All the King's Horses

by Laura C Stevenson

  ‘Oh no! What happened to her?’

  ‘She broke her back – and it was really awful. She kept struggling to get up, in spite of everything Grandpa and the vets could do. Finally, she collapsed, and when Grandpa stroked her, she looked at him as if she were trying to say she was sorry they couldn’t finish the course. He says he broke down and cried in front of everyone. And then …’

  Tiffany looked out the window. ‘Don’t tell me what they did. I know.’

  The bus pulled into school, and we got off, sort of quietly. As we started up the stairs to our classroom, Tiffany asked, ‘What about your grandfather’s arm?’

  ‘It was so badly smashed that they had to take it off at the elbow,’ I said. ‘They made him an artificial arm – actually, it’s a hook – and after a couple of months, he could do just about anything. But he couldn’t ride any more.’

  ‘Criminy,’ she breathed. ‘And he’d been good enough for the Olympics!’

  ‘Well, he could ride; he just couldn’t do showjumping. At first, he says he thought it was the end of him. But one day, his hook glinted in the sun, and he suddenly thought of Nuadu of the Silver Arm.’

  Tiffany frowned. ‘Of whom?’

  ‘Nuadu. He was king of the Tuatha de Danaan, the Irish gods. He lost an arm in a battle with the firbolg, and so had to give up his kingship because a king of the gods had to be perfect. But after seven years, the great healer and smith of all the gods made him a silver arm, and he became king again. When Grandpa remembered that story, he realized he could go on, just differently. If he couldn’t go to the Olympics, he could train horses that did. So he—’

  The bell rang, and we hurried to our seats. But when Tiffany went up to the front for her math group, she slipped me a note and kind of waited. I opened it quick: There is a secret place on the playground. We could talk about horses there. I nodded, and she scooted up to the front.

  Tiffany’s secret place was a piece of storm drain set between two of the scraggly trees that lined the fence between the school and the apartment houses that backed on it. Kids were supposed to play on it, but there wasn’t much you could do with it, so nobody went over there. When you sat inside it, it made your voice sound funny, but it was a great place to talk. We talked all through recess; and from the questions she asked about Grandpa and the farm and the horses, I knew she’d studied riding with a really good teacher, and I kept waiting for her to tell me about it. But she didn’t, which was strange – so strange that a little radar inside me told me whatever she was keeping secret was connected to the way her parents were, and I should Keep Out. So the next recess, I asked her what horse books she’d read, which turned out to be just the thing, because we’d read different ones and it was library day. We both went home with a stack of new ones, and the next few days we talked about them, and pretty soon I felt so much better about school that I forgot Colin wasn’t feeling better, too – at least, I forgot until the day after Veterans’ Day when we got off the bus after school and I noticed his lip was swollen.

  ‘Colin! Have you been … ?’

  ‘’Course not,’ he mumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets. We walked up the hill without another word, until we got to the side door and he looked at me. ‘Don’t tell Mom.’

  ‘Of course not!’ Then I remembered how big some of the boys in his class were. ‘How’d it go?’

  ‘Piece of cake, as Grandpa would say. No official winner – Mr Stegeth broke it up – but it took him a long time to get there, and I’d just about finished the job.’

  ‘I’ll say it took you a long time to get here,’ said Mom, opening the door. ‘I was beginning to wonder where you were.’

  ‘You shouldn’t worry,’ said Colin. ‘Sometimes the bus is late, that’s all.’

  We went in and made peanut butter sandwiches, and I was just thinking we had gotten pretty good at not telling Mom things that would upset her, when Grandpa wandered into the kitchen and patted Colin on the head.

  ‘Hi,’ he started – then he saw Colin’s knuckles, and he raised his hand and his hook and punched the air. ‘Watch eyes, think feet,’ he muttered, shuffling the way he had when he’d practised with us in Pennsylvania.

  Mom spun around from the refrigerator. ‘Dad,’ she said firmly. ‘Colin does not— Colin! what happened to your hand?’

  ‘Colin win?’ asked Grandpa, smiling and hitting the air again.

  Mom walked across the kitchen and yanked Colin’s right hand from behind his back. After one look, she marched him up the back stairs.

