A Hourse to Love (8 page)

Chambers laughed gently. “Of course, that means a shower, including shampooing your hair every day, brushing your teeth twice a day, and trimming your nails with scissors rather than biting them off. From the looks of those gnawed-off nails, you could use some finger etiquette.”

Skye rol ed her eyes again. “Could you get any grosser?”

After having the rules dril ed into her night after night for a week, she could hardly forget.

Nonetheless, she fought them like a badger in a bag.

She would run the shower and sit on the vanity, while gal ons of water ran down the drain — just so they would think she was getting clean. Rules were made to be broken, she reasoned, and she was there to break every one. How else was she going to have a little fun?

Although hostile to the Chambers, Skye studied Morgan with calculated interest. She thought she saw another teenager with a kindred spirit who could join in her rebel ion and help buck the system. Or so she thought.

The first evening after the school sent assignments home, Skye answered a knock at her bedroom door and invited Morgan in. A tower of books were stacked on Skye’s desk, waiting.

“Mrs. Chambers mentioned that you had homework,” Morgan said as she motored in.

“Suspension doesn’t mean a vacation!” Skye sat on her bed, hands behind her head, feet stretched out and crossed. She eyed Morgan as she entered escorted by Tip and Ty, whose toenails clicked on the floor until they settled on a throw rug beside the bed.

“Yeah, big deal,” Skye answered. “Those books can sit there until they turn to dust. I’m not doing any homework.”

“What do you mean you’re not doing any homework?” Morgan asked. “Don’t tel me you’re one of those poor little mistreated foster kids who claims she can’t read. Get a life!”

“Yeah, I can read, but only things I like. When it’s too cold for me to walk around downtown, I go to the back room of the city library, hide in the corner, and read
good
stuff. Nobody ever bothers me. Sure, I can read, but not that trash.” She nodded toward the desk. “Anyway, I’m
not
going to do homework just because Mrs. Chambers says I have to. How can you stand al their stupid rules?”

“They’re not that bad,” was Morgan’s encouraging answer.

“Yeah right. Of al my foster homes, this is the weirdest! What real y bugs me is this God thing al the time. It makes me sick. How long have you been here, and how can you stand it?”

Morgan raised her eyes as though she were reading from the ceiling and then looked back at Skye. “It’l be three years this summer. I had just turned twelve when my parents got divorced. Dad left us and ran off to California with another woman. It was too much for Mom. She had three other ‘normal’

kids to support, so I landed here. Mom’s always been a little unstable. If the Chambers hadn’t taken me in, I’d probably be in an institution somewhere.”

“Do you ever see your parents?”

“Not Dad. He has a new life, he says, and doesn’t see any of us. Mom moved closer to Aunt Martha down near Phil y. She cal s every now and then. I did see her and my brothers and sister last Christmas, but we only connected for a few hours. They’re real y not like my family anymore. The Chambers are more like parents to me. Do you ever see your parents?” Skye blurted out a sarcastic laugh. “That’s a joke. I don’t even know where they are or if they’re even alive.I’ve been in foster homes as long as I can remember. They don’t want me, obviously, or they would come to get me. I don’t know a stinking thing about them, good or bad.” Skye’s tone changed. “So you’re in ninth grade at Madison?”

“Yeah. Next year I learn to drive.”

“Learn to drive? In that thing?” Skye snickered and pointed to the wheelchair.

“Sure. Why not? Lots of chal enged people drive.

You’ve seen me ride a horse, haven’t you? Why can’t I drive a car?”

“But how?” Skye’s face contorted.

“We have a real y neat van with special gears and pedals up in the dashboard to use with your hands. It is
so
cool. I’l have to show it to you sometime.” Skye’s face grew serious. “Since you’re at Madison, do you know Sooze Bodmer — it’s real y Susan — and Kenny Hartzel ? They’re seventh graders.”

“Nah. High school kids never have any contact with kids in other buildings. Why?”

