Wild Horse Spring (13 page)

“Can I offer you some coffee?” Mom stood by the counter and nervously wiped it with a sponge.

The sergeant shook his head. “Thank you kindly. I’m fine, ma’am. I’d like to ask some questions, if you don’t mind.” He looked at Stephanie, then at me, then at Stephanie, then back at me again. He had a squarish, lined face that seemed kind. “Last night a horse was hit on the beach. Those of us who live around here care pretty strongly about protecting them. Hitting
one of these horses is considered a hit-and-run misdemeanor and is punishable by a hefty fine. We need someone to help us understand what happened.”

“Is the horse okay?” I blurted out.

“It’s touch and go right now, and we hope she will be all right,” the sergeant said. “But it could have been an entirely different story.”

My heart squeezed with horrible pain, and I put my hand over my mouth. A sob escaped, and my vision went blurry. “Thank goodness!” I breathed.

“Oh, that’s a great relief,” Mom said.

“What about the foal?” I choked out.

“The herd manager hopes to save the foal too.” The sergeant looked at me thoughtfully. “I take it you were there last night?”

“I found her on the beach. She was trying to get up.” I couldn’t seem to stop crying. Every time I pictured the mare, struggling on the beach, I felt so bad for her, then I felt relieved. I couldn’t stop crying.

“So, why don’t you tell us what happened?”

I swallowed my tears and cleared my throat. “Well, I was with this guy, Cody, and when we found her, I borrowed his cell phone and called 911.”

“I see. So you reported the injured horse. And then what did you do?”

“I hung up.”

“Why did you hang up?”

I looked at the floor. “Because I had sneaked out, and I didn’t want anyone to find out about it.”

“I see.” The sergeant pursed his lips together thoughtfully. “So, how did it end up that you and Cody were together last night?”

“I just ran into him on the beach, and he wanted to come with me.”

“So he was already out on the beach when you got there?”

“Yes.”

“He could have been out there for several hours before you got there.”

I thought about it. “I don’t know how long he’d been there. But when he wanted to come with me, I finally said okay, and then we got the bikes and rode them down the beach.”

“Where were you going?”

“I’d seen another horse that had been bitten by a stallion earlier in the day, and I wanted to check on it.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Well, early in the morning.”

“Did Cody tell you why he was out on the beach in the middle of the night?”

“He said he couldn’t sleep. He was hoping to see some bioluminescence in the water.”

“Bioluminescence,” the sheriff repeated after me, raising his eyebrows. He looked at Stephanie. “Can you tell me about the accident?”

Stephanie’s eyes went wide, and then she said again, as she’d said so many times before, “It was just an accident. He didn’t mean for it to happen.”

She went on to describe the accident. Now that I wasn’t answering questions myself, I saw that the sergeant was typing notes on his laptop.

“How did you meet this boy?”

“Just talking on the beach, that’s all,” Stephanie said. “I thought he was nice,” she added. She didn’t look at me.

“We never would have let her ride his ATV if she’d asked permission,” Norm added quickly.

The sergeant looked back over at me. “So, anyway, you ran into the boy on the beach. Did he have the ATV with him?”

“No.”

“And you said you wanted to go check on that other horse, and he said he wanted to go with you? Did he say why?”

“No. He just wanted to go.”

“And as soon as you found the horse, you called 911. And then you hung up. Then what happened?”

“We hid in the sea grass to make sure that someone
came to take care of her. We watched you and the guy from the horse fund and the vet come up, and we saw the vet shoot her with the tranquilizing dart. Then we left.”

“Why did you hide?”

“I told you, because I had snuck out and didn’t want my parents to know I was out there.”

“So you weren’t hiding out of guilt for what you knew the boy had done earlier on his ATV.”

“No!” I said.

“How do you know he didn’t hit the horse earlier, before you ran into him?”

I stopped to think. “He would have acted differently when we saw it. He was just as surprised as I was.”

“But you don’t know for sure that he didn’t.”

I pushed my lips together tightly and glanced at Stephanie, then at the sergeant again. Answering that question might make it seem like Cody did it. I didn’t want to answer.

“Diana, you need to tell the sergeant the truth now,” said Norm in a warning voice.

