“What I just don’t understand,” Daddy was finally saying, “is why would you do this?”
“I was worried about Diana,” I said quickly. I looked at Daddy’s face. He looked so upset and concerned. I would never tell him I thought Cody was cute, and I didn’t want him to know how afraid I was. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Diana’s stiff profile. She was probably worried I was going to tell that she never came down to the beach, but I’d never do that. “It was bad judgment,” I added. “But it won’t happen again.”
“Well, no, it certainly won’t. That four-wheeler is off-limits from now on.”
“What about Cody? Can he still go with us tomorrow?” I asked.
Daddy stopped talking and sat back, crossing his arms to look at us. I saw understanding dawn on Lynn’s face. Now they realized that I liked Cody. With that one question, I’d given everything away. Ugh.
“Well … it’s obvious he doesn’t have good judgment,” Daddy said, gesturing impatiently with his arm and glaring at Lynn. “But neither do our girls. Why is it that when the two of you are together, we always run into problems?”
“We can hardly uninvite him for tomorrow, Norm,” Lynn said.
Suddenly there was a soft knock on the front door. Lynn, startled, jumped up and crossed the room. When she opened the door, Cody stood there with a woman who must have been his mother, since she looked amazingly like him. She was vivacious and tanned with short, dark hair.
“Hello,” Lynn said, opening the door wide and stepping back to let them in. “Please come in.”
“Hi there! I’m Malia Clark, and I guess you met Cody.” Mrs. Clark shook hands with Lynn and Dad. You could tell she spent a lot of time outside in the sun and hiked a lot.
“Cody tells me there was an accident on the ATV this afternoon,” said Mrs. Clark, coming over toward me. “How are you doing, honey?”
“I’m okay,” I said. I tried to catch Cody’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at me. He came in my direction, though. I thought he might sit next to me on the couch, but instead he sat on the armrest.
“We’re so sorry this happened,” said Mrs. Clark as soon as everyone had gotten settled. She looked at Lynn. “She doesn’t need to go to the emergency room, does she?”
“No, she’s okay,” Lynn said. “Her arm is scraped, but it will be fine. It’s nice of you to come over and check.”
“I was really worried when Cody told me what happened,” said Mrs. Clark. “And I wanted to make sure everything was all right. The ATV belongs to the owners of our rental house,” she added. “Cody didn’t know that two people aren’t supposed to ride on them.”
“I’m sorry,” Cody said. “If there are medical expenses, I’ll pay.”
With that, Lynn’s shoulders relaxed, and she let out a sigh. “Accidents happen,” she said with a smile. “Are you still planning on coming with us tomorrow, Cody?”
Cody glanced at Mrs. Clark, who nodded. “Sure, if it still works for you, that would be great. I’m out working on my research quite a bit, and he gets left on his own.”
“What kind of research do you do?” Lynn asked.
“I’m trying to record all of the types of trees in the maritime forest here. I was here last summer, and I’m trying to finish up my report by the end of this semester.”
“That sounds fascinating,” Daddy said. His tone sounded gentler too.
“I love it! The forest is a never-ending source of wonder. And most people don’t realize how important the maritime forests are to the ecosystem. I can’t spend enough hours of the day working on this … Isn’t that right, Cody?”
Cody grinned. “She’s pretty obsessed.”
Mrs. Clark stood up, and so did Cody. “Anyway, thanks for inviting him for tomorrow. He’s really anxious to see the aquarium. .”
“Thanks for coming by,” Norm said. “We’ll send one of the girls over tomorrow morning when we’re ready to leave.”
As they left, Cody finally turned a shy smile on me and gave a slight wave. “Later,” he said.
“That was nice of them to come over, wasn’t it?” Lynn went into the kitchen, turned on the fluorescent light, and started getting out the dishes. “She seems like a very together person, doesn’t she?”
I went upstairs and lay down on my stomach on my bed. Afternoon sun angled in bright stripes across the porch.
