by Jane Smiley
I said, “Yes, sir.”
“You may go now.” I went out of his office.
The bell rang and it was time for English, but instead I went out onto the steps and waited until our car drove up to the door. I could hear Mom talking even before I could see her, saying, “—and what could all this about suspension possibly mean? I don’t understand a word of this! I can’t believe you’ve left me in such ignorance, young lady! What are the missions?”
“Please don’t talk to him about the missions.”
“What are the missions?”
“It’s a school project where we learn about the California missions, and everyone has to build one, so I—”
“You built a Catholic mission?”
“We all did.”
“Daniel did not.”
“I’m sure he did, Mom. If you ask him.”
But by now we were at the door of the principal’s office. We knocked and walked in.
Mr. Canning said what he had to say, which was that a valuable necklace had been taken and hidden and then found in my locker, but I was not revealing anything about it, either because I had taken it or because I was “protecting a friend very unwisely.” And Mom said what she had to say, which was that I could not have possibly taken the necklace and it was highly unlikely that I would protect anyone, because I was a good girl and a well-taught girl and I would certainly come forward if I had any knowledge, so there was something going on, no doubt about that, and what was this about Catholic missions?
Mr. Canning explained that the misson project was a universal history project in California schools. State law.
“Never heard of it before. My son, Daniel—”
“Daniel and his partner built a very nice mission, as I remember. Was it cut-up cardboard boxes? Colorful and nicely painted. Mission San Miguel, I think.” He sighed and looked down.
Mom stared at him.
The only thing they agreed on was that I would be suspended for some days or at least until the school got to the bottom of the necklace mystery.
We walked to the car, and Mom said that we would talk about it later, after she had calmed down. That was okay with me. I looked at the hall clock as we were leaving the school. Two hours had passed since the first bell, and I was leaving already. Mom walked in front of me as we headed toward the car, which was parked at the far end of the parking lot. Her shoes made a sharp thudding noise on the tarmac, and even the back of her head and her shoulders looked mad. I wondered if I could remember the last time Mom had gotten mad—usually that was Daddy’s department. I tried to imagine what would happen next and what I would do about it, but I couldn’t.
Chapter 16
WE GOT HOME BEFORE LUNCHTIME. DADDY’S TRUCK WAS gone, which was probably a good thing. I decided to get all my horse work done, but after I had put my jeans on and gone out to the barn, I began to wonder what the point of it all was. The horses looked happy in their pastures. The three mares were standing in a straggling line on the brow of the hill, dark in the noon sunshine. Their pasture was big enough to still have some grass, and one of the mares was grazing, but the other two were standing ears to tail not far from the biggest oak tree, their heads down, idly switching flies. In the gelding pasture, I didn’t see Jack for a moment, and then I saw him lying flat out, asleep in the sunlight. Black George was grazing about halfway between him and the other two. Ornery George was methodically licking the bottom of a bucket that was tied to the fence—Jack’s bucket, in which Mom had probably fed him his morning mixture of bran and milk—and Socks George was over by the water trough, pushing his nose into the water, then shaking his head, then pawing the ground with his left front hoof. He did this three times, and even though I knew that Daddy didn’t like the horses playing in the water, he looked like he was having fun.
I stood there, and I have to say that I didn’t know what in the world to do. I wasn’t used to having Mom mad at me, I knew that Stella wasn’t my friend anymore, and that only left Gloria. But Gloria was lost, too—without even realizing it at the time, I had noticed Gloria that morning, and now that came back to me. Just after Stella saw the necklace, Gloria, who was standing behind her, didn’t look shocked or upset, she just turned away for a moment and then looked back, like a person staring in a crowd, not like the best friend you’ve had for your whole life. She looked, in fact, like she didn’t care. I realized that she was going to use what happened as a way to drop me without having a fight or saying anything at all. I looked back at the house. I couldn’t see Mom anywhere, so I opened the mares’ gate, closed it behind me, and headed down to the crick. I skirted way around the mares so as not to bother them. Blue Jewel turned her head and looked at me, but no one moved. I headed down the hill. The oaks along the crick looked inviting—shady dark green in the damp grass—so I headed there.
