Nothing But Horses (14 page)

So, how did we begin a new program? Where did
we start? What would it take to continue to foster a sense of
camaraderie for our students and boarders? Could I build a
community of riders at Shamrock Stable? How would I share the
benefits with Mom?

Chapter
Twelve

Marysville, Washington

Monday, January
6
^th
, 7:15 am

I still hadn’t come up with answers for why I
wanted a new riding club when I arrived at Lincoln High. I parked
in the student lot and went inside to get a permit for my car.
While I filled out the paperwork, the secretary told me my next
stop would be the counseling center so I could go over my schedule
with the school psychologist. I must have looked a bit confused
because the next thing I heard was that the Vice Principal hadn’t
returned yet from break.

Dr. Danvers turned out to be a real sweetie
and totally different from what I expected. In black slacks, a
print shell, a fitted jacket and spike-heeled boots, she looked
like professional woman
Barbie.
Her hair was the same deep
red as Nevada’s coat, but he never stood still enough for me to sew
braids into his golden mane and hers were extremely intricate. She
looked over the schedule that I’d put together with Robin, Vicky
and Dani, then nodded agreement.

“I’d only make one change, Sierra. I noticed
that you were in a singing ensemble at Mount Pilchuck. We offer
that at the end of the day here at Lincoln.”

I eyed her carefully before I said, “Don’t
you have zero-hour practices?”

“We don’t believe in them,” Dr. Danvers said.
“Recent studies show that teens need more sleep than they get and
achieve more academically if the school day starts later. Our
classes start early enough now. All of our sports practices are at
the end of the day. You can choose choir, or drama, or a club, or
study skills, or science for the last hour. You just don’t get to
waste time.”

“Okay, then I’ll pick choir.” So far, I
really liked this school. It felt like I’d made a good choice. We
stopped by the library for me to collect my books and then Dr.
Danvers showed me where to find my locker.

The next stop was English class. As soon as I
saw Mrs. Weaver, I knew why Robin called her a troll. Short and
squatty-bodied, she wore a steel gray suit that matched her gray
poofy hair. She actually resembled one of those old-time kid’s
toys. She gave me a long look from stone-gray eyes. If she smiled,
I’d bet her face would crack. But, she wasn’t taking any
chances.

She pointed to an empty seat and I hastily
sat down. Nobody lifted their heads long enough to glance at me and
there were twenty silent teens in the room. It felt majorly creepy,
like I’d walked into a Stephen King novel. If the vampires leapt
out of the storage closet, I wouldn’t be surprised.

“We start with a fifteen minute write on
Mondays,” Mrs. Weaver said. “The prompt is on the board. Use one of
the composition books that Dr. Danvers gave you. Begin on the
fourth page so you have room for a table of contents. I only accept
blue or black ink.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I pulled a pen out of my
backpack. Thankfully, it was black. I flipped open the black
marbled notebook to the correct page and then looked up at the
whiteboard. The sentence was simple. “
Describe a favorite time
you spent with your family or friends during Winter Break
.”

Was she serious? How could I possibly write
for fifteen minutes on something so inane? I glanced at the rest of
the class. They didn’t seem to be having any problems. I saw Vicky
flip a page in her notebook and keep writing. Obviously, this was
more important than what I thought. I shrugged and decided to
describe the Shamrock Stable party on horseback. It had happened
during break and we really had fun. It turned out to be one of the
highlights of my vacation, although I actually loved Charlie more
and my new-to-me car ranked right up there too. I wasn’t about to
share any of that with a new teacher.

After I survived English, I was glad to walk
into my first choir class and find Dani. She smiled, and then came
to meet me at the door. I grinned back. “How are you?”

“Okay.” She led me over to where a young,
skinny, dark-haired guy sorted through a stack of music. “Mr.
Haller, this is my friend, Sierra. She’s starting today.”

“Welcome to the mad-house.” He passed me a
folder and a stack of songs. “Here you go. Dani, help her organize
them. What are you, Sierra? A soprano?”

“Mezzo-soprano,” I said. “I can sing some
soprano parts but I don’t have the range to hit the real high
notes.”

