Secondhand Horses (2 page)

For a moment, she stood in front of the open window across from the door. Other Novembers had meant early winter and rain, but not this year. Sunny was still wearing her capris and T-shirt. The weather-beaten wooden rails of the corral that broke up the wide, long meadow behind Uncle Dave’s Oregon ranch house looked like a stiff wind would blow them down. She couldn’t wait to get started learning how to take care of Shirley and Mondo, her uncle’s secondhand horses.

Oh
.

And homework catch-up. Of course. She would
dazzle
her parents with how much she would finish here. She gave another quick spin and skipped out of the room. Starting
now
.

“You’re the coolest of the rocko-socko uncles on the planet,” Sunny said, winding her way through the packing boxes. She finished her skip into the kitchen with a big hug around her much taller uncle’s waist. “I’m still in shock my parents went for my Great Idea.”

Uncle Dave stood scratching his head. Boxes, stacked to his shoulders, ran across the common entryway and into the living room opposite.

“You never know with parents, Sunny girl.” Her uncle returned the hug. “Sometimes they know more than you think they do.”

“What do you mean?”

“So many boxes, so little interest.” Her uncle had returned his attention to the boxes. After a moment, he blinked and seemed to notice her standing there. “Will you be lonely way out here? We’re about as at the end of Oakton as you can get and still be in Oakton.”

Sunny shook her head. “I’ll be on video chats with Mom for school.” She hugged him again and then pulled open a box. “And I’m
sure
you’ll let my S.A.V.E. Squad friends visit. A lot.”

“Eesh. Surrounded by little girls? That will be strange for this bachelor.”

“We’re not little. We’re eleven!” Sunny huffed. “And it’s your fault you’re not married.”

“Right.”

“I’m ready to start finishing things. What do you want me to do first?”

“I think I need you to clean out one of the outbuildings before we can start setting up this house.” He rubbed his face. “It’s been nearly two months that I’ve been living out of boxes. Time to settle in. There’s probably a lot of junk in those buildings. This old ranch hasn’t been cleaned out since the last owner left over five years ago.”

Bouncing on her toes, Sunny said, “I’ll start right now. You won’t be sorry you said yes to me for two weeks!”

He glanced out the kitchen window. “Dark now. Getting late.”

“I don’t care. I
want
to start now. This is the new Sunny!” As she struggled with the front door, he called over his shoulder. “You’ve got to lift and pull at the same time.” More to himself, he muttered, “The screen door squeaks, too. I have to take a look at that.” He flapped a hand at the boxes as if to shoo them away and meandered over to the fridge. “You hungry?”

“No,” she said over the screech of the front door. Although dinner had been those disastrous tuna sandwiches, she was too excited to be hungry. Once on the front porch, Sunny twirled around and around, staggering toward the large oval of overgrown grass and weeds in the middle of the circular gravel driveway. The final spin overset her balance, and she tumbled into the oval, panting and snorting. The stars were just beginning to come out.

“Okay, outbuildings. You are about to meet Sunny the Finisher.” She jumped up and trotted over to the three buildings. She chuckled. “It’s like the three-bears buildings. The barn is Papa Barn, the middle is Mama Shed, and the laaaaassst is the Baby Lean-to!” The largest of the three buildings was a newer barn. Pulling open the door, she stuck her head in. Right inside the door were the stairs on the left to go to the haymow that was loaded with hay. Maybe it was straw. She couldn’t tell the difference, but she knew that horses ate one and stood on the other.

After the stairs were three open stalls. On the left of the barn was the tack wall with Shirley and Mondo’s saddles, bridles, and all that other stuff that horses needed. Everything looked like a barn should. Trust Uncle Dave to take care of Shirley and Mondo before he unpacked boxes. She liked that.

She shut the door behind her and moseyed on over to the right to scratch the noses of Shirley the palomino and Mondo the red sorrel. “Here’s hoping playing with you is one of my chores!”

By the time she’d finished talking with the horses, night had definitely descended. She was nearly to the front porch when she remembered why she had come out in the first place.

