“Oh, Morgan!” cried Brooke, aghast. “I am so sorry! That’s terrible!” She reached out her hand and touched my arm gently. “But,” she said, her face clouding over with confusion, “why would she post using your name?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, my voice somber. I didn’t know the half of it. I opened my mouth and waited to hear what would come out of it. What villainy could Mary Ellen Lipinski be guilty of ?
“I didn’t want to believe she would go this far, but I guess it’s only logical if you think about it.” I stared at the jerky image of the couple, who appeared to be trying to eat each other’s faces. “She has been . . . How do I explain? Ever since she transferred to our school last year, she’s been trying to turn into me. She’s copied my hair style—she even dyed it to match my color. She bought the same clothes and made her voice sound like mine. And since I’ve left town, she’s taken over my boyfriend and my Facebook identity! I don’t believe it!”
“Wow,” said Brooke. She shook her head slowly. “Wow.”
“That’s why I changed my name,” I added, inspired. “I didn’t realize exactly what she was doing, but it was beginning to give me the creeps. People had started saying we looked like twins.”
“What about Ashton?” Brooke inquired gently. “He’s part of this too. I mean”—she gestured at his grinning face—“it doesn’t look like she’s holding a gun to his head or anything.”
“I’ll say,” I agreed. I heaved a big sigh. “I suppose she started working on him while I was locked up in my bedroom. Modeling herself on me the way she did, it’s no wonder he responded.”
“Your parents lock you up in your bedroom?”
“Sure,” I said, surprised that she was so shocked. “All the time. Don’t yours?” In truth my parents hardly ever locked me up anymore, but I guess I’d assumed it was standard parenting practice when you caught your kid doing something wrong.
She shook her head. “No! Never!”
I was about to reassure her that an upside-down bucket made a perfectly adequate escape route, but decided that it was better to have her feeling sorry for me. Instead I slipped in a little flattery.
“That’s probably because you never do anything wrong,” I said.
She blushed and wriggled all over like a puppy. “Oh, I do too! You just don’t know me well enough!”
“Name something terrible you’ve done,” I said. “One thing.”
By the time Brooke had reviewed the entirety of her sixteen blameless years and dredged up a misty memory of “stealing” a quarter she’d found under a couch cushion at age five, new images had appeared on Facebook, and Janelle’s stupid animation had vanished from sight and, I hoped, from memory.
5
“I’M SORRY, DEAR, BUT YOU really do have to talk to your parents sometime, and I know they have something very particular to say to you.” Auntie X was holding the phone out to me, with a look that was half-sympathetic and half-stern. It was three days later, and with every day that passed I was more and more reluctant to be ejected from this cozy nest. That Mrs. Barnes—what a cook! Her desserts especially were beyond fabulous. I was going to grow into Janelle’s clothes if I didn’t watch out.
For three nights in a row I had refused to utter a word to either of my alleged relatives when they’d called. A look at Auntie X’s and Uncle X’s faces—I really was going to have to figure out the names in this family sometime—suggested that my refusal was not going to be accepted one more time.
“Okay,” I said. I started blinking my eyes fast and quivering my lips. I raised a hand to brush away a tear, in case I found myself able to produce one. I shifted my gaze to the floor as I reached out to take the phone.
“Hi,” I whispered, my voice husky.
“Well, for goodness’ sake, Janelle, it’s about time!” said a snappy female voice from three thousand miles away.
I said nothing.
“If you can stop sulking for long enough to listen, I’ve got some news for you.”
I waited, breathing into the mouthpiece.
An exasperated sigh came from the telephone. “Something unexpected has come up with your father’s work. There are problems on the site in Brazil, and they want somebody from the firm to go down and shepherd them through the process. Your father was going to send one of the younger engineers down, but we’ve decided—since you’re so nicely settled there in Albany and things are so quiet here for me—that I should shut the shop for the next three months and go with him. In a way it’s a shame you couldn’t have come, but there wouldn’t have been a proper school, not where they spoke English, anyway, and it’s not worth learning Portuguese for three months.”
