The Girl Who Loves Horses (Pegasus Equestrian Center Series) Read online

  Billy was an obese, bumbling boy with a loud voice and nerve-grating laugh. Besides his unattractive corpulent body, his personal hygiene was not of high standards; in fact, met no standards at all. His shirts usually bore food stains, his teeth had a mossy appearance, and his body odor whenever he perspired (which he usually did while stumbling through ballroom dancing) created an olfactory zone definitely to be avoided. He thought of himself as a comedian but Sierra found his jokes either silly or disgusting. He was not only unattractive but also boring.

  Sierra didn’t like Billy but she did feel sorry for him and didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But she hadn’t found a way to discourage his attentions without being rude. In fact, she thought her blandness toward him bordered on rudeness. But Billy, accustomed to overt ridicule and abrupt rejection, interpreted her insipid politeness as friendship.

  Fortunately the math classroom was close to the cafeteria and Sierra moved much faster than Billy. She was usually swallowing her last few bites of lunch by the time he arrived to ask the same thing every day, “Is anyone sitting here?” And of course no one was, as Sierra would have to admit.

  “Is anyone sitting here?” The question was followed by a grunting laugh, hngh hngh.

  Without looking up Sierra gathered her empty sandwich bag and juice carton in one hand and shoved away from the table. “Hi, Billy,” she greeted with barely a smile. “No one’s sitting here and I’m just leaving to go to the library. I want to get ahead with my homework.” Food was not allowed in the library, and she knew Billy, clutching a full tray of cafeteria food, would not leave it to follow her. She left triumphantly with just a tinge of shame for slighting pathetic, lonely Billy.

  “Hey, Sierra,” Billy called to her retreating back. “What’s that in your hair?” Followed by his hngh hngh.

  Sierra ignored him thinking he was playing one of his lame jokes. But when she heard laughter from the next table she wondered. She waited until she reached the solitude of the hallway leading to the library before reaching back to touch her braids.

  Oh no! Stuck within the tasseled end of one braid she felt the unmistakable rubbery, sticky texture of chewed gum.

  Sierra fled to the nearest girls’ bathroom. Inside she passed two girls standing in front of the first two sinks, touching up their make-up while they gossiped loudly. Sierra tried to look invisible as she stepped up to the last sink farthest away. She pulled her braids to the front and studied the mass of sickly-pink, sticky goo clumping together the hairs at the end of one braid. Bubblegum. At least it was close to the end of her hair. Who would do this? When did it even happen? Probably when that group of boys had surrounded her in the hallway, jostling her as they rushed past to the cafeteria. They had not looked at her, and she just assumed they were oblivious to her presence in their hurry to start lunch. How could they be so mean? She didn’t even know those boys, but she was pretty sure two of them were in her algebra class. Sierra fought back tears, wishing the two girls would leave before she lost control.

  “Oh m’God!” one of the girls exclaimed, sounding aghast. “Is that gum in your hair?”

  Sierra nodded, still staring at the end of her braid.

  “Yuk,” the other girl cried out. “Do you remember Cindy Casselback when she got gum in her hair?”

  “I do; there was no way she could get it out. She tried ice cubes and then some kind of solvent that made her hair all frizzy.” The girls directed their comments to each other, excluding Sierra from the conversation.

  “What can I do?” Sierra asked, feeling helpless.

  The first girl looked at her with an expression that plainly inferred, ‘how dare you speak to me’. She smirked and answered, “Cut it off. There’s nothing else you can do.” The two girls laughed. Then ignoring Sierra, they picked up the thread of their previous gossip.

  Sierra fled the bathroom. That’s what she would do; she would find a pair of scissors and cut off the ends of both braids. It would only shorten her hair by about two inches and she would hardly notice. With her hair unbraided, it fell to the middle of her back so she could afford to lose the inches. Ms. Braum, the librarian, should have scissors and maybe she would loan them for the brief operation.

