Chasing Dream (2 page)

3

A Plan

Before I reach the backyard, I have a plan. A super terrific plan. A plan that will prove once and for all how wonderful my horse is.

Question: How can I prove Dream is great?

Answer: By letting people see her
do
something great.

Like win a race.

I know my horse is fast. She's way faster than Larissa and Ashley and the other kids would believe. They need to see Dream's speed with their own eyes.

So I am going to have a race.

I lead Dream around the side of the house to the backyard. My dad and I did a great job building a home for my horse on short notice. When I got Dream at the cat rescue farm, where my mom volunteers, we didn't have much time to make a spot for her. I'd always imagined having a horse of my own. I prayed every night for a horse. I just hadn't imagined
this
horse. Dream came as a surprise for all of us. But my whole family pitched in, and we put a fence around our whole backyard and built a lean-to—a three-sided wooden building where Dream can go when she feels like it.

“Okay, Dream. Let's figure out how you got out of this yard. Did I leave the gate unlatched?” I'm pretty sure I didn't. Dad put on a bar latch that clicks into place when you shut the gate, and I'm always careful to check it.

I take a look at the latch. It's still in place. And the gate's closed. “Weird.” I open the gate, and Dream and I walk in. Like always, I shut the gate behind me.

“Maybe Dad spotted the gate open and came out to close it. Or maybe the fence is down somewhere.”

I turn Dream loose in the yard. Our backyard is more like a small pasture. Our house is the last one on this side of Hamilton. Hamilton, Missouri, is a small town. Dad says it hasn't grown a lick since he was a kid. You could fit 254 Hamiltons inside Kansas City, Missouri. I know this because my friend Cassie put it in a report she did for class.

I walk the fence to see if there are any holes Dream could have squeezed through. There are only three sides of wooden fencing. That's because the fourth side is our house.

Everything looks good. No holes. No posts down. Everything is perfect.

I check the lean-to, but everything seems normal there, too. Our lean-to is bigger than three stalls at K. C. Stables. So far we've left it open on one end. But we'll probably build a fourth wall and put in a door before winter. Then we'll have our own little barn—a backyard barn.

I turn to face my horse. She's already grazing as if going to the school library were part of her regular routine. Pinto Cat has taken her usual spot on Dream's back. The calico came with Dream from the cat farm. Pinto Cat comes and goes as she pleases. But not Dream. Not usually, anyway.

“You're a mystery, Dream. I don't suppose you're going to tell me how you got out of this yard, are you?”

She swishes her tail, but she's not telling.

“I know
you
won't give away the secret, Pinto Cat. So there's no use asking you. Guess I'll have to ask Dad.”

I give my horse a hug around the neck, holding on long enough for one more whiff of horse. “You're the best,” I whisper. “And pretty soon everybody in Hamilton will know it.”

I find my dad hunched over his laptop at the dining room table. Papers are scattered from one end of the table to the other. “Hey, Dad!”

He looks at me, and all at once his face gets swallowed up in his smile. The best thing about my dad is that he's always happy to see me. My mom thinks Dad is the most handsome man “on God's green earth.” She claims that nobody can hold a candle to Lenny James.

I love my dad and wouldn't trade him for any other dad. But in the looks department, I think he's kind of average. Short like me. Not too fat, not too skinny.

“Ellie! Thank goodness you're here. I need help with this ad campaign for Harvey's Hardware.”

Dad works for the Jingle Bells Ad Agency. Whenever he needs rhyming jingles, he comes to me.

“Sure, Dad. But first I've got to ask you something. Did you close the gate this morning?”

“What gate?”

“Dream's gate.”

“No. Was I supposed to?”

“So you never saw the gate open after I left for school?”

Dad takes his fingers off the keyboard. “Ellie, what's this about?”

I tell Dad about Dream showing up at school and me getting called to the library. Only I leave out the part about Principal Fishpaw standing on the library table.

“How do you think your horse got out?” Dad asks.

