Snap (7 page)

Someone watching shouted, “Kiss him!” Sancho's ears twitched, and Danya put a hand on his nose. Her heart beat quickly in her chest. Finally, Lola's lips curled into a smile.

“You always were tone deaf, you know that?” she said.

Kevin stood up and held out his hand. “Maybe you could show me how it's done?”

As if on cue, Lola swept out into the center of the stage, facing the audience. She held her head back and took a deep breath . . . then let out the clearest, sweetest, most beautiful note that Danya had ever heard. Lola's voice floated past the catwalk and the rafters, filling the entire space with music. Kevin was so excited he started to dance. Danya's mouth fell open as he moved his skinny limbs across the stage, spinning and twirling around Lola with the grace of a ballerina. He held the banjo close to his chest, like it was part of the dance, too.

Lola's smile held firm as she sang. She spread her arms wide, like she could stretch that note as easily as stretching her back after a nap.

When she'd finished, the note hung in the air all around them. Kevin stopped dancing and dropped down to one knee.

“Can I take that as a yes?” he asked with a crooked smile.

Instead of answering, Lola threw her arms around his neck. He lifted her off her feet and swept her in a wide circle across the stage.

Danya stared, moon-eyed, her heart welling inside her. It was so romantic! Like a fairy tale. She looked up at Pia, and her cousin winked, as if to say,
I told you so
 . . .

Danya would never admit it, but maybe Pia was right. Maybe there was always time to be a hero . . . at least in the name of love?

Sancho came up behind her and nudged her elbow with his wet nose. Danya glanced down and saw that he had Kevin's bag of rose petals clenched between his front teeth.

“Sancho, that's sweet, but I don't think I can,” she muttered, glancing out at the audience. No way would she go onstage in front of all those people!

Sancho whickered and pushed the rose petals into her hands again. Then Danya's eyes fell on the old, industrial-size fan just behind the main curtain. Maybe she could help the moment feel special without going onstage after all. . . .

Darting behind the fan, she flipped a switch she could only hope would power it up. Sure enough, the fan's blades began to whir.

Grinning, Danya grabbed a handful of flower petals from the bag and tossed them in the path of the spinning blades. The petals whirred and twirled onto the stage around Kevin and Lola like a colorful tornado. Sancho moved his weight from hoof to hoof to hoof, almost like he was dancing. Out on the center of the stage, Kevin lifted Lola off her feet. They kissed long and deep as petals floated around them.

Danya grabbed another handful of petals and leaned forward to toss them into the wind. Then the backstage door slammed open, and she jumped, turning so fast she scattered petals everywhere, coating all the equipment and props stacked behind the stage curtain with a layer of pink.

A police officer with a bushy mustache and a shiny, star-shaped badge affixed to his black uniform walked through the open door. He glared at Danya with beady eyes, and her heart climbed into her throat.

“You!” The cop's mustache twitched as he spoke, and he pointed a thick, calloused finger right at Danya. “I've been looking for you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Golden Girls Adventure Club Takes the Mississippi

D
anya froze, letting
the bag of petals drop to the floor next to her feet. Her parents really did call the cops. Maybe they
could
triangulate her location using the signal from her walkie-talkie! Next to her, Sancho sneezed, sending the petals covering his nose fluttering into the air.

“What's the meaning of this?” Kevin hissed under his breath, quickly leaving the stage. Lola started singing another song to distract the audience from the commotion, but every few seconds her eyes shifted over to where they were arguing.

“We're in the middle of a show!” Kevin said. The man with the mustache and badge puffed up his chest.

“This girl is a trespasser,” he said. “The security camera caught her sneaking in through the side door. And she brought a live animal backstage. She needs to be removed from the property immediately!”

The man with the mustache fumbled with his badge, and for the first time Danya read what was written across it:
SECURITY GUARD
.

Pia scurried down from the catwalk, and her eyes narrowed on him. “Think we should make a run for it?” she whispered to Danya. Danya swallowed, her eyes darting to the hall that led to the exit. Could they make it?

“These girls are here as my special guests,” Kevin explained before either girl could move. “I'll take care of them from here.”

The security guard bristled and muttered something about checking with his manager before storming out the back door. Shaking his head, Kevin ushered Pia, Danya, and Sancho away, finding them a spot backstage where they could watch the rest of the show. While Danya and Pia perched on a few stools backstage, Sancho plopped onto the concrete floor and immediately began gnawing on a plastic prop apple that had rolled under the edge of the curtain. There were still a few flower petals caught in his mane.

“Are you ladies hungry?” Kevin asked.

