Before They Rode Horses by Bonnie Bryant Page B

other kids who knew a lot about other places. Sometimes we went to schools on the bases. More often we went to schools in the towns. I liked meeting kids who weren’t Marine Corps brats, like I was, but the most important part was just meeting other kids. The problem with the move we made when I was nine was that it was just a temporary assignment for Dad. We weren’t going to be there for more than three months, and it was summertime. That meant no school.
    Now, I know that some people, like my friend Stevie, for instance, think the idea of no school is just about heaven, but when you’ve just moved to a new place, school is the fastest way to meet kidsand make friends. Even tougher was the fact that the base didn’t have any extra housing, so we had to rent a house off the base, where there were no other Marine Corps brats around, and, worse than that, it was way out in the country. I mean, I really actually liked all those things, except that every one of them made it impossible for me to make friends. It wasn’t any better for my mom, either.
    Even though we weren’t there for very long, I remember that house well because it was a really nice one. It was a big old farmhouse with a huge yard and a big barn behind it. The first day we were there, I spent the whole morning just exploring the barn. It had once had a lot of animals in it—um, there might have been some you-know-whats—but definitely there had been cows and sheep. There was a chicken coop and a pen where they’d kept pigs. The old tractor was still there. The farmer who owned it was retiring, but he didn’t want to sell his house yet, so he’d sold most of his farm equipment and all of his livestock and rented the house to us while he and his wife rented an apartment in Florida. They wanted to try it for three months before they sold the farm. It was a perfect deal for us all.
    My room was on the second floor, down the hall from my parents’ room. My window looked out overthe fields. They seemed to go on for miles. When we arrived, in the early summer, they were already green with the hay that would cover them soon. I remember the smell today, sweet, moist, rich. Everything about the whole place was perfect, except for one thing: no friends.
    The first few days, Mom and I spent all our time putting things away. Well, to be perfectly honest, she spent all of her time doing it, and I spent some of my time arranging my collection of model h—oops—the stuff in my room. Once I’d finished that, I explored, like the barn and the fields. There was a small pond next to the barn where I’d found some tadpoles that were just beginning to get legs. They were a little weird and very cute. I was lying on my stomach, looking into the water, when I heard my mother call me.
    “I’m here, Mom,” I called back.
    “Carole?” She hadn’t heard me.
    “Here, Mom!” I called back louder.
    “Where are you?” She sounded frightened.
    “I’m by the pond, Mom. I’m over here.” I waved to her. She didn’t see me at first. She was standing by the back door of the house, with her hand shading the sun from her eyes, staring out over the miles of field and forests that surrounded our house.There was a strong wind, tugging her dress around her and brushing her hair back. It was just a moment, but there, by the big house, with a big sky above and the wind whipping at her, she seemed terribly alone. I stood up in a hurry and called back as loudly as I could, realizing then that the wind was carrying my voice away from her instead of toward her.
    “Here I am!” I ran over to her. She put her arms out and surrounded me with a hug. It felt good, but I had the funny feeling that it felt even better to her.
    “Is something wrong, Mom?” I asked.
    Mom shook her head. “No, dear. I just didn’t know where you were and it worried me. There’s so much
here
here that I don’t know where here is yet.”
    That made me laugh. It was like Mom to say something silly like