Wild Horse Spring

by Lisa Williams Kline

  “Why don’t you go ahead and pick whichever one you want, sweetie,” Lynn said as she put towels in the bathroom. “Since she ran into the woods, Diana gave up her chance to pick.” Lynn headed back downstairs.

  Both rooms had yellow walls and a sliding door leading to an upstairs porch. I chose the room with a sky blue bedspread instead of the room with the navy striped comforter, and flopped my suitcase on the bed. I stepped out onto the porch and leaned over the wooden railing into the ocean breeze. I gazed at the waves and the wide, shimmering beach that stretched as far as I could see in both directions. The sky was huge, with thin wisps of silvery clouds that floated above the water like a magical land. The sun shone brightly on the dunes, and some birds flying by looked like sparkles against the clouds. So beautiful. The only problem was, there wasn’t a single other person around, much less anyone my age. Except Diana, of course.

  I had no idea what Daddy and Lynn would say—or Mama—about me living with them. What scared me most was asking Mama. I knew she would be so hurt. And living with Diana? Well, I would be the first to admit that I’m a “girlie girl,” as in I wash and blow-dry my hair every day, and I’m particular about my clothes. Diana pays no attention to her flyaway, strawberry blonde hair. She just sticks it in a ponytail, most of the time forgets to wash it, and a lot of days doesn’t even comb it. She wears jeans and sweatshirts with dirt smears (or whatever!) from the barn and doesn’t care. After we’d had the adventure with the wolves last summer, I’d been happy that we’d gotten close, or at least stopped being enemies. I mean, we were stepsisters now, after all, and it meant a lot to me for us to get along.

  But being in the same school changed things. I hadn’t realized until I had gotten there with Diana how things were for her. She hardly had any friends, and a lot of people avoided her. She wasn’t in the advanced sections of language arts like me. The only advanced section she was in was science, because the only thing she was interested in was animals. I mean, it didn’t make a difference in how I felt about her. It was just, well, sometimes awkward when it came to other kids.

  We both had a language arts assignment to do over spring break, which I thought was completely unfair. We both had to memorize a poem of our choice and be ready to perform it for our class when we got back. I chose a famous love poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning called “How Do I Love Thee?”

  I picked a love poem because lately I’d been thinking about love—all kinds of love—a lot. Love for another person. Love for my family. Love for God. My teacher had said, “The most powerful force in the world is love.” I’d been thinking about that a lot. I wondered what it would be like when I fell in love someday.

  Diana chose a poem by William Blake called “Tyger.” I didn’t know why it was spelled funny like that. Lynn said maybe we could practice together and perform our poems at the end of the week for her and Norm. I guess that could be kind of cool. I like poetry. When I read poems by, say, Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson, I sometimes think, That’s exactly the way I feel! How can another person know I feel that way?

  I opened my suitcase and started putting my things in the dresser drawers, automatically folding my socks and separating out my shirts and shorts like I have them arranged at home. Diana would probably live out of her suitcase the entire trip.

  At school I sometimes heard people talking about Diana. Once I was standing by my locker, and I heard someone call her a name, something like “Annn-i-MAL.” As I clicked my locker closed, I’d had a sick feeling in my stomach. Then I’d walked down the hall, pretending I hadn’t heard anything.

  The last weekend I stayed with Daddy and Lynn and Diana, I’d tried to talk to Daddy about it. I hardly ever got a chance to be alone with Daddy anymore. It had been a Saturday afternoon. Lynn had gone to pick Diana up from the barn. Dad had just finished mowing the lawn when I found him going through the mail at the kitchen counter. He had his reading glasses on, and the wrinkles between his eyes deepened as he separated the mail into piles. His T-shirt was sweaty, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead where his hair was getting thinner. I sat at the counter next to him and pretended to read the front page of the paper.

  “What’s up, sweetheart?” Daddy said, looking over his glasses at me with a smile.

  “Nothing,” I said. That’s always the first thing I’d say, even if I wanted to talk about something.

