What Mr. Mattero Did (7 page)

My mother refolded the letter from Mrs. Fernandez, tucked it back in its envelope, and placed it on top of the microwave. If only we could have put the whole situation away as easily.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked quietly.

She shook her head. “I don't know. I don't know what we do next.” She glanced at the clock on the stove. “But you need to get on with things, Mellie. They're expecting you at the barn, aren't they?”

“I'm supposed to help tack up at three-thirty.”

“You'd better go then.” She touched my arm. “Go ahead.”

Upstairs in my room, I dropped my backpack on my bed and changed into barn clothes—jeans, a T-shirt, thick socks, and leather paddock boots. Harmony followed me upstairs and jumped on my bed, kneading the comforter until I went over and scratched her under the chin. When I came down the stairs, I saw Mom and Dad sitting together in the living room, but I didn't disturb them. I went out through the kitchen, closed the door softly, and left.

The pasture for the Trefoil Stables, where I volunteer, is right behind our neighborhood. In fact, the land we live on was once part of Trefoil Farm, but now all that's left of the old farm is twenty acres and the barn. It's like a little oasis of green surrounded by housing developments like ours, all of them pretty much the same. Rolling hills of identical rooflines. It's that way all over Wallinsburg.

On my volunteer days, all I have to do is walk to the back end of our lot, squeeze between the bars of the fence, and walk across the field. When I got to the barn, horses for the afternoon classes were already waiting, some of them tied to a rail outside the stable, others standing inside at cross ties in the walkway between their stalls.

I saw Nova, the pretty bay that I rode for lessons in the summer, and stopped to give her a pat on the neck. She moved her head up and down—I hope it was because she recognized me, but probably not. There are a lot of people at the barns, a lot of volunteers like me. We all get riding lessons at reduced rates, which is the only way my parents could afford to let me ride.

Mrs. Dandridge, the volunteer coordinator, spotted me and waved.

I waved back but I didn't call out hi or anything. I was still mixed up inside and didn't know what I wanted to be on the outside. At the barn at least, no one would know about what had happened at my school.

“Hey there, Melody,” Mrs. Dandridge said. “I'm going to have you groom and tack up Misty today. That little boy—Alexander—is coming for a four o'clock class.”

I smiled a little at the mention of this little boy, then crossed my fingers and held them up. “Let's hope it works today,” I said. During his first two lessons Alexander had refused to get anywhere near Misty, let alone ride him. He wouldn't even come into the barn to
see
the horses. He was a cute little boy though, about four, maybe five years old, with dark hair and big brown eyes. Because he was so afraid, Mrs. Dandridge asked me to take him inside the office, where we spent his first two lessons watching videos about horses.

Volunteers like me don't know too much about the kids we work with. Usually just their first names and a little bit about what's wrong with them. For example, they may have cerebral palsy, or Down syndrome. They may have suffered a traumatic brain injury, like one little girl we had who was hit by a car. Or they might be visually or hearing impaired. Some of the kids are mentally retarded, some have muscular dystrophy, and some come to riding therapy because of strokes, which really surprised me. I didn't realize young children could have strokes.

I wasn't sure what Alexander's disability was. Physically, he seemed fine. But he didn't say much. The only thing I did know was that he loved Superman so much that the first day he came he wore a dingy old baby blanket, fastened with a big safety pin, around his shoulders. His mother said it was his “flying cape.”

Misty, a small light gray gelding with black stockings, stood patiently waiting at one of the cross ties in the barn. I made my way into the tack room, grabbed the horse's box full of grooming brushes, and walked over to say hello. I rubbed Misty's nose and patted his neck. He was one of the gentlest horses in the entire barn. “You ready for your lesson today?”

Misty hadn't been ridden earlier, so I took the currycomb and vigorously made circular motions all over him, avoiding his face and legs, to loosen the dust and dead hair. Next, I used the curry mitt to do his face and legs. Then I pulled with a firmer brush and long, hard strokes to get the loose dirt and hair off. And I wondered as I did this: Why in the world would some seventh-graders make up a nasty story about my father? Did he do something to make them angry?