  Grandpa was still stepping around the kitchen like a boxer, which bugged me, so I pulled a horse magazine I’d been sharing with Tiffany out of my backpack and showed it to him. Pretty soon, he was looking at the pictures and eating my sandwich, so I was free.

  Upstairs, Mom and Colin were in the bathroom, and as I tiptoed down the hall, I heard Mom say, ‘It’s absolutely not necessary for men to settle differences with their fists when they have brains.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d been there,’ said Colin sulkily.

  ‘I certainly would have. You’re old enough to walk away when somebody insults you.’

  ‘I do, Mom – honest! But this time … well, look. One of the guys said this house was so slummy that for the last ten years, every single renter had left it after a week—’

  ‘– It isn’t slummy! It’s run-down, but it’s beauti—’

  ‘– Sure, sure – but listen, OK? He said the reason we had to live in the house was that nobody else in town would rent to us, because my grandfather was just like the warehouses people, only worse, and all the real estate people knew the only way to keep him out of trouble was to chain him up in the back yard! You wouldn’t want me to let somebody get away with saying things like that about Grandpa, would you?’

  For a moment, there was no sound at all; then Mom sighed. ‘It was a terrible thing to say, Colin,’ she said, in a voice that shook a little. ‘There’s no denying that. Still, the best way to stop that kind of talk is not to let anybody know that it gets to you.’ The first-aid kit clicked shut. ‘You should have known better than to tell them Grandpa was—’

  ‘– I never in the world told them!’ said Colin. ‘The guy who said it was Joe Butler. His dad rents a lot of places in town, and I guess our real estate lady told him about Grandpa when Joe was around.’ He sniffed. ‘Joe’s big stuff Downstairs, and he’s mad at me because I quit hanging around with him and the other boys who make trouble.’

  ‘What’s this about Downstairs?’ asked Mom.

  Uh-oh. I backed up a couple of steps, then hurried into the bathroom, making lots of noise. ‘Mom, I have Grandpa settled with a magazine. Didn’t you want to go shopping?’

  Mom looked at her watch. ‘I guess I’d better, if we’re going to eat dinner. All right, we’ll talk about this later.’

  But we didn’t, because she got caught in rush-hour traffic and didn’t get home until after six, and then Grandpa spilled his plate all over the floor at dinner and started to cry about it, and by the time Mom and I got him calmed down, Colin had done the dishes and gone to bed.

  The next day, as I was going back to my seat after reading group, I looked out the window, and I saw three boys who sat at the back of our bus step out of the four-square line and walk to the edge of the playground, where some man had stopped to watch the kids. A second later, I saw Colin running after them, waving his hands.

  ‘Sit down, Sarah,’ said Miss Turner, glaring at me.

  I went to my seat, but the longer I sat, the more I thought about Colin’s fight, and the more I wondered what he was up to right then. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any more, and I got up to sharpen my pencil. When I looked out the window, I froze; the man who had been on the edge of the playground was close enough to recognize, now. It was Grandpa – and Colin was tugging on his good hand, trying to pull him away from a bunch of laughing boys.

  I sat down quickly and raised my hand. Miss Turner looked up from her
group. ‘Yes?’

  ‘May I go to the bathroom?’

  She sighed. ‘All right. But tomorrow, please try to wait until—’

  I was out the door and half-way down the stairs before she finished. On the ground floor, I raced around the corner beyond the office – and smashed into somebody, so hard that he staggered backwards against the lockers. As I crashed to the floor, I thought, oh no, it’s Mr Beeker! But for once I’d gotten lucky: it was Mr Crewes.

  ‘Sarah Madison – human cannonball,’ he said, helping me up. ‘Don’t you know you’re not supposed to run in the … ?’ Then he took a good look at me. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘It’s my grandfather,’ I said. ‘He’s on the playground, and I’ve got to go get him.’ I tried to run, but he stepped in front of me.

  ‘Walk, Sarah. It’s nice for your grandfather to pay the school a visit, but it’s hardly a national emergency.’

  ‘No, no – it is an emergency!’ I began to cry, which is a stupid thing to do in an emergency, but I couldn’t make myself stop. ‘He’s not crazy, exactly, but he gets mixed up …’

  Mr Crewes’s eyebrows shot up, but not like he doubted me. ‘You mean, he thinks school’s out and he’s come to meet you and your brother?’

