Authors: Ellen Miles
Rascal
For Jamie
“Aren't you scared?” Charles asked. “I know I would be really, really scared. Horses are huge. They're enormous. Plus, they could bite you.”
Lizzie laughed. Her little brother came up with the craziest things sometimes. Second graders were like that. As a fourth grader, Lizzie knew better. “Horses don't bite,” she said.
Charles nodded. “They do!” he said. “Sammy's mom said one bit her when she tried to give it a carrot.”
“Really?” Lizzie stopped looking out the living room window and stared at her brother. “A horse actually bit her?” Lizzie did not like the sound of that. “But horses don't eat meat. Horses are vegetarians.”
“So was the triceratops, but I wouldn't want one biting me,” said Charles.
Lizzie nodded. Charles had a point. “Anyway,” she said, “I'm not scared.”
But she was.
Ever since she had let her best friend, Maria, talk her into taking a riding lesson, Lizzie had been secretly dreading this Saturday morning, and now it was here.
For as long as she could remember, Lizzie had loved animals. Dogs were her favorite, but all animals were wonderful. Penguins, sheep, tigers, pandas â even iguanas! Lizzie loved them all. She loved learning about them, drawing pictures of them, and seeing them at the zoo or on nature shows. Everyone knew that Lizzie Peterson loved animals. What they didn't know is that there was one animal she was secretly afraid of. Horses.
When it came to dogs, she loved caring for them and playing with them and training them. She and Charles were dying for a dog of their own,
but so far they had not been able to talk their parents into getting one. At least, not a full-time dog.
But the Petersons were a foster family for puppies who needed new homes. They took care of them until they could find just the right owners for each puppy. They had fostered three puppies so far, and Lizzie and Charles had fallen in love with each one.
Puppies were a lot of work, but they were so much fun! Lizzie could play with a puppy all day and never get upset if it gave her little bites with its needle-sharp baby teeth.
But a horse?
That was a different story.
Charles was right. Horses were huge. A horse couldn't curl up and sleep on your lap, the way a puppy did. You couldn't tell
what
a horse might do. It might kick, or buck, or . . . bite.
Lizzie shuddered. She peeked out the window again, watching for Maria's dad's blue car. It
would be pulling into the driveway any minute. They were picking her up on their way to the stable. Maria was so excited that Lizzie was finally coming with her. She
loved
horses and had been riding since she was three years old. She even had all the right riding clothes: boots, funny pants called jodhpurs, and a helmet.
“My parents will never agree to buy me all those special clothes just for riding,” Lizzie had told Maria. She'd been hoping to get out of going to the stable. But that excuse didn't work.
“That's no problem,” Maria had answered. “You can just wear jeans and sneakers. Kathy does require all her students to wear helmets, but I have an extra one you can borrow.”
Kathy was Maria's riding teacher. She and her husband, Wayne, owned the stable and lived next to it. Lizzie had been hearing about Kathy for weeks: how nice she was, how much she knew about horses, what a great teacher she was. Maria just
knew
that Lizzie would love Kathy â and
the stable and the horses â just as much as she did.
Lizzie was not so sure. But she had decided that the best way to deal with her fear was to face it, and that meant going to the stable with Maria, meeting Kathy, and â
eek!
â climbing onto a horse and riding it.
Every time she thought about that, Lizzie's hands got sweaty and her heart started to pound.
“Everything okay, sweetie?” Lizzie's mom came through the living room, chasing after the Bean, Lizzie's youngest brother. The Bean (his real name was Adam, but nobody ever called him that) liked to pretend he was a dog. At the moment, he had a stuffed toy in his mouth and he was crawling fast. He was playing keep-away from Mom. Mom stopped and gave Lizzie a curious look. “You must be excited about your riding lesson.”
“I guess,” said Lizzie, shrugging.
“You're a brave girl,” her dad said. He had come into the room with the morning newspaper â the
one that her mom was a reporter for â and he was sitting down on the couch. “Personally, I've always been a little bit afraid of horses. They're just so
big.”
Charles went over and gave his dad a high five. “That's exactly what I told her,” he said.