Finally, I used a softer brush to finish off Misty's face and legs, all the time thinking that my father must be going nuts, realizing that he would be losing valuable rehearsal time before the annual band competition. Every year he took the band down to Virginia to compete, and for the past five years they had returned with the first-place trophy.

When the brushing was done, I returned to the tack room, ran a clean washrag under warm water in the sink, and used the cloth to wipe around Misty's eyes and the rest of his face. Stupid seventh-graders, I started thinking. They probably made it all up—for fun! Man, if I found out who those jerks were, I would tell them a thing or two! I stopped wiping and stared at the wooden barn floor wondering just how mad I could get and what I might actually do. Grab them? Yell? Spit at them?

The last part of grooming was to clean the hooves. I reached for the hoof pick, then turned with my back to Misty's front and picked up one of his front legs the way a blacksmith does so I could clean out the area inside his shoes. It was when I set his front leg down that I saw little Alexander and his mom approaching the barn door. I couldn't believe he'd already come this close to the horses. It was a good sign.

“Hey there!” I waved to him.

Alexander didn't speak, but his mother smiled back.

“Are you going to ride today?” I called over to him.

The boy buried his face against his mother.

Maybe not, I thought to myself, biting my lip and hoping I hadn't come on too cheerful. While I finished the hooves, I noticed how Alexander was sneaking glances at me. And suddenly, I had an idea.

When I took the grooming tools back to the tack room, I stopped Mrs. Dandridge. “I just saw Alexander,” I told her. “He seems really afraid, so I wondered—what about the finger paints?”

“Great idea!” Her face lit up with approval.

We found the paints on a shelf near the saddles, and while Mrs. Dandridge fetched water and a towel, I walked to where Alexander was watching from outside the barn door. His mother shrugged and flashed me a hopeless look.

I smiled back. “We had an idea,” I said, kneeling down so I was at Alexander's level. When he turned his face away, I tugged gently on his sleeve. “Do you like to finger paint?”

Alexander kept his head turned.

“He
loves
to paint,” his mother confirmed.

“Misty wondered if you would like to paint
him
!” I told the little boy.

Slowly, Alexander turned his head to look at me.

“I'm not kidding. Misty
loves
to be painted.”

Alexander peeked up at his mother, and she gave him an encouraging smile and a nod.

I gave him the paints and told him to come with me. This meant he would have to actually step foot in the barn, which he hadn't done yet. But it worked; Alexander followed me to where Misty stood.

When Mrs. Dandridge appeared with a bowl of water and a towel, we moved quickly so as not to lose momentum. I opened three jars and dipped two of my fingers in red. “Watch,” I said, smearing the red paint on the side of Misty's big gray, furry belly.

Alexander grinned. His wide eyes sparkled. He came over and put three fingers in the jar of blue, then walked right up to the horse and made a broad blue stripe over my red blob.

“That's great!” I cheered. “More color!”

Alexander dipped his fingers in the jar of yellow and made another stripe parallel to the blue one. Then he took both hands and rubbed the paint around and around, all over Misty's side. The horse nickered softly. His big belly shook. Alexander jumped back.

“See? He said he likes it! The paint feels good!” I told him. “It's like getting a massage!”

Alexander chuckled and continued painting, making huge spirals of color all over the horse's side. A few other people in the barn came over to watch, and pretty soon Alexander and Misty had a small audience. For twenty minutes he painted the horse. When it was over, after he had washed his hands and cleaned up, he came back to stroke Misty on the nose and see his artwork once more before leaving with his mother.

“A definite step forward,” Mrs. Dandridge said, putting an arm around my shoulder and squeezing it. “That was the perfect idea, Melody! Now he's not afraid. Next week, maybe, he'll help you brush the horse!”

