My mouth goes dry.

It scurries up one of the larger dirt jumps, its little hooves digging into the clay, and then stands and whinnies with its head held high, looking rather proud of itself as it stomps and digs at the top of the jump, like it’s king of the freakin’ mountain.

Or queen, maybe. It is pink, after all. It prances around, its stubby little legs bouncing and dancing, merrily oblivious to the destruction it is causing to my poor, frail little heart.

A bike revs loudly, and I tear my eyes away from the pony. A racer, obviously unaware that a ferociously pink miniature horse is already occupying the jump, is gunning the engine of his big black bike, racing straight toward it.

“Stop!” I screech, scrambling down the stands and leaping off the last one, then racing to the fence line. I tumble over the white-painted rails, crashing to the ground and landing in a puddle of mucky wet clay. It immediately seeps through my pants and sneakers. Ugh.

I climb to my feet, my Converse reaching maximum saturation and soaking through to my socks. I race toward the jump, waving my hands, screaming at the top of my lungs. It’s probably hopeless—he’ll never hear me over the whine of his bike, and he’ll just smash right into the horse. Body parts will probably fly all over the place.

By now, the racer is at the bottom of the jump. Just when I think it’s time to close my eyes and hope a miracle happens while I’m not looking, his helmet turns, just a bit, and I know he sees me. He slams the brakes and jerks the handlebars, sending the bike toward the edge of the dirt mound. He flies off the side of the jump, straight into a group of riders who are sitting in the middle of the track.

He misses most of them but rams into the back tire of the last bike—Ben’s bike.

The whole bike gets knocked over, Ben going with it, and the other rider falls to the ground in a heap.

I stand there, in the middle of the track, the silence engulfing me as I stare. The crowd on the stands are still on their feet, watching the whole graceful display of awesome.

Oops.

The pony whinnies again, a ridiculously high-pitched, shrill little blast of a whinny. And then it scrambles down the hillside and lopes across the track, its bright pink mane and blue tail flapping happily in the breeze.

It’s loping straight to me, like I’m its long-lost best friend. The peanut butter to its jelly.

No, no, no. Not good.

Stay away! I try to channel my thoughts to the pony, hoping, praying that it runs back to wherever it came from. But it bounds right over and skids to a stop, shoving its nose up against me and nibbling on my hoodie.

There must be a hundred eyeballs on me right now.

I’m afraid to look up—in any direction—because I don’t know what I’m going to say.

I really should have left the pony to save its own fluorescent butt rather than screaming at the top of my lungs and falling in a mud puddle. It’s not like it’s my pony, even if it was in my yard yesterday.

“Is that thing yours?”

I want to close my eyes and block out the voice—Ben’s voice—but I know it won’t make him disappear. So I look up at him. He’s taken his helmet off, so his blond hair is all mussed up, and he’s got one eyebrow raised as he regards the pony. His blue eyes are positively sparkling, like he’s got about a hundred jokes he’d like to tell. One side of his jersey and riding pants are smeared with mud, thanks to the other rider knocking him over.

“Um . . . no?”

“Is that a question?”

“No?”

“It sounds like one.”

“Well, it’s not mine, per se, it just hangs out in my yard sometimes. Once. Just once.”

“Do pink ponies hang out in your yard often?”

“No.”

He smirks. My cheeks heat up. Ben looks really pleased to be witnessing this utter humiliation of mine. Usually, I’m the one dishing it up. “Do you think maybe the Smurfs might want it back?”

I raise a brow and put a hand on my hip. “Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got? I’m standing here with a hot-pink pony, and that’s really the best you can do?”

Ben laughs, and the tension seems to unwind itself from my spine, and I find myself grinning right at him.

“Really, Ben, I’m disappointed.”

“What can I say? Laffy Taffy has failed me with their utter lack of pink-pony jokes.”

Someone at the other end of the track fires up their bike, and I realize we’re standing in the middle of everything, and no one is moving.

“Oh, uh, I guess that’s my cue to get out of here. I mean, I have homework and everything, and it’s a long walk home, so . . . ”

“You walked here?”

Er. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned that part. Now I look really crazy.

“Yeah. It’s only, what, two-and-a-half miles? Less than forty-five minutes. And the weather is nice.” And maybe somewhere along the way I can ditch the pony.

“No way. I’ll give you a ride.”

My stomach plummets as my heart soars. I shouldn’t want this so bad or dread this so much.

We make it out to his big Ford pickup, and he pulls out a tiny little ramp. It must be about eight inches wide, barely wider than his tires. He jumps on the bike and rides it up the ramp as if he does it every day. Which, come to think of it, he just might.

I stand there while he’s tying down the bike, the pony standing next to me and watching him. I half expect it to bust out with a few sentences, like Mr. Ed.

“I’m thinking I can back my truck up over there,” Ben says, pointing to a big mound of topsoil. “And maybe we can persuade the pony to climb in.”

