Unhappy Appy

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  “I was just getting to that,” Mrs. Hawkins continued. “I asked the vet, and he said we could put Towaco on equine antidepressants.”

  “Don’t do that!” I blurted out. They turned to me, and I was afraid nothing else would come out when I opened my mouth. “I-I can get Towaco to come around. We can . . . Hawk and me.”

  Mr. Hawkins put his hand on Hawk’s shoulder. “Honey, if you want to sell your horse and get a new one, that’s okay. I’ll help you find the perfect horse.”

  “I have a client who raises show horses,” Mrs. Hawkins said quickly, putting her arm around Hawk too. “Would you like me to talk to him?”

  I waited for Hawk to protest. I stared at her, but she wouldn’t look at me. Instead she shrugged.

  Could she possibly be thinking about it? Dumping Towaco for another horse? What is wrong with her?

  Finally Hawk said, “I do not want to be late for school.”

  Mrs. Hawkins glanced at her wristwatch. “And we don’t want to miss our flight.”

  “Lizzy left her bike for you, Hawk. We can ride together.” I stuck my sack lunch in my pack.

  Hawk glanced at her dad, then at her mom. “I think I will ride with my parents. But I will see you at school.”

  They offered me a ride, but I needed to bike to Pat’s Pets after school.

  I looked around at the boxes filled with Hawk’s stuff and watched her parents fight over who got to drop her off. One thing was sure—Victoria Hawkins wouldn’t have any trouble coming up with three things to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day.

  As I pedaled to school, backwards and alone, I tried to convince myself that Hawk really would have biked with me if she hadn’t wanted more time with her parents. Everywhere I looked, people were in twos—grown-ups jogging, kids walking to school. Even birds on telephone wires hung out in pairs.

  By the time I got to Ashland Middle School, Hawk was already on the steps with Summer Spidell, Grant Baines, and the rest of the popular group. Grant’s Quarter Horse was one of the first problem horses I trained. He and Hawk waved. But it was a “hello” wave, not a “come on over” wave.

  The bell rang as I shoved my bike into the rack next to Catman’s. No lock needed when you ride a backward bike.

  I did giant steps down the hall and made it to Ms. Brumby’s English class as the last bell stopped ringing. A legal non-tardy.

  Ms. Brumby glared at me anyway as I headed for my seat. She reminds me of the Brumby horse. Brumbies are Roman-nosed, Australian scrub horses almost too disagreeable to train. Today she would have been a bay Brumby. She was dressed totally in brown, from her shoes to the tiny bow in her hair.

  “Would everyone please take a seat?” she asked.

  Since I was the only one not sitting, I slid into my seat next to Barker’s empty chair. I missed Eddy Barker.

  The class was noisier than usual, so Ms. Brumby raised her voice more than usual. “Class! It’s not Thanksgiving vacation yet! However, anticipating your festive mood, I’ve come up with a special team assignment that should take us up to the break. I want you to pair off with a friend and prepare a report on friendship, in light of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.”

  All across the room, kids yelled, grabbing up partners left and right.

  I tried to get Hawk’s attention, but she and Summer sat in the back row and were already scooting their chairs closer together.

  My chest tightened as I watched everybody else pair up. I’d have given anything to have Barker walk through the door. I looked for Sal, a.k.a. Salena. She’s in Summer’s group, but she’s okay anyway. I spotted her by her hoop earrings, bigger than bracelets, and her bright orange hair. She’d already teamed up with Brian. They wouldn’t get anything done.

  “Kaylee!” I shouted to a Chinese-American girl I’d been wanting to get to know better. She waved, then shrugged and pointed to Amy.

  “All right! Everyone have a partner?” Ms. Brumby shouted.

  Please don’t ask us to raise our hands if—

  “Raise your hand if you don’t have a partner!” Ms. Brumby demanded.

  I faced front, stared at her brown shoes, and held my right elbow with my left hand. Could have been a hand raise, could have passed for an itch.

  When I glanced up, our teacher was staring down at me. I peeked over my shoulder. No one else had a hand up.

