Right after lunch, Grandpa found me grooming my big red, booger-horse, Nevada. Grandpa leaned on the stall door and gave me a long look. “Why do I have a feeling that you’ll only go to Stewart Falls Academy or Centennial Middle-High if we rope and hogtie you, Sierra Morn?”
“Because you’re smart.” I shuddered and kept brushing the left side of my horse. “It was awful. At Stewart Falls, everybody dresses alike and walks in the halls like robots. There’s no yelling or loud talking during passing periods. The teachers stand outside their classroom doors and spy on them. If the kids screw up, they get demerits and then they have Saturday school. I watched this seminar in an English class and the students led the entire discussion about The Taming of the Shrew. We haven’t even read Shakespeare yet and they’ve almost finished the play. Nobody was off task.”
“Sounds good to me,” Grandpa said, “lots of discipline. What about Centennial?”
“No individuality there either. I asked the headmaster what happened if someone wore a different colored blouse or pants and he said the secretary called their parents to come get them. Depending on how many demerits the kid had, they could end up in—”
“Saturday school too,” Grandpa finished.
“Exactly. I appreciate what you and Grandma tried to do, but I’m not going to either place. My school totally sucks, but at least I can wear what I want. I’m not a slacker in class, but nobody wants me to be able to discuss the characters, theme and conflict in The Count of Monte Cristo for an entire hour which is what Sophomore English had to do at Centennial. I saw the plan on the whiteboard.”
“Have you read it?” Grandpa asked.
“No way. We don’t do Dumas at my school until next year. If they’re that far ahead of me, I’d be like one of the dumbest kids there.” I shook my head again. “I’m not going to Centennial.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Lincoln High with my friends. It’s a private school too, but it’s not like Stewart Falls or Centennial.”
“Okay, then let’s go for a ride, Sierra.”
“All right. I just need a few more minutes to saddle up.”
“In the car, my dear granddaughter, in the car.” Laughing, he left the barn.
I put away my gear and went to clean up. I met Grandpa at the Subaru and he tossed me the keys. “What’s going on?”
“You drive,” Grandpa said. “You know where we’re going and I don’t.”
“Okay, where are we going?”
“Lincoln High, of course.”
“Oh yeah, I should definitely have known.” I got into the driver’s seat. It took a few minutes to adjust the seat and mirrors. “Why are we going there?”
“Because Stewart Falls Academy and Centennial Middle-High only offered you partial scholarships to play basketball for them,” Grandpa said. “Now, we go do some fast-talking and see if we can get Lincoln to match or surpass the deal.”
“Are you crazy? Why would they do that?”
“Because you’re talking to the slickest horse-trader in these parts,” Grandpa said. “I may be retired, but I can still sell more bang for your buck than most fellas. You get us there and I’ll do the gabbing.”
* * * *
“Okay,” Mom gave me and Grandpa a stern look. “Where did you two disappear to this afternoon? You didn’t leave a note. What mischief did you get into? And don’t tell me that you just went on a KFC run.”
Grandpa folded his arms and tried to look stern. “I will have you know that I’m the man of the family and I can do what I want.”
“What he said,” I added, before I returned to setting the table for dinner. “Yell at him, not me. I’m the kid. He’s the adult.”
“You’re hanging me out to dry here, Sierra Morn.” Grandpa winked at Mom. “We decided to go check out Lincoln High down in Marysville. Sierra wants to go to school with her friends and I wanted to see what it would take to make that happen.”
“What will it take?” Mom asked, serving up portions of the Colonel’s coleslaw. “And how will she get there? She can take the bus to Stewart Falls Academy, or Centennial.”
I couldn’t wait any longer. “Lincoln offered me a full basketball scholarship.”
“What?” Mom dropped the spoon on the plate. She grabbed me in a warm hug. “Honey, that’s wonderful. How on earth did you arrange it?”
“Not me. Grandpa did it. He and Principal Gallagher had a total meeting of the minds. They got along great.”
Mom hugged me again, then hugged Grandpa. “Okay, now share all the details. When does she start? What are the hours?”
“We’ll wait a little bit for your mom and Autumn,” Grandpa said. “If Sierra’s happy, then your momma can’t whack me upside the head.”
“She won’t anyway,” Mom said. “Stewart Falls and Centennial are both impressive, but like Mom said, those kids were intimidating. She didn’t think Sierra would feel comfortable at either school.”
“She didn’t tell me that.” I stared at my mother. “I thought her mind was made up.”
“It was until she saw the two campuses,” Mom said. “We’ll have to take her down to Marysville to visit Lincoln High. Now, what does the school look like? Do the students wear uniforms? Tell me what you can while we put dinner on the table.”
After supper, I called Vicky and Robin. They were majorly thrilled when they heard I was coming to their school. I’d start right after winter break when their new semester began. It would take some juggling for me to meet Robin every day, but she said I could carpool with her to school. I liked both of her parents and if I gave her dad money for gas, he’d be totally cool with one more girl in the car. Robin told me if I played my cards right, he’d even pay for my morning mocha the way he did hers and Vicky’s.
