The sun streamed brightly through my filmy white curtains, shining into my eyes. I woke up, slowly remembering that I was back in my own room instead of the forest. Looking around at my colorful posters, my model horses and the cracked plaster walls, I remembered Lavina’s outburst the night before. I sighed. My vacation was over.
I looked out the window as I pulled on cutoffs and a T-shirt...imagine, clean clothes that I didn’t have to wash in a lake! I gazed down on our property. The field was heavy with fresh morning dew that sparkled in the sun. A breeze gently waved the goldenrod and Queen Anne’s Lace, rustled the plants in Luke’s vegetable garden. It was a perfect summer morning.
At least, it was before Luke told me to make breakfast for the rest of the summer. Usually we just ate cereal or toast whenever we felt like it. I hated making food, even though Luke thought I was a good cook. So with a sigh, I made perfect bacon and eggs and served them to my family.
“Good morning, Daddy,” I said as I kissed Luke’s cheek and set his plate before him. “My darling little brother,” I cooed as I dodged Dave’s annoyed slap. “And Randy.” I set his plate down gently and went back out for the woman’s. I never say that kind of mush to Luke and Dave, but I wanted to make Lavina feel left out. I threw her plate of burnt bacon and runny eggs on the table. “Here,” I snarled.
“Katherine, that was not necessary,” Luke mumbled through a mouthful of eggs.
After I cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes (my morning housekeeping, don’t forget) all of us except Lavina went school shopping. At first Luke had planned to bring only Randy, as a chance for them to get to know each other, but Randy told me he was nervous about being alone with my father. So we all went to Wal-Mart, and then the secondhand store, trying on crazy outfits we’d never buy. I loved the secondhand store. Sometimes it had interesting vintage clothes from the 1960’s and ’70’s, and always had old-lady dresses and funny pillbox hats with veils on them. We went to McDonald’s for lunch, and came home with something for Dave and me and plenty of clothes to replace Randy’s worn-out ones.
A couple hours later when I was in the barn cleaning the horses’ stall, Emily came wandering in. Surprised, I leaned on the new plastic pitchfork that Luke bought me as she looked me up and down. I was still mad at her for how she’d treated me about the horse-stealing situation. “Well?” I broke our silence.
“Your father told me I’d find you out here. I just wanted to know what’s up! My mom told me not to talk to you since you’re a bad influence, being a runaway and all, but -”
“I don’t care what your mother says,” I muttered, flinging the last pile of manure in the wheelbarrow. I didn’t care if I lost her friendship, after Randy had shown me what true friendship was. Emily grew snobbier every year, never accepting me for who I was, and I was sick of it.
She wrinkled her nose delicately. “How can you stand doing that? It’s so smelly.”
I ignored her and went outside to brush Stormwind. Emily followed me. “So that’s the horse you were trying to save? Honestly, Kat, it doesn’t look like anything special to me! Was it...worth it?”
“Yes, it was worth it!” I snapped. Emily leaned on the fence and studied Stormwind critically.
“The baby’s cute,” she said. “But the mother...it’s so big!”
“She’s only 14 hands. She’s the size of a pony! And she’s a she, not an it!” I jumped on Stormwind’s back, trying to brush Emily off.
“You’re riding your horse without a saddle or bridle? You’re nuts!”
I ignored her and circled the field a few times, first at a trot, then at a canter and gallop. Why did Emily come here? I wondered as Stormwind flew around the pasture. Maybe she really did want to be friends again. But she wasn’t the Emily I knew years ago. She’d changed.
Randy joined Emily at the fence, watching me, and I saw Emily giving him startled sideways glances as she inched away from him. Randy looked uncomfortable and left.
I walked Stormwind out, annoyed that Emily hadn’t gotten the message to go home. “Who was that?” she cried.
“That was Randy. I met him in the woods this summer, and -”
“You have a boyfriend!” She giggled. “I told you that you would! You, the same girl who said boys are too much trouble!”
“He’s not my boyfriend!”
“I’m glad to hear that. Honestly, Kat, weren’t you afraid to be alone in the woods with him? I mean, he’s so...scruffy. He’s certainly not very cute.”
“Sometimes there are more important things than just being cute!” I snapped, stomping off toward the house. I wasn’t happy with her remarks about Stormwind and Randy, and didn’t care as she rode away in a huff on her fancy mountain bike.
We didn’t speak after that. I could have told her about my trip, tried to describe the field of wildflowers, and the chilly mornings when the mist rose from the lake, and the conversations Randy and I had at the campfire. But I knew that she would never understand. They were things that only Randy would understand.