  “Hmm . . .” Ms. Brumby tapped her shoe. “Guess we have an odd number.”

  I knew who the odd number was.

  We all did.

  Ms. Brumby frowned in concentration, still tapping her shoe. I pictured a Brumby mare pawing the ground. “I guess we’ll have to make one group of three,” she said at last. “Winnie, why don’t you go join Summer and Victoria?”

  Because I’d rather eat worms, that’s why. I gathered my stuff and pushed through chairs to the back of the room.

  Hawk pulled a chair from the row in front of her and turned it around for me.

  “Two’s company,” Summer muttered, “and three’s a—”

  “Summer.” Hawk stopped her from finishing. But Summer didn’t need to finish.

  “Well, this will be too hard with three of us,” Summer whined.

  Hawk took charge. “Did you both finish The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?”

  Ms. Brumby had taken two weeks on the works of Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain’s real name. But we were supposed to finish reading Huck Finn on our own. I nodded. Once I got used to the way people talked in the book, I really liked it.

  Summer sighed. “Are you kidding? If I have to listen to one more page of that dry, stupid book, I’ll throw myself out the window!”

  Note to self: Read a page of Huck Finn to Summer. Several pages.

  “How should we start this thing?” Summer asked Hawk, looking right through me as if I were invisible. “I really need a good grade on this.”

  “We could list what we think makes up a friendship,” Hawk suggested, looking back through me to Summer, “perhaps define what best friends are. Then we might compare the friendship of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to . . .”

  They wouldn’t have noticed if I’d thrown myself out the window. Somehow, being invisible makes me feel worse than when Summer comes right out and says mean things to my face. At least then she’s admitting I exist.

  English class seemed to go on forever. I was relieved to get out of there and into life science class. The only class I really like is life science. Pat Haven has been our substitute teacher since day one of seventh grade. Our regular teacher left Ashland to “find himself,” and nobody has heard from him since.

  Pat was writing on the board: Symbiotic Relationship. When the bell rang, she dropped the chalk and turned around. She was wearing red tennis shoes, black slacks, and a red-checked shirt that made her look like a cowgirl. “I thought it would be fun to take our short week and look at animals in a different way.”

  No wonder I loved her class!

  “Many animals form unique partnerships. Some of these partnerships work for both parties, and we call it a symbiotic relationship.” Pat pointed to the chalkboard. “Other partnerships work well for only one of the partners, making that animal a parasite. You can do your report on any pair of critters you choose.”

  Kids groaned, but I thought it was a great idea. I knew I’d choose a horse for one of the animals in the partnership. I’d have to research to find the other partner though.

  “So pair up with a partner, and . . .”

  I didn’t hear any of the instructions. Partners? I knew exactly where this was going. I was about to be odd man out again. My only hope was that we had an even number of kids in the class.

  After a few minutes of chaos, the classroom settled into tidy sets of two . . . almost.

  “Okeydokey!” Pat shouted. “All paired up? Did birds of a feather flock together? No offense!” She grinned at me.

  I was the only one left in the front row. “Could I just do a report on my own?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry
about it!” Pat exclaimed. “We’ll get you paired off. Anybody need a partner?”

  “Please,” I whispered, biting my lip, praying she’d understand. “I want to do it by myself.”

  Pat raised one eyebrow. Then she nodded. “Alrighty!”

  I breathed again.

  She talked about the assignment, about partners and parasites. “Ideas anybody?”

  “Maggots!” Brian shouted.

  “Good one!” Pat agreed.

  Hawk raised her hand. “Cuckoo birds?”

  “Perfect!” Pat declared.

  “That’s my partner!” Summer chimed in.

  “Hawk,” Pat said, “tell us about that odd cuckoo-bird partnership.”

  “Cuckoos use foster parents,” Hawk explained. “The female tosses out another bird’s egg, say a warbler, when the mother leaves her nest. Then the cuckoo lays her own egg in that nest and flies away. The mother warbler hatches the cuckoo’s egg. And even though the baby cuckoo pushes the rest of the warbler eggs out of the nest, the mother and father warblers work night and day to bring food to the ravenous cuckoo.”

