Buckskin Bandit (5 page)

“Madeline said you were here.”

“What is it?” I tried to breathe and stop the pictures in my head.

“I couldn't wait for you to come back! Did you say
invention
?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, feeling my lungs untwist.

“An invention! Your invention. I was so caught up in the workshop I hardly heard you. Then after you left, I started to replay it. And I was sure you said you wanted to invent something. I asked Lizzy, and she told me about the science fair. And I get to help?”

“I thought you were too busy,” I said. I wanted to stay mad at him. But he was so wide-eyed, he reminded me of a colt.

“Too busy to invent with you? Are you serious? Winnie, this could be the start of something big!”

“You want to help?” I asked, afraid maybe we still weren't understanding each other.

“Of course I'll help! We're going to come up with the best ever Willis invention! Willis and Willis! Come on! Let's start right now!”

I grinned at Dad, and he grinned back. It felt like more eye contact than we'd had in weeks.

Then we walked to the house, my dad's arm around my shoulder. He didn't even wave good-bye to Madeline.

For the next hour Dad and I sat at the kitchen table, plotting my invention for the science fair. Actually, I sat. Dad kept popping up, as if he had springs for legs. Each idea set him off like a Jack-Willis-in-the-box.

I told Dad about the horse hat and the horse-scent air freshener. He jumped up for both ideas, but they didn't have wide enough “crowd appeal,” he said.

Dad paced while I stared at the box of sugar-substitute packets Lizzy keeps on the table for Dad's coffee. “Hey! How about fake sugar cubes?” I suggested. “Horses love sugar, but it's bad for their teeth.”

Dad sprang out of his seat but dropped back into it, frowning. “Too many patents involved.”

I was running out of ideas, but I didn't want to let Dad down. “What about a hoof pick that's regular on one end, but—”

Dad didn't even bother to spring up. “Breadth, Winnie. Think crowd appeal.”

I thought
crowd appeal,
but it didn't help.

We sat in silence so long that I had to fight my eyelids to keep them from shutting. I'm sure the wheels were whirring in Dad's brain, but mine had shut down.

Outside, wind blew branches against the kitchen window. Raindrops plinked, then pelted the roof. I hoped Lizzy and Geri were keeping dry. I thought about Kaylee's Buckskin Bandit and hoped he was safe for the night. My stomach hurt just thinking about it.

“Dad,” I said at last when I couldn't herd my wild thoughts. “Is it okay if I take my shower? Could we pick this up in the morning?”

Dad's mouth sagged, but he said, “Sure. Maybe we need to sleep on it.”

I hung a washcloth on the bathroom doorknob, our way of alerting people that the bathroom's occupied. The lock had been broken for months. I ran hot water into the tub. We really just have a bathtub, not a shower. But Dad had rigged a shower hose.

I turned the dial and waited for the water to shoot through the hose. Then I held it over my head and pretended it was a real shower. I wanted to wash away most of the day—every thought about birthdays and abused horses. The only pictures I wanted to hang on to were my ride with Nickers and the look on Dad's face when he'd come into the barn to tell me he wanted us to be the Willis and Willis invention team.

“How was the shower?” Dad asked when I came out in pj's, my head wrapped in a towel.

I sighed. “I wish we had a real shower, with 10 nozzles that could spray me at the same time.”

Dad sprang from his easy chair. “Eureka!”

“Huh?”

“Eureka! It's what the Greek mathematician Archimedes cried over 2,100 years ago when he landed onto an earthshaking discovery! ‘Eureka! I found it!'”

“I know what it means, Dad. Why did you say it?”

“Winnie, you are following in the footsteps of the great! And both discoveries sprouted in the fertile soil of an ordinary bathtub. Amazing!”

I wasn't getting any of this. “Dad—?”

“We'll assemble a Magnificent Multishower! Ten shower heads—no, 12—running up and down the shower stall on all four sides.” Dad paced in a tight circle. He reminded me of a nervous Thoroughbred.

I couldn't imagine bringing a shower into our school gym. Besides, it didn't have anything to do with horses. “You know, Dad, I was just saying that stuff about the shower because my arm got tired holding up our hose.”

But Dad was in another world. “Junkyard. Warehouse. Army supply. Cold water, hot water.”

“Maybe we should sleep on it?” I suggested.

Dad turned wide eyes on me. Sal, my classmate who owns Amigo, the Mini, says she thinks my dad is handsome for an old person. I guess his big brown eyes and black curly hair are his best features. But tonight they gave him a wild, lion-tamer look. “This is it, Winnie! We will invent the Multishower!”

