No Time for Horses
Read No Time for Horses Online
Authors: Shannon Kennedy
Tags: #high school, #divorce, #series, #horseback riding, #brothers and sisters, #teenage girl, #stepfather, #broken home, #stepsiblings, #no horse wanted, #shannon kennedy, #deck the stalls, #no time for horses, #nothing but horses, #responsbility, #shamrock stables
Shamrock Stables #2
by Shannon
Kennedy
Published by
Melange Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
No Time for Horses, Copyright 2013
by Shannon Kennedy
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ISBN:
978-1-61235-750-8
Names, characters, and incidents
depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States of
America.
Cover Design by Lynsee
Lauritsen
NO TIME FOR HORSES
SHANNON KENNEDY
Sixteen-year-old Vicky Miller feels
overloaded since her parents filed for divorce. Her mother got the
house and a new job. Her step-dad has the new car and a new
girlfriend. Vicky has the five kids, her younger half-brothers and
sisters who range from 18 months to 10 years old to look after and
her own life now comes second to their needs and wants.
It’s been six months of house-cleaning,
baby-sitting, cooking, non-stop laundry and Vicky is through
waiting for her life to improve. She has plans for her sophomore
year at Lincoln High and they don’t include being an unpaid
servant. If it takes a constant battle to attend her riding classes
and complete her internship at Shamrock Stable, she’s ready to
fight for her goal to be the best natural horse trainer around.
Her parents may not have time for her to be
with horses, but she has dreams no one can steal. Why should she
give them away? But will keeping them mean she loses her
family?
Dedication
No Time For Horses
is
dedicated to the “real” Aladdin and Summertime Job who like many
horses came to a new home with unknown histories. This leaves their
new owners to “play detective” as we try to figure out the baggage
these horses carry. This book is also for older sisters everywhere,
like my Aunt Molly who raised her younger siblings including my
mother from infancy, while their parents, my grandparents worked
during the 1940s. Aunt Molly did a good job or I wouldn’t be here
and neither would my books. As the saying goes, “the more things
change, the more they stay the same.”
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Tuesday,
November 12th, 7:35 a.m.
The warning bell for first period rang just
as I rushed through the front doors of Lincoln High School. I
hesitated for a moment, debating whether I should race to my locker
and grab my English text or just go to class. I was out of time. I
turned and ran for the Humanities wing. Mrs. Weaver always locked
the door the instant the last bell rang.
She couldn’t let me in unless I had a note
from the office, and I definitely wasn’t going there. One more
tardy slip meant another detention, and I’d be in Saturday School
with a bunch of slackers. They wouldn’t care, but I did, since S.S.
also put me on automatic academic probation and the cheer coach
would nail me.
The last thing I wanted to do was try to
discuss my parents’ divorce with the vice-principal again. Mr.
Schuesser didn’t seem to understand their split ruined my life. Mom
got the house and a new job dealing cards at the local casino. Dad
took the new car to impress his skanky girlfriend, and I got stuck
with their five little kids. Anger lent added speed, and I pelted
into the classroom, just as the final bell rang.
Mrs. Weaver closed the door behind me. Her
skirt and jacket were her favorite shade of steel gray. It totally
matched her gray hair. She gave me an evil look from stone-gray
eyes. “Next time you’re late, you’re headed for the school
Counseling Center to have a chat with Dr. Danvers. Sophomore Class
President or not, you don’t get special treatment in my room,
Victoria.”
I nodded, trying to catch my breath, and
hustled toward the seat next to my best friend, Robin. Actually, a
time-out with the head-shrinker kept me from getting a detention
and away from the V.P. in charge of
discipline, but I wouldn’t tell the other
students that. Mrs. Weaver and Dr. Danvers had made a deal back at
the beginning of school to try and help me stay out of Saturday
School, but it was a major secret.
Robin was everything I wasn’t. Four inches
taller than me at five foot six, but who wasn’t? I tried to remind
myself that being short was what made me such a good flyer for the
cheer squad. Sometimes, it worked. Sometimes, it didn’t. My eyes
were hazel, which meant some days they were green, and some days
they were brown. It depended on what I wore.
Blonde and athletic, Robin never stressed
about her weight. She didn’t have to since she was a cross-country
and track champ who ran six miles a day regardless of the weather.
Me, I couldn’t gain an ounce without the other cheerleaders
freaking out. I didn’t blame them. They were the ones who had to
toss me to the top of the pyramid, and two pounds made a big
difference.
Robin kicked my backpack toward me. “The kids
giving you heartburn again, Vicky? I guess we should have expected
it after a three-day weekend.”
