Eager Star

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  Startled, Summer looked at Grant, who simply stared back as if waiting for the answer.

  “From what I hear,” Grant said, “girls go to Summer’s parties so they won’t get gossiped about. Better go, Winnie.”

  Me? At the popular girls’ party? Some of the girls have horses. I could talk about horse gentling. . . . Then I came to my senses. No way would Summer make me part of her herd!

  I shrugged.

  Summer giggled in a girlish way I couldn’t have pulled off if I took classes in it. “Grant Baines!” She sent a fake smile in my general direction without taking her eyes off Grant. “Of course you’ll come, Winnie!”

  Hawk elbowed me. “Great! We’ll go together.”

  I could feel the sappy grin on my face. But I couldn’t do anything about it. The last time I’d been invited to a sleepover, I still wore cowboy pj’s and slept with a stuffed horse. And now here I was, partying with the popular herd! It had all happened just like with horses in the wild. I’d made friends with the herd leader, and I’d been accepted into the herd. Lizzy would freak! Even Dad would be impressed.

  Grant glanced at his watch. “I’ve gotta go over my notes before class. See you.”

  His loyal herd watched as he trotted up the steps. The blonde and two girls I’d seen in the cafeteria headed inside, too, leaving Sal, Summer, Hawk, and me.

  The minute Grant disappeared into the building, Summer snapped her fingers and turned to me. “Oh no!” She tilted her head to the side and stuck out pouty lips. “I forgot. My mother laid down the law. I can’t invite more than nine girls. And I’ve already invited . . . let me see here . . .” She counted on her fingers. “. . . nine. Sorry, Winifred. By the way, I was so relieved you’d be training Grant’s horse. I hate to lose.”

  She started to go, then laughed and called back, “Hey! Speaking of losing, don’t lose Grant’s horse!”

  I should have known. Nothing—not even Grant—could make Summer invite me!

  “But you said—,” Hawk started.

  “Forget it!” I snapped, mad at myself for getting sucked in. Summer and I are two different breeds. Summer would never feel what I was feeling, the kick in the stomach when you’re thrown out of the herd. Never. She got invited to everything.

  Just once I wish she’d feel left out. I wish she could be the one not invited. I should have thrown a party and not invited her! “I’m too busy anyway.”

  “I suppose you are!” Summer agreed. “You must have tons to do just to get up to speed on barrel racing.”

  That does it! I’m sick of letting her make me feel bad! Well it’s her turn, just this once, to feel bad.

  I managed a sugary smile. “The race . . . and my overnight deal.” I glanced at my watch, just the right touch of disinterest.

  Hawk didn’t miss a beat. “You’re right, Winnie! I can’t believe how much we still have to do! And only a week away!” Hawk was good. She was really coming through for me. Giving it a real date made the whole thing sound more real.

  Sal looked hurt. “Hey, I’m the one who said your memory’s tight! What’s with not inviting me?”

  “Of course you’re invited, Sal,” Hawk said.

  Wait a minute. There’s nothing to invite her to.

  “Good!” Sal grinned. “My little brother is in your sister’s class. She brought in cookies he won’t stop talking about. Is she baking for your party?”

  Party? This has gone far enough. Say something, Winnie!

  “You can’t invite Sal and not invite me,” Summer whined.

  Ha! There it is, what I wanted—Summer feeling left out. Time to admit it was just a joke. “Come on, Winnie,” Hawk urged.

  Summer gave me her puppy-dog look. Where was Barker, the dog expert, when I needed him?

  “Summer . . .” I looked at her—the perfect clothes and perfect hair. How could I tell her I had nothing going on, no party, nothing? “Sure.”

  The bell rang, and Sal and Summer ran in. Hawk and I trailed after them.

  “Did we just invite them to my house?” I asked, feeling sick to my stomach. I should have known not to try to get even. Lizzy’s told me a hundred times that revenge is God’s department, not mine. “Hawk, what am I going to do now?”

  “You are going to have the most popular girls in seventh over!” Hawk whispered. “I can help you.”

  “Help me what? Get a new house?”

  I got to English just as Ms. Brumby was shutting the door.