“Finishing, Sunny, finishing. It’s all about finishing.” She made her way to the mama-sized outbuilding. Older, smaller, its roof looked like the builder had skipped over every other board. Was it leaning to one side? She tipped her head. Yup. And sagging, too. The double door to the Mama Shed also had a weak side. She had to lift that side up to remove the iron bar dropped into the two rings that kept the door closed. She stepped in. Darkness enveloped her; her foot slid over the edge of something, snapping her head back. Waving her arms, she went sprawling.

So much for a big start in my new Sunny life
.

I
n the early light of the next morning, the shed’s interior resembled a topographic map her dad had on a recent family hike with its short piles and tall heaps of—what? After Sunny propped the door open with two chunks of cement she’d found nearby, she stood with her arms folded across her chest, legs wide. Sunny the Finisher surveying her project.

Junk. Lots and lots of junk. Barely room to walk. No, make that
no
room unless you pretended it was a minefield and hopped through it. Sunny did just that and then dodged the path back to the doorway. At the door, she saw what had banged up her knee and bloodied the heel of one hand: an old yoke, like she’d seen in her history book, that a farmer would use to harness oxen. Next to it lay two rusted spurs with sharp-looking spikes. She tossed them to the side where they hit the wall and slid down into an old bucket. The bottom of a fan rake tipped over that. Why would someone save a broken rake?

This cleanup just might take until she graduated from middle school, but nobody finished unless they started. She pounced on a broom that had retained enough sweeping bristles to do some good and started sweeping vigorously. Whipping the broom around each obstacle raised clouds of suffocating dust that sent her hacking and choking outside.

Uncle Dave, carrying out a couple of empty boxes to the porch, called over, “You sure you’re up to this, Sunny girl?”

“No—
cough
—problem,” she gasped, waving confidently. “Just waiting for the dust to die down.” Her throat had dried; she had to swallow a few times. “I’ll have this finished so fast you won’t know what hit you!”

Since the shed showed no signs of giving up its dust storm right away, she set the broom against the door and wandered over to the lean-to. Pretty basic. Three sides, a slanted roof, and an open front. More rusted farm equipment Sunny didn’t recognize. She’d definitely made the right choice on cleaning out the tractor shed. This lean-to would involve pushing a whole lot of heavy stuff somewhere else. Something scurried behind the lean-to. Curious, Sunny peeked around the shed, and a happy smile curved her face. At the back of the lean-to, completely hidden from the front, rested an old trampoline. The bed was still on it. She counted the legs. Two looked bent. Still usable. More springs still on it than not, although they were rusty. Everything was rusty around here.

It took her a while to drag out the trampoline and confirm that, yes indeed, this tramp was still usable. While she lay on her stomach on it, propping up her head with her hands, her eyes drooped. The sun was sooooo warm on her shoulders and back. Raising heavy lids, she surveyed her domain. Some wooden boxes, the slatted kind from back in the day, were piled crookedly behind the tractor shed.

The tractor shed. Her eyes flew wide open. She had to finish the tractor shed. The best place for the tramp would have to wait. She rolled off the tramp and hurried to the tractor shed where sunlight caught the remaining dust motes in streams. Almost magical. She sneezed. Now where had she put that broom? Not by the stairs.
Hmmmm
. In the back to the right, stairs leading to who knows where. First ranch hand, house helper, and now explorer. Uncle Dave was the best. When she and the girls woke up tomorrow, she would wear one of her uncle’s cowboy hats and take them on a Mystery Tour.

She leaped over the buckets of old bridles and bits, tractor tires, a large coiled rope, a partial bale of old hay, plus bits of unidentified “shed stuff.” Up the stairs, she landed lightly on each wooden step. While delightfully creaky, they were solid.

“Wow!” Her head popped up, and she viewed the wide-open space before her. Just ahead, a boarded-up window had cracks of light framing it. Once at the top, she took care to make sure each footstep landed on a floorboard and not in the gaps that filtered dust to the downstairs. “This would be a great S.A.V.E. Squad clubhouse.” Making a face, she shook her head. “If we cleaned all this stuff out.”

