Spirit Riding Free--Pru's Diary

by Stacia Deutsch

  Abigail and Boomerang set out after Pru and Chica Linda. Abigail hadn’t told anyone, but Solana had sneakily helped her turn those marshmallows into little paintballs by dipping them in colorful dyes. Abigail started throwing them at her friends, and her friends’ horses. Solana was throwing more from the stands.

  Pop. A blue splat hit Pru’s cheek. She couldn’t tell if it was from Abigail or Solana.

  “Let’s go, Chica,” Pru told her horse, hugging down tightly on her neck. “Don’t let them paint you!”

  Lucky and Spirit joined the fun, with Lucky doing a trick and hanging to the side of Spirit’s back. She managed to get close to Abigail and nab a few of the colored marshmallows from the bag.

  Lucky tossed the marshmallow paintballs at Abigail, who got hit with yellow and green. Dye dripped down her leg and onto Boomerang.

  “I’ve got you, Pru!” Abigail threw two purple pellets, but instead of hitting Pru, tagged Chica Linda.

  When the marshmallows ran out, Spirit was the only clean horse. The others were covered in dye.

  They all slowed down and, laughing, rode over to where Solana had been watching.

  “That was hysterical,” Solana said. “You guys should do that in the act!”

  “But… we’re not clowns,” Abigail said.

  “We’re just trying to help Pru get in the paper,” Lucky said.

  Pru studied her friends and their horses…. There was no rule that said she had to perform alone… and it was an exhibition, so maybe…

  She thought more about Solana’s idea.

  The paintballs were fun… but a whole clown act was more than just one thing. Could the PALs and all the horses do a show together? Just this once?

  She leaned down to Chica Linda, who didn’t want to clown around in the first place, but was now acting a lot like a clown horse, covered messily in dye and all. Pru whispered a plan into Chica Linda’s ear, and this time, her horse didn’t refuse.

  Diary Entry

  Dear Diary,

  There’s a constant banging sound from across the camp. It sounds like a gong or maybe as if someone is banging on a frying pan. Whatever it is, the racket is keeping me awake.

  I put a pillow over my head. I wadded up tissue and stuffed pieces in my ears to plug them. I sang to myself. Nothing is drowning out the sound.

  Finally, I gave up. I might as well think about my new plan for the show, since it’s coming up fast. In hours, really.

  I’m thinking we should

  AGH. I can’t concentrate with that noise.

  That’s it, Diary! I am going to check it out.

  Dear Diary again,

  I woke up Abigail and Lucky. Actually, Lucky was already awake, but Abigail was snoring loud enough that it drowned out the banging sounds. It took a few tries to wake her up and when we finally got her, she was so drowsy she thought I was her mom and that Lucky was Boomerang.

  Lucky played along, neighing, until Abigail figured out it was us and that her horse didn’t have a cold.

  We didn’t even change out of pajamas. It was dark, but there were lights in some of the tents, probably from other people who couldn’t sleep. Using the lights and sticking to the shadows, we made our way toward the sound.

  I was shocked.

  And I was right. At least, sort of. The noise was banging on a frying pan. But it wasn’t a someone—it was a horse.

  Catalina’s horse.

  “Come on, Milton, shhhh…” She was dressed as if she’d been practicing for the exhibition, but there was bread in her hair, egg yolk on her shirt, milk on her face, and something green all over her pants. “You’re waking everyone up. I need you to cook the French toast, not bang on the pan.”

  (French toast doesn’t have any green ingredients as far as I know. Ewww.)

  I thought we should hide, but Abigail stepped out of the shadows and told her that if she wanted to teach Milton to cook, she was making a lot of mistakes.

  Catalina jumped a little, surprised that anyone was there.

  Abigail plowed forward, explaining that she’d taught two horses to cook now. Three if we counted her brother Snips’s donkey as a horse, which wasn’t entirely accurate, since donkeys aren’t horses.

  I nearly gagged when she said that Señor Carrots made an excellent carrot cake, because I’ve eaten that cake. And while it is pretty good, I won’t be eating it ever again.

