Venom

by Nikki Tate

  “Venom,” I say.

  “What? I don’t even know what we’re looking for,” Em says.

  “I do.” I hold the container out to her. “Venom?” she says.

  I open the lid; inside is an unlabeled vial.

  “Venom? Does Big Joe have a horse called Venom?” Em asks.

  “Not that I know of,” I answer. “But I don’t think the label has anything to do with a horse’s name. I think that’s what’s in the vial.”

  “Like poison? He’s poisoning horses? But that wouldn’t make a horse run faster.”

  “Don’t you remember that trainer in the southern US somewhere? The guy who injected cobra venom into a horse’s knee?”

  “Oh my god! Do you think that’s what they’re up to?”

  My head spins. I have no idea what they’re up to. I have to check on the Internet to see exactly what that other trainer did. If I remember right, the nerve block allowed injured horses to run because they couldn’t feel any pain.

  I’m not exactly sure why Tony would want to do that to someone else’s horse. Messing with a horse like that would also mess with the odds, though. If an unlikely horse ran better, it could pay off if someone knew to bet on the horse. But if this is the game they are playing, and we have found the evidence we are looking for, what do we do next? If we take the vial away, they’ll know someone has discovered their secret.

  Em has obviously had a similar thought, because she’s pulled a syringe out of a box on the shelf behind Big Joe’s desk. She pierces the rubbery top of the vial with the needle and draws up a little of the liquid into the syringe. Then she puts the vial back into the sandwich box and the box back into the fridge.

  “Quick. Let’s get out of here.”

  The fridge door shuts, plunging the room back into darkness.

  Em opens the office door a crack and peeks out. “Let’s go.”

  We slip out and Em reaches back to make sure the door is locked again. Then we move quickly toward the open double doors at the end of the barn. My heart thuds, but I am pretty sure that we’re home free. “Em, that was—”

  We pop out of the end of the barn and turn together toward the party at the pit. And slam right into Big Joe.

  chapter seventeen

  “What the—?”

  “Joe!” Em says.

  “What are you two doing in my barn?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “We—”

  But I don’t have time to come up with a good reason for us to have been in Big Joe’s shedrow. It’s nowhere near Scampy’s. Big Joe reaches out to grab my arm. At the same moment, Em bursts into loud hysterical laughter. She grabs my other arm and sways.

  “Joe, please don’t tell Scamper Bamper Boo...” Em dissolves into giggles and falls against me. Joe and I both reach out to catch her. “Oh my god...Scamperooni would freaking kill me...” Em leans into me. “Right, Stretchie?” A lightbulb goes on. She’s pretending to be drunk.

  “It’s okay, Baby Cakes. I’ve got you,” I say. To Joe I add, “Sorry, Joe. I didn’t know where else to take her. We wanted to stay far away from Scampy’s...”

  Big Joe slaps me on the back. “Hey, I hear you, Buddy.”

  Em groans and clutches her stomach. “Ohhh...I’m gonna be sick.”

  She gives a realistic retch and Joe takes a step back.

  “Come on, let’s go.” I drag Em forward. She leans into me and I make a big deal about holding her up. We take a few steps and she drops to her knees. The noises are disgusting. I know she’s faking it, but it still makes me feel sick.

  “Have fun, kids!” Joe says and heads into the barn. Em stops retching long enough to listen to Joe’s office door open and close.

  “Let’s go,” she says. We sprint off and disappear into the maze of barns. We finally stop running and lean against the side of the shavings shed to catch our breath.

  “Baby Cakes?” she says, gasping.

  “Stretchie?” I reply.

  We look at each other and burst out laughing. We can’t stop. Tears run down my cheeks. I can’t breathe. The harder I laugh, the harder Em laughs. We laugh until my stomach aches. Em is beside me, her back against the wall. Her head tips back and her eyes close. I turn to face her and take a deep, shuddery breath.

  “Em—”

  She doesn’t wait for me to ask. Instead she leans into me, for real this time. Her lips brush my cheek. I wrap her into my arms and lean down to kiss her. Properly. On the lips. And for a short time, nothing else in the world matters. Not Big Joe or Tony or how the horses might run.