“But it’s not really my pony. We could just leave it here.”

Ben gives me a yeah, right kind of look. “It probably lives somewhere around your house, and it followed you here. The least you can do is bring it back.” Enumclaw, as a whole, is a pretty rural area, so this is actually quite possible. I wonder which one of my psycho neighbors let loose their dyed pony.

I sigh and rub my hand over my eyes. I’m not sure when I opened my backyard up as a hostel for runaway ponies, but whatever. “Fine.”

If the pony would just gallop off right now, all would be right in the world. But it doesn’t. It waits patiently while Ben backs his truck up to a mound of dirt, and then, damn it all, the stupid thing climbs right in like it’s spent its whole life riding around in jacked-up pickup trucks.

Ben closes the tailgate, and then, to my surprise, he rounds the passenger door and opens it for me. “Your carriage awaits,” he says, a little smile on his perfectly full lips.

Somehow I doubt Cinderella’s carriage included a motocross bike and a fluorescent pony.

I walk to the door and pass less than an inch away from him. I want to lean in, to rest my face against his jersey and just breathe him in.

I wonder how he would react if I did that.

I have to grab the handle on the inside of the door and use the running board in order to climb in, the truck is so high off the ground. Ben closes the door behind me and then rounds the front of the truck and jumps into his seat without using either. When he starts it up, the big diesel engine rumbles to life.

We pull out of the grounds and back onto the road. Thank God it’s less than three miles to my house, because I think I might pass out and I’d hate for him to see me drooling all over myself.

“You looked awesome today,” I say, when I can’t stand staying silent any longer. “You know, before the equine intervention.”

“Thanks,” he says. “Did you see me almost bite it off the big one? I got a little cocky and almost didn’t get my feet back on the pegs.”

He grins and looks over at me, and I find myself grinning right back and looking him in the eyes.

Oh boy. Must not look him in the eyes. I turn toward the window. “They say overinflated ego is now the number-one killer of teenage boys.”

I can feel Ben’s eyes on me. “Oh yeah? And what’s the treatment?”

“I hear electroshock therapy works nicely.”

Ben snorts. “What, no water boarding?”

I shake my head. It’s getting harder to stare out the window when I want to turn and look at Ben. Instead I pretend some black-and-white cows grazing in a nearby field are the most fascinating thing I’ve seen all day. “No, too messy.”

“I tend to think an hour with Mrs. Vickers and about two-dozen trigonometry problems will wound anyone’s ego.”

I forget to stick with the window and turn to look at him. “I know, and it’s still the first month of school. We’re all doomed.”

He smiles, flicking on his turn signal before glancing over at me. His lips look perfect, curled upward like they are. I turn back to the window.

“We should get together sometime and work on review,” he says. The truck lurches for a second as he misses second gear.

I forget to breathe for a second, until my lungs burn and I take in the biggest breath I can without Ben noticing it. “Yeah, maybe. At Nicole’s house. She has the same math class during sixth period.”

“Right,” he says, nodding. “At Nicole’s house.”

By the time we’ve pulled up in front of my house, my death grip on the door handle is making my fingers ache. He pulls the truck up to the curb, and just as he’s reaching for the keys to turn the truck off, I shove the door open.

“Thanks, Ben, see ya tomorrow!”

And then I dash across the lawn. I’m only halfway there when I hear his truck switch off. He rolls down the window and shouts to me. “Uh, Kayla?”

I stop, clenching my teeth for a second, my back still to him, and then I turn around.

“The pony?” He gestures with his thumb to the latest bane of my existence. I seem to have a lot of those lately. Is it possible to have multiple banes of your existence?

“Oh. Right.”

“How do you think we can get it out?”

“Um, there’s a retaining wall on the other side of that fence. Back your truck over there and I’ll go open the gate.”

I resist the urge to smack a hand against my forehead as I hustle into the backyard. Since we have a corner lot, there’s another gate in the back. The yard used to slope a bit, so my mom had the landscapers build this big retaining wall and level it out. It’ll be perfect for unloading the pony.

Ben backs his truck up and then jumps out, walking around the back and dropping the tailgate. It’s nearly perfect—just an inch or two above the top block of the wall. The pony backs up a little bit and then spins around and jumps out. She jogs over to the middle of the yard, then drops to her knees, then her side, and starts rolling around.

Ben laughs, and I realize, abruptly, how close he is. I take a less than subtle step away from him.

He tips his head to the side and regards me with his brows scrunched. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

“What? No. What?” The saliva in my throat is choking me, I’m sure of it.

Ben sighs and shrugs. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“Okay, well, I’ll get the gate. Thanks for the ride.”

He nods, but he looks at me a second longer than necessary and then turns and heads back to the truck.

He honks his horn once as he pulls out onto the street, and I swing the gate shut so hard and fast it rattles the hinges.

And then I inhale deeply and for the first time in half an hour, I no longer feel short of breath.