  Sliding into my seat, I made a mental list: clean house, ask Lizzy to plan food, move to Siberia.

  While Grant and Ms. Brumby kept up a discussion on “The Raven,” I pulled out my personal journal and wrote:

  Old mares dominate a pack, much like English teachers rule classrooms. These old mares were probably rejected from herds when they were young.

  A shadow passed over my notebook, and I closed it fast. Ms. Brumby stood in front of my desk and stared down at my journal. When she didn’t speak, I smiled up at her, hoping she wouldn’t ask me a question about what they’d been discussing. I didn’t have a clue.

  But instead of tricking me with a question or yelling at me for not paying attention, she thanked me. “Thank you, Winifred. I nearly forgot. Class, pass your journals to the end of your row.”

  I was so relieved, I dropped my pen.

  Barker plopped half a dozen notebooks on my desk. I tossed mine to the bottom of the pile and passed them on. Close call!

  I couldn’t wait for school to end so I could get in a great first workout with Eager Star. I answered six e-mails at Pat’s Pets, then raced home and told Lizzy about what I’d gotten myself into.

  “Winnie! Sweet! I’ll make pizza and brownies! And isn’t God just the greatest! Thanks, God, for giving Winnie friends already! And sprinkles on the brownies!” She prayed so much like Mom it hurt.

  Walking to the pasture I prayed, Sorry it took me this long to say thanks, God. So thanks. It would be a miracle if we really pulled this party thing off. And if you let Star win that race, well, I’d like that a lot. That’s all.

  Nickers greeted me in the paddock. I put my cheek against hers and inhaled her earthy horse smell as if she were oxygen. “Can’t ride you now. Got to get Star in championship shape.”

  Towaco galloped up, and Nickers shot back her ears. But it was a bluff. The two horses had been getting along.

  Eager Star let me catch him and lead him in to be tacked up. Usually I ride bareback. I love being close enough to the horse to sense what he’s feeling before he moves on it. But Grant would be racing Summer in Western tack. So that’s how I’d train him. Every practice had to count.

  I led Star to the cross-ties, two straps coming from opposite walls of the stallway. They hook onto a horse’s halter for easier grooming. Star stood for me as I reached for the cross-ties. But the minute I hooked his halter, he snorted and pulled back.

  “Easy!”

  But he backed up, jerking his head against the ties.

  “Whoa!” I reached up and tried to unhook him, wishing I weren’t so short. Finally, I got it. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t be this nervous, Star!”

  Untied, Star stood still while I saddled him. But in the paddock, it took me three tries to mount because he wouldn’t stand still. I laid the reins on Star’s neck. He lunged as if he’d been snakebit.

  Star responded to voice cues, trotting when I called, “Trot.” But his wild trot threatened to break into a canter. I had to pull on his reins more than I liked. Instead of walking like an easygoing Quarter Horse, he pranced like an American Saddlebred. I couldn’t get his gallop down to a canter, much less to the lope I was going for. I had to correct him at every step.

  “You have to get your leads,” I pleaded.

  In a canter, horses reach farther forward with the front and hind legs on one side—left legs in a left lead when cantering counterclockwise, right when going clockwise. Wrong leads make bumpy rides. A cutting horse can’t even get around a barrel if he thro
ws the wrong lead.

  I worked Star until dark. He missed more leads than he got.

  As I cooled him down, I had to wonder if Spider Spidell was right. Maybe Mr. Baines did buy a lemon.

  I felt bad for Eager Star. If I couldn’t get him ready for that race, Mr. Baines would sell him. I felt just as bad for me. Summer and her dad wouldn’t let any of us forget my failure. What if nobody ever trusted me as a horse gentler again?

  I’d promised Barker I’d come over so we could work together on our papers for Pat’s class. I scarfed down Lizzy’s chili for supper and was about to take off when the phone rang.

  Dad got it and held the receiver away from his ear. I recognized the blustery voice on the other end: “Sa-a-ay!”

  Catman’s dad was calling about the business lunch!

  “Well, I don’t know,” Dad said. “Next Saturday?” He looked at Lizzy and me as if we’d throw him a lifeline.