  Hawk would love writing about birds. She already had an A report. Two more things for her Thanksgiving list.

  After school Hawk said she’d see me later. She walked off toward Pizza-Mart with Summer, Grant, and Brian.

  I biked to Pat’s Pets as fast as I could. Catman was already there, finishing up his e-mails.

  I answered three horse questions, then started researching horse partnerships on the Internet.

  When I typed horses into the location bar, I got too many hits. I added dependent, and narrowed the possibilities to 23. One of the sites that came up was called “Horse Therapy.” Under that was the heading “Hippotherapy.”

  As soon as I started reading about it, I knew I’d found what I needed: “Hippotherapy is a specialty area of therapeutic horse riding that has been used to help patients with neurological disorders caused by stroke and head trauma. The patient is encouraged to form a partnership with the therapy horse.”

  I thought about the summer in Wyoming when my mom had given lessons to handicapped kids. All I remembered was that two of them had wheelchairs. Somebody drove them from Laramie out to our ranch once a week. Mom knew just what to do to make the horses and kids partners.

  “How’d you make out?” Pat asked as I printed out the pages on horse therapy.

  I showed her all the good stuff about horses partnering with people.

  “If that’s not the cat’s meow!” she exclaimed. “No offense!”

  “I guess you have to be a trained therapist to really do hippotherapy,” I explained. “But lots of people who are good with horses do horse therapy. They get horses and handicapped kids to be partners.”

  The phone rang. Pat ran to answer it.

  I waved good-bye and headed home. When I bounced my bike down the ditch and up into our yard, I could hear our phone ringing. I dropped the bike and raced inside to answer it, jumping over a huge vase of flowers sitting on the doorstep. I almost tripped over a package wedged in front of the door. I picked it up and ran for the phone. “Hello?”

  Peter Lory flew to my shoulder, but I didn’t see anyone else around.

  “Is Victoria there?” came a voice through a noisy background.

  “Mrs. Hawkins?” I guessed.

  “Yes. Hello, Winnie. Could I speak with my daughter, please?”

  I glanced around the house. “She’s not back yet. Sorry.”

  Her sigh traveled all the way from the Nevada desert to my receiver. “Well, tell her to expect a surprise package from me tomorrow, will you?”

  I still had the package under my arm. “I think it’s already here.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t see how.”

  I checked the label. “Yep. Says Bob Hawkins on the return address.”

  “Is that so?” She didn’t sound pleased. “Well, that’s not the one. Tell her my package should arrive tomorrow.”

  When we hung up, I brought in the flowers. A silver balloon flew above the vase with the greeting in pink: Miss you! The little card said it was from Hawk’s dad. I wondered if Hawk had any idea how lucky she was to have two parents who were that crazy about her.

  I set the flowers on the kitchen table and noticed a note from Lizzy: I’m at Geri’s. Tomatoes in the fridge. Lizard cookies on the counter.

  “Ring! Ring! Hello!” Peter Lory swooped through the living room, setting off the lovebirds so the house sounded like a jungle.

  I thought I heard voices outside. Seconds later Hawk walked in and slung her book bag on the floor. “Hello, Winnie.”

  “Hello, Hawk.” An awkward silence settled over us like a scratchy blanket. “Oh! Your mom called and said to expect a surprise package tomorrow. And your dad sent you flowers and a box.”

  “That’s nice,” Hawk said, crossing to the sink and getting a glass of water.

  That’s nice? “Aren’t you going to open the package?”

  She shrugged.

  This was going nowhere. I’d never felt less like Hawk’s friend. She reminded me of Towaco, not interested in anything.

  I needed to ride Nickers. “Hawk, I’m going riding. You want to come?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?” Just like that? I must have asked her a million times in the last two weeks.

  Note to self: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, no offense.

  “Let’s go then,” I said. This was all Towaco needed, all Hawk needed, maybe all I needed.

  “Let me change.” Hawk headed for the bedroom. Unlike me, she didn’t wear barn clothes to school.

  She was still changing when Dad drove up and beeped his horn. I waved at him from the front step.

