Runaway by Dandi Daley Mackall Page B

that was the most fun I’ve ever had!” I burst into laughter again.
    Hank has Blackfire tied just outside the pen, and I hear the horse sneeze. It sets me off all over again.
    “Did she hit her head?” Guinevere sounds sincerely worried.
    “I didn’t hit anything,” I say, my eyes watering from too much laughter. “Don’t you get it? I just rode a horse. My first horseback ride. And my first fall. Yeah, they were only seconds apart, but—”
    “You’ve never ridden before?” Guinevere demands.
    “Have now,” I answer.
    “Dakota!” Hank locks his fingers behind his neck, and his face grows as red as Kat’s wig. “Why did you say you’ve ridden before? I never would have put you on Starlight. And bareback?”
    I reach up and stroke Starlight’s soft muzzle. “She was wonderful! What a great horse for my first ride. Can we go again?”
    “Not today,” Hank says, sliding his hands under my arms and pulling me up. “Go inside and take care of that elbow.”
    My elbow looks dirty and bloody, but I’m still too high on horses to feel it.
    I’m so caught up in the rush of my first horse ride, trying to relive the seconds I was actually on Starlight’s back, that I don’t see Wes as I come out of the barn. Thunk! We slam into each other, and I almost go down a second time. “Oops. Didn’t see you there, Wes.”
    “Have you got it in for Taco, or what?” he demands. At Wes’s heels, Rex starts barking.
    Taco sticks his ratlike head out of Wes’s denim jacket.
    “Sorry. I didn’t see the dog.” But I can’t afford to slip into defense with Wes. He’s shaping up to be my opponent—his call, not mine. “ You ran into me , by the way.”
    “What are you doing here, anyway?”
    Rex barks louder, but not at me. He’s barking at Wes. And the angrier Wes gets, the more Rex barks at him.
    “Riding horses,” I reply. It sounds so good that I have to fight off a grin.
    “I don’t mean here !” Wes shouts, pointing at the barn. “I mean here !” His arm sweeps the entire farm. “Why are you still here?”
    I don’t think there’s any way he could have read my e-mails with Neil, so I act clueless. “I’m a foster, Wes, just like you.”
    “You’re planning to bolt the minute you get the chance,” Wes says. “I saw it in your eyes the day you got here.”
    I could deny it, but Wes knows. He knows, but he’s not going to tell. Wes wants me out of here as much as I want out. “So why are you still here, Wes? Thought you said you were going back to live with your mother. Aren’t you getting out of here?”
    “Yeah. I was just hoping you’d be gone first.” He brushes past me and into the barn, with Rex barking after him.
    * * *
    “What did you do to your arm?” Kat rushes to me as if I’ve lost my arm instead of scraped my elbow.
    “I’m fine, Kat. I rode a horse!”
    Kat is less than impressed. She lifts my arm for a better look at the bleeding elbow. “We have to clean the wound.”
    It’s hardly a wound. But I admit it’s stinging now.
    “Come on.” Kat heads upstairs and I follow.
    She leads me to our joint bathroom and makes me sit on the toilet lid while she digs through the medicine cabinet. She uses cotton balls to dab on rubbing alcohol, which stings like crazy. Then she puts on ointment and follows up with a bandage.
    “Impressive, Kat,” I say, meaning it. “Where did you learn all this?”
    “Hospitals, mostly.”
    “So, are you going to be a doctor, like Annie?”
    Kat shrugs. Then she coughs. She turns her head and keeps coughing for a solid minute.
    “Kat? Want a glass of water or something?” I have no idea what to do.
    Then, just like that, she stops. “Sorry about that. I’m fine. How’s the elbow?”
    I wave it like a chicken wing. “Good as new.”
    * * *
    That night, my daring rise . . . and fall . . . on Starlight monopolizes dinner conversation. Wes stays out of it, but everybody else can’t seem to let it go. I don’t mind. I like reliving