Nothing But Horses (4 page)

“Because you’re smart.” I shuddered and kept
brushing the left side of my horse. “It was awful. At Stewart
Falls, everybody dresses alike and walks in the halls like robots.
There’s no yelling or loud talking during passing periods. The
teachers stand outside their classroom doors and spy on them. If
the kids screw up, they get demerits and then they have Saturday
school. I watched this seminar in an English class and the students
led the entire discussion about
The Taming of the Shrew
. We
haven’t even read Shakespeare yet and they’ve almost finished the
play. Nobody was off task.”

“Sounds good to me,” Grandpa said, “lots of
discipline. What about Centennial?”

“No individuality there either. I asked the
headmaster what happened if someone wore a different colored blouse
or pants and he said the secretary called their parents to come get
them. Depending on how many demerits the kid had, they could end up
in—”

“Saturday school too,” Grandpa finished.

“Exactly. I appreciate what you and Grandma
tried to do, but I’m not going to either place. My school totally
sucks, but at least I can wear what I want. I’m not a slacker in
class, but nobody wants me to be able to discuss the characters,
theme and conflict in
The Count of Monte Cristo
for an
entire hour which is what Sophomore English had to do at
Centennial. I saw the plan on the whiteboard.”

“Have you read it?” Grandpa asked.

“No way. We don’t do Dumas at my school until
next year. If they’re that far ahead of me, I’d be like one of the
dumbest kids there.” I shook my head again. “I’m not going to
Centennial.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Lincoln High with my friends. It’s a private
school too, but it’s not like Stewart Falls or Centennial.”

“Okay, then let’s go for a ride, Sierra.”

“All right. I just need a few more minutes to
saddle up.”

“In the car, my dear granddaughter, in the
car.” Laughing, he left the barn.

I put away my gear and went to clean up. I
met Grandpa at the Subaru and he tossed me the keys. “What’s going
on?”

“You drive,” Grandpa said. “You know where
we’re going and I don’t.”

“Okay, where are we going?”

“Lincoln High, of course.”

“Oh yeah, I should definitely have known.” I
got into the driver’s seat. It took a few minutes to adjust the
seat and mirrors. “Why are we going there?”

“Because Stewart Falls Academy and Centennial
Middle-High only offered you partial scholarships to play
basketball for them,” Grandpa said. “Now, we go do some
fast-talking and see if we can get Lincoln to match or surpass the
deal.”

“Are you crazy? Why would they do that?”

“Because you’re talking to the slickest
horse-trader in these parts,” Grandpa said. “I may be retired, but
I can still sell more bang for your buck than most fellas. You get
us there and I’ll do the gabbing.”

* * * *

“Okay,” Mom gave me and Grandpa a stern look.
“Where did you two disappear to this afternoon? You didn’t leave a
note. What mischief did you get into? And don’t tell me that you
just went on a KFC run.”

Grandpa folded his arms and tried to look
stern. “I will have you know that I’m the man of the family and I
can do what I want.”

“What he said,” I added, before I returned to
setting the table for dinner. “Yell at him, not me. I’m the kid.
He’s the adult.”

“You’re hanging me out to dry here, Sierra
Morn.” Grandpa winked at Mom. “We decided to go check out Lincoln
High down in Marysville. Sierra wants to go to school with her
friends and I wanted to see what it would take to make that
happen.”

“What will it take?” Mom asked, serving up
portions of the Colonel’s coleslaw. “And how will she get there?
She can take the bus to Stewart Falls Academy, or Centennial.”

I couldn’t wait any longer. “Lincoln offered
me a full basketball scholarship.”

“What?” Mom dropped the spoon on the plate.
She grabbed me in a warm hug. “Honey, that’s wonderful. How on
earth did you arrange it?”

“Not me. Grandpa did it. He and Principal
Gallagher had a total meeting of the minds. They got along
great.”

Mom hugged me again, then hugged Grandpa.
“Okay, now share all the details. When does she start? What are the
hours?”

“We’ll wait a little bit for your mom and
Autumn,” Grandpa said. “If Sierra’s happy, then your momma can’t
whack me upside the head.”

“She won’t anyway,” Mom said. “Stewart Falls
and Centennial are both impressive, but like Mom said, those kids
were intimidating. She didn’t think Sierra would feel comfortable
at either school.”

