Eager Star (5 page)

“Victoria!” a tall, sandy blond guy called out. Then I recognized him as the palomino rider who'd been racing Grant.

Terrific. Now Grant and his racing buddy could compare notes about me.

Hawk's gaze met mine, and she nodded slightly as she took her seat next to Summer. I guess I should have known she'd be Summer's “Victoria” at school, not my “Hawk.” I couldn't really blame her. You couldn't just pull away from a kid like Summer if you wanted to stay in her group—the popular group.

Grant and Summer were play-fighting over a pen.

Kids grew louder, and still no sign of a teacher.

“Man!” said Grant's buddy, getting to his feet. “That stuff on the board looks hard!” He slid between chairs to the board and started erasing. “No way do I want some teach making me memorize all this!”

“Go, Brian!” yelled a redheaded girl in a tank top. “My hero!”

A couple of kids clapped. Summer giggled.

Outside in the hall, something clattered to the ground. Brian dropped the eraser and darted back to his seat.

“Rats!” came the voice from the hall. Papers shuffled. “No offense.”

No offense?
Only one person excused herself to rats. But Pat Haven ran Pat's Pets, the pet store where I worked. She didn't teach school.

Yet in she came, carrying a pile of papers high as a haystack. Her short, brown curls bounced. She's a miniature horse, compact and springy.

“Can you believe I got lost?” she exclaimed. “I was here before school started this morning, but things look different with all you kids in the building. I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off! No offense.”

“No offense for what?” Brian asked.

Pat dumped her papers onto the teacher's desk. “To the chickens! More of them than there are of us.” She took a deep breath and looked around the room. When she saw me, she winked.

“You're not Mr. Scott,” said the guy next to me. He wore glasses, khaki pants, and a navy T-shirt under a green-checked shirt.

“Why, you're sharp as a porcupine, aren't you?” Pat smiled at him until he blushed. “No offense to our quill-filled friends. I'm Ms. Haven, your substitute until Mr. Scott returns.”

“I know you!” shouted the redhead. “You're the lady from Pat's Pets.”

“Give that lady a gold star!” Pat shouted back.

This was too weird. Why hadn't she told me she'd be teaching?

“Will everything you teach be on Mr. Scott's final, Mrs. Haven?” Grant asked politely.

“Let's not worry about the final our first day of class! Today we'll talk about life! Life Science. How long is life? you ask.” She stared around the room, her big, brown eyes holding everyone captive. “It all depends. Take a look- see.” Pat wheeled around to face the board and her shoulders sagged. Until that instant, she must not have noticed that all her work had been erased. I felt so sorry for her, so angry at Brian and his buddies, I considered ratting them out. No offense.

Pat stared at the blank board. She rifled through her papers. “If I had a brain in my head, I'd have typed that list instead of copying it onto the board this morning. Now you don't have it. And neither do I.”

I could tell she didn't know what to do with us now.

“I remember nightingales can live three years, although most don't . . .” Her voice trailed off.

I couldn't stand seeing her struggle, especially since it was Brian's fault. Ordinarily, I'd have kept my mouth shut and waited for the class to end. But Pat had been great to Lizzy and me and Dad since we moved to Ashland. She'd rented us our house, sent Dad repair work, and given me a job on the pet help line.

Besides, wasn't this year supposed to be different?

“I can put your list back up,” I offered, my voice hoarser than normal.

Pat perked up like a mare seeing her weaned foal. “You copied it already?”

“Not exactly.” I moved to the board. For once, maybe my photographic memory could come in handy.

Even though Brian had left nothing but a few swirls of chalk dust, when I stared at the board, I could see the list as clearly as if it were still there. My mind had taken a photo. I never know how long photos will stick in my brain, which makes it hard to count on my memory for tests. But for now, I could see everything. I just filled in what I saw as I wrote:

Mayfly—24
hrs

Hamster—1.8 yrs

Bat—2 yrs

Black Salamander—3 yrs

Mouse—3 yrs

Tick—3–4 yrs

Blue Jay—4 yrs

I kept writing, hoping Pat would break the silence behind me and start talking again.

Blue Spider—15 yrs

Goat—18 yrs

Cat—21 yrs

“Well, I'll be a blue-nosed gopher!” Pat exclaimed. “No offense. Winnie, you remembered all those numbers just right. Don't forget, everybody. These aren't average life spans. These are the oldest known ages.”

No kidding. I'd never known a horse to reach 62, but that's what I wrote by
Horse
. Mom said when she was a kid, horses hardly ever topped 20 years. With better feed for older horses now, you can expect your horse to live 20, even 30, years. I hoped Nickers would break the 62-year record.

Pat talked about the class, but I didn't hear much. I kept writing until I got to the end and circled
eternity
the way she had. Then I sat back down.

“What's with eternity?” Summer asked. “I don't get it.”

“That's a shame, Summer,” Pat said, her voice light. “I'm hoping we can talk more about that one.”

“Is all of this going to be on the test?” Grant asked, scribbling furiously.

“What test?” Pat asked. “Oh, can't say. But I'm sure y'all want to copy the list Winnie so graciously recopied for us.”

Brian groaned.