After a brief pause, sharply: “Are you there, Janelle?”
I’d been silent because I’d been trying to smother any sounds of glee on my end. Could this possibly get any better? Mommy and Daddy were leaving for Brazil! For three months! I turned my smile upside down and said glumly, “Uh-huh. I’m here.”
“Your voice sounds funny. You’re still pretty annoyed with us, I gather.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“You should be grateful to have such a nice place to stay,” she said in disapproving tones. “Your aunt and uncle are dear people, and they have a lovely home. I hope you’re behaving yourself and helping out.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I do not care for the tone of your voice, young lady! When I think of the mistake you very nearly made! That boy—”
There was a silence after that. Then: “Hi, honey. It’s Dad. Your aunt Antonia says you and Brooke are getting along well.”
Aunt Antonia! Thank you, thank you, “Dad”! Since repeated “Mmm-hmms” had roused “Mom” to such a fury, I switched back to my other standby.
“Uh-huh.” Then, greatly daring, I added in a near-whisper, “She’s nice.”
My brokenhearted murmurings evidently smote him with remorse. “Gee, honey, I’m sorry you’re so down, but honestly, it will pass. You’ll make some nice friends there in Albany, and someday you’ll look back on this and you’ll laugh. You’ll think about the great time you had staying with your aunt and uncle—”
My uncle who? C’mon, give me his name!
“—and your cousin Brooke.”
I already knew her name.
“You know your mother and I are only doing this for—”
“For my own good.” I could not help finishing for him. It did seem to be a common parental refrain.
“Yes, honey, for your own good. Now listen. I’m glad we got to talk to you today, because we won’t be able to very often in the next few months. The site is in Mato Grosso, which is pretty far inland. We’ll be in the Pantanal, which is kind of like the Everglades in Florida. It’s a huge wetland, with lots of wildlife. We’ll take lots and lots of photos.”
He blathered on for a while about the site and the problems involved in shipping generators through the swamp or something like that. I said “Uh-huh” every so often.
“I wish you could have come with us. I know you’d have loved the birds.”
Who, me? Birds? Nuh-uh! Not unless you’re talking about a nice roasted chicken with gravy and a side of stuffing. I did not want to spend three months in a swamp, that was for sure.
“Tell you what, I’ll arrange for you to have your horseback riding lessons there in Albany this fall. That will take your mind off your troubles. And maybe Brooke would like to learn too.”
“What?”
“Sure,” he said, pleased with himself. “That’s a great idea. I’ll offer to pay for Brooke, too. You girls can bond over saddles and reins. Let me talk to Uncle Karl.”
My brain had split in two. One half was celebrating the revelation of Uncle X’s name; the other half was screaming, No, no, no! No horseback riding lessons! The momentary distraction caused by this split was fatal. I found myself handing the phone over to Uncle Karl.
Uncle Karl chatted with Dad for a while, arguing over who was goi
ng to pay for Brooke’s riding lessons. Naturally, Brooke immediately said that there was nothing that would please her more than spending her Saturdays galloping around on the back of a beast that weighs three quarters of a ton and could crush her like a soda can beneath one hoof.
Uncle Karl got off the phone and handed it back to me.
“Well, this is good-bye for a while, cupcake,” said Dad. “You be a good girl and make me proud, okay?”
“Okay. Good-bye, Dad,” I said glumly, not even bothering to disguise my voice. However, this didn’t matter; Dad was so pleased at having negotiated an amicable conversation with his rebellious daughter that he didn’t pick up on any subtle differences in pitch or tone. “Say bye to Mom for me,” I added quickly, not wanting to be handed back to the Ice Queen again.
Everybody was wreathed with smiles when we disconnected—Aunt Antonia, Uncle Karl, Cousin Brooke, and probably “Mom and Dad” in Los Angeles too. Everybody was beaming but me.
“This is going to be so much fun,” squealed Brooke, bouncing up and down on the couch. “I always wanted to learn to ride.”
