by Ann Hunter
The woman didn't seem amused. "Office. Now."
She turned and headed into the school, Alex started to follow her until Carol grabbed her hand.
"You didn't have to do that."
"If I didn't, who would?"
Alex turned back to the stupid brick, nudging Carol forward. "This girl, this one right here. She prefers to be called intellectual badass. Don't you ever call her Chunk again." Alex spit on him. "Dick face."
Alex stared at her hand as she walked away, hearing Carol's voice in her head, And though she be but little, she is fierce.
She folded her fingers into a fist, punching it into the air. "Hell yeah."
Alex sat across from Hillary at their kitchen table. Cade had brought her home from school. Hillary looked completely thrilled, Alex noted snarkily.
"You got suspended on your first day of school. What the hell were you thinking?"
Carol's soft eyes invaded Alex's head. Her palm tingled. She leaned back in her chair, with a smirk. Totally worth it.
Hillary was on her feet, pacing. Pinching the bridge of her nose, and pacing. "I should punish you. I should. I'm absolutely livid."
"But you're not going to." Alex raised an eyebrow. "Are you?"
Hillary looked at her dead on. "I'm going to do something far worse, Alexandra. The thing you hate more than anything."
Alex cringed. "Force feed me brussel sprouts? Cuz I have nightmares about that someti— "
Hillary swept Alex into her arms with a massive mama bear grip. "I'm so angry, and so proud. You put that jerk in his place. I don't think he's going to bother anyone for a long time."
Alex squirmed. An uncomfortable squishy feeling came over her.
Hillary leaned back to look at her. She tapped an accusing finger against Alex's nose. "Now don't ever do that again." She let her go. "And… go to your room… and stuff."
Alex backed slowly toward the stairs. Not sure what to make of Hillary's folded arms and partly fake angry face. "So. Am I, like, grounded?"
She could tell Hillary was fighting a smile by the way the corner of her mouth trembled. "As deep as the dead. We don't bite people, Alex."
Alex eeked up the stairs. "Damn. He was almost as good as your meatloaf."
Hillary choked on a laugh, the way you might when milk comes out your nose. "Oh my land. Go to your room already."
Alex stuck out her tongue and dashed up the stairs.
When dusk came, Alex found herself sitting alone on her bed, gazing at the hands that had taken down a giant. The hands that had protected a friend. She watched the sun set and the stars come out before turning on the lamp beside her bed.
A soft knock fell on her door. Hillary peeked in. "You have a visitor."
Carol entered with a heavy bag jutting at the bottom and edges, no doubt with countless books. She watched Hillary close the door, and tuck her hair behind her shyly.
"Hi."
Alex smoothed out her bedspread and cleared her throat. "Hey."
Carol crossed to her slowly and stood at the edge of the bed. "Can I… Can I sit by you?"
Alex scooted over. As Carol sat, Alex blurted out, "I'm so sorry about last night. I should never have said—"
"It's alright."
"No, it isn't. Not really."
Carol turned away to reach into her bag. "I brought our homework from the classes we're in together."
Alex reached to her. Her hand hesitated with her words. "Carol, I'm… scared."
It hurt to admit it. Her hand fell when Carol started to turn back to her. Alex struggled to contain a shiver. "I'm scared that if we're friends, I'll lose some part of Ashley. Whatever I still hold on to. I don't want to betray her. So…" Alex chewed her lip and started picking at her nails. "I push people away."
She sat up taller. "I'm sorry I said those things. I'm sorry that I hurt you." She lifted her eyes to Carol's. "I never want to hurt you."
"I forgive you."
Alex shook her head. "I don't want your forgiveness."
Carol's eyes widened.
Alex swallowed. "I want to earn it."
"How?"
Alex crawled over to her and sat beside her. She let her legs swing off the edge as she stared at her hands in her lap. After a moment she looked into Carol's eyes and offered her hand. "Hi. I'm Alex. And I'm never going to let anyone bully you ever again."
Carol took her hand and shook it.