“I need something from them. Fast. They’re my
special
friends, if you know what I mean.”

“Look, kid, that kind of stuff won’t fly around here.I’m tel ing you, Mr. and Mrs. C. wil find out.

You’d better not pul any stunts like that.”

“C’mon, Morgan. You can do it. If you can’t connect with my friends, get some stuff from somebody in your class. I need it to get me through this nightmare. Anything! What do you say?” Morgan’s freckled face grew as serious as Skye’s. “I say you’re just plain stupid, Skye. I guarantee you
won’t
be getting away with any of your old behavior here. Look, I’d like nothing better than for us to be friends,” she said and then smiled, “even though you
are
a lowly seventh grader. But I won’t get you any stuff.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I don’t do those things anymore. Skye, my life real y changed when I moved in here. With the Chambers’ help, I learned about God. I accepted Christ as my personal Savior, and he helped me kick al my bad habits. I don’t have anything to do with those kids anymore.”

“Not you too! I can’t believe it! You’re a religious nut? C’mon. Couldn’t you just smuggle me in something?”

“Not in this lifetime! With the Chambers’ and God’s help, you can change and get rid of those things that are messing you up too.”

“I am
not
messed up!”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Morgan taunted.

Skye’s face flushed hot, and she raked both hands through her hair. “You mean you’re not going to help me?”

“Yeah, I’l help you, but only with things like your homework. Forget that other stuff. It’s your cal if you want to be friends.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Skye growled and folded her arms tightly across her chest.

“And you are
s o
not welcome,” Morgan said as she motored to the book pile on the desk. “Look. We have hours of work ahead of us. Let’s get started.” She grabbed the top book and opened it on her lap.

“I am
not
doing homework, Morgan, so you can just forget it!”

“Hey, listen. I’m just trying to help. If you don’t do this, you’l lose privileges.”

“Privileges?” Skye whined as she sat up straight and tucked her knees to her chest. “What privileges?

Al I need is a straitjacket and my life wil be complete.”

“I’m tel ing you for your own good. You’ve only spent a few hours at Maranatha since Monday, right?”

“Yes . . .”

“Wel , the individual counseling and group therapy can be intense, to say the least. Rebel ing like that wil only earn you more time with the counselors.

Then there are your riding privileges here at Keystone Stables. Are you sure you want to give up Champ for a week at a time? I can tel you’re already hooked on him.”

“No way. Just because I don’t do this stupid homework?”

“Duh! Yes with a capital Y-E-S!”

Skye just sat there.

Morgan reached toward the desk, searching for something. “Your assignments should be here somewhere.Wait, here they are,” she said, pul ing folded papers out of a book. “Wel ?” Skye’s face shriveled like a dried-up prune.

Marana-tha? Big deal. I can take anything they
dish out to me.But lose Champ?

“Okay,” she snarled. She shuffled to the edge of the bed, scaring the dogs out of her path. “If you’re dumb enough to waste your time in here, I’l do it. But don’t offer to do me any more favors. I made it on my own this long and I’l make it on my own again. Got it?”

“Man, you’ve got a lot to learn and not just in school,”Morgan snapped as she motored toward the bed.

S
kye decided the awfulness of living with the Chambers paled in comparison to what she suffered at Maranatha Treatment Center. The place was beyond awful as far as she was concerned.

She had a long history of counseling with tons of psychologists who had tried to figure her out. But Maranatha was different. It was a Christian counseling center supported by local churches and run on a shoestring budget. Skye thought it was dork central, but on the very first day Skye discovered her manipulative strategies wouldn’t work there. The place crawled with weirdos like Eileen Chambers.

Mrs. Chambers took a reluctant Skye from room to room to meet the staff.

“Skye,” said Mrs. Chambers as they walked into the front office, “I’d like you to meet Fred Scott, our program director. The Marines weren’t tough enough for him, so he decided to tackle this job.” Mr. Scott pushed his dark muscular frame away from his desk, stood, ran one powerful hand over his crew cut, and reached the other one toward Skye.

