Read Gift Horse Online

Authors: Dandi Daley Mackall

Tags: #Retail, #Ages 8 & Up

Gift Horse (2 page)

BOOK: Gift Horse
11.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Someone had written in:

Dear Catman,

My cat doesn't understand a word I say, and I can't understand her meows. Can you give me a quick course in cat talk?

—LonelyCat

I watched Catman's fingers fly over the keys as he answered:

Be cool, LonelyCat!

If your cat's meowing, she's talking to you! Cats meow at humans. They hiss, purr, and growl at other cats. High-pitched sounds mean “Hi.” Low-pitched “ow” means “Watch out, man! Don't mess with me.” Keep
your
voice high. Cats dig about 50 human words. That's plenty.

—The Catman

Catman logged off. “M wants to know if Hawk and Towaco split.” He nodded to the corner of the store, where his buddy sat cross-legged, typing away on a laptop. As usual, M wore black from head to toe.

I hadn't heard M say anything, but I answered him anyway. “Hey, M! They just left.”

I think he raised an eyebrow, which is talkative for M. As far as I know, nobody has any idea what the
M
stands for. He never says much, except for once in a school debate when he blew us away by speaking like a professor.

I caught a glimpse of a brown curl popping over the counter in the middle of the store. “Pat?”

Pat Haven stood up to her full five-foot height. “Winnie! I didn't see you! Reckon I'm getting blind as a bat! No offense.” Pat always excuses herself to the animals in her expressions. “Hawk get off okay?”

I nodded. I'd been trying to put Hawk and Towaco and their snowy trailer ride out of my mind. These questions about her weren't helping. “Mind if I use the computer for a little Christmas shopping?”

“Chill, Horse Gentler,” Catman said flatly. “You got mail.”

I sighed. “Guess I can shop
after
the horse e-mails.” Usually I can't wait to answer the horse questions. I love my job at the pet store. But today I wanted to order Christmas gifts. I only had two and half weeks until Christmas, so I was already cutting it close.

Catman turned the computer over to me, and I logged on. It looked like Barker had already answered the dog mail. I started working my way through the horse questions.

Dear Winnie,

My horse's feet stink! Is there such a thing as horse-foot deodorant for him?

—PonyGal

Dear PonyGal,

Stinky hooves are serious. Your horse might have thrush, an infection that makes the hoof break down and fall apart. Is your horse's stall too wet or dirty? Move him to clean, dry ground. Keep the lines of the frog clean (the grooves that make a V on the bottom of the foot). If the hoof looks black or has runny stuff inside, call your vet!

—Winnie

I had just finished answering the last horse e-mail and was about to run a search on invention magazines for my dad's Christmas gift when the
ding
went off. Another e-mail. I thought about leaving it for next time. Then I imagined a horse in trouble. I clicked on New Mail.

To Winnie the Horse Gentler:

There's an old horse who looks kinda sick.

And I know the mean owner won't give a lick.

So now he's ready to sell it for glue.

You better write quickly and tell me what to do.

—Topsy-Turvy-Double-U

My first reaction was to jump through the screen and save that horse. Then I read the rhyming note again. Chances were, it was a hoax. Somebody like Summer Spidell and her crowd could have been playing a practical joke. Still, I couldn't risk letting it go unanswered.

Dear Topsy-Turvy,

Do whatever you can to buy that horse. If you can't keep it, give it away to somebody who can.

—Winnie the Horse Gentler

I tried to get my mind back on shopping. The e-mail probably wasn't real, and I really did want to get into the Christmas spirit.

Right away I found the perfect gift for Dad—a one-year subscription to
Gizmo Magazine.
He'd brought back a sample copy from the Invention Convention in Chicago, where he'd met Madeline. Dad had read that magazine so much, pages were scattered all over our house.

I'd already asked Pat to order a special terrarium for Lizzy. I'd never have enough money to get her the iguana too. But the terrarium was the expensive part. And my sister, who loves lizards and all reptiles, would want to pick out her own iguana anyway.

That left Pat. I did a search on cowboy hats and found one store with over 4,000 of them.

“Catman, do you think Pat would like this?” I glanced where M had been sitting. He was gone, and so was Catman.

Shrugging, I bookmarked my favorite hat. Pat would love it in red.

I bounced around the Internet, trying to get ideas for Barker and Catman and Hawk. Nothing seemed right.

“You still at it?” Pat asked. I hadn't heard her walk up.

“Pat, did Lizzy's terrarium come yet?”

She shook her head, sending a stray curl across her forehead. She blew it back up. “That iguana company's slow as snails, no offense.”

The store, which had been full of customers when I'd walked in, was almost empty now. “What time is it?”

“Almost two.”

“You're kidding!” I started to get up when the mail alert sounded again.

“You can leave that till tomorrow if you want, Winnie,” Pat suggested, heading to the door to meet a customer.

But I couldn't leave the note. I'd wonder all night if I'd left a horse in distress. I clicked on the e-mail and read the subject heading:
EMERGENCY!

I stared at the capital letters until they blurred, until I could force myself to read the message:

Go home! Now! Run! Run straight to your pasture! NOW!

I stood up so fast the computer chair flipped over. My knees felt weak. An emergency? In my pasture?

Nickers!

“Winnie?” Pat called.

I dashed out of the pet store. I didn't stop to pull on my gloves. All I could think about was Nickers. What if something had happened to her?

I tried to picture the e-mail message, but my mind hadn't taken a photo of it. Nothing came. I knew it told me to run to the pasture. Had it mentioned my horse?

