“I do,” said Anya. “And . . . you’re my best friend.”
“Do you think you would ever go back? To Covington?”
“I would like to.”
“Great. Because I’m thinking that heading to France isn’t such a good idea.”
“I’ll come back with you. Tomorrow!”
“Good! And then we can start finding another way to get TK back.” A terrible thought came to her. “And also, I have to face Lady C. She probably has the dungeon all prepared for me.”
“Are you fellas ready for movie night?” Josh asked Nav and Will that night. They’d finished dinner and were on their way to Juniper Cottage. “Leo Ducasse is screening an epic mixed martial arts marathon in the student lounge.” He flew into a kung fu pose — or what he thought looked like a kung fu pose. “Wooo-haw!” he cried, slashing with a fist. “It’s gonna be pretty sick.”
Nav shook his head. “I’m going to study,” he said.
Josh pretended not to hear the insult buried in Nav’s words. Nav had once told them that he kept his grades up because he studied every night instead of wasting time on other things. Josh thought that was fine and dandy, but in his view, martial arts flicks were just as important as school studies. How else was a guy going to learn to protect himself from an attack? You couldn’t learn those cool moves from a math book. Josh already had the yells down pat. He could “Haaii-yah!” with the best of them, as he had demonstrated moments earlier.
Nav, however, seemed to have no interest in learning the art of self-defense. Neither did Will, since he told them, “I’m going to my room, seeing as how Leo won’t be there. He’s an awful roommate. Snores worse than my nan.”
“Speaking of which,” Nav said, thrusting his hands into his pockets, “I was wondering if we could discuss reversing this little room dance you’ve done? I would like Will back as my roommate now, please?”
Josh mimed getting an arrow to the chest for a second time, trying to impress upon Nav how much his words hurt. He grabbed at his chest with a dramatic gasp. “Brah, you wound me!”
Will shrugged. “Yeah, well, it might be time, right? Fun’s over, Josh.”
Josh wasn’t about to let these two ruin what was, for him, a brilliant situation. “No, no, no, no, no,” he said. “The bet was not I-get-your-room-for-a-few-days. The bet was I-get-your-room-for-the-rest-of-the-year!”
“All right,” Will agreed, “but Nav’s saying he doesn’t want you there.”
“And since when do you care about his feelings? You”— Josh jabbed his finger at Will — “you specifically trained me because you wanted him beaten. No, no, no,” he recalled, “you said humiliated.” Only then did Josh realize what he’d done. Will was staring at him, looking horrified.
Josh wondered if sometimes he talked too much. Well, it was too late now. The secret was out.
It was Nav’s turn to get an arrow to the heart. “Is that true?” he asked Will.
Will’s horrified look turned to a guilty one. He refused to meet Nav’s eyes.
“Very sportsmanlike, William. And very kind.” Nav looked genuinely hurt.
“I just thought you needed to learn a lesson,” Will said uncomfortably.
“I learned something,” Nav stiffly informed him. He turned to Josh. “Come on . . . roomie. We’ve got a movie to catch.” He walked away.
Josh wasn’t sure what to think. Now Nav was calling him roomie, like a real roommate! But he’d frowned when he said it. That couldn’t be good. The frown was aimed at Will, though, so maybe things were okay after all. Conflicts between bros didn’t bother Josh as much as they did others. For him, bickering was how you dealt with most people. So he threw a grin at Will, hoping Will would grin back. He didn’t. So Josh dialed it down to a half grin, shrugged, and followed Nav.
As far as Josh saw it, Will had started the whole thing in the first place. Let him figure out how to recover from a backfire.
Early the next morning, a shiny black town car arrived at the entrance to The Covington Academy for the Equestrian Arts. It slowly traveled up the long gravel lane and turned a wide circle in front of the entryway, where it stopped.
The back door opened, and Kit and Anya got out. Both of them clutched the straps of their tote bags anxiously, worried about how they would be greeted. Kit was sure that her dad would yell at her in front of everybody and that Lady Covington would then rip her to pieces with a speech containing very sharp words.
