The cop made a couple more notes then closed up the metal case that held his paperwork. “I really don’t see the point in citing you folks for doing something kind. I’ll be back to check on Twaziem once a week for the next month. As soon as he has a substantial weight gain, I’ll close the case.” He eyed me. “And if you’re willing to give me names, I’ll look into it, Robin. This was the first time I found Mrs. Bartlett at home, and now, I know why.”
He was gone in less than five minutes. I walked up with my parents toward the house. Dad hugged me, then said, “Robbie, you need to work on your diplomacy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like your grandmother says, ‘Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that he looks forward to the trip,’” Mom said. “And honey, sooner or later, people are going to realize that you’re very intelligent. You can’t play the blonde dimwit card forever.”
“Hey, if they’re stupid enough to buy into stereotypes, why should I stop them?”
Both my folks laughed, which was my intent. I didn’t need to be on Dad’s list and grounded past forever when I wanted to have a sleepover on Saturday. We walked into the kitchen together and found Jack sitting at the table, holding a bag of frozen peas on his upper arm. I felt my stomach lurch. “Oh no. What happened?”
“Jaws of the Baskervilles,” Jack said. “In other words, your horse took a bite out of me, and I wasn’t even the one who deloused him. He has some issues.”
“I already told you that he doesn’t like guys,” I said, “and now I know why. I ran into Phil at practice today, and he told me that Caine, Wanda, and Ashley Bartlett are whining up a storm because I have their horse.”
Jack whistled softly. “When is your first meet? Thursday, right? I’ll go with you.”
“So will we,” Mom said. “Now dish up supper, Robin. Slide out of that shirt, Jack, and let me look at your arm. Did he break the skin?”
* * * *
Wednesday, September 18th, 7:00 a.m.
All the way to school, I kept thinking about Twaziem and Jack. My brother hadn’t mentioned the horse bite to the cop and that was a relief. I’d never seen the horse do anything other than stomp his feet and kick at the wall. How was I supposed to know he’d bite Jack? I didn’t think it had anything to do with the carrots I fed Twaz. Treats didn’t make him bite. For some reason, he connected my older brother to his previous home and the abuse he’d suffered. There had to be a solution because if the Morab was dangerous, Dad wouldn’t want us to keep him.
“Are you stressing over anything in particular, Robbie?” Dad asked.
“Just Twaz,” I said. “I’m going to talk to Rocky when I have my lesson today. There has to be a way to show him that all guys aren’t the same. And at least Rocky admits horses have preferences when it comes to riders. Some trainers don’t.”
“Well, you’re thinking up solutions. Good job.”
He seemed pretty receptive, so I asked, “Dad, can we talk about the Mustang tonight? You, me, and Mom.”
“Sure,” Dad said. “As long as breaking into your college fund isn’t one of the options, I’d love to hear what you’ve come up with. I’ve always admired your determination.” He grinned at me. “You brighten my days.”
“I do? How?”
Dad chuckled. “Oh, how about the time you decided your grandparents should visit Cobbie when they didn’t want to? I barely managed not to laugh after the pony disgraced himself. I thought I’d choke when I saw the look on my old man’s face.”
I stared at him. “I thought you were mad at me that day.”
“At you?” Dad shook his head, still grinning. “Oh, I won’t say you’ve never annoyed me over the years, Robbie. It wouldn’t be true. But, that day? No. You’re such a spitfire. It’s why my mom says that you’re just like my father.”
“Wonderful. Well, if you expect me to join the Marines, forget about it. It’s so not happening.”
“Good. Having you in danger would keep me awake nights.”
Coffee in hand, I was at school a few minutes later. Porter, Gwen, and I hung out in the Commons, waiting for Vicky, but she was a no-show. I knew she’d be late when the warning bell rang and we hadn’t seen her. I stopped by her locker on the way to English and grabbed her stuff before I headed to class. Her younger brothers and sisters must have been in slow motion today and she had to drop them by the day care a half mile away before she came to school. And they were walking, since her mother had the car.