My feet slid out from under me. I crashed to the sidewalk. Scrambling up, I made my legs keep going.

Snow floated down. White, like Nickers. My eyes stung. My head throbbed, as if my white Arabian were prancing inside my skull.

God, please . . . don't . . . Nickers is so . . .

I tried to get a prayer to come out, but the words jumbled. It was like every time I tried to answer a question in English class or give a book report. I couldn't make people understand what I wanted to say. Only this was different. I knew God heard the words before they left my heart.

A horn honked. I slipped again.

“Winnie! Want a ride?”

I glanced to the street, surprised to see cars, people, familiar things.

A van rolled to the curb. Mr. Barker had his elbow out the window. Snow stuck to his close-cropped black hair. “Are you okay?”

“I have to go to Nickers!” I shouted, bolting off the sidewalk, across an empty lot, away from Main Street.

Somebody, Eddy Barker I think, hollered after me, but I couldn't hear him. His words mixed with the snowflakes and drifted away.

I couldn't stop running. My heart shuddered as I turned onto our street. Everything was white. It reminded me of the first time I'd seen my horse, right after we'd moved to Ashland. She was wild then, Wild Thing, running in a white fog. I'd known then that I had to have her.

Nickers was everything to me. If anything had happened to her . . .

I made my way across our lawn, booby-trapped with old tires and car parts under the white snow, works-in-progress for Odd-Job Willis.

I heard a car coming up the street behind me, but I didn't look. I raced for the barn, the closest route to the pasture.

“Nickers!” I screamed.

A crow burst from a bare branch. The flap of its wings echoed like the last sound on earth.

I dashed into the barn, the words pounding my brain:
Run to the pasture!
Once inside, I had to stop. Snow glare had blinded me.

In the stillness I heard a nicker, the most beautiful sound in the whole world.

“Nickers?”
Please let it be Nickers.

She nickered again. The sound rattled my heart. My hands shook.

Racing to her stall, I spotted her. She was lit from behind by the sun breaking through the connecting paddock. Her mane waved as she tossed her head and sneezed.

I burst into her stall and wrapped my arms around her. “Nickers, Nickers,” I cried into her already wet neck. Snowflakes from the pasture had melted into her white winter coat. The smell of wet horse filled my lungs as they heaved with sobs. “Thank you, God. She's all right. Everything's all right.”

“Winnie, what's wrong?” Eddy Barker ran into the barn, stopping like I had, his big brown eyes blinking. His Cleveland Indians cap, worn backward, was white with snow.

“Barker, over here!” I called. Only somebody like Eddy Barker—or Catman—would have chased me down to make sure I was okay.

Barker's dad trotted into the barn, bumped into his son, and almost knocked him down. “Is she here?”

Like father, like son. Like mother too. The Barkers are the nicest family I know. The parents teach African-American studies and art and poetry and even computer science at Ashland University. Mr. Barker still looks like the football player he was in college. And Barker is getting more like him every day.

“I'm in the stall with Nickers!” I called. “She's okay. Everything's all right.” I swiped my tears with the back of my hand. My fingers were numb and tingly.

“You had us worried,” Mr. Barker said in his deep voice.

“Man, Winnie!” Barker came into the stall with Nickers and me. “I thought something awful had happened.”

“Me too,” I explained. “Somebody played a horrible trick on me.” I could almost feel the knot of fear in my stomach turn into a fireball of anger. “I got this urgent e-mail on the help line, telling me to run to the pasture. I can't remember the words exactly, but it made me think something was wrong with Nickers.”

Mr. Barker joined us in the stall. He stroked Nickers' jaw. I don't think I'd ever seen him with my horse. It was a nice picture—black against white. I sighed. Nickers was safe.

“I'm sorry somebody put you through that, Winnie,” Mr. Barker said softly.

“Why would anybody do that?” Barker asked. “I don't get it.”

“Mark's in the car, Winnie,” Mr. Barker said. “We should get going. You heard that Irene had puppies while we were in Texas over Thanksgiving? One needs a shot. We're on our way to the vet's.”

Irene is Mark's chocolate Lab, and Mark is one of Barker's five brothers. Barker trained a dog for each of them.

“Thanks for following me home, Mr. Barker,” I said.

“I want to take a look around before we go.” Barker was already moving through the stall toward the pasture. “Somebody mean enough to get you upset like that could be dumb enough to stick around and see the result.” He glanced at his dad. “I'll just take a minute.”

“Dad?” Mark Barker shuffled into the barn. He was holding a squirmy, black puppy. Mark's pretty big for a seven-year-old. He walked over to us, smiling Barker's smile.

I had to pet the puppy. It licked my hand. “He's so cute, Mark!”

“His name is Zorro,” Mark said proudly.

“Mark, I told you it might be easier on you if you didn't name the puppies,” his dad warned.

“I'm keeping all of them,” Mark snapped.

Mr. Barker sighed. “We've been all through this, Mark. What on earth would we do with three more dogs? We'll find good homes for them. I promise.”

Mark shook his head.

I felt for him. Back in Wyoming, Mom and I had the same problem. We had tried to keep from naming the horses, too, hoping it would keep us from getting too attached. But it never worked.

BOOK: Gift Horse
11.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Industry of Souls by Booth, Martin
Gangland Robbers by James Morton
Living In Perhaps by Julia Widdows
After the Fall by Morgan O'Neill
Junk by Josephine Myles
Love Never Lies by Donnelly, Rachel