Venom

by Nikki Tate

  Venom

  Nikki Tate

  Orca Sports

  Copyright © 2009 Nikki Tate

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopying, recording or by any information storage

  and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission

  in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Tate, Nikki, 1962-

  Venom / written by Nikki Tate.

  (Orca sports)

  ISBN 978-1-55469-071-8

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8589.A8735V45 2009 jC813’.54 C2008-907420-3

  Summary: Spencer is sure someone is doping the racehorses

  at the stable where he works, but no one will listen to him

  until he gets some proof.

  First published in the United States, 2009

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008941143

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing

  programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada

  through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the

  Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through

  the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  Author photo by E. Colin Williams

  Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Stn. B PO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.

  12 11 10 09 • 4 3 2 1

  For Cyd, muck bucket queen

  chapter one

  “You’re fired!”

  I step back and kick over a feed bucket. The horses answer with a chorus of whinnies. They’re expecting breakfast.

  “After you clean up that mess!” Scampy spins away from me and stalks off.

  “You can’t—” I yell at the trainer’s back.

  Scampy wheels around. His face is purple and the veins in his temples look like they might pop.

  “I can do what I want. This barn”—he waves his arm at the horses on both sides of the wide aisle—”this barn has room for one trainer. And that trainer would be me!” Scampy jabs his thumb into his chest and bugs out his eyes. Then his jaw starts working. Chomp. Chomp. He mashes his fat wad of gum like he wants to destroy it.

  “Understand?”

  There’s no chance to answer. Scampy is gone. The sound of his cowboy boots clicking on the concrete fades as he stomps off down the barn aisle and around the corner.

  “What was that all about?” Em steps out of the tack room behind me. It’s chilly this time of the morning. She’s wearing one of those wool caps with earflaps and a pom-pom.

  “Your uncle just fired me.” I’m impressed by how calm I sound. I’ve never been fired before.

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. Why do you always have to take his side?” I’ve worked for Jacob “Scampy” Scallopini’s Racing Stable for a little more than a year. Em’s been here forever. Her parents own a couple of horses, but it’s her Uncle Scampy who is always at the barn.

  Em tips her head to the side, making her pom-pom swing.

  “Scampy wouldn’t fire you for nothing.”

  My gaze slides over to the big bay gelding whose head pokes out of his stall. Lord of the Fires watches us intently, waiting for someone to start feeding him.

  “Spencer, you are an idiot,” Em says. “There is nothing wrong with Lordy.”

  My jaw clamps shut. There is something wrong with Lord of the Fires. I’m his main exercise rider, and I know. The horse hasn’t felt right for weeks.

  “How did he do on Saturday?” Em asks, her fists jammed against her hips. “Hmmm?”

  She doesn’t really expect an answer. I don’t give her one. We both know that Lordy ran well. He came in second, just behind the favorite.

  “What did you say to Scampy?”

  The scene replays in my head. I had arrived at 4:30 AM to start work. The lights were on and Scampy was already here. He came out of Lordy’s stall and slipped some-thing—a syringe, maybe—into his pocket. All I did was ask what he’d given the horse. I didn’t say the words illegal doping. I didn’t say anything about cheating. I asked a simple question. What did you just give the horse?

  That’s when Scampy lost it. That’s how I got fired.

  “Well?” Em demands.

  “Nothing. I didn’t say a thing.”

  Em sniffs and tosses her head. “Fine. Be like that. Scampy will tell me.”

  She marches off, leaving me to sweep up the mess of spilled grain.

  How can it be that my day is already going so badly? It isn’t even 5:00 AM!

  I fetch a broom and start sweeping. The short conversation with Scampy and the longer one with Em repeat in my head.

  “So the old man gave you the boot?” Tony Harper, Scampy’s other groom, shows up as I sweep up the last of the grain.

  “Word travels fast,” I say.

  Tony folds his beefy arms across his chest. “I heard Scampy talking to Em outside the barn. Want some advice?”

  I don’t. Tony gives me some anyway. “You’re a good rider, Spencer. And people know you’re a good worker; they like it when you help out.”

  I sense there’s a but coming.

  “But you have to learn when to keep your mouth shut and your nose out of other people’s business.”

  Tony reaches out to give my shoulder a squeeze. His hand rests there a little longer than it needs to. When he squeezes, it hurts. I’m careful not to let anything show in my face. Tony doesn’t need to know that he creeps me out. He doesn’t need to know how ticked off I am. Or how worried.

  Word does travel fast here in the barns at Hilltop Racetrack. Most people never see the backside of the track. It’s like a world of its own. The last thing I need is to get a reputation as a troublemaker in this tight community.

  I force myself to smile. “Thanks, Tony. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You do that,” he says as he releases his grip on my shoulder. It feels more like he just gave me a warning than a friendly piece of advice.

  After I finish cleaning up the grain spill, I figure it’s best if I leave. I hop on my bike and start for home. The ride only takes six and a half minutes, but I’m not even halfway there when my cell phone rings.

