Uchenna's Apples by Diane Duane Read Free Book Online Page A

Uchenna was almost relieved when at last her mam came and put her head in the door and said, “Lights out, sweet, you’ve got to be up in the morning…” Uchenna got undressed and threw on a long T-shirt nightgown, went off to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take care of other stuff. Then she went to bed, pulling the duvet up to her nose as usual and closing her eyes. But for a long time she lay there in the dark and thought about the Mammy Horse, running out of grass, needing more to eat for herself and her baby . It’s not fair. Somebody’s not treating you right. Got to see what we can do about that…

3: Arrivals and Departures
    The next morning when Uchenna headed out the door to walk to school, her phone beeped twice, then beeped twice again, before she was halfway down the driveway. She paused to pull it out and glanced at the phone’s screen. The text said: MEET ME HALFWAY!!!!
    Uchenna didn’t need to check to see who the message was from: Emer was the only person she knew who actually spelled all her words out when texting people—Uchenna suspected she did it to prove she could spell, as too many of their classmates had trouble doing anything but textspeak even on exams. “Halfway” normally meant on the side street that ran up beside the Spar, so Uchenna changed her normal route a little and came up along the left-hand side of the apartment building where the Spar was. Emer was there waiting for her, leaning against one of the cast-concrete pillars of the apartment building and pointedly ignoring the glances of other school kids who were heading past her. As Uchenna came up to her, Emer pulled her back into the gap between the plate glass of the building’s lobby and the pillar just outside it.
    “They’re gone,” she said.
    Uchenna stared at her. “What? Who? The horses?”
    Emer nodded, looking upset. “They were there last night: I could see them before I went to bed,” she said, pushing the long blond hair back out of her eyes. “They just stand there in the dark, did you know that? They don’t lie down. It’s so weird. …But I got up real early and had another look. Like around six o’clock. There was a lot of mist…”
    “Yeah, they said there would be on the TV weather yesterday,” Uchenna said. “Warm days, chilly nights, late night and early morning fog…”
    “Well, the weather guys got that right. And I saw the horses. I think.” Emer looked peculiarly uncertain. “There wasn’t any sun yet: it hadn’t burned through. You know how it is, like there’s this big cloud just sitting over everything—”
    “Wait a minute. You think you saw them?” Uchenna said, mystified.
    “There was something moving past the wall,” Emer said. “I was pretty sure it was them. It wasn’t moving like people, anyway. So I went back to sleep, and then my mom called me and I had to run out and shower and get dressed, and when I came back—” She shook her head. “The mist was going away. And they were gone!”
    Other kids from St. John’s were going past them now, glancing at them. “We’re gonna be late,” Uchenna said. “Come on.”
    They waited until the next group of kids who were coming along had passed them: then headed up toward the school. “I don’t get it,” Uchenna said. “They just turn up, and the next morning they’re gone? How come?”
    “I don’t know!” Emer said as they came around the corner and went past the Spar, where a few kids were standing around on the sidewalk eating pastries and swilling energy drinks before going into the schoolyard across the road.
    “Did you hear a car or anything?” Uchenna said. “If they’re gone, somebody has to have come and taken them away.” She frowned. “Unless they got out somehow. If somebody opened the gate—”
    “It wasn’t open,” Emer said. “And there wasn’t a car. I would have heard that. When there’s been a joyrider or somebody like that out there before, I’ve heard them almost as soon