Born That Way (5 page)

Stephanie sniggers then lies back on the bed and turns her back to me.

Later, when I'm home, I look it up.

My mother is out of her mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

I am lying on the horse's back, with my toes stretched down on either side of her tail, and my arms around her neck. The right side of my face is pressed into her neck and mane. She smells like nothing else on earth, all warm and fresh and sharp and musty all at the same time.

“How do you like the help we sent you?” asks the woman with the wavy blonde hair. She is standing beside me. She could catch me if I started to slide off, but I know that won't be necessary. I am solid as a rock on this horse . . . therefore . . . I must be . . . dreaming.

“Ahh,” I say. “Another lucid dream. Amazing.” I decide to take advantage of the situation and do something I would never do in real life. I straddle the horse, grab the mane, clamber onto my knees, then stand on her back, right behind her withers.

“That would be easier if you were standing on her rump,” says the woman.

And immediately I'm on the horse's rump, one foot near the base of her tail, the other six inches away. “This is amazing.”

“For a real thrill, she should be moving.”

“Giddy-up then.”

“Keep your knees soft and you'll be fine.”

And I am fine. I am a famous circus performer. If only I'd studied gymnastics a little bit longer I could have done some really fancy stuff, like somersaults and leaping splits, but for now, this is enough. It's a blast. Then I think about what the woman asked me, about the help they sent. It takes me a minute to understand. “You mean my cousins?” I'm losing my balance, I can't raise my arms to break my fall and—pop! I'm out of the dream and into my bed, lying on my stomach, face mashed into my pillow.

It's Monday, and my first day of gorilla marketing. My alarm hasn't gone off yet, and Mom and Dad aren't awake. I have a few minutes of privacy to phone Grandpa in Saskatchewan. There's a time difference, so I know he'll be up already.

“Hey, Pipsqueak. How are you?”

“Fine, Grandpa, how are you?”

“Old and creaky. What's new with you?”

“I'm calling about what you promised me when I was five.”

“Promised?”

I know that old people have memory problems but surely he hasn't forgotten something this important. I'm disappointed, but give him a reminder. “About how when I grow as tall as your shoulder you'll buy me a horse.”

There's silence on the line, then a throat-clearing noise. “Are you that tall already?”

“Well I don't know. I need you to measure yourself at the shoulder.”

“I can do that. Give me a minute here, I'll get out a tape measure.”

I hear him put the phone down and a minute later there's the rattling of a metal tape measure. Then he's back. “I put a book on my shoulder and made a mark under it on the kitchen door. It's five foot two inches.”

“Do you know what that is in metric, Grandpa?”

“Well, no, I don't, but you could figure that out.”

“And were you barefoot?”

“You can take off half an inch for my slippers. Actually, take off a whole inch.” He pauses so long I think the line has gone dead. “And then round it down to an even five feet. Or whatever that is in metric.”

“Thanks, Grandpa.”

“How old are you now, Pipsqueak?”

“I'm fourteen.”

“Right, of course you are, I knew that. What do your parents think of this plan? What time is it out there?”

“It's early. They're not up yet. They don't know. I tried to tell them a few times but they weren't very open to the idea.”

“I see.”

I don't know what to say. I know I'm being sneaky phoning Grandpa like this, and sneakiness is not a good quality, but from Stephanie's description, gorillas have to be sneaky.

“I think you should leave this to me,” says Grandpa. “Is today a school day?”

“It's Monday, Grandpa,” I say, then I think it sounds kind of mean, so I add, “Well, at least it's Monday out here. Maybe it's another day in Saskatchewan, because of the time difference?”

Grandpa laughs, then he says, “You go off to school. I'll give your mother a call later this morning and see what we can sort out.”

“Thanks, Grandpa.”

“No problem,” he says, then hangs up, just like that. No goodbye, no I love you Pipsqueak. But it doesn't matter. I know he does.

I go down into the basement to Dad's work bench and find his tape measure. Back in my room, I measure five feet against the edge of my door and mark it lightly with pencil. Then I remember Stephanie's advice about self-promotion, and I use a purple marker to trace over the pencil mark.

I put the Pony Club manual on top of my head and make it as level as possible, then back up to the door edge. I slide out from under the book and draw a line underneath it, lightly in pencil because I'm not sure how accurate it is. Then I examine the distance between the gray line of pencil and the stroke of purple.

There's a lot of space there.