  Hawk came out, and we started for the barn.

  Dad honked again. He was still sitting in the truck. We waved and kept walking.

  He honked and hollered, “Winnie, hurry!”

  “Dad!” I shouted. “We’re going riding!”

  “We’re going to be late!” he shouted back.

  We stopped walking.

  I shrugged at Hawk and trotted over to Dad. “Late for what?”

  “For Madeline’s! Remember? We decided you should meet Mason at their house before introducing him to the horses.”

  It sounded vaguely familiar, but I hadn’t been paying much attention when they talked about it. I’d been too anxious to ditch them and go riding with Hawk . . . just like now. “I can’t, Dad. Hawk and I—”

  “You’ve known about this, Winnie. They’re waiting for us. Get in the truck.”

  “Hawk’s my guest! I can’t just leave her and—”

  Hawk interrupted me. “We can ride another time.”

  “Thanks for understanding, Hawk,” Dad said. “I’m sorry about this. Why don’t you come with us?”

  “No thank you.” She was already edging toward the house. “Towaco probably would not have cooperated anyway. And I have homework.”

  “We’ll have a late supper when we get back.” Dad revved the truck engine. “Help yourself to anything you find, Hawk. Our home is your home.”

  “It’s not fair!” I protested.

  “Get in, Winnie. Now.” It had been a long time since Dad had pulled out his mean voice.

  I got in, slamming the door harder than I needed to and sitting as close to it as I could.

  I’d known it from the beginning, from the first time I’d heard about Madeline Edison. She was trouble. And nothing but trouble was going to come out of that friendship.

  Dad and I didn’t speak until we were halfway to Loudonville. He gave in first. “I hope you’re not going to keep this up at Madeline’s. We want you and Mason to be friends.”

  We? As in Dad and Madeline? Dad, Madeline, and Mason? I thought of Hawk’s cuckoo shoving the warbler egg right out of the nest.

  Dad glanced over at me. “Don’t make me sorry I brought you.”

  That’s exactly what I wanted him to be—sorry he brought me
. Sorry he’d brought her into our lives. My stomach knotted, and it was hard to breathe.

  Neither of us said anything more until we hit Loudonville city limits. Then Dad sighed and white-knuckle gripped the steering wheel. “I want to tell you a little bit about Mason before we get there. He’s—”

  “I don’t want to hear about Mason,” I said, my voice low, sounding a hundred times calmer than I felt. Nothing he could say would make me want to be friends with the kid. They were the cuckoos. I was being shoved from their nest.

  Dad turned up a street with look-alike houses too close together.

  I stared out the window. One tiny lawn had a dozen cars on it, some up on concrete blocks instead of tires. “Can we please get home before dark?” I asked, not looking at Dad. “Maybe Hawk and I can still ride.”

  “I’ll try. And I’m sorry I spoiled your ride, Winnie. But we did make these plans first.”

  We?

  “There’s a chance they’ll want to drive over to the barn yet this evening, though,” Dad explained. “Get things started . . . if things go well here.”

  Note to self: Do your part to make sure things do not go well here.

  Dad pulled up under a leafless tree, and we got out of the truck. We walked up the short, cracked sidewalk to a wooden, A-frame house, smaller than our rental. The little front lawn had been plowed into dirt rows. Houses on both sides looked run-down, and the one across the street was deserted. Apparently, Madeline Edison’s inventions weren’t selling much better than my dad’s.

  “Welcome! Welcome to the Edisons’!” The weird, computerlike greeting roared down from the roof, which was covered in curvy antennae.

  “It’s automatic,” Dad explained, pointing to a giant speaker. “A security system Madeline invented a few years ago. Announces everyone who steps onto their property.”

  I lagged behind him as he knocked at the yellow front door. The rest of the house had been freshly painted white. Peeking around to the side yard, I saw boxes of wires and metal gizmos scattered around. It looked like our yard, minus the appliance parts. No odd jobs, just inventions.

  The door opened, and Madeline Edison grinned down at us. She wore a one-piece black work suit, kind of like Dad’s, only with a belt. “You made it!”