No Horse Wanted (9 page)

“And where are you going? Who will be your
mentor?”

I nearly said I had absolutely no idea, that
I could skate through the class and end up with a C- or D+ and
still stay on the cross-country team, but my best friend from hell
spoke up. “She’s doing it with Dr. Larry Tomlinson at Equine Nation
Vet Clinic in Snohomish.”

“Interesting,” Mrs. Weaver said. “I’ll have
your letter by end of school today, Roberta, or you’ll be here
until I do.”

“But I have cross-country practice tonight
and Coach Norris will lose it if I don’t show up,” I said.

“It won’t be the first time you hear from him
if I don’t have your letter today. If I were you, I’d spend the
period writing the letter. Victoria will be happy to help since she
already has her internship lined up.”

I shot a glare across the room at Vicky, then
looked down at my notebook. “Yes, ma’am.”

A few minutes later, we were excused to visit
the computer lab so I could do my letter. Halfway there, Vicky
pushed me into the restroom. “Get out your cell and call Dr.
Larry.”

“What? If I’m caught, I’ll get
detention.”

“And when Weaver checks up with him, you’ll
be off cross-country for the season and in I.S.S. until Christmas.
I’ll stand guard. You call.”

“Then why did you say I was doing it with
him?”

“Hello, weren’t you listening Saturday night?
He believes you walk on water. You need to use that. Why do you
think Rocky agreed to let me do my internship at her barn? She
likes me and says I’m a good rider and trainer.”

“Plus you can clean fourteen stalls faster
than anyone else on the planet.” I checked the restroom. It was
empty so I pulled out my phone and called Equine Nation. Of course,
it wasn’t open yet, but I left Dr. Larry a message about doing the
internship with him. I’d check back with him during lunch when
students were allowed to use their cell phones.

In the lab, Vicky opened her binder. It was
totally organized by class. She took out the rubric for the
assignment and a copy of her letter. “Okay, here’s my flash drive.
We’ll adjust the wording so it works for you helping the
veterinarian on his large animal calls.”

When I rolled my eyes, she elbowed me. “Ouch.
That hurt,” I complained. “What’s your problem?”

“Will you get serious? You don’t want to
spend every day in the clinic shoveling puppy or kitty poop. You
want to go places with Dr. Larry and learn what he does in the
field.”

“When you put it that way, it makes a lot
more sense.” I logged on to the computer and clicked on the word
processing program. Actually, I was lucky to have her on my side
even if I hassled her about it.

* * * *

Monday, September
16
^th
, 2:20 p.m.

I finished my letter and turned it into Mrs.
Weaver at the end of the school day. She skimmed through it. “All
right. I’ll give this back to you tomorrow with my corrections, and
you can do a final draft.”

“Come again?” I stared at her. “I thought
this was all you wanted.”

“Did you even read the project requirements?”
Mrs. Weaver put my paper on her desk. She folded her arms and
narrowed her eyes. “I’m still waiting for your brainstorm.”

“My what?”

“Your outline for the letter.”

“Who outlines a letter? That’s the stupidest
thing I’ve ever heard.”

She heaved a sigh like I was the dumbest
student she’d seen in a long time. “You typed this, so I know you
kept a copy on your flash drive. You can amplify the second and
third paragraphs. Ask your older brother to help you outline the
letter.”

“No way. If I ask Jack for help, he’ll come
up with some rotten chore I have to do in exchange. I might have to
muck out his room. I already have to feed the horses and pigs to
share the chore money. It sucked last night.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.” Mrs.
Weaver looked at the clock. “You’d better go if you don’t want to
be late for track practice.”

“Cross-country,” I corrected. “Track’s in the
spring.”

I headed for the door, then stopped when I
heard a weird sound. I glanced back over my shoulder. Was she
laughing? Apparently so. Who knew that was even possible? Okay, if
I didn’t make it to State this year, I could always try to be a
comedian.

I was one of the last girls to reach the
locker room, but it didn’t take long to change to my shorts and
T-shirt. I tied my sweatshirt around my waist and jogged out to the
track. I started stretching. No cramps for me. I glanced at Gwen
and Porter, two of the other girls on the team. “Has he said where
we’re running yet?”

