by Natale Ghent
“Am I in trouble?”
“You had your mother pretty scared.”
Just then, Cid and Queenie burst through the front door. “Nat!” They stare at the cop in amazement.
“Are they going to arrest you?” Queenie asks.
The cop clicks his pen and makes a note in a small book that he pulls from his pocket.
Then Queenie and Cid both start talking at once.
“Where were you?”
“We thought you ran away for good!”
“We were worried sick. Ma called the police and everything.”
“You should have seen how shocked that man and his boy were when you took off on Smokey!”
“Everything’s okay now, Nat,” Queenie says. “Ma said we can keep Smokey. We can use the money from the house!”
Then Ma rushes out the door. She looks as though she’s been crying for hours. To my surprise, she doesn’t yell, but throws her arms around me, kissing my head and face all over.
“Is this your son, ma’am?” the officer asks.
Ma just stands there, holding me so close I can feel her heart beating in her chest. “Yes, yes, it is.”
The officer writes a few more notes, then radioes someone at dispatch. He turns back to me. “You should tell people where you’re going next time, you hear?”
“Yes, sir,” I mumble.
And then the cop gets in the cruiser, turns off the lights and drives off. He doesn’t even hang around to grill me or anything. I guess that’s the advantage of living in a small town. People know when to leave well enough alone.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Nat?” Ma finally says when the cruiser is out of sight. “Why didn’t you let me know what was going on?”
I can feel a big lump forming in my throat. My head is dizzy and light from lack of food and fromriding so hard. “I promised not to worry you about things, Ma.”
Ma holds me even tighter. Her body shudders against mine as she cries.
I hold her for the longest time. I don’t care who sees us. “Is it true about Smokey, Ma?” I ask at last. “Can we keep him?”
Ma nods and sniffles. She forces a smile. “Come inside, Nat,” she says.
Ma runs me a hot bath and makes me a cup of tea, while Cid and Queenie tend to Smokey. They clear out the shed in the backyard to keep him there for the night, just like Queenie had wanted to do from the very beginning. As the hot water pours into the tub, Ma tells me how we can afford to keep Smokey with the money we’ll have once we sell the house. She says we’ll find some place really nice to keep him. She tells me not to worry about Ted Henry, or the man and his boy who came to buy the pony. She tells me she took care of it and that none of it matters anyway.
When Ma’s finished explaining things, I go into the bathroom and close the door. I strip off my dirty clothes and lower myself by inches into the steaming bath. The hot water soothes my tired bones, and despite how hungry I am, I drift off, my mug of tea growing cold on the edge of the tub. The sound of Queenie and Cid fussing around in the backyard filters in through the steam. I can hear Ma too, the faint clatter of pots being washed in the kitchen. I let myself relax completely and my mind starts to wander.
I think about the future and what life holds for us. I think about selling the house and where that’ll take us. I think about Ma and Queenie and Cid, and all the things we’ve been through together, and how I never could have survived any of it alone. I think about Dad and how he’s a part of me, whether I like it or not, and Cheryl and Tyler and how I’ll never be like either of them.
And then I think way into the future, beyond heartache and the lack of choices. I imagine a place where life is better for us. A place where Queenie won’t have to escape inside her dance. A place where Cid isn’t angry any more, and where Ma is happy and secure. And then I go beyond even that, to the whole great world of things, the stars up in the heavens, and the moon too, its frozen face pale and gaping. I imagine the planets moving silently in their orbits, and the earth tilting on its axis in the inky black of space. And then
I imagine Smokey, at the centre of it all, cantering in smooth, hypnotic circles, his mane and tail streaming, his hooves thundering tirelessly against the grass.
acknowledgements
Thanks to my family, for everything. Thanks to my editor, Lynne Missen, for her expertise and understanding, and to the entire crew at HarperCollins. Special thanks to Ruth Hanley for her endless enthusiasm and support, and to Chris and Richard for pottery and prints and a place to call home.
Copyright
No Small Thing
© 2003 by Natalie Ghent.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-1-443-40146-3
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
First published in paperback by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2003
This edition 2004
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
2 Bloor Street East, 20th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4W 1A8
www.harpercollins.ca
* * *
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Ghent, Natale, 1962–
No small thing / Natale Ghent.
1st mass market pbk ed.
ISBN 0-00-639278-4
1. Brothers and sister—Juvenile fiction.
2. Children of single parents—Juvenile fiction.
3. Responsibility—Juvenile fiction.
4. Horses—Juvenile fiction. 1. Title.
PS8563.H46N6 2004 jC813’.6 c2004-903382-4
* * *
OPM 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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