"Friends?" Alex asked.
Carol smiled. "Friends."
"How 'bout that homework?"
Carol turned on to her hip and reached for her bag, pulling out all their textbooks and a few notebooks and pencils. "Oh, there's just one more thing."
Alex pulled a history book toward her and flipped to the first official page.
"Brooke wanted me to tell you that North decided to move Promenade to Fasig-Tipton. It's a month after Keeneland. I don't know what that means."
Alex fell over on the bed, sprawled out and staring at the ceiling.
Carol scooted over to her, face scrunched. "Are you okay?"
Alex grinned at her. "Best. Day. Ever."
MAGNIFICENT
"Can you read it to me?"
Carol and Alex sat beneath the big oak at the end of the farm. Carol gave Alex a look that said really? "You're not going to get better at reading if I'm always reading to you."
Alex watched the dappled light that filtered through the leaves above dance across Carol's face. "Last time, I swear."
Carol rolled her eyes with a smile as she opened the book. "That's what you said last time."
Alex beamed and rested against the trunk of the tree. She braced her arms behind her head and sighed. She was getting better at reading, but she'd rather listen to Carol read. She could listen to her read all day.
And as much as Alex hated to admit it, Carol was right. Words held power. Alex felt it in her trance. The words she had grown up with at Haven, cruel words, words the world used, had been ugly and cold. But Carol made them beautiful again, simply by reading.
Alex was so lost in the words, in Carol's voice, it took her a minute to realize she'd stopped reading. Alex opened her eyes and looked at Carol. "Why did you stop?"
"I finished the chapter, and we still need to get started on your math project."
"Oh. Right. Triangles?"
Carol nodded. "Triangles."
They walked the two miles back to the main part of the farm and found Brooke cleaning the exercise saddles in the tack room. Carol jogged up to her. "I have a theory."
Brooke spit on the oiled leather, scrubbing it well. "Oh yeah? What's that?"
"I think if we measure biomechanical angles on Promenade, we can maximize his stride efficiency. That would make him faster, right?"
"So that's why you were trying to figure out the stride markers on the track."
Carol nodded. "Stride efficiency. Is that something that can be trained?"
"Possibly," Brooke said with hesitation. "But we'd have to start from the ground up, and with a month left til the sale…" She paused and scratched the back of her head. "I dunno."
"Can we at least try?" Alex asked.
"Yeah, wouldn't it help him? Kinda like football players who practice ballet," Carol said. "It makes them more fluid and stuff, right?"
Brooke looked between them and sighed. "Fine. But don't tell Pop. He thinks frou-frou dressage is fuddy duddy stuff." She shrugged. "His words, not mine."
"Fuddy duddy frou-frou," Alex sniggered.
Brooke grabbed a lead rope. "You'd think he'd be all over fundamental methods to improve a horse's movement, but he's funny that way." She deepened her voice, mimicking her grandfather. "Thoroughbreds are meant to run in a circle."
They opened Promenade's stall. He threw his head up when Alex tried to halter him, but she gave him a stink eye and he turned kind of mopey.
She slipped the oiled leather over his head and tightened the clasp, then gave him a tug forward.
"Okay, so how we gonna
do this?" Alex asked as she led Promenade into the sunlight.
"Well I brought a camera," said Carol, "and I figured we'd take a conformation shot of him standing square. We can measure him in person, and then show the angles on a blown up photo."
"I suppose you want me to measure him," Brooke said.
"If you could," Carol replied.
Alex halted Promenade and leaned around to make sure his feet lined up, and were standing square.
Carol stepped back with her camera, focused it, and clucked to the colt. He turned his head toward her, ears perked, and she snapped the shot.
"Okay, Brooke, here's where you come in." Carol dug into her pocket and pulled out the kind of measuring tape you use on sewing projects. She tossed it to Brooke.
Promenade looked at Brooke as she approached, pulling out the flexible tape. His ears flicked, nostrils flared, and he danced sideways away from her.
