No Time for Horses

by Shannon Kennedy

  Meanwhile, my best friend opened her backpack and pulled out a box of cereal and a can of tomato sauce. When I gave her an evil look, Robin shrugged. “What can I say? I want the cross-country team to kick butt so I have to lead by example.”

  “You suck,” I told her and headed for my desk. I glanced at the whiteboard for the entry task. Monday’s extended write waited for me. Mrs. Weaver must have had a crazy weekend too. “Today is Mickey Mouse’s birthday. Describe the party you would give for this famous character, who you would invite, and why. What food would you serve?”

  * * * *

  Monday, November 18th, 3:15 p.m.

  We’d just finished our new ripple cheer and were taking a quick break when my phone went off. I picked it up and read the last message. It was from Lance’s teacher reminding me that I needed to pick up the twins. Wait a minute. Wasn’t it supposed to be Mom’s day? I called her super quick, and got the message that she was unavailable. Oh my Gawd! I hated it when Robin was right about anything. Usually, it worked the other way around. I told my drama diva best friend when she was inappropriate.

  “Do you have to leave, Vicky?” Ms. Walker gave me her undivided attention while the rest of the cheerleaders stared at me. “Haven’t we talked about this before?”

  “Yes, we have, and I’ve made arrangements for the kids to be babysat. I just need to get them and turn them over to Robin. She should be back any minute from her practice.” I texted her. While I waited for a response, I said, “I do understand that this is a major pain for all of you and I’m really sorry. My mom’s counselor actually told her that she needs to step up more.”

  “Amazing.” Fiona snapped her gum. That got her our cheer coach’s undivided attention and a fierce glare. The other flyer darted away to the garbage can to spit out the gum.

  My phone buzzed, and I scanned the message from Robin. “Okay, she has a ride for us. We’ll run to the elementary school, and I’ll grab the kids. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Promise.”

  “Take twenty,” Evie told me. “It’ll give us time to practice everything we need to do prior to the lifts, and we need you back here alive.”

  Ms. Walker nodded in agreement. Grateful for their support, I darted to the gym door and nearly crashed into Robin and Bill. We hurried to the parking lot. On the way to the elementary school, I called and apologized to the twins’ kindergarten teacher, Mr. Diaz. “I’m so sorry for the breakdown in communications. My parents were supposed to pick up the kids today because of cheer practice.”

  “It’s okay. I had some extra grading to do. I have all four of them in my room right now.”

  “Wonderful. Tell them to get started on their homework,” I said. “If they have it done early, we’ll do a movie night.”

  “They’re already started,” Mr. Diaz said. “I didn’t know about the movie night. Will that be okay with your parents?”

  “Come on. It’s November. You know by now that I run their little lives. I am the teenager in charge of them. Always have been, always will be.” Before he answered, I ended the call. When I saw the look on Robin’s face, I asked, “What?”

  “Don’t you think that will get back to your mom?”

  I shrugged. “Who cares if it does? What’s the worst thing that will happen? She’ll be so pissed she takes care of her own kids? Are you over yourself now?”

  “You do have a point, but you don’t sound furious, Vicky.”

  “What’s the point? She has bills to pay, and she probably got an extra shift and forgot to cover her bases. Or she called Rick and, once again, he did his little slide-step. Adam Chambers may say I’m an oxymoron, an honest politician in the paper. What would he call my stepdad?”

  “Things that are unprintable.” Bill pulled into the parking lot in front of the school. “Go get the kids. Once you turn them over to Robin, I’ll drive you to the daycare.”

  Chapter Ten

  Monday, November 18th, 5:00 p.m.

  When I walked in the door, I expected to find Robin and the kids together, but I didn’t. Mom was in the kitchen stirring something at the stove. Well, that was a surprise since I prepared most of the meals. Another surprise, she wore sweatpants and a T-shirt, not one of her casino uniforms. So, why hadn’t she picked up the kids at school?

  “Hi,” I said, looking around. “Where’s Robin?”

  “She left. She had to get to work.” Mom narrowed her brown eyes and stared at me for a long moment. “I thought we agreed that she wouldn’t come here anymore.”

