Free Dark Horse by Dandi Daley Mackall

up now. “You mean you didn’t tell them we were coming?”
    “We did discuss Thanksgiving Day. Nothing else though.” Catman’s mother smiles into the rearview mirror. “Mr. Coolidge and I love surprises.”
    “But what if they’ve got other plans? What if they don’t have room for me ? Or for Nickers?” I’ve been nervous enough about spending the week with people I don’t know. Put me with a dozen horses I’ve never seen before and I’m fine. But people? That’s a totally different story. I’ve never been great around strangers, and it doesn’t help to find out these people aren’t even expecting us.
    “Since early fall my brother and nephew have been lobbying for us to leave the sanctity of our Ohio abode and make a pilgrimage to the foreign soils of Illinois to celebrate Thanksgiving,” Catman’s dad says.
    “They weren’t lobbying to get Nickers and me here,” I whisper to Catman.
    “Peace out,” Catman whispers back. “It’s cool.”
    I press my nose to the cool window and stare at the stars. The black sky is filled with pinpricks of light. The gravel road changes to dirt. I peer through the back window at the trailer. It’s too dark to make out Nickers inside, though. I can’t wait to get her out of there.
    We turn up a long drive. Yellow light spills from several windows of a big farmhouse. Unlike the Ohio Coolidge home, this one looks like it’s in great shape. No boarded-up windows, no patched-up roof. And so far, no sign of a single plastic lawn ornament. “You’re sure this is the right place?” I ask.
    “Right on,” Catman answers.
    “The yard certainly is plain and undecorated,” Mrs. Coolidge observes.
    “Mother used to say I got the creativity in the family,” Mr. Coolidge confides.
    Catman turns to gaze out his own window. “Oh, man,” he mutters. “Like, total bummer.”
    I pop my seat belt and slide over to peer out his window so I can see what he sees. Where a barn must have stood only a week ago, there’s nothing but a pile of charred rubble. The horses were lucky to have lived through the fire, but they’ll probably never be the same.
    “Look! They’re all outside!” Mr. Coolidge shouts. “I’ll bet it’s a moon check.”
    Catman explains, “Gram Coolidge started it. Anyone, anytime, can call a moon check, and the whole family has to chill out under the stars.”
    Catman and I have sat for hours on his roof and watched the stars in Ohio. Sometimes his parents climb out the second-story window and join us. Maybe we were doing our own Ohio version of a moon check without realizing it.
    “Yes! There’s Mother!” Mr. Coolidge exclaims.
    His wife glances out her window, then taps the brakes until we come to a stop.
    Several of the people stretched out across the lawn sit up and look our way. Mr. Coolidge reaches over and honks the horn. Then he lunges to get out, but he’s still trapped in his seat belt.
    “Here you go, dear.” His wife unbuckles him. “Now, go give your mother a kiss.”
    Catman and I climb out of the backseat. My stomach is knotting up the way it always does when I’m around new people. “Go on ahead,” I tell him. “I need to get Nickers unloaded. I haven’t stretched her since Indiana.”
    “I’ll help,” he volunteers.
    “No thanks. I got it. Go say hi to your cousins and grandmother and everybody.” I give him a nudge.
    He grabs my hand, squeezes it, then takes off running, racing past his parents to the Coolidge crowd. Catman knows me well enough to understand that I need to be with Nickers before I face the masses. I watch him run straight to an older woman, wrap his arms around her, and spin her around. I’m guessing it’s his grandmother. I met her a few years ago when she came to Ashland to visit. What I remember most is her palomino hair. That, and the fact that she scared me a little until I realized she was extremely nice but extremely bossy. She struck me as a cross between a classy thoroughbred and a