Beauty & the Beasts by Anne Weale, Janice Kay Johnson Page A

anyway.”
    He shrugged and left, throwing his book bag in his bedroom as he passed. Maybe he wouldn’t be at Dave’s when she came at six. That’d show her how much he wanted to spend time with “just the two” of them. Like he was supposed to be excited because she might actually talk to him for once, instead of to Chuckie with an occasional vague question his way when she remembered he existed.
    He bumped his mountain bike up the basement steps and out the front door. What would happen if he scared his mother enough? Would she call Chuckie and weep in his arms? Or would she be so glad to find him she’d change her mind about shipping him off for the summer?
    Garth figured it was worth a try.
    A DOZEN HORSES , ridden English-style by solemnfaced teenagers, pranced as they waited for the gate to the arena to be opened for their amateur class. Among the shades of cream and dapple gray, the few chestnuts and blood bays stood out Yesterday’s rain had left the ground muddy enough to splatter the gleaming hooves and slender legs of the Arabians.
    “Hot dog?”
    “Hmm?” Madeline turned from admiring the horses to Eric, who’d paused in front of the concession stand.
    “Are you hungry?” he asked, nodding toward it.
    She realized that mixed with the smells of manure and sawdust and mud had been the seductive aroma of hot dogs and warm pretzels and mustard.
    “I’d love a hot dog. Or even two. And maybe a pretzel. And, um…” She contemplated the offerings. “A licorice rope—I love those, have you ever had one?—and a lemonade.”
    He grinned, that slow mischievous smile that twirled her stomach on some kind of internal spit. “And I thought you’d be a cheap date.”
    “I warned you I like to eat,” she reminded him.
    “So you did.”
    As they stood in the short line, the gates opened and out loped a Western class, bits jangling and Stetsons worn low. In went the English horses and riders, numbers pinned crookedly to their backs.
    A few minutes later, loaded down with food, Eric suggested they go in and sit down while they ate. “We can watch a few classes, see what’s coming up, then wander through the barns.”
    Madeline smiled happily. “This was such a good idea.”
    She wasn’t sure why coming to a horse show at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe hadn’t inspired the same anxiety in her that a dinner date would have. It just seemed so much more relaxed. More like something friends would do together. And they didn’t have to stare at each other across a candlelit table and think of witty things to say.
    Even the topics they’d covered on the drive here had been uncomplicated. Jess Kerrigan was showingone of her Arabians later this afternoon in a class for amateur owners. Teresa Hughes and her kids planned to come. That subject exhausted, Eric talked about doctoring horses, more his specialty than Teresa’s, although she’d become increasingly interested, he said, as the whole family got involved with 4-H and cow penning.
    “I wish barbed-wire fences would go the way of bell-bottoms,” he’d said, shaking his head. “I treat more cuts than anything else, it seems. A horse will paw at the fence and rip his foreleg open, even get the damned wire wrapped all the way around the pastern.”
    “I hate to tell you this, but bell-bottoms have come back in style.”
    “What?” He’d shot her a glance. “You’re kidding.”
    “Regrettably, no.”
    “All right, I wish barbed wire would go the way of…oh, hell, how about disco?”
    “That’s probably safe. For a few years.”
    Now they found a seat partway up the bleachers overlooking the arena. They watched as the teenagers and their horses trotted and cantered on command from the judges, who stood in the center with clipboards in hand.
    “Reverse,” the announcer said, and the riders dutifully swung their horses in neat U-turns so that they were cantering the opposite direction around the perimeter of the ring.
    “I like that