Made That Way (12 page)

Bernadette tumbles out of Stephanie's lap, waddles to a corner of the stall, squats and pees. Halfway back to Stephanie she attacks a scrap of wood and wrestles it to the ground.

“Taylor's dancing days are over,” says Stephanie.

I tell her I know that.

“I'm going to be away at university. Mom is useless and Erika is too young. So you're going to have to help her find a new life to pour herself into.”

“Okay, Stephanie.” I will say anything to make her happy.

“I think she should take up riding,” says Stephanie.

She has to be out of her mind. I knew she was weird, but this is insane. “Oh no, Stephanie, that will never work. Taylor's afraid of horses. Actually she's afraid of everything, except maybe angels. And us horse people, well, we're born this way, all of us—Kansas, Dr. Cleveland, me, we were born wanting to ride and be with horses. You can't make someone a horse person.”

Stephanie stands up and dusts off her bum. Bernadette makes a bee-line for her shoes and collapses on them. Stephanie scoops her up and presses her against her cheek. “This will be a healthy atmosphere for Taylor. She'll be okay with horses once she gets to know them. I know I would have turned out differently if I'd been able to ride like I wanted to when I was a kid.”

I decide not to remind her that she made Grandpa pay for plastic surgery on her nose instead. She could have had a horse. Instead she got a little ski-jump. She probably doesn't want to hear this.

Bernadette's hind feet scrabble on Stephanie's chest, pulling down the edge of her corset. Despite trying as hard as I can not to look, I see another tattoo. The letters are ornately scrolled and it takes me a few seconds to decipher them. Even then they don't make sense. “Gregory?” I say.

She follows my line of vision then hikes up her top and stares daggers at me. Maybe she expects to turn me to stone, but I'm too confused by events to comply. Auntie Sally used to be married to Uncle Gregory but I haven't seen him for years and years and no one talks about him anymore. “But he left you,” I say.

“He didn't leave me, you idiot. He left my mom.”

“Okay.” What else can I say?

“And don't you dare tell anyone,” says Stephanie. She points a finger at me. “No one else knows, so if someone mentions it, I'll know you squealed, and I'll have to kill you.”

“I won't say anything!” I'm sure she means it. She looks like a killer, even though she has a puppy in her arms that is licking her neck. Psychopaths often have close relationships with animals, my mom says, because they can't manage human relationships.

“That is, if I haven't killed you already for not helping Taylor get a new life without dance.” She steps towards me menacingly. I can see the tattoo on her shoulder. Definitely there are fangs, and talons and scales and feathers. It's a mess. I shudder. It must be another hybrid, but this one is some sort of monster.

“Okay! I'll help her.” Though I don't know how. It's not as though I don't have enough problems of my own.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

So yet another day passes without my being able to ride my new horse. Mom says I have to come with her while she drops off Auntie Sally and Stephanie. Then we head home. I also miss taking my first dose of mare urine.

Dad's back from his golf game. I'm thinking he must have had a high score because he sure doesn't look happy as he bursts out the front door and meets us on the driveway.

“I've been frantic,” he says. “Where have the two of you been?”

“We're fine,” says Mom. “We just dropped off Sally and Stephanie.”

This is like throwing gasoline on a fire. “You've been at Sally's all this time? Last I heard you were broken down at the side of the road, and then my cell phone cut out.”

“I dealt with it,” says Mom.

“Okay,” says Dad. He takes a deep breath. “You're okay, that's what counts.” He looks at the car. “That's a high-class loaner.”

“It's a hybrid,” I tell him and he smiles at me so I tell him, “Hybrids are the way of the future.”

A suspicious expression crosses his face and takes up residence. He turns to Mom but doesn't say anything.

She tosses the car's key fob into her purse. “My father,” she says, “sent Sylvie a hinny.”

My dad looks puzzled but still doesn't say anything.

“A hinny,” says Mom, “is a cross between a donkey and a horse.”

“That's a mule,” says Dad.

“Not if the mother is a donkey and the father is a stallion,” I say.

“Well . . . .” says Dad. For some reason he looks like he's trying not to laugh.

“I wouldn't say what you're thinking, Studly,” says Mom. She's smiling.

“That smells like a new car,” says Dad.