  Ms. Braum was appropriately sympathetic, and tsk, tsking all the while, snipped off the ends of Sierra’s braids, holding them over the trashcan. Then she helped her re-braid the ends.

  “Thank you, Ms. Braum,” Sierra thanked the librarian with gratitude in her tone.

  “You really should report those boys,” Ms. Braum stated with a stern expression.

  “I don’t even know who they are,” Sierra answered. “And I really think it would just make things worse to tattle on them, even if I did.”

  Ms. Braum shook her head over the foolishness of adolescents and returned to her desk leaving Sierra free to find a table and work on her homework for the remaining minutes of the lunch hour.

  *****

  3 The Cottage

  A horse is the projection of people’s dreams about themselves – strong, powerful, beautiful – and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence. – Pam Brown

  *****

  The yellow school bus pulled to a stop opposite a two-story farmhouse. Sierra hopped down the three steps, flung her backpack on, and jogged along the driveway past the house to an intersecting driveway that led into the yard of a much smaller house; a cottage. Late-blooming flowers – pansies and impatiens that had been planted in the summer and a fine old hydrangea with lingering clusters of blue – ornamented the front yard. A Steller’s Jay scolded from a branch of a large maple tree, its leaves just starting to turn from green to orange.

  “I’m home,” Sierra announced to the jay bird. She went around to the backyard, plucked a ripe apple from one of the apple trees, and entered the house. At the doorway, a sweet, cinnamon smell wafted out as if she needed something to lure her inside. Sierra felt her school troubles drop away. Coming home to the small cottage felt like stepping out of the real world of problems and conflict into her personal separate world of harmony and peace.

  “Hi, Mom,” Sierra called out, “what are you baking?” She stepped through the utility room into the warm kitchen where her mother sat at the table with a textbook and papers in front of her, doing her own homework. Pam Landsing had started the nursing program at the local university, the reason she and her daughter had moved to the town of Firwood.

  “Hi, Kitten,” Pam greeted her daughter and reached out her arms for a hug. As Sierra embraced her warmly Pam kissed her on the cheek.

  “It smells wonderful in here.” Sierra shrugged off her backpack and dropped it on the table.

  “I made an apple crisp out of the apples you brought in yesterday. We’ll have it for dessert tonight. How was school?”

  Sierra plopped into a chair, biting into her apple. A scruffy black cat ghosted into the kitchen from who knew where, and jumped into her lap.

  “Hey, Socrates,” she greeted him. He kneaded with his paws, tickling her, before he settled into a comfortable position, accenting his contentment with a loud purr. “Mom, does my hair look any different to you?” Sierra asked, bringing the two braids forward.

  Pam studied her daughter’s hair, wondering the reason for this question. “No,” she answered after a few minutes, “it looks the same. What happened?”

  Between bites of apple Sierra told her mother about her day. And somehow with Socrates’ warm body on her lap, eating a fresh, sweet apple plucked from a tree, and her mom listening with her usual full attention on Sierra’s words and commiserating with her over the teasing in class and the cruel prank of gum in her hair; Sierra no longer felt quite as hurt or humiliated.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Pam said when Sierra told her about her algebra score. “I think the other kids are just jealous of how smart you are.”

  “Mom,” Sierra groaned, “you know kids don’t care about being smart.” She didn’t believe for a minute that was the reaso
n kids picked on her, but she appreciated her mother’s sympathy and support. She changed the subject; to the anticipated pleasure of working with horses, much more interesting than her school troubles. “Don’t forget, I start my job at the stable tomorrow,” Sierra reminded her mother. “I’ll be gone before you get home from work.” Pam worked graveyard shift Friday and Saturday nights in a nursing home as a nurse’s aide. Monday through Friday she attended classes at the university. She never had a day off. But Sierra knew it was her mother’s dream to go through nurse’s training and then become a registered nurse. She was very proud of her mother.

  “That’s right,” Pam grinned at her daughter. “Sierra, isn’t it amazing how things are falling into place for us, as if it was our destiny to move here?”

