Wild Girl (5 page)

It had begun to rain, a cold, soaking rain, as Rafael drove between the great stone pillars and pulled into the track. We stumbled out, heads down; in a moment, my hair and jacket were soaked.

The huge white pine tree with dripping branches stood in front of the grandstand. I thought of all the champion horses that had pranced past that tree on their way to win.

I was standing where Whirlaway had walked, and Native Dancer, and Ruffian, who was buried at the racetrack, her nose pointing toward the finish line.

“Are you hungry?” Rafael asked.

I glanced back at the truck, but my lunch bag had disappeared. It might still be in the classroom for all I knew. I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what happened to my lunch.”

“Don’t worry.” He took my arm, and we went into the cafeteria. As we walked along the counter with our trays, I breathed in the smell of fried onions and hamburgers sizzling on the grill.

“You have to have a hot dog with mustard and sauerkraut and pickles, and some of those onions,” Rafael said. “It’s the best.”

And that was what I had, with fruit juice, and a sticky Danish with a round of cheese in the center like a warm sun. I ate slowly, thinking about what would happen when we went home. What would I say to the Horseman? What would he say to me?

Rafael was having a hot dog, too, but he ate only half. He washed it down with a Diet Coke and threw the rest of it away.

“Very wasteful,” I said. I sounded like Titia Luisa.

He raised his shoulders. “Worry about yourself,” he said, but nicely. “Now, what pleases you, Lidie? To sit inside and watch the races from the windows, where your toes will be warm and toasty, or stand at the finish line, where you’ll have mud sprayed all over you?”

“The finish line.” I followed him past the lines of people waiting to bet on the horses and went outside. The bleachers were less than half full; people sat under umbrellas or held folded newspapers over their heads.

We threaded our way to the railing, which was shiny and wet. It was raining harder now, and the track was thick with mud. Without thinking, I said, “Gallorette, the filly, hated a muddy track.”

Rafael looked at me with surprise and nodded. “You’re right. The winners today will be mudders, crazy horses who love a sloppy track.”

I nodded. I knew that, too.

I pulled my hands into my jacket sleeves, shivering.

Rafael leaned closer. “Where is your scarf?”

I swallowed.

“You lost it?”

“It’s in the bedroom.” I saw the disappointment on his bony face. “I’ll remember tomorrow.”

I’d have to wear it. It was a good thing I wasn’t going back to school. But how terrible to think I’d never be there again.

The horses were loaded into the gate for the first race. The bell clanged and the gate banged back. The horses thundered toward us, splashing up mud, the ground vibrating, the noise filling my ears, sounding even in my chest. I reached out and grabbed Rafael’s arm as we both shouted in excitement.

In a blur, I saw the jockeys push back one set of goggles after another so they could see as the mud spattered their faces. Each rider must have been wearing five or six pairs.

And their silks! Each one wore an outfit whose color belonged to his stable. On a sunny day, they’d look like brightly colored birds, but today they were dark with mud as they rounded the turn.

A gray was far behind the rest. “Not a mudder,” Rafael said. We watched her slosh along, and he shook his head. “That’s Boston Star, a horse Pai trained. She likes solid
ground under her feet. We should have scratched her, canceled her from the race, and waited to race her on a sunny day.”

The race was close, two horses neck and neck at the finish line. We waited to see the name of the winner flash up on the screen, and then, as the horses left the field, I said, “You’re going to ride your first race soon.”

He didn’t answer, and I turned to see something in his face. What was it?

But now there was shouting as the names went up on the scoreboard: Wait Awhile was first, Floribunda had placed second, and Blue Heron had shown in third. Rafael was talking about the money they’d made: some for the jockey, some for the trainer, some for the owner….

But I didn’t pay attention. All I was interested in was Wait Awhile coming around the side, and the look of pride on the jockey’s face. “See that rider, Rafi?” I cut in.

“Go back to school, Lidie,” he said.

I held up my hand. “Stop.”

He said something else, but it was hard to hear with people shouting around us.
We can’t always have what we want
. Was that what it was?

But there was too much noise; voices rang with excitement as the horses were funneled into the starting gate for the next race.