“It is,” says Mom.

I'm all prepared to tell Dad about the advantages of hybrids, but Mom says, “Not now, Honey.”

“How much?” says Dad.

“It's all in my name, Tony,” says Mom who then turns and strides up the sidewalk and disappears into the house.

“Dad, I don't care if Brooklyn's a hinny. I'm keeping him. I like it that he's a hybrid. Hybrids are good.”

“I suspect I'll be hearing a lot to that effect in the next little while,” says Dad. He opens the car door and seats himself behind the wheel. He sighs. “Nice. But don't tell her I said so.”

I don't understand adults. Why can't he be happy for my mom, like I'm happy for Kansas? Maybe he needs a reminder. “Kansas got a new puppy named Bernadette. Next week I'm going to help her pick out a kitten for the barn.”

“That's great, Munchkin.” He looks sad. I don't get it.

“How was your golf game, Dad?”

He brightens a little. “Good. Ten over par. Would have done better, but I took that call from your mom on the eighteenth and then was worried about the two of you. I decided there was nothing I could do, so I played out the hole. But I was distracted. Double bogey.”

“That's too bad, Dad.”

He nods, climbs out of the car and gently closes the door. There are paw prints on the panel below the window. He turns to me accusingly. “Kansas's new dog?”

“She's a puppy, Dad. She can hardly stand up.”

“Bunga,” we say in unison.

Dad rubs at the smudges with his finger. “Thank god, it's just dirt. No scratches.”

“During the painting process they use a positively charged primer,” I tell him.

I figure that Mom and Dad are going to have a bit of a dust-up about the car, followed by a make-up in their bedroom, and then later, if I'm lucky, maybe we can go out for pizza for dinner. I head off to my bedroom and shut the door so I hear as little as possible of the inevitable process.

I thumb through my Greenhawk Equestrian Supply catalogue and my Pony Club manual but somehow they don't appeal. I scan my bookcase and pull down a large hardcover that Auntie Sally found for me two years ago at the Salvation Army thrift store. I haven't looked at it for ages. I sit on the floor with my back against my bed and flip open the cover. It's all about equestrian three-phase eventing in England. The first phase is dressage, which is what Kansas loves so much, kind of like the compulsory figures phase of international figure skating. The second phase is cross-country jumping and the final phase is stadium jumping. I skim through the dressage photos which are pretty, but when I reach the cross-country section I study each page with great care. The riders wear protective vests as well as crash helmets. The horses have protective boots on their pasterns. Some of the horses have white grease smeared on their chests so if they hit a jump they slide off, because these jumps don't fall down like the stadium ones. They are big and solid and fantastically exciting. They remind me of the dreams I have where I'm riding and it feels like I'm flying across the countryside and then I reach a fence and soar over that. I feel my heart beating faster just by thinking about it. This is what I want to do. Dressage is interesting and it can be beautiful, but it's not where my heart is. I wonder if I can explain this to Kansas. She's not that keen on jumping. When I've tried talking to her about it in the past she just said that ninety percent of a jump course is on the flat so I better improve my dressage.

I wonder if Brooklyn likes jumping. I wonder how old I will have to be before I can move to England and take up three-phase eventing.

Out in the hall I hear Mom and Dad's bedroom door snick shut. They are trying to be quiet but as usual they aren't very good at it.

My attention drifts back to the book open on my lap and then floats away again. I find myself staring in an unfocussed way through my bedroom window. The sun is still streaming in. When I change my focus to the ceiling of my room I see the funny shape again, like a shadow, or maybe a gap in my vision. This must be what it would be like if you had a horn growing out of your forehead. I raise my hand and curl my fingers around the space where a horn would be and imagine what it would feel like. Cool and smooth. Such a wonderful thing. Imagine how everyone at school would respect me if they knew I was part-unicorn. I touch my forehead with my index finger, and it's still sensitive, and the lump is still there. I'm sure it's bigger.

Behind me on top of my bookcase is my new riding helmet, but I dig out my old one from under my bed. I stand in front of the mirror hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I hold my fist gently against my forehead where my horn would be and slide on my old helmet. There's not quite enough room.