The crick was sometimes high and mostly low. This time of year, the water ran over the stones, not through them, but, except in one pool, it wasn’t more than six inches deep. It was pretty, though, shining, clear, and ripply, making wrinkles and rivulets over all the stones. The shadows of the leafy branches above danced over the water, and the grass, long and moist, draped over the banks. The sand along the bottom of the pool was gray and rough—not like beach sand. The water in the pool was about a foot and a half deep. I threw a few pebbles into it, skipping them the way Danny had taught me, but the pool was wide enough only for one skip. Then I took off my boots and socks and rolled up my jeans. The rocks were slippery to get to the pool, and then the water in the pool was cold. I dug my toes into the gray sand, which felt good, and then wiggled them to go deeper. It was all too easy to imagine having no friends at school ever again. That was the difference, I realized, between one real friend and none. Your one friend surrounded you and made you feel like everything was normal so that you never even thought about the fact that there was only one. But when she was gone, you were stuck with the truth.
I swished around in the pool until my whole body was cold, and then I walked up onto the bank in a sandy part. The sand was sunny and warm, which felt good on my cold feet. Then I went over to one of the trees and sat down on a lower branch where it dipped away from the trunk and then grew upward. It was a thick branch and didn’t even bend with my weight. I turned a little and leaned my back against the trunk. I could hear the breeze ruffle through the upper leaves. I closed my eyes. There were lots of noises, but they were all low ones—skittering in the grass, creaking in the tree, indistinguishable wind sounds. Silence.
When I woke up, the mares were practically on top of me, or so it seemed the first moment. But they weren’t really. Really, they were just standing in front of me, Blue Jewel in front of the others, her nose about two inches from my knee, Star Jewel next to her, maybe a foot back, and Roan Jewel behind them but with her head up and her ears pricked, like a person trying to see in a crowd. I yawned a couple of times, the way you do when you’ve been asleep, and Blue Jewel stuck out her nose and sniffed my hands, which were crossed in my lap. Then she nosed my leg. Instead of saying, “No treats,” which is what I usually said when they poked around my hands and pockets, I said, “I’m all right.”
Star Jewel blew out of her nostrils, as if to say, “Okay, then.” I laughed. Roan Jewel then whinnied, and there was something uncanny about the whole thing. I lifted my hand and petted Blue Jewel on the nose, then down the face. She took a half step closer. I put out my other hand and then stroked her around the eyes on both sides, starting up by her cowlick, then stroking outward and downward over her cheeks. She stretched her head out, flopped her ears, and sighed. Then I sighed. The other two came closer. Star Jewel sniffed my jeans and then lowered her head and sniffed my foot. I put my fingers in the mane hair just behind her ears and tickled. She cocked her head as if she was enjoying it. Then Roan Jewel had a thought. While I was petting the others, she went around the tree and came behind me and snuffled the back of my neck and my shirt. Her breath was warm and made my hair lift. I was
surrounded.
I knew I could wave them off. I knew I should wave them off. At the very least, horses are so unpredictable that a squirrel or a snake suddenly spooking them could make them forget where I was completely in their rush to get away. And I was barefoot—my boots were on the bank fifteen feet away. But I didn’t move. I petted them and tickled them and let them sniff me all over, ruffling my hair, investigating my hands, poking their noses under my ear, pushing lightly against me. And then Blue Jewel did an odd thing—she began to lick my shirt, right under my collarbone and over my shoulder. She licked and licked, long after any flavors I would have thought were there would have been licked away. Then she moved up to my neck, then my chin and cheek. Her licks were firm and moist, but not hard or pushy. I realized that this was what it must be like to be a foal and to have your dam lick you.
