Wild Thing (2 page)

The Arabian laid back her ears. I felt fear creep back into her muscles as Richard’s gelding pulled up beside us.

“Grab that wild animal!” the older man yelled, riding up beside Richard.

The man’s voice startled the mare. She whinnied, then reared once and bolted.

“Help!” Lizzy cried, as the mare headed straight for the ditch—Lizzy’s ditch.

“Lizzy, get down!” I yelled.

The mare never broke stride. She galloped to the ditch and sailed over it, clearing with two feet to spare, her white tail high as a flag.

“Great!” Richard muttered.

The other horses stirred, but looked as if they’d had enough fun for one day and were ready to be led and fed.

“I’ll take these on to the stable. You go after Wild Thing!” Richard shouted at the man, keeping the easy job for himself.

The man’s belly bounced over his saddle horn. His stirrups hung too short, so his legs doubled. He cursed, then took his anger out on his mount, kicking his heels into the docile Quarter Horse.

“You are
so
human,” I muttered.

The poor horse grunted and sprang like a Lipizzaner, then charged the ditch. But instead of taking it, he did a cattle-pony stop that nearly unseated his rider.

“What’s the matter with you?” the man shouted, scrambling to get his seat back. Jerking the reins and regaining his stirrups, he let his horse take the long way down the path.

“Who was that?” I asked, staring after the vanishing white mare.

“That?” Richard said, circling his horse behind the abandoned herd. “Craig Barnum. He does the horse auctions. He’s worthless—couldn’t even get this lot from the auction barn to our stable.”

“Not him,” I said, squinting for the faintest view of the gorgeous mare. “The Arabian. Who is she?”

“She’s a wild thing,” Richard said, spitting the words out. “Dad bought her at auction. He got stung though, if you ask me. That mare’s nothing but trouble.”

Lizzy crawled out of the ditch as Richard trotted off, rounding up the other auction horses.

“Winnie?” Lizzy called. “Coast clear?”

I kept staring at the spot on the horizon where I’d last seen the beautiful, white ghost horse. My photographic memory had snapped a shot, leaving the horse’s image seared into my brain.

“Winnie!” Lizzy shouted, coming to stand next to me. “What are you looking at?”

“The horse I’ve been dreaming about my whole life.”

It was the truth, even though I’d hardly made the connection before the words came out of my mouth. For as long as I could remember, when I’d closed my eyes, I’d been able to picture an Arabian—noble, white, wide-eyed—exactly like this one.

“What are you talking about?” Lizzy demanded.

“Lizzy,” I said, calling up my mind’s picture of the rearing Arabian, “I have to have that horse. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get her.”

“Yea!” Lizzy squealed. “Now
that
sounds like the old Winnie!”

I turned to look at my sister for the first time since I’d shoved her into the ditch. Mud-caked hair hung over her face.

“Lizzy, are you all right?” I brushed off her khaki shorts, expecting her to be mad at me.

Instead she grinned as she stared into her clasped hands.

“This is so cool, Winnie!” Lizzy exclaimed. “A king-size God thing!”

A king-size God thing.
Mom used to say that for everything from finding a robin’s egg to the smell of a horse or the sound of a train in the distance. When Mom said it, Dad would raise his eyebrows and grin at her or maybe squeeze her shoulder.

I tried to examine Lizzy’s skinned elbow, but she jerked it away.

“Careful! Wait ’til you see what I found! Right there in the ditch where you shoved me and the horse almost jumped in on top of me and trampled me to death.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“No! I never ever would have found it if you hadn’t pushed me face-first into that ditch!” she exclaimed. “I mean, there I was, mud squishing into my nose, dried ditch grass poking my eyes, herds of wild horses waiting to knock my block off if I so much as raised my chin!” Lizzy took a deep breath. “And that’s when I spied a patch of blue.”

“A patch of blue? Facedown in the ditch?” I asked, wondering if she’d hit her head.

“Yes!” Lizzy twirled, keeping her clasped hands in front of her. “A gorgeous, incredible, heavenly blue—which could only mean one thing!”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“The blue belly! Winnie, I found a blue-bellied fence lizard! What are the chances of that? I mean, how many spiny lizards are there in Ohio?”

“Seven?” I guessed.

“Winnie, I’m serious!” Lizzy insisted. “Okay, so it’s no skink or gecko. But we’re not in the desert or the tropics. So what do you expect, right? Fence lizards are tree climbers!”

I peered between Lizzy’s thumbs to see her prize. The lizard was chubbier than I expected, with a tail as long as its body, three or four inches. I couldn’t see the blue but had no real desire to.

“What are you going to do with it?” I asked, taking a step backward.

“Him,” she corrected.

I didn’t ask how she’d come by that information. “Okay. Him.”

“I’ll call him Larry,” Lizzy said dramatically. “And I’ll love him forever. And I’ll make a home for him.” She locked me in her stare. “So we
have
to stay here, Winnie! We just have to!” Lizzy glanced in the direction of the disappearing horses. “Only . . . are you sure about that horse? We could find you a nicer horse instead of that wild one.”

I could still smell the Arabian’s heat. “She’s not wild, Lizzy,” I said. “She just needs me to love her.”

We walked without talking—at least not to each other. Lizzy kept up a steady stream of chatter with Larry the blue-bellied lizard.

And I tried to talk to God.

I know we haven’t had much to say to each other lately,
I prayed.
Since Mom’s . . . well, you know . . . it’s tough to talk to you. So I’m sorry to be coming just because I want something. But I guess you already know—I want that Arabian. I want to love her. I want her more than anything in my whole life . . . except for wanting Mom back.

