Castaway Colt Page 8

  “Nothing! Oh, my gosh! Did I walk right past A Building?” Darby squeaked. “I’m trying to find my history class and I don’t know if I’m going the right way.” Darby pretended to study her schedule.

  “You don’t have history now,” Duckie said before turning to Selena. “How do you like this? I know her schedule better than she does!”

  The other girls tittered with laughter.

  “You have P.E., remember?” Selena reminded her.

  “Oh, yeah,” Darby crowed as if the realization had just struck her.

  Another of Duckie’s friends, a girl with professionally streaked hair, leaned back with her arms crossed, raised one eyebrow, and stared toward Darby’s feet. “Nice boots.”

  Darby ignored the sarcasm as Duckie’s group crowded into the gym ahead of her.

  Megan was dressed and just tying her shoes when she looked up at Darby.

  “Hi!” Darby said.

  “Hi.” Megan sounded startled by Darby’s enthusiasm. “You look like you’re about to throw yourself into my arms.”

  “I’m glad to see a friendly face,” Darby admitted as she opened her locker and changed clothes.

  Megan didn’t bother asking what had brought on that remark, because Duckie leaned around the bank of lockers and jerked her thumb toward Darby to say, “Tell your friend we don’t wear cowboy boots to school.”

  Megan ignored the big girl and sat down on a nearby bench. Letting her hands dangle between her knees, Megan faced Darby and said, “Remember that thing Jonah said last night?”

  “About a flea making an elephant squirm?” Darby asked.

  “Something like that,” Megan said with a laugh.

  “Thanks for reminding me,” Darby said, but before she could ask Megan for suggestions, she was off with her soccer friends, leaving Darby behind.

  Since staying invisible didn’t seem to be working for her, Darby cast around in her brain for another strategy to make herself a less amusing victim.

  I’ll kill you with kindness, Darby thought the minute she saw Duckie heading her way.

  “I love your earrings! What are they?” Darby asked, even though she recognized them as black pearls.

  “They’re none of your business, “Duckie said, reaching up to touch one of her earrings.

  “Duxelles, why don’t you put those in your locker? You don’t want to lose one while you’re playing volleyball.”

  Both girls turned to see Miss Day striding toward them, on her way outside.

  “Thanks, Coach Day,” Duckie said sweetly, “but I’ll be careful.”

  “Do it now, please,” Miss Day told her.

  “Yes, Coach Day,” Duckie said, but as soon as the teacher had passed, Duckie shot Darby a glare.

  Darby pretended interest in her stubby fingernails and kept walking as the big girl started back to the locker room.

  Outside, Darby rushed to take her place on the blacktop, but she needn’t have hurried. It was clear that Coach Roffmore wouldn’t take roll until his favorite student showed up.

  Darby was dreading Duckie’s return when she noticed Coach Roffmore looking right at her.

  It was such a direct and positive look that Darby glanced over her shoulder in surprise. But the coach was talking to her.

  “Carter. Your transfer papers say you’re a swimmer.”

  All at once, Darby realized he was sizing her up as an addition to his team.

  “I used to be,” Darby said.

  There was no point in joining a team when she might not be at this school long enough to compete. Besides, Megan had told her Duckie was on the swim team. The prospect of swimming with Duckie and her friends was about as appealing as joining a school of sharks.

  Darby kept her eyes forward, pretending not to notice Duckie jostling into line.

  When Selena giggled behind her, Darby turned around to see what was so funny.

  “All eyes on me,” the coach snapped, but Darby couldn’t help glancing down the line to see if Megan had noticed anything.

  Duckie was quick, but out of the corner of her eye, Darby saw her arm drop back to her side. Duckie faced forward with military straightness, but her lips smirked.

  “Knock it off,” Darby whispered.

  “I bet I could,” Duckie said, squinting at Darby’s head.

  Darby couldn’t let the big girl get away with bullying her.

  “All eyes on me!” Coach Roffmore shouted when Darby kept staring at the big girl.

  Darby took a deep breath, then appealed to the coach. “Did you see what she did?”