“Um, sure,” Danya said. She
was
hungry, actually—very hungry—but she couldn't keep her eyes from shifting back to the door where the security guard disappeared and worried about what would happen when he found his manager.

Kevin disappeared and returned a few minutes later with two cheese sandwiches, a real apple, and a couple of grape-flavored juice boxes. He arranged the lunch on a folding table next to the stools, then explained that he needed to start readying the props and costumes for the show and scurried off again.

Danya ate her cheese sandwich quickly, then held out her hand to let Sancho finish her crusts. His furry lips tickled her palm, and when he finished eating, he nuzzled her on the shoulder. Danya patted his head as she slid off her stool.

“Hurry,” she whispered, nudging Pia. “Time to go.”

Pia twisted around on her stool. “But it's about to be the curtain call!”

“Pia,
come on
,” Danya hissed. “If that security guard comes back with his manager, he'll call our parents for sure.”

Pia huffed but slid off her stool. Danya scrawled a quick thank-you note for Kevin on a piece of paper from her notebook, and then the girls and Sancho slipped back down the hall and out the side entrance where they'd first snuck in.

The farmer's truck was long gone. Danya hoped he'd found the good luck jar she left him and that maybe one of his wishes came true. She led Pia and Sancho around to the front of the building but far enough from the main doors that the security guard wouldn't see them if he poked his head out. It wasn't quite dark yet, but the sun hung low in the sky, sending shadows over the parking lot. Danya slid the map out of her back pocket as Pia settled herself on the curb, propping her long, skinny legs against the tire of the station wagon parked in front of her. Sancho munched on the grass that had sprouted between the pavement cracks. No one was around except for an old lady in a yellow sweatshirt loitering near the Grand Ole Opry entrance, a stack of glossy brochures clutched in her hands. Danya stared at her from over the top of her map, wondering if she was the kind of person who'd call security on them. But the old lady just waved politely before looking back down at her brochures, so Danya decided she was probably safe.

Turning back to the map, Danya traced a finger along their trail. They were still so far from Florida—in the past day, they'd barely covered any distance at all. It would take hours and hours to ride Sancho all the way to the next big city—maybe even
days
. Danya pulled the sandwich bag of money out of her backpack and counted through the bills, wondering if there was enough for a bus ticket or something. The forty-six dollars felt light in her hands and she frowned, realizing they'd probably need to save the money for food. They'd been lucky so far getting the free sandwiches from Kevin. She folded it up and tucked it into her back pocket.

“Hey,
Snap
!”

Blinking, Danya glanced up from the map. Pia had her head cocked to the side, the Ferdinand and Dapple book in her lap. “I asked if you wanted to know what's next on the list?”

“I'm trying to figure out how we're going to get to Florida, Pia. This is
important
.”

“Not more important than this. The next thing on the list is
suffer a great sadness or loss
.” Pia looked up from the book, her brown eyes wide with concern.

“It doesn't matter since it's
not real
!” Danya said emphatically, turning back to the map. After that security guard scare she was starting to hear the ticking clock in her head again.
Tick tick tick.
Every second they wasted brought them closer to being caught.

“You aren't even a little bit worried?” Pia wrinkled her nose and closed the book.

Danya didn't know how to answer that. She
was
worried—but she was worried about real things, like the cops and her parents, not predictions from a book. Before she could say a word, though, the Grand Ole Opry doors sprang open, and a steady stream of people filed into the parking lot and began looking for their cars. The lady in the yellow sweatshirt smiled wide and began handing out shiny brochures to everyone who passed. Danya watched as a few people took the brochures, then pulled out keys and headed for their cars.

Not for the first time, it occurred to Danya how much easier this trip would be if only she were old enough to drive. She used to take road trips with her parents all the time. The three of them would pile into her dad's car and drive across Kentucky to visit Thomas Edison's house or the Kentucky Derby Museum. Her dad would scan the radio until he found a station that played Elvis or the Beatles, and then he'd sing along, slightly off tune, while her mom pretended to cover her ears. Her
tío
Beto would come by their farm while her family was away to check in on Sancho, Jupiña, and the rest of their animals. The memory made Danya frown. That was back when they still had the stables. Jupiña always looked so beautiful in their backyard—she had the same chestnut-colored mane as Sancho and huge brown eyes that followed her baby pony everywhere.

Danya shook her head and hugged the atlas to her chest, her heart heavy as she watched people head for their cars. Her family stopped taking road trips after the fire. Danya lied and said that the trips made her carsick, but really she didn't like leaving Sancho behind. Whenever she was away from him, even for a moment, she'd remember the day of the fire. If Sancho hadn't been with her, wandering around the woods, he might've been in the shed with his mom when it burned down. Danya didn't like to think about that at all. Even though it hadn't happened, the realization that she could've lost Sancho that day was too much to bear.

