7

Prove It

“What did you say?” Colt demands. He rides Bullet forward, placing himself between me and the tall, gangly boy with slicked-back black hair.

“You heard me,” the boy says. “I want to know if she’s the one who stole my horse.” He points at me again. “She obviously is. I’d know my horse anywhere.”

“You’re crazy!” Colt snaps.

I should be jumping in here, but I can’t. My head is forming words, but my mouth can’t get them out.

My dad steps out of the house. I expect him to agree with Colt, to kick this stranger out of our yard. “Let’s all be calm here. Colt, you need to go home now.”

This isn’t making any sense. “Wh-why, Dad?”

“Please,” Dad says.

Colt glances back at me. I don’t want him to leave. He frowns from my dad to the boy to me. Then he signs, Call me. And he gallops away on Bullet.

I want to gallop after them.

Mom comes out of the house. Behind her is some woman I’ve never met. She’s a head shorter than my mother but about twice as big around. Her light-blonde hair is wound on top of her head like a snake ready to strike. “Grayson,” she says, “I told you to stay out of this.”

“Why should I?” he fires back. “It’s my horse, Aunt Deb!”

My fingers grip Dream’s reins tighter. “This is my horse.”

“Oh yeah?” the boy shouts. “That’s Jinx, and I can prove it!”

“Jinx?” At this point I know he’s crazy.

His aunt steps up behind him. Now I can see that there’s another person behind her. A tall, thin girl with strawberry-blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s younger than I am—maybe Ethan’s age. She looks like a lost ballerina.

“Ellie,” Mom says, “this is Mrs. Ford and her daughter, Annika. And Grayson, Annika’s cousin. He’s staying the summer with them in Cameron.” Cameron is a little town a few miles down Highway 36.

Without so much as a glance at the strangers, I ask Mom, “Why are they here?”

“Ellie, honey,” Mom begins, “put Dream away and meet us inside. We need to talk.”

I turn away from them and walk Dream off toward the backyard. I don’t want to talk.

When I get to the gate, Ethan opens it for me. I slide off Dream and sign, What do you know about this, Ethan?

He signs back, They got here an hour ago. I missed most of it because nobody is signing. From what I can tell, the boy keeps saying Dream is his horse. I think he saw pictures on Larissa’s blog.

Larissa. I should have known.

I take my time brushing my horse. Ethan helps me. When I’m finished, I kiss Dream good night. There’s nothing left to do but go in.

Annika and her mother are seated with Mom on the couch. Dad and that boy, Grayson, are sitting in the recliners. When I walk in, the room goes silent.

“Took you long enough,” Grayson mutters.

“Grayson,” his aunt says, “if you can’t be civil, you can wait in the car.”

“Good idea,” I mutter back.

The woman turns to my mom. “Would you like to explain?” she asks.

Mom nods, then gets up and starts pacing. She circles the couch, her purple peasant skirt flowing behind her. “I don’t have any idea how to explain. This whole thing makes about as much sense as hot sauce in a berry pie.”

Mrs. Ford turns to me. “I’m so sorry about this, Ellie. It’s easy to see you’ve taken great care of that horse. We saw the before and after pictures on that girl’s website.”

“There was an after picture on Larissa’s blog?” The only picture I saw of Dream was the scraggly one.

“The pinto was in the background,” Annika explains, so softly I can barely hear her. “Larissa was getting a trophy. But the pinto outside the ring looked great.” She glances at her cousin. “When Grayson saw how good the horse looks now, that’s when he wanted to find her.”

“That’s not true!” Grayson protests.

I sign to Ethan as fast as I can, trying to fill him in.

“Like I said, my nephew is visiting us for the summer,” Mrs. Ford continues. “A friend of Annika’s was over, and she showed us the blog. She and Larissa go to the same horse shows. When Grayson saw the photos, he started screaming that it was his horse. He called his father, and Martin asked me to check things out. Annika’s friend contacted Larissa, and that’s how we ended up here. I wasn’t even sure it was the same horse. But I knew we’d never hear the end of it if we didn’t at least check it out.”

“It’s the same horse, all right,” Grayson insists. “You’ve got Jinx, and I want her back.”

“Grayson?” Mrs. Ford sighs.

Ethan steps in and signs to Dad. Even if it’s the same horse, they gave the horse away. They can’t change their minds now, can they?

Dad turns to Mrs. Ford and repeats Ethan’s question.

“We didn’t give Jinx away!” Grayson shouts. “We thought she ran away. She was always jumping the stable fence. The last time she did it, we were on vacation. Nobody told us. By the time we got back, we couldn’t find her. It wasn’t our fault. We thought she’d run off for good.” He glares at me. “Only now we know the truth. You stole my horse!”

“She is not your horse!” I shout back.

“Believe me,” Mrs. Ford says. “I don’t like this whole business any more than you do. Maybe the first thing to do would be to identify the horse.”

“How do you propose to do that?” Dad asks, his voice sharp as tacks.

“Well,” she continues, “Grayson’s father says their pinto had black-and-white spots.”

“A lot of horses do,” I snap.

“Do a lot of horses have one big spot that looks like a saddle?” Grayson demands. “Jinx does.”

I can’t answer. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach by a wild horse. My favorite spot. Dream’s biggest spot. It’s shaped like a shiny black saddle.