by Jessie Haas
But Gabi wasn’t laughing. She was looking at me wide-eyed, and so was Dylan. Even Tessa was all ears, as if our argument last week had never happened. I was grateful for that.
“Mimi broke her leg just below the hip,” I explained, “and she broke her wrist, too—her right wrist.”
Tessa looked aghast. “Her painting hand?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said solemnly.
Without warning, tears welled up in my eyes and ran over. I sat there helplessly watching them drip onto the table, trying not to sob.
For a long, awkward moment, I couldn’t look up at my friends, and no one seemed to know what to do. Then Tessa—good old Tessa—handed me a tissue and put her face close to mine.
“She’ll be fine, you know,” she said. “She’s Mimi.” Tessa reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze.
I nodded, sniffled, and took a deep, ragged breath. I didn’t know if Tessa was right about Mimi, but I did know now that she was still my friend, and that helped. It helped a lot.
Tuesday morning before breakfast, I was trying to put on Rembrandt’s leash, but he wasn’t cooperating. On the other side of the table, Mom held Sam, who barked and strained to break free. He thought Rembrandt was hurting me—or maybe just getting too much of my attention.
Just then both dogs looked toward the front door and began barking identical loud woofs.
“Did you hear something?” Mom shouted over the uproar.
The doorbell ding-donged, and Rembrandt dragged me to the door. I opened it a crack, twisting the leash around my hand.
Gabi stood on the front step, and she didn’t seem at all freaked out by the barking and yelling going on inside the house. “I came to help you with the dogs,” she said over the din. “I saw you trying to walk them together last night.”
As I pulled Rembrandt away from the door, Gabi slipped inside and stood still, letting him sniff her closed fist the way she’d done with Sam. He stopped barking to greet her.
“Mom, this is Gabi,” I said. “From down the street. She wants to help with the dogs.”
Mom nodded but said nothing—Sam was still barking too loudly. But I noticed that Rembrandt was paying close attention to Gabi, especially to her jeans pocket.
“Give me the leash,” Gabi said. “And can you lock Sam away somewhere?”
I led Sam into my bedroom and struggled to close the door behind me. As I walked back toward the kitchen, I heard a click, like an empty soda can when you press it with your thumb.
Gabi gave Rembrandt a treat from her pocket, and then she made the clicking sound again. It came from a little plastic box in her hand. She gave Rembrandt another treat. Click, treat. Click, treat.
From behind me, Sam barked wildly and scrabbled on my door. Rembrandt turned toward the door and gave a bossy woof, and then he turned back to Gabi.
Click, treat.
He gobbled it and then sat and looked straight at Gabi’s face, ignoring Sam. Click, treat.
After a few repeats, Gabi led Rembrandt down the hall toward my room. The sound of his toenails on the floor sent Sam into a frenzy again. I was sure Rembrandt would bark back, but Gabi managed to keep his attention with clicks and treats. They passed right by my door, and all Rembrandt did was make a disapproving expression with his ears.
“I’ll take him outside now,” Gabi said. “You bring Sam. Put some of these treats in your pocket, and any time he looks at you instead of us, say ‘Good!’ and give him one. Okay?” She handed me some treats and then led Rembrandt out the front door.
I looked at Mom. Was she okay with Gabi walking in and taking charge of the dogs?
“That girl is a miracle worker!” Mom said, grinning broadly.
Yep, she was okay with it. I stuffed the handful of treats into my pocket and opened the door of my room. Sam charged out, looking for his bossy brother.
“Sammy!” I said.
He barely glanced at me, but that was probably the best he could do right now. “Good boy!” I said, dropping a treat on the floor.
Sam made a U-turn and snarfed it. “Sit,” I said. “Good boy.” I gave him another treat, put his leash on, and led him outside.
Gabi had Rembrandt halfway down the street, walking on a loose leash. Sam barked at him. Rembrandt started to answer and then checked in with Gabi. Click, treat.
“Sammy,” I said, “do you want a treat?”
