Wild Girl (8 page)

But then the time was up. I held the book to my chest when the librarian reached for it.

It was so hard to let it go. It was almost as if I’d sat in the library at home in Jales. But after I handed it to him, I watched to see where he put it. I wanted to be able to find it again.

We walked back to the classroom, and all the while I was thinking.

Suddenly I knew what Wild Girl needed.

A cat. A friend.

And I knew just where to find one.

I could imagine Wild Girl changing, becoming feisty, happy. Just as exciting, I thought of what Pai would say when he saw what had happened.

I hugged the thought of it to myself for the rest of the school day. A cat, of course. It was so easy, so perfect, I couldn’t stop smiling.

The sun beamed through the window over the filly’s head
.

She ate the warm mash from her pail, raising one hoof and then the other. Then she poked her head over the half door of her stall …

And waited
.

Would the creature come again? The one with the thick mane of hair, the one who weighed almost nothing on her back?

The filly’s ears pricked forward, listening for the sound of those quick footsteps
.

Waited
.

I sat on the floor in my room, my head back against the wall, trying to keep my eyes open. I had to be sure Pai and Rafael were asleep. Bringing the cat to Wild Girl had to be a surprise.

I thought I’d never hear them come upstairs. We’d all sat in the kitchen, talking until long after bedtime about Rafael’s first race and how Doce would run. I’d finally said goodnight, trying to give them the idea it was time to sleep.

When everything was quiet at last, I slipped out of the bedroom and tiptoed down the hall. I stopped at the small lighted lamp on the table to look at the painting of the horse and jockey. I rubbed my bare foot against my leg, pretending I was the jockey racing my horse to the finish line. I thought
again of Rafael’s first race tomorrow, how hard he was working. He was out on the exercise track every chance he had.

Downstairs, I rummaged through the cabinets, trying to decide what a cat might like for a midnight snack. Titia Luisa would have thought it was a terrible kitchen. There wasn’t enough food to keep a family of mice alive.

I remembered there was a little leftover fish from dinner in the refrigerator. It was dry and chewy; Rafael had cooked it to leather. I didn’t think the cat would complain, though.

I scooped up the fish plate and a few mushy vegetables, grabbed my jacket off the hook, my striped boots from the floor underneath, and went out the back door.

The lights threw misty beams across the barn roof and over the exercise track. How beautiful it was at night! I looked back at the windows; inside, there was just the faintest light from that hall lamp, but the outside walls, the door, and the steps were sharp and clear.

I took a breath. “Here, kitty,” I called, trying to keep my voice down.

The cat was nowhere to be seen. But the other day I had watched her go over the fence and into the small grove of trees out back. I crossed the track and opened the back gate. Under the outline of branches it was dark. Really dark. The ground was as mushy as the cooked vegetables; there was a thick layer of damp leaves from last year.

I’m not afraid
, I told myself.
I’m wild as a cat, wild as anything that could be creeping around
. I moved from one tree to the next, waving the plate with the fish in the air.

“Where are you?” I called. “Where have you gotten yourself?”

“I’m right here,” a voice said in my own Portuguese.

I dropped the fish and jumped back, banging into a tree trunk. A woman stood there in the dark, a big woman. Her hair was caught up in a mess of a topknot on her head, her hands on her hips.

The light was too dim for me to see her face, but her voice was loud. “What are you doing?” she said. Was her voice angry? Surprised?

No more surprised than I was.

I turned and scrambled through the gate, realizing that my lovely boot had come off my foot and was somewhere in the leaves behind me. But never mind the boot or the fish with its mushy vegetables, never mind the cat for now.

Halfway across the track, I looked back, but I didn’t see anyone. Maybe I’d dreamed it all. My hand went up to my chest, and I stood there, head down; I took deep breaths, trying to steady myself.

Half asleep
, I told myself. That was
all
it was.

I hesitated. Should I go back again to look for the cat and my boot?