Kids flipped open notebooks, bummed paper, dug for pens.

I copied the list too, just in case the photograph wasn't the long-lasting kind. I'd just written
eternity
when the buzzer rang.

Kids rushed out faster than ever for lunch.

The tall, redheaded girl stopped in front of my seat. “That was so tight! If I had your memory, I'd never crack a book! Not that I do now.”

“Thanks!”
Unreal! Somebody's talking to me on the first day of school? I made a good first impression? What if she has a horse and—?

“I'm Salena. Call me Sal.”

Summer walked up behind Sal and shoved her toward the door. “And you can call
her
Pat's Pet.”

Sal laughed, elbowed Summer, then walked out with her.

Hawk drifted past. “See you at lunch, Winnie.” But she didn't wait for me.

I stepped out into the hall and slipped behind the door, pressed to the bricks, waiting for an opening among the students. Taking out my gray notebook, I observed the herd galloping to the cafeteria. Hawk kept step with Summer and Sal.

Established mares don't like to associate with new mares who might not fit into their herd,
I wrote.
They prance and strut with the popular mares, ignoring the new mare.

The three girls stopped to let Grant catch up. I observed how things changed. Summer and Sal tried to talk to Grant at the same time, competing for his attention. Mom and I had observed the exact same thing in the herd of Mustangs we'd watched.

Mares turn on each other
, I continued,
as soon as a male enters the herd. They'll sacrifice female friendship in hopes of snagging the male.

“Split for lunch?” Catman strode by, the first time I'd seen him at school. He didn't slow down, so I hoisted my pack and trotted after him.

“Ever think,” he shouted, not turning around, “that the hokeypokey
is
what it's all about?”

Sometimes you have to ignore the Catman.

The cafeteria was as noisy as an auction barn. Catman tossed his rainbow-colored pack on a table and headed for the food line.

I pulled out the lunch Lizzy had packed. Nobody sat at my table, although every other table seemed crowded. I looked around for Barker but didn't see him. Grant and Summer plunked their trays at the table behind me. Hawk sat across from Summer.

Nothing but horses
. I'd have to break in sooner or later if I wanted to get known around here. I'd face Grant, let him ridicule me for riding backwards, and then get on with it.

Only not now.
I pretended to study my peanut-butter-and-cheese sandwich.

I peeked at Summer's table. Grant swiveled, tapped his spoon, surveyed the cafeteria, waving over a couple of kids—the king granting favors.

Grant is herd leader,
I wrote in my journal.
Anyone who wants to move up in the social order around here has to impress him. Acceptance by the leader brings acceptance by the herd.

And I'd made a lousy first impression on Grant.

Grant fork-banged his tray, jiggled in his seat, ate too fast.

I wrote:
Grant's what's known as a “hot” horse—an eager, nervous creature who chews on the bit, runs instead of lopes, and can't stand still under saddle.

“Type A personality?” Catman plopped down his tray across from me. “My great-grandfather was in the army. He's type A.”

I snapped my journal shut. “How long were you standing there, Catman?”

“Long enough. Horses—people—far out.”

“I'm trying to understand them,” I admitted. “I need more problem horses, so I've got to get to know kids like Grant and his group.”

Catman scraped up watery applesauce from the corner square of his tray. I didn't know if he'd heard me or not.

“See that?” I pointed, and Catman looked just as Summer ruffled up Grant's hair. “Touch. It's the way horses communicate. Humans too, I guess.”

I pointed to the clusters of kids around the cafeteria. “There! Zebras hang out in threes like that. Those six girls and one guy—a Przewalski harem—six mares to one stallion.” I bit into my sandwich. “I wish humans were as easy to understand as horses. Horses say more with their ears than most people do with their mouths. Nickers has 16 muscles that move her ears in all directions to let me know exactly how she feels.”

“Cats have 32,” Catman said. He drank his chocolate milk in one gulp. He'd eaten everything on his plate, plus Lizzy's lizard-shaped oatmeal cookies I'd donated.

Summer and Hawk stood up in the center of their noisy group, which included Brian and Sal. Side by side, the two seventh-graders looked like opposites. Hawk was as dark as Summer was light, brown eyes and black hair to Summer's gray eyes and blonde hair. But they had two things in common—both were lead mares, and every stallion in this herd was attracted to them.

“That's the group I have to break into,” I whispered to Catman as they walked past our table.

“Grant!” Catman shouted.

The peanut butter stuck in my throat.

“Catman?” Grant sounded surprised.

“Somebody here you ought to meet.” Catman waved his hand toward me.

Run! Flee!
It's a horse's natural response to terror, which is what I felt. I refused to look up.

“Oh?” Grant sounded puzzled, cautious, as if he thought Catman might be tricking him.

Catman scraped the last drop of tapioca from his tray. “Winnie Willis.”

Nowhere to run. No place to hide. Face Grant right now. Take my punishment, the teasing. Get it over with. Move on. A do-over.

I looked up, bracing myself to be mocked out.

Grant waved to someone behind me. Then he studied me up and down as if checking my conformation, considering the purchase, rejecting me as unsound. “I'm Grant.”

I waited.

Nothing.

No sign of recognition.