No Horse Wanted

by Melange Books, LLC

  “Interesting,” Mrs. Weaver said. “I’ll have your letter by end of school today, Roberta, or you’ll be here until I do.”

  “But I have cross-country practice tonight and Coach Norris will lose it if I don’t show up,” I said.

  “It won’t be the first time you hear from him if I don’t have your letter today. If I were you, I’d spend the period writing the letter. Victoria will be happy to help since she already has her internship lined up.”

  I shot a glare across the room at Vicky, then looked down at my notebook. “Yes, ma’am.”

  A few minutes later, we were excused to visit the computer lab so I could do my letter. Halfway there, Vicky pushed me into the restroom. “Get out your cell and call Dr. Larry.”

  “What? If I’m caught, I’ll get detention.”

  “And when Weaver checks up with him, you’ll be off cross-country for the season and in I.S.S. until Christmas. I’ll stand guard. You call.”

  “Then why did you say I was doing it with him?”

  “Hello, weren’t you listening Saturday night? He believes you walk on water. You need to use that. Why do you think Rocky agreed to let me do my internship at her barn? She likes me and says I’m a good rider and trainer.”

  “Plus you can clean fourteen stalls faster than anyone else on the planet.” I checked the restroom. It was empty so I pulled out my phone and called Equine Nation. Of course, it wasn’t open yet, but I left Dr. Larry a message about doing the internship with him. I’d check back with him during lunch when students were allowed to use their cell phones.

  In the lab, Vicky opened her binder. It was totally organized by class. She took out the rubric for the assignment and a copy of her letter. “Okay, here’s my flash drive. We’ll adjust the wording so it works for you helping the veterinarian on his large animal calls.”

  When I rolled my eyes, she elbowed me. “Ouch. That hurt,” I complained. “What’s your problem?”

  “Will you get serious? You don’t want to spend every day in the clinic shoveling puppy or kitty poop. You want to go places with Dr. Larry and learn what he does in the field.”

  “When you put it that way, it makes a lot more sense.” I logged on to the computer and clicked on the word processing program. Actually, I was lucky to have her on my side even if I hassled her about it.

  * * * *

  Monday, September 16th, 2:20 p.m.

  I finished my letter and turned it into Mrs. Weaver at the end of the school day. She skimmed through it. “All right. I’ll give this back to you tomorrow with my corrections, and you can do a final draft.”

  “Come again?” I stared at her. “I thought this was all you wanted.”

  “Did you even read the project requirements?” Mrs. Weaver put my paper on her desk. She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I’m still waiting for your brainstorm.”

  “My what?”

  “Your outline for the letter.”

  “Who outlines a letter? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  She heaved a sigh like I was the dumbest student she’d seen in a long time. “You typed this, so I know you kept a copy on your flash drive. You can amplify the second and third paragraphs. Ask your older brother to help you outline the letter.”

  “No way. If I ask Jack for help, he’ll come up with some rotten chore I have to do in exchange. I might have to muck out his room. I already have to feed the horses and pigs to share the chore money. It sucked last night.”

  “That sounds like a personal problem.” Mrs. Weaver looked at the clock. “You’d better go if you don’t want to be late for track practice.”

  “Cross-country,” I corrected. “Track’s in the spring.”

  I headed for the door, then stopped when I heard a weird sound. I glanced back over my shoulder. Was she laughing? Apparently so. Who knew that was even possible? Okay, if I didn’t make it to State this year, I could always try to be a comedian.

  I was one of the last girls to reach the locker room, but it didn’t take long to change to my shorts and T-shirt. I tied my sweatshirt around my waist and jogged out to the track. I started stretching. No cramps for me. I glanced at Gwen and Porter, two of the other girls on the team. “Has he said where we’re running yet?”

  Gwen shook her head and kept doing side bends. “Something about a park.”

  “Downtown,” Porter said.

