Mistwalker by Terri Farley

a squeal of delight. Ellen Kealoha was back on Wild Horse Island!
    Â 
    It was almost an hour later when Aunt Babe gave in to a polite but pressured Mark Larson, and started the award ceremony before the arrival of Darby’s mom.
    The good thing about the delay was that Megan, Cade, and Darby had persuaded Aunt Babe to let them bring Stormbird up on the stage.
    â€œHe is the real star of the show,” Megan insisted, and Aunt Babe was too busy to make much of a protest.
    â€œJust walk him around now, and shake his sillies out so that he doesn’t hurt himself up there, and please ,” she said, cupping Darby’s cheek gently but insistently, “do not let him relieve himself in front of the cameras.”
    Now, the three teenagers stood in order of height—Megan, Cade, then Darby—next to each other, withStormbird in front of them.
    The white colt leaned against their knees, watching the crowd with his turquoise eyes. Each time he tilted his head, snorted, or flicked his whisk of a tail, the “ahs” of the audience washed over Aunt Babe’s storytelling.
    From the small stage, Darby noticed that people in the audience kept looking back over their shoulders. Hoping to catch a glimpse of Ellen Kealoha, probably, but she still hadn’t arrived.
    Darby tried not to worry about her mom, as Aunt Babe explained how the three teenagers had tracked down Stormbird on the black sands of Night Digger Point Beach, how they’d lured him to safety by singing and offering him a wet bandanna to suck on. They got a standing ovation from the crowd, and Stormbird answered the clapping with a whinny.
    Babe asked them all to stand, then come forward and say a few words as they received their checks.
    Megan was great. Cherry Coke–colored hair glinting in the sun, she thanked Darby for spotting the colt in the first place and Cade for his paniolo expertise, then explained how she’d use her generous reward from Sugar Sands Cove Resort: for college, and to buy her mother a new set of sunflower-patterned dishes to replace those shattered by the earthquake.
    Cade ducked his head, and talked so softly that Darby elbowed him.
    â€œSay it again. Louder,” she whispered.
    He looked up and said, “I have to thank Mrs. Borden for payin’ me for something I woulda done for nothin’.”
    Everyone must have heard him the second time, because they laughed and applauded. One woman—broad cheeked with lank blond hair—stood clapping after everyone else had stopped. She looked a little familiar, but Darby couldn’t remember where she’d seen her before, and when she stood on tiptoe to get a better look at her, the woman shrank back into the crowd.
    Then it was Darby’s turn to speak.
    Looking out over all the people made her feel dizzy, but she kept her hands on Stormbird’s fluffy mane, and looked straight at Ann, pretending she was talking just to her.
    â€œI guess I’m lucky, because I can say that Megan and Cade have already said what I wanted to.” She paused, surprised at how many people were smiling. “Besides saving for college, I’m hoping to use some of my reward to fly my parents here so that they’ll fall in love with Moku Lio Hihiu like I have.”
    Darby didn’t know whether the applause was for what she’d said, or how she’d pronounced it, but she kept going.
    â€œI’m really lucky that my mom and grandfather let me and my horse come here in the first place, and that Megan and Cade were willing to do this”—she nodded at Stormbird—“with me, a…” She took a deep breathand decided to risk more Hawaiian. “Um, malihini .”
    Cheers interrupted Darby, and the rows of warm-eyed smiles flashing her way made her feel less like a stranger than she had since she’d arrived.
    Then, though she’d always been bad at conclusions—in both speeches and essays—she gave it a