Before I can answer, the front door opens and in walks Ethan. He's carrying his baseball and bat, and he looks excited about something.

So does Munch, who thunders down the stairs to greet him. And I do mean thunders. Our mutt won't stop growing. He already weighs way more than I do. Ethan braces himself for Munch's lunge. The dog pounces, putting both paws on my brother's shoulders. I don't know how Ethan stays on his feet.

Even our lazy cat, Squash, waddles out from under the table to greet Ethan.

What am I—chopped liver?

Ethan is already signing when he reaches Dad and me.
I hit one over the fence,
Ethan signs.
And Paul was pitching.

Paul is the starting pitcher on Ethan's team, even though Ethan is a better pitcher.

Dad and I congratulate Ethan. We do this with words and with sign language, spoken at the same time. That's how we always talk around our house.

“Wait until your mother hears this,” Dad says.

Ethan turns to me and signs,
Principal Fishpaw didn't give you a note for Dad, did he?

Dad almost falls out of his chair. “What? Why? What do you mean, Ethan?” Then he looks at me. “Ellie?”

So I tell Dad the rest of the story. About my principal shouting from the top of the library table and telling me to get Dad to fix the fence.

Dad looks like a little kid who got caught cheating on a test and has to answer for it in the principal's office. “He called me Leonard, didn't he?” Dad says.

I nod. “But don't worry. Tomorrow I'll tell Principal Fishpaw that your fence wasn't the problem after all. It's a great fence, Dad. And a super gate, with a foolproof latch.”

Ethan interrupts my little pep talk.
So how DID Dream get out?

4

Sorry

Ethan has a way of getting to the heart of things. How
did
my horse get out of our yard?

I still can't answer that one. And I'm tired of trying to figure it out. All I want to do is forget that Dream was in the library and get on with my plan.

The race. I need a name for it. And contestants. I know Colt will be up for a good race. And Rashawn and Cassie. I can invite Ashley and some of the kids from our horsemanship group too.

“You don't think I should call Principal Fishpaw, do you?” Dad asks.

“What? Principal Fishpaw?” I have so moved on that for a second I think Dad wants to invite my principal to our horse race.

Bad idea,
Ethan signs.

“Ethan's right, Dad. Don't give that library incident another thought.
I'm
not going to.”

But I can tell my dad is starting to get nervous about the idea of going to the principal's office again. This calls for a change of subject. A change of worries. I try to guide Dad back to his original worry. “Tell me about the new hardware store campaign. What do you need rhymed?”

Ethan says he's got homework and excuses himself. He takes off for his room, followed by Munch and Squash.

Dad scoops together a bunch of the papers strewn over the table. “It's a tough account, Ellie. Harvey's Hardware has always been one of our hardest-to-please clients. That's why my new boss gave it to me. I get the feeling she'd love to see me fail.”

Dad's new boss is Moira Stevens, Colt's mother. She works for Jingle Bells too, and she was just promoted to vice president. That job could have been my dad's. Then he would have been
her
boss. But Dad turned down the promotion because it meant a lot of travel. He didn't like the idea of being away from us.

Colt's mom took the job instead, and she's gone a lot now. Since she and Colt's dad are in the process of getting a divorce, poor Colt gets left with a different babysitter—or “house sitter,” as Colt calls them—every time his mom takes off on a business trip. A couple of times he's had to stay with us because Mrs. Stevens couldn't get anyone else. I didn't mind at all. It made it that much easier for Colt and me to ride our horses together before school.

Dad fills me in on Harvey's Hardware. “Why couldn't Harvey be running a campaign to sell nails or whatnot?” Dad complains. “Even I can think of things that rhyme with
nail
. Like
pail
. Or
mai
l
.”

“How about
sale
?” I chime in. “
Come to the big nail sale!
That would have been too easy.” I flash Dad a grin. “There's always
bale
, you know. Like bales of hay?” Dad and I have a running joke about how I always try to rhyme his campaigns with horse words.