I sighed. I’d have to wait until tomorrow. I’d do it in the daytime. I wasn’t as wild as I’d thought I was. I let myself back into the house and locked the door behind me, then took two peppermints from the kitchen drawer. I went upstairs with one in each cheek, sucking on them.

No wonder the horses liked them. The minty taste was calming.

“Is that you, Lidie?” Pai called from his bedroom, his voice sleepy.

I didn’t answer. Quickly I opened my door, slipped inside,
and closed it behind me. I waited before I moved, counting in my head to a hundred.

He didn’t call again, so I moved across the room. I took a quick look out the window. At first, I didn’t see anything. But there, on the fence, was the orange cat. I couldn’t believe it. Where had she come from?

I watched for another few minutes, but there was no one else outside. I dropped my jacket and the one boot on the floor, then climbed into bed.

I had no time to think about the cat or the dream woman in the forest. It was a busy day in school, with music and a play in the auditorium.

I left school the minute the dismissal bell rang and ran almost all the way to the track, feeling the warm sun on my head. Rafael would ride Doce in the ninth race!

I wore the same coral shirt I’d worn that day I’d flown from Brazil. “My favorite color,” I’d told Rafael this morning. “It will bring you luck; I know it will.”

“Not pink?” he said. “I thought it was pink. We talked Mrs. Januário into that color for the stable. I’ll be wearing pink silks.”

I suddenly realized he’d chosen it for me, and swallowed. “Pink,” I said. “Yes, of course. Pink, too.”

I ran past the stone pillars, waving my pass at the guard, and went straight to the paddock where the jockeys would mount. Stable hands were leading Doce into the area. Doce’s mane was carefully braided, his face mask and socks in matching pink.

Pai and Rafael walked along behind them, heads together, going over the things they’d talked about at dinner last night.

Rafael! He looked so different. I hardly knew him. A jockey. Splendid in his silks. Walking along as if he’d done this forever. And Pai! For the first time I saw him wearing a jacket and tie.

I crossed my fingers:
Let Rafael win, please let him come in first
. I waved, and he raised one finger to his helmet.

I thought of myself then. How would it be if I were the one entering the paddock area? I’d be the one up on Doce, watching his head turning from side to side.

When Rafael mounted Doce, I knew how I would feel: mouth dry, heart beating fast; telling myself I was going to win, had to win, that I wanted that more than anything.

Someday it would be me, I was sure of it. I’d make it happen. I’d work so hard, learning everything there was to know about horses and riding. In my mind was a picture of Tio Paulo rocking on the porch, telling me about his own first race years ago, then glancing at me:
And you were born to ride
.

Would Rafael win his first race? And someday, would I?

Rafael went past, up on Doce, his helmet low over his forehead. Then I hurried with Pai to our place in the grandstand, moving around knots of people. The stands were half empty because the race was late in the afternoon; it was easy
for our eyes to sweep across the track. And what I saw, next to our seats, what I could hardly believe I saw, was the woman with the topknot of hair from last night.

As we angled our way toward her, I heard the announcer’s deep voice:
“The horses are on the track.”

I turned to Pai, but he was watching for that first glimpse of Rafael as they loaded the horses into the gate.

I looked toward the gate and saw our first bit of luck. Rafael’s post position was number seven—not too close to the rail, where he’d be crushed in; not too far out, where he’d have to angle his way past the others.

Next to me was the woman, smiling a little. “A good position,” she said.

Pai leaned toward her. “Mrs. Januário,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re back, so glad you could see Rafael up on Doce.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “This is my daughter, this is Lidie.”

Mrs. Januário. The owner of the stable.

“A night creature, like me,” she said softly. Pai, glancing at the starting gate, didn’t seem to hear her. “I put your boot on the back step.”

I raised my shoulders helplessly and whispered a thank-you.

Pai glanced toward us. “Mrs. Januário came from São Paulo with her parents years ago.”

I nodded. So that was why she sounded like us.

Now I turned to the gate, my hands icy for Rafael. I tried not to think about what it would be like if Doce ran out of steam, if they trailed along behind that field of horses, or were boxed in where they couldn’t break out ahead of the
others. I crossed my fingers:
“Come in first,”
I whispered.
“Win.”

