Centaur Rising

  Did I marvel at how fast that had happened? In a day of miracles, what was one miracle more?

  * * *

  Later in the house, because he had to eat and then read his next assignment, Robbie complained about not being allowed back in the barn to see his “new brother.”

  “No,” Mom said firmly.

  Since he couldn’t go out to the barn without someone helping him cross the gravel driveway, Robbie was stuck doing the last of his homework in the kitchen.

  “It isn’t fair,” he began. “Ari doesn’t have any homework today—”

  Mom cut him off. “Ari has chores.” She didn’t point out that I didn’t have any school in the summer. Since she schooled Robbie year-round, and not just during school term, it was better to let that issue alone. Teaching him throughout the year gave her more time for the farm each day and kept him busy. Usually that suited them both fine.

  But not this time. And an hour later, when Dr. Herks arrived carrying two shopping bags full of our quarantine outfits, Robbie tried to complain to him.

  “I agree with your mom, kiddo.”

  “Rats!” Robbie said, which was not like him at all. “Nobody cares about me.”

  “Pitiful you,” I whispered, making my thumb and forefinger cross as if playing a miniature violin.

  * * *

  Martha came back in for lunch. That meant I was supposed to go take her place in Agora’s stall, suited up and feeling like an idiot. Robbie had insisted on being pushed into his room, where he was probably sulking. Since sulking was not his way at all, it made us all extra edgy.

  Dr. Herks said he’d have lunch back at his office because he had to perform emergency surgery on a border collie. “The rest of my afternoon’s patients I’m leaving in the hands of my two assistants and Dr. Small,” he told us.

  Dr. Small was his veterinary partner, and the one thing she wasn’t was tiny. But she was terrific with little animals, so in a way, her name fit her, while Dr. Herks handled most of the large animal stuff like horses and cows. Once—so he said—he delivered a baby elephant in Vietnam. I didn’t know whether to believe him.

  Then the grown-ups all started talking business stuff, like grain prices and how much we actually owed Dr. Herks for the delivery since the foal had already been born when he arrived, and would he take payment in increments—a word I knew from a spelling bee, meaning little bits at a time.

  All of a sudden, Mom said, “Go check on the barn, Ari,” in a voice that offered no room for discussion, so I left.

  But about halfway across the gravel drive, I suddenly had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach and I tiptoed back to the kitchen door to eavesdrop, just in case they were making plans without me.

  Sure enough, the three of them were discussing the next steps for keeping the pony boy safe. Mom and Martha often talk about important business matters without me, believing a thirteen-year-old doesn’t need to know that stuff. And usually they’re right. But I was seriously ticked off at Dr. Herks for joining them this time, especially because this was about the most important thing that had ever happened to us.

  I could understand keeping the difficult business from Robbie, who was only six after all, and not able to help even when he wants to. But I was a big part of what makes the farm a success and now that something truly magical had happened, I was being treated like an outsider.

  * * *

  The trouble with listening in on a conversation you aren’t supposed to hear is that you often find out stuff you never wanted to know. And once heard, no amount of wishing can make you unhear it.

  Mom said, “I’ve been thinking about moving Agora and the foal—”

  But Martha interrupted. “First he needs a name. A boy’s name.”

  “Focus, Martha, focus,” Mom scolded.

  “I’m always focused. On the horses. And that boy needs a name.”

  That’s when Dr. Herks said, “I think Hannah means we have to make him safe first, Martha. So how do we accomplish that?”

  Martha said in that particular way she had, “Miz Martins told me she wondered about putting Aggie and the pony boy in the old washroom at the back of the house. But it’s not nearly big enough, so somebody’d have to build it bigger. Hire somebody, and the secret would be all over town by lunchtime.”

  “Well, maybe I could board them both at the clinic’s barn. I’ve got extra space where large animals stay after surgery.”

  “Gerry, would you?” I could hear soft hope in Mom’s voice for the first time.

  “And then how many people would be in on the secret?” Martha said.

