Bold Beauty (5 page)

“Waiting.” She showed us where a fat, black spider lurked in the far corner of his web. “See how he holds onto the silk thread, waiting for something to land? He feels the vibration and pounces! This afternoon he caught a wasp!”

“Cool.” Catman got so close to the web I was afraid his nose would touch and the spider would pounce. “So, you got tired of lizards?”

“Catman!” Lizzy scolded. “Never! How could I? I love all 3,000 species of lizards! Don't I, Larry?”

Larry the Lizard stuck his head out of Lizzy's pants pocket, and Lizzy petted him. “Besides, I could never collect spiders. They don't make friends like lizards do. Put two spiders in a box, and they'll fight to the death!”

“Catman!” Dad yelled.

“Stay for dinner, Catman,” Lizzy urged. “I made a spider-shaped casserole that rocks!”

“I can dig it.” Catman ducked under the web.

“Tell me about the new horse, Winnie,” Lizzy said as we watched Catman join Dad and immediately drop to the ground to inspect some new invention.

I explained to Lizzy how I'd ended up with Bold Beauty and how I'd be jumping her.

“I'd love to get a jumping spider!” Lizzy exclaimed. “They're so cute! Two huge eyes in the middle, four more on top, and one on each side. They don't even have to move their heads to see everywhere. And can they jump! Of course, fleas are better jumpers. They can jump 150 times their length, which is like us jumping over a 100-story building! Spiders can't jump that high, but . . .”

I rolled my eyes at my sister, then joined Catman and Dad by what looked more like a rocking chair than one of Dad's crazy inventions.

“Congratulations on getting another horse to gentle, Winnie!” Dad handed Catman a screwdriver. “Catman said it's a jumper?”

“A hunter actually.” I liked that Catman had told Dad about it—and that he
hadn't
mentioned the run-in with the ditch. “Great pay, too. I won't have to clean Stable-Mart stalls anymore.” No sense wasting time on the details of that one.

“Uh-huh.” Dad pushed the rocker back and forth.

“Are you making chairs, Dad?”

“Like no, man!” Catman was screwing a tube-line rod to the back of the chair. “Your dad's inventing the first rocker-powered fan!”

“Rocket-powered—?” I repeated.

“
Rocker
-powered!” Catman corrected. “Dude sits and rocks. Then energy—”

Dad interrupted, continuing as if they had one brain, forming the same sentence. “—transfers through air, which is sucked up into this tube to a generator fan!” He sat in the chair and rocked. “Air up. It blows through the fan—we're still working on that—turns the blades. Voila! Fan blows on the rocker! No electricity! No battery!”

“Rocker-powered,” I muttered.

At least it was a step up from the toaster that buttered toast on the way out . . . or the electric fork . . . or the boomerang baseball . . . or the automatic cat comb. Even Catman didn't like that one.

I cleaned up, and Lizzy finished cooking dinner while I set the table for four. We didn't get much company, so it felt strange to fill the little kitchen table. It made me think about Mom and dinners when we had always set the table for four.

During dinner Lizzy did most of the talking, and most of it about spiders. “Of course, not all spiders use webs to catch dinner. Some jump on their prey. Others spit out sticky nets of poison and trap anything in their paths. But spitters live mainly indoors, so—”

“Lizzy!” Dad gulped a mouthful of spider-shaped casserole. “Could we please change the subject?”

Good. I wanted the subject to turn to Bold Beauty and me.

But before I could jump in, Catman spoke. “I brought those entry forms, Mr. W.”

I glanced at Lizzy, but she shrugged. “What entry forms?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Dad shook his head. “Catman, I told you I didn't think I'd have the rocker ready in time.”

“In time for what?” Lizzy asked.

“The Inventor's Contest,” Catman said. “Winner gets a trip to the Invention Convention in Chicago.”

Dad shoved his plate away. “I'd never win something like that with one of my inventions. Real inventors enter those contests.”

“You should do it!” Lizzy exclaimed. “That would be so great if you won! Do inventor kids get to go? Sweet! I have friends in Chicago from—what grade was I in there? Oh, it doesn't matter. When is it?”

Dad stood up. “I'm not entering. I have to make some calls.”

Dad left, and we sat there finishing our dinner. I figured it was Dad's business whether he entered the contest or not.

Lizzy broke the silence, as usual. “So, Winnie, will this new horse be hard to gentle?”

“You should have seen that cat on the road, shying at her own shadow,” Catman said, meaning horse. “Winnie's got her hands full.” He turned to me. “She thinks she can make that cat road-safe.”

I forced myself to sound as cool as Catman. “I'll cure her of shying tomorrow.” I yawned for effect. “You're welcome to come watch if you like.”

“In one day?” Catman almost sounded impressed.

Mom taught me that horses shy for one of five reasons: boredom, habit, orneriness, terror, or lack of confidence. Finding out
why
a horse shies is half the battle. I already knew why Beauty shied—lack of confidence.

“One day,” I promised.

Catman narrowed his Siamese-blue cat eyes at me. “This I gotta see.”

Saturday I woke to honking and made it to my window in time to see a crooked
V
of Canadian geese fly over the barn. I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and dashed through the dewy grass for an early ride on Nickers.

