Unhappy Appy (8 page)

Ms. Brumby frowned in concentration, still tapping her shoe. I pictured a Brumby mare pawing the ground. “I guess we'll have to make one group of three,” she said at last. “Winnie, why don't you go join Summer and Victoria?”

Because I'd rather eat worms, that's why.
I gathered my stuff and pushed through chairs to the back of the room.

Hawk pulled a chair from the row in front of her and turned it around for me.

“Two's company,” Summer muttered, “and three's a—”

“Summer.” Hawk stopped her from finishing. But Summer didn't need to finish.

“Well, this will be too hard with three of us,” Summer whined.

Hawk took charge. “Did you both finish
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
?”

Ms. Brumby had taken two weeks on the works of Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain's real name. But we were supposed to finish reading
Huck Finn
on our own. I nodded. Once I got used to the way people talked in the book, I really liked it.

Summer sighed. “Are you kidding? If I have to listen to one more page of that dry, stupid book, I'll throw myself out the window!”

Note to self: Read a page of
Huck Finn
to Summer. Several pages.

“How should we start this thing?” Summer asked Hawk, looking right through me as if I were invisible. “I really need a good grade on this.”

“We could list what we think makes up a friendship,” Hawk suggested, looking back through me to Summer, “perhaps define what best friends are. Then we might compare the friendship of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to . . .”

They wouldn't have noticed if I'd thrown myself out the window. Somehow, being invisible makes me feel worse than when Summer comes right out and says mean things to my face. At least then she's admitting I exist.

English class seemed to go on forever. I was relieved to get out of there and into life science class. The only class I really like is life science. Pat Haven has been our substitute teacher since day one of seventh grade. Our regular teacher left Ashland to “find himself,” and nobody has heard from him since.

Pat was writing on the board:
Symbiotic Relationship.
When the bell rang, she dropped the chalk and turned around. She was wearing red tennis shoes, black slacks, and a red-checked shirt that made her look like a cowgirl. “I thought it would be fun to take our short week and look at animals in a different way.”

No wonder I loved her class!

“Many animals form unique partnerships. Some of these partnerships work for both parties, and we call it a symbiotic relationship.” Pat pointed to the chalkboard. “Other partnerships work well for only one of the partners, making that animal a parasite. You can do your report on any pair of critters you choose.”

Kids groaned, but I thought it was a great idea. I knew I'd choose a horse for one of the animals in the partnership. I'd have to research to find the other partner though.

“So pair up with a partner, and . . .”

I didn't hear any of the instructions. Partners? I knew exactly where this was going. I was about to be odd man out again. My only hope was that we had an even number of kids in the class.

After a few minutes of chaos, the classroom settled into tidy sets of two . . . almost.

“Okeydokey!” Pat shouted. “All paired up? Did birds of a feather flock together? No offense!” She grinned at me.

I was the only one left in the front row. “Could I just do a report on my own?” I asked.

“Don't worry about it!” Pat exclaimed. “We'll get you paired off. Anybody need a partner?”

“Please,” I whispered, biting my lip, praying she'd understand. “I want to do it by myself.”

Pat raised one eyebrow. Then she nodded. “Alrighty!”

I breathed again.

She talked about the assignment, about partners and parasites. “Ideas anybody?”

“Maggots!” Brian shouted.

“Good one!” Pat agreed.

Hawk raised her hand. “Cuckoo birds?”

“Perfect!” Pat declared.

“That's my partner!” Summer chimed in.

“Hawk,” Pat said, “tell us about that odd cuckoo-bird partnership.”

“Cuckoos use foster parents,” Hawk explained. “The female tosses out another bird's egg, say a warbler, when the mother leaves her nest. Then the cuckoo lays her own egg in that nest and flies away. The mother warbler hatches the cuckoo's egg. And even though the baby cuckoo pushes the rest of the warbler eggs out of the nest, the mother and father warblers work night and day to bring food to the ravenous cuckoo.”

Hawk would love writing about birds. She already had an A report. Two more things for her Thanksgiving list.

After school Hawk said she'd see me later. She walked off toward Pizza-Mart with Summer, Grant, and Brian.

I biked to Pat's Pets as fast as I could. Catman was already there, finishing up his e-mails.

I answered three horse questions, then started researching horse partnerships on the Internet.

When I typed
horses
into the location bar, I got too many hits. I added
dependent,
and narrowed the possibilities to 23. One of the sites that came up was called “Horse Therapy.” Under that was the heading “Hippotherapy.”

As soon as I started reading about it, I knew I'd found what I needed:
“Hippotherapy is a specialty area of therapeutic horse riding that has been used to help patients with neurological disorders caused by stroke and head trauma. The patient is encouraged to form a partnership with the therapy horse.”