I didn’t have time for more than that quick worry. The bell rang, and the gates banged open. The horses were out, running, thundering toward us, a blur of bodies and legs and jockeys high up on their mounts. I kept my eye on that bit of pink: Rafael, helmet down, goggles down, one with Doce.

The lead horse was about a furlong ahead—maybe an eighth of a mile—and the others were bunched up behind him when three cut away and moved toward the lead horse.

I knew Rafael was holding Doce back. It was something Pai had said again this morning:
Don’t make your move until the final turn
. And Rafael was responding as if Pai’s thoughts and his were one.

Then it was time. Rafael asked Doce to go, and Doce responded instantly.

Everything was blurred for me as Doce reached the horses in front of him. It almost seemed as if he’d have to create his own space to move through them.

I found myself whispering,
“Anything can happen, anything—”

We jumped to our feet as one of the horses clipped the heels of another. The rider was thrown from his saddle!

The horse went diagonally across the track, slowing down the others. It gave Rafael enough room to squeeze through, around the horse, and around the rider, who had darted out of the way of the horses.

Fast, then. It was all so fast. I grasped Pai’s arm, my fingers digging into him, hardly realizing what I was doing,
yelling, “Rafi, Rafi!” as he closed the gap, passing the third horse, and the second.

He was so close behind the first, so close …

And then he was neck and neck with that first horse. Rafael was crouched down on Doce’s back, the reins tight as they crossed the finish line.

But who had won?

Next to me, Pai grasped the railing, and Mrs. Januário was yelling, “Doce, was it Doce?”

In the infield, the sign lighted up: PHOTO.

We waited; the crowd waited. Behind us, people were shouting.

Pai turned to me. “Inside, they’re looking at photos of the finish line. They’ll study them from every angle.” He tilted his head, his mouth not quite steady. “Ah, wouldn’t it be something if …”

He never finished. The answer was up on the board for us.

I began to cry. I was crying from the excitement, crying because I loved Rafael, crying because, by just a nose, he had won!

Mrs. Januário was shouting “Yes!” in her deep voice. Pai’s face was blurred by my tears. He grabbed my hand and we ran to be there, to see Rafael, his arm raised high over his head in a victory salute.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I thought about the orange cat. The rest of the afternoon had been one I’d always remember: Rafael, his helmet slung over one arm, filthy from the dirt of the track, grabbing us both to him, smiling, laughing.

I couldn’t stop crying. It was almost as if all the tears I’d saved up since the two of them had left Jales were seeping out of me.

Seeing Pai’s face, I wondered that I’d thought he had no feeling. He threw his arms around me, around Rafael, and we went out to dinner afterward to celebrate. Mrs. Januário came with us for pizza with sausages and onions, and a green salad as crisp as Titia Luisa’s. We toasted Rafael and Doce and talked together about the race, all of it, over and over.

They argued, laughing, over who would pay for dinner. Now that Doce had won, they’d all have a little money.

Mrs. Januário leaned toward me, her head next to mine. “Why were you …,” she began.

“I was looking for the cat.”

Her eyebrows went up. “I was, too. Poor thing out there without a decent meal.”

We smiled at each other.

“Horses and cats,” she said. “We have a lot in common.”

Today in school we had library again. I found my horse book on the shelf, and Liz and I paged through it together. I lingered over a photo of Seabiscuit with his friend, the trainer “Silent Tom” Smith, and thought about bringing the orange cat to Wild Girl.

The dismissal bell rang. I walked along the avenue toward home, waving to the man in the fruit store. His windows were lined with pots of daffodils, and shoots of green covered the tree branches across the street.

This afternoon I’d find the cat, even if I had to look for her until it was dark. I’d see the sudden spark in Wild Girl’s eyes, the beginning of a friendship that would change everything for her.

What would Pai say? He’d reach out to me, and I’d tell him about the book, about Native Dancer and his stray black cat.