“She didn’t tell me that.” I stared at my
mother. “I thought her mind was made up.”

“It was until she saw the two campuses,” Mom
said. “We’ll have to take her down to Marysville to visit Lincoln
High. Now, what does the school look like? Do the students wear
uniforms? Tell me what you can while we put dinner on the
table.”

After supper, I called Vicky and Robin. They
were majorly thrilled when they heard I was coming to their school.
I’d start right after winter break when their new semester began.
It would take some juggling for me to meet Robin every day, but she
said I could carpool with her to school. I liked both of her
parents and if I gave her dad money for gas, he’d be totally cool
with one more girl in the car. Robin told me if I played my cards
right, he’d even pay for my morning mocha the way he did hers and
Vicky’s.

Since it was a half-day tomorrow, they
promised to come out to the barn and then they could help me choose
my classes from the schedule Principal Gallagher gave me. When I
finished talking to them, I headed back to the kitchen. I found
Grandma making fudge while Mom and Autumn frosted cookies. Grandpa
was in charge of sprinkles.

“Vicky and Robin are majorly thrilled,” I
said. “We’re going to have so much fun at Lincoln. If you want to
see the school, Grandma, we’ve got to go early.”

“I can do early,” Grandma said. “We’ll get
you out of Mount Pilchuck and enroll you in Lincoln High in the
morning. Then, we can go out for brunch and go shopping.”

“Okay, but we’ll have students here about two
in the afternoon,” I said, “so we have to be back to make
money.”

“A girl after my own heart,” Grandpa
announced. “She knows the hay-dealer comes first.”

* * * *

I was grooming Nevada when Robin and Vicky
arrived the next afternoon. After a pause to feed carrots to Prince
Charming, Robin arrived at my horse’s door. Three treats later, she
said, “Okay, tell us all. What happened? How did you manage to get
to Lincoln from S.F.A. and Centennial? This is amazing.”

“Grandpa,” I said. “I wasn’t happy with what
I saw at the other schools. He listened and then we went to
Lincoln. He convinced Principal Gallagher that I was the greatest
basketball player in the universe and I would be an asset to your
team.”

“You will be,” Vicky said, “no worries there.
This is going to be so much fun.”

“We’ll be together for the next two and a
half years,” Robin said. “Then, we can figure out which college we
want to attend.”

“I’m just happy to be at your high school,” I
said, grinning at them. “Now, if you get your horses together, we
can ride for a while before we have to do chores.”

“I’m on it,” Robin said. “Help me put
together Charming, and then I’ll help you with Aladdin, Vick.”

“Works for me,” Vicky said and they headed
off to the tack-room.

In slightly more than a half hour we were in
the indoor arena. We worked our horses on the ground so they could
see there weren’t any monsters in the ring. Then, I checked their
gear and they mounted up. Aladdin played ‘follow the leader’ with
us. He could walk behind our horses. I kept the pace down because I
didn’t want him to spook and drop Vicky again. It didn’t mean we
couldn’t do a lot of activities, we could and we did.

We practiced all four of the walks, beginning
with the medium, then up to the extended, onto the free and down to
the collected. We did serpentines, spirals and circles before we
began patterns and transitions between the four-point halt, backing
and more walking. After that, we rode without hands, dropping the
reins on our horses’ necks. We did Cowgirl and Cowboy jumping jacks
at all of the walks too. Wow, we were all that and the proverbial
bucket of carrots.

Grandpa made it down to the ring and watched
us from the bleacher area. He asked Vicky about how she trained
Aladdin and who was next on her list. Since he remembered how the
Arabian felt about guys, my grandfather didn’t come into the arena.
He just sat on the benches and talked over the wall to us. When
Vicky was ready for a break, she pulled into the center and waited
while Robin and I increased our speed and trotted our horses. After
a bit, Robin parked Charming next to Aladdin

Since Nevada was focused today, I asked for
and got a perfect show-ring lope. We cantered both directions and
then called it a day. Grandpa told me that if I worked him for
enough hours each day, my big red gelding might do well in the
show-ring. Of course if I didn’t, then my horse was ready for a
semi-permanent vacation.

