The Black Shard (2 page)

The birds chirping outside the cabin woke Kristina. She got up and quietly went to look out the window. The sun was already shining brightly, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful day for horseback riding—a perfect sunny day that she would instead spend driving home with her mother, trying to explain to her how she just couldn't get along with Davina and Hester.

The other girls were still sleeping when Kristina very quietly made her bed and packed up her belongings. On her way out of the cabin, a floorboard squeaked and woke Davina. She opened her eyes just as Kristina was disappearing out the door.

About ten minutes into the twenty minute walk back to the ranch's main office, the morning sun was already making Kristina sticky hot. Her backpack felt like it was stuffed with rocks rather than clothes. She decided to stop momentarily and take it off to relieve her aching shoulders. After it fell to the ground, she felt as light as a feather. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked around at the dark green forest surrounding the dirt road. She heard gravel crunching. Then someone suddenly appeared around the bend in the road. It was a boy, but she couldn't see his face very well because he was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. He walked directly up to her, picked up her backpack, and handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said, wondering who he was.

"Just don't ever say that I never did anything nice for you," the boy replied—and then a familiar and irritating grin filled his face.

Right away, Kristina knew his voice and his grin. A dry lump filled her throat. "Graham Kepler?" she said surprised.

"Kristina Kingsly!" Graham said in a high, mocking tone.

"So you're here at camp as well?"

"Yup, but not in the same way you are, taking it easy and lazing around. I work here," Graham said smugly.

"Small world," Kristina said, not wanting to continue their conversation. "Well, I need to get going." She began walking away in the direction of the office.

It was bad enough that in her English class last year, Graham's desk had been directly across the aisle from hers, but now, even worse, he was working at the same summer camp that she was attending. She wasn't too surprised, though, knowing now that Hester's family owned the ranch. Actually, when she thought about it, she remembered that there were many times on the school bus when she'd heard Hester blackmailing Graham, telling him that if he didn't do exactly what she wanted, he wouldn't be able to come to her ranch.
So, that must be why she always got her way with him,
Kristina pondered.

Graham stood very still, watching Kristina descend the road. Then as she was about to turn a curve, he hollered, "You should really watch your back! You never know what could be lurking around in these woods!"

Graham's words brought goose bumps to Kristina's arms. She thought back to when she had first met him, way back in kindergarten, Graham had always been a bothersome, mean kid, but for some strange reason, when school started back up two Christmases ago—after Graham, Hester, Davina, and she had come back from Bernovem—Graham's demeanor had changed. For instance, instead of being immature and annoying—like when he would throw spit wads across the aisle at her while a test was in session, or let out silent but deadly farts that would linger around her for ten minutes or more, or squish chewed-up food through his teeth and then show it to her—he had become more poised and self-assured. He stopped his crude jokes and would instead just stare at her from his desk or from across the lunchroom. Then when she would look at him, a cynical smirk would envelop his heavily freckled face. Thinking back on these creepy memories only solidified Kristina's decision to go home.

K
ristina was relieved that the road curved and she was finally out of Graham's view, but still feeling uneasy, she quickened her pace. It was going to take about ten more minutes to get to the office, and as the road wound deeper into the woods, the hot air began to dissipate, and in its place, cool air lingered. She felt good to be out of the hot sun, and she slowed her pace slightly. She was finally beginning to relax, but no sooner had she done so, then she heard, off to her left, some rustling in the woods. She stopped dead in her tracks, and her eyes searched between the trees. She was sure that she had caught sight of a person passing from behind one tree to another. "Hello," she called out, but there was no response, just more rustling.
Maybe it was a deer.
Then Graham's words entered her mind:
"You should really watch your back. You never know what could be lurking around in these woods."
Even in the coolness of the shade, her hands grew clammy. She started to run, her heavy backpack pounding on her back, and she didn't stop until she had made it to the front steps of the main office. Panting, she leaned on the stair rail and looked up into the window. She viewed a woman, standing behind the front check-in counter, talking on the phone.