I still thought it was a dumb idea. But I was so tired I would have agreed to invent another Summer Spidell. Although I might have tried for a nice version.

“Okay, Dad.” I yawned. “We'll get on it first thing in the morning.”

“Morning?” Dad laughed like a mad scientist. “First rule of invention: Strike while the iron's hot! To the workshop, Winnie! There's work to be done!”

I followed Dad to the chilly workshop and listened as he rattled off plans and schedules. He didn't seem to notice as the shop grew colder and I grew sleepier.

I don't know what time we stopped working because when I woke up, daylight was streaming through my bedroom window and I was in bed. Dad must have carried me there. The last thing I remembered was Dad whistling “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing.”

Lizzy's bed hadn't been slept in. Her half of the room looked like a tornado had blown everything over to my half, leaving hers neat and clean, and mine jumbled. I hoped she and Geri hadn't gotten drenched in the backyard.

I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and stumbled to the kitchen. Lizzy had left me a note:

Winnie, we let you sleep. Dad said you were up late inventing. Geri and I are going down by the creek to see if the snakes are out yet. Help yourself to muffins. —Love, Lizzy

P.S. Lizzy and I stayed dry as a bone in our sleeping-bag tents. —Geri

I bit into a cornflake muffin.

The phone rang. Before I could answer it, Dad zoomed in from the workshop and grabbed the receiver. “Willis and Willis Inventors.” He squinted at me and pointed to the workshop. Interpretation: Get to work!

“Hello, Hawk,” Dad said.

I started for the phone, but Dad waved me off.

“I'm afraid Winnie can't ride today. We're working on Winnie's invention.”

“Dad!” I held out my hand for the receiver.

“I think Winnie wants to talk to you for a second.” Dad raised his eyebrows as he handed over the phone.

For a month I'd been griping because Dad didn't want to spend time with me. I couldn't desert him now, even though I would have loved to ride with Hawk. “Guess I can't ride today, Hawk,” I said into the phone.

“I heard,” Hawk said. “Just as well, I suppose. Mother wants more publicity photos.”

“What's she do with all those pictures?” My dad never even bought the school's photo packages.

“Mother dreams of making me into a model.” Hawk didn't sound like she shared the dream.

“Does she know you're 13?”

Hawk laughed. “According to my mother, 13 is prime for catalog models. I am waiting for her to outgrow this modeling fantasy. Sounds like your dad has a new dream too. Willis and Willis Inventors?”

“Don't ask,” I said. “Are you doing a project for the science fair?”

“Yes. But it is not very inventive. Mother takes all my free time with these trips to the studio. All I have come up with is—do not laugh—bird diapers.”

In the background, I heard squawking, then
“Ring, ring! Hello?”
I recognized Peter Lory, Hawk's chattering lory, an Indonesian parrot with a good vocabulary. The real Peter Lorre was an actor who played gangsters in old crime movies Hawk watches on late-night TV.

“Peter doesn't sound too happy about your invention,” I commented.

“He hates the diaper. The parakeets are good sports, though. And mother does not mind so much when they fly around the house if they wear diapers.”

“Winnie!” Dad shouted from the workshop.

“I have to go, Hawk.”

“See you Monday.”

The second I hung up, the phone ran again. I snatched it up, thinking Hawk had forgotten something. “Hawk?”

“Madeline. Hello, Winnie. Is your father home?”

I thought about saying no. Technically, the workshop wasn't home really. “He's in the workshop,” I admitted. “We're pretty busy.”

We didn't speak for a second. Then she said, “May I speak with him, please?”

I thought about saying no. Dad wouldn't have let me talk to Hawk if I hadn't been in the room. “Okay.”

I jogged to the workshop. “Dad, Madeline's on the phone. Should I tell her you're too busy to—?”

He brushed past me in his rush for the phone. “Winnie, see if you can get those screws out of the shower door while I talk to Madeline.”

“Okay. But I have to do barn chores first.”

“All done,” Dad said, picking up the phone.

“What?”

“I asked Lizzy to do them so we could get down to business.”

“Our Lizzy did barn chores?” Lizzy would happily hold snakes, lizards, and bugs. But she sweats if she gets within 10 feet of a horse.

“She wasn't crazy about the idea,” Dad admitted. “But once I explained our urgency with your invention, she agreed to help. Geri too.”

Unbelievable.