Diana came and stood in the doorway. “Thanks for getting me grounded.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But they would have found out when Cody and his mom came over anyway.” I put my pillow against the wall and sat up against it. “Next week seems so far away anyway. ”
After a second, Diana came in, closed the door, and proceeded to sit cross-legged on my bed. “Everywhere you go, you find some boy in, like, ten minutes.” Her voice had a jealous tone.
“I do not,” I said and felt my face reddening.
“Yes, you do.”
“Well, I like being friends with boys.” I went to the dresser and started brushing my hair.
“Duh.” She played with the fringe of her cutoffs, not looking at me “So have you ever had a boyfriend?”
I thought a minute, pulling my hair up into a ponytail. “No, but my friend Colleen was with a guy most of last summer. They were together all the time. He ate dinner at her house with her family. They texted each other constantly. I couldn’t even have a conversation with her because of the texting. She didn’t want to go to the pool or shopping or hardly anything. They were obsessed with each other.”
“That sounds annoying.”
“Then all of a sudden he broke up with her, like, out of the blue. She was devastated. Then he went out with some other girl for three weeks and then broke up with her. But it’s okay, because now Colleen likes someone else.”
“See? It sounds horrible.”
“Do you really think boys are horrible,” I asked, then something occurred to me. “Or are you just scared of them.” Could Diana-the-fearless be afraid of something after all?
I sat down on the bed next to her. “I can’t really explain it,” I said before Diana could answer. “I think boys are funny. I love kidding around with them, but I think a lot of guys our age are still more interested in video games. I mean, Matt is eighteen and has a girlfriend, but he acts like he would rather shut himself in the basement with his Xbox than be with her.” I glanced at Diana’s bunched-up face, wondering if I could tell her about what Matt and his friends did. In the basement, before Mama got home from her job at the tennis club. They did all kinds of stuff. Sold Adderall pills. Stole beer from someone’s garage. I pictured Matt’s furious face when he told me, “You better not tell anyone.” So I hadn’t.
“I don’t trust boys,” Diana said sharply, looking at her lap again. And my chance to talk about it was gone.
“What about Russell from the ranch last summer? You got to be friends. Did you guys ever talk to each other again?”
Diana shook her head. “No. I wrote him a letter, but he never wrote back. I think he was still mad at me for what happened to the wolves.”
“Well, they found both of the wolves, so he should be cool with you now,” I said.
“Apparently not.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that. “Well, if he’s going to hold a grudge, then you don’t need him. You, I mean we were just trying to help.”
I thought about all that had happened. We were both silent. Russell had loved the wolves, Waya and Oginali, and he’d blamed Diana and me for what happened to them. We’d found Waya, and she’d been sent to a wolf rescue operation. Later, Oginali had been found too, and she was now at the same wolf rescue operation. Waya and Oginali were reunited. Ever since then we’d been sending most of our allowance to the Wolf Rescue Operation to help pay for their care. The wildlife workers had sent us some photos showing how healthy Waya and Oginali were now. Their searing yellow eyes were clear, and their gray and black coats were full and shiny.
“Have you and Nick talk
ed?” Diana asked.
“We played his team in soccer last fall, and I saw him after the game. He has a girlfriend now. We’re just friends. We text sometimes.” Nick and I had fun hanging out while we were at the ranch, but I had a lot of other friends at home, and he did too. The truth was that Russell and Diana had more of a serious connection than Nick and I did. I put down my brush and picked up some wine colored nail polish and shook it, hearing the click of the tiny balls inside mixing the polish. “Maybe you not trusting guys has to do with your dad. Maybe you should give people more of a chance.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Diana said with sudden anger. “Maybe people should give me more of a chance.”
“I’m sorry. I only meant—” I started to say.
“Maybe my dad should give me more of a chance!” Diana snapped. “Not everything is my fault!”
“Well, you’re going to see him in two days. I hope it’s great.”
Diana heaved a deep sigh. She propped one pillow against the wall and stretched out her skinny legs along the other side of my bed. “He said he has a surprise for me. Wonder what it is!”