Kristina climbed the stairs and entered the office. The bell on the doorknob jingled, causing the woman to glance through cat's-eye glasses at her. Seeing Kristina, the woman's eyebrows lifted above her glasses, revealing an agitated expression.

As Kristina approached the counter, the woman lowered her voice to a whisper and went into a back room and closed the door behind her.

Standing at the check-in counter, listening to the woman's annoying laughs behind the closed door, Kristina finally decided that she might as well sit down. There was a couch behind her, so she plopped her overheated body down on it, and grabbed a
Horse and Rider
magazine off the adjacent table.
If only my cellphone got reception out here, I could have already called my mother, and she could have already been here, waiting for me by now.

Suddenly, Kristina heard a noise outside—heavy footsteps running up the porch stairs. The doorknob turned, and the bells on it jingled. She looked up from her magazine to see Davina standing in front of her, panting heavily.

"Listen, I need to talk to you," Davina said, between heavy breaths.

Kristina scowled at her. "If you're going to try to coax me into staying here, don't even bother, because it won't work. My mind is already made up. I'm calling my mom to come get me, as soon as the check-in woman comes out of the back room." Kristina sighed. "That is, if she ever decides to come out."

A persuasive smile suddenly appeared on Davina's face. "What if you were able to ride the most beautiful horse here—would you change your mind?" she asked.

Kristina thought she seemed like a used-car salesman trying to close on a deal. "As if that's going to happen." Kristina stuck her nose back into the magazine.

"Well, this just happens to be your lucky day, because Hester has arranged for you to ride what she thinks is the best horse here."

Kristina slowly peered over the top of the magazine. Her expression changed to a more suspicious one. "What? Why would Hester arrange that for me? There's got to be a catch."

"No ... I think she just feels bad for how she treated you yesterday."

"Huh!" Kristina said, frowning at Davina. "Hester's never felt bad about anything she's ever done to me, so why would this time be any different? And it wasn't all Hester's fault; you had just as much to do with it, maybe even more. Actually, I bet it was all your idea in the first place to snoop through my diary."

"Okay!" Davina shouted. Then more quietly she said, "Why don't you just forget it, and I'll forget the many times you've irritated me as well."

An argument was about to ignite, but the door behind the check-in counter suddenly opened, and the woman came back into the lobby. "What in the world are you two doing here?" she said in a Southern accent. She seemed to just realize that someone other than her was in the office. Chewing gum obnoxiously loud, she blew a bubble and then popped it, and then began chewing again. "Don't ya know that y'all are supposed to be heading to the dining hall for breakfast?"

To be able to ride the nicest horse on the ranch was sure tempting Kristina. She felt trapped in a sticky situation and looked over at the check-in woman, and then back at Davina. She thought quickly. "Uh ... I just wanted to let you know ... that we've run out of toilet paper at our cabin," she said, making it up, of course.

"That's odd." The woman's eyes narrowed and suspiciously shifted back and forth between the two girls. "I'm sure that there were three extra rolls in there just before you arrived."

"Oh, there was, but Davina had a little problem last night after she ate about three bags of marshmallows. Sorry, but she used up all three rolls," Kristina said, now smiling at Davina to agree with her.

"Did she plug up the toilet?" the woman asked chewing away and looking worried.

"Uh ... yeah!" Kristina said, lifting her eyebrows and smirking at Davina.

The woman frowned at Davina.

"But don't worry," Kristina said. "She used the plunger, and the toilet is working fine now."

Davina's hot face grew even hotter and her eyes grew wide as she stared at Kristina. Then, very suddenly, Davina changed her expression and looked up at the check-in woman with a sheepish grin on her face. "Sorry," she said. Davina glared at Kristina again, her mouth shriveling up like a closed sea anemone.

The check-in woman sighed and rolled her crow's-feet-clustered eyes. She grabbed a large wad of keys out of a drawer behind the check-in counter, slammed the drawer shut, and again went into the back room.

Kristina jumped up from the couch and Davina and her hurried out of the office.

