Wild Girl Wild Girl Read online

  ALSO BY

  PATRICIA REILLY GIFF

  FOR MIDDLE-GRADE READERS

  Eleven

  Water Street

  Willow Run

  A House of Tailors

  Maggie’s Door

  Pictures of Hollis Woods

  All the Way Home

  Nory Ryan’s Song

  Lily’s Crossing

  The Gift of the Pirate Queen

  The Casey, Tracy & Company books

  FOR YOUNGER READERS

  The Kids of the Polk Street School books

  The Friends and Amigos books

  The Polka Dot Private Eye books

  For Caitlin Patricia Giff,

  beautiful Caitie, with love

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books By This Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Aiken, South Carolina

  Chapter 2 - Jales, Brazil

  Chapter 3 - To John F. Kennedy International Airport

  Chapter 4 - New York

  Chapter 5 - Aiken, South Carolina

  Chapter 6 - The Farm

  Chapter 7 - Aiken, South Carolina

  Chapter 8 - Woodhill School

  Chapter 9 - New York

  Chapter 10 - Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

  Chapter 11 - The Track

  Chapter 12 - The Farm

  Chapter 13 - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

  Chapter 14 - Outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

  Chapter 15 - New York

  Chapter 16 - The Barn

  Chapter 17 - The Barn

  Chapter 18 - The Exercise Track

  Chapter 19 - Woodhill School

  Chapter 20 - The Stall

  Chapter 21 - The Farm

  Chapter 22 - The Race

  Chapter 23 - The Stable

  Chapter 24 - The Barn

  Chapter 25 - The Diner

  Chapter 26 - Woodhill School

  Chapter 27 - The Training Track

  Chapter 28 - The Barn

  Chapter 29 - The Beach

  Chapter 30 - Home

  Chapter 31 - Home

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  AIKEN, SOUTH CAROLINA

  Sudden light burst against the foal’s closed eyes. She needed to open them, and to get on her legs, which trembled under her. It was the only thing she knew, that struggle to stand.

  And a feeling of warmth, the smell of warmth.

  She opened her eyes and heaved herself up under that dark shape. Its head turned toward her, a soft muzzle, a nicker of sound.

  Milk. Rich and hot.

  She could see almost in a full circle. Another creature was nearby, its smell unpleasant, but she turned back to the mare.

  When she was filled with milk, she leaned against the mare; she felt the swish of the mare’s long tail against her face. She opened her mouth and felt the hair with her tongue.

  Safe.

  2

  JALES, BRAZIL

  My bedroom seemed bare without the horse pictures. Small holes from the thumbtacks zigzagged up and down the walls.

  Tio Paulo would have a fit when he saw them.

  Never mind Tio Paulo. I tucked the pictures carefully into my backpack. “You’re going straight to America with me,” I told them.

  Everything was packed now, everything ready. I was more than ready, too, wearing stiff new jeans, a coral shirt—my favorite color—and a banana clip that held back my bundle of hair. My outfit had taken almost all the dinheiro I’d saved for my entire life.

  “You look perfectly lovely,” I said to myself in the mirror, then shook my head. “English, Lidie. Speak English.” I started over. “You look very—” What was that miserable word anyway? Niece?

  Who could think with Tio Paulo downstairs in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, calling up every two minutes, “You’re going to miss the plane!”

  I took a last look around at the peach bedspread, the striped curtains Titia Luisa and I had made, the books on the shelf under the window. But I had no time to think about it; there was something I wanted to do before I left.

  I rushed downstairs, tiptoeing along the hall, past Tio Paulo in the kitchen, and stepping over Gato, the calico cat who was dozing in the doorway.

  Out back, the field was covered with thorny flowers the color of tea, and high grass that whipped against my legs as I ran. I was late. Too bad for Tio Paulo. He’d have to drive more than his usual ten miles an hour.

