The Horse Rescuers

by Patricia Gilkerson

  “You get A’s,” I protested. “Well, once in a while.” I felt so guilty for not being encouraging before that now I was trying too hard and sounded lame. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, I will be. It’s just hard to deal with right now. Maybe I’ll join the debate club.” Addie started giggling, so I knew she was all right. Addie hates to argue and it’s what I do best.

  “How about the Pep Club?”

  “Maybe, I’ll see. So school starts Tuesday. How will we get together?”

  She was ready to move on, and I agreed. “I don’t know. Let’s play it by ear the first day. We’ll get our schedules and go to class and see what we have together. Then we can plan when to meet up. But I don’t dare pull my phone out during class. Dad said if I get it taken away, he and my mom have agreed they won’t replace it.”

  “My mom said the same thing.” Addie smiled. “I hope we have some classes together, but even if we don’t, surely we can eat lunch together.”

  “If I don’t see you before, I’ll text you at lunchtime to see what you’re doing. Okay?”

  “Okay, that works. So, you said Jeff is staying in Louisville with friends until late tomorrow. But will Cassie be at your picnic?”

  “She said probably not, she had a thing to go to, but she didn’t say what. It sounded like she didn’t really want to come to the picnic. I thought she had a job, but she told me she was looking for one. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know anyone around here.”

  “Well, she knows us, and Miss Julie. I’m sure your mom and Sam will be friendly if she shows up.”

  “Yeah, if she shows up. There’s just something not quite right about Cassie, but I can’t explain it. She’s kind of fake, you know? She smiles too big.”

  “Yes! I thought so too, but I didn’t want to say it in case you liked her a lot. She’s kinda mean to Jeff, too.” Addie slowed Nickel and pointed up at the sky. “Look!”

  I shaded my eyes and looked up, too. Circling slowly over us was a huge, dark bird. It was close enough that I could see its white head and tail clearly against the blue sky. That had to be the best sight in the world. We watched the eagle circle above us for about five minutes before it caught the wind and soared beyond the trees until we lost sight of it.

  “Wow!” I said. “Just wow!”

  “I know, right?” said Addie. “That is so cool!”

  Knowing we couldn’t top that sight, we turned our horses and started back to the barn. Nickel and Dotty perked up and began to walk faster, as most horses did when they were heading back to the barn.

  Chapter Five

  ~ Why I Wanted to Change Schools ~

  When I walked in the door of Serendipity Springs Senior High School, I was ready for my life to change, to turn on a dime, as Miss Julie had put it. But when I walked out that afternoon, I was absolutely sure I could never go back. I would have to transfer to some other school. Here’s what happened: I had taken more time than usual getting ready that morning. It was a big day, even if I downplayed it to my folks. Showered, fresh, and dressed in my new fringed top, I walked up to the plate glass doors at the front of the building and went inside. Kids milled around in the big, open lobby with their eyes on pieces of paper that told them where to go and when. A huge hand-lettered sign greeted me: GO SALAMANDERS! Green salamanders crawled all over it. The Pep Club had been busy already. Besides the big sign were several smaller signs announcing the Homecoming Dance in a month, showing dancing salamanders. Somebody in the Pep Club had a weird sense of humor.

  After entering the school, I realized that I couldn’t find my enrollment slip, which every student had to have to get their schedules. I frantically searched my backpack and found nothing, so I turned around to retrace my steps...and was too close to the plate glass. I smashed myself into that door like a bug on a windshield. After I crashed to the floor, my backpack spilled notebooks and pens all over. I was so totally embarrassed I didn’t even look around to see who was there. By all the snickers, there must have been lots of people watching. Thank goodness I didn’t have any personal girl things in there.

  “Who was that?” asked someone.

  “Some new kid, duh!” said someone else.

  I collected my notebooks and pens, still not looking up, and found that my wayward enrollment slip had magically appeared in a folder labeled IMPORTANT STUFF. When I finally had everything collected and stood up, I saw Jeff Johnson walking away. Had he seen my display of klutziness?