I slip down to my dad's work room for a carving tool. Technically speaking I'm not supposed to use them. Dad says they're not toys and they are very sharp and I'm sure to cut a finger off, but I know he's being over-protective. If I'm very careful everything will be fine. Of course I know they're not toys. Besides, what I'm doing is serious.

Back in my room I pull back the fabric liner of my helmet then shave away at the shell. Kansas has told me that I have to be careful with the helmet and that even dropping it could impair its structural integrity. Obviously this one is toast having been in a crash with me, but this makes it perfect to practice on. I want to see if a half-moon arch in the middle of the front brim does any harm. I shave away slivers of Styrofoam. When I'm finished I flip the liner back into place and examine my handiwork. It's great. No one would know except me.

I take my new helmet from my bookcase and repeat the surgery on this one. It goes faster because now I know what I'm doing.

I'm in Dad's work room, tucking away the blade, when Mom calls from the kitchen. We're going out for pizza.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I'm dreaming, and I know I'm dreaming even though there are no horses and thankfully no unicorn.

I'm at school. I'm sitting in an empty classroom and the bell is ringing. I cringe. The last people I want to see are Amber and Topaz. I'm not ready to deal with them yet, I haven't started my estrogen treatment. My boss mare techniques have not been mastered.

I hear footsteps in the hall. The door handle turns.

And I remind myself: this is a lucid dream. I can make it do whatever I want. Who would I like to see? I surprise myself so much with my answer that I almost wake up, but I steady myself and in walks Logan Losino.

He hasn't grown over the summer either. He looks exactly the same as he did in June. He has nice eyes and he's not very big, though of course he's taller than me.

He smiles when he sees me and sits in the desk beside mine.

“Funny meeting you here,” he says. “You come here often?” Logan Losino has always been quite the jokester.

“Usually I'm riding,” I tell him. “Usually I try to avoid school.”

“I don't blame you. Amber and Topaz.” He rolls his eyes. They're blue.

“I thought you liked them.”

“That's not who I like.” He tilts his head and gives me the saddest look I have ever seen in my life.

I don't know what to say.

“Amber and Topaz aren't nice,” he tells me, as if I don't know that. “And they're not smart. They're not funny. They don't care about other people.”

“So why do you hang out with them all the time?”

“Someone has to keep them under surveillance,” he says.

Wow. What a guy. He's sacrificing himself for the good of the community. “Logan Losino, you would have made one heck of a boss mare if it weren't for the fact that you're missing some ovaries,” I tell him. He looks disappointed so I add, “Of course I may not have ovaries either, being an infertile hybrid, but this won't stop me from being a boss mare.” Which actually puts me into a flurry of confusion as I think about how a woman can be a woman without ovaries or even secondary sexual characteristics, and how a unicorn can be a unicorn if its horn has fallen off. But as much as I stretch definitions, I can't imagine Logan Losino as a boss mare, which seems a shame.

He is staring at my forehead. I put up a hand, and I can feel the horn.

“Cool,” he says. “I wish I had one of those.”

“Well you can,” I tell him, and then I give him one. And after I've enjoyed feeling happy for a while, I wake myself up.

That was a great dream.

That was one of the best. Logan Losino. I've never dreamt about him before. And it's nice to know that I can bring someone into one of my lucid dreams without something bad happening to them.

If only it was as easy to grant wishes in the real world as it is in the world of lucid dreaming. Which reminds me of all the work ahead of me. There are so many things that I decide to make a plan. Of course, some of it I have to put in code in case Mom finds it.

1. Continue to work on becoming a boss mare (the “Gatorade” project).

2. Remind Mom (again) to get me an appointment with the pediatrician.

3. Make Kansas understand that my equestrian goal is to learn how to jump.

4. Deal with Stephanie's request that I find a way of making Taylor into a horse woman (more “Gatorade”???)

5. Brooklyn . . . .

I don't know what to write about Brooklyn. I know he's my responsibility, and I know I want to train him, and I want to learn to ride him, but somehow I don't know how to put this into a plan. It's like whatever I have to do with Brooklyn is still up in the air somehow, whirling around over my head.

Even though I don't exactly believe in the spirit world, I find myself thinking about what the unicorn told me. Not only can I bring people from the real world into my lucid dreaming world, but I can also take things from the dream world into the real world. Maybe there are things I can do before I am a full-fledged boss mare.