  Dr. Herks’ grumbling answer came instantaneously. “My assistants to begin with and … Dr. Small, but I can vouch for them. We’re used to keeping secrets about our patients.”

  “Ha!” Martha said. “Secrets like what cat has cancer and what dog can’t keep control of its bowels—”

  “Well, Aunty Dark Cloud,” Mom said to Martha, “what would you have us do?”

  I could hear the scrape of a chair. Martha must have stood up. “Since you’ve asked, I say close down the farm and send the horses that aren’t ours back home with their owners while we figure this all out. That’d be the only sensible and sure way to keep him secret. And safe.”

  “You know, Martha, what keeps this farm running is the money we get from boarding other people’s horses and giving their kids riding lessons. Every penny I have is invested in the farm, and the small check Wolf sends goes to pay off the mortgage. How would we eat or pay your salary or—”

  “Hah! Wolf. That what he calls himself now? Lesley wasn’t good enough?”

  “Ladies,” Dr. Herks said calmly, “we need to have a Plan A for dealing with things right now and a Plan B for when this gets out. Because like it or not, it’s only a matter of time before the secret is blown.”

  I thought about going back inside, though it would mean they’d all know I’d been listening in. I even put my hand on the doorknob.

  Dr. Herks ended lamely, “We can’t keep him hidden forever.”

  “We can try!”

  “Martha, we have to be realistic,” Mom said.

  I was listening so hard at this point, I was breaking out in a sweat.

  “What’s real here, Miz Martins, is that little newborn out in the barn. And the fact that you and me and Ari work so hard to keep the place running while that Lesley slithered out from under as soon as he could, not wanting to have anything to do with his poor little son that he called a monster, leaving you with nothing but the farm. You know all that, Dr. Herks? Well, there’s a tale I could tell.”

  “Wolf? Lesley?”

  Mom said softly, “My ex.”

  “And good riddance to the bad rubbish. He was mean as a snake and about as trustworthy.”

  “Martha!” Mom’s voice got a bit muzzy. “He was sweet a lot of the time. And in the beginning, well, he loved me.”

  “When he wanted something,” Martha said, “he was sweet then like cotton candy at the state fair, make you choke on the sweetness. Full of love then, till he got what he wanted. And I ask no forgiveness for saying this, and I make no apologies.”

  That’s when Mom’s voice got hard, her no-nonsense voice. “Apologies or not, don’t you ever talk about Arianne and Robbie’s father like that if they’re in the room.”

  “Well, they aren’t in the room now, Miz Martins. But that doesn’t change that snake’s skin. Snake, whether he’s sweet-talking or not.”

  I could just imagine their faces.

  Hmmm … that was the sound of Dr. Herks clearing his throat. “So, Martha,” he said, “what would you have me do about him, about the pony boy?”

  “Keep him secret. Keep him safe. Give him a chance to grow up, poor little mite.”

  Dr. Herks’ voice got soft, as if he’d turned to look at Mom. “And what about you, Hannah?”

  “Do?” she started and then her voice began to run downhill. “What do I want you to do? I don’t … I don’t
know.” She started to cry quietly. And I hadn’t heard her cry since … well, since forever.

  I tiptoed away, but as I walked to the barn, I thought, We’re all taking baby steps here. Shakily, slowly. And someone—maybe everyone—is going to fall down.

  6

  Four Days

  THE REST OF THE DAY WAS CHAOS. Mom had already called everyone who was boarding a horse or riding, and she only had to leave messages with two maids. The two boarders who called back wanted to make sure:

  1. It wasn’t a prank call.

  2. Their horses weren’t in danger.

  3. They didn’t have to move their horses to a more expensive farm.

  4. Riding lessons would continue after the short break.

  Everyone agreed to give us the four days’ grace, so Mom relented and let Robbie have an hour in Agora’s stall watching the pony boy sleep.

  “Why does he sleep so much?” Robbie asked me when I’d pushed him in. “I want to play with him.”

