Centaur Rising

  Martha talked that way, too, on and on, with me tuning out. All she did was tell me how to do what I’d been doing for the past four years, since I was nine. Calling me “Little Bit” and “Shortie,” even though I was neither of those anymore. Calling Robbie “Squinch” (because of his glasses) and “Munchkin” (because he’s so small).

  Martha wanted things done right, meaning her way, so how could I be mad at her? Annoyed a little, irritated some, but not mad. Martha was an itch we all had to scratch.

  And Robbie? He just called her silly names back: “Marmar” when he was little, “Mairzy Doats” from a song Martha used to sing, and now “Marmalade” from his favorite jam, which is so bitter, I won’t eat it. “More for me,” he always says.

  * * *

  I rolled Robbie to Agora’s stall next, and we could hear rough breathing. When I peeked in, Agora was standing with her head hanging down, and she didn’t look good.

  “Keep an eye on her, buddy,” I said to Robbie, “I’ve got to call the vet.”

  “Will she be okay?” I could hear the tightness in his voice.

  “Dr. Herks is the best,” I reminded him. “Try and keep her calm.”

  He nodded. “I’ll sing to her.” He loved singing to the horses. He had a great voice, always right on key. Not like me. Mom says it’s the one good thing he got from Dad.

  I left Robbie at the open door, not that there was much he could do if things went wrong. He can’t use his legs, his pelvic bones are missing, his arms are too short, and his hands are like flippers because the fingers and thumbs grew fused together.

  But that voice … Martha calls it angelic, only not to his face. He was already singing to Agora, to keep her calm. “A horse is a horse, of course, of course.…” It was the theme song from Mister Ed.

  * * *

  I’d seen mares in labor before. Their tails twitch high, and sometimes they stomp about the stall as if they can’t quite settle. Then, suddenly, they collapse on the ground, rolling over on one side, the water flooding out of their hind ends. Several long pushes later, a white sac like a balloon comes out with one or two tiny horse hooves showing.

  The first time I watched a mare have a baby, I thought it was disgusting. Yet once the foal stood up, shaking all over and then walking about on its spindly legs, everything was so magical, I forgot about the icky stuff.

  But what I was hearing that day from Agora’s stall didn’t sound like magic. It sounded like pain. I couldn’t take time to comfort her. Robbie would have to do that. He was good with the horses since, unlike most kids his age, he didn’t make quick movements or too much noise.

  I ran to the barn phone.

  The vet’s number was written on the wall over the phone in black paint. As Martha said, “Pieces of paper can get torn off or lost, but black paint is forever.”

  He answered on the first ring, his voice low, musical. “Gerry Herks here.” He always sounded like a movie star, though he didn’t actually look like one. Just pleasant-faced with brown eyes and graying hair.

  “Arianne Martins here.”

  “Everything all right at the farm?”

  “It’s Agora. It’s…”

  “It’s time,” he said brightly. “I’ll be right there.”

  2

  The Vet Vet

  MOM ONCE TOLD ME that the word pony was originally French. Or a word sort of like it: poulenet. The French didn’t actually mean a pony like Agora, who, even fully grown, is only the size of a small horse. Poulenet means a baby horse, a foal.

  Agora is a white pony. Yet if you brush your hand over the top layer of her back, underneath the white hair is a gray coat. You might call that magical, but it’s real.

  Her mane is thick, and so is her tail. When I asked Mom why, she shrugged, saying, “It’s characteristic of ponies.” Then she’d turned back to sorting grain sales brochures.

  Agora’s mane is thicker than the manes of our four other mares—Hera, Helen, Hester, and Hope. (Mom has an H fetish, since her own name is Hannah.) Thicker than the manes of our two geldings—Aragorn and Boromir. (I was reading The Lord of the Rings when we named them.) Now we just call them Gorn and Bor.

  In fact, Agora’s mane is much thicker than any of the manes of our nine boarding horses as well. As much mystery as magic.

