No Small Thing (4 page)

Queenie moans and her eyes flutter. “The pony….”

“Sit up, Queenie,” I tell her, trying to sound strong even though my voice is cracking. “The pony is fine. We’ll get him in a bit.”

“Ma’s gonna kill us….” Cid says.

“Shut up!” I snap.

Queenie’s eyes flutter some more. I put my arm around her waist and pull her up. Her face twists in pain. Her lip is cut and bleeding. When I finally get her to stand, I see that there is something seriously wrong. There is a lump at her collarbone and the skin has already turned blue—from the blood underneath, I think. I’m not a doctor but I can tell this isn’t good.

“Oh God,” Cid whispers.

I scowl at her, and she knows enough to be quiet. She hugs the brushes to her chest, tears welling up in her eyes. I give her another look because I don’t want her to start crying and make everything worse.

“That was some good riding, Queenie,” I say, trying to take her mind off the pain.

“Where’s the pony?” Queenie murmurs.

“He’s just over the hill,” I lie, for the second time in one day. It seems lying gets easier the more you do it. Or maybe there are no half measures when it comes to lies—either you’re a liar or you’re not….

We weave drunkenly down the road, me supporting Queenie, Cid clutching at her stomach, trying to keep the tears from coming. We’re in a real mess now, that’s for sure. I try to imagine what Luke Skywalker would do in a situation like this but I can’t think of a single thing. Han Solo was better at tight situations anyway, but that doesn’t help matters. For some reason I have KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Keep It Comin’ Love” playing in a loop through my head.

As we reach the top of the road, I am thankful to see Smokey standing at the bottom of the hill, just like I promised Queenie. His eyes are wild. The dog is nowhere to be seen, and I’m glad. I hope Smokey managed to kick it senseless.

“Look, Queenie,” I say brightly. “Smokey’s right there waiting for us, just like I said.”

This seems to make her feel better. We shuffle towards the pony, and all I can think is, Thank you, Smokey, for not trying to run back home. How would I have explained that to the lady? He doesn’t bolt when I walk up to him, but leans hishead against my chest as though he’s known me since he was a colt. I run my hand along his neck and down his legs, one after the other. There are some scratches and marks, but mostly he’s fine.

“Do you think you can get back on him?” I ask Queenie. “I’ll lead him this time. It will be fine. You have to get back on a horse if you’ve been thrown, so he knows you aren’t afraid.” That’s the truth, but it isn’t why I said it. I’m really hoping that Queenie isn’t as hurt as she seems and that she’ll just get on the pony like before. If I can convince her to get back on Smokey, maybe everything will be okay.

But she doesn’t need convincing. Like I said, of the three of us, Queenie wants the pony most of all. Cid holds the reins while I help Queenie up. Queenie cries out because of her collarbone but she doesn’t make a big deal of it, and soon we’re moving along the road at a good pace.

Despite the trouble we’re in, we all start thinking about what we’re going to do with Smokey.

“Where are we going to keep him, Nathaniel?” Cid asks.

I don’t say a thing. There’s a long, loud silence.

“How about the shed out back?” Queenie mumbles.

“We can’t keep him in the backyard,” Cid says in frustration. “It’s not legal. We don’t have anywhere to keep him, Nathaniel. We’re screwed.”

“No, we’re not,” I finally say. “I was thinking up at Forest Road.”

“Clem’s barn?” Cid gasps. “Oh, Nathaniel, no! I don’t want to see that awful pig man ever again!”

The pig man. He
was
awful. We knew him from when we were little kids living in the big stone house up on Forest Road. When we first moved to Eastview we rented that house. Dad was around then. Clem lived in the barn down the lane. He lived no better than an animal out there with those pigs. He used to chase us with abullwhip when he caught us playing in the hay. We never told Ma that.

“He’s dead and you know it. He fell off a beam and broke his neck.”

“What if his ghost is there?” Cid asks. “That’s what everybody says. People hear him in there, and someone even said they heard his pigs squealing.”

“His ghost is
not
there. If he had a soul at all, it’s suffering in hell. Nothing as nice as a horse barn. Besides, we have no choice. It’s the cheapest place around. Clem is dead and gone. Ted Henry owns the barn. If we pay board, no one can stop us from being there. Not Clem’s ghost or anyone else.”

