He lifted upwards, trying to scoop up one of Oscar’s messes. All he succeeded in doing was sending a cloud of hay dust in Britney’s direction.

She leapt off of the hay bale with a shriek and glared at Justin, who was desperately trying not to laugh.

"It’s not funny, prick," she said. She brushed dust from her white capri pants.

"You might want to get out of the way, Brit," Lance said. "I think Justin might prove to be relatively lethal with a shovel."

Britney sighed, rolled her eyes, and moved to a bale of hay further down the aisle. She sat there, snapping her gum, and picking at a chip in the pink nail polish that covered her perfectly manicured nails.

They had moved out from underneath the barn-like covering that the fair grounds had provided for the animals, and were standing out in the middle of a field. Because it was hot, both Lance and Justin had taken their shirts off. Britney stood off to the side, sunglasses resting on her nose, fanning herself.

Lance tapped Oscar on the side with the long straight stick he held in his hand. Oscar moved, turning to the right obediently. Then he oinked.

"See," Lance said. "There’s nothing to it."

Justin took the stick from Lance’s hand and tapped Oscar the same way Lance had. The pig stood obstinately still.

"No." Lance stepped forward quickly and took the stick from Justin’s hand. "Hold out your hand."

Justin held out his right hand, palm up.

"This is what you’re doing," Lance said. He smacked the stick down across Justin’s palm.

Justin pulled his hand back quickly, rubbing at the tingling stripe on his skin. "Bastard," he said.

Lance rolled his eyes. "Come on," he said. "Stick your hand out again."

Tentatively, Justin extended his arm and uncurled his tightly clenched fingers.

"This is what you should be doing," Lance said. He gently lay the stick down on Justin’s hand, making it noticeable, but not too noticeable, and brushed the stick along the palm. "That’s what you need to do, Justin. He won’t respond to forceful taps because they don’t tell him were to go."

Justin frowned as he stared at Oscar. Then he took the stick from Lance, walked up behind the pig, and touched it on the side, the way Lance had done to his hand. The pig obediently turned to the right.

Justin couldn’t help but smile.

"My hands hurt," Justin said. He lifted the shovel upwards and let it fall, digging the point into the ground. "Isn’t this clean enough?"

Lance looked around the pen, smiled as Oscar grunted into the slop bucket, and then looked back at Justin. "You just need to add clean hay now."

"Add clean hay?" Justin asked. "I thought pigs liked dirt and mud and stuff."

"He needs to be clean for the show tomorrow," Lance said. "You’re going to have to give him a bath tomorrow morning anyway, and the less there is to clean, the better."

"I have to give him a bath?" Justin asked.

"With buttermilk," Britney said brightly, looking up from her Vogue magazine. "Didn’t you ever read ‘Charlotte’s Web,’ Justin? Wilbur got a bath in buttermilk and he won the blue ribbon."

Justin stared incredulously at Oscar. "Jonathon never mentioned anything about this. And I am not giving him a bath in buttermilk." He shook his head in mock despair. "I am so not an animal person."

"But you want him to look his cutest for the judges tomorrow," Britney said. She giggled. "Cuteness goes a long way, you know."

Lance smirked.

"It’s a pig," Justin said.

Britney knelt down next to Oscar and placed her hand underneath its snout. She turned its head so that it was looking at Justin.

"This pig wants to win, Justin. Just look at it." Then she turned Oscar’s snout so it was looking at her. "It needs the full treatment tomorrow morning, okay? Because this is the cutest pig this side of the Mississippi and we need to show that off."

Justin just stared at his girlfriend as she dissolved into baby talk.

"I think Oscar has a new friend," Lance said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the discarded white t-shirt. Then he smiled. "He is a cute pig."

The next morning dawned far too early in Justin’s opinion. At five o’clock, Lance knocked on Justin’s door and told him to get his ass out of bed.

At 5:45, as Justin returned to his room after his shower with his towel wrapped around his waist, and small droplets of water dripping from his hair, he found Britney laying out clothes for him to wear.

"I was thinking that we would go with a brown and khaki theme today," she said. She smiled widely and pointed to the brown hair-tie already in her hair. "So, khakis, and this brown polo shirt, and your brown boots and you should be all set."

"A brown theme?" Justin asked, gripping the edge of his towel tightly.

Britney nodded. "Of course. We’ve got to look professional, you know. Like we’re real honest to goodness farmers showing our prize-winning pig, or something. And brown was the only color that you, Lance, and I, all had clothes in. And plus, you know, while it’s not pink it does set my complexion off pretty well."

"A brown theme," Justin repeated.

Britney nodded again, happily.

"We’re professionals, Justin. We need to look it. And nothing speaks professional better than brown. It is the next black, you know."