***
As I walked back to the house, I saw a gleaming white limousine sitting in the driveway, its uniformed driver patiently reading a magazine. I groaned. Aunt Betsy! If it wasn’t one judgmental visitor, it was another.
I sighed and went in the living room. Luke and Aunt Betsy were on the couch, and the lady was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“There she is!” my aunt moaned as she hurried toward me. She grabbed my shoulders and gave me a sloppy peck on each cheek. “Your father just told me you came home, and I rushed up here as soon as I heard the news! You should be ashamed of yourself, young lady! Don’t you know how worried we all were?”
“That was sort of the point,” I mumbled.
“Do not mumble! Speak clearly!” She held me out at arms length and gasped. “Oh, my! Your hair! What did you -”
“I cut it, Aunt Betsy.”
“With what? A hacksaw? You had such long, beautiful hair! And...turn around, and let me get a look at you. Why, you’re so thin!”
“I lost twenty pounds.”
“And that was weight that you could not afford to lose. Oh well, I just wish I had your metabolism, dear. And what is that smell?” She stepped away from me, sniffing daintily.
I couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. “It’s...Stormwind?” I guessed.
“You mean that dirty horse of yours? That must be it. You go right upstairs and change your clothes, and remember to scrub your hands!”
I sighed and headed upstairs. There was no arguing with Aunt Betsy, so I changed into a fresh pair of cut-offs and a T-shirt.
Randy met me in the hallway. “Kat!” he whispered. “I’ve been stuck up here forever. There’s some frou-frou woman downstairs. What’s going on?”
“Oh, that’s Aunt Betsy. The one I told you about, remember? Now, why don’t you come down and meet her?”
“Um, I don’t think -”
“Oh, c’mon.” I muttered something about moral support and pulled Randy down the hall. Our bare feet slapped on the worn wooden stairs as we headed for the living room, where we saw Lavina charming Aunt Betsy.
Lavina simpered. “It was wonderful to meet you, Mrs. -”
“Betsy. Call me Betsy.” She turned to look at Randy and me. “That’s better, Katherine,” she said as she looked me up and down. “We still need to do something about your wardrobe...but at least now you don’t smell like a horse. And who is this?”
Luke stood and walked over to us. “Betsy, this is Randy. He’s going to be staying with us for awhile.”
“Um...hi.” Randy looked at the floor. Aunt Betsy just stared at him like he was something that crawled out from under a log.
Taking Randy’s big sinewy hand, I moved closer to him and smiled mischievously at my aunt. “We met in the woods this summer,” I said loudly. “We shared the same lean-to. We ended up sharing everything.” My smile broadened as I glanced at Randy, who just looked bewildered.
Aunt Betsy gasped. “You lived in the wilds totally unsupervised...with a boy?” She sank into a chair and began fanning her face.
“Now, Betsy -”
“You stay out of this, Luke. Katherine and I are going to her room to have a talk.”
She dragged me off, leaving Randy standing alone looking humiliated, and Lavina smirking at me with a knowing look.
***
“Oh, what have you done?” Aunt Betsy moaned. “Why, your mother must be rolling in her grave. Cohabiting with a boy!”
“We weren’t cohabiting. We were camping -”
“It amounts to the same thing. You ruined your reputation, and brought shame to the family...”
I snickered. “Shame?”
“Don’t you laugh at me, Katherine Amanda Normith! The shenanigans you pulled with that boy are improper, and inexcusable!”
“But we didn’t do anything improper -”
“Nonsense. You teenagers are all alike! Boys that age have only one thing on their minds -”
“But Randy’s not like that. He respects me. And he - we - both had more important things to think about. Like whether we’d have anything to eat the next day.”
“Well, if you had stayed at home where you belonged, you wouldn’t have had to worry about that.”
“But -”
“And that is a rude young man! He addresses a lady with ’um...hi?’ What kind of a proper greeting is that?”
“He’s just shy, Aunt Betsy.”
“That doesn’t matter. He should learn some manners. People are known by the company they keep, Katherine, and if your companion is an ill-mannered, pony-tailed hoodlum -”
“Aunt Betsy, Randy is a very nice person. And I don’t appreciate people calling my friends names.”
She stared at me. “Fine. I obviously cannot talk any sense into you. You’re just like your father.” Aunt Betsy headed for the door, dabbing her teary eyes again. “Oh, Katherine,” she said with a sigh. “Lavina is such a delightful girl. Why can’t you be more like her?”
I could still hear my aunt weeping out in the hallway. “Oh, I am so embarrassed, Luke. Embarrassed and ashamed. My only niece...turned into a bad girl!”
After my aunt left, I sighed and flopped facedown on my bed, idly picking at the chenille blanket. Why couldn’t people just leave me alone?
