As it turned out, no bullies appeared on the walk home that day or any other, but still, Liz became Girl’s best friend. Liz and her mother lived with her grandparents. She didn’t have a father around or a regular family, either. Girl waited for Liz on her screened-in porch every morning before school—she was not invited in, and never saw Liz’s room. Liz spent the night at Girl’s house nearly every weekend, and after a few months her mother found an apartment just five blocks from Girl’s house, where Girl could spend the night as often as she liked.
Liz wasn’t boy-crazy, like Girl was. Even though her hair was way cooler than Girl’s—two-tone blond on top, brown in the back, and perfectly straight—without weird cowlicks like Girl’s—Liz wasn’t obsessed with fitting in and wearing makeup. Liz loved horses. She taught Girl to draw a pretty decent horse, and they both collected Breyer models of the different breeds. Sooner or later, Girl gave in and went to the stables. She had to—it was where her best friend was. Before she knew it, they were both spending all their free time mucking out other people’s stalls in hopes of a chance to ride.
She and Liz remained friends for years, telling each other secrets, having crushes on boys, riding horses and bikes, and swimming. They had their first kisses standing next to each other with a pair of boys they met at Seabreeze Amusement Park. They smoked their first cigarettes together. Girl had a tendency to be gossipy about her friends, but it was different with Liz. Liz was the only friend whose secrets she kept.
junior high
gilli
Liz got a horse first. She volunteered at the stable for so long that the stable manager gave her Gizmo, a sturdy, chestnut-colored Haflinger pony with a blond mane and tail. Gizmo wasn’t working out for lessons, and instead of selling him outright, the manager gave him to Liz in trade for labor. Girl was so jealous she didn’t talk to Liz for a week, but she couldn’t stay mad that long, particularly when she knew she was just being stupid. Girl knew that Liz had worked hard for years at the stable, and she also knew that Liz’s family could never afford a horse otherwise—working for one was her only option, and she knew Liz needed this horse more than anything else in the world. Seventh grade had been hard on both of them. They had started junior high and didn’t have a single class together, not even lunch. Girl went from being called “Larva” and “Looney Tunes” back in middle school to being called nothing at all—she would speak to girls and they wouldn’t even respond. It was as if her mouth moved and no sounds came out. Girl couldn’t stand the silence, so she looked for the girls that she knew would never reject her—the geeks and misfits—and sat next to them. But Liz just stopped going to school.
Girl was pissed when Liz stopped going to school, because she would have been more than happy to skip school with her. She wasn’t against being bad, she just wasn’t bold enough to be bad on her own. Girl just prayed to get hit by a car as she walked to junior high each day. She figured if they hit you hard enough, you probably wouldn’t even feel the pain.
Liz and Girl both walked paper routes and babysat kids and saved every dollar they could. Every chance they got they rode the mile and a half to the stables on their ten-speeds. Away from school and other preteens, they were happy.
Girl’s father had said that he was going to buy her and Brother gliders. He had a two-seater airplane and a head full of dreams he couldn’t deliver on. Girl had already told everyone how they were going to sail around the world in two years with Father, and when the two years never came, she had finally admitted what all her friends already knew—it was never going to happen. For some reason, though, she was sure that this time, he really was going to buy the ultra-light planes for her and Brother. Girl carefully read the article Father had sent from the Airplane Owners and Pilots Association’s magazine. The gliders were four thousand dollars each. She spent a month carefully crafting a letter to Father, breaking down all the costs of buying a horse and boarding it, researching vet expenses and local stables. She wrote a persuasive essay, like she was learning to do in English class, explaining how it would be cheaper if Father bought her a horse than a plane. She asked him for two thousand dollars: one thousand to purchase a horse and one thousand to cover the first year’s board. She had saved one thousand dollars on her own, and she figured if she kept babysitting she would be okay for the first two years. Surprisingly, her father agreed.
Aunt Kiki found Girl a free horse. Her favorite waitress at the pizza place was going to college and had a pony named Gilli that she loved too much to sell, but was willing to give away to someone who would love him and let her visit. Mother found a stable that was a little further away but cheaper than the current stable they haunted—the only hitch was that Girl had to muck out her own stall, no matter what. Liz traded Gizmo for a tall, bay Morgan horse named Bubba, and soon they both had horses at Cold Stream Stables. They rode their bikes two-and-a-half miles each way, unless Liz’s mother felt like driving them. She was a teacher and had the summer off. Girl’s parents worked full-time, but they wouldn’t even drive her on the weekends. Liz and Girl mucked out their own stalls and leveled the manure pile to reduce their boarding fees. Girl was not allowed to ride in the lower rink,
