Team Challenge by Janet Rising

Dee, handing out Popsicles. She’d stopped off at the convenience store on her way to the yard and bought one for everyone. Soon, all that could be heard in the tack room was the sound of slurping. It was a great idea because it was really, really hot. The tack room, however, was really, really cool, which made it the location of choice on a hot day.
    “Got what?” said Bean, lifting her Popsicle up and out of reach of Mrs. Collins’s greyhound, Squish, who had suddenly become everyone’s friend.
    “An idea on how we can make sure we qualify for Brookdale,” Dee said.
    “Well, don’t keep it to yourself.” I slurped.
    “My granddad. He can help us.”
    Katy, Bean, and I looked at her blankly. James hadn’t arrived yet, but he was due any moment as he had another jumping practice planned.
    “Is he one of the dressage judges?” Bean asked hopefully, twirling her long blond hair up on top of her head to keep cool.
    “No, he’s dead.”
    We all stopped mid-slurp. We hadn’t seen that one coming.
    “Er, sorry, I’m missing something,” said Katy. “Get lost, Squish, I don’t hang around when you’re eating your Kibbles ’n Bits!”
    “We can call up his dear departed spirit.”
    “Oh, of course, we’ve been so stupid!” I said, slapping my forehead dramatically. “What are you on, Dee?”
    “No, honest, it will work, I’ve done it before,” she said earnestly. “We use an Ouija board and ask for his help. He used to be a whiz with horses when he was alive. Really good with them—rode at all the top shows. That’s why my mom’s so horsey. He died before I was born. He’ll help us.”
    “You mom’s horsey because your granddad died before you were born?” asked Bean, confused.
    “No, because he was!” sighed Dee, like we were strange.
    “He was what?” Katy asked.
    “Horsey!”
    “And you want us to call up his ghost?” Bean said slowly. For once, she wasn’t the only one having trouble.
    “Yes, of course!”
    “And you’ve done it before?” Katy asked.
    “Yes!”
    “Gross!” exclaimed Bean.
    “How can that help?” I said, finishing my Popsicle with a flourish and throwing the stick into the trash.
    “I don’t know, but I called him up with my cousin once, when she wanted help with her exams, and she passed with fantastic grades. Granddad helped her.”
    “How do you know?” said Katy.
    “Because she was terrible at all her subjects.”
    At that moment, James arrived, and Dee gushed out her bizzaro plan again. But James was dead set on the Ouija board plan—and that wasn’t supposed to be a joke.
    “Great idea!” he enthused. “Is that Popsicle for me?”
    It was, but when James tore open the wrapper, it had been morphed by the heat into creamy sludge and oozed out all over the floor, so Squish got lucky after all.
    We decided that we had nothing to lose by giving Dee’s idea a try, so an argument followed about what to use for an Ouija board. According to Dee, we needed to write all the letters of the alphabet on the board so that her granddad could spell out words of wisdom for us with a glass, which we would place, upside down, on the board. There was simply nothing around we could use. Then Katy had an idea.
    “How about a tack box? We can draw letters on the bottom,” she suggested.
    Everyone had a tack box where they kept all sorts of stuff: grooming kit, treats, spare bandages. Katy’s was big with purple hearts drawn all over it (who’d have guessed it?!), Bean’s had a broken lock and was full of very old, very ratty, half-clean stuff (she’s not very tidy). Pictures of Tiffany were stuck all over it, only they were curling up with the humidity, making the box look even more disreputable. Mine was painted white and I’d written DRUMMER across it. James had a filing cabinet his dad had thrown out, which was huge. Ironically, it had the least in it.
    “Whose?” I said. I didn’t fancy Dee’s granddad going to work on the bottom of my tack box.