Wild Girl by Patricia Reilly Giff

turn from now on.”
    “Do you think we’d argue about that?” Rafael said.
    “So.” I took the last forkful of beans, and they waited while I chewed.
    “This is not a proper home,” I told them. “Not the right kind of food.”
    They were looking at each other. “There’s the fruit store, and the grocery,” Rafael said. “Don’t worry, we can—”
    “But worse,” I said, “the chairs in the living room are lined up so it seems we’re waiting for the dentist to pull out our teeth.”
    “Is that why the living room door is closed today?” Rafael asked; then Pai said, “It’s not so much of a thing to move the furniture.”
    I nodded. “There’s more.”
    “Ai,”
he said.
    I pushed the salad bowl toward him. “I moved the horses in the stalls this afternoon. I put Wild Girl and Love You across from each other. They can look over their doors and say hello.” I raised my shoulders. “Or whatever horses do.”
    “Whatever,” Pai said, his finger on his upper lip. I could see he was hiding a smile.
    “It didn’t work with the cat, but I know Wild Girl needs a friend to make her happy.”
    “Like Billy, the pony who always traveled with Whirlaway,” Rafael said.
    “Exactly, yes,” I said.
    Pai piled the salad on his plate. “We do know a few things.”
    “I suppose that’s what you were trying to do with the cat,” Rafael said.
    “But do you ever ask before you do anything?” Pai said.
    “I’m asking now….”
    Pai tilted his head. “All right, it’s fine.”
    “But I’m asking about something else.” I hesitated, trying to think of how to say it. “In Jales, we had a canary, and a cat, and a dog.” I spread my hands. “The bird sang in the kitchen, and sometimes the dog slept in my room.”
    Pai smiled a little. “You want a canary.”
    I took a breath and let it out. “I want a cat to begin with.”
    Pai’s fingers went to his lip again. “What would we do with a cat?”
    “I’ll take care of her, feed her. A cat’s not much work, you know.”
    “Why not?” Rafael said. “We can go down to the pet store….”
    I bit my lip. “She’s in the living room, waiting.”
    Then we were laughing, and Pai, finished eating, stood up. On his way to put the dishes in the sink, he bent down and kissed the top of my head. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said gruffly.
    Rafael piled my dishes up with his. “A family,” he said.
    Pai laughed. “With a difficult girl, and who knows what will be next!”
    In the living room, I scooped up the orange cat from the puffiest chair. Already she’d left a few marks with all those claws. I put her face up to mine. She smelled a little like the tuna fish I’d given her. “Her name is Whirlaway,” I called back to the kitchen.
    I carried her up to my bedroom and nearly fell over the ladder in the doorway. Inside, the walls were coral, the color of the shirt I’d worn the day I’d come. The Minnie Mouse rug was gone.
    “Don’t ask me where the rug went,” Rafael said, coming up the stairs.
    Opposite my bed, Snow White and her dwarfs were hidden behind tissue-paper sketches. “I’ll transfer them to the wall later,” he said.
    “Oh, Rafael.” I hugged the cat and leaned forward to see what he’d drawn. There was a field of horses with their riders. At the very end was the blur of the starting gate, and beyond that a mass of carnations.
    One horse with her jockey had paused to look at the carnations.
    “Will she win the race?”
    “Certainly.”
    “And the rider?” I asked.
    “Ai
, what do you think, Lidie?”
    I knew it would be me.
    “Perfect,” I breathed.
    At my desk, I sat answering the questions in my math book, the cat curled up beside me, as Rafael began to work on the wall.
    I found the essay I’d written and ripped it into tiny pieces, watching Whirlaway dart after them. There was nothing left to wish for.

31
HOME
    The hay in the filly’s stall was fresh and piled up around the edges; it had the smell of a