Maddie’s Dream

by Catherine Hapka

  “I know, I know.” Maddie had just finished filling the twins in on her plan. “It was a stupid idea. I just thought if the Richardsons saw her acting dangerously, they might not want to buy her anymore.”

  Val kicked at a stone, looking thoughtful. “I don’t know,” she said. “Cloudy was pretty bad when she got here. Your plan was worth a try.”

  “Thanks,” Maddie said.

  Vic was shaking her head. “Not really,” she argued with her twin. “I mean, yeah, Cloudy was bad when she got here. That’s the point, right?”

  “What do you mean?” Maddie asked.

  “I mean, the Richardsons have seen her at her worst,” Vic said. “They owned her at her worst. Nothing she does now is going to look all that bad to them, right?”

  “I see what you mean.” Maddie sighed. “I guess I didn’t think about it that way.”

  “Never mind.” Val reached over and gave Maddie’s shoulders a quick squeeze. “We’ll help you figure out a new plan.”

  “I don’t know,” Maddie said sadly. “If the Richardsons want to buy Cloudy and Ms. E wants to sell her, there’s nothing I can do.” Suddenly a thought struck her and her eyes widened. “Unless . . .”

  CHAPTER

  7

  “UNLESS WHAT?” VIC DEMANDED. “DON’T keep us in suspense, Maddie!”

  Maddie realized she’d gone silent, staring across the paddock at Cloudy as her brand-new plan filled her head and made her forget everything else. She turned and grinned at the twins, who were staring at her with wide, curious eyes.

  “I just realized there is something I can do,” Maddie told them. “I can buy Cloudy myself!”

  The twins traded a look. “What?” Val said. “But the Richardsons already—”

  “No, listen.” Maddie was talking fast, working out the details as she explained them. “Ms. E would probably rather sell Cloudy to someone she knows will take good care of her, right? And who’d take better care of her than me?” She shrugged. “I mean, I’d want to board her right here at Solano Stables. So if I offer the same money or more than the Richardsons, Ms. E would probably be thrilled to sell her to me instead.”

  Vic gasped. “You know, that actually kind of makes sense!”

  “Does it?” Val looked more skeptical than her twin. “Where are you going to come up with that kind of money, Maddie?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not even sure how much money we’re talking about.” Maddie drummed her fingers on the paddock fence. “I’ll have to find out. In the meantime I can work on pulling together a down payment, and then figure out the rest from there.”

  “Maybe you could just ask your parents for the money,” Vic suggested. “Maybe they’d buy you Cloudy as a late birthday gift or something.”

  Maddie’s fingers froze. Oh, right—her parents. She’d been so busy formulating her new plan that she’d sort of forgotten about them. Including the part where she’d begged them to buy Cloudy for her past two birthdays and Christmases. And the answer had always been a firm no.

  “I can’t ask my parents,” she told the twins. “They say we can’t afford to own a pony.”

  “Oh.” Val looked worried. “So what are they going to say if you buy her behind their backs?”

  “Maddie can worry about that when it happens.” Vic grinned. “Like I always say, sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.”

  “Yeah,” Maddie agreed. “And this is definitely one of those times.”

  She felt a bit troubled by the idea of going behind her parents’ backs. Still, what choice did she have? This could be the only way to save Cloudy from going back to the Richardsons. Not to mention saving herself from losing the best pony ever.

  Maddie was distracted as she wandered into her bedroom a little while later. Tillie was over by her dresser, applying lip gloss.

  “Dad’s running late at work,” Tillie announced, smacking her lips together and then examining her face in the mirror from various angles. “But Nick’s supposed to pick me up to go to the mall in like five minutes. Can you watch Ry and Ty until Dad gets home?”

  “I guess.” Maddie kicked off her paddock boots. “Where are they?”

  “In the den, playing video games.”

  Maddie smirked. “In that case, they don’t even need watching. They won’t move until Dad gets home and takes a cattle prod to them.”

  Tillie grinned. “Later.”