  “No, we didn’t agree,” I said. “You were mad because she babysat so I could cheer at the football games during September and October. I told you I’m not quitting the squad. What did you expect me to do when the kindergarten teacher called me again and told me nobody came to get the kids? Again!”

  “It’s Monday. I count on you to get them.”

  “Yes, but Dr. O’Hara said you were supposed to take over,” I reminded her. “I figured it was an emergency and that you had to go to work. That was why you weren’t doing what your counselor said you or Rick had to do.”

  Mom glared at me before she glanced at the clock. “I got called in for graveyard. You’ll have to drop off the kids tomorrow morning.”

  “All right.” I shifted my backpack on my shoulder. “I promised them a movie night. Where are they?”

  “Cleaning their rooms,” Mom said. “Dinner will be ready in an hour.”

  “Good. That gives me time to do my homework.”

  “Switch out the laundry for me first,” Mom said. “We need clean diapers for Chrissy.”

  “You got it.”

  I headed into the little pantry off the kitchen, glad that was the end of my mother’s fit. While I pulled diapers out of the dryer, I texted Robin. “R U ok?”

  She answered with a little smiley face. “Fine. C U 2-morrow.”

  Laundry folded and sorted, I returned to the kitchen. Cathy was setting the table and telling Mom all about the spelling test. She’d passed it thanks to Jack’s coaching. I smiled at the two of them. “I’m going downstairs to study. Back in a bit.”

  Mom added mushrooms to the sauce on the stove. “You’ll need to clean it up later. I want to show it to one of Darby’s friends. She’s looking for a place to rent.”

  “What? Where am I supposed to live?”

  “You’ve got a room upstairs with your sisters.” Mom dumped noodles into a pot of boiling water. “I don’t want to listen to one of your teen angst moments, Victoria Elizabeth. I need the money to take care of the six of you.”

  “Really?” I glared at her back. “How much do you want for the apartment? I can get a job and pay rent.”

  “Who would hire you?”

  “Let’s see. The restaurant where Tom works. Shamrock Stable. The daycare. And that’s before I even look in the newspaper or on the bulletin board at school.”

  “Save the drama for someone else,” Mom said. “You’re not getting a job. I need you to look after your brothers and sisters.”

  “Half-brothers and half-sisters.” I turned and stomped downstairs to the daylight basement apartment. It wasn’t fair. I never had any privacy and even when it looked like things were going to get better, they didn’t. I so needed an escape ticket from this rathole before my eighteenth birthday. If I had to stay here and be chief cook, nanny, and bottle-washer for the next year and a half, I’d go insane.

  * * * *

  Tuesday, November 19th, 4:45 p.m.

  Ingrid and I sat in her office. She was at the big table with a pad of paper in front of her and a pen so she could make notes. This time she wore a pale pink pantsuit. Somebody should bring this old lady up to the now, instead of leaving her back in the 1970s. I’d left her sitting by herself and sat in a comfy, cushiony chair on the other side of the room by the bookcase.

  I gave up on out-waiting her to talk. “What are we doing today?”

  “Whatever you want.” She smiled at me. “This is your time, Vicky.”


  “Hello. If it was my time, I’d be hanging out with my friends or going up to Shamrock Stable or at Jack’s house so I could exercise his horse. This wasn’t my idea.”

  “Tell me about Jack.”

  “Why? So, you can rat him out to Rick and my mom? They want us to break up, but they don’t admit it most of the time.”

  “Why would they want that?” She cocked her head to one side, looking like an inquisitive pink rabbit. “Is he a bad guy?”

  “Jack? No way! He’s incredible. He’s totally cute in a cowboy kind of way. He’s smart.” I eyed her. “He writes poetry for me. It’s good but not in a Hallmark card kind of way. None of the guys on the football team know, but that’s how Jack got me.”

  “Got you?”

  “Okay, a lot of guys think cheerleaders are hot and they want us as if we’re all some kind of accessories that are sold at the student store. Those guys never see us as people first.”

  “And Jack does?”