That was probably cheating. “Treat” is a word Sam knows well. He looked up at me eagerly, and I gave him another treat.
Then I turned and walked Sam the opposite way down the street. He wanted to look over his shoulder at Rembrandt, but I called his name, and he looked at me instead. By the time we got to the far end of the street, he was able to do his business and read all the “messages” left by other dogs on the telephone pole.
Once Gabi had Rembrandt back inside, I went in with Sam. Rembrandt was already in Mom and Dad’s room. Mom handed me one of Sam’s rubber toys, stuffed with peanut butter, and I put him in my room. Blissful silence settled upon the house.
“Magical!” Mom breathed.
I bolted my breakfast while Gabi explained what she’d been doing. “Every time Rembrandt looked at me instead of Sam,” she said, “I gave him a treat. He learned really quickly.”
“But what was that noise?” I asked.
“A clicker,” said Gabi, holding up a small blue plastic box. “I clicked and gave him a treat, clicked and gave him a treat, until he knew that’s what the click meant—a treat coming. Then I clicked when he was doing what I wanted, like looking at me instead of Sam. He started to think, If I look at her, I can make her click and give me a treat. After a while I stretched out the time, so he had to look longer and longer before he got clicked.”
“I want to know a lot more about this,” Mom said. “But right now, thank you, Gabi. You’ve restored peace to this neighborhood!”
The bus streaked by the window. I gulped my orange juice. “Let’s go,” I said to Gabi as I grabbed my backpack.
As we hurried toward school, I asked Gabi more about clicker training. “So, does this work on horses, too?” I asked.
“Sure,” said Gabi. “We taught my aunt’s horse to do tricks using a clicker.”
I turned to face Gabi, walking backward to keep pace with her. “What kind of tricks?” I asked.
“Answering questions by nodding yes or no,” Gabi said matter-of-factly. “Counting. Laughing.”
“Laughing? Really?” I had seen Gabi do some pretty amazing things with her clicker, but this I didn’t believe.
“No, you know,” Gabi said, “like this.” She curled her upper lip, showing her teeth. Then I understood. Horses do that when they smell something strange. It’s what people call a “horse laugh.” It isn’t really laughing, but it looks funny. And it was giving me an idea.
Mimi had asked me to keep the fiesta on track. I didn’t know how to do that all by myself, but with my new friend Gabi—who was so good at training animals—by my side, maybe the show could go on. I felt something swell in my chest, and then I could barely get the words out fast enough.
“Could you teach Picasso some tricks?” I asked Gabi. “Because Mimi can’t do her act for the fiesta. Picasso is so smart. Maybe we can teach him some new tricks! Maybe we can do our own show with him.”
At first Gabi was speechless. Then I saw the spark of excitement in her eyes, too. “Sure,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know. We don’t have a ton of time, and my aunt did most of the training, but…yes, we can try!”
That was good enough for me. I gave Gabi a quick hug. And then the school bell rang and we started sprinting, Gabi and I, laughing and talking as we ran.
After school, I visited Mimi at the rehab center, where she had been moved that morning. It was in the same complex as the hospital, but as I walked through the front door, I immediately liked it better. Instead of sick people in beds, I saw lots of people getting around on walkers and crutches. And there was some beautiful art on th
e walls, including oils and watercolors.
Mimi was in a wheelchair in her room and looked exhausted. Mom said that she’d been up walking with physical therapists twice already, and I could tell that it had hurt.
But when I asked Mimi how she felt about Gabi and me teaching Picasso tricks, her face lit up. “I’ve been worried about the fiesta,” she admitted. “This is perfect! Don’t teach him counting, though. I’ve spent a lifetime teaching him not to paw.”
I was disappointed at first, but I knew what Mimi meant. A horse that paws the ground when you want it to stand still can be very annoying. Luckily Gabi and I had a lot of other ideas.
The next morning, Gabi and I talked about the fiesta while we walked the dogs, with clickers and Sam’s favorite treats in our pockets. Then we raced to school together. It was fun having a friend who lived almost next door. Getting together with Tessa meant a bike ride or finding somebody to drive us, but meeting Gabi was so easy.
