no idea how to answer the questions without giving away her identity and getting herself in big trouble.
With perfect timing once again, the speakers blared.
“Attention, folks! We have a winner. Young Molly Peebles riding Kazzam. They won by a record eight lengths!”
The crowd erupted again into cheers and hoots and stamping feet. Evie thought they’d won by more, but she wasn’t about to complain.
“She’s the youngest person to win in the ten years we’ve held the race. Molly takes away one thousand dollars in prize money, plus five hundred and eighty dollars as her share of the purse! She’s a lucky, lucky girl!”
A stout man in a Homburg hat stepped forward. He wore old-fashioned English country clothes with a plaid vest. Evie imagined that he thought it hid his fat belly. He waved a large white envelope high in the air and turned around to show it to the crowd in the stands.
The announcer introduced him, bellowing over the sound system, “Cast your eyes over to the track, folks. You’ll recognize Murray Planno, our esteemed judge — he’s a racing steward at Woodbine Race Track. He’ll now present our winner with the prize money.”
Murray Planno took his cue. He pivoted on his heel and handed Evie the envelope with a grand flourish. “Well done, Molly Peebles. The little lady on the little black horse!” he said loudly. “Nicely done!”
Evie continued to smile broadly. She accepted the envelope and nodded her thanks, while her eyes searched for the best way to get out of the park, away from all the questions. She spotted an opening.
“Molly!” called a photographer. “I need one with you holding the envelope!”
“Molly!” called another. “I’d like to get your story for the Orangeville Banner !”
“Molly!”
“Molly!”
“Molly!”
They were closing in.
Evie stuffed the big envelope into her waistband. She cupped an ear with one hand and shook her head, pretending she couldn’t hear their questions over the din of the crowd. “Let’s go, Kazzam,” she whispered, and squeezed her calves together with purpose.
Kazzam leaped forward into a canter. Evie guided him toward the stands, waving and mouthing thank-yous to the appreciative audience. She and Kazzam had given them a show and now the show was over. Almost.
She pulled on Kazzam’s reins and sat back, asking the horse to rear straight up in the air. He did, and she held him in the pose for as long as he was steady, and then released the pressure so he’d drop his front feet to the ground. As soon as his hooves touched down, he galloped through the hole in the crowd, past the entrance gates, and directly toward the gravel road behind the stands.
Exit, stage right.
Yolanda
The morning began to heat up as Evie and Kazzam trotted toward home. They took a shortcut down a lane beside a stone barn, which had been built into the hill more than a century ago. Evie liked these old Ontario “bank barns,” because the thick stone walls kept the inside cool all summer and held the heat of the animals in the winter. Evie thought that horses seemed more content in them than in modern barns.
She glanced behind herself. No sign of the dented black sedan that had tailed them from the fairgrounds. She and Kazzam had ducked off the road and trespassed through the fields to avoid it. She hoped that they’d lost it for good.
She slowed the little black racehorse to a walk as they neared the gravel road. He really needed cooling down. They must get back to Maple Mills Stables before anyone noticed Kazzam was gone, but there was no rush, Evie thought. He wouldn’t be missed until noon.
Kazzam’s real name was No Justice, and no justice was exactly how it felt to be misunderstood and underrated. She and Kazzam shared those labels. Too bad today’s success had to be kept secret. Evie snorted. How she’d love to look her father in the eye and say, “We won!” But she couldn’t. And wouldn’t. He was terrifying. Her own personal bogeyman.
Her father could go from smiling to white rage in two seconds. Worse, she was never exactly sure what would cause his anger or how he would react. He was able to reduce her to jelly with a whisper.
It had always been like that. When Evie was eight, she had a paint pony named Chiquita. She loved her with all her heart, and used to climb on her bareback in the field and go for little jaunts when nobody was around. Her father disapproved. One day, he caught her at it. Without saying a word, he grabbed Chiquita by her halter and began to beat her with a whip. The pony was frantic. Evie begged him to stop. It didn’t make sense. He should punish her, not the pony. It was her fault, not Chiquita’s. Her pleas fell on deaf ears.
Grayson Gibb knew that the most effective way to make his point was to hurt the animals Evie loved. She never rode Chiquita again without permission, but she also never trusted her father again. He baffled her. He made her wary. He’d taught her a lesson that day. There was only one way to survive, and that was to keep quiet and as far away from him as possible.
And then, there was her stepmother. Evie sighed in frustration. Paulina was much less complicated but totally irritating. Evie was eight years old when Paulina had moved to Maple Mills with her daughter, Beatrice, and made it very clear that Beatrice was the princess of the house, not Evie. Simply put, Paulina and Evie had never gotten along.
The birth of their brother, Jordie, had helped a little because it tied the family together — Evie was Grayson’s kid, Beatrice was Paulina’s kid, and Jordie was both. It also helped that Jordie was such a nice kid. Aside from Jordie, Evie’s family life was a mess. She shook her head to erase the images of her unpredictable father and selfish stepmother. Anyway, that was old news.
The new news was that she’d totally embarrassed herself at school. Actually, “embarrassed” didn’t cover it a fraction, thought Evie. Try “mortified.” She blushed deep red just thinking about it.
It had all started when her friend Amelia told her that Mark Sellers liked her. So she asked him to a party. He told Evie that he couldn’t go and then said snarky things about her to Amelia, who thought they were funny and posted them on her Facebook wall. It was awful. Really awful.
When Evie read how everybody, even her so-called best friends Cassie, Hilary, and Rebecca, plus kids at other schools, jumped on the bandwagon, she panicked and hurled her cellphone from the school bus window into the Credit River in Cheltenham. She didn’t want to know how crazy they thought she was to imagine that Mark, a really popular guy, would want anything to do with her.
Immediately, she’d rued her impulsive reaction. If she could’ve leaped into the river after her cell, she would’ve. Now she had no phone, no connection with school, and no way to know what was going on. She couldn’t even check Facebook, because she wasn’t allowed to use the computer at home. Worst of all, she had no idea if she had any friends left. Evie’s face twisted with regret as she pictured her phone at the bottom of the deep, fast-flowing river. Too late now, she thought.
Whatever,