  I whistled, and Cavalo, the farmer’s bay horse, whinnied. He trotted toward me, then stopped, waiting. I climbed to the top of the fence and cupped my fingers around his silky brown ears before I threw myself on his back.

  “Go.” I pressed my heels into his broad sides and held on to his thick mane.

  Last time.

  We thundered down the cow path, stirring up dust. My banana clip came off, and my hair, let loose, was as thick as the forelocks on Cavalo’s forehead.

  We reached the blue house where we’d lived when Mamãe was alive. I didn’t have to pull on Cavalo’s mane; he knew enough to stop.

  The four of us had been there together: Mamãe, my older brother, Rafael; my father; and me. And it was almost as if Mamãe were still there in the high bed in her room, linking her thin fingers with mine. The three of you will still belong together, Lidie, you’ll make it a family.

  Shaking my head until my hair whipped into my face, I had held up my fingers: There are four of us, Mamãe. Four.

  I remembered her faint smile. Ai, only seven years old, but still you’re just like your father, the Horseman.

  Just like Pai.

  Two weeks later, Mamãe was gone, flown up to the clouds to watch over us from heaven, Titia Luisa said. And Pai and Rafael went off to America, leaving me with Titia Luisa and Tio Paulo. I still felt that flash of anger when I thought of their leaving without me.

  I ran my fingers through Cavalo’s mane. I’m going now, Mamãe. Pai has begun to race horses at a farm in America, and there’s room for me at last. Pai and Rafael have a house!

  “Goodbye, blue house.” The sound of my voice was loud in my ears. “Goodbye, dear Mamãe.”

  Tio Paulo was outside in the truck now, blasting the horn for me.

  “Pay no attention to him,” I whispered to Cavalo.

  Cavalo felt the pressure of my knees and my hands pulling gently on his mane, and turned.

  We crossed the muddy rio, my feet raised away from the splashes of water, and climbed the slippery rocks, Cavalo’s heels clanking against the stone.

  In the distance, between his yelling and the horn blaring, Tio Paulo sounded desperate.

  Suddenly I was feeling that desperation, too. We had to go all the way to São Paulo to catch the plane. But I was determined. Five minutes, no more. “Hurry,” I told Cavalo.

  Up ahead was the curved white fence that surrounded the lemon grove. The overhanging branches were old and gnarled, the leaves a little dusty, and the lemons still green.

  Pai, my father, had held me up the day he’d left. His hair was dark, his teeth straight and white. “Pick a lemon for me, Lidie. I’ll take it to America.”

  I’d reached up and up and pulled at the largest lemon I could find.

  “When I send for you, you’ll bring me another,” he’d said.

  What else was in that memory? Their suitcases on the porch steps, and I was sobbing, begging, “Take me, take me.”

  He’d scooped me up, my face crushed against his shirt, and his voice was choked. “This is the worst of all of it,” he’d said. In back of him, Luisa was crying, and Tio banged his fist against the porch post.

  B
ut that was the last time I cried. After they left, I promised myself I’d never shed one more tear. Not for anyone. I told myself I didn’t care whether Pai ever sent for me. I tried to ignore that voice inside my head that said how much I missed him, and how I longed to see my brother, Rafael.

  Instead, I rode Cavalo all over the fields of Jales, I climbed out my window to sun myself on the sloping roof, I swam in the rio even though the water turned my fingers to ice.

  Maybe that was why Tio Paulo told me a million times: “You may be small, Lidie, but how difficult you are.”

  “And tough as ferro,” I’d say back, raising my chin high.

  Titia Luisa would laugh, smoothing down my hair, “You’re not like iron, Lidie. You’re like an orange, hard on the outside, but sweet inside.”

  Tio Paulo and I would look at each other, eyes narrowed; neither of us believed it.

  Now I reached out, my fingers touching the dusty leaves of the tree. I could hear the horn blaring as I twisted off the nearest lemon and held it to my nose. Then I let Cavalo know with my knees that we had to race for home.

  Cavalo took the fence easily, and we galloped back, the swish of the grass in my ears, a startled bird flying up.