  I nodded. “He comes to my recreational cheer competitions, and he’s always honest about how my squad looks, but he’s not mean.”

  Ingrid put down her pen. She folded her hands and kept watching me. “What else does he do?”

  “He’s a decent athlete, but grades come first.” I lifted my chin. “Best of all, he’s nice. And I don’t mean in that wimpy, slimy, fakey kind of way like Rick. He’s all ‘please and thank you’ right before he dumps the work on everyone else.”

  “Jack sounds like a decent boy,” Ingrid said. “Why don’t your parents want you to date him?”

  “Because he got mad at Rick and my mom last August. We were going to a Monty Roberts training clinic. Jack bought tickets so we had front row seats and could see absolutely everything Monty did. And Rick no-showed that day, and my mom was called in to work at the last minute.”

  “Maybe your parents forgot about the concert.”

  “A concert.” I gaped at her. “Who cares about a stupid concert? This was Monty Roberts, the best horse trainer I’ve ever seen. He’s not abusive, but he doesn’t take crap from the horses. He’s funny and sweet with them. He never uses whips. I could learn so much from him. Those tickets were like a hundred bucks each. And Jack works hard for his money. He mows lawns and bucks hay bales and works as a lifeguard. He knew how much I wanted to go, and he made arrangements to borrow his mom’s car for us to go to Tacoma.”

  “So, what happened?” Ingrid asked.

  “What do you think? Mom went to work. Rick never came. Before she left, Jack told my mother that she was driving me away, and as soon as I turned eighteen, I’d hightail it out of Washington State and she’d never see me again. She’d have to buy a new slave. Then, he called Rick on the phone and told my stepdad what a no-good creep he was.”

  “But, what about your date?” Ingrid asked. “How did you deal with that? Did you arrange to go another time? Exchange the tickets?”

  “It was a tour. Monty’s school is in California, and he tours all over the world. No, this was a one-shot deal. We would have had to wait until the next time he came here, and it could be another year or two.”

  “And what could you do about it?” Ingrid picked up her pen. “No one has to let people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Did you and Jack allow your parents to victimize you?”

  “That’s an interesting way to look at it.” I drew up my knees and pillowed my chin on them. Ingrid didn’t say a word about my flip-flops being on the chair. “I cried. I was so mad and hurt, and I hated everybody.”

  “Even Jack?”

  “Well, a little bit. He’s so smart. He should have known they’d wreck it. They always do.” I sighed, shaking my head. “No, that wasn’t fair. Jack just wanted to do something special for me.”

  “What did you do when you finished grieving?” Ingrid asked again. “You’re a smart girl too, Vicky. You can’t tell me you sat home, can you?”

  “I could, but I’m pretty sure Rick and Mom already told you,” I said. “It was sort of Jack’s idea too, but, mostly it was mine. And I got grounded for two weeks, but it was worth it. I walked the kids to daycare and arranged for them to stay there until Mom or Rick picked them up.”

  “It could have been a bad deal, but you changed it,” Ingrid said. “That’s what I want you to learn. You can’t control your mother or stepdad. You can take charge of your life.”

  “How? What do I do when Rick returns Chrissy with a diaper bag full of crappy and wet cloth diapers on Sunday night? Leave them for my mom to deal with after she works a bunch of sixteen-hour shifts over the weekend? That doesn’t seem fair either.”

  “Hmmm.” Ingrid tapped her pen on the table. “What about disposable diapers or underpants for the visits?”

  “Rick doesn’t like those. He says they’re bad for the environment. I know he’s right,” I said, “but it was dirty diaper city again on Sunday night. Mom and I spent most of yesterday doing the kids’ laundry. I do pick up some disposable diapers when I buy groceries, but they’re only for emergencies.”

  “Not anymore,” Ingrid repeated. “I’ll go over it with him on Thursday afternoon. If he wants to use cloth ones, he can buy them and deal with washing them.”

  I giggled. “You go, Doc. Once you get that settled, can you talk to Mom about me getting an actual job? If I pay rent, she might let me have some space of my own.”