  ‘Uh-uh. He doesn’t even know where the school is. It’s that he esc— I mean, he goes for walks, sometimes, and then he can’t find his way home, and this time he must have just wandered on and on and on.’ I wiped my eyes with my wrist. ‘Mom’s probably looking all over for him, and maybe she’s even called the police – she said she’d do that next time we couldn’t find him, because he doesn’t understand traffic any more – but she’d never think he’d come this far, and now the police won’t know where she is, and the boys on the playground are teasing him, and Colin’s all by himself … Please, please let me get out there!’

  ‘You bet,’ he said. ‘Mr Stegeth is on playground duty; get him to help you and Colin bring your grandfather to the office. I’ll call the police and tell them to look for your mom, then I’ll come out.’ He handed me his handkerchief. ‘What does your mom look like?’

  ‘She has reddish-brown-blond hair, like me, only she’s pretty – her hair’s short, so it curls, and she doesn’t wear glasses, usually – and she’s probably wearing her blue jacket.’

  ‘Got that,’ he said. ‘Off you go, now.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said, and ran to the playground door. Mr Stegeth was standing in the foyer, talking to Miss Fitzgerald, the teacher in charge of the Detention Room. I jogged his elbow, but he told me (not very nicely) not to interrupt, so I ran outside. And it was a good thing I did; there were lots of boys around Grandpa now. As I raced across the playground, I found myself thinking of the picture in the Smithes’ big entry hall, of a stag surrounded by dogs, only I think you were supposed to be rooting for the dogs when you looked at it, and I was definitely not rooting for these boys.

  ‘Hey! He’s got a hook!’ shouted one of them as I got to the edge of the group.

  ‘Captain Hook! Captain Hook!’ yelled a boy on the far side. All the kids laughed and started making brilliant remarks like, ‘Where’s the crocodile?’ or ‘Where’s Tinkerbell?’

  Then a boy with a big shiner said, ‘He doesn’t need Tinkerbell. Colin’s his little fairy.’

  Everybody shut up, waiting to see what Colin would do. I edged to the centre to keep him from doing it, but before I got there, I heard him say, ‘Joe, let me take him to the office, OK? He’s sick.’

  ‘He sure is!’ said Joe, slicking back his hair. ‘Sick in the head.’

  They all laughed again, and just as I got to the middle, Joe walked up to Grandpa and touched his silver arm. ‘Hey, Captain – why don’t you talk to us?’

  Grandpa whirled around and glared at him. ‘Stupid boys!’ he said. ‘Go away.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Joe, grinning. ‘Colin’s old man talks baby talk! Let’s find him a bottle!’

  ‘Just leave him alone, will you?’ said Colin, between his teeth. He turned to Grandpa. ‘C’mon, Grandpa – don’t pay any attention to him. Let’s go inside the school, and I’ll call Mom.’

  He reached out to take Grandpa’s hand, but Grandpa gave him a push that sent him spinning into the circle. ‘Bad boy! Bad, bad, bad!’

  Everyone stared, first at Grandpa, then at Colin, who was trying not to cry. Finally, Joe laughed. ‘Sure he’s who you think he is, Tink? Take a good look, now. Old nuts all look the—’

  ‘Stop it!’ I shouted. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’

  Joe whirled around, but when he saw it was me, he grinned. ‘Looky here!’ he said. ‘It’s big sister to the rescue! You’re in luck, Tink.’

  ‘Nobody’s in luck when you’re around!’ I said. ‘Any of you! Grandpa’s sick, and it’s really mean to tease him, because he can’t fight back. Only jerks pick on somebody like that, and that’s what you are – jerks, jerks, jerks!’

  The boys around Joe just laughed, but a lot of the others looked ashamed of themselves, and the girls who had clustered around the outside of the circle started to go back to whatever they’d been doing. That was a good sign, so I held out a hand to Grandpa. ‘Come on – let’s go into the school. Wouldn’t you like to see where Colin and I spend the day?’

  ‘School,’ he said, frowning. ‘This school?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Joe, digging his elbow into the guy next to him. ‘They teach kids to talk here – maybe you should come.’