  I grimaced. Running through Marysville meant lots of sidewalks and maybe a bit in the local park, but that didn’t get me ready for the track meet outside of Arlington. Coach Norris waved to us and we headed toward him, along with everyone else.

  “Okay, here’s the deal.” He laid out the route. It was still pretty easy, just four miles around town and only a couple big hills. “Any comments?”

  Porter tapped her foot. “Okay if we do it twice or three times?”

  “No. You do it once, Porter.” Coach Norris ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. He was in good shape for a guy older than my dad. “The rest of you get going. Gwen, Robin, and Porter, stay here. I want to talk to you.”

  Steve gave us a sympathetic look, then jogged off with a couple of the guys.

  Coach waited until everyone was gone. He frowned at us, his tone stern. “I know what you three are thinking. Don’t go there. Until I get permission from the principal and school board to increase the duration, the most we do during practice is four miles. Got it?”

  Gwen widened big blue eyes and put on her super-innocent look. “But, it is okay if we keep practicing on our own time, isn’t it?”

  “You’d better if you want to improve your Personal Records at this meet.” He winked. “Now, get out of here and try not to get lost. I expect you back in an hour and a half.”

  “Yes, Coach.” I led off and the other two girls followed me. I saw the guys up ahead of us, but I didn’t care. We’d gotten a pretty strong hint that if we veered from the route, Coach Norris wouldn’t say anything as long as we kept to the same timeframes as the rest of the team. I glanced at Gwen when she caught up with me. “Up Golf Course Hill and then down 88th street or the other way around?”

  She laughed. “Golf Course.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Monday, September 16th, 6:45 p.m.

  Conversation ebbed and flowed around the dinner table. I waited for one of the pauses, then glanced across the table at Jack. “Can you help me with an English assignment?”

  Silence and the three of them stared at me like I’d escaped from a horror movie. Dad was the first one to talk. “Robbie, I thought you weren’t that interested in school?”

  “I’m not,” I said, “but you told me I had to earn half the money for my car and I guess I want to try for some A’s. Besides, Mrs. Weaver isn’t like the teachers at my old school. She’s not going to let this go. If I don’t do my work for her, I’ll end up on academic probation. Then, I can’t do cross-country.”

  “How will she stop you?” Mom asked, curious. “Cut off your legs?”

  “I just told you. Coach Norris warned us that he’ll be sending around grade-checks every week before the meets. Anything below a C in any of my classes and I’ll be benched.”

  Mom nodded, satisfied for the moment. “Well, I knew your teacher wouldn’t convince you to give up cross-country. You’ve been running as long as I can remember. I’d take you with me to the Farmer’s Market, and you’d race from one end of the street to the other. You were so cute. When you were exhausted, you’d plop down in front of my booth and go to sleep with your blankie and teddy. Customers had to walk around you.”

  “It was really embarrassing when she did that last summer,” Jack said.

  I stuck my tongue out at him before I remembered I needed his help, and he laughed at me. For once, Mom’s stories didn’t make me feel bad. I must have been really little when I went with her to the open-air, summer market. “I bet Jack did something equally wonderful.”

  “Oh, yes.” Mom was off and running. “He used to h
elp carry things from the car, and Felicia would want to set up my booth. But, Jack would go out and stop people wandering through the market. He’d say, ‘You need one of my Mom’s quilts. You have to buy it so I can have a new book or new paints or new whatever.’ The other gals wanted to know if I’d rent him out so they could make more money at their stalls.”

  While she chattered about how amazing the three of us were as little kids, Jack scowled at me. “Don’t you dare tell Vicky any of this,” he whispered.

  “If you help me, I won’t,” I said, in just as soft a voice.

  After dinner, I had dish duty. Once the kitchen was clean, I started looking for Jack. He was nowhere in sight. I stopped in the den and printed off the letter. I stuffed it in my three-ring binder. Carrying it, I headed down to the barn with a brief pause in the garden to pull up a few carrots for Twaziem. As soon as I walked into the barn, he lifted his head and nickered at me.

