Ivy Takes Care by Rosemary Wells

mountain, no problem, but we don’t want you going alone as far as Spooner Lake.”
    Her mother added, “It’s dark at four o’clock nowadays. You gotta go in the early morning, and you gotta have company on that ride over the mountains.”
    Ivy knew who the company would have to be. She didn’t want to go over the mountain with Billy Joe. She didn’t want to share her pay with Billy Joe, who was sure to demand half her salary. She would have to say no to the Montgomerys.
    “But Ivy, you come so well recommended by Dr. Rinaldi,” said Mrs. Montgomery encouragingly on the telephone. “How about this? Weekdays after school, you could ride as far out as our place at Spooner Lake on the number-six school bus. The school bus goes right by our mailbox. After you feed and water the animals, you could catch a ride back to town with the mailman; he never gets out to our ranch much before five in the evening anyway. I’ll speak to him and see if he can pick you up and bring you home on his way back to town each weekday. Then on the weekends, you can ride your horse back and forth in the daylight.”
    It was a deal after all. Weekdays Ivy would travel by school bus and mailman. Billy Joe and the trip across the mountains would be weekends only. Ivy figured she could pay Billy Joe fifty cents out of her dollar a day, two days a week. A dollar a week would keep him in bubble gum and fireworks for the four weekends required. She wished she had Inca for company instead of a troublemaking boy like Billy Joe.
    “Don’t think for one minute you’re gonna get rich, Billy Joe,” said Ivy. “I can only afford to pay you half my weekend salary, and you gotta help me, too.”
    But Billy Joe’s eyes sparkled at the mention of Spooner Lake and Spooner Summit. “I have a secret plan!” said Billy Joe. “I bet you straight up I come out of this richer ’n you! I know something about that mountain east of Spooner Lake.”
    Ivy knew better than to ask what Billy Joe’s harebrained secret plan was.
    After school let out on her first Montgomery day, Ivy waited for the number-six bus to pull up and load its kids. A voice behind her piped up.
    “Ivy! What are you doing on the six bus?”
    It was Annie. She stood in the wind in full riding habit, shiny black paddock boots, fawn jodhpurs, and a velvet hard hat under her arm. The wind blew her tweed hacking jacket open for a moment, and Ivy could read the label on the silk lining: YOUNG RIDERS’ CLUB. SAKS FIFTH AVENUE. NEW YORK .
    “Oh, I’m working,” said Ivy, “taking care of someone’s horses out at Spooner Lake.”
    “Working!” said Annie. “You didn’t tell me!”
    “How could I have told you?” asked Ivy. “When?”
    A cloud seemed to pass over Annie’s eyes. But at that moment, her mother drew up in their car, scattering school-yard gravel underneath.
    “Let’s talk, Ivy!” said Annie. “I hate those girls!”
    Ivy longed for Annie to explain who “those girls” were, but there was no time. Annie tossed her hard hat onto the backseat, onto a pile of mail, and jumped into the car.
    Ivy could smell Annie’s mother’s perfume as the car door stood open. She knew it as well as the smell of her own kitchen.
    “Dear!” said Annie’s mother. “We’re all going to Colorado to ski the day after Christmas. Won’t you come along? We have an extra ticket!”
    Ivy hesitated. She wanted this badly. But she answered, “I have to work. I’m taking care of some horses out near Spooner Lake.”
    “But surely . . .” began Annie’s mother.
    “Couldn’t Billy Joe take over for you? Come on, Ivy,” said Annie.
    Again Ivy hesitated.
Why did I take this job?
she asked herself angrily. But there was no getting around it. “Billy Joe is not responsible,” she answered in a small voice. “It’s . . . I’ll make thirty dollars toward college, and I can’t get out of it.”
    In Annie’s eyes and in her mother’s was the flicker of recognition of another world. One