Gwen shook her head and kept doing side
bends. “Something about a park.”

“Downtown,” Porter said.

I grimaced. Running through Marysville meant
lots of sidewalks and maybe a bit in the local park, but that
didn’t get me ready for the track meet outside of Arlington. Coach
Norris waved to us and we headed toward him, along with everyone
else.

“Okay, here’s the deal.” He laid out the
route. It was still pretty easy, just four miles around town and
only a couple big hills. “Any comments?”

Porter tapped her foot. “Okay if we do it
twice or three times?”

“No. You do it once, Porter.” Coach Norris
ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. He was in good shape
for a guy older than my dad. “The rest of you get going. Gwen,
Robin, and Porter, stay here. I want to talk to you.”

Steve gave us a sympathetic look, then jogged
off with a couple of the guys.

Coach waited until everyone was gone. He
frowned at us, his tone stern. “I know what you three are thinking.
Don’t go there. Until I get permission from the principal and
school board to increase the duration, the most we do during
practice is four miles. Got it?”

Gwen widened big blue eyes and put on her
super-innocent look. “But, it is okay if we keep practicing on our
own time, isn’t it?”

“You’d better if you want to improve your
Personal Records at this meet.” He winked. “Now, get out of here
and try not to get lost. I expect you back in an hour and a
half.”

“Yes, Coach.” I led off and the other two
girls followed me. I saw the guys up ahead of us, but I didn’t
care. We’d gotten a pretty strong hint that if we veered from the
route, Coach Norris wouldn’t say anything as long as we kept to the
same timeframes as the rest of the team. I glanced at Gwen when she
caught up with me. “Up Golf Course Hill and then down
88
^th
street or the other way around?”

She laughed. “Golf Course.”

Chapter Eleven

Monday, September 16
^th
, 6:45 p.m.

Conversation ebbed and flowed around the
dinner table. I waited for one of the pauses, then glanced across
the table at Jack. “Can you help me with an English
assignment?”

Silence and the three of them stared at me
like I’d escaped from a horror movie. Dad was the first one to
talk. “Robbie, I thought you weren’t that interested in
school?”

“I’m not,” I said, “but you told me I had to
earn half the money for my car and I guess I want to try for some
A’s. Besides, Mrs. Weaver isn’t like the teachers at my old school.
She’s not going to let this go. If I don’t do my work for her, I’ll
end up on academic probation. Then, I can’t do cross-country.”

“How will she stop you?” Mom asked, curious.
“Cut off your legs?”

“I just told you. Coach Norris warned us that
he’ll be sending around grade-checks every week before the meets.
Anything below a C in any of my classes and I’ll be benched.”

Mom nodded, satisfied for the moment. “Well,
I knew your teacher wouldn’t convince you to give up cross-country.
You’ve been running as long as I can remember. I’d take you with me
to the Farmer’s Market, and you’d race from one end of the street
to the other. You were so cute. When you were exhausted, you’d plop
down in front of my booth and go to sleep with your blankie and
teddy. Customers had to walk around you.”

“It was really embarrassing when she did that
last summer,” Jack said.

I stuck my tongue out at him before I
remembered I needed his help, and he laughed at me. For once, Mom’s
stories didn’t make me feel bad. I must have been really little
when I went with her to the open-air, summer market. “I bet Jack
did something equally wonderful.”

“Oh, yes.” Mom was off and running. “He used
to help carry things from the car, and Felicia would want to set up
my booth. But, Jack would go out and stop people wandering through
the market. He’d say, ‘You need one of my Mom’s quilts. You have to
buy it so I can have a new book or new paints or new whatever.’ The
other gals wanted to know if I’d rent him out so they could make
more money at their stalls.”

While she chattered about how amazing the
three of us were as little kids, Jack scowled at me. “Don’t you
dare tell Vicky any of this,” he whispered.

“If you help me, I won’t,” I said, in just as
soft a voice.

After dinner, I had dish duty. Once the
kitchen was clean, I started looking for Jack. He was nowhere in
sight. I stopped in the den and printed off the letter. I stuffed
it in my three-ring binder. Carrying it, I headed down to the barn
with a brief pause in the garden to pull up a few carrots for
Twaziem. As soon as I walked into the barn, he lifted his head and
nickered at me.