  “Babies sleep a lot,” I said, reminding him how he’d been when Mom brought him back from the hospital. “All day and hardly at all at night.”

  “Then I want to be here at night, too.”

  “Mom will never allow it.”

  He knew that was true and didn’t say a word more about it.

  * * *

  I left him in the stall and then put four sawhorses across the driveway. Mom said it was to prevent anyone else possibly trying to come in.

  For the first three days the sawhorses worked.

  For those three days, I balked at wearing the quarantine outfit. It was too big, and I kept tripping on the long pants. I hated the mask.

  But I kept the outfit close. We just didn’t know when someone might show up.

  Surprisingly, no one did.

  Oh, we still got mail, and one package, and a grain delivery. But Mom managed to keep them from coming anywhere near the barn, even though we had to haul the grain in from the front porch ourselves.

  “Breathing space,” Martha called it. None of us expected it to last any longer than that.

  And honestly, with the extra amount of barn work I now had, mucking out the additional stalls, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to last any longer. But we had no other option but to try for more time.

  We did get occasional help from Dr. Herks, who checked in every day and never balked at picking up a hammer or taking a turn with the oats buckets or straw bedding. He had hauled most of the sacks of grain in the wheelbarrow. It helped that there was a ramp off the porch for Robbie’s wheelchair. But the rest of the work was done by Mom and Martha and me.

  * * *

  On that first day, Mom and Martha strengthened the barriers to Agora’s new stall. Instead of blankets for the windows, Dr. Herks bought blinds at a shop in Springfield, which Martha hung on the inside of the windows. At the same time, Dr. Herks put up spotlights, a new lock, and an inside bolt. The lock had five sets of keys.

  The next day, Martha gave us lanyards she’d made for the keys, all in different colors. Hers was deep blue, Mom’s yellow, mine pink, Robbie’s light blue, and Dr. Herks’ green.

  “If a key goes missing,” she told us, “we’ll know by its color.”

  “We’ll know because the person who lost it will be looking for it,” Dr. Herks said, flapping his arms and pretending to be panicked.

  Martha glared at him with a face that could turn a man to stone.

  I was reading a book of Greek myths whenever it was my turn on foal watch. I needed to find out what I could about centaurs. It had these great paintings in full color, so real-looking it was as if the artist had taken a photograph of the characters, not just made them up from his imagination. I knew—from a unit in fourth grade—that centaurs were mythical horse-human creatures from Greece. However, this wasn’t ancient Greece, and our pony boy was very real. It also seemed odd that magic should need us to be so practical: locks and keys, floodlights and blinds—and books. But we had to make our pony boy safe in this unmagical world.

  I also figured that if he needed a name, I knew where I’d find one.

  There were four pages on centaurs in the book, which I’d all but memorized. I read part of it aloud to Robbie.

  I also learned a new word—liminal, which means something caught between two different natures: like someone between life and death, or someone who is both horse and man. Or a werewolf. Or a faun. Or—I thought—someone like me, not quite a grown-up, not quite a kid. That’s liminal.

  Also, it was a great spelling word.

  Turns out, the Greek centaurs weren’t very nice at all. I’d forgotten that. In fact, they sounded sort of like a gang—dragging girls away from weddings, beating up people, rioting in town centers. There was only one really good centaur, named Chiron. He was a teacher whose students included the heroes Jason and Achilles. Also there was Pholus, who was described as “civilized,” which made him sound like a snob. And Nessus. I liked his name best, but he was really evil and helped kill Hercules with a poisoned shirt. I sure didn’t want to name our foal Nessus. He already had enough bad luck just being born into our world.

  * * *

  “So, what do you think?” I asked Robbie the third day of our four-day grace period. We were taking a three-hour shift, and I’d just been reading the centaur stories out loud to him. Again. Robbie could read on his own, but he loved the way I acted out the tales, hopping about like a crazed centaur or shaking my finger as Chiron might have done to his centaur students. Like Dad used to do to me.