Alex tugged on the lead rope to get him to settle down. "Easy, boy."
He snorted as Brooke laid a hand on his shoulder. She placed the end of the measuring tape on the ground by his hoof, pressing her toe against it so it wouldn't move.
As she bent, Promenade turned his head and nipped her in the butt. Brooke grabbed her back pocket and stood straight up, glaring at him.
Alex and Carol giggled.
Brooke looked at Carol, who apologized, and quickly at Alex who didn't.
"Sorry."
"Not sorry."
Promenade swished his tail and wiggled his upper lip over the short chain woven through his halter to the lead rope. Alex shortened up her hold so he wouldn't get at Brooke again.
Brooke stretched the tape to the colt's withers. His muscles twitched beneath her touch. He craned his head around, still trying to nip her, but Alex convinced him to play with the chain again.
"Sixty-four inches," Brooke announced. She pushed back her bangs from her forehead. "Holy cow."
"What?" Alex asked.
Brooke remeasured to make sure she had gotten it right. "Sixteen hands. As a yearling. He's a big boy. I don't think we've ever officially measured him before. We usually do that near the end of the year when we send in their official names and paperwork."
"We knew he was big," Alex said.
Brooke shook her head. "Not that big." She stepped back, taking in the colt. "And he's still growing."
She framed him with her fingers like an imaginary t.v. "Big, flashy, and fast. I'll be shocked if he doesn't sell."
Reminded once again of losing the colt, Alex took a deep breath, knowing at some point she'd have to let him go.
Carol must have seen her reaction, because she cleared her throat and raised her camera. "Kay, can we get a measurement of his back end?"
Brooke moved carefully to his flank, having a brief stare off with him. She measured him from hoof to croup, even as he tried to bump into her. She shoved him back over and stood him square until she succeeded, and called out the measurement.
"You got that?"
Carol jotted it down on a yellow piece of paper. "Yup."
"Now what?" Alex asked.
"I need his top line, girth, and shoulder to chest measured."
Brooke nodded and moved back over to the colt, catching quick measurements of what she needed before he could try any of his antics again.
Carol wrote it all down. "Perfect." She put her camera away. "I think that's it for now. Alex and I will take pictures of him when he works out again."
"That'd be tomorrow morning," Brooke said.
"What time?"
"Five," Brooke answered.
Alex thought Carol would wince at the crazy hour, the other runs had been later, but Carol smiled instead. "I'll be there."
They led Promenade to a quiet paddock to graze for the rest of the evening until the other horses came in. Brooke hung by the fence and watched him.
Alex caught Carol's glance from the corner of her eye. Her striking purple gaze darted in the direction of the grove and high pasture with a subtle smile.
Alex got the hint.
They dashed off to the boarding barn and pulled out their trusty steeds, tugging them over to the big rock out back to mount up.
Alex's eyes widened when Carol took off at a bold canter, not even waiting for her. Alex grinned, heart speeding up. The chase was on.
Now that she had gotten used to riding bareback, it was more like rocking on a big couch than the bounce house it had been two months before.
She tilted forward slightly and kneaded her knuckles against the gelding's neck, the way the exercise riders did with the racers in training. Her mount picked up the speed and caught up to Carol.
Alex reached over and playfully kicked Carol's ankle. Carol tipped her head back, laughed, and gave her mount a little pop with her heel, edging ahead of Alex.
They raced across the farm in the light of the late afternoon sun. And when they reached the grove, they were flushed and breathless.
Their horses tossed their heads, blowing and snorting excitedly, as Alex and Carol dismounted. The horses moved to the stream to drink, then settled in to graze and groom one another.
Alex and Carol dropped into the bed of bluebells. The canopy above was turning a brilliant spectrum of red, orange, and gold. The carpet of bluebells was thinning as well.
"Soon it will just be snow and bony branches," Carol sighed.
"Tell me something I don't know." Alex rolled on to her side to look at Carol. "Teach me something."
Carol turned her head to look back at her. "Sonnets."