“I am!” I sent Norm a smoldering look and felt a flash of anger. He thought I was thinking about lying! “I just am almost positive he didn’t hit the horse,” I said.

“Okay. Thanks.” The sergeant reached for his sunglasses as he got to his feet. “I may need to ask more questions later.”

“Cody is a nice guy,” Stephanie said impulsively, starting to follow the sergeant to the door. “He wouldn’t have—”

“Stephanie, let the sergeant do his job,” said Norm. “You really barely know that boy.”

“Thank you kindly,” said Sergeant Stone. “We have your contact information, and we’ll be back in touch if we need to. Meanwhile, if the young ladies can remember anything else that might be relevant, let us know.”

“We will,” said Norm, holding the door for the officer.

We sat in silence when the engine roared to life and the cruiser backed out of the driveway.

Then, just as I expected, Mom gave me a lecture on sneaking out and told me I was going to be grounded from the barn for another week after we got back from vacation.

“I guess we’re not going to the aquarium with Cody, then, are we?” Stephanie asked.

Norm and Mom looked at each other.

“If we don’t go,” Mom observed, speaking mostly to Norm, “they might think that we believe Cody is guilty.”

“Well,” said Norm, “we don’t know whether he is or not.”

“But this is America, and in America you’re innocent
until proven guilty,” Mom pointed out. “I think we should go ahead with our plans.”

Norm looked at Mom thoughtfully, then nodded and stood up. “Okay.”

“I’ll go over and make sure he still wants to go,” said Mom, looking at her watch. “Girls, go get yourselves ready.” She went down the front steps, and I watched through the screened door as she headed across the sand to the yellow house.

Without saying a word to Norm or Stephanie, I went up to my room and shut the door. I lay down on the bed and pictured the mare lying helpless on the beach last night. Again I could hear her moans, and I could see Dark Angel crying. Thank goodness they were okay so far.

I didn’t want to go to the aquarium or the Wright Brothers Memorial. All I wanted was to help the horses.

Stephanie’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, and her bedroom door opened and closed. I heard her closet door open, and the sliding sound of her dresser drawer.

I couldn’t hold back. I darted across the hall and pushed open her door. “Thanks a lot for getting me in trouble!”

Stephanie’s mouth flew open. “Well, you got Cody in trouble—by dragging him down the beach with you and using his cell phone to call 911.”

“I didn’t drag him! He wanted to come!”

“Girls!” Norm said in the sternest voice I’d ever heard him use. He came to the foot of the stairs. “That needs to stop right now.”

I went back in my room and slammed the door.

W
e had to drive back over the bridge onto Roanoke Island to get to the aquarium. The whole way over, Diana and I sat in complete silence, as far away from each other as we could. Cody sat in the middle, between us. The only conversation was when Diana begged to find out how the mare and foal were doing. Daddy was silent, with his hands tight on the steering wheel, and I knew he was really mad.

Finally Lynn called the Wild Horse Fund herself and
said, “Hi, I heard about the injured mare and her foal and was just calling to find out how they’re doing.” She listened for a minute and then repeated, “Both all right so far. Touch and go. Thank you.” She gave Diana a look and shut her phone.

Diana just burst out crying and turned her head to the window.

When we got to the aquarium, I got out of the car and waited, squinting in the sun, for Daddy. Diana got out and stood with Lynn, who put her arm around her and gave her a tissue. I’d wanted to do this, but now it was going to be awful. Cody looked totally depressed. He wouldn’t look at me, and to tell the truth I didn’t want to look at him either. Why had he sneaked out with Diana? Had they planned it before? It was hard to believe they’d just run into each other.

My feelings were so hurt. The two of them out last night running around the beach together, and me alone in my room not knowing anything about it.

Cody kept his hands in the pockets of his hiking shorts and just looked at the ground.

Daddy paid for our tickets and then said for us kids to go ahead through the aquarium, and that he and Lynn were going to catch up with us. We wandered away, but when I turned around and looked back, I saw Daddy and Lynn talking, and I knew they were discussing last night and the visit from the police.

I watched Cody and Diana. Did they seem different together? Did they exchange looks? Where they friends now … or something more?