“Hey, you know me.” I gave him a carrot.
“That’s awesome.” While he crunched away, I went over to Nitro’s
stall. “You said you’d help me.”

“I will.” Jack kept grooming his horse. “But,
Nitro and I need to practice for the races on Saturday. What do you
want?”

“Weaver says I have to do a brainstorm. What
does that mean?”

Jack stopped and Nitro gave him a dirty look.
Jack ignored him. He put the currycomb in his tote and walked up to
the front of the stall. “Let me see your rough draft.”

“Why does everyone keep calling it that? I
worked on this letter for hours.”

“If it’s the first version, it’s rough,” Jack
said. “If you had more time, you could add more details,
right?”

“Well, sure. But, why should I spend more
time on it?”

“Because if you don’t, you’ll be walking like
the rest of us and hearing about the cross-country team at morning
announcements. You won’t be part of it.” Jack held out his hand for
my letter. “Do you want that?”

“No way.”

While he read through the letter, I went back
to Twaziem and gave him another carrot. He sucked it up like a
giant vacuum cleaner. Zip. Crunch. Gone. He was definitely getting
the hang of treats, so I gave him a third carrot and then a fourth.
We were on number six when Jack called me.

“What do you have?” I asked as I headed back
over.

He showed me the corrections he’d made to the
letter. Jack flipped to a blank page of notebook paper and drew a
series of circles with lines that connected them. “You’ll want to
create a web, and then you can see where your argument needs to be
strengthened. You’re trying to convince your teacher that you’ll
learn a lot from Dr. Larry, not just have a good time.”

“This looks like so much work.”

“Yeah, but if you get in the habit of doing
the brainstorms and developing your writing, you’ll have an A in
English at the end of the semester, and that’ll mean fifty bucks
toward your car. Add in your other classes, and you’re looking at
three hundred and fifty, plus the bonus for a four-point GPA.”

“Any other words of advice?” I asked
sarcastically.

“Considering how hard you work at
cross-country, you should ask the folks for a bonus whenever you
beat last year’s times and improve your P.R.”

“That won’t happen until this Thursday at our
first meet,” I said, “if I’m lucky. And there are no guarantees.
People fall, get shin splints, twist ankles—it’s like your football
team. You guys can get hurt.”

“So could you,” Jack said. “And I play
because it’s fun, but if the team goes to State again this year,
I’ll get an extra two hundred bucks for busting my butt all season.
I’m just saying that you should take your shot. You won’t know if
it’s a go until you ask Dad.”

I nodded. He had a point. I eyed the letter
again and closed my notebook. “Okay, I’ll get out of your practice
and go do my homework. Do you want me to set up the barrels for
you?”

“No. I want to work on stops and starts. If
Nitro sees the barrels, he forgets to focus.”

I left Jack brushing his horse, just the way
he was when I arrived. I stopped by Twaziem’s stall and gave him
the last carrot before I left the barn and headed up to the house
to do homework. I went into my room and turned on the computer. I’d
do my English paper first, then move onto Algebra and History. My
teachers would probably die of shock when I turned in the
assignments, but it’d keep them off Coach Norris’s back, and mine.
Then, I could concentrate on cross-country, which I loved. And this
might help me get my car.
My car, my car, my car
!

Of course, tomorrow I had to go by the car
lot and see what I could work out with Brenna after cross-country
practice. Maybe she’d let me make payments on my ’68 Presidential
blue Mustang and not insist on having my parents involved in the
deal. I’d been so busy working on my paper today, I didn’t get to
have lunch with Harry, and that meant I hadn’t asked what he
thought of the idea. I’d spent my half-hour break in the computer
lab rewriting this stupid letter. Had he missed me? Did he even
notice I wasn’t sitting across the table from him?

* * * * *

Tuesday, September
17
^th
, 7:03 a.m.

All the way to school, I debated silently how
to bring up being paid for cross-country, and track in the spring.
I loved running. I didn’t do it for money. I’d run even if I wasn’t
on the team. Dad pulled up to our favorite espresso stand. He
glanced at me and I nodded. That was the best part about riding to
school with him. He bought my coffee.