  “Something’s on your mind.” He put a bill aside and slid another out of its envelope.

  “It’s, well, it’s Diana, I guess. She doesn’t really hang out with anyone.”

  “Hmm.” Daddy folded his glasses and put them in his shirt pocket, then he faced me. “What do you mean? Isn’t she friendly with the kids that hang out at the barn?”

  “I don’t think so.” It seemed like the horses were Diana’s friends, instead of people. I crossed my legs and traced the squarish bone on top of my knee with my finger. I whispered the next part. “I heard some kids at school making fun of Diana.”

  Daddy sat up straighter and looked at me more sharply. “Do they bully her?”

  “They talk about her behind her back.”

  “What kinds of things do they say?”

  “They call her names. Stuff like that.”

  “Is she aware of it?” Daddy asked.

  “I’m not sure. We’ve never talked about it.” I couldn’t tell Daddy that I hadn’t stood up for Diana.

  He let out a huge sigh and said, “I’ll talk to Lynn about it. Meanwhile, how do you think you should handle things?”

  I knew he was going to say that. “Well … act in a loving way?” I said. “Isn’t that right?” I traced my kneecap with my finger again, avoiding Daddy’s eyes.

  “Yes. So what should you do?”

  “I guess I could invite Diana to hang out with me and my friends at school.” I’m sure that’ll go over really well.

  “Good idea. You could also include her when you have friends over to the house.”

  “I’ve tried that, Dad. The one time I had Colleen over, we invited Diana to play cards, and she completely snubbed us. I mean, I could try again, but she doesn’t usually want to do things with us, though.”

  “That’s fine if she doesn’t. You could just invite her, and then she can decide. Anything else?”

  “I can’t think of anything.” That was a lie. I could think of something: Stand up for her. But I’d never do that. I couldn’t even stand up for myself!

  I hadn’t told Dad, but I didn’t invite friends over to Mama’s house because of Matt, and I didn’t want to invite friends over to Daddy’s house because of Diana. So I just hardly ever invited anyone over.

  Downstairs, cabinet doors opened and closed, and plastic grocery bags rattled. Lynn and Daddy were still unpacking the groceries.

  I headed downstairs but stopped on the landing when I heard their voices starting to rise.

  “Someone needs to go after her, Lynn. She could get lost in the woods.”

  “I don’t think she’ll go so far that she’ll get disoriented. Diana has an excellent sense of direction. Remember the way she found her way around the ranch last summer?”

  “Right after sneaking out in the middle of the night.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure she won’t try that again, aren’t you?”

  “Not sure at all, Lynn. I wouldn’t put it past her to try it again. And Stephanie will go along for the ride.”

  “You have to trust her more, Norm.”

  “I will when she gives us a reason to trust her.”

  I stood on the steps, holding my breath, my hand on the banister. Making a decision, I went upstairs to get a sweatshirt, and then, taking a deep breath, I walked downstairs as loudly as I could.

  “All unpacked?” Lynn said brightly.

  “Yep,” I said. “I’ll go look around and find Diana.”

  “Well … okay,” Lynn said, glancing at Daddy.

  “Don’t go too far,” Daddy said.

  “Okay.” I went do
wn the steps and through the yard, following the hoofprints of the horses in the sand. The beach grass waved in the breeze, and blowing sand hit my legs, stinging lightly.

  The sound of an engine floated toward me from the beach. A boy on a beat-up, red ATV came over the dune and stopped on the path. At the summit of the dune, he took off his helmet and shook it, maybe to get sand out of it. Even from this distance, he looked very cute, with a tanned face and glasses. If he had been at my school, all the girls would have been crazy over him. He looked a little older than me.

  Someone my age!

  He glanced over and caught me staring. For a split second, our eyes met.

  The boy replaced his helmet and pulled down the visor, then roared right by me. The wheels of the ATV blew sand on my legs. I waved at him and smiled as he drove by, just to be friendly. Then he followed the path into the woods.