  ‘Bad kids,’ said Grandpa. ‘I teach you!’ Raising his hand and hook, he took a couple of steps towards Joe. I grabbed his arm, but I knew I couldn’t hold him long.

  ‘Beat it!’ I said to Joe. ‘I mean it – get out of the way!’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Joe, rolling his eyes. ‘The old crazy’s mad at me. What’ll I do?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Colin, ‘you better stop clowning, or he’ll—’

  ‘Waste me?’ said Joe, still pretending to look scared. ‘Well, at least I got you to protect me, Tink.’ And grabbing Colin by the shoulders, he shoved him between himself and Grandpa. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Now, if he kills anybody, it’ll be you.’ He was laughing, but suddenly he stopped, because Grandpa jerked his arm out of my hand and started forward. And his face …

  It wasn’t just that he looked mad; it was that he changed completely. He was always a big man, but it almost seemed as if he was growing. As he grew, he got a lot younger, until finally he looked like the Grandpa we’d seen in the Seer’s dream – except really, really dangerous. His eyes went deep black, and a weird kind of light started to glow all around him, making the rest of the playground seem dark. Suddenly, he raised both his arms and yelled. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before; there were no words, only a long howl that made me shake all over. Some of the kids began to run, but Joe and Colin just stood there, staring.

  ‘Get out of the way!’ I screamed – then something soft and black brushed by me, and the air filled with the most beautiful music I had ever heard. Everything stopped: the kids, Grandpa – even the wind. I turned my head very slowly, the way you do in dreams, and I saw someone in a black hooded cloak, holding a silver branch with golden apples hanging from it. I blinked and looked again, but all I saw was Mr Stegeth and Mr Crewes running across the playground.

  Before I had time to decide if I was crazy or not, the two teachers were in the middle of the circle, and the kids were melting away. Mr Crewes looked at Mr Stegeth. ‘Why don’t you get some kickball going, while I see what I can do for Mr Madison.’

  ‘It’s not Mr Madison,’ said Colin. ‘It’s Mr O’Brien.’

  ‘Irish, huh?’ said Mr Stegeth, smiling at Colin the way people do when they’re ashamed of themselves but they don’t want to admit it. ‘So that’s where you get your big mouth … Come on, you guys. Let’s play ball.’ He walked away, laughing with Joe and the others.

  Colin doubled up his fists as he watched them go. ‘Boy,’ he said, ‘if Grandpa hadn’t been sick, he would have knocked h
is block off for saying that.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mr Crewes, though he looked angry, too. ‘He would have known Mr Stegeth was just trying to be funny.’

  That showed how little he knew Grandpa; but of course we were too polite to say so.

  ‘Grandpa,’ I said, putting an arm around him, ‘this is Mr Crewes. He’s a teacher.’

  Mr Crewes looked quick and held out his left hand to Grandpa. ‘Hello, Mr O’Brien,’ he said. ‘I’m really pleased to meet you. One of my students has told me all about the horses you’ve trained, and I feel I know you.’

  It was as if he had said something magic: Grandpa smiled. ‘Horses,’ he said, nodding.

  A siren wailed on the street, and I was afraid it would distract Grandpa, but Mr Crewes just raised his voice. ‘Why don’t you come into the school? I could get you a cup of coffee, and you could tell me about your horses.’

  The siren got closer; then a police car with all its lights going pulled into the school parking lot and Mom and two cops jumped out of it. Colin and I looked at each other and sighed: all we were going to hear for the next month was that our grandfather had been arrested.

  Mom got to us a little before the cops did. ‘Oh Dad!’ she said, taking his hand. ‘I’ve been so worried! How did you get all the way over here?’

  Grandpa smiled at her. ‘Home, OK? Tired.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘In a police car – won’t that be fun?’ Then she turned to Colin and me. ‘The police said you two saw Grandpa out here and told a teacher to look for me while you stayed with him. That was absolutely the right thing to do. I’m very proud of you.’

  ‘You should be,’ said Mr Crewes, and the way he looked at us let us know he’d never tell her there’d been trouble. ‘They handled the situation beautifully.’

  ‘Oh, are you the teacher who called?’ said Mom, smiling.

  He nodded and put out his hand. ‘Jim Crewes,’ he said; then he looked over his shoulder at the kids, who were beginning to hover around again. ‘Let’s get your father to the car.’