Mom starts to hand me the bag, but then pulls it back. “You had soda and pretzels for breakfast?” She shakes her head as if she’s clearing out the cobwebs. “No, wait, I’m not going to let you sidetrack me. You didn’t return the messages I left for you yesterday at the clinic, and then you ignored the note today. I had to take Ashley into the office with me.”
“Mom’s office is boring!” Ashley says dramatically. “It was so boring I almost threw up!”
“It’s not that bad,” I say. “I used to go there when I was little. They have crayons.”
“That’s not the point,” Mom says, sitting down. She kicks off her shoes and lets out a little sigh of relief. “I don’t ask you to baby-sit often, but when I do, I need to be able to count on you.”
“What about Brian?” I ask.
“Brian has his own job. He was there all afternoon and has an extra shift tonight.”
She makes it sound like he’s working in a coal mine or something. Brian has a cushy job at the movie theater. He runs the projector. Basically, he gets paid for watching movies and eating popcorn. I have to be nice to him so he’ll give me the job when he goes to college. If he ever goes to college.
“He even called me to make sure it was all right for him to stay for the extra shift. That’s the kind of responsibility I need from you.”
I study an orange stain on the countertop. Juice, probably, or soda. I scratch the stain. It looks permanent. We may have to cover this one with the toaster.
“David? Are you listening to me?”
I can’t do anything right today.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to let you down.”
As soon as I apologize, her shoulders relax. “All right. Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.” She hands me a container of fries. “How was the stable? Did you get to ride? I know you were excited.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I look into the bag again. “Did you get any ketcup packets?”
“Did something happen?” Mom’s shoulders tense up again.
“The stable was—it’s just that Mr. Quinn has this new horse. Trickster. You should see him. He’s fast as the wind! Dad would love him.”
Mom checks her fingernails. Bringing up Dad is not a good thing to do, especially when she’s tired.
“Anyway, this horse, Trickster—Mr. Quinn promised I could ride him. All I had to do was to help out with him for a few weeks because he has a sore leg.”
“What happened?” Ashley asks. “Did he run away?”
“Well, to make a long story short, he hurt his leg again. Badly. I’m not going to be able to ride him for a long time, if ever. Mr. Quinn is pretty upset. So am I.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Mom says gently. “That must be a terrible disappointment to you. But there are lots of other horses there.”
“You don’t get it,” I tell her. “It’s not the same. Trickster is the only horse I want to ride. It’s like we’re connected or something. Like we understand each other, speak the same language.” I put down the fries. “Mr. Quinn hates me, Mom. He thinks I’m an idiot. He doesn’t want me around Trickster. He doesn’t want me around, period.”
“What about tomorrow?” she asks. “I thought you guys were going to be helping at the stables on the weekends for a while.”
I shake my head. I really want to see Trickster, to help him recuperate, but I can’t. Mr. Quinn’s lecture is still echoing in my head. I don’t want to get another one of those anytime soon.
“I’m staying home tomorrow,” I say.
Mom crosses the kitchen to the giant calendar that hangs next to the telephone. “OK. It will help me if you do. I have to spend the morning at the office, catching up on paperwork. You can watch Ashley. You owe your sister something special, since you let her down today.”
“What?” I ask wearily.
Ashley jumps in her seat. “I want a tea party!”
Chapter Ten
Tea parties are cruel and unusual punishment. But I’m stuck. Mom taped a giant note to the refrigerator that I couldn’t miss: “I’ll be back at noon. Take out trash and start some laundry. Tea party outside!”
Smart lady, my mom.
The trash and laundry can wait. I want to get this party over with. Maybe it will keep my mind off Trickster.
I move the yellow plastic picnic table to the front lawn and bring a folding chair for me. Ashley doesn’t really want tea, so I pour lemonade into one of her plastic teapots. I can’t find any teacups. They’re probably buried in the sandbox. Paper cups will do. Last but not least, I carry the entire cookie jar outside and bring a roll of paper towels, just in case.