The floor was loaded with “stuff.” An old engine machine-y thing stood against the wall. More old tires, parts of calendars, dried-out paint cans with little stuff in them. The previous owner didn’t throw out anything. Lots of mouse droppings. Sunny wrinkled her nose and scanned the ceiling. Old birds’ nests perched on the beams with white and green drippings. She would definitely have to show the girls
this
. The loft, not the droppings, although the white and green stuff would kill it for Vee as a clubhouse. Vee had this thing about bugs and doo-doo, thanks to her Twin Terror stepbrothers.

A wooden frame with a side hinge signaled a window in the back wall. Sunny made her way to it and inspected the latch. How cool would it be to have a giant’s view of the back of the ranch? She jerked the latch. Nothing. She leaned on it and jerked again. A bit of a move then it slid back, and the window slowly began to groan outward with Sunny clinging to the latch. Half her body hung over the ground that seemed very far below, supported only by the splintery window that groaned louder with each passing second.

Y
iiikes!” Her left hand fumbled for the window frame. Yes! Relief, when she scrabbled onto the frame, then a big
OW
as the quick prick of splinters followed. Sunny hated splinters, but she would
really
hate falling to her death before the freedom of summer vacation just six short months away.

With a deep breath and holding in her stomach for more backward muscle power, she squinched her eyes shut, told her legs to lock tight, and pulled back. Her foot slipped forward and waggled wildly, trying to get support from the air. Visions of James inheriting her room filled her head; she grunted and pulled back again.

Finally, both feet connected with the edge, then further in, then all of her body back into the loft. With trembling fingers, she let go of the window, collapsing on the dirty floor, sending up poofs of dust and dead flies.

“That was not a Great Idea,” she announced after she had convinced herself she truly was alive. A few more deep breaths and then she stood by the window’s right side. “But I do want to see what’s out there.” Pushing the window out and firmly gripping the left side of the frame, Sunny leaned out and looked below. Behind the shed lay more tractor tires and slatted wooden boxes leaning crazily. More stuff to clear out. She shifted her gaze to the tramp, down to the ground, and back to the tramp. She felt her eyes widen.

Since the ceiling was low in this shed, the drop from the loft window to say, a trampoline below, would be about as long as Uncle Dave was tall. Six feet. A rocko-socko complete yayness seat drop. It would be worth tugging the tramp over to below the window.

She had so many Great Ideas, she amazed herself.

After placing the tramp in the absolute perfect position and rubbing her hands in glee at what the Squad would say, Sunny returned to her sweeping. No way could she get the floor clean without moving everything out. She’d put some boxes away inside the house instead; then later, before she and her uncle left to pick up the Squad, she’d move everything.

Her first attempt at finishing dinner was a blazing success and completely blotted out the Stinking Spaghetti of the previous night—at least in Sunny’s mind. She made boxed mac and cheese, watching the cooking macaroni like a hawk. She’d eaten the mac and cheese. Finished.

It wasn’t
her
fault that Uncle Dave thought boxed mac and cheese should be banned in all fifty states and wouldn’t eat it. All in all, with the rocko-socko discovery of the tramp and cooking a homemade meal, it had been a great day. Tonight would only get better.

The S.A.V.E. Squad was heading to the carnival.

W
hat’s up, Sunny girl?” Uncle Dave shot her a quick look across the truck as she pointed out the turn to Esther’s house and told him how close the girls lived to each other and hadn’t known it until the end of the summer.

“Oh, I’m just happy. You saved me from Deep Trouble last night. I get to be at the ranch. Trust me. That dinner disaster consequence could have been a
lot
worse.”

“I remember when I was a kid—” Her uncle swung into Esther’s driveway. “Oh. Sorry. I know I hated it when adults used to trot out the ‘when I was your age’ stuff. I’m just glad for the help—especially with that shed.”

Umm. That shed
. Yes, well … she’d get on that first thing in the morning. Nothing would stop her from finishing
tomorrow
.

Esther’s mother cupped her hands around her mouth at the open front door. “She’ll be out in a minute!”

Turning off the truck, Dave nodded and turned back to Sunny.

Now was a good time to change the subject away from the shed. “So were you going to say how you never got in trouble? That would not be helpful.”

Dave threw back his head and laughed the rat-a-tat rifle laugh. It sounded like the blast of many bullets one right after another. She swallowed her chuckles. “Well?”