  Lucky pulled Abigail back into the shadows, while Abigail complained she just wanted to help.

  Catalina then got mad and told us she didn’t want help. She took the frying pan away from Milton.

  Someone shouted for us all to be quiet. So we left. Catalina took Milton and stormed off toward her own caravan, and we went back to ours.

  Diary, I’ll tell you this one last thing before I go back to sleep: Lydia was right. Catalina seems very sad. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her happy.

  Pru, rise and shine!” Abigail was standing over Pru’s bed.

  “Neigh!” Lucky tried to sound like Chica Linda.

  “You can’t fool me,” Pru told Lucky, laughing. “But nice try.” She yawned and checked the time. “Oh, wow. Thanks for getting me up. Since Lydia’s going to be working on her article tonight, there’s a lot to do before the performance.” The clown exhibition was one of the final shows before the closing ceremony. Tomorrow, the circuses would all pack up and be back on the road.

  Pru looked at her friends. They were both ready for the day. “You’re going to practice with me, right?” Pru asked. “We’re in this together now.”

  “Of course,” Lucky assured her. “It’s going to be the greatest clown exhibition ever.”

  “We’ll all be in the newspaper,” Abigail said, feeling certain. “My mom and dad will be so surprised. And then I bet Snips will proudly take our article and run around town, gushing about us and showing everyone, like Turo and Maricela and Miss Flores and Mr. Winthrop, too…” She paused and shrugged. “Or Snips might just use the paper to clean his boots. It could go either way.”

  Pru got dressed and ready for the day. “So what’s got you two so excited to wake me up?”

  “Well,” Lucky said, stalling a little, and blocking the door to the outside.

  “We found your letter,” Abigail blurted out. At Lucky’s glance she said, “Sorry, Lucky. You were just talking so slowly.”

  “What letter?” Pru asked. “I didn’t write—” Then she remembered. “I thought I lost that.”

  “It was in Boomerang’s saddlebag,” Lucky said, bringing the letter out from behind her back.

  Abigail took the letter and said, “Sorry, Pru. We didn’t realize it was private until we hit the green-bean part.” She sniffled. “It was so touching.”

  Pru wasn’t mad they’d read her letter. They were her friends and meant well.

  “Are you still homesick?” Lucky asked.

  “Not really,” Pru admitted. “But we’ve been so busy with the exhibition and everything, I kind of forgot about it.”

  At that, Abigail frowned. Then her face lit up. “Well, okay. In case it happens again, we made you a surprise!” Abigail said.

  “Surprise?” Pru echoed cautiously. She didn’t really like surprises all that much.

  Lucky moved away from the door and Abigail opened it.

  Pru peeked out. “Am I supposed to see something?”

  “Oh yeah,” Abigail said. “We have to walk to the corral.” She grinned sheepishly.

  They led Pru the short distance to the corral. There was a big curtain at the side of the fence. It blocked Pru’s view.

  “Where are Chica Linda, Boomerang, and Spirit?” she asked. “Are they all right?”

  “Ta-da!” Abigail and Pru cheered as Solana stepped around the curtain and pulled it aside.

  “Oh wow!” Pru felt tears in her eyes as she saw what her friends had done.

  Using wooden boards, they’d created stalls for the horses. And not just any stalls, but they’d decorated them to look
exactly like the barn at home. The horses were each in their stall, looking happy, and gazing at Pru as if they’d helped with the surprise.

  “I can’t believe it,” Pru said, rushing up to Chica Linda for a hug. She was under her nameplate, just as if they were at home. She gave loving rubs to Spirit and Boomerang, too.

  “You guys…” Pru gushed. “You’re the best friends I could ever have.”

  “We’re better than best,” Lucky assured her. “There’s more.”

  “Okay, so we know it’s breakfast time, but because of the practice today and the show later, we didn’t have another time to do this, so—surprise!” Abigail reached down and took a pan out of a small bag. She set the pan on a nearby picnic table and swept off the cover with flair.

