Eager Star (2 page)

We burst into a clearing, the sun shining white-hot, blinding me. Two rabbits skittered in front of us. Nickers shied, jolting to the left. She'd calmed down a lot since I'd owned her and worked her for the past month, but she still had some rough edges.

“Whoa,” I muttered, squinting until my eyes got used to the light.

Nickers stopped, snorted, and nodded. Crows cawed through the trees. Squirrels chased each other in treetops.

Thanks for making all of this, Lord,
I prayed.

After Mom died, I'd gone almost two years without praying, or at least not praying much. It felt good to be on speaking terms with God again.

I leaned back and felt Nickers relax. Usually I don't let a horse graze while I'm riding because she'll get the bad habit of trying to eat during rides. But Nickers was still getting used to the no-bit bridle. I didn't have to worry about grass stains clinging to a bit, reminding her of the great taste of green and tempting her to try to graze. So I let out the rein, allowing my horse a last day's treat of summer grazing.

Nickers began pulling up tufts of clover and chomping them down.

I glanced around the open field. When I looked behind me, I saw that Nickers had snagged a branch during our ride. A stick, about a foot long, lay tangled in her silky tail. I tried to reach it but couldn't.

Nickers was content to munch meadow grass, so I threw one leg over until I sat sideways on her back. I leaned and stretched for the stick. My fingers touched it, but I couldn't grab on.

“Just keep eating, Nickers.” I swung my right leg across her rump until I was sitting backwards on the mare. Leaning all the way down on her rump, I pulled her tail up with one hand and grabbed the stick with the other. “Got it!”

A whinny sounded from the woods. Nickers heard it too. She stopped grazing. A distant, uneven snort grew louder and louder. Nickers' head bobbed up. I felt her flanks tense.

“Easy, girl,” I muttered. Her tail swished so that I had to hold on to it with both hands. “Wait a minute now.”

A squeal pierced the clearing, swallowed by the sound of thundering hooves and human shouts as loud as the Fourth of July fireworks. In an explosion of hooves and legs, a reddish- brown, or bay, horse burst from the woods into the meadow. The rider let out a whoop, kicking his mount with both stirrups.

“Stop!” I cried, trying to wave one hand and hold on to Nickers' tail with the other. Nickers twitched. She sidestepped.

“Stay back!” I shouted, as the bay sped toward us and Nickers grew more antsy.

The rider was two horses' lengths from us when he jerked back the reins, sending his horse into a skidding stop, haunches nearly dragging the grass. Dust swirled around the bay Quarter Horse gelding, who tossed his head and struggled for balance.

Phew!
I let out breath I didn't know I'd been holding. How could I have been so stupid to sit on my horse backwards, even for a second?

Nickers lifted one hoof after the other, as if the ground were on fire, but I felt her urge to bolt fade.

The bay's rider pulled off his helmet. He looked about my age, but football-player big with short brown hair. Shielding his eyes in a one-handed salute, he squinted. “You're supposed to face the other way, aren't you?” he shouted.

I could see the dimples in his cheeks from trying not to laugh. His horse looked so nervous the white star on his forehead twitched.

It wasn't funny. “And
you're
supposed to look where you're—”

But before I could finish, a shout rang out from the woods. Then came the
thuh-DUMP,
thuh-DUMP
of a horse in dead gallop.

Into the clearing flew a palomino Quarter Horse, pale gold and nice-looking, but it had nowhere near the conformation, or balanced build, of the bay.

The bay's rider muttered, “Oh no.”

The palomino galloped toward us. “Yo, Grant!” shouted the rider. “I'm going to beat you this time, loser!”

Nickers stirred.

The one called Grant, the bay's rider, slapped on his helmet. His horse, eager to join the race, strained against the reins and chomped the bit.

“Easy, Eager Star,” I pleaded, giving the bay a name, hoping it would help.

“Gotta go!” Grant shouted, his legs stretching away from the bay's belly, prepared to deliver a kick.

“No!” I cried. “Don't—!”

Nickers' muscles tensed, bunching together like a coiled spring. I gripped her tail. “Please! You can't—!”

Eager Star circled in place as the palomino galloped past.

“Nobody
beats me!” Grant screamed. He brought his legs down hard, digging spurs into his horse's sides. The bay reared and dropped into an instant gallop.

That did it. Nickers shot forward as if fired from a cannon. And I was in for the fastest ride of my life—backwards.

“Whoa, Nickers!” I shouted as I watched backward hoofprints form in the ground whizzing below. Riding backwards threw off my balance. I slid down Nickers' side, clinging to my handful of tail. It took all my strength to pull myself back up and straddle her flanks.

I tightened my leg grip. Nickers took it as a signal to speed up. Faster and faster she raced into the woods. Branches snapped against my back and arms. I had a backward view of the creek, the field, and finally our own pasture.

Nickers didn't slow down until she reached the barn. At the gate she stopped so short, I slid off, somehow landing on my feet.

My knees trembled. I limped up and put an arm over Nickers' neck.
I'm okay. I made it home backwards!

I pressed my forehead against hers, inhaling the smell of horse sweat. “Can you believe what we just did?” I blew into her nostrils and laughed. She blew back, a horse's greeting, and snorted.

“Winnie! I thought you'd never get back!” Lizzy stood a safe distance from me. She's a year younger, two inches taller, and looks enough like me to make strangers ask if we're twins. We have the same long brown hair, but Lizzy's always looks styled.