I thought about the summer in Wyoming when my mom had given lessons to handicapped kids. All I remembered was that two of them had wheelchairs. Somebody drove them from Laramie out to our ranch once a week. Mom knew just what to do to make the horses and kids partners.

“How'd you make out?” Pat asked as I printed out the pages on horse therapy.

I showed her all the good stuff about horses partnering with people.

“If that's not the cat's meow!” she exclaimed. “No offense!”

“I guess you have to be a trained therapist to really do hippotherapy,” I explained. “But lots of people who are good with horses do horse therapy. They get horses and handicapped kids to be partners.”

The phone rang. Pat ran to answer it.

I waved good-bye and headed home. When I bounced my bike down the ditch and up into our yard, I could hear our phone ringing. I dropped the bike and raced inside to answer it, jumping over a huge vase of flowers sitting on the doorstep. I almost tripped over a package wedged in front of the door. I picked it up and ran for the phone. “Hello?”

Peter Lory flew to my shoulder, but I didn't see anyone else around.

“Is Victoria there?” came a voice through a noisy background.

“Mrs. Hawkins?” I guessed.

“Yes. Hello, Winnie. Could I speak with my daughter, please?”

I glanced around the house. “She's not back yet. Sorry.”

Her sigh traveled all the way from the Nevada desert to my receiver. “Well, tell her to expect a surprise package from me tomorrow, will you?”

I still had the package under my arm. “I think it's already here.”

“Are you sure? I don't see how.”

I checked the label. “Yep. Says
Bob Hawkins
on the return address.”

“Is that so?” She didn't sound pleased. “Well, that's not the one. Tell her
my
package should arrive tomorrow.”

When we hung up, I brought in the flowers. A silver balloon flew above the vase with the greeting in pink:
Miss you!
The little card said it was from Hawk's dad. I wondered if Hawk had any idea how lucky she was to have two parents who were that crazy about her.

I set the flowers on the kitchen table and noticed a note from Lizzy:
I'm at Geri's. Tomatoes in the fridge. Lizard cookies on the counter.

“Ring! Ring! Hello!”
Peter Lory swooped through the living room, setting off the lovebirds so the house sounded like a jungle.

I thought I heard voices outside. Seconds later Hawk walked in and slung her book bag on the floor. “Hello, Winnie.”

“Hello, Hawk.” An awkward silence settled over us like a scratchy blanket. “Oh! Your mom called and said to expect a surprise package tomorrow. And your dad sent you flowers and a box.”

“That's nice,” Hawk said, crossing to the sink and getting a glass of water.

That's nice?
“Aren't you going to open the package?”

She shrugged.

This was going nowhere. I'd never felt less like Hawk's friend. She reminded me of Towaco, not interested in anything.

I needed to ride Nickers. “Hawk, I'm going riding. You want to come?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”
Just like that?
I must have asked her a million times in the last two weeks.

Note to self: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, no offense.

“Let's go then,” I said. This was all Towaco needed, all Hawk needed, maybe all I needed.

“Let me change.” Hawk headed for the bedroom. Unlike me, she didn't wear barn clothes to school.

She was still changing when Dad drove up and beeped his horn. I waved at him from the front step.

Hawk came out, and we started for the barn.

Dad honked again. He was still sitting in the truck. We waved and kept walking.

He honked and hollered, “Winnie, hurry!”

“Dad!” I shouted. “We're going riding!”

“We're going to be late!” he shouted back.

We stopped walking.

I shrugged at Hawk and trotted over to Dad. “Late for what?”

“For Madeline's! Remember? We decided you should meet Mason at their house before introducing him to the horses.”

It sounded vaguely familiar, but I hadn't been paying much attention when they talked about it. I'd been too anxious to ditch them and go riding with Hawk . . . just like now. “I can't, Dad. Hawk and I—”

“You've known about this, Winnie. They're waiting for us. Get in the truck.”

“Hawk's my guest! I can't just leave her and—”

Hawk interrupted me. “We can ride another time.”

“Thanks for understanding, Hawk,” Dad said. “I'm sorry about this. Why don't you come with us?”

“No thank you.” She was already edging toward the house. “Towaco probably would not have cooperated anyway. And I have homework.”

“We'll have a late supper when we get back.” Dad revved the truck engine. “Help yourself to anything you find, Hawk. Our home is your home.”

“It's not fair!” I protested.

“Get in, Winnie. Now.” It had been a long time since Dad had pulled out his mean voice.

I got in, slamming the door harder than I needed to and sitting as close to it as I could.

I'd known it from the beginning, from the first time I'd heard about Madeline Edison.
She
was trouble. And nothing but trouble was going to come out of that
friendship.