  “Is that my mom’s green-bean casserole?” Pru held back another wave of happy tears.

  “I had the recipe,” Abigail said proudly. “We didn’t have all the ingredients, so it’s almost your mom’s casserole.”

  Pru hugged Abigail. “I never really liked it anyway. It just reminded me of home.”

  They all laughed.

  “Oh, good then,” Lucky said, getting another pan out of the bag. “We can have eggs instead.”

  “Boomerang and I made the casserole,” Abigail protested. “We’re all eating it. In honor of Pru’s big show.”

  No one refused, and the truth was, the casserole was better than Pru’s mom had ever made it.

  “You all made the circus feel just like home,” Pru said before eating another bite of the casserole. “Thank you so…” Her voice faded. She stared at the beans on her fork.

  “What?” Abigail asked. “Do you feel okay, Pru? I mean, I picked wild mushrooms, but the cook promised they were the good kind, not the poison kind.” She put a hand to her forehead. “Oh no! We made this nice surprise, and I poisoned my friends.” She started to collect plates. “No one eat the casserole!” Abigail rushed to take back the plate she’d given to Boomerang.

  “It’s not that,” Pru said. “No poison. All is fine. Good. Great.” She paused as her thoughts came together. “It’s just that the casserole and the stalls—it made me think of something.” She got up and gave Lucky the rest of her food. “Save this for me. I’ll be right back!”

  And with that, Pru ran away.

  Diary Entry

  Dear Diary,

  From my first bite of green-bean casserole, I knew what was wrong with Catalina. It wasn’t that she also couldn’t come up with something newspaper-worthy for the exhibition.

  Lydia had said that Catalina seemed sad. I understood that and recognized the symptoms. That same sadness had been inside me, too, but I had friends to get me through the days and make things fun and exciting. Catalina didn’t have friends to help her. She was homesick and all alone.

  I ran all the way to her circus tent. Not knowing where she’d be, I called her name from the center of the caravan.

  No answer.

  Then I heard a bang and crash from the practice tent, and I was certain that I knew who made that noise. I hurried there.

  Peeking inside, I saw Catalina standing by herself in the center of the ring. Milton was at the far edge, eating oats from a bucket.

  Catalina caught my eye as I entered and stopped humming. She told me she was quitting.

  I didn’t understand why she’d do that.

  She told me it was because Milton was being stubborn and she was out of ideas. Then she added that way back, when we’d first met and she told me she’d seen my show, that it wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be.

  Inside, I knew that meant she thought I was good, but I didn’t let it go to my head.

  I sounded like Lucky when I told her it wasn’t a competition, but neither of us believed that. We were so similar, Catalina and me.

  We both grabbed on to a “you gotta be the best” idea and neither of us had let go.

  I asked her to come with me. She said no.

  I asked again. She protested.

  I begged.

  It went back and forth like that for a long time. We were pretty evenly matched in our stubbornness. But then, Lucky and Abigail and Solana and Spirit and Chica Linda and Boomerang all showed up.

  It had taken Lucky and Abigail a few minutes to understand why I’d run off. But they got it, just like I thought they would. And when they realized what was up, they followed me. Just like I hoped they would.

  Catalina didn’t want to come along with us, and at first Milton refused, too.

  Being the leader of a herd back home, Spirit knew what to do. He herded her horse. It was amazing to watch the way Spirit circled Milton a few times at a gallop, leading him gradually toward the others. Milton seemed uninterested at first, but Spirit didn’t give up. With his head down, he continued to move around Milton.

  Chica Linda and Boomerang raced along with Spirit and began to whinny in welcome. Eventually Milton decided to join the fun. They all made a few circles together around the ring before settling down to head out.

  My friends and the horses then helped me rustle up Catalina. It was a lot easier now that Milton was on our team.

  We got on horseback and invited her to come along. When she refused, Milton helped us by nudging Catalina with his nose. When she still refused, all the horses joined the nudging. Catalina was surrounded by horse noses! Finally, she started to laugh. And then we all laughed, too.