"Wow! I can't believe you ran all this way to catch up with me," Kristina said, changing the subject, hoping Davina would forget about being mad at her.

"It wasn't that hard," Davina said, forgetting already.

Sitting on the dirt road, just below the stairs, was a motorized cart, like the ones driven around on golf courses. Hester was sitting in the driver's seat.

So that's how Davina made it here so fast,
Kristina thought.
It must have only been the stair climb that tuckered her out.

Davina got in the front end of the cart and Kristina got into the back, and as they drove off, the check-in woman came out of the office with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and three rolls of toilet paper in her arms. "Hey! Aren't y'all forgetting something?" she yelled at them.

Hester, Davina, and Kristina sat on horses in the riding arena, awaiting their English riding lesson. Davina was definitely right; the horse that Kristina got to ride was the prettiest one in the group, at least Kristina thought so. She was white with a rippling silver mane, and she reminded Kristina of Taysha, Werrien's horse in Bernovem. Why Hester arranged for Kristina to ride her, still wasn't clear, but it was most likely because Hester would probably have gotten in big trouble from her parents for causing a camper to leave the camp early.
Whatever the reason,
Kristina thought,
it's a very nice peace offering, being able to ride this elegant horse.

The door to the riding arena suddenly opened, and the riding instructor, a woman, dressed in English riding attire, entered. She walked over to Hester. "That cousin of yours didn't clean the stalls this morning. Do you happen to know why?" she asked in an annoyed whisper.

"How am I supposed to know? I'm not Graham's babysitter," Hester responded rudely.

The instructor sighed and rolled her eyes, as if realizing what a waste of time it was, expecting Hester to help her out. "I guess that I'll deal with him later," she said. Then she went and stood in the middle of the arena. "Good morning, campers. My name is Ms. Oldham. I will be your riding instructor for the duration of your stay at the Tranquil Trails Ranch. We will start the lesson by having you all follow Hester, counter-clockwise around the edge of the arena."

The first few time around the arena, the horses walked, and all of the girls seemed quite good at this basic task, but then on the third time around, Ms. Oldham hollered, "Now you will trot and post!"

Hester's horse started the group trotting, and the other horses automatically trotted behind hers. Hester was good at riding, because she had been doing it since she was five years old. Davina, on the other hand, who had only sat on a horse once before, when she was eight, was very awkward, and she bounced all over the saddle in an opposite rhythm of the horse's trotting. She looked quite silly, like a jack-in-the-box, right after it springs out of the box. As for Kristina, she had never ridden a horse, other than in Bernovem, where she became fairly good at it. She caught on pretty well and was able to post, keeping time with the rhythm of her horse's trotting. Actually, she did so well, Hester took notice of her, and by the look on Hester's ruddy face, shadowed beneath her English riding helmet, she didn't seem too thrilled about it; she seemed rather jealous that Kristina was riding so well.

Hester brought her horse's speed up to a canter, and the rest of the girls' horses did the same. All the girls handled the cantering fine, except for Davina, who had let go of the reins and was holding on to the front of the saddle for dear life. Her legs were flopping haphazardly at the horse's sides, causing the horse to buck up. Then Davina lost control altogether, and her horse headed straight for a jump in the middle of the arena. Ms. Oldham, who was standing in the middle of the arena, scurried out of the horse's way to avoid being trampled. Kristina felt compelled to help Davina, and she charged with her horse directly behind Davina's horse. Luckily, Davina's horse didn't bound over the jump, but instead, when about a foot away from it, took a sharp left and headed for the arena door. The saddle slid down the horse's left side with Davina still in it. Then the horse made an abrupt stop at the arena door, causing Davina to fall to the ground.

Ms. Oldham quickly rushed to Davina's side, and while this was going on, Kristina's horse bounded over the jump. In astonishment, all the girls' mouths, including Davina's, dropped open. Kristina handled the four-foot jump with ease. Then promptly, she turned her horse around and headed over to Davina, who was lying on the ground with her English helmet on lopsided.