  I nodded. “Do it, Dad! Go! You’ll make lots of contacts.”

  He squinted at me. “I guess . . . thanks.” He hung up, not sounding like he meant thanks.

  I explained to Lizzy. “Dad’s going to the Ashland business luncheon!” It felt like our first break since Chubs Baines walked into Pat’s Pets. “Catman’s dad says it’s the first step in getting a good business reputation in Ashland.”

  Dad rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Thought I’d left business meetings in Laramie. I’ve met a couple of those men—I don’t mean Mr. Coolidge. But I wonder if I fit in anymore.”

  Barker waved from the porch swing of a two-story house that looked fixed-up old. White-gold light streamed through the long windows, along with shouts and laughter. Macho, their black-and-tan dog, sat at Barker’s feet, next to Chico, the white Chihuahua. Barker whistled, and the sweetest collie trotted out of the bushes. “Have you met Underdog?”

  The collie thumped its tail when I petted it. Barker took dogs everyone else had given up on and trained them for his five brothers.

  “Sorry I’m late.” I sat next to him on the swing. “Lousy first workout. I don’t know if I can get Grant’s horse in shape for the race or not.”

  Somebody shouted from inside. “Come on in now!”

  I didn’t know if they meant us or the dogs, but Chico took it as an order. He darted to the door, toenails clicking across the porch.

  Barker jumped up. “No, Chico!”

  He was too late. Chico rammed the screen. He shook his head and ran at it again.

  Barker snatched up the pup. “When are you going to believe me, Chico? You can’t go through doors.”

  The Barker home smelled like real food, maybe a roast. Two of Barker’s brothers chased past us and up the stairs. Mark and Luke are only a year apart, but Luke is small for his age, kind of like his dog, Chico. Mark, age seven, is the athletic one, his arms already showing muscles from throwing his Lab the Frisbee night and day.

  On an overstuffed sofa an old woman sat with a big, plastic bowl on her lap. She had pure white hair that looked like she’d just finished a high-speed chase in a top-down convertible. The arms that stuck out of her flowered dress were stick thin. She smiled with eyes that looked like they’d seen angels.

  “Granny, this is Winnie, a friend of mine.” Barker shouted, but the woman didn’t seem to hear . . . or understand. “Winnie, this is my great-grandmother . . . Granny for short. We’ve got homework, Granny,” Barker explained.

  Granny kept snapping the fresh beans in her bowl into smaller pieces and staring out the window as if it were a TV. I liked that Barker didn’t feel he had to explain her.

  He set his notebook on a nearby table. “Here’s where I study.”

  Barker’s mother brought in lemonade and chips. “Good to see you, Winnie!”

  I’d met her a couple of times when she’d picked up Lizzy for church. Mrs. Barker taught computer science, but she could have been a model. She was tall, with wavy hair, brown eyes, deep brown skin. “Eddy’s dad is teaching a night poetry class. He’ll be sorry he missed you.” She turned to Eddy’s great-grandmother. “Granny? More lemonade?”

  Great-granny Barker’s only answer was the steady snap, snap, snap of the beans.

  “Where Wizzy?” asked William, who had just started talking. His face was round as a cookie, and his hair stuck out longer than the other boys’ hair.

  His brothers filed in behind him.

  “Yeah, where’s Lizzy?” Matthew, at nine, was the only Barker who didn’t smile much. He had his bulldog on a leash. Their frowns matched.

  Mrs. Barker snatched up the two younger boys. “Winnie and Eddy have to study. Besides, you guys need baths!” She made a face that cracked up four out of the five. “And I’ll read an extra Bible story to the one who gets the cleanest.”

  They thundered upstairs, leaving Granny snapping beans while Barker and I talked about our papers.

  Every idea I could think of for defining success in life sounded too stupid in my head for me to let it out of my mouth. “Right now success would be getting Eager Star to win the barrel race. But I don’t think that’s enough to write about.”

  “Enough what?” Mrs. Barker, her arms full of clothes, swept past us, then slid into the empty chair at our table.

  Barker explained our assignment. Then his mom leaned forward. “What do you really want, Winnie?”