  That was bad enough, but then I went to the tables where they had our schedules laid out. By this time, the crowds had disappeared and I was the only one who wasn’t in class. I showed the parent helper my enrollment slip and got my schedule. Realizing my first class had already started I scurried down the hall and found the room for Spanish 1. I snuck in the door and found a spot in the back of the room. As I eased myself into a desk, I tried to be quiet and subtle. I was congratulating myself on not disrupting class, when the leg of the desk gave way and the whole thing tipped sideways, throwing me and all my stuff on the floor. Snickers again from the surrounding kids. Hopefully, no one knew who I was.

  “Are you all right?” asked a deep male voice. I looked up to see possibly the handsomest man I had ever seen in my life. He was tall, with a deep tan, graying hair and a killer grin to go with his twinkling eyes.

  “Um, yeah, I’m okay,” I said, collecting all my things for the second time in a half-hour.

  “And your name is...?”

  “Piper Jones,” I said, so now everyone knew who I was.

  “Bueno, Senorita Jones. I am Senor Gonzales, your teacher. Why don’t you sit in this other desk and we will resume our lesson?”

  “Okay.” I settled myself in the new desk and didn’t move the rest of class, or even look around. I was afraid to see anyone smirking.

  Addie and I texted each other at lunch, quickly, because our lunchtimes were different. We found out we only had one class together—last period biology. The rest of the day, I only saw her in the hall now and then, so we agreed to meet and compare notes in biology class. Serendipity Springs was a small town, and ours was not that big a high school. But somehow the kids all had to bunch up between classes, and shuffle along like a herd of cows to get anywhere. Especially for lunch. Don’t get me started on the lunchroom.

  I wish I could say that nothing else bad happened, but there was also the broken mug incident in math class, and the torn poster incident in English. I told Addie about these disasters when I saw her in biology class and said I was pretty much done with senior high forever. We decided to walk home together and get a Slushy Slosh at the Dairy Dog Drive-In (raspberry for me, cherry for Addie) so that I could recover.

  Addie wanted to talk about the Homecoming Dance in a month, but I couldn’t think that far ahead. I was too focused on the way I had screwed up my entire sophomore year in one day.

  “I mean it, Adds, I don’t see how I can face any of those people again,” I said.

  “And I thought I was the klutzy one.”

  “I’m thinking of going somewhere far, far away and trying again.”

  When I got home that afternoon, Mom asked me how it went.

  “Mom, I have humiliated the whole family for generations to come,” I said, and explained what had happened.

  “Oh, honey, have some of the leftover cherry pie from the picnic.” We would be eating picnic leftovers for weeks to come.

  Later, Dad called to see how school went and I told him the sad, tragic tale. After he stopped laughing, he said, “Piper, no one will remember any of that after one day. Other stuff will happen.”

  “Really?” I said, hoping. “One day?”

  “Well, maybe two or three days.”

  So, life went on, and by the second week of school, I had found a rhythm to my days, knowing where to go and when. No other horrible incidents had happened to embarrass me, so I forgot to be extra careful. I hurried to lunch at eleven thirty on that Thursday, got the only open table left, and had a
good forty-five minutes before English class. Since I usually cut lunch short to read in the library, I finished, got up, and tripped over a large foot beside my table. Splat! I knocked a full milk carton out of someone’s hand. Milk splashed all over my backpack and the holder of the milk.

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry,” I said to the poor guy I had drenched. I grabbed some paper napkins and started mopping at him and my formerly clean backpack.

  “Hey, Piper, it’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to wipe my face for me.”

  I looked up and saw Jeff Johnson. I hadn’t talked to him since meeting him out by the barn when Daisy arrived. I had been out to the farm many times, and Cassie was around a lot, but not Jeff. Where did he spend his time? I never saw him at school, except for the first day when he may or may not have seen me crash into the plate glass window. He had on his Robert Johnson T-shirt again, but his hair looked cleaner and a little shorter.

  “Jeez, I’m sorry, Jeff. I was thinking about something else. I didn’t see your foot sticking out.”

  “My foot wasn’t sticking out. You weren’t looking where you were going. Again,” he said, still wiping his shirt. Was he referring to the crash? Was he teasing me?

