Wild Horse Spring (10 page)

“And that’s grounded from everything, including your cell phones and the computer,” Lynn added.

“I don’t have a cell phone,” Diana said.

“When I think about all the things that could have happened …” Daddy kept on talking about the dangers of riding with so many people on an ATV, and I couldn’t help thinking about Cody. Did he get hurt at all? Would he offer a ride to me again?

“What I just don’t understand,” Daddy was finally saying, “is why would you do this?”

“I was worried about Diana,” I said quickly. I looked at Daddy’s face. He looked so upset and concerned. I would never tell him I thought Cody was cute, and I didn’t want him to know how afraid I was. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Diana’s stiff profile. She was probably worried I was going to tell that she never came down to the beach, but I’d never do that. “It was bad judgment,” I added. “But it won’t happen again.”

“Well, no, it certainly won’t. That four-wheeler is off-limits from now on.”

“What about Cody? Can he still go with us tomorrow?” I asked.

Daddy stopped talking and sat back, crossing his arms to look at us. I saw understanding dawn on Lynn’s face. Now they realized that I liked Cody. With that one question, I’d given everything away. Ugh.

“Well … it’s obvious he doesn’t have good judgment,” Daddy said, gesturing impatiently with his arm and glaring at Lynn. “But neither do our girls. Why is it that when the two of you are together, we always run into problems?”

“We can hardly uninvite him for tomorrow, Norm,” Lynn said.

Suddenly there was a soft knock on the front door. Lynn, startled, jumped up and crossed the room. When she opened the door, Cody stood there with a woman
who must have been his mother, since she looked amazingly like him. She was vivacious and tanned with short, dark hair.

“Hello,” Lynn said, opening the door wide and stepping back to let them in. “Please come in.”

“Hi there! I’m Malia Clark, and I guess you met Cody.” Mrs. Clark shook hands with Lynn and Dad. You could tell she spent a lot of time outside in the sun and hiked a lot.

“Cody tells me there was an accident on the ATV this afternoon,” said Mrs. Clark, coming over toward me. “How are you doing, honey?”

“I’m okay,” I said. I tried to catch Cody’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at me. He came in my direction, though. I thought he might sit next to me on the couch, but instead he sat on the armrest.

“We’re so sorry this happened,” said Mrs. Clark as soon as everyone had gotten settled. She looked at Lynn. “She doesn’t need to go to the emergency room, does she?”

“No, she’s okay,” Lynn said. “Her arm is scraped, but it will be fine. It’s nice of you to come over and check.”

“I was really worried when Cody told me what happened,” said Mrs. Clark. “And I wanted to make sure everything was all right. The ATV belongs to the owners of our rental house,” she added. “Cody
didn’t know that two people aren’t supposed to ride on them.”

“I’m sorry,” Cody said. “If there are medical expenses, I’ll pay.”

With that, Lynn’s shoulders relaxed, and she let out a sigh. “Accidents happen,” she said with a smile. “Are you still planning on coming with us tomorrow, Cody?”

Cody glanced at Mrs. Clark, who nodded. “Sure, if it still works for you, that would be great. I’m out working on my research quite a bit, and he gets left on his own.”

“What kind of research do you do?” Lynn asked.

“I’m trying to record all of the types of trees in the maritime forest here. I was here last summer, and I’m trying to finish up my report by the end of this semester.”

“That sounds fascinating,” Daddy said. His tone sounded gentler too.

“I love it! The forest is a never-ending source of wonder. And most people don’t realize how important the maritime forests are to the ecosystem. I can’t spend enough hours of the day working on this … Isn’t that right, Cody?”

Cody grinned. “She’s pretty obsessed.”

Mrs. Clark stood up, and so did Cody. “Anyway, thanks for inviting him for tomorrow. He’s really anxious to see the aquarium. .”

“Thanks for coming by,” Norm said. “We’ll send one of the girls over tomorrow morning when we’re ready to leave.”

As they left, Cody finally turned a shy smile on me and gave a slight wave. “Later,” he said.

“That was nice of them to come over, wasn’t it?” Lynn went into the kitchen, turned on the fluorescent light, and started getting out the dishes. “She seems like a very together person, doesn’t she?”