  From the beginning, one of my special chores has been brushing and braiding Agora’s mane. Each time I come near her with the brush, she sidles close, rubs up against my hip, then nuzzles my palm, and we begin.

  * * *

  Once I knew that Dr. Herks was on his way, I ran back to Agora’s stall, not even taking time to call Mom out. I knew she was working on the barn bills and hated being disturbed when it was the bill-paying time of the month.

  Besides, Dr. Herks had said that since Agora was old, things should move slowly. Especially as this was her first pregnancy. So I figured I had plenty of time to get Mom once the vet arrived. From the way he sounded on the phone, I guessed he was hurrying, and he was only fifteen minutes away.

  Agora was already lying down, and Martha—a blue rubber band in her hair—was sitting in the straw by her side. Agora’s head was in Martha’s lap, and the two of them looked as if they were having a friendly talk, though Agora’s belly was bouncing in an alarming way.

  Martha must have nudged Robbie’s chair to one side in her rush to get in, because it was smack up against the near wall and turned sideways. That made it hard for him to see what was going on. And with his shortened arms, he had trouble enough working the wheels on a flat, paved walk. There was no way he could do anything in the stall.

  I pushed him around so he could watch. “Dr. Herks is on his way.”

  “I told her,” Robbie said.

  Martha never looked up.

  “He sounded a bit…” I thought a minute before saying it. “A bit nervous.”

  “He should be.” Martha was still looking down at Agora, her voice quiet, soothing. She was brushing her fingers through Agora’s mane.

  “I’m not nervous,” Robbie said. “I’m excited!” This would be the first time he’d been allowed to watch a birth.

  “It can be pretty scuzzy,” I warned.

  “Scuzzy is my second name!”

  “Your second name is Connor,” I said, “Robert Connor Martins. But if you get sick, don’t expect anyone to help you. We’ll be too busy.” I turned to Martha. “Anything more I can do?”

  She looked at me as if sizing me up, and finding me ready for the task, said, “Boil water.”

  “Really?”

  She snorted, a very horsy sound. “An old joke.”

  “Joke?”

  “Doctors used to have expectant dads boil water just to keep them busy and out of the way. I bet your dad did that when you were born.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said, “since I was a baby then!” I didn’t want to visit that particular hurt. “I think he was on the road with his band anyway.”

  “Don’t snap at me, Missy. You’re still a youngster to me, for all you’re grown up in so many ways.”

  It was pure Martha, of course. She can never just apologize. But I got the hint and went to clean out the rest of the stalls, leaving Robbie behind.

  * * *

  The horses knew something was up. Hope—who’d never done anything of the sort—was so anxious, she accidentally slammed a hoof down on my right foot not once, but twice, and boy, did that hurt.

  Gorn, normally the sweetest of the horses, tried to get out the door, shouldering me aside so roughly, I had to haul him back by his mane.

  Just then I heard a rumbly Jeep drive up and knew it had to be Dr. Herks, so I went out to greet him.

  Dr. Herks has a face that’s handsome enough in some lights, but there are wrinkle lines on his forehead that look like the stripes on a flag, and deep grooves around his eyes. He’s about six feet tall and all muscle, which helps when you’re pushing big animals around. But he doesn’t act tough, which was something Dad, who was only about
five foot nine, always did. When I think about him—and it’s not that often—it’s always him yelling at his band members and roadies and cursing. I’ve never heard anyone else cursing like that. Mom flinches if I even say “drat!” or “darn!”

  By contrast, Dr. Herks is a softie. You can hear it in his voice when he talks to the horses, but he still manages to keep them in their places. Martha admires that and says so often. Never to his face, of course. In fact, she bosses him around as if he was a kid.

  Sometimes I had the feeling that Dr. Herks had a crush on Mom, and I kind of hoped she liked him back. I bet he’d make a great dad. And yeah, it would help with our vet bills, too. And then he wouldn’t have to stay in the apartment over his operating room, which Martha called “living over the store” and was an odd thing to say, since that’s sort of what we do, too. Except we aren’t over it, but on the side.