  “I guess not. So, how’s school going? Do you like it here?” I tried to play it cool.

  “It’s okay. It’s pretty much like my old school, only smaller and I don’t know anybody yet.”

  “Look, I have to go,” I said. “Is all the milk wiped off? Do you want me to wash that shirt?” He was still dabbing at his shirt, which looked pretty wet.

  “Nah. I’m going home in twenty minutes. I can wash it.”

  “How come you get to leave so early?”

  “Cassie’s sister is coming into town. Cassie fixed it with the school that I can go with her to Louisville to pick her up at the airport.”

  “Sweet,” I said. “Well, change shirts before you go to the airport!” and I headed off to English class, having used up all my library reading time.

  “Not so sweet. I’d rather be here at school.”

  “What?” I stopped short and turned around. “Really? You’d rather be at school than going to the airport?”

  “Yeah, Cassie is a head case. You might have noticed. She doesn’t always make sense and she overreacts to almost everything. And when she and her sister get together, they can drive you crazy.” Jeff started cleaning up his lunch tray, milk cartons and the huge pile of wet napkins.

  “Wow.” What else was there to say? “Well, have a day.”

  “Yeah, thanks. You, too.”

  I sat through English class, barely listening to Mr. Wieland discussing To Kill a Mockingbird, which had actually turned out to be a super good book. Jeff seemed sort of interesting and smart just then. And he looked better. Could that be? Had I been wrong about him? And why did he call his mom by her first name? I didn’t know what to think and couldn’t wait till last period to tell Addie what had happened.

  Since we had a pop quiz on the anatomy of an insect, I didn’t get a chance to tell Addie about Jeff till we got out of school. As we walked down to the Dairy Dog for a Slushy Slosh, I told her what happened.

  “So Jeff didn’t get mad when you spilled milk all over him?”

  “No,” I said, “he was actually pretty cool. And you know what? He was a lot friendlier. If Cassie is that weird, maybe he can’t be himself around her.”

  “Hmm,” said Addie. “So he’s not a horrible, icky guy?”

  “Oh, stop it. He might be okay. He and Cassie are going to pick up his aunt at the airport. I wonder where she’ll stay.”

  “Is there room at Miss Julie’s?”

  “I don’t think so. She only had two extra rooms. I don’t know what they’ll do. Maybe she’ll stay at the Blue Parrot.” I didn’t know why there was a motel called the Blue Parrot in Serendipity Springs, Kentucky, but it was there and it was the only one we had.

  “That’s a kind of yucky place,” said Addie. “I stayed there once, with my grandma. We got creeped out by the stains in the shower. Hey! How do you think you did on that quiz?”

  “I don’t know. I knew most of the answers, but there were a couple I wasn’t sure of.”

  “There were a lot I wasn’t sure of,” said Addie. “I can’t believe Mr. Simpson gave us a quiz already in the second week.”

  “Yeah. Hey, Adds? Want to go out to the farm and check the horses? I’d like to look at Daisy. I told Cassie I would look at her after school every day, and my dad told me what to watch for.”

  “Yeah, okay. Did Cassie get a job?”

  “She’s still looking. She asked me to check because she never knows what time she can be home.”

  We stopped at my house, which was on the way, and dropped our backpacks by the front door, then walked out to Miss Julie’s. We got warm walking, but it was not nearly as hot as back in the summer. Still, it would be a month before the weather really began to cool off. I was looking forward to a long, beautiful fall.

  Chapter Six

  ~ Honey Moves In ~

  We arrived at the farm and immediately went to the horse’s paddock. We hadn’t seen Miss Julie’s car, and we knew that Cassie and Jeff had gone to the airport in Louisville. No point in going to the house with no one there. Nickel gave a low nicker and walked over to the fence to greet us with Dotty following him. Daisy stood sleeping in the sun in a corner of the paddock, her glossy bay coat shining. Dragonflies hovered low over the grass and flowers.

  We went through the gate, patted Nickel and Dotty, who were very interested in our pockets. Not finding apples, they went back to munching grass again. We walked out to the pregnant mare. I rubbed Daisy on the neck, while Addie ran her fingers through the tangled mane. Daisy sniffed at my sleeve and nibbled at my shirt. Her warm horsey smell reminded me of why I love horses.