  As I headed for the stand of trees, the sand squeaked under my flip-flops. The trees were gnarled and squat, with long, sinuous limbs and shiny leaves. Twigs grasped at my skin, and there were burrs on the sand and prickles on every branch of every bush.

  I craned my neck to see between the trees, but it was dark and tangled. The path the boy and Diana had followed turned a corner beyond a crooked tree, and I couldn’t see where it went. I glanced back at the house.

  Daddy was standing out on the front steps, watching me, his hands on his hips. I plunged into the woods and started down the path.

  3

  DIANA

  I followed another turn in the path and ducked under a low-hanging pine branch. When I came out into the open, there they were, fifty yards away, gathered on a shaded grassy slope between two dunes. I stayed still and tried not to move or scare them.

  They were shaggy, all right. Sturdy looking, with slim, graceful necks. Norm had said they were descendants of mustangs that swam ashore from Spanish shipwrecks. It reminded me of my favorite movie, The Black Stallion. He’d been shipwrecked on that island with the boy. I thought about how the boy got to know the wild horse, and how they formed this intense relationship one tiny step at a time. Could I do that with one of these horses?

  They were sorrel, chestnut, bay, and black. One of the sorrels looked almost like a palomino, light red with a blonde mane and tail. The stallion was black, like his foal. He stood highest on the dune, keeping watch, while the four mares grazed on the sea grass. The foal had his head under his mother’s flank, nursing. The horses swung their long tails as if they were sweeping the ground, almost in unison, back and forth, back and forth. Such an amazing and peaceful scene. I pinched myself to make sure this was real.

  I thought about picking a number for my mood and chose a four. Just about perfect.

  “Hey there,” I said quietly, under my breath. “How are you guys doing?”

  Their ears moved a bit, but none of them laid their ears back, so I felt like they weren’t that scared of me.

  I thought I’d sit here in the sand watching them for a while, then slowly move closer and closer. That was what the boy in The Black Stallion had done. They’d get used to me being here and know I wouldn’t hurt them. Maybe by the end of the week, I’d be able to ride one of them. That would be the coolest thing ever.

  I watched them stand and graze, their tails swaying back and forth like metronomes, and then amble slowly from one section of grass to another.

  I’d probably need to bring food to coax the horses into trusting me. I was sure Mom had brought carrots and apples.

  For a long time, I just sat and watched, sliding closer every few minutes or so until I was about fifteen feet away. I was close enough to see the grass tremble near their nostrils as they grazed. The foal, my favorite, had begun to nurse again.

  The sun shone in my eyes. Seagull cries wafted through the air. The rhythmic crunch of the horses eating the grass filled my ears, and the scent of the horses floated over to me. I picked up a handful of sand and let it fall through my fingers like an hourglass. Was it possible to be any happier?

  Then I heard a noise behind me. I turned around. Stephanie!

  I held my finger to my mouth. “Shhh!”

  Stephanie’s mouth was hanging open. She didn’t come any closer at first, and I could tell the horses scared her. Well, too bad. I turned back to watch them, trying to think of a name for the foal. Maybe a Spanish name, since the horses were descended from Spanish mustangs.

  “Diana!” Stephanie whispered. She came a few steps closer and knelt on the sand. “I came to get you. Daddy and Lynn didn’t know where you were.”

  “Tell them I’m right here.” Duh.

  “They want you to come back. They want you to unpack your stuff.”

  The horses’ ears twitched. Gradually they started moving away from us. Though you could hardly notice the slow, casual way they drifted away.

  “You’re making them leave!” I hissed at her.

  “Sorry.”

  The horses were even farther away now.

  “I might not ever see these horses again. This might be my only chance.”

  “I’ll stay just a minute.” Stephanie shrugged and sat down beside me. “Aww, that foal looks like a little angel,” she said. “A little dark angel.”

  “Dark Angel,” I said. Stephanie could be annoying, but I grudgingly admitted that was a pretty good name.