Mr. Haller turned from his work and met my
gaze. “An honest singer. I can work with that.” He pointed out a
spot on the risers between the altos and the sopranos. “Stand
there, Sierra. We’ll do warm-ups and then start with some oldies
but goodies.”

“Sounds great.” I went over to stand with
Dani and she put my music in order. “He seems nice.”

“He is as long as you’re straight with him,”
Dani said. “Don’t be late to class, bring your bottle of water and
you’ll do fine. Mess with him and your life is over, but that’s the
Lincoln High way.”

“Sounds just like home,” I said.

Two classes later, after Drama and History,
it was lunch time. I was more than ready to hunt down friends in
the cafeteria. I spotted Robin at a table and went to join her. “My
brain is full,” I said. “And I still have Math, Science and Select
Choir.”

“And basketball practice this afternoon,”
Cedar said behind me.

“Yeah, that too.” I sat down across from
Robin and pulled my sack lunch out of my backpack. “I can’t believe
how fast-paced the classes are here. Do we really have to read an
entire chapter for History tonight?”

“Only if you want to be prepared for
tomorrow.” Robin waved at Vicky and Jack who had just entered the
large room. “Since we’ll be doing vocab then and discussing some of
the events that led up to the Civil War, I’d read tonight.”

“I will,” I said. “This is going to take some
adjustment. At Mount Pilchuck, we barely got through one section of
a chapter during my old history class. The teacher spent so much
time policing the students and redirecting behavior we hardly
managed to learn anything.”

“Yeah, well don’t bring that up here,” Robin
told me. “You’ll get the “we are not babysitters” lecture and then
the teachers make you call one of your parents and explain why you
“impacted the learning environment in a negative manner.” My dad
said I’d be grounded past forever if I ended up phoning him. My mom
would totally go ballistic and chew my ears.”

I nodded, unwrapping a ham sandwich. My
mother hated it when someone from the school contacted her. Maybe
it was because Grandma had been a teacher until she retired, but
Mom didn’t have a lot of patience for kids who screwed around when
they were supposed to be working. Years ago when I was in
kindergarten, she’d told me that school was my job. Running
Shamrock Stable was hers. She couldn’t do her job if I didn’t do
mine.

That meant unless I was majorly sick, I
didn’t get to leave class early. If I sassed a teacher, I’d be in
real trouble when I got home. Even now, I didn’t disrupt the
lessons or misbehave in school. I hadn’t when my coach benched me
at Mount Pilchuck, or pitched a fit when Lauren stole my solo for
the Winter Concert. I just tried talking to the people in charge
and when they wouldn’t listen to me and things continued to be
unfair, I decided it was time to find a better place. Lincoln High
was different, but I already felt comfortable here.

Who wouldn’t? I’d learned more about
diagramming sentences in fifteen minutes from Mrs. Weaver than I
had in an entire semester at Mount Pilchuck. We’d spent the whole
hour singing in Mr. Haller’s class and I couldn’t remember the last
time my class had done that at my old school. Even when we had a
huge recital coming up, it still took forever for people to settle
down and focus on the music.

I’d barely taken a bite of my sandwich when
Olivia showed up, Kanisha beside her. They sat down next to me.
Dani arrived and pulled up a chair on the other side of Cedar. We
had forty minutes to eat, so conversation swirled around the table.
I heard more about rules at Lincoln High and decided I wasn’t going
to break any of them.

When I finished eating, Cedar went with me to
the gym so I could get a practice jersey and shorts for basketball
this afternoon. I definitely didn’t want to get on the wrong side
of Coach Norris. I remembered him from Mount Pilchuck. He hadn’t
had an ounce of patience there. Once when he coached my team, I
ended up running back and forth from the base line to the far end
of the gym for ages because he didn’t like my attitude.

It wasn’t that I said anything snarky. He
claimed he could tell by the way I rolled my eyes that I was
disrespectful. If I’d actually told him that he was a major idiot,
I’d probably still be running lines a year later. But, this was a
new place and I wasn’t going to get into a contest with him. As
long as I got to play basketball and made point guard again within
the month, we’d be fine.