  “I definitely want to hear about that.” Ingrid looked at her watch. “We have ten minutes before group. Will you talk fast and bring me up to speed?”

  “Sure. I’m a teenage girl. Here goes.”

  While I rattled off facts and figures, she listened and made notes. I’d thought this would be a complete waste of time and energy, but it was so nice having someone who didn’t treat me like a hysterical teenager. It felt as if Ingrid O’Hara was on my side. She made me think. Yes, I had choices and I would make better ones. I’d look out for myself. That was my first job. Like Ingrid said, I had to look out for me first, or I couldn’t take care of anyone else.

  * * * *

  Wednesday, November 20th, 7:15 a.m.

  “How was your therapy session?” Robin handed over my latte as soon as I arrived at her table in the Commons. “Did you get your head screwed on straight?”

  “It was good,” I said, removing the cap and taking a swallow. “You may not have to listen to me whine and snivel quite so much. She told me that Jack and I did the right thing last summer when we dropped the kids and went to see Monty Roberts anyway.”

  “What do you know?” Robin grinned at me, brown eyes amused. “I’ve been telling you for ages not to guilt-trip yourself about that. So, she’s going to help you get a spine?”

  “No. She’s going to teach me strategies for dealing with the people who want to take advantage of me and keep me downtrodden.” I drank more of my coffee. “And I’m going to be nicer to your brother.”

  “Hold on.” Robin straightened in her chair, suddenly serious. “Where’s that coming from? Vick, you already treat him way better than most girls. I know. I’ve heard them when they try calling him.”

  “Yeah, but he’s my boyfriend, not a superhero. He shouldn’t have to rescue me all the time from my family. I’m going to teach the kids to put away their stuff and help clean the house. It will be good for them and for Jack and me too.” The bell rang as I finished my coffee. “Let’s go. I have canned stuff for Weaver, so she’ll be able to harass other students today.”

  “What did you bring?” Robin stood and pushed in her chair. “I have two boxes of noodles.”

  “Two cans of beets and two jars of that creamy peanut butter Rick likes. He’s been gone since May, and I figure I’ll put the food he left behind to good use. Nobody at home is going to eat that junk anyway.”

  Robin laughed and followed me toward Homeroom English. “Wow. Maybe I ought to go to your counselor. She’s going to make you into a superhero.”

  “Yeah, but she wouldn’t have a c
hance if you weren’t my best friend. I don’t know what I’d have done without you during these last few months.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Wednesday, November 20th, 3:30 p.m.

  Cheer practice ended early and I hurried to change then rushed to the parking lot to meet Jack and Robin so we could head for Shamrock Stable. My cell phone buzzed, and I answered. “Hello.”

  “Vicky, this is Miguel Diaz. I’m sorry to bother you, but the kids are in my room and I have a staff meeting. When will you be here?”

  “Oh my Gawd!” I hastily remembered I was talking to a teacher. “I’m sorry. Their dad is supposed to get them on Wednesdays because this is when I do my internship hours for school. Obviously, he’s not picking them up today.”

  “He didn’t answer his cell phone or the emails I sent. I left messages for him and your mom at their jobs. What do you want me to do with the kids?”

  “I’m on my way,” I said. “Can they wait for me in the office so they don’t mess up your meeting?”

  “I’ll call the principal and tell her I’m on my way. We’ll meet you out in front of the school.”

  “Great. Thanks so much.” I hit ‘end’ on my cell and then called Robin. “Okay, who is next on the list for babysitting? Rick bailed once again. He’s been trying the ‘running late’ routine for the past few weeks, but this time he just didn’t show. The kids’ teacher called.”

  “Gwen’s up,” Robin said. “I’ll have her meet us, and you can tell her what to do when she gets to your house.”

  “You guys are awesome.” I saw Jack waiting and rushed to hug him. “We’ve got to stop and do the kid thing before I can go to the barn.”

  “Whatever you need.” He ran a hand through his black hair. “Wait a sec. How are we doing the kids and Shamrock? The same way you did it on Monday?”

  “See, you are the smart one.” I reached up to kiss him.