The Snow Pony
Page 7
30
Holy trout, am I glad I kept quiet about Cliff all day, like Mr. Flower said!
It was hard. At one point Cute Irene asked Marigold how was Cliff, and it almost burst out of me there and then. But Marigold just shrugged, so I bit my tongue. Later Irene said to Jessie, “Guess Cliff and Marigold broke up, huh?” I walked by and heard and kept walking. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done! And am I glad now!
Nobody in Winterfield uses their front door. Mr. Flower and Jackie and I turned up at the Stasses’ kitchen door, me hiding behind Jackie, and they let us in. Mr. Stass never said boo about any goat eating tulips. He just turned to Frankie and asked if he wanted the Pearl job, and of course Frankie did. He ran right off to see Pearl.
I looked around for someplace to hide, and there was Marigold behind me.
She said “Come up to my room” in a friendly sort of voice. I swallowed a big lump of surprise and went.
And now I’m swallowing more lumps of surprise, looking at the snapshots pinned all over Marigold’s walls.
There’s the Cliff birthday snaps she showed at school. There’s Frankie on Pearl. There’s Thunder eating a sandwich with Sophie in the snow, Cliff boring a maple, Tunie bubbling gum, Irene smirking, Jessie barking laughter. There I am, on a very scruffy Pearl, in snow.
I ask her, “Marigold, did you take all these pictures?”
“’Course.” She sprawls on the unmade bed and pats the mattress for me to sit down. Cautiously, I ease down beside her.
I say, “I do pictures too. Only I draw mine.”
“Yeah? You ever draw me?”
“Um, yes.” (Several times.)
“Ever draw Irene and the other kids?”
“Sort of.” (I drew them once as Dog, Cat, and Rabbit.)
“Hey, I’d like to see those!”
“Well…”
“If you asked me over to see your stuff, maybe the kids wouldn’t call you ‘Stuck-up Janet’ anymore.”
“Holy trout! Me, stuck-up?” I thought I was Lonesome Janet, Janet Left Out, maybe Dumb Janet. But Stuck-up Janet, never!
“Well, sure,” Marigold explains, matter-of-factly. “You look at everybody like they aren’t there.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. And you never speak to anybody. Never smile. That’s why they call you ‘Stuck-up.’”
“Holy trout, I’m new around here! You ever been new in school, Marigold?”
“No. I’ve lived in Winterfield all my life, and so have all my folks, forever.”
“OK, that’s it. You don’t know what it’s like—”
“But Tunie does. Tunie sort of likes you, even if you are stuck-up.”
“I’m not! I’m just … well, I’m shy.” There. That’s out.
“And Irene was new last year. That’s…” Marigold’s voice trails off. She looks out the window, down at the floor. “That’s why I made up the Cliff story.”
“What?”
“See, I’ve lived here forever. But Tunie and Irene and some others came here from cities. Boston. Hartford. New York.”
“So?”
Marigold sighs. “So I wanted them to take me seriously.”
“They did that, all right!”
“It worked pretty good for a while. But it was wearing thin, you know?”
I nod. “Everybody’s tired of it.”
“Right. Me, too. And now I don’t know how to be friends with Tunie, after she stole my Ring.”
“But Tunie didn’t steal your Ring.” It’s out of my mouth, I can’t take it back.
Marigold studies my face. I blush and prickle as though I’m talking to a brand-new stranger.
I want to say, “I did it myself,” but the words won’t come. So I reach in my jeans pocket and pull out the Ring, and drop it on the mattress between us.
Marigold’s eyes make saucers. We stare down at the silly, sparkling plastic toy, Cliff’s Friendship Ring.
In the silence we hear Mr. Flower say under the window, “Cabbage worms. My Connie made a cabbage worm spray that worked. I’ll show you how.”
And Jackie asks, “Where’s Jannie gone?”
Marigold murmurs, “You. You, all along.” Marigold chuckles.
Cautiously, I chuckle.
Marigold laughs.
Laughter whoops out of my stomach.
We laugh till we roll off the bed and curl on the floor, clutching our stomachs. When I can almost talk I whisper, “Maria?” Now, how did that slip out? Marigold’s nothing like Maria. Or is she?
“Huh?”
“I mean Marigold.”
“Ha ha! What? Ha ha ha!”
“You want to walk to school tomorrow with me?”
“Well, I don’t know.” We sit up against the bed, panting. “See, that’s my alone time. My only alone time all day.”
“Oh.” I never thought of that. I’ve always had plenty of alone time.
“But just for tomorrow … that would give the kids a jolt, wouldn’t it! Oh wow!” Marigold starts to laugh again, and clutches her stomach.
Down outside, Jackie calls, “Jannie! We better start home.”
“Here,” says Marigold. “You keep it.” She hands me the gleaming red-blue Ring. “Peace Ring.”
“Oh. OK. Sure.” I push it onto my little finger, the only finger it fits. We rest against the bed, watching it gleam.
Down below, Jackie calls, “Jannie!”
“OK,” I croak. “I’m coming. Coming!” I tell Marigold, “See you tomorrow.”
31
We three hurry home down Old King’s Road. Jackie swings along fast, braid bouncing down her back. She wants to get home by dark.
I lag behind with Mr. Flower. He hobbles along as fast as he can. My stomach still aches from laughing. But I feel light, walking along with no stolen Ring in my pocket! I feel … thin! I hold up my hand to watch my Peace Ring glimmer in the last sunlight.
Jackie halts. “Listen!” she orders us.
We listen.
Something in the darkening woods goes bump, crash, bump.
I whisper, “Maybe it’s a bear!”
Bump, it sounds nearer. Crack, it leaps into the middle of Old King’s Road.
It stops stiff and fixes us with bright, dark eyes. It raises one forefoot and a shining white tail. It’s a deer.
It leaps across the road into woods. We watch its white tail bounce twice among trees, and it’s gone.
A man from Mars might look at you like that, then whirl his spaceship back to Mars.
“Aha!” says Jackie. “Another one’s coming.”
Pound, pound, come hoofbeats along the road. I say, “That’s Pearl.”
They canter toward us around the bend, Thunder and Frankie and Pearl. Did I think I had to help Frankie mount, and bridle Pearl for him? I should have remembered that Frankie is a Stass.
He rides proudly. Pearl’s snowy mane floats on air like dandelion fluff. Thunder bounds beside them like their shadow.
Rejoicing, they canter past us and around the next bend.
Mr. Flower clears his throat. “Jannie,” he says, “did I ever tell you how my Stephen loved pets?”
I start to say yes, but he goes right on—
“One time he brought a newborn fawn in the kitchen at your house. Said, ‘This is our new pet.’”
I start to say, “I know, you told me,” but he goes right on telling the story. And I listen like a granddaughter, because I know grandfathers do repeat stories.
About the Author
Anne Eliot Crompton is the author of The Snow Pony. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by Anne Eliot Crompton
All rights reserved.
First edition
Published by Henry Holt and Company, Inc.,
115 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd.,
195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8.
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eISBN 9781250112217
First eBook edition: December 2015