Jeez, is Van der Luyden part water buffalo, or is Sumalee part Friesian? Phin wondered with exasperation.
“Sure, sure,” he said, clambering to his feet and giving a modest shake that was more of a shimmy.
Sumalee cocked her head and a hint of amusement touched her eyes. “So here you are,” she said.
Phin looked up at the dense canopy of green above, looked around at the nondescript green and brown that hemmed the creek, and looked out to the hot, dry field beyond the edge of trees.
“The Funny Farm is a gift, you know,” Sumalee said.
Phin snorted with disbelief. “Some gift,” he muttered.
“We are ‘unwanted’ animals—useless, redundant, or damaged…” Phin winced at the company with which he was being lumped.
“… so what does that mean? It means we are free. In a man’s world, an animal that is useless is free. Some are truly free in the wild, some are hunted as pests, and a few find the limited, but safe, freedom of a home like this. The question is what you do with your freedom.”
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” Phin said crossly.
“Exactly,” said the water buffalo in a satisfied voice. “Because, Phin, when you’ve lost everything, sometimes you find yourself.”
CHAPTER 8
Phin was only about halfway across the field before the sun had baked him nearly dry and Sumalee’s words had gone from sounding half-baked to scary. Scary, because Phin had been certain he knew himself, down to his hooves. The suggestion that he had lost more than a home, more than a former life—that somewhere along the way he’d lost himself and now needed to be found—was disconcerting to say the least.
But as he discovered, in the scorching, endless weeks that followed, the one thing he still had—and had in buckets—was time. Time to think, time to remember, time to sulk, and, most of all, time to be bored out of his skull. His life at the Chadwick had not been a particularly active one, to be sure, but its leisured pace was nicely structured around his comforts and care. He’d had the benefit of refined conversation with a horse from one of the city’s oldest and best families (not that I took advantage of it, Phin thought with a twinge of guilt, but Van der Luyden was so stuffy!). He’d had access to the smoothest, leafiest bridle paths (and I just wanted to go back to the barn!). He’d had his own set of brushes; his own leather tack; a view of one of the city’s toniest blocks through a picture window rimmed with flowers. Even his water bucket had had his name on it, and Isabella would have been horrified if any other Chadwick horse had used it. And, of course, he’d had his very own trophy case.
Now he was living in what was for all intents and purposes a commune … or a prison, as he often thought, despite Sumalee’s talk of freedom. If he was thirsty, and didn’t want to walk all the way to the crick, he had to wait in line at the water trough, flecked with grass and hay and camel slobber and often undrinkably warm. One day in early August, Phin saw Sven go to town on the salt lick, and the pony realized that after you’ve seen a blind, melancholic reindeer attack a salt lick, you’ll never be able to so much as nibble the thing again. It didn’t help that after Sven was done, he got his antlers stuck in the fence, and Frank wasn’t due for another three days. The reindeer didn’t complain—that was almost the worst of it. All he did was sigh heavily and settle down with resignation written all over his knobby-kneed body. After an hour of listening to the just-audible exhalations, which had “Oh, don’t worry about me, I’ll just sit here with my antlers in the fence and rot, you all go on and have a nice time” written all over them, the reindeer had gotten on Phin’s last nerve.
“Can’t someone do something about Sven?” he asked Freddy crossly. “Surely he’s not going to lie there and sigh like that for three days?”
“His record’s seven.” Freddy yawned.
“And you just let him?” Phin thought if he had to listen to the heavy breathing any longer, he might go stomp on a chicken just to relieve the tension.
“What do you expect us to do?” Matilda shrieked. “If he’s balmy enough to get stuck in a headlock, he can wait for Frank to dig him out.” Her stubby wings rose and fell indignantly like a hundred feather dusters coming to life.
“Maybe he can, but I can’t,” Phin snapped, turning abruptly from the group and swinging toward the salt lick in a purposeful trot. Reindeer stuck in the fence for three days. It’s positively indecent. Sure, it’s been days since a sightseer came by, but that doesn’t mean we should completely let ourselves go.