  After all that, she decided to come along to our camp and the “Miradero” party there.

  At the Miradero party, we gave our reluctant friend some green-bean casserole, made another horse stall like the one she had for Milton back home, and then I gave a presentation.

  I wasn’t nervous since I was with my PALs. I stood up on that picnic table. Everyone gathered around, and I sang that song that Lydia had said Catalina liked. The one from Copper Springs. The one they always sang together.

  A few bars into it, Catalina jumped onto the table and started singing, too.

  Then Lydia, who’d been passing by, joined in.

  I guess when I said I’d never sing with Lydia, I was wrong. We sang the whole song twice, ending with a loud and prolonged rendition of “And the herd calls through the trees!”

  It was an amazing morning. Catalina smiled bigger and warmer than I’d ever seen.

  And next up in the frontier circus exhibition is—” The announcer stopped. Pru’s name was on the card, and only Pru’s name. But gathering in the center of the ring were more clowns than the announcer had ever seen.

  “The next act is—clowns!” he announced at last as he tipped his tall hat at Pru before stepping away.

  “We are the CLAPS band!” Pru announced, and the crowd cheered. That was every initial of all the girls. “And we hope you’ll all claps for us!” She grinned.

  Pru caught Lydia’s eye. She was in the front row, holding her pen and paper ready.

  Pru winked at her and then stepped back.

  In the center of the ring was a piano, bucket drums, and a frying pan.

  Pru and Catalina were dressed as if they were clown conductors.

  Abigail, Lucky, and Solana had a surprise for the audience.

  Pru sighed. They were putting everything they had into this one performance.

  Catalina did a cartwheel and the show began. First was some chasing around, getting the horses to the instruments. The girls fell over one another, knocking one another down. Lucky did a flip from Spirit onto Milton and the crowd went crazy. Then Chica Linda went to play the drums.

  “Before I met you, I had no idea she liked music!” Pru whispered to Catalina. “Thanks for showing me. And getting her involved!”

  “Sure,” Catalina said with a shrug, as if it were all part of her plan all along.

  When the boom-boom beat of the drums began, the other horses took their spots.

  The girls had already seen that Milton loved banging his head on the frying pan. So now they covered it with soft material. The clang was still loud and rhythmic
, but they weren’t worried about him hurting himself.

  Lucky was going to play piano. She wasn’t great at it, but she was playing in a horse band. She’d sat down at the keyboard when suddenly she got nudged off the bench. The audience clapped, as if this were part of the show. Lucky laughed.

  “Spirit?” She looked up as her wild stallion began to clomp his foot up on the keyboard. “Okay,” Lucky said to him. “The piano is yours.”

  Solana and Abigail were dressed in clown costumes with big feet. Their instrument was the marshmallow slingshot. The slingshots were strung tightly and made a twang sound when fired. They had an extra one for Lucky.

  While the animals played in the band, Solana and Abigail kept the beat, but also shot marshmallows into the audience (plain, not dyed, so people could eat them). It was chaos—and hysterical!

  There was one facet of the act left.

  The music swelled in the tent and the pops of the marshmallows filled the air. The crowd was on their feet, catching the treats and cheering.

  Pru whispered to Abigail, “Now I have a surprise for you.” She rushed to a curtain at the back of the tent and pulled it back dramatically to reveal Boomerang—dressed like a green unicorn!

  Pru led Boomerang out to the center of the band and stood by him. “Okay, Boomerang, time to sing.”

  Nothing happened.

  She turned to Abigail. “You said he could sing.”

  Abigail shrugged. “Maybe just when he’s taking a bath?”

  “Oh.” That sort of made sense to Catalina. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Let’s sing,” Pru suggested. “All of us.”

  “But it’s not the right tune,” Lucky pointed out. The horses were playing whatever they wanted.

  “I don’t think it matters,” Pru said. “It’ll be funny!”

  The band played one song. The clowns sang another. It was chaotic and hysterical.