  “I’m gonna see you running laps if you don’t stop disrupting my class, Carter.”

  “Yeah, Cowgirl Carter,” Selena sneered from behind her.

  Darby’s cheeks burned at the unfairness, and she knew Selena wasn’t the only one staring at her.

  Megan leaned forward in line to catch Darby’s eye, but her frown didn’t offer any advice.

  “I didn’t figure you for a troublemaker,” the coach added.

  It was his faint disappointment that got to her.

  “I’m sorry,” Darby apologized, but as the coach continued calling roll, Darby’s eyes slid sideways.

  Watching her cousin, Darby tried to come up with another way this flea could make the Viking tyrannosaurus squirm.

  She hadn’t come up with a single idea when Duckie yanked Darby’s ponytail and it came loose from its holder.

  The surprise on the big girl’s face probably meant she hadn’t planned to jerk the ponytail that hard, but Darby didn’t care what her cousin had meant to do.

  “Keep your hands to yourself, Duckie!” Darby roared.

  She heard a shocked whoop of approval that might have been Megan. A female voice muttered, “Right on,” and a short-lived spate of clapping ended when the coach tweeted his whistle.

  “That’s it.” Coach Roffmore pointed at the track. “Give me a mile.”

  “Two laps,” Coach Day corrected, saying something behind her clipboard to Coach Roffmore.

  “Gimme two,” he agreed.

  And Darby did.

  Chapter 11

  During lunch, Darby stood by in uncomfortable silence as Megan and her friends surrounded Ann and praised the stand Darby had taken against her cousin.

  “She was so cool walking over to the track.” Megan imitated Darby with long, ambling steps. “She just moseyed over there, putting her ponytail back up, taking her time…”

  Trying not to cry, Darby added mentally.

  She’d been afraid to run a half-mile while crying. What if she started wheezing and passed out or something?

  Now Darby just listened and spooned yogurt into her mouth. If she were a different person, she’d be pleased with all this admiration.

  As it was, she felt worried.

  By the time Darby had run two sweaty laps and made her way to the sandpits where the girls were playing volleyball, all but Duckie’s closest friends were giggling about Darby’s stubbornness.

  Someone had even created a hand gesture—bringing the tips of all four fingers down to touch the pad of the thumb. If you opened and closed it quickly, your hand looked like a quacking duck.

  It was clearly meant to be a silent mockery of Duxelles’s new nickname.

  “So Duckie’s plan to humiliate you kinda backfired,” Ann said, giving Darby a congratulatory pat on the back.

  “Kinda, but I’m pretty sure she won’t take it as a learning experience.”

  “Probably not,” Ann agreed, and there was troubled comprehension in her eyes.

  Neither of them uttered the word payback, but Darby was pretty sure they were both thinking it; Duckie wouldn’t let this offense go.

  “She didn’t even think of backing down from Duckie or Roffmore,” said Tabby, one of the soccer girls who’d been Ann’s teammate, too.

  “How could Coach Roffmore not see what she did?” Ann asked.

  “He saw,” Megan assured her. “He just didn’t care.”

&nbs
p; Darby wished she didn’t have to face the coach and Duckie in algebra.

  “The only way you’d get Roffmore to care…” Megan’s voice trailed off for a second. Tilting her head to one side, Megan licked a dab of milk shake off her lip. “…is if you proved you were a better swimmer than Duckie.”

  “How good are you?” Ann asked Darby.

  Megan answered for her, “She’s good.”

  Megan had never seen her swim, but she said it in a way that reminded Darby that Megan knew she’d swum in the ocean with Hoku.

  “Not that good,” Darby said, but her voice was drowned out by the bell ringing, ending lunchtime.

  After school, Darby stalled.

  While she waited for Aunty Cathy to come collect her and Megan, she walked between the soccer field, where Megan’s team played, and the wooden picnic table outside the chain-link fence surrounding the school swimming pool.

  As the girls’ swim team warmed up, Darby breathed in the scent of chlorine.

  It made her homesick. And impatient.

  When she saw Duckie roll the muscles in her tanned shoulders, Darby thought of her own arms slicing through the water.