Nominally the Funny Farm was a petting zoo of sorts, and before the new interstate had been built, there had been a fairly steady stream of traffic down the two-lane country road that fronted the farm, connecting the small agricultural towns dotted along the river’s tracks. The towns once had flourishing farmers’ markets, Sumalee had told Phin, selling all sorts of things from locally grown honey to wicker furniture, handmade canoes to tomatoes, rutabagas to sunflowers. Families would take weekend drives from town to town, and the children always wanted to stop at the Funny Farm to see the bunnies (If only they knew, Phin shuddered) and the reindeer and the camel. Now most of the traffic was local, and for the locals the farm was nothing new and no reason to stop.
Phin, though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, clung to the hope that someday a family—lost, or nostalgic—would spot him and pull over.
Daddy, look! Look at the pony! Can we stop, puh-leeeeze?
Mommy, that’s the prettiest pony I’ve ever seen! Maybe we can adopt him!
So far, it hadn’t happened. But that was no reason to let the whole farm go to pieces around him. Goodness knows what people would think, especially if this time Sven gave up the ghost. A dead reindeer moldering in the fence is hardly appropriate window dressing. Phin snorted with disgust.
For a moment, the pony feared that Sven had indeed expired. The reindeer’s opaque eyes were closed and his head was wrenched sideways at an alarming angle. Then Phin heard it again: Siiiiiggggghhhhhh. The sound was even more irritating up close.
“That doesn’t look very comfortable, Sven,” Phin said in a thin voice.
A long pause, then the reindeer’s eyes fluttered open. “Oh, hello, pony. Don’t mind me. Just step over my legs, please. I’m afraid I can’t move entirely, but perhaps…” He gave a feeble flop of his long legs.
“I don’t want the salt lick, Sven,” Phin told him. “I’m here to get you out of the fence.”
“You’re very kind. It’s more than I deserve. No matter. Frank will be by sooner or later and I’m sure I’ll manage till then.” Another sigh raked Phin’s nerves.
“Come on, Sven. This is ridiculous. You can’t stay like this for three days,” he said firmly.
“My record, though I don’t like to boast, is seven.…” The reindeer’s eyes drooped shut. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a bit of salt? So restorative on a hot day. I was helping myself just before … just before…” Then he sighed again.
“Sven! Snap out of it!” Phin trumpeted. “You are getting out of that fence if I have to push you out myself!”
The reindeer’s lids flew back like twin rakes that had been stepped on. “Oh my,” he gulped. “Well, if you think that’s best.”
That was more like it.
Phin hadn’t had a plan when he’d trotted over to the lick—except to make the infernal sighing stop—and now, looking at the entangled horns, he began to have doubts that he would indeed be able to free Sven. Besides being depressed and chronically pessimistic, the reindeer was, after all, blind, and thus not much help in assessing the situation. But he can hear, Phin thought, and if he can hear, he can follow instructions.
Phin stepped over Sven’s sprawled legs to get a better look at the problem. One of the reindeer’s antlers was almost entirely through the slats of the fence, and now, with the way Sven’s head was turned, it was perpendicular with the boards. The other antler had gotten involved with a section of the wire mesh with which the ragged fence li
ne was occasionally fortified, but Phin thought that was the lesser problem.
“Okay, Sven, here’s what we’re going to do,” Phin said. “I’m going to tell you which way to move, and you try to follow my directions. Okay?”
“Really, it seems so unnecessary.… I’m sure I’ll be…”
“STOP IT,” Phin whinnied. The reindeer’s eyes widened again and his lips smacked shut.
“Right. Now, er, move your head up a little … a little more … now tilt it left … more…”
The reindeer sighed again, but Phin pressed forward.
“Okay. Now see if you can scoot back, but keep your head just like that.”
But then an all-too-familiar yowl came from above: “Svennie, I thought you couldn’t join in any reindeer games!”
“Oooooh, he must be getting ready for the Reindeer Special Olympics!” mewed Moxie, perched beside her sister on the fence.
“Are you his trainer, Prince Blondie? Going for gold?”
