Wild Thing (6 page)

“Summer?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling.

“That’s the one,” I answered.

“She can’t do that,” he said.

“Well she did.”

“No. I mean, she
can’t
fire you . . . or anybody.
I
hire barn labor.” Richard put an arm around my shoulder.

I scowled at him until he removed it. “So she’ll tell your dad to fire me,” I said. “Same difference.”

“No way!” Richard insisted. “When it comes to Stable-Mart and the horses, Summer doesn’t tell Dad anything. It just starts a fight. Dad wants her to show English
and
Western, but she won’t do it. She loves decking out in her English riding habit, posting on that American Saddle Horse. If she shows Western, she’s afraid she’ll look like a cowboy. But Dad’s determined to get her into Western classes in the fall horse shows. Trust me. Summer’s not about to bring up horses
or
you with Dad.”

Hope tingled through me like electricity. “Don’t just say this stuff, Richard,” I warned.

He crossed his heart. “I promise! You’re not fired.”

“I’m not fired?” I repeated, letting it sink in.

He shook his head. “What would I do without my best mucker?”

I was practically his only mucker, and I knew it. Some ninth-grade guy came in on the weekends, but mostly I was it.

“So . . .” He started to put his hand on my shoulder, then jerked it back. “You’ll keep cleaning stalls. And you can help me catch Wild Thing when I need to?”

I’m back! Did you do this, God? If you did, thanks.

I stared out at the Arabian. The sun had set, leaving the mare a dark shadow under the oak tree.

“See you tomorrow,” I said.

“Great!” Richard said, walking off.

But I’d said it to the Arabian. “Good night, Wild Thing!”

I waited for her returning nicker, imagined it, prayed for it.

It didn’t come.

But I still had my job. True, Lizzy earned more babysitting than I did at hard labor in those stalls. I’d still need to get a second job to earn money to buy Wild Thing. But for the time being, I was grateful knowing I could still keep an eye on her.

That night after a great “Lizzy dinner” of tuna casserole and Waldorf salad, I dreamed of our ranch in Wyoming. The barns looked the same in memory snapshots that played even while I was asleep. But in my dream, the pastures were filled with hundreds of white Arabians.

In the morning I pulled on Levi’s and one of Lizzy’s clean T-shirts before the sun had time to rise. Still, I didn’t make it out before my sister. Her bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in.

I flipped on our light so I could dig under my bed. I’d managed to keep one thing of Mom’s through all our moves—a faded green saddle blanket. I pulled out my suitcase, opened it, and took out the blanket. Mom had loved riding bareback. But if she saddled up, she’d use this blanket. It still smelled like her old buckskin mare.

Sticking the blanket under my arm, I kicked my suitcase back under the bed with the rest of my stuff.

Even though I hadn’t unpacked my clothes, my dresser drawers hung open, making empty stairsteps. Blank walls backed my unmade bed. Stacks of books and horse magazines piled up everywhere, spilling into Lizzy’s space.

Lizzy’s side of our room looked like a page out of her teen magazines. Her clothes were folded in dresser drawers she never left open. Frilly pillow covers matched her blue bedspread and the poster of the world’s largest gecko lizard. Her wall held pictures in neat, blue frames.

Above the light switch, Lizzy had hung the two framed needlepoint projects she and Mom had done together days before the accident. Mom had used fancy crewelwork stitching and little threaded knots to outline her favorite verse from the Bible. Perfectly formed blue letters declared:

For your unfailing love is as high as the heavens.

Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

—Psalm 57:10

Next to Mom’s frame was the one Lizzy had attempted. It wasn’t half bad, considering she’d only been nine. Lizzy’s red stitches looked simple next to Mom’s.

The first part came right from the Bible. But Lizzy had gotten tired of the project and shortened the end of her verse:

God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty.

Jesus didn’t die for nothing!

Mom had laughed so hard when she’d read it, she’d almost choked. No amount of prodding could make Lizzy finish off the project by embroidering where the verse came from. I remembered, though, because Lizzy had left her Bible open with a red box around Romans 3:24. My mind had taken one of its long-lasting photos.

My stomach growled me into action. Dad’s bedroom was off the kitchen, and I heard him snoring as I poured myself grape juice. Lizzy must have fried sausage patties really early since they were totally cooled in the skillet. I took one, bit a mouthful, and headed outside with the blanket still under my arm.

The air felt cool, and a couple of stars were holding out in the black sky. I smelled asters and field mustard as I started down the porch steps. I could still see the two framed needlework verses in my head. Lizzy’s red letters pressed behind my eyelids:
God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty.