  Wee Jimmy doesn’t show up in the morning. Scampy is in a sour mood when he rolls in at 5:30 AM, an hour or so after Em and I arrive to start work. We both feel pretty grim. So does Scampy.

  “How the hell does he think I can run a business here?” he asks.

  We ignore Scampy’s string of swear words and keep working. Everything is different and everything is the same. We work just as hard, but Em keeps catching my eye and pulling funny faces. I try not to laugh. Giggling is not so cool in the cold light of day.

  Em has told Scampy what we found in Joe’s fridge, and as soon as the testing guys get in, we’re taking the sample over. Every time I see Tony, I get a strange guilty feeling in my gut. I wonder what the penalty is for trespassing in someone else’s barn when the result is finding an illegal drug. If the syringe really does contain anything stronger than vitamins, that is.

  I don’t exactly have time to dwell on the problem, because Scampy has me in the saddle before the sun is up.

  Chiquita Manana is raring to go. We join the other horses making their way to the track for their morning workouts.

  I fall into step with Ellen, one of the riders who left with Jimmy.

  “No sign of Jimmy?” Ellen asks.

  I shake my head and organize my reins.

  “He wouldn’t let us take him home. We dropped him off at the Bull and Crown.”

  “I wonder when we’ll see him again,” I say. The Bull and Crown is a grungy bar not far from the track. Wee Jimmy Jump-up isn’t the only person from the track who has disappeared into the bar for a drink and not been seen again for days.

  “Ready?” Ellen asks.

  We warm the horses up together, and then Ellen peels off to the outside. They aren’t going for a fast workout today. I make a kissing sound to Chiquita Manana and the filly responds beautifully. She hits her stride and gallops strongly, her breath coming in great whooshes. I wiggle my whip out to the side, and she accelerates past a chestnut colt heading across the finish line. She pins her ears and surges forward. I let her run well past the line, enjoying the filly’s sheer power and easy balance as she navigates the turn. When I feel her begin to tire, I let her slow and gradually bring her back to a canter and then to a big, springy trot. Scampy looks pleased when we reach the gate.

  “Good,” is all he says. “Lordy’s next. Don’t push him.”

  I know what this means. Scampy doesn’t want to hurt the horse, but he doesn’t want to tip off Tony either.

  After I’ve exercised Lordy, Scampy waits at the gate, pushes his cap back and looks up at me. “Well?”

  “Same, Scampy,” I say. I look around to make sure nobody is close enough to hear. I drop my voice. “Uneven when I push him.”

  Scampy nods and then says loudly, “Good! He’s a good racehorse, aren’t you, big boy?” He reaches up and pats Lordy on the neck.

  Tony is over by the fence watching the workouts.

  My teeth clench, and I have to force myself to relax my jaw. I can’t let Tony know that we know what he’s doing.

  There’s a lull in the action in the middle of the afternoon. Scampy makes some excuse that his back is bugging him and asks Em and me to come with him to the feed store.

  In the truck, Scampy says, “You can’t hand in that sample.”

  “What?” Em and I say together.

  “Think about it. If you go in and tell them my horse used this stuff—”

  E
m and I look at each other. Who would believe that the trainer didn’t know what was going on?

  “But—”

  “And we don’t know for sure that they did anything wrong or how that stuff got into their fridge.” Scampy starts counting on his fingers. “And, we don’t know that it’s the same stuff Tony injected in Lordy’s leg. We don’t even know if that’s where he gave the shot!” Scampy squeezes the steering wheel and chomps on his gum.

  Scampy’s right. We have a pretty flimsy case.

  “But it’s pretty obvious what they’re doing,” I say. “I looked up venom on the Internet.”

  Em jumps in. “Cobra venom works like a nerve block. If you inject it into a joint—”

  “Yeah, I know. The horse gets temporary relief. He runs better than expected. Place a big enough bet on a long shot and you make some serious money.”

  Scampy turns onto the highway and stops chewing his gum long enough to merge in front of a semitrailer truck.