  I slid off Cavalo and put my arms around his warm neck, my face against his mane. “I’ll miss you,” I said. “Miss me, too.”

  I reached into my pocket for a peppermint. “I love you.” I held it out, feeling his soft muzzle on the palm of my hand as he took it from me. Then I climbed the fence and ran toward the truck that would take me away from Jales.

  3

  TO JOHN F. KENNEDY

  INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  At the airport in São Paulo, Titia Luisa stayed in the truck, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t bear to see you go, Lidie.” She touched my hair, my shoulders, and I leaned against her for just a moment.

  Tio Paulo was not in the mood for goodbyes. He hurried me inside, circling around knots of people. “A fine thing if you missed the plane.”

  “I’ll just sit here and wait for the next one,” I said as we stood at the end of an endless line. I waved my hand. “You don’t have to stay.”

  “You’d be safe.” He tried not to grin. “Who’d want to kidnap you, anyway?”

  “They’d be happy to have me,” I said, and was horrified to hear how much I sounded like him.

  We checked in, then listened to an announcement that said the plane was delayed for an hour. Tio was in a fit of a mood now, and so was I.

  We sank into the last two seats against the airport window. “You see,” I said, “we didn’t have to have hysterics, and rush like crazy after all.”

  Tio Paulo snorted. “You remind me of your father.” He pulled at his mustache.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You remind me of Cavalo when he has a burr in his foot.”

  We were sandpaper against sandpaper.

  “You …,” he began, and then we both couldn’t help laughing.

  “I’ll miss you after all,” he said gruffly.

  “Me too.” My voice was so low, I wondered if he’d heard me. We were silent for a while. Then Tio spoke. “Do you want to know how your father became a citizen of New York?” he asked. “The customs people at the airport thought he might have false papers. They put him into prison until the next day.”

  My eyes widened in spite of myself. “They thought he was a criminal?”

  Tio’s fingers began again, smoothing his mustache. “No, no. The papers were real. Everyone apologized. It was fine.”

  Suddenly my flight was announced. We hugged awkwardly before he handed me over to the flight attendant who would take me through security. Just before I turned the corner, I looked back at him over my shoulder. He was still standing there, his hand half raised. I gave him a quick wave.

  On the plane, I waited to see what it would feel like to fly. In no time, the ground was speeding by below me: brown earth, spikes of grass, a crane spreading its pale wings. The trees became a smudge of green …

  And I was in the air.

  A dizzy tilt, a turn, and the white buildings of São Paulo were far underneath me, coming in and out of the mist. Then the buildings were gone, lost somewhere below. And so was all of Brazil.

  But for one second, I saw a sweep of blue. Was it the ocean? “Ai,” Tio Paulo had said once, “the waves, crashing together, rolling over everything, like you, Lidie, never still. You’ll love the ocean.”

  I smiled to myself, even as my hands gripped the armrests: the plane soared up, reaching the clouds, and bounced through them. I swallowed. I was really on my way to America.

  I settled back to practice my English, turning the pages of the little book Mrs. Figueiredo, my teacher, had given me. “Hello, hi, the weather is niece; watch out, the mosquito bites.”

  And especially, I intended to say to Pai, the Horseman, and my eighteen-year-old brother, Rafael: I am hippy to be here. I’d say it so they’d admire my English way of speaking; I’d say it so they’d be really sorry they hadn’t sent for me sooner.

  I kept practicing those words until I thought they were perfect as the sound of the plane’s engines roared in my ears and the food cart rattled down the aisle, once, and then again. By this time I was tired and messy, my shirt stained from the extra food the flight attendant kept giving me. The trip was taking forever, but still I wanted to raise my hand and say Not so fast.

  I drifted off to sleep, thinking about the moment Pai and Rafael would come toward me. Hello, hi, I’m hippy …

  At last the darkness gave way to a million tiny lights, and New York was spread out before us. Somewhere tucked in among all those twinkling lights were the John F. Kennedy Airport, and the Horseman waiting for me.

