Burned by Kristi Holl

Author:Kristi Holl [Holl, Kristi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-310-39965-0
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Published: 2008-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

7

taking the heat

At loose ends, Jeri wandered around her dorm room Saturday afternoon, too agitated to settle down anywhere for long. After she jumped up for the fourth time during their movie, Rosa put it on pause. “Got ants in your pants or what?”

“Sorry.” She plopped back down in the beanbag chair and focused on the laptop screen. However, her mind kept worrying about Abby in the hospital, Tim getting fired, the three-legged race, the arsonist striking next …

She jumped up again. “Let’s get outside,” she said. “Wanna go watch Nikki ride?”

“No way, José.” Rosa shivered and pulled her comforter up to her neck. “The temperature dropped twenty degrees today.”

Grabbing her heavy coat, Jeri dug in the pockets for gloves. “See you later.” Outside, the wind blasted her, making her gasp. Rosa was right. It felt like spring had retreated back into winter in a matter of hours. Jeri considered going back for her stocking cap, but just covered her ears with her hands instead and struck out across campus. Walking fast helped her warm up, plus work off some nervous energy.

Soon her face was freezing though, and frigid air cut through her jeans. Up ahead was the Equestrian Center. It’d be cold in there too, but it’d be out of the wind. She might as well stop and watch Nikki practice. With the tri-state competition just ten days away, she practiced her dressage moves daily.

The riding ring was empty though, so Jeri headed to Show Stopper’s stall. Nikki looked surprised to see her.

“Hey! What’s up?”

“Nothin'.” Jeri leaned over the stall door. “Just bored, I guess.” She had what her mom called the fidgets. She watched Nikki brush her horse for a minute. “I think I’ll do that too. See ya.” She headed around to the other side of the barn to where her rental horse, Prancer, had his stall. She rode him for her weekly lessons. She liked to pretend he belonged to her, but she actually shared him with a dozen other girls.

As she rounded the corner, the lanky stable hand emerged just ahead from the tack room.

“Hi there, Jer,” Sam drawled, arms full with a saddle and blanket. “Y’all come to muck out stalls with me?”

“Sorry, no,” she said, laughing. “Has Loretta had her kittens yet?”

“Nope. Any day now. She’s big as a pig and has taken to hidin’ in the oddest places.” “I’ll keep an eye open for her.”

Jeri filled a black bucket with water, got a plastic bowl of oats from the barrel, and then filled Prancer’s hanging mesh bag with hay. After twenty minutes of brushing him, combing his mane and tail, and feeding him an apple from the bucket Sam always kept filled, she walked back to the dorm with Nikki.

Her turbulent feelings had settled some, at least enough to eat pizza and play four fast games of Ping-Pong with her friends. Even so, that night her fretful dreams were an odd mixture of Tim riding Prancer to the luau while she was fighting off the tentacles of a giant bean plant wrapped around her ankles.

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