Diehard Fangirl

Chapter 8

Summer is great. It doesn’t get dark until like, nine o’clock and I can run barefoot outside (when Marcus isn’t around, of course). Jamie and Cassie sleep over a lot, sometimes for two or three nights in a row! Sometimes we sneak out after dark with a flashlight and go trekking through the woods because there’s this house way, way back there and I know…I just know!…it’s haunted. 

There is one stinky thing about summer, though: Marcus always tries to put us to work at the barn. Lynne doesn’t mind because riding is her life. Alex is trying to save up money for a car and all of the campers in his group think he’s hot, a thought that makes me gag and want to puke. I should tell them about his farting habits, the huge burp he always ends his dinner meal with–something that drives my mother crazy-and how he spends a zillion hours in the bathroom doing Lord knows what!

I guess it’s not so bad, though, but only because I get to work with Jamie and Cassie. It would, however, be better if Marcus actually paid us. 

Apparently we are too young to be paid so Marcus says we are “in-training” which basically translates to free labor. When I try to argue this point, he always has a snappy comeback: “You are vull-een-tiers,” he says, that French accent annoying me to no end. After over thirty years in America, he actually believes that he doesn’t have an accent and I love to goad him about it. He gets so mad!

Anyway, vull-een-tiers or volunteers…either way you say it, I’m not getting paid and that just stinks.

Jamie, Cassie, and I work with the little camper kids and the smaller ponies. When the campers take their snack breaks and the head counselor is watching them, I like to teach Cooper little tricks. He was born at the barn just before the winter. Mom called him an “oops” baby. I, however, fell in love with him at first sight and spent my entire Christmas savings to buy him from Marcus. He’s my own foal: Super-de-Duper-Cooper. 

Today, I’m trying to teach him to bow like a proper gentleman. Jamie and Cassie are my captive audience, laughing when Cooper doesn’t do it and snatches the treat out of my hand. But, eventually, I put the treat under his chest in just the right place and he gets the picture’’’; extend one leg, bend head, get the magic carrot. 

“Good boy,” I say and hug his fuzzy little neck. 

Cassie glances over at the picnic tables filled with happy six, seven, and eight year olds. “Can you believe it? Two cookies and a small juice box! That’s what it takes to keep them happy?”

Jamie snorts and that makes me laugh. 

It’s true. All morning, they scream and yell, not listening to a word anyone says, running around like wild maniacs. But at the first mention of a snack, they transform into perfect angels. 

“So,” Cassie says as she jumps onto the fence, sitting on the top rail. “Any luck getting Ian to follow you?”

I shake my head. “No and don’t talk about him around Lynne. She was really peeved over that Twitter spree.”

Jamie snorts again and this time, Cassie, too, laughs. I, however, do not find it funny. After all, I was locked out of Twitter for spamming his account! That might have been the golden moment, the one time that he was looking and might have retweeted or followed me and BAM! Twitter stole that opportunity from me. Jerks.

For a few minutes, we stand there in silence, enjoying our break until the miniature cowboys and cowgirls realize that snack time is over. I stare at the far ring where the advanced riders are practicing jumping over oxers and combinations. 

I like riding horses and I’ve even been in a few Shows. But every time I fall in love with a horse and we make a connection (very important in horseback riding), Marcus puts that horse into the schedule for the general population to use. To say it’s discouraging is an understatement.