“Thanks,” I said. I was pretty pleased myself with how it had turned out. I unhooked Misty from the cross ties and started to lead him out back where I would hose him off, when all of a sudden, Alexander came running back into the barn, full speed. “Hey, slow down,” I said, not wanting him to scare the horses.

But Alexander kept running, and, when he got to me, he threw his arms around my legs. A big hug, then a sprint back to his mother.

I led the horse back out of the barn, and I couldn't help but wonder if my father hadn't hugged someone at school in the same spontaneous way. Or patted someone on the back? Or, like Mrs. Dandridge had just done to me, squeezed someone's shoulders because they had done a good job? Had my father, in perfect innocence, touched someone who turned that touch against him?

Why? Why would someone do that to my dad?

I stood, holding Misty's lead rope as something else occurred to me: Would the kids at school know about what had happened? Would they think my father actually
did
something to those girls?

What was going to happen to my dad?

And what was going to happen to me—to my family?

“Dee!” I turned around and through a warm wall of tears saw Alexander waving as he called out the last part of my name.

9

Claire

WHOEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT
two bombs could hit in the same day?

What I found out about Jenna that night absolutely blew me away. It made me think I ought to be writing a script for a movie or something . . .

Okay. Okay. Back up for a second. So I had just finished my hair, my two French braids, except that I have these stupid layers, remember, and all these wispy ends that I can't get into the braids so they end up hanging down the sides of my face, but actually that's sort of cool, so, really, I don't mind. Anyway, braids were done. I had finished my Diet Coke, which was all I could have for dinner on account of the hot dog. And I was lying on my bed waiting for Mom and the kids to come home when Jenna called.

“Claire—”

“Hey. Hi.”

“So did those police people show up at your house?”

“Mr. Daniels and that woman?”

“Yeah. They were here, too,” Jenna said.

“It was kind of creepy, wasn't it?”

“No. It wasn't creepy,” Jenna disagreed. “I mean, I just repeated what I wrote down at school. Didn't you?”

“Duh. Of course, I did. I mean, what did you think I did?”

Pause.

“Look, can you come over, Claire? My dad's bringing a pizza.”

“I don't think so,” I told her. I didn't want to eat pizza. Well, I did, but I couldn't. You know, on account of my diet. “I already ate,” I told her. But typical Jenna, she would not take no for an answer.

“Claire, you have to come over. I've got your backpack. You left it at school!”

“But that was going to be my excuse for not doing my homework!”

Jenna wasn't laughing. Her voice got small. “Claire, please come. My dad is really upset about what happened.”

“Yeah. My mom's pretty angry, too. And can you believe Suzanne's mother at school?”

“Wasn't that awful? Her mother is, like, so fragile,” Jenna said. “I just talked to Suzanne. You won't believe what her mother's going to do next.”

“What?”

“I won't tell you unless you come over.”

“I'll call Suzanne myself.”

“You can't! Her mother won't let her back on the phone!”

“Please come and I'll tell you everything,” Jenna promised.

Big long sigh. “All right.” I gave in. See? Jenna always got her way. “I'll leave my mom a note.”

Jenna lived about two blocks away. There is a sidewalk connecting our neighborhoods, mine with houses that are all the same except for which side the garage is on, and hers with town houses that all have cute little balconies but no garages. Exactly halfway there is a little bridge that crosses a drainage ditch between the houses and the town houses. Sometimes we meet there. But Jenna wasn't there to meet me that day.

When I got to her family's town house, her father was driving up with the pizza they were having for dinner. He revved up the motor of his red sports car once before turning it off.

“Hi there, Claire,” he greeted me through the open window.

“Hey,” I said back.

Mostly, Jenna's dad is a pretty nice guy. Fit—very fit because he works out at the gym every day. I don't think I've ever seen him when he wasn't wearing tight jeans with a snug white T-shirt tucked in. I think it's his uniform, what he wears to work at a construction company or something. There's always a hard hat in the back window of his little red car.