I'm getting ready to leave for the barn when Dr. Tanya Bashkir phones. I tell her my mom and dad have left for work already but she says it's me she wants to talk to about the samples she took from Brooklyn's forehead. I am so wonderstruck at being treated like a responsible adult that at first it's difficult to concentrate on what she has to say. She thinks Brooklyn has some sort of dermatitis, but it's nothing she's ever seen before. (With everything that's been happening lately, this doesn't surprise me). She says the lab was unable to cultivate anything as they could with regular bacteria, and nothing showed up under the microscope until they did some special staining. He has some sort of spirochete infection. (She spelled it out for me and I wrote it down so I could tell Kansas). She doesn't think it's contagious. I've never heard of spirochetes before. Tanya says they come in several forms, one of the more common being syphilis, and of course I've heard of that one.

“So does he need to be on antibiotics?” I ask.

“I'm not sure what he needs,” says Tanya. “But I've made up a solution for you to try. I've had some success with it in the past on horn loss in cattle.”

I almost drop the phone.

“A cow's horn can fall off?” I ask, though I'm not sure I want the answer. I find it very disturbing considering what a fallen cow might have done to deserve its fate.

“It's a foot problem,” says Tanya. “Horn refers to the hoof capsule.”

This is slightly comforting but I don't have any time to relax because the next thing she says is, “I don't run into many cross-species contaminations.”

Another cross-over. Why can't my life be simple?

I'm mulling everything over, wondering what question I could possibly ask that wouldn't sound totally bizarre, when Tanya pipes in to say she'll drop the solution at the barn when she passes by today. Then she wants to know how Brooklyn and I are getting along. I tell her I haven't ridden him yet.

“Well there's lots of time,” she tells me.

I tell her I've decided I want to do three phase eventing but I'll have to wait until I can move to England.

“Why would you have to move to England? There's a great cross-country course two hours down the highway.”

I could hug her. I could squeeze myself through the phone line, pop out the other end, and throw my arms around her.

Then she brings me back to earth. “You'll have to see if Brooklyn likes it though. Being a hinny, he's more intelligent than most horses. If he doesn't like jumping cross-country or finds it too scary or dangerous or difficult, it won't be any fun for either of you. It's a very ambitious and demanding sport, for both horses and riders.”

“Kansas says domestic horses have a job to do and that basically they have to get with the program.”

“I don't disagree with her entirely,” says Tanya. “But hybrids like hinnies and mules aren't the same as horses. They have to be handled differently. They won't be bullied.”

I'm thinking I should explain the difference to her between bullies and boss mares, except that as I try to put my words together I'm not sure I know the difference, other than subtlety, which doesn't seem enough somehow. Suddenly it seems that in both cases it's basically a matter of getting your own way. Somehow this doesn't sit right with me. Could I have this whole boss mare thing all wrong?

“There's something else you need to be aware of in dealing with Brooklyn,” continues Tanya. “I've seen it in handling mules. I haven't worked with many hinnies but I assume hinnies will be similar. You'll have found that with horses their two main reactions to stress are fight or, more commonly, flight. Mules have another one: if they're really frightened, they'll freeze. That's why some people call them stubborn, but they're not really. I had to work on a mule once and the procedure was a bit, well, unpleasant. I asked him to move and it was like he was frozen to the spot, but when I leaned my shoulder in against his chest I could feel his heart pounding like a jackhammer.”

“Fight, flight or freeze,” I say, remembering how Brooklyn hadn't wanted to leave the horse trailer.

“Right. And you have to learn to read their expressions, which are different from horses. You don't get the little tail-swish warning, or a semi-pinned ear. Everything can look just fine, and then—whammo.”

“Like when Brooklyn bit the truck driver,” I say.

“Exactly. Hinnies aren't horses. They're hybrids. You've got lots to learn and Kansas won't be able to help you with all of it. Just a minute.”

I hear muffled voices at the other end, then Tanya comes back on the line and says there's an emergency call and she has to hit the road, which is just as well because she's given me too much to think about already.

I won't be able to count on Kansas. Already I can't count on my mom and dad. They know nothing about equines that I haven't taught them. And Grandpa is too easily confused.