  Duckie dove into the pool, and though the girl was good—you didn’t get to be a regional champion in Hawaii if you were only okay—inside her cowgirl boots, Darby pointed her toes and imagined her own powerful kick.

  She wanted to join the swim team for all the wrong reasons.

  Darby remembered Ann pointing out the single pay telephone on the campus, right in front of the school, where Aunty Cathy dropped them off in the morning.

  On impulse, Darby found it and called her mother’s cell phone. Her mother was so glad to hear from her, she didn’t even mention that she’d called collect.

  “Baby! How did you know I was lonesome for your voice? What’s up?”

  Darby told her mother about watching swim practice while she waited out Megan’s soccer practice. Her mother heard the longing in her voice before Darby got very far.

  “Would you like to join? For just a little while?”

  “No…”

  “Just today, in one of the shops, I saw a gorgeous red tank suit like the ones you and Heather always talked about.” Her mother’s wheedling tone made Darby hope that her mother wanted her—or both of them!—to remain on the island.

  “Do you think we might stay here?” Darby asked.

  “Stay…?”

  “In Hawaii,” Darby said.

  “Oh, no, no, no!” Her mother laughed. “I just want you to make the most of it while you are.”

  Well, she hadn’t really thought that was a possibility, anyway. Still, what if her mother had forgotten the beauty of ‘Iolani Ranch and outgrown her feud with Jonah?

  “But if I do earn the reward for finding Stormbird, you know, that lost colt? And I bought you a ticket to here, you’d come visit, right?”

  “I’ll think about it, honey.”

  The scratchy connection stretched between them, and Darby knew from experience that she should quit while she was ahead.

  “Bye, Mom. I love you,” she said finally.

  “I love you, too!”

  Once she’d hung up, Darby’s mind spun.

  No way. Why join the swim team?

  She smiled because her mother had remembered the bright red tank suits she and Heather had chatted about. They’d considered them signs that they were good swimmers so they wouldn’t be afraid to stand out.

  But her mother had been right, Darby thought. She should make the most of her time in Hawaii. That meant spending time with Hoku.

  Darby was still standing by the pay phone when a big white car—maybe an Escalade—pulled over. It sounded as if an entire Hawaiian band was playing inside.

  Darby watched as a tinted window lowered automatically. The ukuleles and warbling singers inside the car stopped, and Darby realized she almost recognized the driver.

  “Aloha!” the woman called, looking even more familiar as she removed her dark glasses. “Are you Ellen Kealoha’s girl?”

  The woman referring to her mother by her unmarried name, with her stylishly shingled black hair, Hawaiian features, and orange lipstick, was Babe Borden.

  “Yes, but how did you know?” Darby asked.

  “For once in his life, my brother was right. Jonah said you look just like your mother.”

  Impossible, Darby thought. Her mother was a movie star.

  Still, the words sent a thrill through her.

  “Trust me, dear, you do,” Babe told her. “And then, there are your boots.”

  Darby looked down at her honey-brown boots and smiled.

  “If you were thinking about walking home, you couldn’t have reached it before dark. Hop in and I’ll give you a lift.”

  “Oh, no, I wasn’t. I was just, uh…” Darby was gesturing toward the phone when she heard the lock on the door next to her pop.

  Despite Jonah’s railing against her, Darby thought she might like Babe. She didn’t admire her because she looked more stylish than anyone else Darby had seen on the island; she liked her because Aunt Babe had noticed her cowgirl boots.

  Her short, shiny hair didn’t show a thread of Jonah’s gray, and she was dressed all in white. Her car was white with muted gold trim.

  If she owned Sugar Sands Cove Resort, all the white made sense. It was obviously her trademark, just as Megan had said, and Darby didn’t blame Babe for being a good businesswoman.

  Best of all, with Aunt Babe’s help, Darby figured she could be home before Megan, in time to saddle Navigator and Tango. All she had to do was get in.

  “Just let me go tell Megan what’s up,” Darby told her great-aunt, and the minute Babe nodded, Darby sprinted back to the soccer field.