  Horseman, Mamãe’s name for him. I could almost hear the sound of her voice. I pictured her in the kitchen when she was still well, her thick, dark braid bouncing over her shoulder, talking about horses with him, always horses. She’d say how wonderful he was with them, and that someday he’d be a great trainer.

  After he’d gone, I learned about horses, too. I read dozens of library books, memorizing stories about Rags to Riches, the first filly to win the Belmont Stakes since 1905; Ruffian, who was called the queen of the fillies; Whirlaway, the great chestnut who won the three races of the Triple Crown. I listened to the endless stories Tio Paulo told me as he sat on the front porch. I was a great jockey when I was young, he would say. Rode the best of them. He’d lean forward. I had no fear.

  His eyes would slide away from mine. I knew what he was thinking. I had no fear, either. But neither one of us wanted to be one bit like the other.

  The plane was descending. From the small window, I could see buildings, and highways with what looked like toy cars moving along. Could I even remember exactly what the Horseman looked like after five years? It was only his voice I knew from the Sunday phone calls, every Sunday for all this time. And the cell phone suddenly vibrating when I least expected it. “Lidie, what are you doing?” A few words, and then he would be gone. When he came home one year, at Christmas, I was in bed with the flu and was too sick to pay much attention to him.

  I thought of his going to America, spending the night in prison. And Rafael, too? How frightening! Suppose the customs people in the airport didn’t like my passport? Suppose they wanted to send me to prison?

  I flipped open the passport; my picture looked like a girl with enough hair to stuff a mattress, a girl with two front teeth that overlapped a little. It looked like a girl who might have a false passport. I hugged it to me. Not false. It was a real passport, after all.

  The plane bumped to a terrible stop. I slipped the lemon from my pocket to the depths of my backpack and clutched my papers in my hand. Then the flight attendant was standing in the aisle, waiting for me, smiling.

  I wanted to hold on to the armrest. Let me stay here for a minute, for another endless hour, I thought. But, of course, I couldn’t do that. I followed the flight attendant into the huge airport, a place ful
l of noise, with stairs and ramps and escalators curving from one floor to the next like a giant snail.

  And lines of people!

  Everyone zigzagged along toward a row of windows to present their passports. My heart beat faster, and my hands felt clammy. But the immigration man behind his window asked only a few questions.

  I nodded to each one as if I understood perfectly well what he was saying, and when he frowned, I changed the nod to a quick shake of the head.

  Stamp, stamp, went his machine. I was so relieved I told him that the weather would be niece soon for growing corns.

  He lifted his eyebrows. Maybe he didn’t know about those words. Maybe he was new to English, too.

  We stopped at one more window. I nodded, shook my head, and we were through.

  “Let’s find your father,” the flight attendant told me. “What does he look like?”

  I tried to think of what to tell her. “Dark hair.”

  She nodded.

  “Straight teeth,” I said, closing my lips over my own teeth.

  I raised my shoulders; I could hardly breathe. And suddenly the Horseman’s face was blurred in my mind. I had no idea what he looked like.

  Then I saw him coming toward me. The blur was gone; he looked exactly the way I must have known he would, except that his hair was getting gray. And were there tears in his eyes?

  I had a quick picture of him laughing with Mamãe in the kitchen; I saw him holding me up in the lemon grove. And for a moment, I forgot about how angry I was at being left in Jales to wait forever.

  He reached out to me, but as I took a step forward, I dropped my purse; coins rolled across the floor, so our hug was over in a second as we bent to find everything.

  I stood up and saw Rafael. He was eighteen, so grown-up now! He would ride his first race as a jockey soon. But when he began to smile, I saw that his teeth were almost like mine, and his bony face as well.

  He crushed me in a hug until I had to catch my breath. And the English words I’d practiced flew straight out of my head.

  All I could think of to say were words in our own language. But my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t even get them out.