“A horse that Pai trained is running,” Rafael said. “A chestnut named Storm Cloud. He’s small, only a little more than fifteen hands, but feisty. Maybe we’ve got a chance.”

I had a quick memory of Tio Paulo sitting on the porch in Jales. He’d held out his callused hand, running his finger
across the widest part.
Four inches to a hand
, he’d said.
That’s how they measure horses
.

We waited for the next race, our elbows on the wet railing. The bell rang and the starting gate shot open. The horses angled so close together it was hard to tell one from another, even though Rafael was pointing, trying to show me Storm Cloud.

Despite the mud, the race was fast; the horses galloped toward us in seconds, but as they rounded the turn, something happened. With an explosion of sound they came together, falling, a mass of brown and gray and muddy silks.

A screeching, keening sound came from one of the horses. Mud was everywhere, so much that I stood on tiptoes trying to see, my stomach lurching.

A jockey huddled near the rail, his cap gone, his mount continuing without him.

A chestnut horse was down on the track. Was it ours? Another horse bolted over him, and Rafael scaled the railing, darting around the horses, and threw himself toward the chestnut.

The crowd was shrieking, or maybe it was the sirens of the horse ambulance careening down the track. Horses were still milling around, and jockeys. I caught a glimpse of Rafael, deep in the mud, running his hands along the chestnut’s foreleg.

“Crazy kid,” someone said next to me. “He might have been killed.”

And someone else: “Brave kid.”

My brother. Brave.

I watched as he looked up to talk to the ambulance
driver, his hand still on the horse. In that moment, I realized he looked like Mamãe, and something else: how proud she’d be of him.

As he turned, I saw the worry in his eyes. I heard his voice in my head.
We can’t always have what we want
. What had he meant?

After the track was cleared, we drove back to the farm and went into the barn.

“A miracle,” Rafael told Pai. He looked like a raccoon; his face was filthy except for two lines on his cheeks that might have been tears. “I thought Storm Cloud had snapped his leg, but he’ll be fine. Even Emilio, the jockey, was only bruised.” He ran his hand over his muddy hair. “You’ll see when José and the others bring him back in the van later.”

I sat there on a stool, filthy myself but warm now, a mug of hot chocolate cupped in my hands. Around me were the smells of hay and leather from the tack room; nearby was a pyramid of green apples in a tub.

All the while, I kept glancing at Pai out of the corner of my eye. He looked stern, running his fingers through his
graying hair, then bending to slap flecks of hay from his jeans. I kept asking myself what he’d say to me about leaving school. But maybe he wouldn’t say anything, maybe he wouldn’t even think about it with all the commotion over Storm Cloud. But that probably wouldn’t be true, couldn’t be true.

At last he stood in front of me. “What happened at school?”

I didn’t answer.

He pulled at his upper lip, just the way Tio Paulo always pulled at his mustache. He went into the tack room, and I heard him banging things around.

“School is not important to you?” he asked as he came out. “How could you just walk out of there? Do you want to end up in some poor hovel because you can’t read or write?” His eyes went to the ceiling.

I narrowed my eyes. “I can read very well, and write, too.”

“But not in English. You’re exactly as my brother Paulo said.” He sighed. “A difficult girl.”

Tio Paulo said that? What nerve! “You think Tio’s not difficult? You should try living with him awhile.”

Something flashed in his eyes. Was it laughter?

Suddenly I could see Mamãe’s face, Mamãe laughing. My throat burned; I wished I could fold myself into her arms. I could almost feel her smoothing down my unruly hair. And the Horseman. Hadn’t he laughed all the time, suddenly hugging Mamãe, hugging me?

No, I must have dreamed that.

Ah, Mamãe. Wouldn’t she have said,
Don’t worry. It’s not so much of a thing, Lidie
?

But it
was
so much of a thing. All of it. What had happened, and what the others in the classroom had thought. And suppose the Horseman found out? Or Rafael? How terrible the shame would be!

At the far end of the barn, the door opened, and there was the teacher. I stared at her, willing her not to tell everyone. And at the same time, I knew that no matter what, I’d never go back to the school, never step into her classroom again.

She crouched in the hay in front of me and reached for my hands. She said words to me; sorry words, I thought.