  “Bye.” As her sister hurried out, Maddie flopped onto her bed and reached for her laptop. The twins had helped her brainstorm ways to earn money, but they hadn’t come up with many useful ideas so far.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard, going through the familiar steps to log on to the Pony Post. Nina was super-creative, Brooke was crazy smart, and Haley was one of the most practical people Maddie knew. If anyone could help her come up some great moneymaking ideas, it was the three of them. Of course, there was one problem—Maddie still hadn’t told them about the Richardson Situation.

  But mentioning that Cloudy might be sold—or even that Maddie wanted to buy her—would only bring a zillion questions, and Maddie didn’t have time for that. Not when the Richardsons could make an official offer to buy Cloudy at any moment. She could fill her friends in later, once Cloudy was safely hers.

  There were a few new posts from Nina and Brooke, but Maddie barely scanned them. She opened up a text box and typed fast.

  [MADDIE] Hi all! Anyone have ideas for ways for me to make some $$?

  [MADDIE] And don’t say babysitting, lol. I need something that’ll make me the big bucks fast.

  After she sent the posts, Maddie sat back, staring at the screen without really seeing it. There had to be a way for her to make some quick cash. But what? She was pretty sure her parents wouldn’t let her sell any internal organs. . . .

  She blinked as her computer chirped. A new post had already popped up on the screen below hers.

  [HALEY] Hi Maddie! Funny u should ask! My uncle just paid me to help him paint the barn. Not fun, lol, but I made enough to pay for another lesson w/my jumping coach.

  Maddie glanced around her room, studying the walls. Painting a barn did sound hard, but maybe she could ask her parents if any of the rooms in their house needed repainting. That didn’t sound too bad.

  [MADDIE] Thanks, great idea! Well, not the barn part, lol. Any other brainstorms?

  [HALEY] Maybe u could start a dog-walking business, or pet sitting? What do u need the money for, anyway?

  Maddie’s fingers hovered over the keys. What should she say? She didn’t want to lie to one of her best friends. Maybe she could come up with something that was sort of true—just for now. . . .

  [MADDIE] Remember how the Snack & Swim ride is coming up this Sunday? I’m hoping to buy something special for it. That’s why I’m in a hurry.

  [HALEY] Cool! You mean like new boots, or a new swimsuit or what?

  “Mads? You in here?” Maddie’s father poked his head into the room, still dressed in his scrubs.

  Maddie sat up. “Oh! You’re home.” She felt a flash of guilt as she remembered she was supposed to be watching her younger brothers. Still, her dad was smiling, which meant Ry and Ty probably hadn’t managed to kill each other or burn the kitchen down.

  She quickly typed one last post:

  [MADDIE] My dad just got home—gtg. Tx for the ideas!

  She closed the computer. Her father stepped into the room.

  “Did you hear the message from Coach Wu?” he asked.

  “What message?”

  “It’s on the machine.”

  Maddie shrugged. “I didn’t check when I got home from the barn.”

  “Oh. Well, she says the powers that be got their act together faster than expected, and the Cascade League tryouts are this Saturday afternoon.” Her father grinned. “So you’d better start warming up your kicking foot!”

  “Saturday afternoon?” Maddie had nearly forgotten about the travel team. “But I can’t do it then—I h
ave my riding lesson.”

  Her father’s smile faded. “You can miss one lesson,” he said. “Maybe you can ride on Sunday this week instead.”

  Maddie shook her head. “Sunday’s the Snack and Swim.” At her father’s perplexed look, she added, “It’s this big trail ride. I told you about it, and—never mind. Anyway, I don’t want to miss my Saturday lesson, especially this week.”

  “Why? What’s so important about this week?”

  Maddie hesitated. The Pony Post girls weren’t the only ones who were still in the dark about the Richardson Situation. Maddie hadn’t told her parents about it either. “I just don’t want to miss it,” she said.

  Her father didn’t look impressed. “Listen, Maddie, I know you think riding is all you want to do these days. But don’t be shortsighted. This soccer thing could be a big opportunity for you.”

  Maddie could tell he was getting annoyed. She was a little annoyed herself. Why couldn’t her parents understand that riding was important to her?

  But she bit her tongue, not wanting to start an argument right now. It would only distract her from what was really important.

  “Okay, maybe you’re right,” she said. “I’ll call Coach Wu back in a little while. But listen, have you noticed that the dining room is looking a little dingy lately?”