  “How’s it going?” Dr. Herks asked as he got out of the car.

  “I’m supposed to be boiling water.”

  He smiled. “Good. I’m going to need all the help that I can get.”

  “I thought that was supposed to be a joke.”

  “The help part is no joke.” He winked.

  I nodded. “I’ll give you all I’ve got. But I think we’d better hurry.”

  “Hurrying here,” he said as he grabbed his doctor bag and headed toward the barn.

  I matched him step for step, which wasn’t easy because he had really long legs. It meant I had to run.

  At the barn, I swung open the door to Agora’s stall to let Dr. Herks go through.

  “About time, Herkel,” Martha said in her no-nonsense voice.

  “Gosh…” I could barely breathe.

  Dr. Herks had put down his black bag and was pulling on a pair of rubber gloves without looking at either Martha or Agora.

  But I’d looked.

  Agora was panting heavily, still over on her side, but she’d already given birth. Martha was holding the brand-new foal, unsteady on its feet and still wet from its birthing.

  A foal.

  Or something. It was hard to say if I was dreaming or the light was bad. It was … nothing I’d ever seen before.

  A cold shudder ran through me. Maybe fear, maybe disgust. It sure wasn’t wonder or awe.

  “Isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?” Robbie asked. “Not gross at all.”

  “Gosh,” I said again, because the foal was only a pony from its hooves to the top of its body. Where it should have had horse shoulders, where the pony neck and head should have been, it looked just like a baby boy, with arms and hands, curly reddish hair, blue eyes, and a big toothless grin.

  “Gosh!” I said a third time. For someone who desperately wanted magic in her life, that was a pretty small response. But as Martha often said, wanting and getting can be difficult neighbors. And from all the fantasy books I’d read, I knew that the line between gargoyle and angel could be pretty thin.

  The pony boy was too new and too strange for me to really take in. I wasn’t thinking magic, I was thinking mistake.

  Dr. Herks finally looked over at Martha. His eyes widened.

  “Centaur,” said Martha, “I never…”

  “No one never,” said Dr. Herks, which was totally ungrammatical but made perfect sense. And then he fainted, which didn’t make any sense at all. Crumpling down from such a height, it was amazing that he didn’t smash his head on the wall.

  Now, that was something I really didn’t understand. I mean, Dr. Herks wasn’t just a vet, but a Vet—a marine who’d fought in Vietnam and been decorated for bravery. And wounded, too, Mom had said. Wounded, but not badly. Just badly enough.

  “Get your mother,” ordered Martha. “I’ve got my hands too full with this pony boy here, Agora there, and Robbie by the wall, to be able to manage a fainting vet.” She seemed unimpressed—or at least undisturbed—by the magic or whatever it was in front of her, just as if creatures out of myth had always been born in our barn.

  “You don’t have to manage me, Mrs. Grump,” said Robbie.

  “I do when you need managing, Munchkin!”

  I was happy to be out of there, but Mom must have seen Dr. Herks’ Jeep in the driveway, because she was already standing in the doorway of the stall, and I nearly ran right into her.

  “Good grief,” she said, then added, “Gerry?” in a strange voice, and went to kneel by his side, which may have been the strangest thing of all.

  3

  Pony Boy

  SO THERE WE WERE, Agora on her side, Dr. Herks on his side, and Mom with her arms around him. Martha was holding the newborn whatever. Robbie looked astonishingly pleased, but me, I was just agog.

  Agog was Martha’s word, not mine. She had just said to me, “Hey, Ari-bari, stop opening your mouth like a frog, all agog, and do something.”

  “Boil water?”

  She made an annoyed tsking sound, as if she’d never heard of any such thing.

  I knew better than to ask her what I should do then, just as Agora got to her feet. She went right to her foal, pushing Martha aside, and started nuzzling him clean, making no distinction between the horse part and the boy part. He was simply hers all over.

  All at once, I knew she was right. Maybe, I thought, I should forget fear and concentrate on awe. At least I hadn’t passed out.

  It was a start.