I would measure it if this wasn't too discouraging. But I remember the help I'm receiving, from Stephanie and Taylor, from Grandpa and the lady with the wavy blonde hair. And Nickers of course. Thinking about Nickers always makes me feel better.

It's raining hard, so Mom doesn't want me riding my bike to school. Dad will drop me off on the way to his office.

They haven't noticed the purple mark on my door, which in a way is a relief because it means I'm not in trouble for drawing on the paint. But according to Stephanie I have to develop an obvious campaign as soon as possible. I leave my door half-open, hoping Mom will straighten it out and notice.

I decide to work on Dad on the way to school.

“I think I'm old enough for some additional responsibilities,” I say.

Dad glances at me, then puts his signal on to change lanes. “Go on,” he says.

“I'm thinking of getting a pet.”

“A pet.”

“So I can learn to be responsible and take care of something other than myself.”

“Pets are very time consuming. And expensive. Even if they're free initially, there's still food and vet bills.”

Stephanie had told me to expect resistance but not react to it.

“I was thinking of starting with something pretty simple.”

Dad sighs. “Like what?”

“A barnacle.”

“Barnacles are not pets. They're crustaceans.”

“Dad, anything can be a pet. Mom had a pet rock.”

“That was different, that was a fad from the seventies.”

“Well I think it's a good place for me to start. You don't even need to drive me, I can ride my bike to the beach and pick one up. Or maybe a few, so they won't be lonely.”

We have pulled into the drop-off zone at the school.

“I really wanted a kitten,” I say, “but I know it would trigger your allergies.”

I hop out of the car before he can say anything. He drives off and I turn to face the school grounds. And that's when I remember my new hair. I've been thinking so much about my horse campaign that I've completely forgotten the teasing I'm going to get about my hi-lights. And sure enough, within seconds there's Amber staring at me and laughing and she's about to say something when Logan Losino comes up behind her, grabs her backpack and runs off with it. She chases him, screaming she's going to kill him, so I am saved for a little while at least.

Dad is late picking me up after school and he feels so guilty that he says we can stop at the breakwater on the way home. He asks me if I really want a pet and I say yes. That's when his cell phone rings. Before he takes the call, he says, “All right but the minute it starts to smell it's going in the garbage.” I scramble down the beach and pick a rock with five barnacles on it, fill my water bottle with ocean water and head back to the car.

“Look, it's like a little family,” I tell Dad when he gets off his phone.

“I don't know what you're up to here, Shorty . . . ”

“I think tonight I'll Google barnacles to make sure I'm doing everything right.”

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel while he looks at me.

“Do you want to help me name them?”

He puts the car in gear. “No, I'll leave that completely up to you.”

Mom has a late patient and doesn't arrive home until six. I show her how I've set up the barnacle family in a Pyrex dish, one of the old ones where the lid had broken so we didn't use it much. Dad says he'll re-heat dinner if Mom and I want to Google barnacle care. This turns out to be a huge mistake. There's quite a description on one site about how long a barnacle penis is and how much effort male barnacles put into searching for the right mate. This is exactly the sort of metaphor Mom needs to launch into another puberty lecture. I would have thought she'd be too tired for this after a full day of work, and that barnacles of all things would be a safe topic. But maybe sex is everywhere. And maybe Mom is always going to want to save me from the peril of an unplanned pregnancy, no matter how tired she is. I'm only rescued from an extended lecture by Dad calling out to say that dinner is ready.

CHAPTER SIX

We are galloping again, so right away I know I'm dreaming. I'm catching on to this stuff really fast. Now the trick is to stay in the dream as long as possible before waking up.

The blonde woman is galloping on a grey horse right beside me. She's laughing and her hair is flying like the manes on the horses. She sits up a bit straighter and her horse slows down, and I notice my horse is now walking too.

“Wasn't that grand?” she asks.

“These dreams are the best.”

She looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Good for you, Sylvia. You're figuring this out.”

I smile at her. She is the first person to call me Sylvia without being angry. For everyone else it's always nicknames or Sylvie; they only say Sylvia when they're trying to make some point, like about my not tying skipping ropes around my neck.

“You're making some progress with your parents as well. I know it's not easy.”

“Sometimes I get mad at them,” I say. I've never said anything like this before and expect her to tell me I shouldn't be critical, but she doesn't.

“They are good people, but things have happened to them.”