Justin stared at Oscar. The pig, despite the nice, clean hay that they’d put down the afternoon before, was covered in mud.

"Oh shit," Lance said, as he came up behind Justin. He, too, was wearing a brown polo shirt. "This isn’t so good."

"I know." Justin looked around at all of the other clean pigs in the pig area of the barn. Their skins were shiny and soft looking. Perfectly groomed, one might have said.

"I don’t have time for this," Justin said.

"Let me go get the hose," Lance said. "I think that’s the most we can do at this point."

"You aren’t just going to hose him off and call it good, are you?" Britney asked, coming up behind them. "Lance, you yourself said yesterday that this pig needed to be clean. Now you’re going to do a shoddy job?" Her voice rose in pitch.

"We don’t have time for anything else, B," Justin said. We need to get his pen cleaned out, too, so he doesn’t get all muddy again."

Britney rolled her eyes and rested the jug of buttermilk she’d been carrying on a nearby bale of hay. "Men," she said, looking pointedly at Oscar. "What do you do with them, huh, baby?"

Grabbing Oscar’s rope, and not seeming to notice that she was wearing $200 shoes, Britney stepped into the muddy pen, grabbed Oscar, and pulled him out into the aisle way.

"You two can clean his pen, I’ll get Oscar ready for the show."

Justin and Lance stared at Britney.

"You’re going to be the prettiest pig out there, baby," Britney cooed. "Yes, you are, because you’re my good piggy."

The last thing Justin and Lance heard as she left the barn area was another "good piggy."

"Oh, god," Justin said, putting a hand to his head.

Lance was using a pitchfork to huck clean straw into Oscar’s pen and Justin was stomping around trying to smooth it all down into manageable lumps, when Britney and Oscar returned.

Oscar, quite simply, glowed.

"Isn’t he beautiful?" Britney asked. She smiled down at the pig and then back up at Justin.

Her brown bandanna top was slightly turned, and had large wet spots towards the bottom. Her khaki capri pants were covered with dust and splotches of mud. There was a smudge of dirt on what had been her perfectly made up face.

"There’s not a speck of dirt on him," Britney said. "He’s now not only the cutest pig this side of the Mississippi, but the cleanest as well."

Justin swiped at the sweat on his face with his hand.

"You, honey, are a lifesaver."

Britney shrugged once, playfully. "I know," she said.

The ring was quiet. Justin stood behind Oscar, facing the judging table. He could see Britney and Lance, Lisa and his father, and little Steven all sitting on the semi-rickety bleachers. His father was holding a camcorder, capturing the whole event on tape.

"Walk your pigs around the ring," the judge said. He had a clipboard in one hand and a pen grasped tightly in the other.

The girl at the left end of the line, number one, started moving. She tapped her pig on the side with her stick, and the pig plodded forward, grunting quietly at the forced movement.

The guy behind the girl moved, and then Justin tapped Oscar, clueing the pig in that it was show time. He stared at the pig’s back, at its quickly moving small feet, at the way its skin glowed from the buttermilk bath it had received that morning.

They came to the corner of the ring, and with hardly any urging at all, Oscar turned to the right. But he started to turn too far and Justin quickly moved his stick, correcting the movement.

Oscar grunted and Justin smiled.

They continued around the ring and then moved back to their original places in the center. Justin used the stick to tap Oscar between his right legs, just slightly on his stomach, and the pig stopped, exactly where they were supposed to be.

Justin’s eyes followed the judge as he walked up and down the line of contestants.

"I want to see three, one, and four," the judge said, motioning the three pigs and owners to come forward.

Justin moved first, since his number had been called first, and he guided Oscar out along the edge of the ring. They’d walked to the end when the judge nodded and said, "that’s the way I want them. One, two, and three."

The announcer behind the judges’ table coughed as she leaned towards the microphone. "And in first place, Jonathon Timberlake, second Wilson Brady Farm, third Julie Cook. Thank you very much to all of our competitors and have a wonderful day."

Justin nearly forgot to stop Oscar before he turned around to smile at his family. He saw Britney running towards the white, plastic board fence and when she got there, Justin kissed her deeply.

"One down," Britney said against his mouth. "Only three more to go!"

Oscar oinked.

Jonathon looked at the four ribbons hanging from his lampshade on his bedside table—the three blue ones and the one large purple rosette.

"Best in show," he said rapturously, his eyes still shiny from the fever. "Oscar was the best pig in the whole show."

Justin nodded and rubbed his hand across Jonathon’s limp curls. "He’s a good pig, kid. You did good raising him."

"You know what this means," Jonathon said, grinning widely.

"What?" Justin asked. He couldn’t help but smile back at his little brother.

"It means he gets to go to the State Fair next month." Jonathon paused. "And I want you to show him!"