We dropped into our seats at the table, still laughing and talking about Picasso. But while Gabi shared with me yet another idea for the act, I saw Tessa’s expression over Gabi’s shoulder. She was watching us out of the corner of her eye, as if she was interested in what we were saying but didn’t feel like she was a part of it.
I could sure understand that—how left out you feel when two people are talking about something you don’t know much about. I kind of wanted to say, Get over it! But another part of me wished Tessa was a part of the fiesta, that we could all plan for it and have fun with it together.
Then, as Tessa and Dylan started to make their cathedral-mouth faces, I had an idea. “Hey!” I said, leaning around Gabi to tap Tessa’s shoulder. “You guys should sing at the fiesta! I mean, next year we won’t have music at school, right? But if we have music at the fiesta, it would help make the point that art and music are important.”
Tessa looked pleased. “Do you think we could?” she asked hesitantly. “Our singing group has been practicing a lot. I’d love to do something.”
“Mimi’s friend Celeste is in charge of the show,” I said. “Do you want me to ask her? I have to talk to her about Picasso anyway.”
Tessa and Dylan looked at each other again, and I could see the excitement spread across their faces. “Sure,” Dylan said slowly. “Ask her.” And for a moment everything felt different at our table—friendlier, happier.
That afternoon Gabi rode the bus with me out to the ranch for the first time ever. Carmen was there to keep an eye on us, and she’d brought a plate of warm, sweet biscochitos. They’re a kind of sugar cookie, the state cookie of New Mexico. Some people save biscochitos for Christmas, but Carmen makes them year-round. It’s only partly why I love her.
While we ate, we sliced some carrots into coin shapes. Then we headed to the stable, where I introduced Gabi to all the horses. After that, we brought Picasso to his stall.
Gabi was good with Picasso, just as she was with the dogs. She talked to him gently and patted him in his favorite places. I could tell she had been around horses before.
After a few minutes of getting to know Picasso, Gabi got down to business.
“Okay, let’s see if this works,” she said. She touched Picasso lightly at the base of his neck with one finger. “I’m pretending to be a fly.” Sure enough, Picasso dipped his nose toward his chest to brush the “fly” off. Click. Carrot.
Picasso munched his carrot coin thoughtfully, looking Gabi over. He seemed to find her an odd girl, but interesting.
Gabi touched his chest again. Dip, click, carrot. This time it looked like a nod, like a yes.
Touch, nod, click, carrot. Touch, nod, click, carrot. After a few repeats, Picasso dipped his nose when Gabi was still reaching, before she even touched him. He got a whole handful of carrot slices for that.
“Good boy,” I said proudly, patting his neck.
“Wow, it worked!” Gabi said. “I wasn’t sure. Let’s let him rest for a few minutes, and then maybe we can teach him to say no.”
There was plenty for us to do while we gave Picasso a short break. We collected eggs and fed Mimi’s chickens. We took the eggs into the house, washed them, and put them in egg boxes in the refrigerator. Then we went back out to see Picasso.
Gabi rehearsed him on nodding yes a couple of times. Then she reached her hand out to tickle the hair on Picasso’s ear. Picasso shook his head, as if to say no. Click, carrot.
Gabi repeated that several times until Picasso had it down, and then she went back and forth a few times between having him nod yes and shake his head for no.
“We can’t tickle him in the performance, though,” I said. “Right?”
“No, we’ll fade the signals,” Gabi said.
When she saw the look of confusion on my face, she explained. “Already he nods when I reach toward his neck,” she said. “Soon he’ll do it when I just point my finger. And you’ll be staring at his head, so that’s where people will look. That’s how magic shows work. If you look where you want the audience to look, they follow your eyes. You can give the hand cues right in front of them and they’ll never notice.”
The person I was staring at right now was Gabi. “How do you know all this?” I asked.
“I like doing tricks,” Gabi said. “I told you—I want to train animals and maybe even have my own show someday.”
“Well, you’re definitely the star of this show!” I declared. “You and Picasso.”