We all think about this for a while, walking for a very long time without saying anything. As we’re walking, I look over my shoulder from time to time. Queenie’s face is pinched and white as milk, and this reminds me that we’re in big trouble. I don’t even know if Ted Henry will let us keep Smokey in his barn, but I can’t afford to think like that now. I remember the pain in my leg and look down to see that my pants are torn below the knee. My leg looks all scraped and it stings, but that’s the least of my worries. It’s getting darker and darker and the trees are startingto blur into big blobs at the side of the road. I can see stars poking through the sky and a sliver of moon pushing up through the branches.

“My feet hurt,” Cid groans.

I want to be mad at her for being selfish, but for some reason I can’t. I look up at Queenie, who sits hunched over the pony. Smokey is walking with his eyes half closed, his soft breath a warm pulse against my hand. “We’re almost there.”

Sure enough, the gravel road soon becomes asphalt and we are on the edge of town.

“You’ll have to get down now, Queenie,” I say. “Ted Henry’s house is just up the street, and I have to talk to him about board.”

Queenie winces and sucks in her breath as I help her down. I kiss her on the forehead the way Ma always does, then lead Smokey across the road, Queenie and Cid walking beside me. The cars and lights make Smokey nervous. He tosses his head from side to side. I hold him tighter, just to be sure he doesn’t bolt.

On the sidewalk in front of Ted Henry’s house I hand the reins to Cid. “You and Queenie stay here while I go talk to him.” I try to sound confident when I say this, but I can’t help feeling nervous.

I walk up the stairs to the house and bang on the door. I wait for a bit and bang again. Noanswer. I look around at Cid and Queenie and shrug. Their faces are pale and grim in the light. I’m just about to bang a third time when the door opens with a
whoosh!

Ted Henry is standing in front of me, sucking his teeth as though I pulled him away from the dinner table. He’s wearing a Labatt Blue T-shirt and a worn black baseball cap over his fuzzy brown hair. His fingers are stained brown with nicotine. He sizes me up, then looks at his watch to make me aware of how late it is. I know it’s after nine o’clock because the sun is nearly gone, but it can’t be helped.

“Waddya want?” he says.

“I’d like to rent a stall in your barn,” I say, as bravely as I can because I don’t like Ted Henry and I’m sure he doesn’t like me.

“For what?” he asks, like I’m up to no good.

“For our pony.” I wave my arm over at Smokey.

He cranes his head for a look, then sucks his teeth some more. “You got money?”

“Yes, sir.” I pull the wad of bills from my pocket.

“Ten dollars a month for a standing stall—no hay,” Ted Henry says. “Hay is 5 dollars extra.”

“We don’t need hay.” This isn’t entirely true.

We do need hay, but I’m sure I can buy it cheaper somewhere else. If I’m not careful, my money will be gone before I know it.

“I need three month’s up front. That’s 30 dollars. You got that, boy?”

I peel 30 dollars from my ball of money and hand it to him. He counts it twice, then folds it and puts it in his pocket. He seems pleased about the money, and his voice takes on a different tone.

“First stall in the middle aisle. You can set him up in there.”

I thump down the stairs excitedly because I can’t believe it worked out. I’m so happy I almost forget the trouble we’re in. Until I look at Queenie’s face. You can tell she’s in pain, and the lump on her collarbone looks bigger and angrier than before.

“Where did you get all that money?” Cid starts in on me like she always does.

Normally I would come back at Cid with something smart when she jumps on me like this, but I’m too tired for a fight. I just tell her the truth. “I saved it from my paper route. Come on. We have to get Smokey settled and get home as fast as we can.”

I help Queenie back onto the pony. She moansa bit, but she doesn’t cry. It’s a good half-mile from Ted Henry’s house to the barn. We move as quickly as we can without causing Queenie any more discomfort. While we’re walking, a couple of cars slow almost to a stop, then drive on. Cid and I exchange glances.

“They must be looking at Smokey,” I say.

When we get to the top of the hill, we stop to stare at our old house on Forest Road. Or what’s left of it. A tornado tore the roof off a couple of years after we moved out. Then some kids set fire to it and gutted the insides—at least, what the rain and snow hadn’t already destroyed.