  But now the stallion decided he wanted to move the herd. He walked behind the others with his head lowered and urged them ahead. I had seen the geldings at the barn do this with mares, and Josie, our barn manager, had explained it to me. The horses’ compact bodies slid between the trees, and in a few minutes the whole herd had disappeared into the forest. Dark Angel too.

  I yanked up some grass and threw it on the ground. “Thanks a lot, Stephanie.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Stephanie said. “I don’t want Daddy and Lynn to get mad at us.”

  I stood up, kicking sand. I headed back toward the house without looking back at her. She caught up with me. “I just don’t want things to be bad on our vacation.”

  “Leave me alone!” I stomped through the stand of pines and prickly bushes, pushing branches out of my way, trying to leave her behind.

  Before we went back to school, Stephanie really tried hard to get along with me. But once she got to school and started making new friends, she stopped trying as hard.

  One of the things I always heard people saying about Stephanie was that she was nice to everyone, and that was true. I’d never seen her be mean. And sometimes that drove me crazy. Sometimes I just felt crummy and felt like being mean. How could she be nice all the time? And then I wondered, is she just being nice to me because she’s always nice, or does she really care about me? Last summer, when we’d helped the wolves, I had been pretty sure she really cared, but after watching her with people at school, I wasn’t so sure.

  When I told Dr. Shrink about it, she said maybe the reason I thought people didn’t like me was because of my insecurities about my dad, since he was always letting me down. So I was always waiting for other people—like Stephanie, and my mom—to let me down too. “Diana, do you think that maybe sometimes you are testing people?” Dr. Shrink asked once.

  I thought about it a minute. “What if I am?” I asked. But now, at last, Dad wasn’t letting me down. I was really going to visit him in just a few days. And it was going to be different this time.

  Stephanie and I headed out of the woods and into the open just as the sound of motors bore down on us, increasing in volume. And then two ATVs screamed by, both carrying guys in jeans. They weren’t wearing helmets. One guy had a buzz cut, and the other had wavy blond hair.

  “Whoo-hoo!” both riders yelled when they saw us. The first guy lifted the front two wheels of his vehicle a few inches into the air.

  “Whoa!” Stephanie cried as we jumped back to keep from getting pelted with sand. Then we dashed down the path, back toward our house, scraping our arms and legs on the prickly bushes. We ran until we were gasping for breath. Fina
lly we slowed to a walk.

  “Well, that was rude!” Stephanie said.

  Now we were coming more out into the open, close enough to see the rooftops of the two houses in our little area, and we heard a motor approaching again.

  Around the corner, from the direction of the beach, careened another sandy, mud-splashed, red ATV. This rider was thin and was wearing a gray T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes. He passed us, the roar of the ATV motor exploding in our ears, sand churning out behind him in an angry cloud. His helmet made him look like a bird of prey.

  “Him again,” said Stephanie, wiping sand off her arms.

  Looking at the curve of his back as he went by, I could practically count his ribs through his T-shirt. The bottoms of his jeans were wet, so he must have been riding in the surf.

  “That’s a different guy,” I said.

  “I know. I saw him when I started looking for you.”

  We continued past a grassy dune and down the sandy, rutted road toward our house. The boy had pulled up beside the yellow house next to ours and took off his helmet.

  “That must be where he’s staying,” Stephanie said.

  He had wavy, black hair and wore glasses. Something about the slimness and curve of his neck reminded me of the wild horses. He looked a little older than we were.

  When we walked by, Stephanie waved at him, and after a second’s hesitation, he waved back. Then he turned away, hooking the helmet under the seat of the ATV.

  “I guess you’re friends already?” I said sarcastically. When we were at the mountain ranch, Stephanie had met a guy in, like, five minutes.

  “No, I just think it’s nice to wave, that’s all.” Stephanie glanced at me with a look of surprise. She pulled a long piece of her dark hair over her shoulder and twirled it between her fingers. “I think he wants to get to know us. Otherwise, why did he drive so close to us and spray us with sand?”

  “Because he’s a jerk?”

  Stephanie laughed and danced a little beside me. “I think he’s cute.”