Without pausing to think, Phin turned around so his hindquarters faced the fence and bucked. His aim wasn’t very good, but the impact of his hooves on the boards was enough to send the three cats flying off, claws scrabbling at air. Unfortunately, it also gave Sven’s head a rather violent rattle.
“Sorry,” Phin told the reindeer, who, of course, sighed.
It took about half an hour of painstaking direction, but finally, after a lot of near-misses and heavy breathing, Sven was free. He was also touchingly grateful, and the most loquacious Phin had ever heard him as he retold the story again and again.
“… and then, just when I thought the situation was utterly hopeless, he told me to shift my weight onto my right haunch at the same time that I wiggled my head just so, and then, well, here I suppose I am. Not that that means much to anyone besides me, I’m sure.”
“He’s juhhst the smartest bay-ay-ayby ever,” Wally bleated, his eyes misting fondly at Phin.
And that was how it started. After Phin had done what the farm had considered impossible—freeing a resigned, blind reindeer from a fence—and then repeated the feat a week later, he gained a certain authority among the animals. They came to him with their problems and seemed to think he might have ideas on how to solve them. First the chickens’ coop became completely untenable—the stench was making them even crazier than usual—and Phin suggested that they go on strike. They may not have signs to carry the way workers in the city had (Phin remembered all too well when the Chadwick’s grooms, led by Jack, had struck for better wages. He’d never been so dirty, but Jack had told him it was for a good cause) but when Frank showed up and all the hens were in a line outside the coop, squawking madly in his direction, he got the point.
The Funny Farm’s next small drama was more nerve-racking. Early one morning, a delegate from the Fuzzy Butts approached Phin while he was watering. In a squeak that managed to be threatening despite its high register, the bunny told Phin that one of the Fuzzy Butt great-nephews had been lost since the previous night. At first Phin thought he was going to be accused of stepping on him, and he nervously prepared to defend himself, but it turned out that the Fuzzy Butts actually wanted his help. His help!
What on earth do I know about finding misplaced rabbits? Phin wondered. And then: But what will they do to me if I refuse?
With considerable misgivings, the pony agreed to look into the matter, praying that if he failed it wouldn’t mean his death-by-Fuzzy-Butt. He decided to enlist Freddy’s aid—given the gravity of the situation, an extra three paws and a highly sensitive nose seemed called for.
It took a bit of effort to convince Freddy to help.
“Aw, I was about to pile up z’s, and now you want me to go huntin’ lost Fuzzy Butts? I’m prob’ly gonna blow this joint any day now, and sniffin’ dirt for mean baby bunnies is not how I wanna spend my last hours.”
But Phin thought he knew better. He was beginning to suspect that beneath Freddy’s tough exterior, the dog was a softie. And though he often talked of leaving the farm, here he was.
“Well, all right,” he said in his most discouraged voice. “I suppose the poor little thing will survive somehow.… He’s one of the youngest, you know. And hopefully my punishment won’t be … too terrible. Thanks anyway, Freddy.” He lowered his head in his most dejected fashion and began shuffling away, tail sunk down between his hocks.
When he heard an exasperated growl behind him, he knew he’d won.
“Heck, I guess I could smell a few bushes for you,” Freddy grumbled.
But the dog did more than that. It took Freddy four hours of intense, nose-to-the-ground hunting, but just as the sun was sinking into the unseen river, he emerged from a thicket of brambles, nose bleeding, eyes watering, coat flecked with mud and dotted with thorns. In his teeth he held a small bit of gray fluff as delicately as an egg, and his eyes were sparkling with delight. He deposited the tiny, terrified bunny outside the Fuzzy Butts’ hutch, barked, “Ding-dong, rabbit delivery,” then retired to the shade to lick his coat and snarl at anyone who’d dare to thank him.
* * *
“So how have you been spending your time, Phineas?” The water buffalo had taken to calling Phin by his original name, and the pony found he liked it. It had a certain ring of maturity in Sumalee’s sweet voice—not at all how Poppy used to bray it in frustration.
Phin eased to his side, letting the cool creek water spill over his neck and chest. His golden coat had become dull with dirt and faded by the sun, and his mane and forelock were so long and tangled that Phin felt positively barbaric. The water wouldn’t restore him—Phin doubted even Jack’s grooming could bring back his usual splendor—but at least it would get off the worst of the mud and soothe his mosquito bites.