My huge Belgian-Morgan-Quarterhorse cross
would turn 15 in less than two weeks. Like every other year, I’d
see to it that we had carrot cake in the house while he got five
pounds of carrots in his manger. Nevada was born on New Year’s Day
when I was two, and we grew up together. Mom swore that I called
him, ‘No-No, Veda,’ when I helped her train him as a foal and the
name stuck. I demanded to be the first person on his back when he
turned three.

At five, I was even more stubborn than Autumn
ever thought of being. Nevada may have pulled the typical colt
tricks with my mother in the saddle, but he was an angel with me.
Even if I got mad at him sometimes, I never thought of letting him
leave Shamrock Stable. He was mine, and I was his. And that was
life, as we knew it.

Grandpa offered to help Vicky while she
unsaddled and groomed Aladdin. I told him that it might not be a
great idea since the bay Arabian had gender bias, but Vicky said it
would be good for him to have a guy around. The two of them went
off to the horse’s stall. As he passed me, Grandpa promised he
would be careful so Mom didn’t freak out.

Once we took care of the horses, it was time
to move onto chores. Robin and I cleaned the top barn. We watered
and fed. We headed down to the arena barn when we finished and met
Vicky and Grandpa on their way up to the office. He grinned at us.
“We beat you.”

“No way,” I said. “It was a tie. If Vicky
hadn’t helped you, we’d have kicked your butt.”

He chuckled and mimed a slap at the back of
my helmet, but it didn’t connect. “See what I have to put up with,
a disrespectful granddaughter.”

“That’s terrible, after you got her into our
school,” Robin said. “You should make her clean stalls with a
teaspoon.”

“I like this girl.” Grandpa told me. “I think
I’ll take her back to Arizona with us.”

“Only if you give her a ’68 Mustang,” I said.
“She has her standards.”

We continued to mess with each other while
Robin and Vicky filled out their time cards and filed them in the
appropriate folders. After they promised to be in on Saturday to
practice for the Christmas party, they strolled down to the parking
lot to meet Jack. Once they were gone, I realized we hadn’t looked
at my schedule to figure out what classes I should take.

There was only one thing to do. I needed to
arrange a sleepover. I tracked down Mom and asked her if I could
invite them to spend Saturday night with me. She agreed, provided I
looked after Autumn. She and Dave were taking Grandma and Grandpa
out for dinner.

I blinked and tried not to stare at her. “No
way. You mean you were serious when you told Meredith that you
intended to date the guy?”

“Hey, you’re the one who said you liked him
and invited him for Christmas,” Mom retorted. “Now, let’s go put on
supper.”

“How does Grandpa feel about going out for
dinner tomorrow?” I asked.

“Considering he keeps lecturing me that I
need a man to take care of me, he deserves this,” Mom said. “I
figure one of two things will happen. One, he’ll like Dave and get
off my back. Two, he’ll hate Dave and while Dad worries that I
might marry again, he’ll also get off my back.”

“Good point.” I followed my petite,
red-haired mother to the kitchen. She’d actually cooked a regular
meal tonight, baked chicken, brown rice and a huge salad. Dessert
would be a Marie Callendar Dutch apple pie with ice-cream. Okay, so
we hadn’t gone over to the dark side and opted for total
domesticity, but the barn was super-duper clean.

* * * *

Shamrock Stable, Washington

Saturday, December
21
^st
, 5:15 pm

Chores were finished and the Saturday
students were long gone. Only my friends spending the night had
stayed. Robin, Dani, Vicky and I were in the middle of decorating
Nevada’s stall door when Queenie woofed. I glanced at the barn
entry in time to see her dash up to greet Dave. He leaned down to
pet the collie mix. He wore regular clothes, jeans, a western shirt
under a jacket, not his cop uniform.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you looking for Mom?
She’s at the house.”

“Okay.” He eyed my horse’s door. “So, what’s
your theme?”

“A winter wonderland,” I said, pointing to
the blue holiday paper with its snowflakes we’d used as a
background. “I have to get this done because the party is
tomorrow.”

“Nothing like leaving it to the last minute,”
Vicky told me again.

I sighed and introduced them to Dave. “You
know Robin because you always check out her horse. Twaziem is
looking good. We’ll be working him a lot over Christmas break. This
is Vicky.”