The two girls entered the main building. The first thing Kit noticed was the absence of Lady Covington. Oh, thank you, universe, thank you, thank you, thank you, she thought. Then she saw Rudy, standing as tense as she’d ever seen him. Here goes nothing. “Dad?” she said, and then she winced, expecting a flood of scolding to follow.
Rudy stepped forward and drew his daughter into a tight hug. He didn’t say anything. He simply hugged her as if he would never let her go.
Kit snuggled her face into his shoulder. “I’m sorry!” she said, and she meant it. This wasn’t one of those times when she could just blurt out those words and get away with it. She could feel the raw stress and worry radiating from her dad, and that was a punishment in itself.
The look on Rudy’s face told Kit that he accepted her emotional apology. He knew her well enough to know when she was faking it, and he knew she was not faking it now. “I’m not going to yell,” he said softly. “I’m not going to scream. I’m not going to lock you in your room. Just — don’t do that again.” He had his hands on her shoulders, and he shook her a little bit. “Ever,” he finished.
Under the circumstances, it might have been wise for Kit to remain silent. But she felt so bad about what she’d done that the words came tumbling out. “I just really wanted to find TK, and I needed Anya!”
Sally Warrington, their English teacher, stepped forward, her arms full of books. Kit hadn’t noticed she was there. “All right, spit-spot, you two. We’ve got a great class to jump straight into.”
“What about Lady Covington?” Kit asked warily.
“She will call you when she’s ready for you.”
“Oh, great,” Kit snarked before she could catch herself. “I love suspense.”
Anya continued to clutch the strap of her tote, now with both hands. “Really?” she said in a small voice. “I don’t like it all that much myself, not if I’m in trouble.”
Sally made a soft sound of amusement and headed for her classroom.
Rudy motioned for Kit to follow. “Go on. I’ll see you later.” As Kit and Anya obeyed, he added, “Be good, both of you.”
The second Kit and Anya entered the classroom, Josh leaped up from his desk. “The girls are back!” he cried. “Hey!” And he lunged at them, pulling them into a three-way hug. Kit was so surprised by this that she burst out laughing. Anya did, too.
“And the fun score of this school just went up two thousand percent!” Josh proclaimed as he stepped back.
Nav came forward. “Oh, did you go somewhere?” Then he grinned and also gave them a hug. “We missed you.”
“Jeez, guys,” said Kit. “We went to London, not Timbuktu!”
“I did miss you all, though,” Anya told the class. She had been gone much longer than Kit, and she spoke so sincerely that everybody smiled at her.
Except Elaine. Kit noticed how Elaine had kept her head down, ignoring their warm reception.
“Ladies, take your seats, please,” instructed Sally. Everyone sat in their assigned places. “Our next writing project will explore narrative voice — writing from within another perspective. In order to find those voices, first we will begin by researching our family tree. Choose an ancestor who interests you.”
Kit was tickled when Nav spoke right up. “A difficult choice. There’s Uncle Paolo, who rescued the president from quicksand. And there’s my great-grandmother who flew solo around the world.”
Kit chimed in, “My mom was from England, actually. She always said she’d bring us back. But we never made it. . . .
”
“Sounds like we have some excellent choices,” Sally said. “I would like to note that the backgrounds of our students are varied. Some of you may have rather humble roots; others may come from titles or dynasties.”
Kit noticed how Sally glanced at Anya, who gave a little gasp, but Sally quickly resumed her instructions.
“What we are most interested in is the person. Let’s have fun with this, and don’t worry what anyone else will think.” She nodded to indicate that the students should start thinking of who they wanted to write about.
Kit peeked over at Will. She could have sworn he’d glanced at her, but now he stared down at his notebook as if thinking hard on their assignment. She didn’t have to think at all. Kit was going to research her mom, naturally.
A student entered the room to give Sally a note. Sally took it and opened it up, reading. “Katherine, your presence is requested in the headmistress’s office, please.”