“Oh, doing this and that, I suppose.” Phin sighed. It had been a trying week. Wally had gotten a thorn stuck in one of his toes and had cried like the baby he thought Phin was until the pony showed him how to scrape his hoof against a fence board to free it (a Poppy trick, admittedly, but it worked). Then Freddy had actually nipped Mixie (who completely deserved it) and the three cats declared war on the dog. Everyone was on Freddy’s side, of course, but then the cats had declared a strike on rat-catching until Freddy apologized, and Phin felt responsible since he’d introduced the concept in the first place. Plus, the farm was getting overrun by vermin. I’ll talk to them again tonight … bribe them or something.…
“Sven tells me you’ve become quite indispensable. I see you’ve found more ways for a pony to be useful.”
“Oh, Sven, he would say that.” Phin rolled his eyes. “I’m not being useful … nobody’s useful here—didn’t you say that? I’m just trying to, I don’t know, keep a little order around here.”
“Because you’re a herd animal, and you need to be part of a group,” Sumalee said thoughtfully.
Phin bristled at that. “I should be around people,” he snapped. “I should be someone’s champion pony.”
“But you’re not,” Sumalee replied, unruffled. “And so instead you’re helping others. You’re making the farm a better place. The animals are growing to rely on you. Perhaps you should be a champion pony, but I’d say you’re doing a fine job just being yourself.”
Phin had no answer for that. He was pleased, yet sad. Talking with Sumalee often had that effect on him.
“And you’re not as fat anymore, Prince Blondie,” Freddy barked from beyond the trees.
“Oh thanks,” Phin muttered, and he resumed wallowing.
CHAPTER 9
In late August, Freddy almost made good on his repeated promise to leave the farm.
It was Frank’s day, and Phin stood near the fence attempting to swish flies with Sven, waiting for the now familiar sound of Frank’s truck. Swishing flies with a reindeer was an exercise in futility—Sven’s tail was no more than a scraggly gray pouf at the end of his butt, and Phin’s tail barely reached the reindeer’s haunch—but it passed the time. Wally lurched over and settled in on Phin’s other si
de, making the irritated pony the filling in a reindeer-camel sandwich. Wally’s short, hairless tail was no help, either, but at least he had stopped trying to eat Phin’s. Neither of his companions was a sparkling conversationalist, so Phin let himself drift off, thinking of the nice spot of grass he’d found by the crick that morning. One thing I can say about the Funny Farm is that it teaches you to appreciate the small … really small … things. Well, smoke ’em if you got ’em, as Freddy would say.
Just then, Phin heard Freddy whine, an urgent, almost pained sound. He looked over to the puddle of shade where the dog had been snoozing and saw that not only was he awake, he was positively bursting from his fur. Uneven ears cocked, straining at attention, a furrow creased deep in his brow, panting furiously: For once in his life, Freddy looked like he was going to lose his cool.
“That’s a Hemi engine … yeah, gotta be, maybe a ’seventy.…” The dog sprang to his paws, wriggled under the fence, then hopped slowly toward the driveway, his feathery tail pointing straight out behind him like a retriever’s.
“What’s he on about?” Matilda shrilled from the water trough. Phin wondered the same thing. But before anyone could answer, Freddy was off like a Thoroughbred at the starting bell, springing down the drive and toward the road at a speed the pony couldn’t believe, his wiry body straining flat to the ground.
“It’s a ’Cuda! Radioactive! It’s a Barracuda!” he yelped as he flew. Utterly baffled, Phin watched as Freddy streaked down the country lane, and then he heard the sound that must have set the dog off: the throaty rumble of a car engine. His ears pricked. Freddy never got this excited about Frank, so the car must be a strange one.
“What’s up with Freddy?” he asked Sven.
“Oh, you know how dogs are about cars,” the reindeer sighed. “Freddy lives for them.”
“I’ve never seen him chase a car like that before,” Phin objected.
“He has particular tastes. What does he call them, Wally? The automobiles he’s so fond of?”
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