  “I know how the scam works,” he continues. “But that doesn’t help.”

  A few minutes later we pull into the parking lot of the feed store. Scampy shuts the truck engine off.

  “What I don’t understand is why Tony would bother with someone else’s horse,” Em says.

  A pained expression crosses Scampy’s face. “Tony actually owns half of Lordy.”

  “He does?” Em looks as shocked as I feel. “Really? Since when?”

  Scampy nods. “I was short of cash heading into the spring meet, and Tony offered me a fair price for a half share. More than a fair price.” Scampy shakes his head and looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. “I owed him a little money— for wages.”

  He sighs. “Sometimes I hate this business. Tony let me off the hook for the back pay and threw in a little cash to boot. For a horse that wasn’t running great...” Scampy leaves the sentence unfinished. I can see how it could have happened that he would have sold half the horse.

  “I should have known better. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

  “So Tony is getting a chunk of the purse money?” Em asks.

  Scampy nods. “Big Joe is probably getting a piece of the action too. I wondered how Tony found the cash to buy in.”

  “What are we going to do?” Em asks after all this sinks in. Nobody answers. The three of us sit side by side and stare through the windshield.

  “Crappy situation,” I finally offer. “We do nothing and they keep doping horses that shouldn’t be running.”

  “Turn them in,” Scampy adds, “and my name is mud. They could say I knew, and then I’ll be fined and suspended.”

  “Your word against Big Joe and Tony,” Em says. “Your word would win, wouldn’t it?”

  “It should,” Scampy says. “But I wouldn’t want to bet on it. Maybe I should just retire Lordy now. This was going to be his last season anyway.”

  Em shakes her head firmly. “That would spook them for sure. Why would you retire a horse that is racing better than he has for months?”

  Scampy has a good chew while he stares at the feed store. “I can’t let him run again. Not if he’s hurt.” He shoots me a sideways glance when he says it. That’s as close as he’s likely to come to an apology. Silently, I accept.

  “And you two—” He nods in our direction. “Break-and-enter...”

  He doesn’t need to finish. Cheating at horse racing isn’t legal. But neither is breaking into someone’s locked office. If anyone finds out what we did, we could be in even more trouble than Big Joe.

  chapter eighteen

  In the short time it takes to run a horse race, it is impossible to think of anything except what’s happening on the track.

  Chiquita Manana’s chances in the fourth race on Friday are good. Better than good. Grandma has twenty dollars on Chiquita to win. Scampy has a much bigger bet riding on the filly. Em and I each have five-dollar show bets riding on Chiquita, which means we won’t make much even if she wins, but we’re pretty certain our money is safe. And we’ll get a little something if she finishes anywhere in the top three.

  The field is small—only six three-year-old fillies are running. A seventh entry was scratched after the vet said she was unsound.

  “This should be good,” Em says as we take our places at the rail.

  The race is a mile and a sixteenth long. It’s also a $20,000 claiming race, which means that someone could buy Chiquita Manana right out from under Scampy. All the new buyer would have to do is deposit the claiming price with the horseman’s bookkeeper ahead of time. The name of the horse the buyer wants to claim would be put in a locked box in the racing secretary’s office and, right after the race, Scampy would have to hand Chiquita over. Getting a good horse claimed is a terrible feeling, and I just hope it doesn’t happen to Chiquita. Scampy hasn’t said it aloud, but I think he sees stakes-race potential in Chiquita. I see stakes potential in the little filly the minute the starting gates fly open and she leaps out onto the track.

  Em and I start screaming as Chiquita surges into the lead. Ben Jenson is riding, and he eases her along the rail.

  “Keep going!” Em screams beside me. She’s bouncing up and down already, and the race has barely started.

  Chiquita looks like she’s relaxed and happy, zooming along out in front. She has opens up a comfortable three-length lead over the next three horses. They are in a tight clump, and as they come around the turn, I wonder if the horse on the inside gets bumped. It’s the number four horse, which drops back for a few strides. The number two horse drops down to the rail, and the number four horse is forced to go wide and try to get past on the outside.