  “Hey, you know me.” I gave him a carrot. “That’s awesome.” While he crunched away, I went over to Nitro’s stall. “You said you’d help me.”

  “I will.” Jack kept grooming his horse. “But, Nitro and I need to practice for the races on Saturday. What do you want?”

  “Weaver says I have to do a brainstorm. What does that mean?”

  Jack stopped and Nitro gave him a dirty look. Jack ignored him. He put the currycomb in his tote and walked up to the front of the stall. “Let me see your rough draft.”

  “Why does everyone keep calling it that? I worked on this letter for hours.”

  “If it’s the first version, it’s rough,” Jack said. “If you had more time, you could add more details, right?”

  “Well, sure. But, why should I spend more time on it?”

  “Because if you don’t, you’ll be walking like the rest of us and hearing about the cross-country team at morning announcements. You won’t be part of it.” Jack held out his hand for my letter. “Do you want that?”

  “No way.”

  While he read through the letter, I went back to Twaziem and gave him another carrot. He sucked it up like a giant vacuum cleaner. Zip. Crunch. Gone. He was definitely getting the hang of treats, so I gave him a third carrot and then a fourth. We were on number six when Jack called me.

  “What do you have?” I asked as I headed back over.

  He showed me the corrections he’d made to the letter. Jack flipped to a blank page of notebook paper and drew a series of circles with lines that connected them. “You’ll want to create a web, and then you can see where your argument needs to be strengthened. You’re trying to convince your teacher that you’ll learn a lot from Dr. Larry, not just have a good time.”

  “This looks like so much work.”

  “Yeah, but if you get in the habit of doing the brainstorms and developing your writing, you’ll have an A in English at the end of the semester, and that’ll mean fifty bucks toward your car. Add in your other classes, and you’re looking at three hundred and fifty, plus the bonus for a four-point GPA.”

  “Any other words of advice?” I asked sarcastically.

  “Considering how hard you work at cross-country, you should ask the folks for a bonus whenever you beat last year’s times and improve your P.R.”

  “That won’t happen until this Thursday at our first meet,” I said, “if I’m lucky. And there are no guarantees. People fall, get shin splints, twist ankles—it’s like your football team. You guys can get hurt.”

  “So could you,” Jack said. “And I play because it’s fun, but if the team goes to State again this year, I’ll get an extra two hundred bucks for busting my butt all season. I’m just saying that you should take your shot. You won’t know if it’s a go until you ask Dad.”

  I nodded. He had a point. I eyed the letter again and closed my notebook. “Okay, I’ll get out of your practice and go do my homework. Do you want me to set up the barrels for you?”

  “No. I want to work on stops and starts. If Nitro sees the barrels, he forgets to focus.”

  I left Jack brushing his horse, just the way he was when I arrived. I stopped by Twaziem’s stall and gave him the last carrot before I left the barn and headed up to the house to do homework. I went into my room and turned on the computer. I’d do my English paper first, then move onto Algebra and History. My teachers would probably die of shock when I turned in the assignments, but it’d keep them off Coach Norris’s back, and mine. Then, I could concentrate on cross-country, which I loved. And this might help me get my car. My car, my car, my car!

  Of course, tomorrow I had to go by the car lot and see what I could work out with Brenna after cross-country practice. Maybe she’d let me make payments on my ’68 Presidential blue Mustang and not insist on having my parents involved in the deal. I’d been so busy working on my paper today, I didn’t get to have lunch with Harry, and that meant I hadn’t asked what he thought of the idea. I’d spent my half-hour break in the computer lab rewriting this stupid letter. Had he missed me? Did he even notice I wasn’t sitting across the table from him?

  * * * * *

  Tuesday, September 17th, 7:03 a.m.

  All the way to school, I debated silently how to bring up being paid for cross-country, and track in the spring. I loved running. I didn’t do it for money. I’d run even if I wasn’t on the team. Dad pulled up to our favorite espresso stand. He glanced at me and I nodded. That was the best part about riding to school with him. He bought my coffee.

  Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best part. Maybe it was being able to talk to him about life. Jack wasn’t with us today. I could still imagine the look he’d give me and the way he’d call me Miss Wimpy. I had to speak up. I had to ask. The worst that could happen was Dad would refuse and I wouldn’t be any worse off.

  He passed me a mocha and put his in the cup holder. “What’s up, Robbie? You’re never this quiet. Don’t you feel well? I can take you home if you’re sick.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “And I want to go to school. I did my homework so the teachers won’t be on my case, and the team is practicing this afternoon.”

  “Okay, then what is it?”

  I took a deep breath and launched into my spiel about getting a bonus if my times improved at the cross-country meets and if I was one of the runners in my division who made State. Dad kept driving and didn’t say anything until I finished. He pulled up in front of the school and stopped. I reached down for my backpack. “What do you think?”

  “That I need to talk to your mom, and we’ll get back to you,” Dad said. “I’m sorry, Robbie. I’ve been unfair to you and that makes me feel like a jerk.”

  “What? How do you figure? You’re great.” If I ever doubted it, all I had to do was look around at my friends. Vicky wasn’t the only one who had an absentee father. “You may not do everything I want when I want it, but you’re my dad, not my buddy. And I gotta go.”

  “Yes, but next time you’re doing an extracurricular sport like cross-country and I’m not treating it with the respect I give Jack and his football, I want you to tell me right away. Deal?”

  “Sure, Dad.” I opened my door. He still looked worried, so I leaned back in and kissed his cheek. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up about this. If I get enough money saved up, I can have my car.”

  He managed a smile. “That fills a father’s heart with joy. His little girl driving around town in a sports car.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’ll be great.” And I hustled for the Commons so I could hang out with my friends before the first bell rang.

  The day zoomed by. None of my teachers had heart attacks when I turned in the assignments, so I figured I’d have to try harder if I wanted to hassle them. I really didn’t. I just didn’t want them on my back and I hated it when classes were boring, but maybe if I made more of an effort, my teachers might be better. It was worth a try.

  I was one of the first people to make it to the cafeteria at lunch, but Harry wasn’t around. He didn’t show up at all, and when I asked one of his bu
ddies, he said that Harry had gone to a classic auto show with his sister. I had to go by the lot today to make sure they hadn’t taken my Mustang to the sale.

  That afternoon, Gwen, Porter, and I split off from the group and ran up 64th. It was a longer rise, not quite as steep as Golf Course Hill, but it still added on two miles. Then, we cut north and wound through a development that would eventually link up with the park and the route the rest of our team ran.

  Sunshine warmed the pavement and my shoulders as I ran. Occasional puffy clouds floated overhead and a cool breeze dusted my face. We weren’t the only high school cross-country teams out. I spotted a few girls and guys from Mount Pilchuck, my old school. As we cut down one block, Phillip Evans caught up with me. A redheaded senior, he had a steady girl and I wasn’t it.

  “What’s up?” I asked, as we jogged down the block. “Are you going to tell us that your team is the best in the county? We already know it. We were part of it last year till our folks moved us with Coach Norris to Lincoln because they wanted us in a private school with better test scores.”

  “No, I’m only here to tell you to watch your backs up in Arlington this Thursday.” He ran beside me. “Wanda and Ashley are out for blood, yours.”

  “Why?” Porter asked. “We haven’t seen them since the meets last spring, and they weren’t much back then, so we didn’t have any trouble beating their times. And it wasn’t our fault we went to State and they didn’t.”

  “It would have been harder to hold back,” Gwen said. “They’re so slow.”

  “Not you two.” Amusement leaked into Phillip’s blue eyes. “They’re ticked at Robin for ‘stealing’ their horse.”

  “Twaziem?” I asked, jogging in place when a traffic light turned red. “I didn’t know he was theirs. Bartlett is a pretty common name. And have you seen him?”