“I’m glad to meet you,” he said. His brown eyes sparkled behind thick-rimmed glasses.

Skye stuck her dead-fish hand in his. “Yeah,” she said.

Mrs. Chambers pointed to an adjoining room with a desk and computer. “That’s Mrs. Klase, our secretary, and our van driver, Mr. Boyer.”

“Hel o, Skye!” Mrs. Klase yel ed as her stubby fingers pecked at a keyboard. Her stare never left the monitor.

“Howdy do,” Mr. Boyer said.

In the next office, Skye met an older counselor named Alan Ling, who was from some Asian country.

Then there were the ten to fifteen kids like her meandering down the hal way or gathering in a large open room. At last Skye had found kindred spirits.

Red, yel ow, black, and white slouch champions, experts at talking back, highbrow liars, druggies, tire slashers, and hooky players. She might have to suffer through group counseling, but at least she had company.

Every day after that Skye met with Mr. Scott and the group in a room large enough for a circle of metal chairs to hug the center and cafeteria tables to line the wal s. This was Interactive Instructional Counseling, better known as I C. Mr. Scott and other adults lectured about drugs, pregnancy, parents, and other supposedly important issues. Then after a week of the same boring stuff, Mr. Scott changed the routine.

As usual, Skye sauntered off the van, complained al the way into the building, and sought out her new friends in the large room. Just like clockwork fifteen minutes before the session began, Mrs. Klase served boring snacks while the group mingled, consoling each other in their miseries.

Spiked-hair kids with earrings in their noses and eyebrows, girls with Goth makeup and black clothing barely covering their bodies, and boys with elephant-size T-shirts and cargo pants dragging on the floor grabbed their snacks and slinked to the corners in little cliques. Bad attitude seethed in the room —

except for two girls who were dressed much like the others but stood talking and half-smiling with Mrs.

Klase.

Skye melded into one of the corners and practiced her own Oscar-winning pout. But on the inside, al she could think about was Champ.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Scott’s gruff voice announced, “gather around, please. We have no special guests today. It’s Melissa’s turn to bring herself up.” He gestured toward the girls standing with Mrs. Klase. An attractive blonde looked at the floor as her face turned bright red.

Bringing herself up
.
Ha!
Mrs. Chambers had told Skye about this new type of therapy. Today Melissa would stand before the group and come clean about her latest “sins.” If everything went as planned, she would be gril ed by the rest of the group about what she’d done wrong. Then Melissa had to say she was sorry. That’s when Mr. Scott and the other kids would tel her how great she was.

“No way!” Skye had said after hearing about it.

“Why would anyone in their right mind fess up to a bunch of kids who are doing the same things? That’s stupid.”

“It takes a lot of courage to admit you’re wrong,” Mrs. Chambers had said. “You’l see. And we can’t even begin to help you until you get to that place.” Now Skye found herself mumbling and dragging herself to the center of the room with al the other kids. She flopped into a chair, grumbling under her breath, and waited for the sideshow to begin. In the meantime she spent the moments dreaming about Champ and devising a plan to kidnap him and leave her miserable, rotten life here behind.

“Before we start” — Mr. Scott’s voice rose as he pushed his way forward — “I have some announcements. Settle down, please.” They al settled in their own good time.

“First of al , wil the person who blocked the toilet with paper towels please come forward?” A hornet’s nest of snickers erupted from the circle.

“Al right, quiet down. You may think you’re getting away with something, but we’l eventual y find out who you are, and you
will
face the consequences.” Begrudgingly, the nest of kids settled down.

“Secondly,” Mr. Scott continued, “Umlauf’s Bakery cal ed yesterday. Anyone at least fifteen years old want twenty hours of work a week?”

More dissension erupted.

“Hey!” he said, almost shouting, and the mob quieted. “Look at it this way. Twenty hours a week in programming or twenty hours a week earning megabucks. Think about it.