"What's a sonnet?"
"Shakespeare wrote them. They're like poems, but have life lessons and stuff. We get to study them for English this semester."
Alex's face scrunched up with a little grunt.
Carol leaned her head against her hand. "It's awesome though, because you've got a leg up on the rest of the class. Since we've spent the summer studying A Midsummer Night's Dream."
"Sonnets though?"
"It'll be a breeze."
Alex rolled on to her back, sprawled across the floor of the grove. It seemed so quiet, like the birds had moved on or something. All that was left was the sweet, soft babble of water, and horses munching grass nearby. And Carol beside her.
A gentle smile wriggled on to Alex. She felt kind of silly, trying to fight it. The feeling grew to an awkwardness, but she remained still.
A gaping emptiness existed where Ashley still was, but there was something else there too. She couldn't ignore it in the peace she felt right now. Especially when something wrapped around her pinky.
She looked to find her hand brushing Carol's, little fingers linked. Carol simply stared at the sky with a smile on her face.
"So we grew together like to a double cherry,” she hummed, “seeming parted, but yet an union in partition, two lovely berries molded on one stem."
The crickets were still chirping when Carol showed up beside Alex the next morning. Alex hunkered down in her jacket, not sure if the shiver she felt was from the temperature dropping due to autumn or her new friend beside her.
Carol had her camera in hand, fiddling with the buttons. "Morning."
Alex simply nodded, not feeling much for words. They leaned against the rail together.
"He's already out there," Alex finally said.
There was a stillness to the track, and a slight, silvery haze. They heard the jingle jangle of tack, the steady snort of a horse at work, and Carol hurriedly lifted her camera. "That him?"
A bay filly jogged by, chomping at her bit.
Alex shook her head. "Nope."
They waited another moment until they heard the fast churning pummel of hooves in the distance. Alex made out a silhouette about to break through the fog. "That's him."
Promenade emerged like a gull through storm clouds, skimming the track. Steam wafted from his body as he blew by. Carol's camera must have clicked at least fifty times.
She held up her camera to review the pictures and grinned.
"Got him right in front of the stride marker."
She showed Alex who couldn't resist looking. She couldn't resist the bite of pride rising in her either.
"Since we know his measurements standing still, and the slope of his shoulder, we can work out his stride angle," Carol said excitedly. She looked at Alex who was still stuck on the picture in the camera. "I can see why you love it."
Alex shook her head. "Love what?"
"Racing." Carol turned and leaned back against the outside rail. "It's like this anticipation that something magnificent is coming, and you wait for it, and wait for it. And when it finally comes, it's this amazing, ethereal thing that shouldn't exist, but does."
Alex traced Promenade's long front leg in the photo up over the top of his rump and down through the colt's hind stretched leg. That amazing, ethereal thing that shouldn't exist. And they were going to make him more magnificent.
SCHOOLED
Alex and Carol followed Brooke and Promenade into the indoor arena after school. Carol held a set of papers and larger photos of Promenade from the ones they had taken.
Brooke led the colt to the center of the arena. He looked around, eyes wide, ears perked, taking in the new sights and sounds. A sparrow flitted in, and Promenade raised his head, whuffing in curiosity. He snorted and rubbed his muzzle against the inside of his foreleg.
"Okay," Brooke said. She opened a white book she had bookmarked with a small piece of torn paper. "I've been studying dressage ground work, just trying to see if we can pull anything useful that we can teach him in time for the sale. Basic stuff." She shut the book and stuffed it under her arm.
"Anything good?" Alex asked.
Brooke pushed the colt out from her, trying to gain some distance between them. "I think some of the flexibility stuff will help. Kinda like the ballerina football players you guys mentioned."
Carol got a big smile at the mention of her idea. Alex playfully jabbed her with her elbow. "Easy there, genius."
Brooke brought up a long, thin whip they'd use to teach younger horses to lunge, and placed it behind Promenade's tail. She gave him a cluck and he moved forward.