  “The dining room?” He looked surprised by the sudden change of topic. “Not particularly. Why?”

  “Well, it’s just that I’d be willing to repaint it if you paid me,” Maddie said. “Or any other rooms you want. What about the boys’ room? Of course, I might have to charge hazard pay for even setting foot in there. . . .”

  “Oh, I see.” Her father sounded faintly amused. “Trying to earn a little spending cash, are you? Let me guess—seeing Tillie wave her new phone around is driving you crazy and now you want one of your very own?”

  Maddie smiled weakly. “You know how it is. A girl needs her toys.”

  “Hmm. Well, the dining room walls look fine to me,” her father said. “But if you’re really willing to work for cash, I have another job for you. . . .”

  An hour later, Maddie looked up as the door leading from the house to the garage banged open. Her brother Ryan peered out at her. He was holding a book with his finger stuck in it to save his page. His dark hair was tousled, and his glasses were slightly askew as usual.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “What does it look like?” Maddie sat back on her heels, giving her wrist a break. She’d been scrubbing at a grease spot on the garage’s cement floor for at least ten minutes, and it still looked as disgusting as ever.

  Ryan shrugged. “Dad said he’ll be back out to help in a little while. Oh, he also said to tell you not to forget to sort the nails and stuff on his workbench.”

  Maddie glanced at the tools, hardware, and random scraps of wood piled all over the large wooden counter built against the back wall. Ugh. It was going to take at least another hour in the hot garage to sort out that mess. Maddie swiped at the sweat beading on her forehead. Unfortunately, she forgot she was still holding the greasy rag.

  “Oh, gross!” she exclaimed as she felt the sticky, gritty grease coat her skin.

  Ryan let out a bark of laughter. “Whoa,” he said. “You look like Batman!”

  “Thanks a lot,” Maddie muttered.

  “Hey, Ty!” Ryan turned and shouted back into the house. “Check this out—Maddie’s Batman!”

  Maddie tossed the rag in his direction, though it only went a few inches before fluttering to the ground. “Get out of here, will you?” she said. “Either that, or get out here and help me.”

  “No thanks.” Ryan grinned at her. “I have better things to do. Like stare at the wall.”

  He disappeared, slamming the door behind him. Maddie used the hem of her T-shirt to wipe the grease off her face. Why not? The shirt was already filthy.

  She had better things to do too. Like just about anything that would get her out of this hot, dirty, smelly garage. They’d lived in this house for less than three years. How had the garage ended up crammed full of so much junk? For a second she was tempted to go into the air-conditioned house and tell her father that she’d quit.

  But then she remembered why she was doing this in the first place. It was all for Cloudy. She pictured the mare the way she’d seen her earlier that day, happily eating hay in her paddock. At Solano Stables, where she belonged. Suddenly cleaning out the garage didn’t seem so terrible after all. At least not compared to the possibility of losing Cloudy.

  Keeping that thought firmly in mind, Maddie grabbed the rag from where she’d tossed it and set to work on the grease spot with renewed energy.

  CHAPTER

  8

  “WILL YOU TURN OFF THE light, already?” Maddie grumbled, glaring at her sister.

  “Chill. I’ll be done in a sec.” Tillie was standing in front of her mirror, running a brush over her chin-length wavy hair. Several bottles and tubes were arrayed in front of her, and as Maddie watched, Tillie set down the brush and picked up one of the bottles. She carefully squeezed a tiny dab of goo onto her finger and started rubbing it on her face in small circles.

  Maddie was tempted to get up and switch off the overhead light herself. Let Tillie finish her stupid beauty routine in the dark!

  But she was too exhausted to bother. Every part of her body ached. She hadn’t been this tired in a long time—maybe ever.

  After she’d finished cleaning the garage, Maddie had gone around to all the neighbors’ houses looking for more work. And she’d found it. First Mrs. Bracken had hired her to clean all the windows in her entire house. It was only after the insides of the windows were all spotless that Maddie realized the woman expected her to do the outsides, too!