And this is how the suspense ends, Kit thought. She rose, grabbing her purse and tote. “See you later,” she told everybody. “You know, if I’m alive and stuff.” She handed her things to Anya, who took them without a word, probably already knowing that Kit didn’t want the burden of heavy bags while confronting the headmistress. Kit might have to make a speedy escape out the window or something.
Now that she was unburdened — physically, at least — Kit hurried out. The last thing she wanted to do was make the situation worse by showing up late.
Elaine watched Kit leave, wondering how was it that everything ended up revolving around her. Kit wasn’t a top student, her family wasn’t important, and she was, quite frankly, complete rubbish at riding. She was an embarrassment to the school, in Elaine’s humble opinion. Yet every time Elaine turned around, it was Kit Bridges this and Kit Bridges that. It made one wonder how such a boorish American managed to capture such attention. If her peers had any sense at all, they would rally around competent students, students who had talents that could pull the whole class up with them. Students like Elaine, for instance.
But, no, it was always the cowgirl. At least her stupid donkey was gone.
Elaine felt her phone vibrate. She knew it was against the rules to use mobiles during class, but it was merely lying on her lap. She sneaked a peek at it to see who had sent her a message. All she saw was a photo: Josh sitting at the dining hall’s head table, right in front of the Covington banner, “feeding” chocolate cake to the big silver Covington House Cup!
In anger, she slammed her phone down.
“Elaine,” said Sally, “we don’t read our phones in class.”
As Sally took Elaine’s mobile, Elaine snapped, “Can you confiscate his, too, then?” She indicated a way-too-innocent-looking Josh behind her.
Sally ignored Josh. “Come on,” she said to Elaine, forcing Elaine to follow her up to her desk, where they could discuss the matter in private. She looked at the photo on the mobile’s little screen. “Oh,” Sally said. “I would hope they could have a tad more grace after winning.”
“It’s not even the winning,” said Elaine. She liked Sally, and so said with full honesty, “I just miss the celebration you always put together for us after we’ve won.” How embarrassing to admit such a childish thing, but winning was such a lovely feeling, and Sally’s victory parties really were special, and she missed it all so much!
A dejected expression crossed Sally’s face. “Well, after all your hard work and hard training, you girls do deserve a treat.”
Elaine was still stuck daydreaming about past victory parties. “One scoop pistachio ice cream, one scoop raspberry ripple, girls-only film festival in the common room . . .” She sighed. “I just wish they’d stop rubbing it in.”
Now Sally spoke in a strange impish tone. “You know what they say — pride goeth before a fall.”
Elaine snorted. “If that were true, then Josh and the other Juniper boys would have fallen off the edge of the earth by now.”
“Perhaps,” Sally said, still in that odd tone, “but they may yet be surprised by a fall from their pedestal.”
Meanwhile, in Lady Covington’s office, Kit was sitting and enduring a long lecture. “These rules exist not only to protect the reputation of the school, but also to protect you. Your actions were reckless, selfish, and inconsiderate. You worried your father half to death!”
“What’s between me and my dad is between me and —”
Slap!
Kit jumped, but it was only the sound of a book landing. Lady Covington had dropped it on the desk in front of her. “This is the Covington Rule Book. I would like you to learn it to the letter.”
Kit had a copy of the rule book but hadn’t exactly studied it in detail. It looked like it was forty pages, tops. As punishments went, this was pretty mild since Kit was good at memorizing. “Okay, sure —”
Again she was cut off. “In particular, I would like you to pay attention to Rule 421, which states, All students, unless injured or otherwise prohibited physically from participation, will ride.”
“But you sold my horse!” Kit blurted out. Wasn’t that the reason for this whole miserable situation?
“I sold my horse,” Lady Covington corrected her. “If you do not follow these rules, Katherine, I will have to expel you. Would you like to leave Covington, Katherine?”
Oh, boy, here was an opening if ever there was one. There were so many different ways to answer this question that, for a moment, Kit lost control of her voice and couldn’t say anything.