  Agora ignored me, but the pony boy listened intently, fascinated as the stories unfolded, almost as if he could understand them. His eyes were bright, a clear swimming-pool blue, and his head swiveled back and forth as he listened to each one of us in turn.

  “How about Pholus?” I asked Robbie.

  He shook his head. “Sounds too much like Fool.”

  “What about Chiron?” That was my new favorite name.

  “We could call him Kai!” Robbie said excitedly.

  At that, the pony boy’s mouth dropped open as if he knew we were talking about him. He held out his left hand, palm up, the right one being plugged into his mouth by its thumb. Then he put his head to one side considering us, or the name, or the world of his stall, before trotting over to Robbie. He no longer had the unfinished look of a newborn human, for he already had begun this phenomenal growth spurt. Like most three-day-old colts, he was still a bit unsteady on those legs, and he nearly pushed Robbie out of his wheelchair.

  I stepped in between them and raised my hands. “Whoa there, Buster. Too bad brakes don’t come with that body.”

  “Not Buster—Kai!” Robbie reminded me.

  Kai took the thumb out of his mouth and laughed out loud. “Kai!” he said, as perfect as that.

  Robbie whooped. “He said it! He said his name!”

  Talking at three days? Now that’s magic!

  “Kai it is, then.” I put my hand to my chest. “Ari,” I said.

  It took three times before he got it. He poked me in the chest. “Awee.”

  Close enough, I thought.

  Robbie gestured toward his own chest. Poking was too hard for his little arms. “Robbie!”

  Kai laughed. “Wobbie.” And then he looked at me. “Awee.” Then he jabbed at his own chest. “Kai.” He said all three again quickly, as if it was a chant. “Awee, Wobbie, Kai.” Then his head went back and he laughed delightedly.

  I put my right arm around his shoulders and gave him a gentle hug, as tentative as I’d been with Robbie when he was little, so afraid that with all his medical problems, I might break something important.

  Kai threw both arms around me, his hug awkward and much too strong for a three-day-old. I could feel his heart beating.

  His little boy heart. And the horse heart, too.

  Enough love there, I thought, for all of us.

  7

  The Angotti Factor

  THOSE FIRST THREE DAYS WENT BY much too quickly, like th
e lead horse racing at the Three County Fairground. All we managed to get done in that time was to name Kai and make his stall as safe as possible. The rest of the time, we had all the other horses to take care of, Robbie’s schoolwork, and Dr. Herks’ careful monitoring of Kai’s extraordinary growth.

  Extraordinary was Mom’s word. I just thought, Wow! Is he getting big fast!

  It was as if the boy part of his body had to grow extra quick to keep up with the horse part. In those first few days, he got more and more control of his legs, grew baby teeth, and learned to put a few words together to make sentences, something it would take a regular human kid a year or more to do.

  He developed muscles in his upper arms by pushing at the stall door whenever we left and never got that pouchy baby tummy that some of my little cousins had.

  Along with the growth, his hair grew in red-brown tendrils till it was halfway down his neck. He looked so adorable, I took three pictures of him with Mom’s Polaroid camera. I showed them to him, and he said, “Who that, Awee?”

  “Silly,” Robbie said. “It’s you.”

  Kai looked puzzled. He didn’t understand how different he was. I mean, how could he? He was still a baby in many ways.

  So I asked Mom if we could get a mirror for him.

  The next time Dr. Herks came to check on Kai, he brought along a narrow full-length mirror and mounted it on the barn door.

  Kai spent hours looking at himself in the mirror, playing peekaboo games, until he finally realized that the interesting pony boy there was himself.

  As for the photographs, I pinned them to my bedroom bulletin board.

  Mom called Kai’s growth spurt a miracle. Martha called it a marvel. Dr. Herks called it nature, nurture, and myth combining.

  I—the one person who had wanted magic in our lives—seemed to be the one person worried that it was going to mean more trouble for us. Meaning me.