All right, it’s party time.
“Ashley!” I yell.
My sister peers out the screen door, then opens it and studies the setup from the front porch. She’s wearing her Cinderella costume from last Halloween over a pair of Tweety slippers, and she has a dishcloth on her head for a veil.
“You’re not dressed right,” she says with a pout.
“What do you mean?” I ask, checking my Philadelphia Flyers jersey for stains. “What’s wrong with this?”
“I want you to be a clown,” she says. “Like you were at my birthday party.”
“No way, Ash. You didn’t say a circus. You said a tea party. Look!” I pour lemonade into one of the cups and pick it up with my pinky finger sticking out. “I made pretend tea.” I drink with my nose all scrunched up. I guess that’s what you do at a tea party.
Ashley’s lower lip sticks out farther, and she frowns. Uh-oh. Better do something quick or she’s going to blow.
“OK, I’ll be a clown. Give me a second.”
“And I don’t want pretend tea,” she commands. “I want punch.”
“Yes, your majesty,” I mutter, trotting obediently back into the kitchen.
I pour the punch mix into a pitcher, set it in the sink, and turn on the water … Trickster has been fed and watered by now. I wonder if he’s well enough to walk a bit. Is the swelling down? What if his leg got worse last night?
I have to stop thinking about him. Get a grip. It’s time to be a clown.
The clown costume is in the bottom of the toy chest in the family room. I stick on the nose and wig, and take off my sneakers so I can put on the big floppy shoes. There used to be a matching shirt and pants, but they’ve disappeared, thank heavens. I hope Mom appreciates this at allowance time.
“David,” Ashley calls from the front’ yard. “Hurry up!”
“Ta-da!” I shout, leaping onto the front porch.
Ashley looks skeptical. “Where are Baby Sally and Tigger and Oscar?”
“We’re not having a tea party with your stuffed animals, Ash,” I say. “It’s just you and me and a ton of cookies—chocolate chip!”
“I want my friends,” she demands, with her hands on her princess hips.
“I’m not going to eat cookies with a bunch of stuffed animals,” I say.
“I’ll tell Mom.”
Ooh. She’s getting tough.
Laughter erupts across the street. Maggie, Zoe, Brenna, and Sunita are standing at the end of the clinic driveway, pointing their fingers and laughing like this is the funniest thing they ever saw.
“Very funny,” I say loudly. “Laugh it up, go ahead. I’m just trying to be nice to my sister.”
They cross the street for a closer look.
“That hair is so you, David,” Zoe says.
“I like the shoes,” Brenna says, her shoulders shaking.
My face feels as red as this stupid wig.
“Would you like some tea?” Ashley asks her new guests in a dignified tone.
“I’d love some,” Sunita says as she kneels in the grass next to the picnic table. Ashley pours Sunita a tiny cup of lemonade and hands it to her. “Thank you very much,” Sunita says politely.
“Don’t encourage her,” I say. I explain why I ended up doing this dumb party. “I just want to get this over with as soon as possib
le.”
“Are you coming with us to the stables?” Brenna asks.
“When?”
Maggie takes another cookie out of the jar. “Mr. Quinn will be here to pick us up any minute now. I called you this morning and left a message. Didn’t your mom tell you?”
“No,” I say slowly. I bet she did that on purpose.
“Hey, where’s the entertainment at this party?” Brenna asks. “You know how to juggle. I’ve seen you do it in the cafeteria at school.”
“All right. One juggling clown, coming up.” I grab a handful of cookies from the jar. I toss three, then four in the air, moving my hands quickly to keep them all going.
Ashley and our guests applaud. I toss the cookies high and catch one in my mouth. The others drop to the ground.
“Thank you, thank you,” I say, bowing deeply.
A horn beeps as a blue pickup pulls into the driveway. It’s Mr. Quinn.
“You kids ready?” he calls. The girls scramble to their feet and pile into the truck.
I should say something—anything—to Mr. Quinn. “How’s Trickster?” I ask.