“What things?”

“Oh, nothing terrible. Life stuff. And then they start believing things.”

“Like about puberty?”

She laughs. “Puberty, financial planning, family dynamics . . .” She checks her watch. “Oh-oh,” she says. “Time to go.”

And my alarm buzzes.

Mom hasn't noticed the purple mark on my door yet, and she hasn't said anything about Grandpa calling so I guess he forgot. I don't mind, I can work around these set-backs.

The money issue keeps coming up from Dad. I'm going to have to do something about it. I have $200 in my savings account, and don't know anything about money. Dad says you can use money to make money, which sounds pretty weird to me. I guess I have a lot to learn. I figure a good place to start is the market report on the radio, and then if I have any questions I can ask Dad to explain.

We're sitting having breakfast. The news is over, and the weather report, and they're just starting with something about the Dow-Jones Industrial Average when Mom turns to me and clears her throat and I have to hold up my hand and say, “Wait a minute, Mom, the stock report is on,” and I lean closer to the radio.

Mom blinks several times and looks at Dad who pats my head but of course doesn't say anything because he's listening too.

When the report is over (don't ask me what they said, I can't remember) Mom looks at Dad and says, “I told you, Mr. Hamlet.”

But Dad laughs and says, “Come on, Munchkin, I'll give you a ride to school.”

Which is great because it's still raining like crazy, and after school I'll need another jar of sea water for the barnacles.

Because of the weather a week goes by before I'm back on my bike and able to see Nickers on the way to school. Boy what a shock I get.

Nickers has two friends, a chestnut and a grey. And there are new fence posts lying on the ground beside all the rickety old fencing. And there are markers with plastic tags stuck in the high ground in the middle of the pasture.

Nickers remembers me though. She whinnies when she sees my bike and comes trotting to the gate. The other horses follow her, but she pins her ears at them and won't let them near me. She wants me all to herself, which makes me feel great. I feed her all my carrot sticks. I'm not going to ride her while those other horses are around, it's too dangerous and unpredictable. It's different from a dream, where nothing permanently bad can happen.

School is fine. Well, it's okay. Actually, it's kind of boring, and most of all I hate lunch because I don't know what to do with the other kids. I'd rather find a quiet place to read or stretch, but I know I'd look like a dork. And besides, in a way I want to figure it out, and I want to fit in, so maybe if I keep trying to hang out with all the teenage monster aliens, sooner or later I will know what to say or do. I wish it was like before Amber and Topaz moved here, when I didn't even have to do anything special and I was popular anyway.

Thank goodness I have my friend Nickers. I miss seeing her for a couple more days because the weather is bad and then I have a dentist appointment. When I finally resume my routine and stop for a visit on my way home from school there's a cement truck in her pasture and some men are pouring a foundation. I hang my bike helmet on the gatepost and watch for a while. The middle of a pasture seems like a pretty dumb place to build a house. The three horses are watching too, but pretending not to. They put their heads down for some grass, look up when they chew, then put their heads down again. I call Nickers but she either ignores me or can't hear me over the noise of the men and the cement truck.

There are deep ruts and puddles in the soil from where the cement truck went through the gate. The dirt smells fresh and sharp where the turf has been split. They should have waited until a dry spell. In summer the ground is as hard as rock.

I'm standing there, staring at the ruts and feeling sad because life is changing around me. I can't see how I can possibly ever ride Nickers again, partly because it will be too scary to ride her when other horses are running loose in the field, and also because if there's a house in the middle of her pasture people will be watching all the time. Plus I have to face the fact that Nickers isn't an abandoned lonely horse any more. She has horse friends now and if the new fencing is any indication, someone is looking after her. She won't need me any more. I've been silly thinking I could ride her and make her my own. Probably all my plans are silly, there's no point in campaigning, I can't count on Grandpa because he's losing his memory, my parents are set against me—nothing is going right and nothing will ever go right. My life is over, I'll never own a horse, all I'll ever have is barnacles.

And that's when a pickup truck pulls in beside me and everything changes right back again. It's like I had a life, then I didn't have a life, and all of a sudden I have a life again. Because there's a girl driving the truck and she opens the door and slides out and right away, even though it's totally impossible, even though I've never met her before, I recognize her wavy ash-blonde hair. I stare at her, waiting for her to say something because when she talks I'll know whether it's really her, the girl from my dreams, I know I'll recognize her voice, so I stand there with my mouth wide open.