Stop it!
I told myself.
Stop thinking like that
.

In the entrance to the aquarium was the jawbone, full of teeth, of a sixty-foot great white shark. It was huge, the size of an easy chair. We stood around awkwardly, reading the information about it. Diana walked away without saying anything to either Cody or me.

In the first room were coastal freshwater tanks, with a gross-looking giant salamander with an eellike body, as well as a giant catfish with whiskers. Two small tanks held snakes that Cody was checking out. A cottonmouth, the sign said, the only venomous North Carolina snake that can swim, and a whitish colored rattlesnake with black diamonds. Both snakes were stone still, looking at us with unblinking eyes. I watched, waiting for one to move, but neither one did. It was eerie. Maybe the snakes could feel the tension between the three of us.

The next room had wetlands and a high glass roof like a terrarium. Diana was already in there, watching the otters swim back and forth, weaving their slim, brown bodies through the water, leaping out, racing through their den, then diving under the water again. When Cody and I approached her, Diana left the otter
exhibit and moved to the alligators, obviously trying to get away from us.

After that was a separate room for sharks, and in the next room was a round central tank where stingrays swam with their flat sides up against the glass, flapping their wings. And guess who walked in? The two boys we’d seen riding ATVs yesterday! I could feel my face start to get hot the minute I saw them.

The boys didn’t see us at first. I overheard Buzz Cut say to Curly, “I’m afraid of my dad. Are you?”

“Kinda,” Curly said.

Then Buzz Cut and Curly started playing with their cell phones, laughing at something.

“Hey,” I said to Diana and Cody. “Check it out.”

“Uh-oh,” Cody said. “Those guys.”

At that instant they both looked up, saw us, and started laughing.

We walked away quickly and focused on a small tank nearby that contained a yellow octopus with eight delicate arms. An aquarium volunteer, a heavyset bald man with glasses, sat next to the octopus as the three of us stood in front of the tank and looked. A Mr. Potato Head lay at the bottom of the tank next to the octopus.

“We put Mr. Potato Head in there with all his attachments—arms and legs and eyes—and she took him
apart. She’s very intelligent, and she loves to play. She’s like a puppy dog,” said the man.

“Really?” Cody said, interested. It was true—Mr. Potato Head was missing everything. His eyes and legs were scattered around among the stones on the bottom of the tank.

“She is so much fun to watch,” the man said.

“That’s amazing. I didn’t know octopuses were playful,” I said. I thought it was sweet the way the man had become attached to the octopus.

“She’s a year old, and they only live for two years. I imagine she won’t be with us much longer,” the man added wistfully.

A sign on the tank said Do Not Tap on the Glass. Someone behind us reached out, with a snicker, and tapped the glass. I turned around and saw it was Curly.

The volunteer said, “No, no! That sign is serious. That octopus is very easily stressed. If she gets stressed, she turns red, and sometimes she’ll release blackish-blue ink.”

Diana darted over toward the boys. “Been riding ATVs much at night lately?” she hissed at them.

“What are you talking about?” Buzz Cut said. He gave her an angry look.

I could feel my heart beating wildly. Diana thought the boys had been the ones to hit the horse. Could they
have done it? We
did
see them chasing the horses on the ATVs. I was embarrassed, so I walked away and stood in front of a small tank, trying not to listen.

“What’s your problem?” Curly said to Diana. Then he went back to the octopus tank. “Hey, let’s see if we can get this octopus to squirt black ink.”

“That’s enough, young man,” said the volunteer. “I’ll not have you harassing the octopus. Move along, please.”

“Hey, Diana,” I said, heading for the next room. “Come on!” I hoped to distract her from the boys. She glanced at me and didn’t speak, then gave the boys a dirty look and walked with me to the next room.

The next room held a huge tank called the Graveyard of the Atlantic. About five sharks glided through the water, around and around a sunken submarine replica. I wondered how many times the sharks did that every day. The big tank made a humming sound that made me feel jumpy. Smaller fish shaped like torpedoes slid by the glass. Their round eyes, angled in their sockets, staring at us. A dark gray fish with a large head and whiskers swam by.