We loved that old stone house, even though we only lived there for six months and we all agreed it must be haunted. The cellar had a dirt floor and nobody ever wanted to go down there—not even Ma. Sometimes, late at night, we could hear funny noises and whispers in the walls. Even so, we loved it. It was the first place we ever lived in Canada—back in 1972. Dad rented it for us, when things were still good and hopeful. It was a temporary place to live until our big yellow house was ready on the outskirts of town. We moved to Eastview because Dad was supposed to go partners with his brother in the pool-digging business. They were going to makepots of money, he said. So we left our home and all our relatives and friends in Illinois for some southern Ontario pipe dream of Dad’s that never panned out.

There was a shed out back where we kept our ponies, and a small fieldstone house behind, where hired help would have lived in better times. There were two bathrooms in the big house: a huge one with a claw-foot tub and a window that stretched from the floor to the ceiling, and a tiny closet with just a toilet inside. The closet toilet was so small you couldn’t even shut the door, because your knees got in the way. There was an old cherry banister in the house that corkscrewed from the top of the stairs to the bottom. The rungs were old and loose and the banister swayed and creaked like it was going to snap off and break our necks when we slid down for dinner.

I got very sick in the stone house once. I was so sick, Ma let me sleep in her bed to keep an eye on me. I was delirious with fever and I saw things that weren’t there. I even thought I saw Dad come through the bedroom door, a big smile on his face, even though I knew he was back in the States by then. He brought me different kinds of jelly in little round jars and a small glass paperweight with an American flag inside. The flagwas made of red, white and blue rhinestones that glittered like diamonds. Of course it wasn’t real, but it seemed that way at the time. I asked Ma about it for days.

We spent our first Canadian Christmas in this house. Dad got us a Christmas tree that reached right to the ceiling—over twelve feet high! It had tiny pine cones on the ends of its branches and it was the most beautiful tree we’d ever seen. When I think of it now, I think the tree was Dad’s way of saying sorry for what he was going to do, because we didn’t see much of him after that. Ma told us he had to stay back in Illinois to sell our place there. So we moved into the big yellow house without him. He came once in a while, but he never stayed for long. I can’t help thinking about him now, off with some other woman, having fun with his new family. I don’t know if any of this is true. But I feel sick just thinking about it—him having more kids with someone else and leaving us behind. Ma tried as hard as she could to make things okay. She even let us live on peanut butter and honey crackers, and milkshakes, which Dad never would have allowed. And then we had to sell the yellow house and move into something more “affordable” in town, which is where we live now….

Smokey tugs on the reins and drags me back from remembering. He’s sniffing the air excitedly, smelling the other horses in the barn.

“You’d better get off now, Queenie. Smokey might get a bit rammy when he sees the other horses.”

I help her down and slip my hand through the bridle. The other horses hear us and start to whinny. Smokey pricks up his ears and whinnies back. I walk quickly beside him, the horses calling back and forth. When we reach the barn I stop in front of the door.

“Open it,” I say to Cid. “See if you can find the light.”

“What if Clem is in there?”

“For Pete’s sake, just do it!”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“Fine, you big chicken. Come here and hold Smokey.” I hand her the reins, but not without giving her the meanest look yet. “Don’t let him go.” I lean toward her and cluck like an old hen just to bug her.

Cid frowns but doesn’t say anything as she takes the reins.

I walk over to the barn. I fumble with the latch, which is kind of rusty, but finally manage to get it open. I have to admit, I’m scared of seeing Clemtoo, but no matter what happens, we have to get Smokey set up for the night. The door opens with a creak and I peer inside. I can hear the horses shifting in their stalls. I reach my hand out along the wall and feel for the switch. Something fuzzy brushes against my hand and my ears are suddenly filled with a high-pitched scream!

I pull my arm back like it’s been scalded with boiling water. I think Clem’s ghost has hold of me, and I stumble and push away from the door.

“What’s happening?” Cid shrieks. “Get out of there!”

My hand is bumped again, but this time I realize it’s only a piece of old rope and the scream I heard was my own. “It’s nothing, I’m fine,” I call out. My heart is pounding like a drum in my chest, so hard it feels like it’s going to burst right through my shirt. I reach in again, the rope nudging my hand as I fumble with the switch.