Since it was a half-day tomorrow, they promised to come out to the barn and then they could help me choose my classes from the schedule Principal Gallagher gave me. When I finished talking to them, I headed back to the kitchen. I found Grandma making fudge while Mom and Autumn frosted cookies. Grandpa was in charge of sprinkles.
“Vicky and Robin are majorly thrilled,” I said. “We’re going to have so much fun at Lincoln. If you want to see the school, Grandma, we’ve got to go early.”
“I can do early,” Grandma said. “We’ll get you out of Mount Pilchuck and enroll you in Lincoln High in the morning. Then, we can go out for brunch and go shopping.”
“Okay, but we’ll have students here about two in the afternoon,” I said, “so we have to be back to make money.”
“A girl after my own heart,” Grandpa announced. “She knows the hay-dealer comes first.”
* * * *
I was grooming Nevada when Robin and Vicky arrived the next afternoon. After a pause to feed carrots to Prince Charming, Robin arrived at my horse’s door. Three treats later, she said, “Okay, tell us all. What happened? How did you manage to get to Lincoln from S.F.A. and Centennial? This is amazing.”
“Grandpa,” I said. “I wasn’t happy with what I saw at the other schools. He listened and then we went to Lincoln. He convinced Principal Gallagher that I was the greatest basketball player in the universe and I would be an asset to your team.”
“You will be,” Vicky said, “no worries there. This is going to be so much fun.”
“We’ll be together for the next two and a half years,” Robin said. “Then, we can figure out which college we want to attend.”
“I’m just happy to be at your high school,” I said, grinning at them. “Now, if you get your horses together, we can ride for a while before we have to do chores.”
“I’m on it,” Robin said. “Help me put together Charming, and then I’ll help you with Aladdin, Vick.”
“Works for me,” Vicky said and they headed off to the tack-room.
In slightly more than a half hour we were in the indoor arena. We worked our horses on the ground so they could see there weren’t any monsters in the ring. Then, I checked their gear and they mounted up. Aladdin played ‘follow the leader’ with us. He could walk behind our horses. I kept the pace down because I didn’t want him to spook and drop Vicky again. It didn’t mean we couldn’t do a lot of activities, we could and we did.
We practiced all four of the walks, beginning with the medium, then up to the extended, onto the free and down to the collected. We did serpentines, spirals and circles before we began patterns and transitions between the four-point halt, backing and more walking. After that, we rode without hands, dropping the reins on our horses’ necks. We did Cowgirl and Cowboy jumping jacks at all of the walks too. Wow, we were all that and the proverbial bucket of carrots.
Grandpa made it down to the ring and watched us from the bleacher area. He asked Vicky about how she trained Aladdin and who was next on her list. Since he remembered how the Arabian felt about guys, my grandfather didn’t come into the arena. He just sat on the benches and talked over the wall to us. When Vicky was ready for a break, she pulled into the center and waited while Robin and I increased our speed and trotted our horses. After a bit, Robin parked Charming next to Aladdin
Since Nevada was focused today, I asked for and got a perfect show-ring lope. We cantered both directions and then called it a day. Grandpa told me that if I worked him for enough hours each day, my big red gelding might do well in the show-ring. Of course if I didn’t, then my horse was ready for a semi-permanent vacation.
My huge Belgian-Morgan-Quarterhorse cross would turn 15 in less than two weeks. Like every other year, I’d see to it that we had carrot cake in the house while he got five pounds of carrots in his manger. Nevada was born on New Year’s Day when I was two, and we grew up together. Mom swore that I called him, ‘No-No, Veda,’ when I helped her train him as a foal and the name stuck. I demanded to be the first person on his back when he turned three.
At five, I was even more stubborn than Autumn ever thought of being. Nevada may have pulled the typical colt tricks with my mother in the saddle, but he was an angel with me. Even if I got mad at him sometimes, I never thought of letting him leave Shamrock Stable. He was mine, and I was his. And that was life, as we knew it.
Grandpa offered to help Vicky while she unsaddled and groomed Aladdin. I told him that it might not be a great idea since the bay Arabian had gender bias, but Vicky said it would be good for him to have a guy around. The two of them went off to the horse’s stall. As he passed me, Grandpa promised he would be careful so Mom didn’t freak out.
Once we took care of the horses, it was time to move onto chores. Robin and I cleaned the top barn. We watered and fed. We headed down to the arena barn when we finished and met Vicky and Grandpa on their way up to the office. He grinned at us. “We beat you.”
“No way,” I said. “It was a tie. If Vicky hadn’t helped you, we’d have kicked your butt.”
He chuckled and mimed a slap at the back of my helmet, but it didn’t connect. “See what I have to put up with, a disrespectful granddaughter.”
“That’s terrible, after you got her into our school,” Robin said. “You should make her clean stalls with a teaspoon.”
“I like this girl.” Grandpa told me. “I think I’ll take her back to Arizona with us.”
“Only if you give her a ’68 Mustang,” I said. “She has her standards.”