  Sierra understood what she meant, like finding this cottage.

  *****

  The day after finishing seventh grade, Sierra and her mother packed all their belongings into a U-haul and drove three hundred miles to the college town of Firwood, towing their car behind. Pam had managed to find an apartment to rent through the internet, and as they reached the outskirts of the town, she pulled off the main road onto a country lane to study the map and her directions to the apartment complex.

  They had exited off the freeway onto country roads and Sierra’s spirits soared as she looked out at stands of trees, rolling hills covered in wildflowers, and pastures with animals grazing. All her life she had lived in a city in an apartment complex. She was used to pavement, supermarkets, gas stations, and strip malls as the scenes one passed going to and from home. She lowered the window and breathed in deep of the country air. That’s when she spied the attractive two-story farm house midway down the lane with a For Rent sign pegged into the front lawn.

  “Mom, look at that sweet house,” she interrupted Pam’s study of the map.

  “Um hmm,” Pam answered without looking up.

  “It’s for rent.”

  “Honey, we already have an apartment.” She added in a mumble to herself, “If I can just find it.”

  “It would be so cool to live in a house,” Sierra dreamed out loud. She knew they couldn’t afford a place like that.

  Pam looked up and over to where Sierra stared. She also looked with longing at the house, and then smiled conspiratorially. “It would be fun to look inside, wouldn’t it? It can’t hurt anything to pretend we could afford a place like that…because someday when I’m a nurse working in a hospital, we will live in a house.” She added the last in a hopeful tone.

  Pam moved the U-haul up the lane and parked across from the house. She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the number printed on the sign. Sierra listened in eager curiosity as Pam asked questions.

  “Hello, my name is Pam Landsing…I’m inquiring about the house for rent…I see…What is the monthly rent..? I see…I see…What utilities are included with that? I see…yes, a twelve year old daughter…I work night shift so I worry about her being alone…A school bus..? Yes, we’re actually parked here now, across the street…Great, thank you.”

  She disconnected and turned to Sierra with wide eyes that almost looked frightened. “It’s not this house for rent but a smaller one in the back, and we could afford the rent. In fact, it’s cheaper than the apartment. Want to take a look?”

  “Of course!” Sierra replied, the seed of hope suddenly bursting into full bloom.

  A woman stepped out of the front door of the farm house and waved. They got out of the van and crossed the lane. “I’m Mary Robinson,” she greeted. Pam introduced herself and her daughter and they all shook hands. Then Mrs. Robinson led them along the driveway that extended beyond the farmhouse, winding around to the back and onto another graveled driveway that angled off to the side.

  A small house in desperate need of paint sat in a yard overrun with weeds, piles of broken machinery, and other trash. A sprawling maple tree graced the front yard. In the back were two apple trees, a cherry tree, plum tree, and tangled raspberry and grape vines; all in need of pruning. Off to the side an outbuilding served as a small garage.

  “This used to be the caretaker’s cottage when this place was a working farm,” Mrs. Robinson announced as she unlocked the front door. They entered into a small living room with a large window that framed the maple tree in front. A smell of mold and stale smoke filled their nostrils. The inside walls screamed out for fresh paint and the wall-to-wall carpet was an indistinguishable faded color with many stains. “The last renters were college students; two boys,” Mrs. Robinson explained as an excuse for the neglect. She made a sound of disgust and added, “That’s a mistake I’ll never make again.”

  There were two tiny bedrooms of equal size and both with dark painted wood paneling, and each with a tiny closet. The bathroom had an old-fashioned claw-foot tub with a shower curtain track that completely surrounded it. The pipe for the shower head projected up from the plumbing at the head of the tub and curved over its interior. The pedestal sink did not look like a modern imitation, but an ancient original model. There were rust stains around the drain and separate faucets for the hot and cold water. Black and white squares of linoleum covered the floor in surprisingly good shape.

