Free Sliding On The Edge by C. Lee McKenzie

before Mrs. Heady collects the
papers, so I open the textbook she handed me on my way in and start
the reading assignment written on the board. It doesn’t take long
to lose myself in the story for tomorrow’s discussion, so I don’t
see Mrs. Heady until she’s hovering over me.
    “ And what are you doing?”
she asks, leaning over and whispering in my ear.
    I want to say something like, “Eating
cookie dough. What do you think?” “Reading,” I say, telling the
truth.
    “ You’ve finished your
essay?”
    I nod and hand her my paper. She’s on
her way to the front of the room when she stops with her back to
me. If she’d been a car, she would have skidded and spun out. She
brings my paper closer to her face, cranks her head side to side
like she’s trying to rid her neck of a nasty crick, and then turns
to look at me over her shoulder.
    I shrug and lower my eyes to the Aesop
Fable about a boy and a wolf.

Chapter 17
    Shawna
     
    I survive my first week in Sweet River
High and wake up to Sunday quiet. On Sundays the ranch is a whole
different world. Instead of whistling his horses to him, Kenny
Fargo sits on the front porch with his feet propped on the rail,
reading the paper. Kay doesn’t stomp down the back steps and toward
the barn, either. She spends the day in her office. Even Buster
isn’t up and doing his weekday job. There’s no nipping at the sheep
to keep them out of the garden; instead he stretches out in a sunny
patch like funky yard art.
    Kay comes out of the kitchen with a
mug of coffee in her hand, and passes me as I’m looking out the
window at rural America, wondering why I ever got on that bus
leaving Vegas.
    “ There’s toast and cereal on
the table, Shawna. I’ve got paperwork to do,” she says before
closing her office door behind her.
    Sunday is about as exciting as having
a conversation with one of Kay’s sheep. I almost miss not being
dragged out to the barn.
    I eat breakfast, read the back of the
cereal box, and time how long I can hold my breath. I know all
about nightmares, but Sunday is a double nightmare. I push myself
away from the table, grab an apple, and cut it into chunks. Time to
do something. Anything!
    When I walk past the barn, two Sunday
boys are working. One is cleaning stalls and another is in the tack
room, working on a saddle. The one using my favorite rake gets my
attention. I love how his jeans hug his butt. He turns and catches
me staring.
    “ Hi.” He smiles and waves at
me.
    I don’t want any cozy communication
with him, so I shrug and look away.
    When he goes back to raking, I notice
he digs the rake in a little deeper. And I’m thinking he needles
pretty easy, and that should be fun when I’m bored around this
place. But then there are those jeans. I wander over to the fence
to scope out Drunk Floyd’s place. The old man isn’t outside. I wait
to see if he might pop out of his barn or come out from behind one
of those big oaks on the other side of his shack.
    When I’m pretty sure Drunk Floyd is
sleeping it off somewhere, I climb the fence and work my way around
the block foundation where it’s clear this place went up in flames.
Inside the knee-high walls, charcoal chunks lie scattered among the
weeds, sprouting around the junk—an oven door, a sink, a bucket. A
limp vine has a strangle hold on some rusty mattress springs, and
gophers are mining the ground from side to side.
    I go slow and quiet over to the black
horse. He keeps his head down, but he eyes me with every step I
take toward him. I get within three feet before he flattens his
ears and backs off. I take the chunks of apple out of the napkin
and hold them in my palm. He shakes his head and plows the ground
with his front hoof, but he doesn’t come closer. I sit down,
keeping my hand out. Still, he doesn’t move toward me. I know he
wants this apple the way he dips his head, but he keeps five feet
of space between us, watching.
    “ I’m a little tired of this,
black horse. Either