  “Get your ass back here.”

  “Scampy?”

  “Who else would it be? You’re late for work.”

  “Does this mean I’m un-fired?”

  “You’re on probation.”

  That’s all he says. No apology. No explanation. Then the line goes dead.

  Getting un-fired makes me almost as mad as getting fired. Who does he think he is? I nearly keep on pedaling.

  What makes me turn the bike around is the horses. The riding. The races. And, if I’m really honest, Em.

  I might love the track, but I make a promise to myself as I pedal up to Scampy’s shedrow. If he is doing something illegal with Lord of the Fires, I’m going to find out what it is. Then he’ll be sorry for firing me—and even sorrier he hired me back.

  chapter two

  I hiss at Chiquita Manana and crouch low over her neck. The three-year-old filly kicks into another gear. All the tension I felt back at the barn evaporates as we speed up. We hug the rail and shoot past the crowd of trainers watching their horses run
in the soft misty glow of the early morning workout. The filly’s breath comes in short punches, timed exactly with the thud-thud-thud of each big stride.

  The beat of the Thoroughbred’s hooves drives my heart rate through the roof. There’s nothing quite like the lift and thrust of a thousand pounds of muscle pulsing beneath me.

  Chiquita doesn’t need much encouragement. My hands move back and forth on either side of her neck. I’m in perfect rhythm with the galloping horse. We move easily around the final turn, and I let her go.

  We flash past Scampy’s red and black jacket. I can’t see the stopwatch in his hand, but I know it’s there. I gasp for breath as if I’ve just finished a fast workout myself. Easing back a touch, I let the big chestnut filly know it’s time to slow down.

  The horse’s neck is slick and dark with sweat. She pulls against me. She wants to keep running. I guide her away from the rail, still moving at a healthy clip. She tosses her head, fussing, when I suggest she slows.

  We communicate through muscle and tendon and bone. From hand to leather reins to bit to mouth and back again. Human to horse, horse to human. Our conversation lasts halfway around the track. Finally I insist it’s time to steady and slow. Chiquita insists she’d rather keep playing than head back to the barn.

  I know what she means. It’s 7:30 AM, and despite all that’s happened this morning, I’m not looking forward to the end of my shift. Leaving the track means I have to start my day all over again with morning classes at Reston High.

  “Not bad, not bad,” Scampy says, meeting us at the gate. As usual, one cheek bulges with grape bubblegum. “Damn, she’s a nice-moving filly. How’d she feel?”

  Scampy has been like this ever since I got back to the barn. It’s like nothing happened. Would it have killed him to apologize? Or does he think being nice will convince me he didn’t do anything wrong?

  Chiquita dances lightly beneath me, her neck arched, feet barely touching the ground. She’s still excited, breathing hard.

  Well, two can play at being nice.

  “She felt good,” I say. “Fast. Strong. She’s a good filly.”

  Scampy has a chew on his wad of gum and then shifts the bulge to his other cheek.

  “Em’s waiting inside with Caravaggio. Nice and slow for him. He’s racing two weeks from Sunday—and he’s been going good. Then I’ll get you to do Big Bad Billy. Same as yesterday. Then you’re good to go. You don’t want to be late for school, do you?”

  He slaps Chiquita’s backside a bit harder than he needs to. She squirts forward into a jog.

  Back in the barn, I slide off Chiquita and hand her off to Em. Tony gives me a leg up on Caravaggio. I avoid Tony’s eyes and resist the urge to wipe my knee where he touched me. Caravaggio is already moving off along the shedrow while I find my stirrups, organize my reins and get settled for another gallop, my seventh this morning.

  I reach forward and run my knuckles along Caravaggio’s neck. My back and shoulders ache, and there’s a spot on the inside of my left knee that’s rubbed raw. I’ve been fired and un-fired and almost had a fight with Em. Yeah, it’s tough some days at the track, but there’s no place I’d rather be.

  chapter three

  On Saturday, Grandma nearly scares the crap out of me when she pops her head into my room before I’m even awake and asks, “Who do you like better in the third? Cinnamon Puff, Whoyourdaddy or Spideylegs?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Just after four. I didn’t hear any noise in here. I thought you might have overslept.”

  “Thanks. I was just waking up.”

  I roll over and stretch. “I like Cinnamon Puff. She blew past me a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Thank you, love.”

  The door closes softly behind her. I pull the covers back over my head for another few minutes. It’s still dark. Normal teenagers are barely getting into bed after a Friday night of hard partying. And me? It’s four in the morning and I’m giving my grandmother hot tips for today’s races!

  When I drag myself down into the kitchen, Grandma’s got a pot of coffee on and the race program printed out from the computer. It’s already marked up with her secret code. She highlights horses she likes in yellow, underlines jockeys who are winning with red and puts a big black X beside a horse or rider she really doesn’t like.

  There’s at least one race each day she leaves up to Lady Luck. That one she marks in green and always bets on the number seven, no matter who’s riding what horse. She’s been playing her system for a thousand years.