Gabi flushed, looking pleased. “Thanks,” she said. “But what will we call the show? We need a name.”
I looked at Picasso, who gave me a wise look back. “I know,” I said. “We can call it the Professor Picasso Show!”
“That’s perfect!” said Gabi. “And we’ll be his Lovely Assistants.”
“With lovely costumes,” I added, already imagining what I would wear.
“Picasso needs a costume, too,” Gabi said thoughtfully. “What could we use?”
In the tack room, we found an old cotton ear net. It looked like a little cap, with two cloth ears and a triangle shape that hung over the horse’s forehead, with crocheted fringe.
“Mimi uses this on Frida sometimes,” I told Gabi. “The flies really bother her.”
“It can be Picasso’s Thinking Cap,” Gabi said. “Though it’s not very showy.”
She was right. The ear net had been purple once, but now it was faded to lilac gray. “Fabric dye?” I suggested. “We could get it at the grocery store.”
“Yes!” said Gabi. “And we could paint some glittery designs on the ears.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon at Mimi’s kitchen table, planning our costumes and sketching designs for Picasso’s Thinking Cap. For a few moments, I actually forgot about Mimi’s accident. With a drawing pencil in my hand and a good friend by my side, all seemed right with the world.
Thursday afternoon found Gabi and me back at Mimi’s horse stable, teaching Picasso how to say “duh.”
Gabi did that by tickling Picasso’s upper lip. He responded by curling it up in a huge, jeering horse laugh. I was laughing, too—so hard that I could barely stand up.
“What’s so funny?” a voice asked from behind us. It was Luis. I showed him Picasso’s new trick, and a broad smile spread across his face.
“What a genius!” said Luis, stroking Picasso’s neck. “How’s the parade gait going?”
The parade gait. My stomach sank. We’d been working so hard on the Professor Picasso Show that I’d hardly thought about the parade. Every once in a while, I’d remembered that I needed to practice, but there was never time. And now the art fiesta was only nine days away!
Luis gave me a sympathetic look. “Why don’t you practice now, while I can watch you?” he suggested.
Luis helped me saddle up Picasso, but today, Picasso seemed to have no idea what I wanted him to do. Even his fancy silver reins didn’t help us with the parade gait. I sat straight, I sat deep, I let my hand hang at my side—I even shook the reins gently so that they rang agai
nst the bit.
It was no use. Picasso’s slender gray ears swiveled, but he just kept sedately jogging.
“Don’t worry,” Luis said. “When he gets to the head of the parade line and sees the crowd, he’ll remember.”
“Yes!” Gabi said. “That will be his cue.”
I hoped Luis was right about Picasso. But what if he wasn't?
Friday afternoon, Gabi and I practiced the yes, no, and “duh” commands again with Picasso. He needed a little extra work with “duh,” but Gabi was patient with him, and he got it down.
“He’s so smart!” she said. “Most horses would take longer to learn these tricks. I wonder what else we can teach him.”
I wondered, too, but not for long. By the time Gabi’s mom dropped her off at the ranchita again on Saturday morning, Gabi had that excited look on her face that I’d come to know well. “I just talked with my aunt this morning, and she had a brilliant idea,” Gabi said. “We should teach Picasso to paint!”
Brilliant, yes. Easy? No.
“We need an easel,” Gabi told me.
I knew right where to find one of those. “Stay here,” I said to Gabi. Then I ran into the house and down the hall toward the studio.
When I stepped into Mimi’s studio, my stomach clenched. Our empty lemonade glasses were still there on the table. Everything was just as it had been the last time Mimi and I had painted together. I looked at the floor, half-expecting to see a chalk outline where Mimi had fallen. Nothing, of course—just hard tiles.
As I reached to take Mimi’s painting off her easel, my hands froze. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to change a thing in that special place until Mimi was able to walk back into it with me.
Instead of taking the easel, I found a big sketchpad in the pile of art supplies behind the studio sofa. I took one last look at the empty studio and then forced myself to turn and hurry down the hall.