Secrets in the Sand by Carolyn Brown

            “I’m glad we can help each other. Don’t worry about a thing.” As if Reva wasn’t the one doing Abby a big favor by giving her a place to stay when even her own parents refused, for Abby’s own good. They were completely right when they pointed out that by the age of thirty-three, she should have gotten her shit together. After all, they’d had two good jobs, a solid (if unhappy) marriage, a kid, and a mortgage by that time of their lives.

            It wouldn’t have helped to argue that up until the moment she didn’t, she’d also had a good job (dental office manager), an unhappy relationship (with the philandering dentist), and a kid (the dentist’s five-year-old daughter). Okay, so she didn’t have a mortgage. Points to Mom and Dad for being bigger adults at thirty-three. Whoopee. It was a different economy back then.

            After Reva left, Abby showered and dressed to meet her first big challenge as the sole custodian of Bayside Barn—ushering in three school buses that pulled through the gates just after 9:00 a.m.

            When the deep throb of the buses’ motors vibrated the soles of her barn boots, Abby tamped down the familiar flood of anxiety that rose up her gut like heartburn. The feeling of impending disaster arose often, sometimes appearing out of nowhere for no particular reason. Only one of the reasons she’d come to stay at Aunt Reva’s for a while. This time, though, she had reason to feel anxious. These three buses held a total of ninety boisterous kindergartners, enough to strike fear in the stoutest of hearts.

            Abby hadn’t forgotten Reva’s warning about the timing of her tenure as acting director of Bayside Barn. Two weeks remained of the school year, and those last two weeks were always the worst; not only did schools schedule more trips then, but the kids would be more excitable and the teachers’ tempers would be more frayed.

            Abby hurried to get Freddy, the scarlet macaw, from his aviary enclosure. “You can do this,” she muttered to herself, remembering the Bayside Barn mission statement that Reva made all the volunteers memorize: Bayside Barn will save the world, one happy ending at a time, by giving a home to abandoned animals whose unconditional love and understanding will teach people to value all creatures and the planet we share.

            If that wasn’t a reason to get over herself and get on with it, nothing was.





Chapter 2


            Abby stroked Freddy’s feathers on the way back to the parking lot, soothing herself as much as him. She could do this. She had helped Aunt Reva host school field trips several times. And five seasoned helpers were here, women who knew the drill from years of experience. The choking sense of anxiety drifted down and hung like a fog, somewhere around the region of her kneecaps.

            With the huge parrot perched on her shoulder, Abby joined her helpers—two retirees and three student-teachers from the local college. Each wore jeans and rubber-soled barn boots; each wore a different-colored T-shirt with the Bayside Barn Buddies logo on the front.

            The ladies had already directed the bus drivers to park in the gravel lot between the light-blue farmhouse and the bright-red barn. Ninety boisterous kindergartners spilled out of the buses, and the donkeys brayed a friendly greeting over the barn fence. Freddy clung to Abby’s shoulder with his talons and hollered in her ear, “Welcome, Buddies!”

            The teachers and parent chaperones in the first bus corralled their kindergartners into small groups. The hellions that had spewed from the other two buses yelled and chased each other around the roped-off gravel parking area. Feeling more relaxed now that the field trip experience was underway, Abby gave the kids a minute to get their wiggles out, then removed a gym whistle from her jeans pocket and blew three short, sharp blasts. Everybody froze.

            “Listen up.” She tried to channel Aunt Reva’s stern school-teacher voice. “Before we can begin, I need each of the teachers and parent chaperones to gather the kids in your group.”

            After a bit of shuffling, the crowd coalesced into small clusters of five-or-so kids surrounding each of the adults. A small swarm of kids milled around looking worried. Abby held up a hand. “Kids who aren’t sure which group you belong to, please line up right here in front of me.”

            Within five minutes, every child had found the right group, and Abby’s helpers handed out color-coded stickers, badges shaped like a sheriff’s star surrounded by the words, I’m a Bayside Barn Buddy.

            Abby blasted the whistle again. “Welcome to Bayside Barn. In a moment, you’ll follow me to the pavilion where we’ll watch a short video about the animals you will meet here today. Then, each group will go with the guide whose shirt matches your star. Together, you will learn and explore for the rest of the morning. We’ll meet back at the pavilion at noon for lunch, and then you’ll have another two hours of fun before you head back to school. Sound good?”