Lizzie stared at her dad. He was a grown man, a firefighter! She'd never imagined he was afraid of anything, much less horses. If
he
was scared . . . For a second, Lizzie thought about changing her mind. All she had to do was admit to her parents that she was terrified. They wouldn't make her do something that scared her.
Then she heard a car in the driveway. “That must be Maria!” she said. It was too late. Now she had to go through with it. But as she was walking toward the front door, she heard a dog barking. It was a loud, piercing, high-pitched bark. “That's not Simba,” she said. Maria's mother was blind, and Simba was her guide dog. He was a big, calm
yellow Labrador retriever who hardly ever barked at all.
Lizzie opened the front door and saw a car in the driveway. But it wasn't a blue one. It was green. There was a woman getting out of the car. In one hand she held a bag of dog food. In the other, she held a red leather leash. And at the end of the leash was an adorable puppy. It was white, with patches of black and tan. It was jumping straight up and down as if all four legs were pogo sticks.
Boing! Boing!
And it was barking its little head off.
By now, Lizzie's family was standing behind her at the open door. They were all staring at the puppy.
“Please!” exclaimed the woman. “You have to help me.”
“That's Susan, from work,” Mrs. Peterson said. “Susan?” she asked the woman. “What are you â”
“I can't take it anymore,” said the woman. “We tried. We really did. But we just can't deal with this dog.” She had to shout to be heard over the puppy's barking.
At the same time, a baby in a car seat inside the car started to wail, and the two blond little kids strapped in next to him began to yell, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”
Lizzie walked over to the woman and took the leash from her hand. “Come on, pup,” she said, leaning down to scoop the excited puppy into her arms. “Quiet down.
Shh, shh,
you're being silly.”
Let me down! Let me down! Let me down! The puppy wriggled and barked. What good was being in a new place if you couldn't explore? Oh, well, if he couldn't get down, maybe he could at least make a new friend!
The puppy struggled a little, but then seemed to decide that he liked being in Lizzie's arms. He gave a few last barks before he started to lick her face instead. Starting at her chin, he worked his way up to the inside of her nostrils, which made Lizzie giggle because it tickled so much. She couldn't believe how friendly the little guy was.
After a grateful smile at Lizzie, the woman had turned back to the car to talk to her children. “It's okay, guys,” she said. “These people will take good care of Rascal.” She unbuckled the kids' seat belts so they could climb out of the car, and took the baby out of his car seat, settling him on her hip.
“Rascal!” Lizzie loved that name. It was perfect for the wild little puppy.
Mom came over to give the woman a hug. “Susan works with me at the paper,” she explained to the rest of the family. “She's a proofreader there. She catches all the mistakes in the articles I write.”
By then, Charles had joined Lizzie. He was stroking Rascal's wiry coat. “What kind of dog is Rascal?” he asked.
“He's a Jack Russell terrier,” said Lizzie and Susan at the same time.
Lizzie had recognized Rascal's breed the moment she saw him. He looked just like the Jack Russell on her “Dog Breeds of the World” poster: small and muscular, with a short, stubby tail. His ears stood up halfway and then flopped over, and he had a sharp, pointy black nose and bright, shiny black eyes. He was curious and ready for action!
Susan nodded at Lizzie. “So you've heard of this
breed. I never had, until my kids saw one in the movies. Once they saw that dog, they bugged me and bugged me and bugged me to get a Jack Russell terrier. They thought it was the cutest dog they ever saw.”
“Jack Russells are definitely adorable,” Lizzie agreed.
“So we went to a pet store and picked out this puppy,” Susan went on. “He seemed like the friendliest one in his litter.”
“A pet store?” Lizzie knew that pet stores were not the best place to buy puppies. If Susan had gotten her puppy from a breeder or a shelter, she would have learned a lot more about what to expect from a Jack Russell. Those dogs were all energy!
Susan nodded. “I know, that probably wasn't so smart. But the kids wore me down.” “How old is Rascal?” Charles asked. “About six months old,” Susan told him.
By this time, Rascal was ready to get down. He started churning his legs so much that Lizzie finally bent over and put him on the ground. He ran right over to the flower bed and pounced on a red tulip, pulling Lizzie along.
“Hey!” said Mr. Peterson. “Lizzie, keep him out of the garden.”