  I want Star to beat Summer’s horse. I want Grant and his dad to be super impressed. I want the kids at school to be impressed. I want Dad to be impressed.

  I shrugged.

  Mrs. Barker wouldn’t let me off. “What would success be for Winnie Willis?”

  “I want to be known as the best horse gentler in the world,” I said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

  Barker’s mom smiled. “How about you, Eddy?” She turned his notebook so she could read what he’d written: “Colossians 3:23.”

  “What’s it say?” I asked. Lizzy and Mom would have known.

  Barker said it from memory: “‘Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.’”

  I knew it wasn’t something Barker wrote to sound good. He worked hard and was happy. He probably did work for God. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to work for God instead of Mr. Baines.

  “I know God would make a great boss and everything . . .” I was thinking out loud, but Barker and his mom didn’t make me feel stupid. “Only knowing me, I’d probably still want to win the barrel race to impress God just like I want to impress Mr. Baines.” And Grant. And Summer. And Dad . . .

  The snaps stopped, and from the couch came a throaty noise.

  We turned to Great-granny Barker.

  “Child,” she said, not taking her gaze from the window, “God ain’t waiting at no finish line. No, Jesus is running with you, caring more about the steps on the way than the big finish. Can’t nobody impress God. Just look at what he created out there!”

  Outside her window, a blanket of lightning bugs blinked on and off below while above, the whole sky blinked stars.

  “You’re right, Ma!” Mrs. Barker wiped her eyes.

  I didn’t want to forget what she’d said even though I didn’t really understand what it meant. He cares more about the steps than the finish? I reached into my backpack and pulled out my notebook, flipping pages until I got to a blank one.

  “Winnie?” Barker reached for my notebook and turned to the cover. “Didn’t you turn in your journal to Ms. Brumby?”

  “Yeah.” I glanced at the notebook in front of me. “I turned in my class journal. This one is my personal—” I stopped, the words cut off, along with my oxygen. “But this should be gray—” I stared at the cover of the journal, the red journal, my classroom journal for Ms. Brumby. “This can’t be red!”

  I dumped out my backpack. No gray journal. Dizzy, I yanked my notebook off the table and stared at the cover again, as if it might magically change from red to gray.

  “It’s not possible,” I muttered, gri
pping the notebook so tight a page ripped. “I know I turned in my journal.” I remembered adding mine to the bottom of the stack before passing it on. “But if this is my class journal, then that means—” I couldn’t finish. I stood up so suddenly my chair fell backward. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” My heart pounded like horses galloping. Horses! I tried to remember everything I’d written in the gray journal about the Ashland Middle School herd, the comments about the mares and stallions. The “Old Mare Teacher!”

  Every word I’d written for my eyes only was now in the hands of Barb Brumby.

  She won’t read it, I told myself as I pedaled backwards in the dark. Ms. Brumby’s too busy to read journals. She just wants to make sure we’ve written something. Anything. Maybe I’ll get a great grade for writing so much.

  By the time I reached home, I’d almost convinced myself.

  Until I saw Dad.

  He was sitting in his reading chair, his back to the door. Slowly, he folded the paper, took off his glasses, and turned to face me. “You know, I wish just once I could go an entire semester without hearing, ‘Mr. Willis, I’m calling about your daughter Winifred.’”

  I tried to explain about the two journals getting mixed up. “And besides, it wasn’t really my fault. Remember? Picturing people as horses was really your idea in the first place.”

  “True enough,” Dad said. “But that’s not the problem, Winnie. Most of what you wrote sounded . . . well, creative. Ms. Brumby liked several of your comparisons between students and horses. Except some of the things about the lead mare?”

  “It’s not fair, Dad! You don’t know Ms. Brumby. She’s cold and mean, and she hates me!”

  “Winnie, that’s enough,” he said quietly, which worried me more than if he’d just yelled and gotten it over with. “I had a long talk with Ms. Brumby. She’s a caring teacher who only wants what’s best for you. She’s concerned that you feel alienated in your new school. And, quite frankly, so am I. She sees you connecting everything to horses, but not relating to your peers. If you could have heard the concern in her voice, Winnie!”