Right!
I thought.
Like my little sister has anything to feel guilty about. That’s
my
department.

“
Careful!” Lizzy called.

I’d stepped off the porch and nearly landed on her back.

She was squatted in the bushes below the porch.

“Lizzy!” I cried. “What are you—?”

“Look who’s back!” she whispered, pointing to the poplar tree next to the house.

I looked, but I couldn’t see anything.

“Larry!” she said, creeping to the tree. Her index finger moved to the bark and stroked something.

That’s when I saw her lizard. This time I could make out the blue ring on his neck.

“That’s amazing!” I said.

“I knew Larry would come back,” Lizzy explained, “especially if I tempted him with my homemade bug-burger.”

Bug-burger?
I spit out my mouthful of sausage. Suddenly it tasted like cockroaches.

“Lizzy!” I cried, spitting and choking. “How could you leave bug-burgers out on the stove?”

“These
are bug-burgers.” She held up a mound of bumpy brown that looked more like a big bug with mumps than a sausage patty.
“Those—”
she motioned with her head toward the house—“are sausage patties.”

“I knew that,” I said, wiping the corners of my mouth. My stomach still felt like bugs were crawling around inside.

Lizzy placed one of her burgers in the crook of a branch above her lizard. “Larry will bring his friends around. Wouldn’t that rock, Winnie?”

In Wyoming, Lizzy had had her own ranch—a lizard ranch. She’d lured so many lizards to her menagerie that our elementary school ran field trips there. In the few months we’d lived in Iowa, Lizzy had put together a bug farm.

“If anybody can round up lizards in Ohio, Lizzy, you’re the one,” I declared, pitching the rest of my sausage into the bushes.

“I almost forgot!” Lizzy exclaimed, turning her attention to a fist-sized hole she was digging with her bare hands just under the tree. I didn’t ask why. “Catman’s in the barn.”

My heart sped up, then slowed back down.
So what? What do I care? That kid is weird.

“Is Catman helping you with the lizard collection?” I asked, pretending to yawn.

“Nah,” Lizzy said. “I’ve decided, Winnie. You can have him.” She said it like we were divvying up marbles.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Catman,” she answered simply. “You can have Catman. Not that he isn’t the cutest guy since Illinois. Or was it Indiana? Remember Bryan in that school with the red clocks? I think that’s when we lived above the martial arts studio—”

“What
are
you talking about?” I interrupted.

“Catman! As cute as he is, he’s not my type.”

My sister, my
little
sister, had a
type?

“Elizabeth Priscilla Willis,” I began. At least Lizzy had the good sense to flinch when I pulled out her hated middle name. “You’re 11 years old! You can’t have a
type!
”

Lizzy smiled over her shoulder at me, as if she were 111 years old. “Winnie, Winnie . . . you have a lot to learn about male humans.”

I had a lot to learn about my
little
sister.

“I’m
so
outta here!” I said, grabbing the back bike and balancing the green horse blanket across the handlebars.

“I’ll tell Catman you said hello!” Lizzy shouted as I pedaled out to the street.

“Don’t you dare!” I shouted back.

Even Stable-Mart horses are easier to understand than humans! Arabians are my type. Morgans and Quarter Horses are my type. I can’t think of a horse that isn’t my type.

But boys? No idea.

My first morning glimpse of Wild Thing stopped my heart. She looked even more gorgeous in the morning light.

Thanks, God,
I prayed, as I walked to the fence.
I know I haven’t had much to say lately. But only you could make a horse this incredible.

I tried to think of something else to say. But prayer didn’t feel natural anymore.
That’s all. Amen.

I tossed the blanket over the fence and ducked between railings, catching my hair in the splintered wood. I hadn’t taken time to braid my hair, so it fell in waves past my shoulders. I yanked the strand free. “Morning, girl!”

She snorted, watching my every step.

“You can give me a nicker if you want to,” I suggested.

She didn’t want to.

Mid-pasture, still a good distance from the Arabian, I spread out the horse blanket onto the wet grass and plopped down cross-legged.

Wild Thing didn’t know what to think. She tossed her head and let out a warning whinny.

But I sat still.
“Wild Thing.
Now what kind of a name is that for such a beautiful horse? There must be a thousand names that suit you better.”

In fact, I’d been shoving names away from my mind ever since I’d seen the Arabian.

“At our ranch,” I explained, “Mom and I got too attached to the horses we took on to gentle. So we made a rule: No naming unless the horse is a keeper.”

The mare’s long neck stretched as she reached up and lipped a broad, green leaf from the tree.

“You are definitely a keeper,” I went on. “And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I’m the one doing the keeping. But until then, no naming.”