As we cantered around the pasture, an autumn, apple smell filled my lungs. Greens blurred into yellow and orange. Shaded maples clung to summer, with only their tips turned red—like autumn fingernails. I eyed the hedge as we galloped by, imagining Beauty and me flying over it.

When I finished with Nickers, I took a spin on Towaco, making sure he didn't forget his leads before Hawk came back.

Then it was Bold Beauty's turn. I'd just started brushing the mud off her back when Catman appeared, wearing striped bell-bottoms and a paisley shirt.

“Dirty,” he commented.

“Hey, Catman! Dirt's good. Means Beauty felt at home enough to roll. Bet she never rolled at Stable-Mart.”

Beauty craned her neck around to nuzzle me. I blew into her nostrils, an old Indian trick. Greet a horse the way they greet each other. Beauty blew back. I already felt myself getting too attached to her. But it would be okay. She'd be getting a good home. Adrianna wasn't just a good owner; she was a good rider. That helped.

“Saddle?” Catman asked.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” I slipped on the bridle. Beauty opened her mouth for me and kept her head low. “Bareback.”

“Nothing to hang on to,” he observed.

“I don't need anything to hang on to.” I swung myself onto her back. “I want to
feel
her. Horses have sensory cells running through their skin. When Mom and I watched this herd of Mustangs once, we couldn't believe how they kept touching and brushing against each other. But that's how they read moods and thoughts. Beauty and I need to feel each other.”

“Cats don't need to touch you to know everything you're thinking . . . before you do.” He set down Nelson, and the tiny black cat with one white paw pranced straight to Nickers' stall and pounced to the feed trough.

“Now
that's
a horse!” Eddy Barker, wearing his Cleveland Indians hat backward, strolled up as I rode Beauty out of the barn. He carried Chico, his brother Luke's Chihuahua. Next to Barker, whose skin is the color of a deep bay, the puppy looked snow-white. But their big, brown eyes matched.

“Hey, Barker!” I struggled to keep Beauty still.

Eddy Barker is about the nicest person I've ever met—and not dull nice either. He trains dogs, plays basketball even though he's not much taller than I am, and I don't know if I've ever seen him without the big smile he turned on me now. “Did Pat get hold of you?”

Pat Haven runs the pet shop where Catman, Barker, and I work on the computer Pet Help Line. She'd been subbing in life science since the first day of school, since the teacher we were supposed to have said he had to go out and “find himself” or something.

“Nope. Why?” I pulled lightly on the reins, and Beauty backed up until I released.

“The debate.” Barker snapped on a leash and set Chico down.

“Barker, I told you a hundred times! I'm not volunteering for those debates until they make me.” Pat had made a Life Science assignment that everybody in her class had to debate one topic before the semester ended. Pat coached one side, and our English teacher, Ms. Brumby, coached the other. They claimed they wanted to make us think about stuff. Kids were supposed to volunteer when a topic came along that interested them. So far my classmates had debated war and the environment. I was putting it off as long as possible.

“Come on, Winnie,” Barker pressed. “Pat and I both want you on the abortion debate. You'll have to go with a topic sometime.”

“Not if the school burns down or a tornado hits or snow . . .” I knew it didn't make any sense to hope the debate assignment would just go away, but it made even less sense to volunteer to make a total idiot of myself in front of everybody.

Barker glanced at Catman, then back at me. “Winnie, this is the topic I've been waiting for. I know you're as pro-life as I am. This debate could actually make a difference.”

“Barker, you've heard me in class. I was the one saying, ‘Uh . . . um . . . duh. . . .' You wouldn't want me on your team!”

“Count me in, man!” Catman held up his fingers in the peace sign. “Kids. Peace. Inside the womb and out.”

“Thanks, Catman,” Barker said. “But it's seventh grade only. No eighth-graders.”

I reached down and untangled a lock of Beauty's mane. “Barker, I'll be cheering for you louder than anybody, but I just can't—”

Chico interrupted with yaps that should have come from a dog 10 times his size.

Bold Beauty jumped sideways.

“Sorry!” Barker scooped up the loudmouthed dog.

“That's okay.” I circled Beauty until she calmed down. “I want to get Beauty used to everything. And that includes dogs.”

“In one day.” When Catman said it, it sounded like a challenge.

“One day.” I rode in front of him. “So if you'll excuse me, I'm off.”

“Ditto.” Catman sniffed the air. “I smell biscuits and bacon.”

Catman and Barker headed in for a Lizzy breakfast, while Beauty and I tiptoed through the maze of junk on our lawn.

Mom once posted a list in our barn in Wyoming:
Top 10 Spooky Objects for Horses.
My mind had taken one of its automatic pictures, and I could see the smudged white paper with blue lines and the swirls and slant of Mom's handwriting:

1. Blowing paper

2. Barking dogs

3. Mud puddles

4. Trash cans

5. Little kids

6. Plaid horse blankets

7. Ropes and hoses on the ground

8. Ponies

9. Windy days

10. Wagons and trucks and cars

Dad had conveniently supplied me with most of the Top 10 on our own junky lawn. For the next hour, I let Beauty walk around sniffing strange objects. Horses identify each other and size up their world by smell. Beauty snorted at a bent, metal trash can. I gave her time to soak up the information. Horses have an extra sense organ at the end of their long nasal passages. It's called the Jacobson's organ, and they use it to decide if objects are friends or enemies. Lizzy says snakes have the Jacobson's organ, too.