I made my lips prisoners between my teeth and stared down at her hands, which were large and freckled.

She leaned over to ask the Horseman something, and he whispered the answer.

I heard her say
Lidie
, but the rest of it was impossible, and Pai repeated what she was trying to say.

“Come back!” How strange the Portuguese words sounded on her tongue.
“Come back, Lidie.”
She rubbed my hands between hers.

I shook my head, and knew enough to say no in English.

“What is the matter with that girl?” The Horseman looked as if he’d explode.

“You’re tired, Lidie.” Rafael stood in front of the teacher and me now. “But I’ll teach you English. Nothing to it.” He waved his hand. “I will tell Mrs. Teacher the same thing.” He turned and spoke to her, and she smiled, talking again.

Rafael told me what she was saying. “Sometimes hard things happen. We have to fix them the best we can.”

“The best we can” is no good
, I thought. But Rafael nodded. “And then you’ll go back to school.” He looked pleased.

I put on my
never
face.

“Maybe,” Rafael said.

All this time the teacher was patting my hands. She said a long string of things to the Horseman, and he turned to me. “She says the children want you. She wants you. And nobody minds that you threw the math paper on the floor.”

I gave the teacher a quick glance.

The Horseman’s eyebrows went up. “Is this what it’s all about? Math?”

The teacher turned so only I could see her face, so only I could see that quick wink, and to know what she was telling me without words. She hadn’t told the Horseman; maybe she hadn’t told anyone. She and Liz, the bee girl, knew, but maybe the drumming boy, Ian, and everyone else thought I’d left because of the math problems.

She stood up and shook hands with the Horseman, and then she was gone.

The Horseman slapped his hands on his knees. “See what a good teacher you have, and the children want you to come back.” He smiled. “We have horses to take care of right now, but I myself will teach you math.” He raised his eyebrows at Rafael. “Seven times nine, four times eight…”

I shrugged out of my jacket. “I know seven times nine, and seven times one hundred nine and—” I stopped. It wasn’t even worth talking about.

But I didn’t have to talk. I didn’t have to say anything
more because there was the sound of a motor; the horse van was pulling up outside. “It’s Storm Cloud,” Rafael said.

We went outside as José turned the van toward the barn. I watched as Rafael and Pai helped unload the horse and lead him into the barn.
“Ai,”
José said to Pai. “If you had seen Rafael, down in the mud, making sure Storm Cloud was all right, checking his legs…”

Rafael grinned, then put his hand on my shoulder.

“Come on, Lidie,” he said. “I will teach you English, and at the same time you can help me.” He opened the door to Storm Cloud’s stall. “Move slowly,” he said, holding up his hands. “He will frighten easily now. Be calm.”

“I am calm.” I slipped in behind him. “I’m always calm.”

“Yes.” He smiled. “You and Pai both.”

He held up a comb and ran it over the chestnut’s body in circles. “This is a currycomb.” It will bring the mud up to the surface.”

He handed me the currycomb and I began. The horse looked back at me with his large eyes, his long lashes.
Bom
, nice. The hay rustled as he moved a little. He leaned into the comb, his skin twitching slightly. I sang the lullaby that Mamãe used to sing about an angel coming,
“Nana, nenê, que o anjo vem pegar …”

When I finished with the currycomb, Rafael gave me a brush. It was soothing to listen to the drip of water going automatically into Storm Cloud’s bowl, to hear the soft swish of the brush as I ran it across his flanks and the sound of his contented breathing. It almost made me feel contented, too.

But then Rafael leaned over the half door, his face
serious. “So, Lidie, you must go to school. At least until you’re sixteen.” He came inside, lifting the horse’s leg carefully, making sure there were no stones in his hoof. “It’s the law,” he said.

“I will go back to Jales first.”

“If you go back to Jales…,” he began.

I raised my chin.

“You’ll miss all the spring races. You’ll miss seeing me ride.”

I said it again, even though I wasn’t sure. “I’ll go back to Jales before then.”

He shook his head and moved away. For the rest of the afternoon, we worked in the barn. I groomed another horse. No one spoke about school, or horses, or anything else. At supper, our heads were bent over our rice and beans until Rafael began to talk about the races, and Pai joined in.