“Improving. A bit.” Mr. Quinn pushes up the brim of his baseball cap to get a better look at me standing here in my red wig, fake nose, and floppy shoes.
“Can I watch a video?” Ashley asks, tugging on my jeans.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Seen your dad recently?” Mr. Quinn asks as he watches Ashley run into the house.
“Not for a while,” I say. “He travels a lot. For his job. His new job.”
“Hmmm. You usually wear that getup?”
“No, it’s for Ash. I’m baby-sitting. Pretty lame, huh?”
“Not really,” Mr. Quinn says. “It’s good that you help your mom. I bet she counts on you a lot.”
“Yeah, I guess she does.” My cheeks feel like they’re going to burst into flames.
Ashley opens the front door and screams at the top of her lungs, “The kitchen has a flood, David! You left the water on!”
“Uh … got to go, Mr. Quinn.” Why do I always look like such a loser in front of him?
Mr. Quinn looks like he might say something, but he keeps his mouth shut. Shaking his head, he turns the key in the ignition and drives away.
He thinks I’m a complete idiot.
The kitchen is mopped dry by the time Mom comes home. I’m trying to recover from all the work by eating the cookies left over from the tea party. Mom gets out of the car and joins me at the picnic table on the front lawn.
“You look so cute!” she squeals. “But where’s the guest of honor?”
“Ashley went to Jackie’s house. She dumped me. Want some lemonade?”
Mom shakes her head. “No, thanks. There’s some punch in the refrigerator.”
Great. If I had known that earlier, the kitchen wouldn’t have turned into a swimming pool. It took all the towels we own to clean up the mess.
“I washed the towels,” I say. “I’ll get the rest of the laundry going when they’re done.”
“It looks like you did a great job,” she says enthusiastically. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get home earlier. Do you want me to drive you to Quinn’s?”
“Yes—I mean, no,” I say. I want to visit Trickster, but I can’t get the disappointed look on Mr. Quinn’s face yesterday out of my mind. “Never mind.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going,” I say.
“Doesn’t matter? Horses don’t matter to you? Since when?”
Here we go, twenty questions.
“I saw Mr. Quinn a little while ago. He thinks I’m a goofball.”
“No, he doesn’t, David. He let you come back and help him again.”
I shake my bangs so they hang in front of my face. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Mom reaches for a cookie. “Something is up. I know it.”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it. Any of it. I’m going to the clinic.”
Chapter Eleven
Oh, good, you’re here,” Dr. Mac says absently as I walk into the clinic. The waiting room is empty, and she’s reading something on the computer.
“Mom just got home.”
“I saw the little party you put on. That was a very sweet thing to do. Your sister will always remember that.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Dr. Mac looks over the top of her bifocals at me. “Why didn’t you go with Lucas and the girls?”
“Mom wasn’t home yet. I couldn’t leave Ashley alone.” Both good excuses.
“I’m headed out there just as soon as I finish with the next patient. It’s that ferret again, Rascal. You can ride with me if you want. I need to check Trickster’s leg.”
“I don’t think Mr. Quinn wants me out there.”
“Suit yourself.” Dr. Mac stands up with a folder in her hand. “I have to work on my column. It seems like there’s a deadline every time I turn around. Let me know when Rascal gets here.”
Dr. Mac writes a newspaper column that runs in papers all over the country. She’s not famous enough to be recognized in airports, but you’d be shocked at how many people know her name.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask.
She points to the balls of dog hair around the base of the potted plant. “Why don’t you unearth the broom and dustpan? This floor is atrocious. Looks like it hasn’t been swept in a month.”
Oops.
As soon as she walks down the hall, I kick the fur balls under the chair. It’s too quiet here. It feels weird without the others around.
I wonder what they’re doing now. I bet they’re still cleaning stalls. Who’s going to dump the wheelbarrow? Brenna, probably. She’s the strongest. She’ll probably take the manure all the way back to the manure pile and not dump it behind the toolshed. That was another stupid thing I did yesterday. Mr. Quinn is going to find it, and he’ll know it was me. Darn it, why do I do stupid things like that?