“Yeah?” I raised my eyebrows and smiled in my most excited way, but then looked down at the bedspread and played with a loose string.
“Anyway, guess what?” she said, lowering her voice. “I found an injured young stallion when I went out for a run. I’m going to sneak out tonight and go look for him.”
I let my mouth fall open. “We’re already grounded! You’re going to get in a ton of trouble, Diana!”
“Not if you don’t tell on me.” She cut her eyes over at me.
“Diana, after all that happened last summer, I can’t believe you would even think I’d tell!” I glared into her stubborn eyes. Last summer when she’d sneaked out, I’d even gone with her. But now we were already in trouble. I didn’t want to do that again.
“Because you just told on us! You told that we fell off the ATV!”
“But Cody’s mom came over—and if I hadn’t told, we would have been in even more trouble!”
At that very moment Lynn knocked on the door of my room before poking her head in. “Hey! What’s going on up here?”
“Nothing,” Diana and I both said. Had she heard our conversation?
“I love seeing the two of you having girl talk,” Lynn said, leaning against the doorjamb, with gentle eyes and a smile. So maybe she hadn’t heard anything. Or maybe she just wasn’t letting on.
13
DIANA
I woke up in the dark, and the sound of the waves surrounded me. I had no idea what time it was. I put on my running shoes, shorts, and a sweatshirt. Inch by inch, so quietly it did not make a sound, I pushed open the sliding door of my room and stepped out onto the porch. The moon, almost full, shone like a round, white shell high overhead, with ghostly clouds trailing in front of it like veils. A throbbing chorus rose from the night insects in the sea grass. Careful to avoid splinters, I climbed over the wooden railing and shimmied down the corner column until I could stand on the railing of the first floor porch just below. I lowered myself down to the porch itself, ran under the house, and then got my bike. I listened to the quiet click-click of the wheels as I rolled it down the long walkway to the water, shining like fractured silver in the moonlight.
The moon made it seem almost as bright as day.
And there, sitting on the beach, was a dark figure with a bent head. I gasped and stared for a minute, until I got closer and saw that the person was wearing a sleeveless hoodie.
What was he doing down here?
I tried to sneak by without talking to him, but the clicking of my bike wheels made him turn his head. “Hey, Diana.”
I walked my bike over and asked him the question. “What are you doing down here?”
He shrugged and stood up, knocking sand from his shorts. His eyes glinted in the darkness. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came out to see if there was any bioluminescence out here. There are creatures called noctilucae that sometimes glow blue.”
“Noctilucae?” I scanned the ocean but didn’t see any glow of blue. I hadn’t liked Cody at all at first. I had thought he was arrogant, talking about how I wouldn’t understand the concept of bioluminescence. But I’d liked him trying to chase down those guys on the ATVs. And Stephanie had told me I needed to give people second chances. Maybe she was right.
“Have you seen anything?”
He shook his head and pointed at my bike. “Where are you going?”
“What time is it?” I asked, instead of answering his question.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and glanced at the cover. “Five–thirty.”
Should I tell him? Stephanie and Dr. Shrink both told me I needed to trust people more. I thought about the connection I’d felt with Russell last summer, when we’d talked and admitted things. “I found a young stallion that was injured by another horse, and I wanted to see if I could find him and make sure he was okay.”
“An injured wild horse?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said, adjusting his glasses. The moonlight caught one of the lenses, turning it opaque, and the tips of his dark, curly hair.
“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly. I didn’t want him coming with me. I felt stupidly out of breath and gave my head a shake, trying to clear it. I put one leg over my bike.
“Come on, there’s nothing happening here, and I’m wide awake.”
“No.” I pushed down on the bike pedal, needing to get going.
“Does Stephanie have a bike? Could I ride it?” he persisted.
I glared at him.