Vicky rushed in the door three minutes after the final bell rang, and Mrs. Weaver glared at her from the front of the room. “You’re late, Victoria. Go get an admit slip from the office.”
“Please don’t make me. Another tardy and I’m on academic probation, and that means I’m off cheer.”
“You should have thought of that when you didn’t get to school on time.”
“If I get kicked off cheer, it messes with athletic scholarships,” Vicky tried again. “Please, Mrs. Weaver. I promise I won’t be late anymore.”
Somebody had to do something, and I knew she’d be bawling in a minute, especially when Mrs. Weaver just pointed to the door. “Oh, come on, Vicky. We all know the truth. You can’t get here any earlier.”
“Yeah,” Porter jumped in. “You have to get those kids to day care before you come here and some days you can’t get the four of them moving.”
“There are five of them,” I pointed out.
“The baby doesn’t count,” Porter told me. “All Vick has to do is load up the diaper bag, dress the kid, feed her, grab her and go.”
“You should just drop out of school, Vicky.” Gwen propped her chin on her fist. “You’ll never get out of this town even with a college scholarship. You’ll be babysitting for your folks forever. Your dad’s too busy for kids with his new girlfriend, and your mom’s got that new job working swing or graveyard at the casino.”
“I’ve heard nannies make good money,” Steve said. “People are always having babies, so there’s job security. You can wipe noses and tushies until you’re old and gray.”
Mrs. Weaver turned her glare on all of us. “I suppose the cross-country bunch is going to keep this up until I give in. Sit down, Victoria. You and I will meet with the counselor and adjust your schedule after class. Now, all of you open your writing notebooks and do a ten minute write. The topic is, what is a hero? Pick someone in the class who exemplifies those traits and defend your position. I want at least two full pages. Three would be better.”
Chapter Fourteen
Wednesday, September 18th, 2:45 p.m.
Rocky met us in the Shamrock Stable office so Mom could do a new lesson application for me. Vicky’s paperwork was already on file. I adjusted my pink equestrian helmet in front of the mirror, tightening the chin strap. “Did Mom tell you about the cop coming to see Twaz yesterday?”
“Dave Yardley?” Rocky asked. “He’s the local Animal Control guy.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Do you know him?”
“Yes,” Rocky said. “Whenever someone wants to harass a stable owner, the easiest way is to report animal abuse to Animal Control, and then the officer has to investigate. Dave’s a ‘by the book’ guy, but he’s not the worst person I’ve dealt with in the last thirty years.”
“Who would that be?” I asked, insatiably curious.
“The person who runs up a big bill and then turns me into Animal Control when I try to collect it.” Rocky glanced at Vicky. “And you want to go into this business? Are you sure?”
“I love the horses,” Vicky said, “and you can teach me to deal with the people.”
“Keep that in mind when things get tense around here,” Rocky said. “Sierra will be the third generation to run the barn, and she still has fits about what she calls people who are a waste of time, space, and oxygen. I save my tantrums for deadbeat horse owners.”
There wasn’t any gray in Rocky’s bright red hair. She didn’t look that much older than my mom, but Rocky was tiny,
barely five-foot-three in her boots and maybe a hundred pounds sopping wet. I’d seen her handle big horses and she never backed down, not from an unruly colt, or a snarky teenager, or the parents of the tiny tots who came to Pee-Pee Camp and thought their little buckaroos should be galloping all over the place even if they couldn’t steer left or right. Sierra was my age, but she didn’t go to our school yet. She wanted to, but Rocky said she couldn’t afford Lincoln High tuition. And her ex wasn’t about to pay for it, since Sierra wasn’t his ‘real’ kid.
Rocky crossed to the file cabinets behind her desk and opened the second drawer. She removed a file. “You ride Summer Time, don’t you, Robin?”
“Only when you make me,” I said. “I like Prince Charming better.”
“He’s a total slug, and you never make him work,” Vicky told me. “If you stood up to him, he’d do better.”
