Just for You

Chapter 3 - A Horse Shoe Over my Door

We work hard for a few days and at the end of it even I'm impressed. The house is now clean and all the furniture, including my bed, is in place. Dad fiddles around for a while and finally gets the electricity working, though the water's still a bit funny. The fireplace is in better condition so we have a roaring fire every night and I have to admit it does reach my bedroom. The fence is temporarily patched up and our next project is the garden.

Apparently there's no internet out here yet (Dad says he taking care of that), but there is in town, so when we actually get around to going into town, I plan to try to connect with civilisation again. I can't believe that we've been here almost a week and I haven't seen anyone but Dad and Todd. That's just to much for my brain to take. But Todd and I will start school on Monday so I'll see other human beings then... I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

***

I grip Todd's hand even harder as we stand at the bus stop. He is jumping up and down with excitement but I am NOT excited to say the least.

I found out last night that it is an hour's bus ride to school and an hour's bus ride home and we have to transfer in the middle! That means waking up at six in the morning and sitting, non-social, for sixty minutes on a stupid bus to get to a place I don't want to be anyway!

Dad tried to convince me that it wasn't that bad but he finally gave up and told me to "deal with it". As if I could do anything else! But I'm still steaming.

The bus pulls up and Todd bounds up the stairs and moves toward a couple of boys who he plonks down next to and begins a friendship. How can he be this confident on the first day at a new school and, in his case, the first day of school.

I find a seat at the front of the bus and settle in for a long ride. I see several girls who are probably in my grade but no one talks to me. It's like I'm invisible to them. I sit there for an hour without talking to a single soul. And things only get worst.

***

I storm through the gate and past Dad who is working in the garden. "How was it?" he calls after me. I stomp up the stairs and slam my bedroom door. What a day. In a total of six hours I have managed to:

Remain friend-less and invisible.

Get on the bad side of my English teacher upon sight.

Receive three assignments and a test in two days.

Cover the inside of my lunch box with peanut butter and jam when the ziplock bag that my sandwich was in broke. Then get laughed at.

What is it with me?

Back at home I was cool and collected at school, I was everyone's friend, I never ate alone. And now I can't even contact my old friends. If things don't start looking up I don't know what I'll do.

I slip on a T-shirt, jumper and pair of jeans. Then I pulled on my tennis shoes and leave the house via the back door, heading straight for the stables. I don't know why I am going there. It's just automatic. The moment I step inside and inhale the smell of old leather and hay and horses, I feel so much better. I walk into the room that they use to put the saddles and things in. There is part of an old bridle hanging on a hook. and a rotten table in the corner. I try to imagine how this room use to look. The kinds of horses that use to stable here. I don't know much about horses, but I have always marvelled at their strength and the loyalty they show to their owners.

I lean against the wall and close my eyes. Slowly I slide down to the ground and nestle myself there in the dirt.

As I place my hands on the ground either side of me, I feel something hard and cold, half buried in the hay. I wrap my fingers around it and pull it free. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I hold it in front of me and rub the dirt away with my thumb. It's an old horse shoe.

This horse shoe isn't bent or broken like some of the others around here. It is perfectly shaped, although a little rusty. I pull the remaining nails out of it and stare at it. Horse shoes are supposed to bring good luck, aren't they. I could use some of that right now. Maybe I can mount it above my door and see if things improve. I decide I will, if Dad will let me. Maybe it'll work. No harm in trying, right?

When I re-enter the house, Todd is telling Dad all about his day. His seemed to go a little better than mine. I know I need to get Dad in a good mood to ask him about the horse shoe, so I offer to cook dinner and I let him babble on about his new job working at the back of the little IGA in town without interrupting. Unpacking crates and boxes for a grocery store doesn't sound like something Dad would enjoy, but he seems to be pretty happy about it, so I guess if he's content, I am.

***

I go to sleep that night with a horse shoe nailed above my door, a wood fire warming the whole house and the hope of a better day tomorrow. Little do I know just how much things are about to change.