Ten minutes later the waves roared in my ears and the wheels of Stephanie’s bike whirred furiously beside me in the bright moonlight. The cool, damp, night breeze off the ocean raised goose bumps on my arms. Cody at least wasn’t annoying me by trying to talk while we were riding, which Stephanie always did.
We rode by the roped off turtle nest and kept on going. I was acutely aware of him riding beside me, of the way his knees, when he pedaled, went up a bit too high, since Stephanie’s bike was too small for him. Most guys wouldn’t be caught dead on a girl’s bike, but Cody didn’t seem to care.
I was looking for the forked piece of driftwood, but before we got there, I noticed some odd looking, dark mounds on the beach. They looked like they were moving.
“What’s that?” I called to Cody. We pedaled closer. Something was definitely moving. As we moved toward it, I heard a low, terrible moan, like a child in pain, like something alive that was in pain. This sound was so wrenching, tears came to my eyes and my heart began to beat wildly. What could it be?
I rode closer, then let my bike drop in the sand. It wasn’t Firecracker. It was the mare I had seen on the first day, lying on her side, moaning, snorting, and struggling to stand. And her black foal, Dark Angel, was beside her, its head down, nuzzling its mother, and whinnying softly.
I took a few steps closer, and Dark Angel lunged a few yards away from me, then stood trembling on her knobby legs, and crying almost like a goat.
I watched the mare flail and saw that she wasn’t able to use one of her hind legs. A thin sliver of the white of her eye flashed as she jerked her head in the moonlight. “It’s her leg.”
“What can we do?” asked Cody. He was right behind me.
My mouth was completely dry. The mare’s moans made me feel sick to my stomach, and a cold sweat broke out on my arms and neck. I couldn’t stand to see animals in pain. Last summer when I’d found Waya, the wolf, and she’d been shot, I had almost fainted.
I wanted to go to the mare, touch her, stroke her, and soothe her. But she was wild. Touching her wouldn’t soothe her. It would only scare her.
I took some deep breaths. Tried to calm the wall of panic in my brain.
If we called anyone, we’d get in trouble for being out here. But we had to. We had to get help for her. Could we call without giving our names?
“Let me
see your cell phone,” I said to Cody. Silently he handed it to me, and with shaking fingers I punched in 911.
“Sheriff’s department,” said a man’s clipped voice.
“Yes,” I said, trying to control my breathing. “Out on the beach—where you drive on the beach—there’s a wild horse that’s lying on its side and can’t get up. Someone might have hit it. And there’s a foal too.”
“Where are you?”
“On the four-wheeler part of the beach.”
“What mile marker? There are green signs by the dunes. Can you find one near you?”
“Run up and find out what that mile-marker sign says!” I hissed at Cody.
He ran toward the nearest green sign and yelled it out to me. I gave the man the mile marker.
“Can I get your name, please?”
I took a breath. I couldn’t do that. Without answering I hung up. We should leave now if we didn’t want to get into trouble.
But how could I leave the mare and Dark Angel? She had tired of trying to get up and was lying on her side now, breathing heavily, her eyes wide and terrified. Her fur was streaked with sweat. Dark Angel, still afraid of us, had not come any closer but continued to whinny. She kept her mother between herself and us.
“Let’s wait with her for a little while and then go hide in the sea grass when they get here,” I said.
We sat down on the sand a short distance from the mare. Her side rose and fell with each painful breath. Just listening made me shaky and teary. Dark Angel lay down next to its mother and put its head on her flank.
A bright band glowed on the eastern horizon, and the sky lightened. A breeze blew off the ocean, some dried grass tumbled by, and I noticed a sand crab scuttle over tire tracks near the mare.
“Cody, look. Tire tracks.”
“Really?”
“That’s what it looks like. So someone hit her and then drove away!” Her streaked flank rose and fell, and the sound of her panting eclipsed the crash of the nearby waves.
“Wow,” Cody said.
“I know! She seems weak now.” What if she died? What would happen to Dark Angel? “I bet those kids we saw yesterday had something to do with this!” I said.
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