“I like slugs and Charming is sweet. He’s dependable, and if I squeeze too hard with my legs, he only walks faster. He never tries to run away with me.”
“We’re definitely dealing with some big fears there,” Rocky said. “Vicky, here’s your first lesson. Listen to what your customers say and try to figure out what they mean. Now, what did Robin tell you about riding?”
Mom started to speak, but stopped when Rocky held up a hand like a cop. “I want Vicky’s impressions, Maura, not yours. She’s my intern and one of her responsibilities includes choosing the right horse for a new student. We’ll use Robin as our token new person.”
“But, she didn’t say anything about riding,” Vicky said. “She just said she liked Charming because he’s slow and steady, and she doesn’t want Summer because he’s a goer.”
“Now you draw an inference from that,” Robin said.
I groaned. “She sounds like Weaver. I hate drawing those, and writing conclusions are even worse.”
Vicky giggled. “She was really nice to me today, and she totally helped me with the counselor after you guys let her know what was going on at home.”
Catching Rocky’s frown, Vicky changed the subject back to horse assignments. “Okay, what if I know that Nitro running away with Robin and dodging cars and trucks on Highway 9 majorly freaked her out? And that isn’t something she said today. I just know because she vented to me lots of times. Can I use that to assign her a horse?”
“Believe me, any detail helps,” Rocky said. “And sometimes you kids share feelings with each other that you’d never tell an adult. So, now what horse does Robin get?”
“Charming,” Vicky said with absolute certainty. “She needs to build her skills and confidence. She trusts him. And if she gets scared and clamps her legs on Summer, he’ll think she wants to gallop and that will make it harder for her to relax.”
“And when would you switch her to Summer?” Rocky asked, still holding the file.
“When she told me she wanted to get off a slug,” Vicky said, avoiding me when I tried to elbow her in the ribs. “Speaking up would make her braver, too.”
“Okay, then you both have horses to groom and saddle,” Rocky said. “But, first I want you to look at this file and tell me what you see.”
“Well, it has Summer’s name on it,” Vicky said, taking the folder. “Do you have one for Charming?”
“I have one for each horse who lives here.” Rocky turned back to the drawer and removed another manila file, passing it to me. “What does it tell you about the horse, Robin?”
I opened the folder and looked inside. Two photos stapled to the inside cover immediately caught my attention. One was of a little bitty brown colt standing next to a big bay mare in the round pen. “Oh wow. It’s a baby pic of Charming with his mommy. When did you take this?”
“When he was three days old and could come outside for the first time.”
The next photo was of Charming this past summer when he turned seven, all decked out in lesson gear with me holding him for class. He looked exactly like his mom, reddish brown with a black mane, tail, legs—a classic bay. “Okay, so there’s a grown-up picture too. Then, there’s a description of him on the next page, including his height and weight.”
I flipped through the papers, skipping over the copy of his pedigree and registration as a half Morgan, half Quarter-Horse. The next two pages detailed all of his veterinary treatments from the time he was a baby through adulthood. Another sheet listed hoof trims and shoeing. More records of deworming, delousing...everything appeared to be here. Then, I saw records for his training and what he knew how to do from the first halter class all the way up to learning how to do games like barrel racing and pole bending.
“It’s like a school report,” I said, “only it’s everything about Prince Charming.”
“And mine’s all about Summer,” Vicky said, “from the time he was donated three years ago.”
“Okay, now if Dave Yardley walked in here and wanted to see either horse, what would be the first thing I’d show him?” Rocky asked.
I stared at her. “The paperwork you keep on the horse. It has the height and weight up through the last time you dewormed two weeks ago, and you even listed the kind of dewormer you used. I so need to do this for Twaziem.”
“That’s right,” Rocky said. “It not only helps you and the veterinarian know what your horse requires, it also shows people who spend most of their time in offices that you can keep records.”
“Or as Grandma says, ‘if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with—’”
“We can figure out what your grandmother says,” Mom interrupted me with a smile. “My mother-in-law’s been married to a Marine a long time, and as your grandpa says, ‘once a Marine, always a Marine.’”