The other two mares seemed to watch Blue Jewel do her licking—their ears were forward, as if they were saying, “Why is she doing that?” But they didn’t mind it. We all relaxed. After she had licked me to her heart’s content, Blue Jewel sighed a deep sigh. Roan Jewel had already given up on the back of my neck and now went down into the crick for a drink from the pool. Then the two others followed her. I watched them for a moment, then fetched my boots and socks and put them on.
At the house, Daddy’s truck was parked next to the car and the door was closed. I got the halter and long lead rope out of the barn and went to the gate of the gelding pasture. Jack was up by now, and he came right to the gate with a nicker. I wasn’t thinking those thoughts about school or Gloria anymore. School seemed quite far away. I knew I would have to think about it later, so why think about it now?
Jack and I went into his old pen and I closed the gate behind us. I walked to the middle and stood there long enough to think about each thing that Jem would want me to do with Jack—make him go around me, make him step over, make him back up, make him go around me the other direction, make him turn his head and neck and soften them, make him relax his neck and put his head down, make him curve his body away from me as he did each movement. Then I asked him to do all those things, and he did them nicely, for no more than fifteen minutes, if that. When we were finished, I got him to stand while I ran the chamois over him from ears to tail, then I picked up his feet, one by one. He made it all seem as though nothing was a big deal. I left him in that pen while I worked with Black George.
The mares came up the hill. One by one, I made my way through all of them, grooming them, picking their feet, tacking them up, taking them to the arena. Then I moved to the geldings. I made sure to begin Ornery George with some groundwork in Jack’s pen, but that was the only difference. I had saved him for last, so it was almost suppertime when I was starting with him. Since there was no one around to tell me what to do, I worked at my own speed, but steadily. When I brushed the horses and picked out their feet, I thought about how all of the new horses had gotten better-looking since coming from Oklahoma—shinier and sleeker, with their manes combed and their feet neatly trimmed. Ornery George himself looked as good as I had ever seen him, so I spent some extra time brushing his white points.
When I led him into the pen, he neither pulled nor lagged back, but just walked along with me. Nor was he giving me any looks—he was looking where we were going. I thought, right then, that we were ready. But when I opened the gate, he moved past me as if he didn’t care about me, and when I gave the halter rope a jerk and said, “Hey! Pay attention to me, George,” he was still oblivious. My heart sank. I thought, Thirty-six dollars down the drain. Something more I would have to talk about with Daddy.
Afterward, I wasn’t quite sure why I did what I next did, but what I did was to unclip the halter rope and let him go. When he moved away from me, I swung the rope, and he began to trot around the periphery of the pen, his tail up and his ears pricked, not like he was in a bad mood, but like he was in a good mood. I shook the rope. He bucked and kicked out, then started to gallop. I shook the rope again. He bucked and kicked out again. But he went around me at a safe distance. After two circuits of the pen, I stepped over to my right, just to try it, and Ornery George turned toward me, then went the other direction, bucking and kicking. I then made a little mistake and stepped sort of in front of him—not in front of him literally, but in front of his gaze, even though I was still in the middle of the pen. He slid to the halt, spun, and went back the other direction. It was like we were playing a game, so I kept playing, stepping to the right or the left or toward him, just to see what he would do. He didn’t always do anything, but sometimes he did—speeding up, spinning, sliding to a halt and going the other direction. I realized that he was watching me and his moves were reactions to me. Finally, after about ten minutes of this activity, he turned toward me and stopped, and when I stepped toward him, he stepped backward, two neat steps, made as if he meant them. I turned my back and stepped. I heard him come up behind me and felt his breath on my arm. It was as if he were saying, “Time to go for a ride.”
I believed him.
Our ride wasn’t that big of a deal. We walked, trotted, cantered, halted, backed, made some large, medium-sized, and small circles in both directions, trotted from the halt, halted from the trot, stood quietly for a while while I rested my hand on his haunches. He sighed. No big deal.