The bells on the front door jangle, jolting me out of my thoughts. It’s the ferret guy, Erik, carrying Rascal’s cage and looking stressed.
“I called Dr. MacKenzie,” he says. “Is she here?”
“Here I am,” Dr. Mac says calmly as she walks down the hall from her office. She lifts the reception counter and enters the waiting room. “Oh, Rascal,” she says as she peers in his cage. “What have you done now?”
“He was in the drawer,” Erik says. “I don’t know how he got in there. I didn’t see him. He was hiding. It’s his paw. It’s really smashed.”
Dr. Mac puts on her glasses. “That would explain the blood. We need to take a look at this. Let’s go into the Doolittle Room,” she says, standing up and showing him into one of the exam rooms. “David, I’ll need your help. Come on in and wash your hands.”
As I scrub away, Dr. Mac takes Rascal’s cage and sets it on the examination table. “What’s the first thing I need to do here, David?”
“Um …” I stall by putting more soap on my hands. I’ve never helped with a ferret before. “Take his temperature?”
“Good guess, but not yet.”
“Check his heart?”
“Even before that,” Dr. Mac says.
Three strikes and I’m out. Got to get it right this time. I turn off the water an dry my hands on a paper towel. “I know! You have to take him out of the cage.”
“Very close,” says Dr. Mac. “The first thing we need to do is close the door and make sure the cupboards are latched. It’s hard to treat a patient you can’t find. Ferrets can squeeze through openings only an inch wide.”
Once I’ve locked everything up tight, Dr. Mac opens the cage door. Rascal slinks out onto the cool surface of the table. He isn’t as perky as the last time we saw him. His eyes are half closed, and he doesn’t try to run around at all.
Yikes. His front paw is a mess, swollen and bloody.
“That looks painful,” Dr. Mac says. “What happened? Exactly.”
Eri
k looks nervous. “It was my fault this time,” he says. “I left my sock drawer open. Rascal loves socks—he must have gotten in there. When I went in the bedroom later, I slammed the drawer shut without checking.”
“Hmmm,” Dr. Mac says, slipping on her bifocals.
She gently scoops up Rascal, cradling him in her arm. She pets him gently, but I can see she’s checking him out at the same time. She feels along his backbone and tail, then frowns. She moves her fingers along the bones in each one of his legs until she’s ready to examine the paw.
Rascal pulls back and squeaks in pain.
“I know, I know, that hurts,” Dr. Mac tells Rascal as she strokes his head to calm him down. “When did he injure his tail?”
“His tail? There’s nothing wrong with his tail,” Erik answers quickly. “Is there?”
“Well, the fact that it’s not moving would be the first sign, plus there is some swelling. My guess is that it’s broken.”
“But how?”
“Think,” Dr. Mac says. “When you’ve been playing with him, has he gotten his tail pinched in anything?”
Erik’s face turns bright red. He has guilty stamped all over his forehead.
“You have been playing with him, haven’t you? We talked about this a few days ago. Ferrets need time and attention.”
“I’ve been busy,” he confesses. “And he’s so hard to catch. I can barely find him half the time. When I sat down in the recliner last night, he screamed and took off. He had been hiding in the chair. Freaked me out.”
Dr. Mac stops petting Rascal. “You have a recliner?”
“An old one.”
“Recliners are death traps for ferrets. They love to take naps underneath them. When someone leans back in the chair, they can be killed. Rascal is a quick fellow. I bet he broke his tail trying to get out of there.”
“Oh, man,” Erik says. “This wasn’t supposed to be so hard. The guy who sold him to me said he was the easiest pet in the world.”
Dr. Mac pauses, like she’s searching for just the right words. Her right eyebrow is way up on her forehead.
“If you want an easy pet, a ferret is a bad idea,” Dr. Mac says. “I need to do some X rays, but I’m pretty sure that Rascal has a broken tail and some broken bones in his paw.”