“My files impress lawyers and judges,” Rocky went on. “They’re sure that if I keep these kinds of records for my horses, I also have detailed ones on my customers.”
“Weird. Do I have a file?” I asked, passing back Prince Charming’s.
Rocky nodded, pointing to the top drawer of the cabinet. “Yes. It’s where I keep your application and what you learn in each lesson. Then when I hire an instructor, she looks up what your skills are and the horses you can ride.”
“Only Charming,” I said, picking up my bag of carrots. “I won’t ride anybody else. He’s my fella.”
“Only him,” Rocky agreed. “And before you ask, I wouldn’t have sold him to you. He’s still a mama’s boy, and it would break Lady’s heart to lose him. So, that’s why Dani keeps Lady here instead of taking her home. It was part of the deal I made with her folks when they bought Lady last year.”
“That’s awesome.” I grinned at her. That’s why I liked Rocky so much. She put her horses first, and while some trainers might say that a mare wouldn’t know her foal after it was grown up, Rocky never would. “Okay, I’m going to saddle up. I’ll be ready to ride in about a half hour.”
“Me, too,” Vicky said.
“Okay, that works. I’ll meet you in the indoor arena. Robin, if you need help, Sierra’s in the top barn tacking up horses for her beginner lesson. You should be fine. Summer camp was only a month ago.”
That made sense. I nodded and headed for the barn and Prince Charming. His stall was next door to his mother’s, or dam’s. He stuck his head over the door as soon as he saw me and nickered. I handed him a carrot. Lady was quick to put her head over the nearby wall and nudge me for a treat.
Normally, I’d have just given her one, but Dani was in the stall grooming her horse and she could be hypersensitive about stuff like that. “Okay if I feed your horse a carrot?”
Dani came to look and I held up the carrot for inspection. Mom had pulled them out of the garden, but she’d washed off all the dirt, too. Dani narrowed baby blue eyes. “Are those organic?”
“That’s all my mom grows,” I said.
“Okay.” She watched me suspiciously while I fed Lady a carrot, then one to Charming again. Petite, blonde and curvy, Dani looked more like my sister than Felicia did.
“So, what
’s up with the treat thing? I’d never give a horse something bad for them.”
A long stare and then she said, “My last horse died of colic. I guess I’m a bit paranoid.”
“I know how that feels. My pony did too. Some jerk threw grass clippings from a lawnmower bag over our fence. We lost him after three days.”
“We were at Lake Chelan for a family reunion,” Dani said. “The owner of the barn where I had my first horse called and told us she had colic. It was a weekend, so it was like impossible to get one of Dr. Larry’s associates, and he was out of town too. And the owner of the stable didn’t walk my horse. She was going to a party, so she just went...”
“And left your horse alone?” I opened the stall door and went in with Charming. “That totally sucks. My whole family tried to help save Cobbie, but he was old and we didn’t find him in time. Now, my mom only turns the horses out to pasture when she’s going to be home to watch them.”
“It took us hours to get home and by then it was too late,” Dani said, petting Lady’s brown neck. “I told my dad I’d never keep another horse there, and when Rocky said Charming couldn’t be without his mom, this worked perfectly. I can take Lady to shows, fuss over her and if we go somewhere, I don’t have to worry. Rocky and Sierra take awesome care of her.”
“They take great care of all the horses.” I haltered Charming and attached his lead. Having some kind of handle to make him focus was one of Rocky’s rules. Now, I could grab his head if he started to walk off while I groomed him.
Holding my hoof pick in one hand, I ran the other down his left front leg and picked up his foot. He pulled it away. “Oh, come on,” I said. “You know the routine.”
“Here. Let me help.” Dani came out of her horse’s stall and into Charming’s. “Sierra showed me this really great trick for hoof cleaning. Do you still have a carrot?”
“Sure, but he can’t have it when he won’t let me do his feet.”
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