That was why it was a big deal.
I walked him out. When I got back to the barn, Daddy was finishing up the evening work. He had filled all the water buckets and put out all the hay, hung up all the tack, and put away the bridles. Without saying anything, he helped me untack Ornery George and brush him off, then put him away. The very fact that he wasn’t saying anything let me know that while he appreciated my efforts, there were things to talk about—things that required a family meeting and praying to the Lord for guidance, things that were much too serious to talk about as we were making our way from the barn to the house. The horses had sort of lulled me, hadn’t they? But now my stomach started to hurt.
Chapter 17
IT DIDN’T OFTEN HAPPEN IN OUR HOUSE THAT MOM AND DADDY had a quiet conversation over supper. Usually Daddy was excited about something and Mom went along with it, whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes, supper was lively and funny, with lots of jokes and a song or two. Other times, supper was loud and not funny at all, because Daddy was righteously angry or resolute in his determination or dedicated to rectifying evil. All the Lovitts were big talkers. But our supper that night was much more like a supper at Gloria’s house, where Gloria’s mom kept up a steady, soothing patter and Gloria’s dad ate first the vegetable, then the meat, then the starch, never letting any one of those touch any of the others. Gloria’s house was very neat—even the fringes of the rugs looked like they were combed out straight. We had spaghetti. Thinking again about Gloria, I didn’t eat much.
I noticed that our house was very neat, too. That’s what Daddy and Mom had been doing while I was out with the horses—turning over a new leaf. In our house, a new leaf always started with the vacuum cleaner and ended up with me going to bed at nine on the dot.
After supper, Daddy went to his desk in the living room, opened his Bible at random, and read a verse. The verse was, “And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou?” I saw Mom purse her lips a little and sigh. There was a long pause, and I knew they were trying to figure out what to make of this verse. I said, “I guess they were seeking Joan’s necklace for about four or five days.” I tried to sound helpful.
Daddy said, “Tell me about this necklace.”
I said, “It’s an add-a-pearl. Every year on her birthday, her grandmother gives her a pearl, and they string it on with the rest of them.”
“So there are twelve pearls?”
“Thirteen. I guess there was one to grow on.”
“How valuable would a necklace like that be?”
I shrugged.
Mom said, “At least a hundred dollars. Maybe more d
epending on the chain and the pearls.”
I said, “I didn’t take the necklace.”
“We don’t think you did, honey,” said Mom.
I looked at Daddy. He said, “But when the evidence is against you, it’s hard to prove a negative. It looks to me like if they suspended you, they feel they’ve got a pretty good circumstantial case. How could the necklace have gotten into your locker?”
“I don’t know, unless somebody knows the combination to my lock. But I haven’t told it even to Gloria. They would have to be watching me open it.”
“That could be anyone,” said Daddy.
We listened to the clock tick for a while, then Daddy said, “I see we are at the mercy of the Lord. May his mercy be upon us.”
Mom said, “Amen.”
Daddy said, “Now, Abby, you have kept from us this mission-building project, and I wonder if I have been remiss in explaining to you certain facts about the Roman Catholic Church.”
I said, “I don’t know.”
“The thing is, the Roman Catholic Church is a great and powerful enemy. Our great and powerful enemy. It has done many things over the centuries to our people and to its own people that are not easy to speak about.”
“It was a school assignment. Danny had to do it, too.”
“Reminding me that your brother may have been sneaking around behind my back does not make me happier that you have been doing the same thing.”
I bit my lips and tried to think of something. I looked at Mom, but it was clear she wasn’t going to help me. I knew I was right on the edge between asking a question and sassing back. Daddy didn’t seem mad so far, but he could get there in no time. I kept my mouth shut, and he did what he always did, which was to expand on his previous statement. This could be dangerous, too. He said, “Who helped you with this project?”