“Yeah.” I bent down and unzipped my pack,
pulling out my composition book. Robin had obviously taken time to
go to my locker and grab my stuff for this class. “Thanks. You’re
the best.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t keep your latte over here
for you. Weaver nabbed it.” Robin caught a glare from our teacher
and dove for her own comp book.
The first day of the week, we always had a
long writing assignment. Ten to fifteen minutes of pouring our
souls into the lined books on some sort of crazy topic that I’d
swear Mrs. Weaver spent all weekend thinking up. Last Friday, we’d
written long essays about Veteran’s Day. Today’s write was about
Elizabeth Cady Stanton who was born on November 12th, 1815. She was
famous for her work in the women’s rights movement. American women
still didn’t get the vote until the passage of the 19th amendment
in 1920, and Stanton didn’t live to see it happen.
Mrs. Weaver had written in big red letters on
the whiteboard, “Why do you think women were not allowed to vote
for such a long time in America? Support your answer.”
Robin leaned over and whispered. “What
happened today? Did the twins try to skip school again?”
I nodded and tried not to remember the
chaotic morning. It was hard to believe that it wasn’t eight
o’clock yet. I’d already cooked breakfast, packed five lunches,
dressed the five kids and myself, and ironed my mom’s uniform for
her casino job because I was the lazy, sniveling wretch who failed
to pick up the pressed one at the cleaners. I’d scrubbed up the
kitchen and tidied the rest of the house. I dropped off Mom’s dirty
uniforms at the dry cleaners and the five kids at daycare. Four of
them would go off to the elementary school at eight-forty-five, but
the baby would stay all day until I picked her up this afternoon.
If it hadn’t been a three-day weekend with the kids at their
father’s until Sunday afternoon, I never would have been able to
finish my homework.
They weren’t even my kids and it wasn’t my
house, but at least we had a dishwasher. If I had to do everything
the way women did in the olden days, I wouldn’t have time to
breathe, much less campaign for the right to vote. I didn’t know if
that was what Mrs. Weaver wanted to hear or not. Frankly, I didn’t
care. I needed somewhere to vent, and a blank sheet of paper worked
for me. Then, at least I wouldn’t be screaming my head off and
hearing about what an ‘ungrateful wretch’ I was from my mother.
“Time,” Mrs. Weaver called, “Pass your books
forward.”
I did and cringed inside. I’d forgotten that
Tuesday morning was when she shared what we wrote. The only good
thing was she never used names. She flipped through one book and
read. “Women didn’t get the vote because men were smart back
then.”
Mrs. Weaver gazed around the room and turned
her evil look on the cluster of guys snickering in the back corner.
“Sounds like I have some volunteers to teach the ‘Declaration of
Sentiments’ this week. I’ll enjoy hearing what you come up with for
tomorrow’s presentation. That includes at least twenty slides, an
assignment that engages the whole class, a worksheet, a homework
activity, and an assessment of what your classmates learned.”
Sudden silence and one of the guys elbowed
another, probably the chauvinist who’d succeeded in getting all of
them stuck with a major assignment and zip in the way of prep time.
Lincoln High was a private school, and we were all supposed to be
college-bound. Mrs. Weaver was a notorious hard grader, and she
loved making her students suffer. She wasn’t joking about her
expectations either. The guys would be up in front of the room
tomorrow or they’d take an ‘F,’ and that meant a call to each of
their parents from Dr. Danvers or Mr. Schuesser. Failure was
unacceptable at Lincoln High.
Next book. “Women didn’t get the vote because
nobody listened to them but that didn’t mean they stopped trying.”
Mrs. Weaver glanced at Porter, then Gwen, and continued eying other
students. “Good start, but whoever wrote this needs to think about
how to support the argument.” Third book. This one was mine. Mrs.
Weaver frowned over the first section then said, “I’m skipping to
the conclusion. This person wrote, ‘Because women’s work has
primarily dealt with the home and children, it was not respected in
Stanton’s time. Little changed in America from the time that
Abigail Adams argued women should be included in the Constitution
until Stanton’s era, and it took until 1920 before they finally
achieved that status.’”
Steve raised his hand. “Who was Abigail
Adams?”
“An interesting question and that leads us to
your next assignment.” Mrs. Weaver opened her literature book. “We
have a selection of the letters she wrote to her husband, John
Adams, and before you ask who he was, I’ll tell you that he became
the second President of the United States. Page 88, please.”
When we were all on the appropriate page, she
chose Porter to start reading the first letter. Mrs. Weaver came
over to me, a cardboard sixteen-ounce coffee cup in her hand. “I
think you need this latte more than I do, Victoria.”
Robin grinned at the teacher. “That’s why I
always pick her up one. If I had to do what she does every morning,
I’d be asleep in here.”