Danya sighed, pushing the bad memories out of her head. If only this journey could be easy and fun, like the trips her family took before Jupiña died. But maybe Pia was right, if not about the hero's journey, then at least about the suffering part. If suffering was in her future, maybe that was the cost of saving Sancho. She owed him that much.

“Snap? Are you even listening?”

Danya blinked and to her surprise the old lady in the yellow sweatshirt was standing next to Pia. She was small and wrinkled, with wild, wiry gray hair and the kind of wide smile that allowed you to see all of her teeth at the same time. But the thing that really caught Danya's attention was her bright yellow sweatshirt—there was a picture of an old woman skydiving printed on the front. Beneath the skydiver were the words
GOLDEN GIRLS ADVENTURE CLUB
.

“This is Karina,” Pia said. “She just offered us a ride.”

“She
what
?” Danya asked. What kind of person offers two strange girls and a pony a ride?

“Karina is a member of the Golden Girls Adventure Club,” Pia explained. “She's here at the Opry House looking for new recruits for their ride down the river.”

Danya sat up a little straighter. According to the map, a thin blue thread wound down past Nashville. The Tennessee River, it was called. If they had a boat, they could take the river all the way to Alabama. Even if her parents got the letter with the Tennessee postmark tomorrow, they'd never know to look for her all the way in Alabama! The thought made Danya relax, just a little.

“Anyway, I told Karina all about our situation.” Pia stared at Danya pointedly, and when she spoke again, she stretched out her words like she was trying to give her a hint. “You know, how Sancho accidentally wandered onto that barge this morning when he was hunting for fish? And how you and I hitched rides on a steamboat to follow him?”

“Ooooh, right,” Danya said, though everyone knew ponies didn't hunt for fish. She was also pretty sure barges didn't cross rivers.

“And now you and I need a ride back down the river so we can get home,” Pia finished. Next to her, Karina smiled.

“The other adventurers and I would be just
thrilled
to take you ladies with us,” the old woman said. She motioned behind her to a large white bus with the same lady skydiver logo painted on the side.

“Uh . . . that would be great,” Danya said. She felt a tiny bit bad about lying to such a sweet old woman, but they could really use the ride. Besides, this exact same thing happened in the third Ferdinand and Dapple book. Ferdinand and Dapple needed to get across the Toa River in Cuba, so they snuck onto a ferry and . . .

Pia cleared her throat and Danya saw that Karina and Pia were staring at her expectantly. She blushed.

“Um . . . did you just say something?”

Karina laughed. “A free spirit! Well, aren't you a girl after my own heart? I'd just said I'm surprised your parents let you come after your pony on your own. Aren't they concerned?”

Danya couldn't help thinking about her
real
parents. She was so worried they'd find her that she hadn't given much thought to how
they
felt. What would they think had happened? They were probably terrified that she was just
gone
!

Guilt crept into Danya's gut. She wrapped her hands around her chest, feeling awful.

“We
are
free spirits,” Pia said when Danya didn't answer. “My parents don't really care what I do. They're too busy fighting. Mostly I look after myself.”

Danya glanced over at Pia, surprised. But Pia wasn't looking at her. Was she just pretending again? Danya searched her best friend's face, but she couldn't tell whether or not she was lying.

“Come on, girls,” Karina said, gesturing them across the parking lot.

“Pia,” Danya said in a low voice, falling into step behind her cousin. “What's up? Is everything okay at home?”

“Everything's great,” Pia chirped. “Never been better.”

“But what about . . .”
Your parents
, she would have said, but just then she was interrupted by a honk from the white bus that was so loud Sancho flinched and shook out his mane. Danya automatically tickled him under the chin to calm him.

“All aboard,” Karina said cheerfully. She ushered them toward the rear of the bus and unlocked the back emergency entrance to let Sancho inside. Pia and Danya rounded the bus and used the normal entrance, taking seats up front. Danya looked back at Sancho, who stretched out in the aisle. There were another dozen or so little old lady adventurers filling the seats behind them, all wearing matching yellow sweatshirts. When they saw Sancho, they cooed and giggled, leaning into the aisle to run their hands over his coarse coat and silky mane. He let out a purr-like snort and pressed his ears flat against his head happily. Danya smiled. His shyness disappeared the moment someone scratched behind his ears.

“This is Simone,” Karina said, motioning to the bus driver. Simone looked just as old as Karina, but she was tall, with broad shoulders and a thick, black braid that hung all the way down to her waist. Danya examined the braid in awe. It was as thick as her arm and probably longer than she was.