  “What do you think of Majestic Ensign?”

  I pull a face, and Grandma puts a black X beside Majestic Ensign’s name.

  I pour a little coffee into my thermos, slap PB&J on some bread and shrug into my jacket. “Good luck at the races!” I yell over my shoulder as I jog out the door.

  The bike ride to the track takes just enough time to get me warmed up and fully awake. I wonder sometimes how things would have been different if Grandma’s house had been on the other side of town, away from the track. As it is, my earliest memories are of my mom dropping me off at Grandma’s for weekend visits.

  Grandma and I used to head straight for the track to watch the races. It was especially exciting on days when my dad had horses running. Even before the accident, Mom rarely came with us. After the accident, nobody could even say the word track without Mom losing it.

  In the past few years, Mom and Grandma have had some unbelievable fights about the place that cannot be named. They almost always ended with my mom screaming, “How can you do this to me? Don’t put me through that again!”

  I know my mom has good reasons to hate the track. At some point, though, she needs to realize I am not my dad. What happened to him won’t happen to me.

  I can’t think about the accident, even though it happened six years ago. If I do, it makes me want to puke. That’s not how I like to remember my dad. It’s bad enough that the accident haunts my nightmares. I don’t need it to ruin the daytime too. That’s what happens when you dwell on the past. Too bad Mom doesn’t see things that way.

  Things got really bad the summer I turned twelve, two years after the accident. I was staying at Grandma’s one weekend, and she made some comment about how wrong it was for Mom to let her boyfriend sleep over. It sort of slipped out just as we were finishing ice-cream cones at the park. That part wasn’t so strange, I guess. Grandma has always worried about Mom. My reaction, though, was definitely off the wall.

  I started bawling. Blubbering like a baby. When Grandma asked what was wrong, the words gushed out. I couldn’t stop them. I told her how miserable Mom was, how many days she stayed in her bedroom with the door locked. I told Grandma how I found empty liquor bottles under the couch and hidden under the newspapers in the recycling bin, and how Mom made me call her work to say she was too sick to come in.

  I even showed her the bruises on my arm where Mom had grabbed me.

  Through it all, Grandma just listened. When I was done, she said, “I think you need a place of your own to go.”

  “Like a tree house?”

  “A tree house? You’re a bit old for that, aren’t you?”

  Grandma had something quite different planned. “You need somewhere you can go and hang out and make yourself useful. Somewhere away from your mother. Somewhere away from me. Somewhere to be yourself.” The next thing I knew, we were at the security gate leading to the backside of the track, where all the barns are. Grandma asked for Little Joe.

  Little Joe (no relation to Big Joe, who’s just a big jerk) is the trainer who gave me my first job as a hot walker. Grandma fudged my age a little. And she agreed that we didn’t need to tell Mom right away, at least not while she was going through such a rough patch.

  The new job worked out well for a while. I earned a little pocket money on weekends when I stayed with Grandma. Lots of the people I met had known my dad, and somehow that made him seem closer. Grandma was happy. She had someone on the backside to give h
er tips about which horses were sore, which horses were training well, what the trainers were saying in the barn aisles. It was a great setup.

  Until Mom found out. She screamed and swore and slammed me against the kitchen doorframe.

  “How could you do this to me?” she yelled, throwing me sideways. “You don’t care what I think! You ungrateful—” Mom grabbed the coffeepot off the counter and flung it at me. The glass pot hit the floor and shattered. Hot coffee spattered everywhere, stinging my skin where it splashed on my arms. Gary, the guy she was dating at the time, stepped in. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, but could barely hold her back.

  “Get out!” he said to me, jabbing his chin in the direction of the door. “Go!”

  I headed for Grandma’s. Where else was I going to go?

  That was three years ago, two weeks after my thirteenth birthday. I haven’t lived with my mom since.

  When I first moved in, Grandma thought maybe we’d made a mistake getting me a job at the track. But I’d say it was the best idea Grandma has ever had. I did need a place of my own to go, somewhere away from Mom and her booze and her boyfriends. The only time I see Mom is when she has a parenting moment and shows up at Grandma’s. Christmas, my birthday and Thanksgiving usually mean a visit. So does a phone call from my school. That’s why I actually show up there on most days. I sure don’t go because I like the place.

  Living with Grandma is a good arrangement. As long as I more or less keep out of trouble and keep feeding her tips, we get along great. So far, we’ve never had an awkward hole in a conversation. As long as the Thoroughbreds are running at Hilltop Racetrack, I don’t suppose we ever will.

  chapter four

  “Hey, Em,” I say. “Where’s Scampy?”

  Ever since the firing incident, I like to keep track of Scampy. I try to get an idea of how his day is going before I talk to him. We have a truce. I don’t say anything he could take the wrong way. He doesn’t pick on me any more than he picks on anyone else. I know something is going on with Lordy. I keep my eyes open and my thoughts to myself.