When the last bell rang, I headed for the
locker room. Cedar, Olivia and Kanisha were already there. I
changed into my new practice uniform. Picking up my water bottle, I
followed them into the gym. I put my backpack near theirs. They
started stretching out so I did too. Coach Norris was over
unlocking one of the supply closets and I waited until he came back
before I went to introduce myself.

He had a few inches on me. I didn’t think he
was much more than six foot tall. His brown hair had continued to
thin, but he hadn’t started shaving his head yet. He narrowed brown
eyes and studied me for a moment. “So, you’re my new player.”

“Yes, Coach.” It wasn’t a question. I guessed
those would come in a while. He gave me another onceover and I kept
waiting.

“What position do you play?”

“Anything,” I said. “I can do it all. Point
guard, forward or wing. Where-ever you want me.”

“Are you messing with me?”

“No, Coach. I’m being straight with you. I’m
that good.”

Another long look and then he said abruptly.
“You’re good, but you aren’t a team player, Sierra. You’ll learn to
be one and that will make you great. Go warm up.”

I jogged over and sat down by Cedar to finish
my stretches. I didn’t tell her that the coach didn’t like me. I’d
win his respect sooner or later, sooner if he was fair, later if he
wasn’t.

Two hours later, I was dragging, but I hoped
I didn’t show it. We’d started with lay-up drills, then we’d run
lines to build our stamina before we began practice plays. We
finished with scrimmages during the last half-hour. Coach kept
substituting players constantly so I never could figure out
anyone’s strengths.

When I dribbled in and shot a basket from
mid-court, he sent me to run lines by myself. He claimed it was
because I needed to learn to pass to someone closer instead of
acting like a star. Okay, so he had a point, but I did too. If I
didn’t play with the same girls all the time, how would I know who
was able to score and who wasn’t? I decided not to bring that up
until later. He already thought I was some sort of diva. I didn’t
want to prove it.

Finally, practice ended. Coach blew his
whistle and signaled for all of us to cluster around him. He passed
out the game schedule, then followed that up with a list of our
practices. Next, came the rules. They were pretty much the same
ones we had at Mount Pilchuck, so I could deal with them. No
missing practices unless you were dead. Dress to play. Bring water.
Be on time. Don’t argue with the coach or each other.

Before he dismissed us, Coach Norris looked
at all ten of us. “You’re a team, a good one and you’ll get better
by the end of the season. Everybody plays for me. If something
happens and you can’t, let me know right away. Good job. See you
tomorrow. Now, cool down before you head home.”

I was jogging laps with Cedar, Olivia and
Kanisha when he waved me over to him. I hustled across the gym.
“Yes, Coach.”

“Will you be here tomorrow, Sierra?”

“Sure. I mean, yes.”

He smiled then and I felt the ice start to
melt between us. I didn’t blame him because he sent me to run
lines. He wasn’t mad because I was new and didn’t know how he liked
to do things. We’d work it out. I went back to walk with the other
girls. He went to put away the equipment.

When I arrived home, Mom had just finished
her last lesson. I grabbed a banana and went to change clothes.
Then, I joined her, Grandma, Grandpa and Autumn out in the barns.
While we mucked stalls, watered and fed, I told Grandma about my
day. She said that my school sounded wonderful. It was almost
enough to make her want to return to teaching.

“Small classes, good students, no behavior
issues. It sounds like teacher heaven to me.”

“It’s not easy,” I said. “We work from the
moment the first bell rings until the last one. There’s no herding
up to the door early. I have a chapter of History to read tonight,
three pages of Algebra and I have to write Cornell notes for
Science.”

“Cornell notes?” Grandma stopped pitching
horsy stuff for a moment. She glanced at me over the stall wall. “I
don’t think your mom learned how to do those until she was at the
University of Washington. Is that something you did at your old
school?”

“No, I learned today. Vicky taught me. I’m
supposed to do the notes in my comp book for Science.” I described
the way I had to divide the page into a table and then write down
important details in the big column. The narrow side was for page
numbers, headings and things the teacher wanted us to add later.
“It’s going to be different, Grandma. My journals are part of my
grades so I have to take them serious.”