Chapter One: Razzles & A Jungle Jim

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"It Smells Like Rain"

Copyright. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter One: Razzles & A Jungle Jim

One Arizona summer, when the sun beat down on my back and the horse stalls smelled unusually stinky, I met a boy named Jesse Caulifield. I was thirteen. He was fifteen.

It's been eighty-three years and I can still smell the rain in the air, the freshly mowed grass, and the faint trace of horse.

I was bedding the stall of Daddy's new horse, Ginger, with a pitchfork, evening out the straw. I wiped the sweat from my brow and placed the tool against the stall's wall. I smoothed back my ponytail and reached for my bottle of water, taking a long swig of the cool refreshment.

"Cassidy!" My mother's voice called out across the ranch, and I looked over in her direction. She motioned for me to follow her, and I did so gladly. I didn't want to burn in this angry sunlight. I sprinted to the house, and when I got inside, following my mother to the dining room, I found there was a family seated at our table with my father and my brother, Connel. I paused in the doorway as I examined the family curiously. There was a woman, a man, a boy, and a little girl. The boy immediately caught my attention. He looked to be older than me, and he had the looks that any girl at my school would swoon for. A fit of coughs took over him, and the woman excused them, ushering him out of the door as I stood to the side. I turned my attention to Daddy.

"Cassie, come sit here." I did as my father told me, coming to sit in the chair beside him. He grinned his big Daddy smile, but I was still curious. I snuck a glance at the man and the little girl, and the girl waved at me.

"Cassie, these are our new neighbors. They live across the drive from us."

I shrugged. "So what?"

Daddy frowned at me. "Manners," he scolded. I lowered my head slightly.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. Now, as you can see, they have children around your ages, and you're going to show them around town. Okay?"

"Okay."

"That's all. Just wait for them on the front porch. You might want to get changed first. You smell gross." Daddy scrunched up his nose and I laughed, knowing he was teasing. Cleaning the horse stalls was a punishment, and I only had to do it alone if I had done something frowned upon. Apparently, running Mommy's horse through a patch of cacti was frowned upon. Mommy had to make her horse, Roadie, stand in buckets of ice cold water for an hour each day, and then she had to apply this weird gel to his hooves.

When I was done changing, I stood impatiently on the porch outside, waiting for the boy. The girl, whose name I found was Ellie, was talking animatedly to Connel, and his eyes were wide. I huffed out a sigh, and took one step down the porch, prepared to leave, when the screen door opened, and the boy walked out. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

"Let's go."

All four of us walked in silence, and I noticed how Ellie reached over and took the boy's hand. "It's okay, Jesse."

When we started to see signs of civilization, I cleared my throat.

"So, this is Town Square. It's basically where everything happens. There are more towns that way," I pointed to the right, where faint buildings could be made out, and continued, "but this is where we usually go for anything we need."

The town was decent sized, not too small, not too big. I glanced at Jesse from the corner of my eyes. I wanted him to be impressed. I wasn't sure about where he came from, but I didn't want him to think we were some hick town with small, western buildings, that had an average of seven shops in all. Our town wasn't like that. It served all of our needs. He didn't say anything, but only nodded. His eyes had dark bags under them, like he hadn't slept in an eternity, and I turned my attention to my feet, kicking at rocks as we walked, to distract myself from this intriguing boy. What was his story?

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