“Yes, and Morgan already knows how, so she can give you pointers.”
Ha! The closest I’d ever been to a horse had been when I was speeding by its pasture at sixty-five miles an hour on one of our rare outings in the country in my parents’ ancient automobile.
Okay, you are probably thinking, “But you said that the cold are fearless!” I wasn’t afraid of riding a horse. It was more like I was offended by it. How dumb is it to revert to such an outmoded form of transportation? We have cars.
Also, I have noticed that animals, even stupid gushy dogs like golden retrievers and labs, don’t take to me much. It’s funny . . . people are supposed to be so much smarter than other animals, but I find it’s a lot easier to fool a teacher than a spaniel.
So I was wondering what a big powerful horse might do with a passenger that it didn’t like. Probably find a way to lose the passenger. I needed to stay in control, and I was going to have to use different techniques to manipulate a horse from the ones I used on Brooke.
I asked Google how to solve this problem, and sure enough, there were plenty of instructional videos on YouTube. The most helpful, believe it or not, was a Disney cartoon called “How to Ride a Horse.” Once you had gotten over the fact that the would-be horseback rider was this weird-looking dog named Goofy, there was actually a lot of useful information offered.
For instance, there was a discussion of the clothes you should wear—high boots, red jacket, hard hat, and riding crop. Personally, I’d have been happy to dispense with every single one except the last. I wanted that crop, which I immediately recognized as a tool for persuading the horse to do what I wanted, instead of what it wanted.
When I tentatively approached Aunt Antonia about a riding outfit, she and Brooke both immediately agreed that it would be much more fun to do it right, with the correct costume.
“And I love those boots,” Brooke added as we perused the riding goods available for purchase online.
I had to admit that the knee-high boots in combination with the skintight chaps and tailored jacket were a good look. For some reason none of the jackets were the scarlet swallowtails that Goofy sported, but they were handsome anyway.
“And the hard hat sounds like a good safety precaution,” added Aunt Antonia. “Like wearing a helmet on a bicycle.”
I strongly suspected that Brooke, and possibly Aunt Antonia as well, would be softhearted when it came to animals, so I did not even mention the crop until we were almost done ordering. The crops were by far the cheapest part of the whole getup (those boots were nearly four hundred dollars a pair!), so it was easy to say, “Oh, and we’d better have a crop, too” right before we checked out.
I was right about Brooke.
“Oh, I don’t want to hit the poor horse!” she objected.
I repeated the wisdom I had gleaned from another video—not Goofy this time. “You don’t hit them. You tap them with it to let them know they can’t do stuff like eating grass.”
“But why shouldn’t the horse eat grass if it’s hungry?”
I rolled my eyes. Brooke was going to be a total pushover, I could see. With any luck she would be such a bad rider that the instructor’s attention would be entirely on her, and my own performance would pass unnoticed.
6
I WAS RIGHT. I WAS a star at horseback riding. Brooke was more like a burned-out asteroid.
The riding clothes arrived on Friday; our first lesson was on Saturday, and school would begin the following Wednesday. On Saturday morning bright and early we drove out to Hidden Hollow Ranch, the riding stables where we were to be introduced to the world of equestrians. It was the sort of day that makes people like Brooke get all lyrical and poetic.
“How perfectly lovely it is!” she rhapsodized as we sailed over little green hills in the Miata. “The sky is the color of a robin’s egg, and the air tastes like wine!”
“How would you know?” I inquired, raising skeptical eyebrows.
“I have too drunk wine,” she protested. “Lots of times. Mom and Dad give me a glass at Thanksgiving every year. And champagne for New Year’s. I don’t much like it, except for the champagne,” she admitted.
“So, the air this morning tastes like the awful stuff your parents force you to drink on Thanksgiving?”
“Oh, Morgan! You know what I mean,” she said, laughing at me. “It’s in-tox-icating!” she sang out as she rounded a curve.