My sister feels at home with lizards, bugs, and spiders, but she's scared silly of horses. If she'd seen me galloping in backwards on Nickers, she'd have passed out on the barn floor.

“Lizzy—” I broke into laughter—“you should have seen—”

“I couldn't get Hawk to hang out and watch lizards with me. She left, and when she came back I saw who was with her! And now they're here!” she whispered, cutting me off. “And they're mad. Did you bring him back? I tried to stall. But you didn't tell me where you were going or when you'd be back or what to do when they came looking. So I—”

“Lizzy, you're not making sense.” My little sister can talk faster than a Thoroughbred gallops. The only trouble Lizzy's ever gotten into at school was talking too much in class. And even then she always talked her way out of it.

My barn cat, Nelson, a gift from a friend of mine named Catman, pranced up, tail high and flicking. I picked him up. Then I saw where Lizzy was motioning with her head.

Hawk ran up to us. And right behind her came Summer Spidell, daughter of
the
Spidells of Ashland. My mind automatically imagines what breed of horse people would be if they were horses. From day one I'd pegged Summer as a yellow American Saddle Horse—not yellow as in cowardly. And not yellow-colored, although her long, blonde hair is the first thing you notice about her. And today she wore yellow shorts and a yellow spaghetti-strap T-shirt. She just makes me think yellow, a colorless, see-through personality, high-strung like a Saddle Horse. As a friend of mine would say, “No offense to the Saddle Horse.”

“Where is he?” Hawk asked, worry wrinkling her forehead. Her bird flapped his wings until I put down Nelson.

“Towaco?” I asked, slipping back the knot that held the gate shut.

“Of course!” Hawk answered. “I've been so worried, Winnie!”

Summer yawned. “I tried to tell you not to put your horse here. Just look at this place.”

Compared to the sleek, almost too-clean and professional Stable-Mart, our barn
did
look run-down. But unlike the Spidells' horse factory, ours was horse-friendly.

I shoved the gate open and led Nickers through. Horses, I can handle. People? That's a whole different thing.

I surveyed the pasture. No Towaco. My stomach tightened as I gave a laugh that sounded fake even to me. “Towaco's so used to being cooped up in Spidells' Stable-Mart, he's probably hiding in the barn for old time's sake.”

“At least
we
always know where
our
horses are,” Summer said haughtily. She unwrapped a stick of gum, folded it, and stuck it in her mouth, dropping the wrapper.

Lizzy picked up the wrapper and in a cheery voice said, “Oops. Dropped this, Summer. There you go.”

Summer had no choice but to take the wrapper and say thanks.

I raced to the barn. Several wild cats streaked to the haystacks. Slanted light crisscrossed the wood floor. I ran down the stallway, calling into each stall. No Towaco.

Just great. My first customer, and I lose her horse! Winnie the Horse Loser.

Hawk and Summer followed me in.

“So?” Hawk glanced around the barn. “What have you done with my horse?”

“He–I–,” I stammered.

Summer shook her head and put her arm around Hawk. “Winnie Willis, are you telling me you couldn't keep track of Victoria's horse for one hour?” Summer and her friends still called Hawk Victoria. Maybe that explained why Hawk could act like two different people sometimes.

I couldn't get words to come out. Instead, my mind flashed pictures of Towaco hovering next to the barn. That's what my mind does, whether I want it to or not. It snaps pictures that come back hours, days, even years later. They call it a photographic memory, which would be great if I had more control over which shots got taken.

Lizzy came to my rescue. “Of course Winnie hasn't lost your horse, Hawk! Towaco is . . . he's just . . .”

This was so bad, even Lizzy was having trouble explaining it away!

“. . . just,” Lizzy continued, “. . . misplaced. That's it!”

Summer whispered to Hawk, but I tuned them out and tried to think like Towaco:
My new home looked friendly . . . until that mare got so angry. I don't know what I did wrong. I tried to stay out of her way, but she still kicked at me. And those teeth!

It was working. I could almost feel Towaco's fear. He'd wanted to please Nickers, but he couldn't.
The white horse left, but she'll be back. So . . .

“Got it!” I cried. “Towaco jumped the fence when Nickers and I left.”

“Got it!”
echoed Hawk's bird.

“I'll bring Towaco back, and we'll start over!” I said, hoping, praying Hawk would let me.

“I'm coming with you,” Hawk insisted.

I didn't want company. I figured, still thinking like a horse, that Towaco would head north, as far away from Nickers as he could get. I'd send Hawk the other way. “Hawk, we'll find Towaco faster if we split up. You and Summer head to Stable-Mart in case Towaco goes back there. Lizzy can stay here. I'll head into town.”

“That's the first good idea I've heard all day,” Summer said, sneering. “If Towaco has a brain, he'll head back to
our
stable, where he won't get roughed up by wild horses.”

“Go!” Lizzy's fence lizard, Larry, poked its head from her shirt pocket. “Larry and I will keep a lookout here.”

“I don't know . . .” Hawk looked torn.

Summer tugged Hawk in the direction of Stable-Mart. “Don't worry, Victoria.
We'll
get everything back to normal.”

I wheeled out the back bike, Dad's backward bicycle invention, and pushed it across our junky yard, filled with “works-in-progress,” as Dad calls the broken appliances dumped off for him to repair. With all the inventions Dad worked on, it hadn't taken long for him to get the title Odd-Job Willis in town.