  The kitchen was bigger than the living room. It had white metal cabinets, a wide and shallow chipped porcelain sink, gas stove, an older model small white refrigerator; and no dishwasher. It had the same black and white linoleum flooring that had been used in the bathroom. Off the kitchen was a good-sized utility room with a deep sink and counter, hook-ups for a washer and dryer, and a wall of sturdy storage shelves. An open box of Mason canning jars sat on one of the lower shelves. Thick layers of dust covered all surfaces and there were trails of mouse droppings here and there.

  Mother and daughter looked at each other and both knew without words that they had instantly fallen in love with the small, badly neglected cottage. They took possession of it on the spot. When Arthur Robinson came home, Pam negotiated an agreement where the landlords would pay for paint, rental of a carpet steam-cleaner, and Mr. Robinson would haul away the trash in his pick-up truck. The Robinsons were grateful to have renters willing to do the much needed work, and waived the first month’s rent in exchange for their labor; a financial arrangement that suited Pam’s tight finances very well. The Robinsons helped Pam and Sierra unload their belongings from the U-haul into the outbuilding where they planned to store things until they had a chance to scrub the interior. Pam contacted the apartment manager and gave him an honest explanation of why she no longer wanted to rent the apartment, and he graciously consented to return the check she had mailed as a deposit.

  Over the next month, Pam and Sierra scrubbed the cottage from ceilings to the four corners of each room and into every cupboard and closet nook and cranny. The Robinsons bought the paint they chose; off white for the living room, kitchen, and Pam’s bedroom; a pale blue for the bathroom; and Sierra chose a light sage green for her room; a color she thought would produce a complimentary background for her horse posters. Out of curiosity, Sierra pried up a corner of the disgusting carpet and to their surprise, they found hardwood floors underneath. They convinced the Robinsons to tear out the carpeting and instead of renting a steam cleaner they rented a floor polisher. For the final touches, after cleaning, painting and polishing, Sierra helped her mother make curtains for each room from remnant fabrics they selected. The sparkling clean cottage now smelled of fragrant all-purpose cleaner, fresh paint, and floor wax.

  With the interior work finished, they tackled the outside. Mr. Robinson hired one of his grown nephews to help with the exterior painting, thinking it was too big a job for one woman and small girl. They chose a rose-tinged light beige for the main color and a deep maroon for the shutters and trim. After the trash had been hauled away, they weeded the yard and pruned the existing trees and shrubs. Pam had always enjoyed the cultivation of house plants and tubs of flowers that she kept on the deck of their old apartment. Having a yard to actually plant flower beds and a vegetable
garden thrilled her with the possibilities.

  It was while they spent the days working in the yard that the bedraggled black kitten with protruding ribs appeared. All her life Sierra had wanted a pet but Pam never could afford the deposit and extra rent required to have a pet in their apartment. The Robinsons didn’t mind at all if they had animals. They had two dogs of their own, a coop with five hens and one rooster, and an old gray cat that always slept curled up in the chair on their front porch. With the expected stipulation of, “as long as you take care of him and clean up after him,” Pam consented to let Sierra adopt the stray. She named him Socrates.

  Sierra felt safe in the cottage, even when she was alone at night with her mother at work. The Robinsons were homebodies, never going out after dark, and had even offered to let Sierra sleep on their couch while Pam worked. But Sierra pleaded to be allowed to sleep in her own bed – she would be fine; the Robinsons were just a shout away and one of their dogs barked loudly if any living creature ventured onto the property. Pam reluctantly agreed, for the precedent had been set when they still lived in the apartment. There had been two very bad experiences with babysitters: once when Pam came home unexpectedly to find the highly recommended high school girl in Pam’s own bed with her boyfriend, and then when she found out the gentle-mannered grandmotherly woman, so sweet to Pam’s face, made Sierra stay in her bedroom the minute Pam left the apartment and even once slapped Sierra when she dared to come out. After that, Pam decided she trusted her own daughter, who had just turned twelve, more than strangers, and agreed to let Sierra stay by herself.