I'm on my own. This is exciting and terrifying at the same time. I rub my forehead, where my horn would be or will be, and I feel better. I can do this. I know I can. I am a hybrid, and hybrids are the way of the future. Hybrids have vigor.

I put on my new riding helmet and pedal off to the farm. When I get to the top of the driveway I can see Auntie Sally's car in the parking area. Auntie Sally is supposed to be at work. Then I see the skid marks where the car braked, and I know Auntie Sally would never drive this fast. Stephanie must have been at the wheel.

I think about turning around and pedaling back home, but she'd only come looking for me.

She's not in the car. I find her in the barn, and she's brought Taylor, who is on crutches. Braveheart's head is out over his stall door and he's snorting and blowing like a wild thing as they pass by. I guess he's never seen a one-legged person on sticks before.

Before I can warn them about Brooklyn, they're at his stall. Brooklyn leans his head out over the door and sniffs Taylor's hand. I figure she's about to lose another digit but there's not much I can do about it. You don't run in barns, and you don't scream. It just upsets everybody. So I walk as fast as I can, and by the time I get there it's obvious that Brooklyn likes Taylor. But the really amazing thing is that Taylor seems to like Brooklyn too. She must still be on drugs, otherwise she'd be afraid. She's afraid of everything unless it's made of gauze and sprinkles. I don't mean to be unkind, it's just true.

“Hey,” I say behind them.

“Hey Evel,” says Stephanie.

Taylor doesn't answer. She's mesmerized by Brooklyn's nose. “You're so soft,” she says. She lowers her cheek to Brooklyn's nostril. A few strands of her hair waft up when he exhales.

“Taylor, I wouldn't do that if I was you,” I warn her.

“He's so sweet,” says Taylor.

I look at Stephanie, hoping for a clue about Taylor's personality change. “Is she still on medication?” I whisper.

“Tylenol 3's,” says Stephanie aloud. So I guess we can talk about it openly.

“Maybe I should take some of those for my first day of school,” I say without thinking, leaving myself wide open to some sarcastic comment from Stephanie.

But she surprises me. “School sucks,” she says. “That's why family has to stick together.”

Ah. Her campaign. I understand. Our eyes meet and I hold her gaze. “Okay, Stephanie,” I tell her.

Meanwhile Taylor has opened the stall door and hopped in to Brooklyn's stall, her crutches held in one hand.

“Oh that's really not a good idea . . . ,” I say. But Brooklyn is sniffing the crutches curiously, not like Braveheart would. Obviously Brooklyn is not worried that crutches are some kind of horse torturing device. He lips the butterfly nut at the hand rests but doesn't offer to bite anything. He drops his head and sniffs the rubber end on one crutch, then his nose drifts over to examine Taylor's bandaged foot. When he's finished, and this takes him forever (during which time I have died and come back to life several times as I worry that he's going to rip the bandage right off and then stomp Taylor to death in front of our very eyes which will give Stephanie the excuse she's been looking for to offer me as a ritual sacrifice to whatever pagan gods she worships) he lifts his head, and rests it gently on Taylor's shoulder.

“He likes me,” says Taylor.

Stephanie looks at me and gives me a grin which I find kind of menacing. I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed.

“My dad won't go for this,” I say. “He won't pay full board for a horse if I'm sharing.”

“Your dad is such a Neanderthal,” says Stephanie.

There's no room for compromise with Stephanie. There never is. I have to find a way of coping with the situation.

“Just a minute,” I say. And I beat a retreat to the tack room. I open the fridge and pull out my jar of Gatorade mixed with Electra pee. Electralytes, I tell myself, hoping a joke will make it taste better. I twist off the cap. I take a sip, a very very small one, hoping mare urine will work like homeopathic remedies where you only need a molecule or two to be effective, which would be great because truly it tastes foul. But it's worth it. I instantly feel more powerful. I can handle this. Maybe I can convince my dad. Maybe I can keep taking lessons on Electra so my riding doesn't deteriorate too much. Maybe Kansas will let me ride Hambone. Because it seems my destiny is to be hanging around with a hinny and Taylor while I help put her life back in order. And this hardly seems like bullying boss mare activity. It feels more like being a herd leader.