“Hey, I saw some train tracks down the hill when we drove in,” she said with a mischievous grin. “We should go put those pennies in your pocket on the tracks.”
I lifted a brow, talking into my open can. “For what?”
“ ’Cause it’s cool. When the train runs them over, they get really big and flat. Although, itisa little dangerous.” She gave me a look like she knew that last word was my kryptonite.
Not seeing anybody else around worth hanging out with, I shrugged. “Sure. Okay.”
Blair was already turning on her heel and quickly walking away before I had the words out, and I had to jog to catch her. It turned out, the “hill” was a steep embankment filled with loose clay, and we were left with no choice but to slide down on our butts. No clue how we’d get back up, but Blair giggled the entire way down, and I couldn’t help the smile teasing my lips.
“So, what do we do?” I eagerly awaited whatever risky thing Blair had planned for us, pulling the loose change from my pocket and presenting it to her.
“We lay the money flat on the tracks and wait for a train to come.”
I squinted at the narrow steel. “Hardly sounds dangerous.”
“Well…I guess it’s probably not as scary as steer riding. But your foot could get caught in the tracks, or you might not hear a train coming in time. Also, it’s illegal to play on train tracks. So if the conductor sees us…run.”
Illegal—now we’re talking.
“Okay.” I grabbed the three copper pennies, jamming the rest of the money back into my pocket. Handing her two, I stepped toward the tracks and waited for Blair to show me what to do.
She diligently set the coins dead center on the steel, about a foot apart, then stepped back to admire her handiwork. I followed suit, putting my coin tails up before collapsing onto the soft grass a few feet from the railway.
We sat in silence for the next twenty or so minutes. Unable to ever sit still for more than a moment or two, I fidgetedto keep myself from walking away and hurting her feelings. Plucking grass and rolling it between my fingers, picking dried mud and horse crap from my boots, rationing sips of my pop.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “I figured there’d be more trains coming by.”
Her cheeks were a light shade of pink but, despite being painfully bored, I didn’t want to make her feel worse about her silly idea of fun. “Let’s sit here awhile longer…. A train has to come eventually, right?”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to. The flattened coins aren’tthatcool.”
“I have nowhere else to be.” I knotted a blade of grass carefully. “So, what made you decide to start running barrels?”
“My parents wanted me to take up a sport.”
“And soccer wasn’t an option, or…?”
She laughed. “Have you seen our school’s sports teams? Nobody takes it seriously. I’m too competitive to be on a team like that.”
Explained why she had been practicing more than anybody I knew. Sure, she was at a disadvantage when she started a few months ago, having only been on horseback a handful of times in her life. But by mid-June, you’d never guess she was new to this.
“Fair. Rodeo’s more fun than soccer, anyway.”
“What about you?” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and leaned back on her elbows. “Why steer riding instead of roping like your brothers?”
“I can rope calves on the ranch. There’s no fun in it for me.” I stretched my legs out in front of me and relished the beating sun in my face, squinting up at the pale blue sky. “I need the rush.”
“Fair,” she murmured.
Another few minutes passed before either of us spoke again. Then we started talking, in small chunks of time atfirst. A quick mention of plans for the summer break, a comment about how few trains there seemed to be, talk about the next rodeo. By the time an hour had gone by, neither of us could shut up. Constantly talking over each other, laughing until our cheeks hurt, saying the same thing at the same time—I owed her at least six Cokes because she won every jinx. And doing the math about how many stalls I’d muck out to pay for those Cokes didn’t bother me in the least.
The patch of sun we’d been sitting in was cast with late afternoon shadow when we finally got around to discussing favorite foods—having covered nearly every other possible conversation topic already.
“No way your favorite type of ice cream is maple walnut.” I stared wide-eyed at her glowing face, freckled from the sun and rosy from laughter. “Nobody under the age of seventy eats that. I swear to God, if you say your second favorite is Neapolitan…”
“Neapolitan is pretty much the perfect ice cream.” She giggled. “Seriously, if you add walnuts to it, you’d have my dream flavor. Call up Breyer right now.”
I fake gagged. “They’re going to think it’s a prank call because nobody but you would be interested in that abomination.”
