A Hourse to Love by Marsha Hubler Page A

noisy room.
    “Hey, look who’s coming this way!”
    Skye took a sip of juice as her eyes settled on a beautiful blonde dressed in designer jeans, expensive clogs, and a vest. She walked like a model down a runway, carrying a ful tray and heading straight toward Skye’s table. Skye’s muscles tensed and her eyes drew into narrow slits.
    It was Hannah Gilbert in al of her beautiful, snotty glory.
    “Excuse me,” Hannah said condescendingly as she placed her tray on the table and pul ed coins from her fancy shoulder purse.

    “Why?” Skye snapped. “What’d you do?” She and Sooze snickered.
    “I’d like to get to that pop machine behind you, if you don’t mind.”
    “No, we don’t mind,” Sooze barked. “Go right ahead.”
    “Excuse me,” Hannah said, “but y o u are in the way. Would you both move?”
    “We are n o t moving,” Skye announced as she eyed Mr. Peters, the cafeteria monitor, on the other side of the room. “Why don’t you slither under the table?”
    Hannah threw her head back and let out a loud sigh. She folded her arms and tapped her foot. “I figured as much from white trash like you!” Skye’s face flushed, and she rocketed out of her seat. Before Hannah knew what was coming, Skye cocked her fist and punched Hannah right in the face, sending her staggering backward into another table.
    Mr. Peters came running, yel ing at the top of his lungs, “Everybody stay seated! Calm down! No one leaves this room.”
    Sooze jumped up from her chair with her eyes as big as her spaghetti plate. “Man, are you in b-i-g trouble now! What’d you do that for?” Skye stood with her fists stil clenched like a boxer who was so surprised he won the match he didn’t know what to do next. Her mouth was hanging open, her face was flushed, and al she could think of was Chesterfield and never seeing Champ again.
    Petrified, she scanned the room. Everyone was looking in her direction — the place was as silent as a morgue. A crying Hannah held her bleeding nose, her body quivering in shock.
    Skye shoved past Sooze and ran out of the cafeteria before Mr. Peters could reach her table. In the hal , she stopped, took a breath, and looked in both directions. A ray of outside light peeked in as a door opened to her left. Skye raced toward it. As a line of students from gym class filed in, she pushed her way past and ran as fast as she could off the school grounds and down the street toward the center of town .
    This time , I’m dead meat , she thought .
    Chesterfield , here I come!
    Skye never looked back.

chapter nine
    R unning. It seemed like Skye was always running.
    Before moving to Keystone Stables, she ran for fun, for the thril of the chase, just to see if she could get away. Back then she didn’t care if she got sent to Chesterfield or any other lockup. Her rotten life was worthless anyhow. But this time it was different. She was running away from Champ.
    Skye huddled next to a dumpster at a pavilion nestled between budding maple trees at the city park. She continued to pant, not only from running twenty blocks in the May sun but also from the fear that now gripped her heart. This time running was no joke. She had too much at stake, and if she could undo it al she would.
    “Stupid, stupid!” Pounding her forehead, Skye agonized over her latest stunt. She pul ed her knees to her chest and focused on a bal field hugged by a chain link fence and bil boards. She pictured Robin running around the bases after smashing a softbal over the fence.
    Why can’t I be like her? Skye asked herself. How can she be so strong inside and out?
    Skye’s thoughts shifted to Hannah. Miss Priss deserved to have her lights punched out. But why did it have to happen that way — in front of the whole world?
    Then there were the Chambers and Maranatha.
    What will they say? Will they even give me a second chance? I don’t want to go to Chesterfield!
    And what about Champ, the only thing she cared about in the world? She