  Then Mr. Janicek had practically begged Maddie to take his hyper boxer to the park and toss a tennis ball until the dog got tired. Easy money, Maddie figured. She liked dogs. But after an hour, she’d started to suspect that Bosco wasn’t so much a dog as a perpetual motion robot programmed to chase that stupid tennis ball until the end of time. He seemed willing to go until he dropped, but Maddie wasn’t. She’d given it another half hour and then taken him home. Luckily, Mr. Janicek had seemed thrilled, and even gave her an extra few dollars as a tip.

  Next Ms. Levy had asked Maddie to weed the flower bed in her front yard. That hadn’t been so bad—at least Maddie got to sit down and rest while she worked. Although she’d realized that sitting on the ground might not have been the smartest idea when a colony of stinging ants decided to crawl up her shorts. Yikes! At least her brothers hadn’t witnessed that one, or she would have been dealing with ants-in-her-pants jokes for the rest of her life.

  Ms. Levy’s next-door neighbor had noticed Maddie dancing around, shaking the ants out, and hurried over to make sure she was okay. When she heard that Maddie was looking for odd jobs, she’d hired her to prune her rose hedge. Which was about six feet high and covered in thorns.

  By the end of the day, Maddie had been dirty and sweaty, covered with dog hair and scratches and itchy ant bites. Plus, her throwing arm—which also happened to be her scrubbing arm and her weeding arm—had felt as if it was ready to fall off.

  Had all the work been worth it? Maddie wasn’t sure. She’d ended up with a decent wad of cash, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be enough for even a small down payment on Cloudy. And she’d just about run out of neighbors, at least until Mr. and Mrs. Himura got back from vacation. So what else could she do to earn some fast money? If she didn’t make an offer on the pony soon, it could be too late!

  “I need more ideas,” she muttered.

  “Huh?” Tillie glanced at her in the mirror. She was still busy rubbing lotion into her face.

  “Nothing. Um, I just remembered I need to do something.” Climbing out of bed, Maddie groaned as her leg muscles protested. Hobbling over to her desk, she sat down and opened her laptop.

  As she logged on to the Pony Post, she checked the time
. It was almost ten thirty, which meant it was even later in her friends’ time zones. There was no way any of her friends would see her post tonight. But with any luck, they’d see it first thing in the morning and there would be more ideas waiting when she checked back tomorrow.

  [MADDIE] Hi guys, it’s me again! Still looking for moneymaking ideas. Please let me know if u can think of ANYTHING I can do to earn $$$ fast. Has to be something I can do in the next 3 days. Seriously, I’ll consider anything, no matter how crazy! Write back asap, pls! Thanks!

  “Are you done?” Tillie asked as Maddie hit enter. “I want to turn off the light now.”

  She sounded slightly annoyed. Typical Tillie. Maddie had been waiting for like a million hours for her to finish her stupid beauty routines, and now Tillie was acting like Maddie was the one holding up bedtime. But it wasn’t worth fighting about—not tonight.

  “Yeah.” Maddie closed her computer. “I’m done.”

  She crawled back into bed. Seconds later the room went dark, and a few minutes after that Tillie was snoring softly on her side of the room.

  Despite her exhaustion, Maddie couldn’t fall asleep. Her mind was racing, as fast and skittery as a wild pony dashing across the dunes of Assateague. What if she couldn’t earn enough money fast enough to buy Cloudy? She couldn’t stand the thought of losing her. The Richardsons had almost ruined her once—Maddie couldn’t let that happen to Cloudy again.

  She couldn’t let it happen to herself, either. She loved everything about being at the barn and couldn’t imagine giving it up. She’d miss the people too much—the twins and Ms. Emerson and Kiana and everyone else. She adored every single animal on the place, even Horace, the cranky old barn cat.

  But she loved Cloudy best of all. How could she step into the barn knowing her special pony, her best friend, wasn’t there anymore?

  Then there was the Pony Post. What would happen if Maddie lost her only real connection to Chincoteague? She’d never had any trouble making new friends, and her family had moved around enough to give her plenty of practice. Plus, she’d never even met Nina, Haley, or Brooke in person. Even so, the thought of losing touch with them made her feel lonelier than she’d ever been, even on the first day in yet another new school. But how could they all help but lose touch if Maddie lost Cloudy? It wasn’t as if Northern California was crawling with Chincoteague ponies. Besides, even another Chincoteague pony wouldn’t be the same as her Cloudy. . . .