Once we got to the stable—a long, low, white building and accompanying farmhouse-type dwelling with assorted dogs and chickens prowling around—we were welcomed by the proprietor, one Ms. Bunce. Ms. Bounce, I thought as she showed us over the place and introduced us to our rides for the morning. Everything about her bounced: her walk, her voice, her ponytailed hair. Or maybe she looked as though she were riding a horse while actually striding around on her own two feet. She was about forty and in pretty decent shape for her age; apparently, riding horses is good for the figure. She looked like she wouldn’t take much guff from anybody, either human or horse. I made a mental note to be careful with her.
Brooke was over the moon with delight at the softness of the horses’ noses, the “intelligence” and “nobility” of their gaze, and the pleasure of feeding them carrots and some old mushy apples.
I kept my hands to myself and did not look directly at any of the animals until Bounce indicated which one was to be my mount. “Chessie” was her name—a shortening, Bounce explained, of the word “chestnut,” as that was her coloration, with a white splash on the forehead.
Bounce brought the two horses outside and began to saddle up Brooke’s, talking about the proper way to do it the whole time. I watched and listened carefully.
“So, I understand you’ve ridden before, Morgan,” said Bounce.
“Some,” I admitted, not wanting to appear too expert.
“Really? I got the impression you were pretty good.”
“Oh, you know.” I shrugged.
“Western or English?” she asked.
What? Western or English what?
However, I had to choose; she was waiting for an answer. Well, I myself was Western, being from California. Goofy the dog must be Western, since he was created by Walt Disney in Hollywood.
“Western,” I decided.
“Okay. The only thing is, we mostly ride English around here. I have a Western saddle, but I gave it to your friend. I think it’s easier for first-timers, to give them a taste of riding, and then, if they like it, we switch them over to English tack. How’d you like to learn English?”
Only a second’s thought convinced me that this was a gift. If I was learning a new style, no one could blame me for making mistakes.
“I would be happy to,” I said graciously.
The English saddle was smaller, I could see. I also noticed that the Western saddle had a lovely thing sticking up in the front by which you could hold on. My sadd
le had no such convenient handle; I would have to manage without. In any case, both horses were soon ready to ride.
“Always approach the horse with a confident attitude,” was the advice given in the Goofy cartoon. Well, that was easy enough. My entire attitude toward life is confident. I understand that when ordinary people are faced with something they fear, they feel sick to their stomach and begin to sweat. Not me. The closest thing to fear I have ever known is a nagging suspicion that I am about to get caught, which simply makes me irritable.
I therefore walked up to Chessie and took control of her bridle, fixing her with a long, unsmiling stare. She sidled away from me to the length permitted by the bridle and then cast nervous glances at Bounce, and at Brooke’s horse, both of whom were preoccupied with Brooke. No help there. She looked back at me.
Way back when I’d met that carnie guy, he’d told me that he recognized me for what I was because I “had that stare.” Now I knew what he meant. It’s a predator’s stare; the stare a wolf trains on the deer it plans to eat for dinner. I kept looking at Chessie for several seconds longer, conveying the message, Screw with me, horse, and you’ll live to regret it.
She shivered all over and then lowered her head. She was still shooting little looks at me from time to time, but she stood meekly, waiting for me to mount.
Brooke naturally got lots of assistance mounting, while I was expected to take care of this myself, being an experienced rider. I decided to get it over with while everyone was distracted by Brooke’s flailing around.
“Stay still,” I ordered Chessie in a stern undertone. I took a good grip of the saddle, stuck my left foot up into the left-side stirrup, and launched myself upward. Chessie stood like a statue beneath me as I pivoted and came to rest on her back, facing forward and astride.
Easy peasy.
“Good horse,” I said in a complacent tone. Chessie shivered again and turned her head to see what I was up to. I inserted my right foot into the right stirrup and gathered up the reins, letting go of the saddle. In order to feel secure and remain upright, I discovered, you had to grip with your legs.
Don't You Trust Me? Page 4