Eager Star (10 page)

I'd promised Barker I'd come over so we could work together on our papers for Pat's class. I scarfed down Lizzy's chili for supper and was about to take off when the phone rang.

Dad got it and held the receiver away from his ear. I recognized the blustery voice on the other end: “Sa-a-ay!”

Catman's dad was calling about the business lunch!

“Well, I don't know,” Dad said. “Next Saturday?” He looked at Lizzy and me as if we'd throw him a lifeline.

I nodded. “Do it, Dad! Go! You'll make lots of contacts.”

He squinted at me. “I guess . . . thanks.” He hung up, not sounding like he meant thanks.

I explained to Lizzy. “Dad's going to the Ashland business luncheon!” It felt like our first break since Chubs Baines walked into Pat's Pets. “Catman's dad says it's the first step in getting a good business reputation in Ashland.”

Dad rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Thought I'd left business meetings in Laramie. I've met a couple of those men—I don't mean Mr. Coolidge. But I wonder if I fit in anymore.”

Barker waved from the porch swing of a two-story house that looked fixed-up old. White-gold light streamed through the long windows, along with shouts and laughter. Macho, their black-and-tan dog, sat at Barker's feet, next to Chico, the white Chihuahua. Barker whistled, and the sweetest collie trotted out of the bushes. “Have you met Underdog?”

The collie thumped its tail when I petted it. Barker took dogs everyone else had given up on and trained them for his five brothers.

“Sorry I'm late.” I sat next to him on the swing. “Lousy first workout. I don't know if I can get Grant's horse in shape for the race or not.”

Somebody shouted from inside. “Come on in now!”

I didn't know if they meant us or the dogs, but Chico took it as an order. He darted to the door, toenails clicking across the porch.

Barker jumped up. “No, Chico!”

He was too late. Chico rammed the screen
.
He shook his head and ran at it again.

Barker snatched up the pup. “When are you going to believe me, Chico? You can't go through doors.”

The Barker home smelled like real food, maybe a roast. Two of Barker's brothers chased past us and up the stairs. Mark and Luke are only a year apart, but Luke is small for his age, kind of like his dog, Chico. Mark, age seven, is the athletic one, his arms already showing muscles from throwing his Lab the Frisbee night and day.

On an overstuffed sofa an old woman sat with a big, plastic bowl on her lap. She had pure white hair that looked like she'd just finished a high-speed chase in a top-down convertible. The arms that stuck out of her flowered dress were stick thin. She smiled with eyes that looked like they'd seen angels.

“Granny, this is Winnie, a friend of mine.” Barker shouted, but the woman didn't seem to hear . . . or understand. “Winnie, this is my great-grandmother . . . Granny for short. We've got homework, Granny,” Barker explained.

Granny kept snapping the fresh beans in her bowl into smaller pieces and staring out the window as if it were a TV. I liked that Barker didn't feel he had to explain her.

He set his notebook on a nearby table. “Here's where I study.”

Barker's mother brought in lemonade and chips. “Good to see you, Winnie!”

I'd met her a couple of times when she'd picked up Lizzy for church. Mrs. Barker taught computer science, but she could have been a model. She was tall, with wavy hair, brown eyes, deep brown skin. “Eddy's dad is teaching a night poetry class. He'll be sorry he missed you.” She turned to Eddy's great-grandmother. “Granny? More lemonade?”

Great-granny Barker's only answer was the steady
snap, snap, snap
of the beans.

“Where Wizzy?” asked William, who had just started talking. His face was round as a cookie, and his hair stuck out longer than the other boys' hair.

His brothers filed in behind him.

“Yeah, where's Lizzy?” Matthew, at nine, was the only Barker who didn't smile much. He had his bulldog on a leash. Their frowns matched.

Mrs. Barker snatched up the two younger boys. “Winnie and Eddy have to study. Besides, you guys need baths!” She made a face that cracked up four out of the five. “And I'll read an extra Bible story to the one who gets the cleanest.”

They thundered upstairs, leaving Granny snapping beans while Barker and I talked about our papers.

Every idea I could think of for defining success in life sounded too stupid in my head for me to let it out of my mouth. “Right now success would be getting Eager Star to win the barrel race. But I don't think that's enough to write about.”

“Enough what?” Mrs. Barker, her arms full of clothes, swept past us, then slid into the empty chair at our table.

Barker explained our assignment. Then his mom leaned forward. “What do you really want, Winnie?”

I want Star to beat Summer's horse. I want Grant and his dad to be super impressed. I want the kids at school to be impressed. I want Dad to be impressed.

