Free The Way Home by Becky Citra Page A

dining-room table. The radio was on all the time, day and night, with news about the fire.
    How fast was it moving? Was it coming toward them? Not even Oliver knew for sure.

Chapter Two
    Tory took in a deep breath of sweet hay and leather. She loved the way the barn smelled. She took Lucky’s saddle and bridle off, brushed his shaggy white coat, and put him in his stall.
    Tory had learned how to ride and look after a horse in her first foster home. She had moved into that home when she was four years old because her mother, who was still just a teenager, wasn’t able to look after her properly.
    For a while Tory’s mother had visited her, but then the visits had stopped and Linda, the social worker, told Tory that her mother had died. Tory had thought she would keep on living with that foster family forever. But when she was eight years old, her foster father got an important new job in Europe, and Tory wasn’t allowed to go with them.
    She moved again, into her second foster home.
    That home didn’t work out at all. Tory and the foster mother, Janice, fought all the time. Janice was always blaming Tory for things she hadn’t done. When Tory defended herself, Janice said she was lying. After a year, Janice decided that she didn’t want to be a foster mother anymore. Right in front of Tory, she told Linda that she couldn’t put up with Tory’s temper. Blaming Tory again!
    Linda told Tory she was sorry about her bad luck. She promised she would find her another family that wanted her. Until then, just for the summer, Tory had to live with Oliver and Cathy.
    It made Tory’s throat ache to think about all this, so she thought about Lucky instead.
    On hot days Oliver and Cathy kept the horses inside the barn, away from the flies. While Tory was brushing Lucky, three heads popped over their stall doors to watch: Julia’s bay horse, Barnabas; a gray horse called Destiny; and a chestnut called Orpheus.
    The other four stalls were empty. That morning, Oliver had loaded the four horses that belonged in them into the horse trailer. He had taken them to a family called the Mathesons who had a farm far away from the fire. He said he was preparing for a possible evacuation.
    Lately Tory had heard the word evacuation a lot. People on the radio were talking about it all the time. It meant that if the forest fire came much closer, they would have to grab as many belongings as they could and run to safety.
    Tory wasn’t too worried. She could pack her few things in her brown duffel bag and backpack in five minutes. She’d done it before. But she couldn’t imagine what Julia would do. Julia’s purple and white bedroom was crammed with more toys, stuffed animals, books, and clothes than Tory had ever seen in her entire life.
    She said good-bye to Lucky and walked to the house. It was the grandest house she had ever lived in. It was built of logs, and the front came up to a high pointed roof and was full of huge windows.
    The first day Tory had come here, she had expected to see dogs and cats (didn’t all farms have dogs and cats?), but there were none here. When she asked about that, Oliver had frowned and said, “Seven horses are enough to feed and look after.” But the truth was that Oliver didn’t like dogs. He said they either roamed onto neighbors’ farms or barked all night. And Cathy didn’t like cats. She didn’t like the way they stared.
    Tory had known that when Oliver said “seven horses” he was talking about the valuable show horses, but she had muttered, “You mean eight .” Oliver always forgot about Lucky.
    A red truck was parked in front of the house today. It belonged to Mrs. Beeson, Julia’s riding teacher. Tory went straight to the kitchen to get a glass of milk. The kitchen was spotless, gleaming with stainless steel, and she was always afraid she would spill something. She took the heavy milk carton out of the fridge,