LITMIR.BIZ

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      “What’s the rule?” Ciara pulled cold cuts out of the refrigerator. How did he know the horse was a she? Was it obvious even from a distance?

      “I can’t go near the horse until the owner says it’s okay,” he repeated by rote. “But he can’t say it’s okay until we go talk to him.”

      “Even then, I don’t want you to go into the pasture,” she said with a spurt of alarm. “You’ll have to wait until the horse comes to the fence.”

      “Mo-om. Most horses are friendly.”

      “They bite. They kick.”

      He rolled his eyes, which she probably deserved. The truth was, she didn’t know anything about horses. The closest she’d come was to pat the neck of whatever pony Mark had been able to ride at the zoo or fair when he was much smaller. He was the one obsessed with animals in general and horses in particular. He read about them; he drew them; he talked about them. And now, a real, live specimen grazed in the pasture a bare stone’s throw away from his own house.

      She eyed him suspiciously as she put together sandwiches, stirred the soup and poured it into bowls. Usually he was good at following the rules, as long as she made them specific enough. But the temptation this time...

      “Sit down and eat,” she said.

      He did as she asked, but paused between bites to inform her that horses liked carrots. “And sugar cubes. We could buy some, couldn’t we?”

      She didn’t know if grocery stores stocked sugar cubes. They had never made an appearance on her list before.

      Somehow or other, she’d have to work horses into the lesson plan. How, she couldn’t imagine. As had become her habit, she put off worrying about it to another day. Truthfully, she was apprehensive about the whole homeschooling deal. She’d graduated from high school what seemed like an awfully long time ago. Mark was particularly advanced in math, a subject she’d been weak in. Given his insistence on precision, that went with his personality.

      She’d bought ready-made materials to meet state requirements for a seventh grader, though, so how hard could it be? And once the internet was hooked up, limitless resources would become available.

       I can do this.

      Her mantra usually calmed her. She had to do this, for Mark’s sake. The whole move was about Mark, reducing the stress that had had him coming home from school in tears half the time. She was still enraged when she thought about her last meeting with the middle-school principal, who had made it plain he thought Mark, the victim, was to blame for being bullied. If he’d respond differently to the little creeps who were taunting and beating him, they’d leave him alone, the principal had explained despite her mounting outrage.

      She had risen to her feet and glared at him. “My son is kind, smart and gentle. And you’re saying he’s the one who should change? The boys who trip him, steal his lunch, rip up his schoolwork and beat him up, they’re just boys being boys?”

      He’d stuttered and fumbled, but clearly the answer was yes. That was what he thought.

      She had marched out, her mind made up in that instant. Not only would she homeschool, but she and Mark would move, too. Start over, where he wouldn’t already be pigeonholed. As it happened, she had been considering quitting her front counter job at a medical clinic and focusing full-time on a hobby that had somehow been transforming into a business.

      Now was good.

      It wouldn’t hurt to put more distance between Mark and his father, too. Mark’s constant disappointment at the excuses and cancellations could be moderated by the fact that regular weekends with his dad were clearly no longer possible, and obviously Jeff couldn’t come to sports games or any special happenings. Better than for Mark to be hammered by the knowledge that his dad didn’t want to see him.

      She’d intended to give Mark a few days off before they started with the schoolwork—at the very least, she had to get her sewing room/studio unpacked before she could return to work. Orders for her custom pillows wouldn’t magically be filled unless she applied herself.

      Reading and applying himself to worksheets and projects would keep Mark occupied so she could go back to work, though.

      “We need to grocery shop,” she said. “We can stop at the neighbor’s going or coming, introduce ourselves and ask about the horse. Okay?”

      “Yes!” her son said with satisfaction.

      Once they had finished eating, she insisted he unpack at least one of his collections before they went anywhere.

      If it hadn’t been for that blasted horse wandering so close to the property line, she’d have expected Mark to go for his rocks and minerals. He liked all the sciences, but especially biology and geology, including paleontology. He’d been excited about doing some fossil hunting in Eastern Washington. After a session on the internet, he’d informed her that trilobites could be found in Pend Oreille County a little to the north, fossil plants in Spokane County and graptolites—whatever those were—right here in Stevens County. Something else that could be worked into his science curriculum in the form of field trips. Ciara had been trying very hard not to let him guess how unenthusiastic she was about prowling dry, rocky ground or fresh road cuts in the hot sun. As excited as he was, he probably wouldn’t notice if she whined nonstop, though, or if they encountered a rattlesnake. Caught up in one of his interests, Mark tended to be oblivious to anything and everyone else.

      Oh, God—were there rattlesnakes locally?

      A number of Mark’s teachers had hinted that his intense focus was somehow abnormal, that he needed to learn to “moderate” his enthusiasms, to respond appropriately to his classmates rather than shutting them out or being astonished that they weren’t as captivated as he was by whatever currently interested him.

      Gee, had it ever occurred to those teachers that his behavior meant he was exceptionally bright? And that those interests should be encouraged, not discouraged? Apparently not.

      Her blood pressure rose just thinking about it. She found herself not folding fabrics as carefully as she should before piling them onto shelves.

      New start. Who cared what those teachers had implied?

      Once she felt calmer, she took a break to see how Mark was coming along, and found that he had chosen, big surprise, to get his animal figurines and books displayed rather than the rocks and minerals and his few precious fossils. The figurines had to be anatomically correct to join his collection, of course. He could and did pick any one up and talk endlessly about it. Only a few days ago, while he was carefully wrapping each before setting it in a box, he’d lectured her about what made an emu different from an ostrich.

      Answer: emus were native to Australia, ostriches to Africa, the coloring was different, an ostrich was larger and faster. In fact, it was the world’s fastest two-legged animal, clocking in at forty miles an hour while emus trailed at only thirty miles an hour. And, he had added earnestly, just as he had the last time she heard the same lecture, ostriches only have two toes on each foot, while emus have three.

      “Ostriches are the only members of the ratite family with two toes, Mom,” he had informed her, as if this was a fact that should make her shake her head in wonderment.

      And yes, she already knew that kiwis, rheas and cassowaries also belonged to the family.

      Ciara knew, God help her, a whole lot she wished she could forget.

      And so what if he was fascinated by two-toed birds instead of who the current NBA leading scorer was? She couldn’t believe the mothers of most twelve-year-old boys shared their sons’ enthusiasms, whatever they were.

      “Groceries,” she announced, after admiring the ranks of creatures displayed by species and family on the shelves of a tall bookcase.

      “Yeah! But we can stop next door first, right?”

      Ciara ruffled

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