Catch Rider (9780544034303) by Jennifer H. Lyne Read Free Book Online

leaving a deep dent.
    â€œHey!” Wayne yelled.
    â€œMaybe if you cleaned up this place, he wouldn’t have stepped on a wood staple! Looks like a hillbilly lives here!”
    I tried not to cry but I just couldn’t help it. Sub was standing there, his lower lip hanging loosely like an old man’s. I looked at his calm, strong face and cursed at him.
    â€œThat was your daddy’s horse, Sid.”
    Wayne chewed on a toothpick, thinking. “One of the men quit at the barn. You want to come work there?”
    I thought he was kidding me. “At Oak Hill? Cleaning stalls for those rich kids?”
    â€œYou think you’re too fancy?”
    â€œThe last thing I need is a bunch of snotty girls bossing me around while I shovel their horses’ shit.”
    â€œCome right after school, and work on the weekends,” he said.
    He was serious. He thought I would ride with him all the way over to Crozet to clean stalls. I knew he did it three times a week, and I figured that was his penance for being a drunk and not having a plan for his life. Damned if I was going to be his age and working as a stable hand. I wasn’t going to do it at fourteen, either.
    Wayne sliced open a bale of hay with his pocketknife. “You want to make some money or not?”
    â€œI don’t need to make money that way. I make money riding and selling.”
    â€œListen, Sidney. Your grandma got up at four thirty in the morning to shovel stalls before school, rode all day afterward.”
    He was full of shit and I knew it. “I thought she was a catch rider.”
    â€œShe was.” His voice was loud and sharp, and he straightened up and looked me right in the eye. I could tell he was going to let me have it.
    â€œShe could ride any horse you got—I don’t care if it was a show hunter or a donkey or a Budweiser Clydesdale. She might have been poor, but she would iron her riding clothes until they were perfect, shine her boots, and go to a horse show, and them owners would be fighting each other to pay her to ride their horses. And when she rode, she won. You know how she learned all this? By working her ass off, night and day.”
    â€œI work my ass off here with you.”
    He looked at me, smiled, and let out a big guffaw. “You think so, do you? Be here tomorrow after school. Three o’clock.”
    I started up my engine with a roar and kicked up dirt as I left.
    Driving home, as the sky grew dark, I looked at the paper mill, the smokestack lights blinking, like a ship on the ocean. As the shift changed, workers filed in and out like robots. I pulled over and watched them, wondering what it would be like to have a paycheck put right into my bank account. It would be great to get Donald out, and my mother would be so happy, whether she knew it or not. I saw a girl a little older than me walk out and get into a new truck. She drove past me, laughing into her cell phone.
    I stayed up that night and read a little, just to get Ms. Cash off my back. The book was weird. It told you what was in every character’s mind. I wondered if you really should feel empathy for some of these lowlifes. If you saw things through everyone else’s eyes, the world would be a house of mirrors. It was confusing, and I fell asleep.

EIGHT
    T HE NEXT DAY at school, I sat through my classes thinking about whether I would go to Oak Hill with Wayne. I couldn’t learn anything new from shoveling more manure. It was all the same, whether it came from a fancy show jumper or an old mule.
    When I passed by the main office on my way out the door, I saw Eileen Cleek being lectured by the assistant principal. “Eileen, you miss more than two weeks of school this year, you ain’t going to graduate.”
    â€œDon’t tempt me,” Eileen said.
    I laughed, and Eileen winked at me, walked outside after me, and headed for her beat-up Chevy truck. A couple of boys yelled “Lesbo” at her.