  “Hi, girl,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  “So what are we watching for?” Addie asked.

  “Dad says to look and see if she’s waxing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a kind of white waxy-looking stuff on her udder,” I said. “It’s new milk that leaks out.”

  “No way! Horses have an udder like cows?”

  “Well, not big ones. They are small and tucked up between the mare’s hind legs. But they do the same thing. They get the milk to the foals.”

  “Wow,” said Addie. “Who knew?” She began looking under Daisy’s belly. “I see the udder! But I don’t see anything on it.” I looked, too, and we agreed that Daisy wasn’t waxing yet.

  “So what happens when she’s waxing?” asked Addie.

  “It means she’ll foal within about a week, and we need to keep closer watch on her.”

  We walked back to the barn, entering through the stall doors. The door to Daisy’s stall into the barn was wide open. Looking for the other horses, I closed it quickly. Luckily, they were still in the paddock, dozing now. It could have been a disaster, three horses walking out through the stall then running down the road to who knows where.

  “Addie, did you leave this door open?”

  “No, you know I didn’t. I was with you. We went into the paddock through the gate out there.”

  “How did it get open, then?”

  “Don’t know, but it’s really a good thing you saw it. They could all three have gotten out. Who could have left it open?”

  Thinking about the mystery, we walked out of the barn into the bright sunshine. I looked up at the house and noticed Jeff on the porch, reading in Miss Julie’s swing. We hadn’t seen him before, so he must have just gotten there. He was wearing a clean T-shirt with “Delta Blues” on the front.

  “Hey, Jeff!” I called, as we walked over to him. He lay on his side on the big swing, with Willie Nelson curled up beside him.

  “Oh, hi, Piper. Hi, Addie. Jeff closed his book and sat up as we climbed the steps onto the big shady porch.

  “Were you in the barn?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why?”
r />   “Someone left Daisy’s stall door open,” I said.

  “I guess I must have. I took a bunch of paint cans out there for Miss Julie, and then I saw Daisy and petted her. Daisy went back out with the other horses, so I left.”

  “Didn’t you realize they could all get loose and run off up the road?”

  “Oh, no, I guess I didn’t. Sorry.”

  “They could have gotten lost, or stolen or...or...hit by cars!” I sounded too angry, but I was scared by what could have happened.

  “Geez! I said I was sorry!”

  “Hey, no harm done,” said Addie, the peacemaker. “Right, Piper? Nothing happened.”

  “Yeah, but it could have. I thought you were going with your mom to the airport.”

  “Well, Cassie picked me up at school, but decided she didn’t want me to come along with my smelly shirt. Said she wanted some sister time without me there. So here I am.”

  What could we say? “That stinks,” was all I could come up with. That was a crummy thing to do to him.

  “Why did she even pick you up from school?” asked Addie, sitting on the porch floor and crossing her legs.

  “I don’t know. I never know what she’s going to do. She asked me to check on Daisy, so I did. Really, I’d rather be reading, anyway. Hey, little guy,” he said to the kitten. Willie Nelson yawned, stretched and climbed up Jeff’s shoulder, where he started licking Jeff’s hair. Jeff’s book slipped to the floor of the porch. He was reading more Ray Bradbury, this time The Martian Chronicles.

  “Doesn’t your mother want you to talk to your aunt?” Addie asked.

  “Look,” he said, “she’s not my real mom, she’s my step-mom. My mom died when I was five and, after a while, Dad got remarried to Cassie. Then he died two years ago and I’ve had to live with Cassie ever since. There’s no one else I can live with. So I’m not really related to her or her sister.”

  “Wow, that’s tough,” I sat down in Miss Julie’s rocker.

  “Oh, I’m used to it. I just follow her around, wherever she moves to, and try to stay out of her way. She does her own thing and doesn’t tell me much. I don’t even know how she got that horse. All of a sudden, last winter she had a horse—maybe she won it in a poker game. Anyhow, in a year, I’ll be eighteen and can do what I want.”