I went upstairs and lay down on my stomach on my bed. Afternoon sun angled in bright stripes across the porch.

Diana came and stood in the doorway. “Thanks for getting me grounded.”

“Sorry,” I said. “But they would have found out when Cody and his mom came over anyway.” I put my pillow against the wall and sat up against it. “Next week seems so far away anyway. ”

After a second, Diana came in, closed the door, and proceeded to sit cross-legged on my bed. “Everywhere you go, you find some boy in, like, ten minutes.” Her voice had a jealous tone.

“I do not,” I said and felt my face reddening.

“Yes, you do.”

“Well, I like being friends with boys.” I went to the dresser and started brushing my hair.

“Duh.” She played with the fringe of her cutoffs, not looking at me “So have you ever had a boyfriend?”

I thought a minute, pulling my hair up into a ponytail. “No, but my friend Colleen was with a guy most of last summer. They were together all the time. He ate dinner at her house with her family. They texted each other constantly. I couldn’t even have a conversation with her because of the texting. She didn’t want to go to the pool or shopping or hardly anything. They were obsessed with each other.”

“That sounds annoying.”

“Then all of a sudden he broke up with her, like, out of the blue. She was devastated. Then he went out with some other girl for three weeks and then broke up with her. But it’s okay, because now Colleen likes someone else.”

“See? It sounds horrible.”

“Do you really think boys are horrible,” I asked, then something occurred to me. “Or are you just scared of them.” Could Diana-the-fearless be afraid of something after all?

I sat down on the bed next to her. “I can’t really explain it,” I said before Diana could answer. “I think boys are funny. I love kidding around with them, but I think a lot of guys our age are still more interested in video games. I mean, Matt is eighteen and has a
girlfriend, but he acts like he would rather shut himself in the basement with his Xbox than be with her.” I glanced at Diana’s bunched-up face, wondering if I could tell her about what Matt and his friends did. In the basement, before Mama got home from her job at the tennis club. They did all kinds of stuff. Sold Adderall pills. Stole beer from someone’s garage. I pictured Matt’s furious face when he told me, “You better not tell anyone.” So I hadn’t.

“I don’t trust boys,” Diana said sharply, looking at her lap again. And my chance to talk about it was gone.

“What about Russell from the ranch last summer? You got to be friends. Did you guys ever talk to each other again?”

Diana shook her head. “No. I wrote him a letter, but he never wrote back. I think he was still mad at me for what happened to the wolves.”

“Well, they found both of the wolves, so he should be cool with you now,” I said.

“Apparently not.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that. “Well, if he’s going to hold a grudge, then you don’t need him. You, I mean
we
were just trying to help.”

I thought about all that had happened. We were both silent. Russell had loved the wolves, Waya and Oginali, and he’d blamed Diana and me for what happened to
them. We’d found Waya, and she’d been sent to a wolf rescue operation. Later, Oginali had been found too, and she was now at the same wolf rescue operation. Waya and Oginali were reunited. Ever since then we’d been sending most of our allowance to the Wolf Rescue Operation to help pay for their care. The wildlife workers had sent us some photos showing how healthy Waya and Oginali were now. Their searing yellow eyes were clear, and their gray and black coats were full and shiny.

“Have you and Nick talked?” Diana asked.

“We played his team in soccer last fall, and I saw him after the game. He has a girlfriend now. We’re just friends. We text sometimes.” Nick and I had fun hanging out while we were at the ranch, but I had a lot of other friends at home, and he did too. The truth was that Russell and Diana had more of a serious connection than Nick and I did. I put down my brush and picked up some wine colored nail polish and shook it, hearing the click of the tiny balls inside mixing the polish. “Maybe you not trusting guys has to do with your dad. Maybe you should give people more of a chance.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Diana said with sudden anger. “Maybe people should give
me
more of a chance.”

“I’m sorry. I only meant—” I started to say.

“Maybe my dad should give me more of a chance!” Diana snapped. “Not everything is my fault!”

“Well, you’re going to see him in two days. I hope it’s great.”

Diana heaved a deep sigh. She propped one pillow against the wall and stretched out her skinny legs along the other side of my bed. “He said he has a surprise for me. Wonder what it is!”

“Yeah?” I raised my eyebrows and smiled in my most excited way, but then looked down at the bedspread and played with a loose string.