This time he ignores the joke. That tells me he's really worried about this campaign.

He sighs. “Ellie, how am I ever going to come up with words that rhyme with
barre
l
?”

“It will be okay, Dad. We'll think of something. Not to worry.” Only nothing comes to me right off. I force myself to concentrate. “Can't rhyme
barrel
with
barrel
, or we could bring in barrel racing.”

No reaction.

“You know? Like horses running barrel races? Galloping in and out of barrels, weaving around big barrels?” Still nothing. “Like Colt's horse, Bullet, racing . . .” I give up.

“Don't suppose the campaign will run over Christmas?” I ask. “We could use
carol
, like a Christmas carol.”

“I wish I did have until Christmas,” Dad says. “I need to have this done by Saturday. That's when Vice President Stevens is making me do my presentation for the hardware people. I have three days to be brilliant.”

I feel bad for Dad. I want to help him out. Really I do. But most of my brain is already used up trying to figure out how to organize the horse race. “Um . . .
Darry
l
? Nah. That won't work.
Fera
l
? Like part wild, as in feral cats?”

Just as I say it, Mom bursts into the room like the Fourth of July. She's wearing a long red-white-and-blue-striped dress and red tennis shoes. She plops down the rainbow-colored bag she calls a purse and exclaims, “Did somebody just say ‘feral cats'? Or are these old ears of mine running amok?” She kisses the top of Dad's head and then my head and slides into the chair next to Dad. Even sitting down, Mom is a head taller than he is.

“Hey, Bev,” Dad says. “Your ears are perfectly fine. And the prettiest pair of ears I've ever seen, by the way. Ellie was trying to help me with this campaign Moira Stevens threw at me. We're trying to rhyme
barrel
.”

“Moira Stevens.” Mom lets out a snort-sigh that could rival Dream's. She swivels around to face me. My mom has clear blue eyes and short black hair. Her hair is the only not-colorful thing about her. “As for you, Ellie James, I have a bone to pick with you. Where in Alphabet City were you this afternoon?”

Then I remember. I was supposed to go help Mom at the cat farm after school. “I forgot. I'm sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry won't fry the bacon or bring it home. Whoo-whee! Did we need you today! Cats running all over the cat farm, and Mary Louise and I were about as helpful as hogs on ice without ice skates. We were counting on you to provide some quiet time and comfort to cats that needed it. We had three that required some one-on-one time in quarantine today, and I had to fill in for you.”

“I'm really sorry,” I tell Mom. I mean it, too. I know she's been extra busy at the cat farm since she took on a new responsibility there. She's the feline foster care head volunteer, which means it's her job to find temporary homes for stray cats.

The best thing about my mom is that she doesn't just say, “Aw, too bad” when she feels sorry for an animal. She jumps in and does something to make things better. Most nights she has to make dozens of phone calls to try to place a single cat.

“I'll make it up to the cats,” I promise. “Maybe I can help you with your new job, Mom. Like I could make some of your phone calls.”

Thinking about phone calls reminds me that I need to start calling my friends about the race. I want to have our horse race as soon as possible. Why should I wait any longer to show everybody what Dream can do?

I get up from the table and head for my bedroom. I don't have a cell yet, but at least I have a phone in my room.

“Ellie, where are you going?” Dad asks, panic in his voice. “What about my rhymes?”

“I won't forget, Dad. I'll make a list of rhymes for you. Okay?”

He looks relieved. “Great. Thanks, honey. You always come through for me.”

I spend the rest of the night on the phone. By the time Mom peeks in to tell me it's bedtime, I've called just about everybody in our whole class. And it's a go. The first annual Fourth-Grade Horse Race will take place after school on Friday at the Hamilton fairgrounds.

As I drift off to sleep, I remember to say my prayers. I ask God to bless everybody. Then I tell God I'm sorry about forgetting the quarantined cats. And right before I conk out, I remember I didn't study for my math proficiencies. So I toss that one in too.