  Meanwhile, Agora was simply doing what a mare does with a new foal. When she got to his face, he giggled and pushed her away, then giggled again before struggling out between her front legs. He was wobbly—who wouldn’t be with those four legs each trying to go in a different direction?—and waved his little hands about for balance. Wrinkling his nose at all the new smells, he took a couple of tentative baby steps, and then headed straight for Robbie, who was the only one his size.

  Robbie held out his foreshortened arms. The pony boy stuck his head between them and nuzzled Robbie’s face. They stayed that way for about a minute, and then the pony boy turned a bit unsteadily and found his way back to Agora, where he began to nurse, his tiny hands kneading her sides. The curls on his head, like wriggly red worms, were already dry, and they bounced as he drank the milk.

  Now that I’d gotten over the strangeness, a part of me was suddenly jealous. After all, I was the only one who’d wanted magic in my life, and the magic had just gone over to Robbie instead. But Robbie needed the magic more than I did, so I fought the jealous thought down and smiled. It was a crooked smile, but I let it stay pasted on my face.

  “Well!” Martha said. “What was that all about?”

  “We’re brothers,” Robbie announced. “We even look alike.”

  “Don’t be dumb,” I said, smile disappearing faster than a Cheshire cat’s. “He’s a … a horse. And you … well, you aren’t.”

  “But I’m half something, just like he is. Half seal, the kids said at my old school.”

  “Those kids were stupid, mean,” I said, “and plain ignorant.”

  “Ignorant is stupid,” Robbie said.

  “Not all the time,” I told him. “You aren’t ignorant, not by a long shot. But saying you and the pony boy look alike is stupid. You don’t look anything like him.” I took a deep breath. “He’s got red curly hair and bright blue eyes. You’re like me. Auburn hair, slate blue eyes, and…” I didn’t say we both looked like Dad, not Mom. I knew that, but how could Robbie have known? We had no photos of Dad around.

  “A seal?” Martha said flatly. “Whatever gave them that silly idea?”

  I knew but didn’t say it aloud. Robbie was a thalidomide kid, and the newspapers had dubbed all thalidomide kids “seal children” because many of them had flipper arms and sometimes flipper legs. Robbie’s arms ended at the elbow, where there were only two fingers and a thumb.

  None of it was his fault, of course. It was just the result of pills Mom had been given when she was first pregnant with him. Mom hadn’t just had morning sickness; she’d thrown up all day long, hour after hour, till
she cried with the pain. Dad had gotten the thalidomide pills for her when he was on tour in Toronto and Montreal since they were supposed to be a miracle cure for pregnant women who threw up a lot. And the pills did cure that. But it turned out they were a kind of poison, too, destroying parts of babies before they were ever born.

  “Seal children.” Once that name hit the newspapers, the parents of one of the kids at school called Robbie that, and soon the kids all did, too. It was why Mom took him out of school and taught him at home.

  Why she hadn’t any time for me.

  Why she’d hardly ever laughed these past six years.

  “The pony boy knows me,” Robbie insisted. “And I know him. We’re brothers.”

  “You’re my brother, not his,” I said.

  Dr. Herks had already come to and was sitting up, his eyes still a bit unfocused. Then he saw the pony boy and looked ready to pass out again.

  Mom put a hand on his arm and gave me a fierce stare. “Ari, I could use help here! Dr. Herks needs some air.”

  So I came over to help, but by then Dr. Herks had gotten up by himself. He walked a bit unsteadily out of the stall, saying, “I’m fine, Hannah, fine. Don’t fuss.”

  “I’m not fussing,” she said, running a hand through her hair, which made it look even more like a blond cloud. “I’m being practical. We need a vet here, and you’re it.”

  Then she turned to me. “Get your brother out of there. Agora needs time to bond with her … her … baby.”

  “I think she’s already—” I began, but Mom was saying to Dr. Herks, “If you’re going to faint again, Gerry, at least do it where you won’t disturb them.” She pointed over her shoulder back at Agora and her foal.