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Authors: Diane Duane
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forty.”
Emer sighed. “Yeah, well, I’m still worried about my house.”
Uchenna blew out an annoyed breath. “Eames, your house is going to be fine. You’ve got alarms all over the place. It’s the horses I’m wondering about now! Listening to Belle, if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think we hallucinated them.”
Emer snorted. “Oh? And did I hallucinate the mud on my trainers?”
“Oh, so there was mud?” Uchenna said, and had to snicker.
All around them, kids were getting up as the last few minutes before the post-lunch classes passed by. “Yes there was,” Emer said, “and there’ll be plenty more on the hockey field.”
“So don’t wear your good trainers there,” Uchenna said. “Still meeting me?”
“Yeah,” Emer said. “Because afterwards we’re going to go out and look for those horses.”
“Yes we are,” Uchenna said. “And we’ll see what we can find out between now and then.”
*
But there was little to find. Three classes’ worth of note passing, very clandestine texting (because texting in class was forbidden), and good old-fashioned leaning from desk to desk and whispering, told Uchenna nothing except that nobody had actually seen any horses. Though everybody claimed to know somebody who had, or else they knew somebody who knew somebody who had… Uchenna got increasingly cranky over this as the afternoon went on, and their teacher wound up being very cutting with her when she called on Uchenna for an answer later on and Uchenna hadn’t been paying attention to what was happening in the class. This in turn made Uchenna angrier still, so that when the bell rang at last for the end of the day, her mood was actively foul.
Mrs. Leenane was annoyed with her too, later, after Uchenna got changed into her field kit—the blue jersey T-shirt and the short team hockey skirt—and headed out to meet with the rest of the team in the smaller of the two Adamstown parks, two blocks away. It was their last practice before the game with the team from Presentation College in Naas the next day, and there was some tension in the air as the team divided itself up into red and blue sides, tying the little colored pinnie vests on over their field kit. But the rest of the team was tense for different reasons than Uchenna was: the mystery of the missing horses and the bad afternoon still had her fuming. She kept missing the ball, and Mrs. Leenane screamed at her a number of times, “What’s the matter with you, O’Connor, are you too mad to see straight? Mad won’t help you tomorrow afternoon! Cool yourself down and concentrate on the goal!”
Uchenna had no choice but to do just that, since all the rest of the people on her team, especially Joyce Donnelly who she really liked and enjoyed playing hockey with, were getting increasingly annoyed with her. All right, let’s get serious, she had to keep saying to herself: they depend on me, I’m the biggest girl on the team, and if I don’t get straight tonight about what plays I’m supposed to be part of, we’re going to tank tomorrow. All the same, between plays, while Mrs. Leenane was screaming at the others—she was an equal-opportunity screamer, and did not discriminate on grounds of race, religion or academic ability—Uchenna found her attention drawn again and again through the slowly falling dusk toward the northwestern side of the park and the view beyond it. The view was blocked by the trees that separated the park from the street, and by the houses between here and the fields—Emer’s house, among many others. But past there was the field they had been in last night, and Uchenna kept thinking, Whoever took those horses away has to have left some kind of trace. Tracks or something. The ground was pretty soft. If there was a car, a trailer, they’d have to have left some sign…
“O’Connor!” screamed Mrs. Leenane as Uchenna was lining up on a particularly juicy shot into the red side’s goal. “Less of the
Emer sighed. “Yeah, well, I’m still worried about my house.”
Uchenna blew out an annoyed breath. “Eames, your house is going to be fine. You’ve got alarms all over the place. It’s the horses I’m wondering about now! Listening to Belle, if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think we hallucinated them.”
Emer snorted. “Oh? And did I hallucinate the mud on my trainers?”
“Oh, so there was mud?” Uchenna said, and had to snicker.
All around them, kids were getting up as the last few minutes before the post-lunch classes passed by. “Yes there was,” Emer said, “and there’ll be plenty more on the hockey field.”
“So don’t wear your good trainers there,” Uchenna said. “Still meeting me?”
“Yeah,” Emer said. “Because afterwards we’re going to go out and look for those horses.”
“Yes we are,” Uchenna said. “And we’ll see what we can find out between now and then.”
*
But there was little to find. Three classes’ worth of note passing, very clandestine texting (because texting in class was forbidden), and good old-fashioned leaning from desk to desk and whispering, told Uchenna nothing except that nobody had actually seen any horses. Though everybody claimed to know somebody who had, or else they knew somebody who knew somebody who had… Uchenna got increasingly cranky over this as the afternoon went on, and their teacher wound up being very cutting with her when she called on Uchenna for an answer later on and Uchenna hadn’t been paying attention to what was happening in the class. This in turn made Uchenna angrier still, so that when the bell rang at last for the end of the day, her mood was actively foul.
Mrs. Leenane was annoyed with her too, later, after Uchenna got changed into her field kit—the blue jersey T-shirt and the short team hockey skirt—and headed out to meet with the rest of the team in the smaller of the two Adamstown parks, two blocks away. It was their last practice before the game with the team from Presentation College in Naas the next day, and there was some tension in the air as the team divided itself up into red and blue sides, tying the little colored pinnie vests on over their field kit. But the rest of the team was tense for different reasons than Uchenna was: the mystery of the missing horses and the bad afternoon still had her fuming. She kept missing the ball, and Mrs. Leenane screamed at her a number of times, “What’s the matter with you, O’Connor, are you too mad to see straight? Mad won’t help you tomorrow afternoon! Cool yourself down and concentrate on the goal!”
Uchenna had no choice but to do just that, since all the rest of the people on her team, especially Joyce Donnelly who she really liked and enjoyed playing hockey with, were getting increasingly annoyed with her. All right, let’s get serious, she had to keep saying to herself: they depend on me, I’m the biggest girl on the team, and if I don’t get straight tonight about what plays I’m supposed to be part of, we’re going to tank tomorrow. All the same, between plays, while Mrs. Leenane was screaming at the others—she was an equal-opportunity screamer, and did not discriminate on grounds of race, religion or academic ability—Uchenna found her attention drawn again and again through the slowly falling dusk toward the northwestern side of the park and the view beyond it. The view was blocked by the trees that separated the park from the street, and by the houses between here and the fields—Emer’s house, among many others. But past there was the field they had been in last night, and Uchenna kept thinking, Whoever took those horses away has to have left some kind of trace. Tracks or something. The ground was pretty soft. If there was a car, a trailer, they’d have to have left some sign…
“O’Connor!” screamed Mrs. Leenane as Uchenna was lining up on a particularly juicy shot into the red side’s goal. “Less of the
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