We continued to mess with each other while Robin and Vicky filled out their time cards and filed them in the appropriate folders. After they promised to be in on Saturday to practice for the Christmas party, they strolled down to the parking lot to meet Jack. Once they were gone, I realized we hadn’t looked at my schedule to figure out what classes I should take.
There was only one thing to do. I needed to arrange a sleepover. I tracked down Mom and asked her if I could invite them to spend Saturday night with me. She agreed, provided I looked after Autumn. She and Dave were taking Grandma and Grandpa out for dinner.
I blinked and tried not to stare at her. “No way. You mean you were serious when you told Meredith that you intended to date the guy?”
“Hey, you’re the one who said you liked him and invited him for Christmas,” Mom retorted. “Now, let’s go put on supper.”
“How does Grandpa feel about going out for dinner tomorrow?” I asked.
“Considering he keeps lecturing me that I need a man to take care of me, he deserves this,” Mom said. “I figure one of two things will happen. One, he’ll like Dave and get off my back. Two, he’ll hate Dave and while Dad worries that I might marry again, he’ll also get off my back.”
“Good point.” I followed my petite, red-haired mother to the kitchen. She’d actually cooked a regular meal tonight, baked chicken, brown rice and a huge salad. Dessert would be a Marie Callendar Dutch apple pie with ice-cream. Okay, so we hadn’t gone over to the dark side and opted for total domesticity, but the barn was super-duper clean.
* * * *
Shamrock Stable, Washington
Saturday, December 21st, 5:15 pm
Chores were finished and the Saturday students were long gone. Only my friends spending the night had stayed. Robin, Dani, Vicky and I were in the middle of decorating Nevada’s stall door when Queenie woofed. I glanced at the barn entry in time to see her dash up to greet Dave. He leaned down to pet the collie mix. He wore regular clothes, jeans, a western shirt under a jacket, not his cop uniform.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you looking for Mom? She’s at the house.”
“Okay.” He eyed my horse’s door. “So, what’s your theme?”
“A winter wonderland,” I said, pointing to the blue holiday paper with its snowflakes we’d used as a background. “I have to get this done because the party is tomorrow.”
“Nothing like leaving it to the last minute,” Vicky told me again.
I sighed and introduced them to Dave. “You know Robin because you always check out her horse. Twaziem is looking good. We’ll be working him a lot over Christmas break. This is Vicky.”
“The intern who fell off Aladdin?” Dave asked, smiling at her.
“Am I ever going to live that down?” Vicky held up a silver foil sheet that she’d folded into a rectangle. “It wasn’t my fault or his. It was my stepdad’s. He thought if he sent my brothers and sisters screaming up to get me, I’d come sooner to babysit.”
“I’m Dani.” The petite blonde nodded at him. “Robin calls me her “mini-me” because I’m almost as snarky as she is, but I think I have a ways to go yet.”
“I see.” Dave watched Robin and Vicky staple what was going to be an icy pond into place. “Is this fair? You have friends helping you.”
“I know, but I need to do something,” I said. “Autumn got my grandfather to take her back to the dollar store so they could find more decorations for Dream.”
“No more fake apples?”
I laughed. “No, but she told Grandpa that you were nearly as nice as he was, so be careful tonight.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Dave looked at his watch. “I’ll head up to the house. I brought that bag of real apples I promised your sister for her pony and those two large combination pizzas your mom told me she needed for you girls.”
“Great,” I said. “Thanks a lot. We’ll chop up the apples for Autumn to feed Dream.”
Robin waited until Dave left the barn before she asked, “What’s happening? Is he actually dating your mom? He’s old and he doesn’t look at all like the hot rodeo cowboys she usually sees.”
“I know,” I said. “He’s a nice change. He helps with chores, orders in pizza, or brings Chinese take-out for supper. He didn’t let Meredith bully my sister. He even loaded the dishwasher last Sunday when Mom was putting Autumn to bed, so I could get a head-start on my homework.”
The three of them stared at me as if I’d arrived from outer space. Vicky poked me in the ribs. “Who are you and what have you done with our friend, Sierra?”
“I’m me and I’m standing right here.”
“She’s in denial,” Dani said. “We have to find the pod and free the real Sierra.”
“Unless it’s like that old-time, creepy movie Bill and I watched last night. She could have one of those awful slug things on her back that arrived in The Puppet Masters,” Robin said. “Then we have to burn it off and chuck the leftovers into the woodstove.”
“I haven’t changed. It’s just that Dave’s way more decent than the other guys my mom chooses,” I said. “He even has a job.”
“I know,” Robin said. “He arrested Caine, the guy who threw Lassie’s puppies in the river. Sierra’s right. We do like Dave. Let’s finish this door and go have pizza. None of Rocky’s other guys ever brought us dinner or even talked nice to us.”
“He could be a keeper. We need to investigate him some more,” Vicky said. “We’re on break so we have time.”
“And you can stop picking on me,” I said. “If he turns into a jerk, I’ll be the first one to say he has to go.”