Did she want to stay at Covington? The better question is, where can I go if I don’t? she thought. Dad still has a job here. She had no idea what England’s regular schools were like, but she doubted they were as nice as this place with its enormous dorm rooms and fabulous food. Yes, she had to wear a uniform, but she was used to it now. That alone amazed her.
But could she force herself to accept another horse besides TK? Coco Pie was . . . well, doggone it, she was dull! But maybe, just maybe, her dad was right about the white mare. Maybe Kit needed to ride a calm, dependable horse for a while before, lest she fall off and got her foot stuck in a stirrup for a second time. She didn’t want to repeat that nightmare ever again. Maybe practice on Coco Pie was the answer after all.
The headmistress stood behind her desk, waiting for an answer.
Kit double-checked her thinking and felt satisfied. Did she want to leave? “No, Lady Covington.”
“Then you will ride. Tomorrow.”
“Yes, Lady Covington.”
“If you do not ride tomorrow, you will leave —” Lady Covington’s eyes widened, and she cocked her head. “I beg your pardon?”
The old Kit would have laughed at the adult’s obvious shock. The old Kit would have found this whole discussion pointless and insulting. The new Kit did not laugh, and she realized that this discussion needed to come to a positive close.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
Now it was Lady Covington’s turn to lose her voice.
The next morning, English class consisted of research time. Everyone worked on their family tree projects while Sally meandered up and down the rows, checking on each student’s progress. Books, notebooks, and laptops were open, and the sounds of typing and scribbling filled the air.
When Sally reached the opposite side of the room from Kit and Anya, the two girls quickly bent over Anya’s mobile. “I got a bunch of replies back to my Blurter post,” Anya whispered. “This guy says he saw a black horse in Miami.”
“If TK is lounging poolside, I’m going to be so mad,” Kit teased.
With a snicker, Anya whispered the next comment on her post: “This girl says her nickname is TK. Not very helpful.”
“In her case, it stands for Totally Killing me with the random.”
“We’ll just keep putting it out again and again, you know?” suggested Anya. “We’re bound to get some information eventually.”
Kit shrugged. “Yeah, from somebody in the Bahamas who says he saw a bl
ack horse mermaid flopping on a deserted beach.”
Anya giggled.
“Girls,” Sally scolded, eyeing them.
Anya put away her mobile, and both girls went back to work.
Two rows from them, at the very front desk, Elaine opened her textbook and stopped dead. A photograph lay between the pages, a photograph of a certain Josh Luders in her room reclining in her bed — with the Covington House Cup! And he was kissing it!
She wanted to cry out, “Eeewwww!” A change of bedsheets was definitely in order now, along with a liberal application of spray disinfectant. Maybe she’d burn some incense after that to make sure no trace of eau de Luders remained. Behind her, she heard Nav’s distinct chuckle and Josh’s trademark snort.
“Oh, there’s our photo!” Josh stage-whispered to Nav, loud enough for Elaine to hear. “So weird that it ended up there!”
Over her shoulder, Elaine said, “I always find the best victories come with unexpected rewards. You’re going to love yours.”
Josh and Nav went silent.
Elaine couldn’t wait for them to find out. In fact, she was smiling when, at that moment, Rudy Bridges entered the classroom. He removed his Stetson as Sally said to the class, “Attention, please. Mr. Bridges has an announcement for some of our boys.”
“I have news for Juniper Cottage,” said Rudy. “After learning that it is a tradition to reward the House Cup winners, I’m lining up a treat for you all tonight.”
Josh, Will, and Nav hooted and clapped. “Pizza and video games!” Josh crowed, and he leaned toward Nav. “Hey, you want to split a pepperoni, roomie?”
Nav gazed up at the ceiling as if seeking divine aid. “Please don’t call me that.”
A totally delighted Elaine noticed that Sally also wore a smile — a rather vengeful one — as Rudy further explained. “I’m still ironing out the details with Lady Covington, but I wanted to give you all a heads-up so you can get your gear ready.”
Oh, what a glorious moment! Elaine nearly squirmed with warm fuzzies as Nav, sounding wary, asked, “Excuse me, which gear are you referring to?”
The Search for TK Page 5