We turned onto our street, taking the broken sidewalk until it ran out. That’s where our rental house sits. Dad chose it because it was the last house in town, for real.

Our yard is a work-in-progress. That’s what Dad calls all the junk littering the grass, waiting for him to fix. He can fix anything if people will give him enough time and if he doesn’t get sidetracked by one of his inventions. People would never believe he used to wear a suit and tie and order people around 12 hours a day in a fancy insurance office.

Under a big oak tree, as if dropped from its branches, were spokes and gears and bike tires—all part of Dad’s latest invention—the backward bike. Behind the house sits an old barn in the middle of an overgrown pasture. Anybody passing by would think this is a junkyard.

Lizzy stepped through the opening in the low metal fence and stumbled over a spool of wire. She caught herself and widened her green eyes at me. “So you’ll talk to Dad? Tell him we refuse to move!”

“Me?” I protested. “Why me?”

“Because I’ve been saying it for two years, Winnie!” Lizzy shouted. “He’ll listen to you.”

I shook my head. “I’m the last person Dad would listen to, Lizzy. You ought to know that by now.” Since the accident, Dad had barely looked at me, much less listened to me. I didn’t blame him. It’s just the way things were now.

“Winifred Winnie Willis!” Lizzy exclaimed, pulling out all the stops. “You said you would do whatever it takes to make that wild horse yours!”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But I was thinking more along the lines of jumping out of a moving car or walking through fire or wrestling a barrelful of bears—something a little easier than talking to Dad.”

I hadn’t asked Dad for anything since the accident. When he sold the ranch, I didn’t ask to keep a single horse. When he sold off Mom’s saddles, I didn’t ask him to please save just one, just in case. Each time he’d announce we were moving again, I never whined like Lizzy did. I never even asked where we were moving.

Lizzy held her head so close to mine I could see myself in her eyes. “Well?”

I bit my lip and touched the tiny horseshoe scar just below my elbow—a reminder of the accident, as if I needed one.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll talk to Dad.”

“Sweet!” Lizzy did a skyrocket cheerleader cheer. But she came down on a sheet of metal Dad was using to repair somebody’s lawn mower. Losing her balance, she tilted backward. I grasped her wrist to keep her from falling. Her hands flew apart. The lizard slipped out into the yard, where it found a zillion places to hide.

“Larry!” Lizzy cried, dropping to her hands and knees.

I saw the lizard wiggle under a bike pump. “There he is!”

We bumped into each other reaching for him. Larry scooted under a pile of kindling, and the chase was on.

“Larry, come here!” Lizzy screamed.

We zigzagged across the yard, around the house, losing him, then spying him wriggling through the grass.

Then he was gone.

We turned over logs, looked inside an old milk can, shook bushes.

“Lizzy,” I said, sweat dripping from my forehead, “you’ll find another one. You can call him Larry II.”

Lizzy shot me a warning glare. Mom used to say Lizzy was her little Trakehner. Trakehner horses were ridden by knights because they’d go anywhere, do anything, and never say die. Lizzy would never say die until we found Larry.

“Come on,” I said. “Maybe he slithered his way into that old barn.”

In the three weeks we’d been in Ohio and called the rental house home, we’d never ventured into the faded brown-red barn. I shoved back the wooden door and stepped inside. Sunlight streaked the floor, beaming in through spaces between slats. Dust danced in the lasers like tiny bubbles in a waterfall.

We stood side by side, taking it all in. Against the far wall, hay bales were stacked to the ceiling. Stalls faced each other across a wide stallway, a middle aisle that ran the length of the barn. Through the dirt and dust I smelled old manure. I could almost see my white Arabian prancing around this barn. This is where I’d keep her.

“Larry?” Lizzy called timidly.

Something darted between bales.

Scritch . . . scritch scratch . . . scritch!

“Wh-what was that?” I asked.

Lizzy didn’t answer. We listened to more scurrying coming from some unseen world I’d just as soon not see.

“Lizzy,” I whispered, “do you think it’s rats?”

“Cats,” came the answer behind us, a male voice.

I swung around, my heart thumping. Lizzy had fists raised for battle.

We were facing a tall, thin kid who might not have been much older than me. He looked like people in old movies from the 60s or 70s, with long, wavy blond hair; gold, wire-rimmed glasses; blue-striped, flared jeans; and an orange-and-pink, tie-dyed shirt like we’d made in grade school.

“Cats,” he repeated quietly. “Not rats.”

I hadn’t even heard him creep in. “This is private property,” I warned, not smiling.

“Winnie!” Lizzy scolded. She whisked her hair back and twisted it into a ponytail that looked better than my hair does after 15 minutes of struggling with it. She stuck out her hand and shook his. “I’m Lizzy Willis.”

He nodded. “Catman, Catman Coolidge.”

I didn’t offer my name.

“This your twin?” he asked, tilting his head my way.

Lizzy giggled as if we hadn’t been asked that a thousand times. At least he hadn’t asked if I was the little sis, like some people do.

“This is Winnie,” Lizzy explained. “I’m 11 and she’s12.” She narrowed her eyes as she sized him up. “Bet you’re . . . 14? No . . . 13!”

“Right-on,” he answered.

“We’re looking for Larry, my lizard,” Lizzy continued. “Have you seen him? He’s seven inches long, with a blue band around his throat and blue on either side of his belly, and—”

“Looks like a snake with legs,” I said.

“Winnie!” Lizzy exclaimed. “Don’t mind my rude sister. Mother used to say Winnie is a Mustang. Those feisty horses that like to live by themselves in the mountains?”