“Hey,” she says.

It's her. I don't know what to say. What could I possibly say? But she doesn't seem to notice that I've been struck dumb as a fencepost. She leans on the gate beside me and checks out the horses, then watches the guys at the cement truck for a while, then studies the horses some more and finally turns to me. My heart is pounding so hard and fast I'm sure she can hear it, because this is too weird, that someone I have dreamt about could appear before me in real life. And so I start to doubt myself because really this can't be happening but she's smiling at me with the same friendly look I know so well and then she says something that totally confirms that she's the same person I've been dreaming about. “Hey,” she says like a private joke between the two of us, “nice hi-lights.”

And it feels so normal that I relax a little and force myself to lean on the fence beside her, like I'm just hanging out with my best buddy. “Well, yeah,” I say. “My mom made me. I'm not really into it.”

“You into horses?”

I nod. It's too much to say out loud.

“Me too,” she says. She looks like she's into horses, but not because of her clothes. She's wearing faded jeans and rubber boots and a man's jacket that's tattered at the cuffs. I know it's a man's jacket because the name “Ted” is embroidered on the chest and below that it says “Valley Fastball Champs 2005”. So I can't say exactly why she's so obviously a horse person. There's just something. And basically she looks wonderful, even better than in my dreams, and I can hardly take my eyes off her except that staring is so rude.

And she doesn't seem to care anyway. She grabs her long hair in her right hand and with her left hand fishes an elastic band out of the pocket of her blue jeans and uses it to bind her hair behind her neck. I like her even more because it's not a sparkly little pink elastic with butterflies on the end, it's one of those thick blue ones that comes wrapped around bunches of broccoli. “Live around here?” she asks.

I know all the rules about talking to strangers, but I don't think they apply to girls who ride horses. We're part of the same tribe.

“Yes, I'm over on Willow Crescent. In the subdivision.”

“I don't suppose you're sixteen?”

I know she's kidding. Something else we have in common. Bliss. “Not quite. I'm fourteen. I'll be fifteen at my next birthday.”

“Oh.” She looks surprised, but only for a second. I don't blame her. I know I don't look fourteen. But at least she doesn't make a big deal of it. “I'm looking to hire someone to pick paddocks,” she says.

She's treating me like an adult. I want to hug her, but I know that right now it's more important to act business-like. “What exactly is
picking paddocks?
”

“You put horse poop in a wheel barrow and take it to the manure pile for composting. We have to do it for parasite control.” She sees my confused look. “Horses get internal parasites—worms—and they infect the fields unless the manure is picked up.”

“Oh,” I say, thinking about it. “I could do that.”

“You're not very big. You look like you could blow away in a strong wind.”

“Yeah, but I'm strong. They said so at gymnastics.”

“You do gymnastics?”

“Once.”

“I can't pay much. I could pay you with riding lessons when I get the ring put in, after the barn is finished.”

“That's a barn?” Of course it's a barn. I should have known that. “Where are you going to live?”

“In a trailer for now. I'll park it behind the barn.”

I like her more and more. Anyone who would build their barn before they build their house is my kind of person.

“I think Nickers will like having a barn,” I say.

“Nickers?”

“The bay mare,” I say. I love saying it. The bay mare. Offhand, exactly like a horse person, as if I say it all the time.

“Ah. I see.” For a minute she looks like she's going to tell me something, she has that adult lecturing look, but then it passes. “My name's Kansas—like the state,” she says smiling.

“Coulda been worse, I guess. They could have called you Mississippi.”

“Or Rhode Island.”

I feel a giggle building up in me and squash it down. Really, I'm so happy to have found someone who not only likes horses but also jokes around like me that I figure if I started giggling I might never be able to stop. I tell her my name is Sylvia.

She nods. “I guess you'd need to get permission from your parents—about the job,” she says, but she doesn't sound sure.

“I can do that.”

“You wouldn't have to start for a couple of weeks. I need to harrow the field first to break up the old poop, and then build the paddocks for the other horses.”

“That's okay.” This gives me time to work things out with Mom and Dad, but really it's great, it will fit in perfectly with my gorilla marketing plan. Then it sinks in. “Other horses? How many?”

“I dunno exactly. I'm going to have a boarding stable. I don't know how many will come.”

A boarding stable. A place to keep my horse. If I didn't know better I'd think I was dreaming.