  Out in front, Chiquita gallops on, oblivious to the drama playing out just a few feet behind her.

  Ben Jenson throws a quick look over his shoulder, but nobody is challenging, so he settles back into his crouch and focuses his attention on the track ahead.

  “Chiquita! Chiquita! Chiquita!” I scream as they barrel around the final turn and head for the homestretch. The announcer calls the race at a frantic speed matched by the pace of the horses charging past the grandstand.

  “Coming into the stretch it’s Chiquita Manana out in front all by herself. Back four lengths Sweetandsour and Openandshutcase are neck and neck. Fat Chance is coming up on the outside...”

  I can’t hear anything else because I am now yelling even louder than Em. “Go, Chiquita baby! Go!” The fence cuts into my chest as I throw myself forward, both arms pumping wildly as if I am on top of the filly, driving to the finish line. Chiquita plunges forward and crosses the line, easily winning the race by five lengths.

  “She was pulling away!” I say to Em, giving her a quick kiss. Em throws herself into my arms. “Great race! Great filly!” Em replies, kissing me back.

  We jump up and down like two little kids at Christmas.

  We run over to the winner’s circle, where Scampy and the owner, Samuel Billington, his wife and three granddaughters all pose for the official winner’s photo with Chiquita and Ben Jenson. When Ben jumps off after the photos are taken, Mr. Billington grabs his hand and shakes it up and down.

  “Wonderful race, Ben. Wonderful race.”

  “You have a nice filly here, Mr. Billington.”

  Scampy joins in the next round of handshaking and back-slapping. Mrs. Billington snaps some more photos before Scampy bustles forward and takes Chiquita’s reins. “We have an appointment at the shed,” he says. And he leads Chiquita off for her drug test.

  Em and I make our way back to the barn, babbling all the way. We replay the highlights of the race and marvel at how easy Chiquita made it seem.

  “Post to post,” I say. “She led all the way.”

  Scampy is beaming when he finally gets back to the barn. Chiquita looks great. Em and I fly into action to get her cooled out. The Billington family hangs around and gets in the way as we pull off the filly’s tack and start the long process of walking.

  The granddaughters, who are wearin
g shorts and sandals, don’t seem to realize that getting stepped on by a horse hurts like hell, even when you’re wearing boots. Their pretty pink toenails look cute, but they don’t belong in the barn. Scampy tells them to stay back three times before he finally says, “Let’s get out of the way and let these two get your horse cooled out.” He leads them into the tack room, and when the door closes, Em and I heave a huge sigh of relief.

  The Billingtons have gone when we eventually put Chiquita back into her stall with a net full of fresh hay.

  Just as I’m filling Chiquita’s water bucket, Grandma shows up.

  “Love that filly,” Grandma says, poking her head into Chiquita’s stall. “I brought her a carrot. Is that okay?”

  “Go ahead,” Em says.

  After Grandma gives Chiquita her treat, she asks, “Spencer, have you talked to Em about school?”

  “School?” Em asks. “What about school?”

  I feel the blush creeping up the back of my neck and burning through my cheeks. I’ve talked to Em a lot the past few days. There are two main subjects. What to do about the venom we have stashed in the bottom of my closet. And how cute Em’s freckles are.

  “We’ve been kind of busy,” I offer, though it sounds lame even to me.

  “Are you busy now?” Grandma asks.

  “Not for a bit,” Em says. “We’ll do another round of hay and water later, and a couple of them are getting supplements late. I’ll check bandages once more before I leave, but we should really grab a bite to eat...”

  “I’ll treat you both to a burger at the Café,” Grandma interrupts Em’s long to-do list.

  “Great, thanks!” Em says.

  Nobody asks me, but I guess they figure I’m always ready to eat. Which is true.

  At the café, we slide into a booth and Grandma asks, “So, how did you two make out?” Em and I catch each other’s eye and grab menus at the same time. How did we make out? I’m pretty sure Grandma isn’t asking what it sounds like she’s asking. “How do you mean?” Em says.