I shrugged.

Mrs. Barker wouldn't let me off. “What would success be for Winnie Willis?”

“I want to be known as the best horse gentler in the world,” I said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

Barker's mom smiled. “How about you, Eddy?” She turned his notebook so she could read what he'd written: “Colossians 3:23.”

“What's it say?” I asked. Lizzy and Mom would have known.

Barker said it from memory: “‘Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.'”

I knew it wasn't something Barker wrote to sound good. He worked hard and was happy. He probably did work for God. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to work for God instead of Mr. Baines.

“I know God would make a great boss and everything . . .” I was thinking out loud, but Barker and his mom didn't make me feel stupid. “Only knowing me, I'd probably still want to win the barrel race to impress God just like I want to impress Mr. Baines.”
And Grant. And Summer. And Dad . . .

The
snaps
stopped, and from the couch came a throaty noise.

We turned to Great-granny Barker.

“Child,” she said, not taking her gaze from the window, “God ain't waiting at no finish line. No, Jesus is running with you, caring more about the steps on the way than the big finish. Can't nobody impress God. Just look at what he created out there!”

Outside her window, a blanket of lightning bugs blinked on and off below while above, the whole sky blinked stars.

“You're right, Ma!” Mrs. Barker wiped her eyes.

I didn't want to forget what she'd said even though I didn't really understand what it meant.
He cares more about the steps than the finish?
I reached into my backpack and pulled out my notebook, flipping pages until I got to a blank one.

“Winnie?” Barker reached for my notebook and turned to the cover. “Didn't you turn in your journal to Ms. Brumby?”

“Yeah.” I glanced at the notebook in front of me. “I turned in my class journal. This one is my personal—” I stopped, the words cut off, along with my oxygen. “But this should be gray—” I stared at the cover of the journal, the
red
journal, my classroom journal for Ms. Brumby. “This can't be red!”

I dumped out my backpack. No gray journal. Dizzy, I yanked my notebook off the table and stared at the cover again, as if it might magically change from red to gray.

“It's not possible,” I muttered, gripping the notebook so tight a page ripped. “I know I turned in my journal.” I remembered adding mine to the bottom of the stack before passing it on. “But if this is my class journal, then that means—” I couldn't finish. I stood up so suddenly my chair fell backward. “I'm sorry. I have to go.” My heart pounded like horses galloping. Horses! I tried to remember everything I'd written in the gray journal about the Ashland Middle School herd, the comments about the mares and stallions. The “Old Mare Teacher!”

Every word I'd written for my eyes only was now in the hands of Barb Brumby.

She won't read it, I told myself as I pedaled backwards in the dark. Ms. Brumby's too busy to read journals. She just wants to make sure we've written something. Anything. Maybe I'll get a great grade for writing so much.

By the time I reached home, I'd almost convinced myself.

Until I saw Dad.

He was sitting in his reading chair, his back to the door. Slowly, he folded the paper, took off his glasses, and turned to face me. “You know, I wish just once I could go an entire semester without hearing, ‘Mr. Willis, I'm calling about your daughter Winifred.'”

I tried to explain about the two journals getting mixed up. “And besides, it wasn't really my fault. Remember? Picturing people as horses was really your idea in the first place.”

“True enough,” Dad said. “But that's not the problem, Winnie. Most of what you wrote sounded . . . well, creative. Ms. Brumby liked several of your comparisons between students and horses. Except some of the things about the
lead mare?”

“It's not fair, Dad! You don't know Ms. Brumby. She's cold and mean, and she hates me!”

“Winnie, that's enough,” he said quietly, which worried me more than if he'd just yelled and gotten it over with. “I had a long talk with Ms. Brumby. She's a caring teacher who only wants what's best for you. She's concerned that you feel alienated in your new school. And, quite frankly, so am I. She sees you connecting everything to horses, but not relating to your peers. If you could have heard the concern in her voice, Winnie!”

They clone them! Every rotten teacher I'd ever had turned out some caring imitation whenever parents were around.

Dad went on for a few minutes about starting fresh and giving Ms. Brumby and the other kids a chance. I sat tight-lipped, wondering what it would feel like to have Dad talk to me this long when he wasn't angry. For some reason, whenever Dad and I were together, we both missed Mom so much we couldn't stand it.

When I got up to leave, I couldn't help but think,
Mom would have listened to my side about the journals. She would have understood.

By the time I went to bed, Lizzy was asleep, and I had to trip over my floor junk. I said my prayers and asked God to bless everybody. Then I added,
And please don't let me disappoint Dad again.