  At once, she spotted Megan on the sideline.

  Perfect, Darby thought, even though Megan was poised with the black-and-white ball above her head, about to throw it in.

  “I’ve got a ride home,” Darby yelled.

  “What?” Megan sounded bewildered, as if Darby had broken her concentration.

  “Aunt Babe is giving me a ride home.”

  “Okay,” Megan said. Then she threw and bolted back into the action of the practice game.

  “Thanks,” Darby said breathlessly when she’d returned.

  As she climbed inside, the scents of white linen and citrus surrounded her. It smelled like luxury.

  Darby settled into the lush leather seat.

  If Jonah got mad at her for allowing Babe to drive her home, well, it probably wouldn’t last long. Soon, Darby would be bringing home a colt worth a substantial reward from Babe.

  “I was on my way to pick up Duxelles,” Babe began, before she pulled away from the curb.

  “Oh, well, go ahead, I can—”

  “I’m forty minutes early,” Babe told her. “I was going to sit and read while I waited, but this is much better. I have something to show you.”

  Darby caught her breath as Babe made a U-turn in the middle of the street.

  “Don’t worry, I’m an expert driver,” Babe said as they sped in the opposite direction from ‘Iolani Ranch. “Now, I’ve heard you love horses.”

  “I do.”

  “Then I must introduce you to my mare Flight.”

  Darby recognized the horse’s name immediately. She was Stormbird’s mother.

  “I heard what happened to her colt,” Darby said.

  “I invited Jonah over to see if he could help, but your grandfather did nothing to soothe her,” Babe said.

  Darby wasn’t sure if she heard anger or concern in Babe’s voice, but if her great-aunt expected more from her than Jonah, she’d be disappointed.

  “I’m not a horse charmer,” Darby apologized.

  “Of course you’re not. Trust me, dear, there is no such family gift.”

  Was that the second or third time her great-aunt had said “trust me, dear”? Every time she said that, it had the opposite effect.

  Babe glanced over at Darby
. “I don’t expect you to do anything. I just want to show off.”

  “Oh.”

  “Your grandfather’s probably told you that I’m a voracious social climber who cares only for money, because I’ve never outgrown having to collect roadkill.”

  Babe didn’t sound offended. In fact, her tone was so cheery, Darby had to replay the words to make sure she understood.

  Voracious social climber. Did that mean Aunt Babe was starving to improve her status? Caring only for money. That was simple enough. But…roadkill?

  “He never told me anything like that,” Darby said.

  Babe’s deep chuckling laugh reminded Darby of Tutu. Though Aunt Babe was Tutu’s daughter, Darby had a hard time reconciling this totally modern woman with a great-grandmother who lived with an owl in the middle of the rain forest.

  “He hasn’t?” Babe sounded incredulous. “Are you sure?”

  “Well, he mentioned the money part,” Darby admitted. “But that’s all.”

  As they raced down the highway, Darby remembered Kimo driving her from the airport to the ranch.

  Black lava fields flanked the road, and Darby didn’t think they were far from the resort Kimo had pointed out, so Darby decided she had to ask. “What did you mean, exactly, about roadkill?”

  Babe tossed her head, as if she had long hair.

  “I assume Jonah hasn’t gotten rid of our father’s fox cages yet?” Babe asked.

  Surprised at the direction the conversation with Babe had taken, Darby said, “They’re still there.”

  “They used to house foxes, obviously, and the first week I had my driver’s license, our father saw an opportunity to put me to work doing something new.”

  Babe’s tone was grim, until she added, “And highly profitable.”

  Babe shook her head as she went on, “Foxes are totally carnivorous, as you undoubtedly know. So feeding them is pretty pricey.”

  Darby’s brain balked. Aunt Babe couldn’t mean that her father had sent her out to gather creatures that had been hit by cars?

  Babe glanced toward Darby with eyebrows raised so high, they arched above the frames of her dark glasses.

  “Trust me, dear, nothing improves a girl’s social standing or attracts more boyfriends than cruising around in an old farm truck, picking up dead animals.”