“Anyway, guess what?” she said, lowering her voice. “I found an injured young stallion when I went out for a run. I’m going to sneak out tonight and go look for him.”

I let my mouth fall open. “We’re already grounded! You’re going to get in a ton of trouble, Diana!”

“Not if you don’t tell on me.” She cut her eyes over at me.

“Diana, after all that happened last summer, I can’t believe you would even think I’d tell!” I glared into her stubborn eyes. Last summer when she’d sneaked out, I’d even gone with her. But now we were already in trouble. I didn’t want to do that again.

“Because you just told on us! You told that we fell off the ATV!”

“But Cody’s mom came over—and if I hadn’t told, we would have been in even more trouble!”

At that very moment Lynn knocked on the door of my room before poking her head in. “Hey! What’s going on up here?”

“Nothing,” Diana and I both said.
Had she heard our conversation?

“I
love
seeing the two of you having girl talk,” Lynn said, leaning against the doorjamb, with gentle eyes and a smile. So maybe she hadn’t heard anything. Or maybe she just wasn’t letting on.

I
woke up in the dark, and the sound of the waves surrounded me. I had no idea what time it was. I put on my running shoes, shorts, and a sweatshirt. Inch by inch, so quietly it did not make a sound, I pushed open the sliding door of my room and stepped out onto the porch. The moon, almost full, shone like a round, white shell high overhead, with ghostly clouds trailing in front of it like veils. A throbbing chorus rose from the night insects in the sea grass. Careful
to avoid splinters, I climbed over the wooden railing and shimmied down the corner column until I could stand on the railing of the first floor porch just below. I lowered myself down to the porch itself, ran under the house, and then got my bike. I listened to the quiet
click-click
of the wheels as I rolled it down the long walkway to the water, shining like fractured silver in the moonlight.

The moon made it seem almost as bright as day.

And there, sitting on the beach, was a dark figure with a bent head. I gasped and stared for a minute, until I got closer and saw that the person was wearing a sleeveless hoodie.

What was he doing down here?

I tried to sneak by without talking to him, but the clicking of my bike wheels made him turn his head. “Hey, Diana.”

I walked my bike over and asked him the question. “What are you doing down here?”

He shrugged and stood up, knocking sand from his shorts. His eyes glinted in the darkness. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came out to see if there was any bioluminescence out here. There are creatures called noctilucae that sometimes glow blue.”

“Noctilucae?” I scanned the ocean but didn’t see any glow of blue. I hadn’t liked Cody at all at first.
I had thought he was arrogant, talking about how I wouldn’t understand the concept of bioluminescence. But I’d liked him trying to chase down those guys on the ATVs. And Stephanie had told me I needed to give people second chances. Maybe she was right.

“Have you seen anything?”

He shook his head and pointed at my bike. “Where are you going?”

“What time is it?” I asked, instead of answering his question.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and glanced at the cover. “Five–thirty.”

Should I tell him? Stephanie and Dr. Shrink both told me I needed to trust people more. I thought about the connection I’d felt with Russell last summer, when we’d talked and admitted things. “I found a young stallion that was injured by another horse, and I wanted to see if I could find him and make sure he was okay.”

“An injured wild horse?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said, adjusting his glasses. The moonlight caught one of the lenses, turning it opaque, and the tips of his dark, curly hair.

“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly. I didn’t want him coming with me. I felt stupidly out of breath and gave my head a shake, trying to clear it. I put one leg over my bike.

“Come on, there’s nothing happening here, and I’m wide awake.”

“No.” I pushed down on the bike pedal, needing to get going.

“Does Stephanie have a bike? Could I ride it?” he persisted.

I glared at him.

Ten minutes later the waves roared in my ears and the wheels of Stephanie’s bike whirred furiously beside me in the bright moonlight. The cool, damp, night breeze off the ocean raised goose bumps on my arms. Cody at least wasn’t annoying me by trying to talk while we were riding, which Stephanie always did.

We rode by the roped off turtle nest and kept on going. I was acutely aware of him riding beside me, of the way his knees, when he pedaled, went up a bit too high, since Stephanie’s bike was too small for him. Most guys wouldn’t be caught dead on a girl’s bike, but Cody didn’t seem to care.