Horses Her Way

by Sibley Miller

  “‘Love’ isn’t exactly the word that comes to mind,” Sirocco had growled. But before he could say anything else, Kona had jumped in.

  “Okay!” she’d interrupted desperately. “Now that we’re all gussied up, let’s make that pie!”

  The four Wind Dancers had made many pies together. Blackberry pies. Apple pies. Acorn crunch pies. And they had a system that worked every time.

  Kona always mixed up the dough while Sirocco held a sharp stick in his teeth to cut up the apples.

  Brisa then rolled the dough out to a thin, round pancake.

  Sumatra measured out the sugar and cinnamon.

  And finally, all four horses helped put the ingredients together.

  But today, their system was a little squeaky.

  The pollen on Sumatra’s mane and tail was making her so sneezy that she could barely hold her measuring cup in her teeth. Then she sneezed so hard that she knocked over Kona’s cup of flour!

  “Sumatra!” Kona cried as dusty white stuff landed everywhere.

  “Sorry!” Sumatra said with a sniffle. “I’ll sweep it up.”

  She began swishing her long tail over the flour-dusted floor, but this stirred up so much flour and pollen that all the horses now sneezed!

  “Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo!”

  “Hee, hee!” Brisa giggled between sneezes. “I guess beauty comes at a price, right, guys?”

  Sumatra answered with another sneeze. Kona was too busy twitching and itching to chat. And Sirocco had stopped talking because his mouth, filled with jewel braces, hurt.

  So the horses resumed their pie-making in silence.

  “What (ah-c-h-o-o-o-o!) gives, Sirocco?” Sumatra demanded. “You always cut up the apples.”

  “These braces are pulling on my teeth so hard,” Sirocco complained, his mouth flashing as he spoke. “I can’t hold my stick knife.”

  “Oh, fine,” Sumatra scowled with a sidelong glance at Brisa, who was so busy decorating the pie dough that she hadn’t heard Sirocco’s complaint. “I can cut the apples.”

  But at just the wrong moment.…

  “Ahhhh-CHOO!”

  Sumatra’s sneeze was so thunderous that she knocked the apples right off the table!

  First, they rolled into Kona. Who kicked them out of the way.

  Next, an apple bounced up, hitting Sirocco right in the mouth.

  “My teeth!” Sirocco whinnied painfully. He reared up on his hind legs, kicking over the cinnnamon as he did. A cloud of the fragrant, brown spice poofed right into Sumatra’s face.

  “Oh, no!” Sumatra neighed. “Not agai—agai—Ahhhhh-CHOO!”

  This sneeze hit the pie crust and sent it flying right over Brisa’s face!

  “Eek!” Brisa cried, stumbling around the kitchen. “Look at us!”

  The Wind Dancers were indeed a mess—dusted with flour, cinnamon, and pollen, and stuck with bits of pie dough.

  “But it’s okay!” Brisa said, recovering quickly. She gave Sumatra a nose nuzzle. “I’ll freshen up your pollen stripes in a jiffy! And Sirocco, I’ll just fix your jewel braces. And Kona, your braids are still nice and tight. We just need to get the flour off them.…”

  Brisa started to trot over to Kona, but Kona’s chilly voice stopped her in her tracks.

  “That’s okay!” Kona snapped. “I’ll dust myself off, thanks.”

  “Yeah, and I think I’ve had all the pollen I can stand for one day,” Sumatra sniffed.

  “Maybe,” Sirocco said, eyeing the disheveled kitchen, “you could just use all that beauty energy of yours to clean up this kitchen.”

  And with that, the three grumbling Wind Dancers trotted into the next room, leaving Brisa all alone.

  For the first time, Brisa realized that maybe her friends weren’t enjoying her day of beauty as much as she was.

  Just like our frog friends were happier when they were left in the mud, Brisa thought regretfully. And the tree leaves were better off without my jewels stuck to them. And the dandelion seeds were more useful when they were able to fly free.

  Suddenly, Brisa gasped. Another thought had occurred to her.

  If somebody had tied up our dandelion—the one that Leanna blew on to set us free—we Wind Dancers wouldn’t even exist!

  This notion was so surprising that Brisa needed a moment to think. She propped her chin on an apple in the middle of the kitchen floor and frowned.

  But only for a moment! Because that apple had given her yet another idea! Brisa sprang to her hooves and got busy!

  * * *

  A while later, Kona, Sumatra, and Sirocco shyly poked their noses through the kitchen door.

  “What’s that yummy smell?” Sirocco asked.

  “And oh, look how nice and clean it is in here,” Sumatra added.

  Kona trotted to the counter. She saw a steaming pie that was just out of the oven.

  “You made our pie and cleaned the kitchen, all by yourself?” she gasped.

  While Brisa nodded and grinned, Sirocco trotted over to the pie and gave it a long sniff.

  “Now that’s a thing of beauty,” he sighed.

  Sumatra checked out the pie next. She frowned.

  “But Brisa,” she remarked slyly, “this pie just has a plain, smooth crust. No decorations!”

  “Well,” Brisa said, “sometimes it’s better to just let things be their pretty selves.”

  Then, before her friends could say another word, Brisa pounced on Kona and used her teeth to unravel every last one of the tight, itchy braids in her mane.

  After that, she splashed nice, fresh water on Sumatra’s mane and tail until they were pale green and pollen-free again.

  Finally, Brisa used her magic to pop her jewels off of Sirocco’s teeth and fizz them back into her own halo.

  “Aaaahhh!” Sirocco exclaimed, clacking his braces-free teeth.

  “Aaaahhh!” Sumatra sighed, swishing her clean, pollen-less tail.

  “Aaaahhhh!” Kona nickered, twitching her no-longer-itching mane.

  To Brisa, her friends had never looked prettier.

  “From now on, when it comes to tree leaves, muddy frogs, and dandelions,” she announced, “I’m going to leave them all be. Beautifying myself is enough for me.”

  “I’ll eat to that!” Sirocco said. He picked up his pointy stick and got ready to cut into Brisa’s yummy apple pie.

  “Wait!” Brisa neighed. “The pie just needs one finishing touch.”

  With a sly smile, she used her hoof to tap one perfect, pink jewel out of her magic halo. Then she gripped the gem in her teeth and planted it smack dab in the center of the pie.

  “Call it the cherry on top,” Brisa said, “but with more sparkle!”

  “Brisa!” Sumatra cried. “I thought you said you were going to let pretty things be.”

  “Well, yes, except where I’m concerned, remember?” Brisa said. She grabbed Sirocco’s knife and cut out the jeweled slice of pie. “This piece is for me! And with my pretty jewel on it, it’s the prettiest of all.”

  Sumatra’s mouth dropped open.

  Sirocco laughed uproariously.

  And Kona said what everyone was thinking: “Oh, Brisa!”

  Art Smart

  When the Wind Dancers set out the next morning from their apple tree house, Brisa’s mane and tail were combed to a gleaming shine and the jewels in her headdress, necklace, and magic halo glimmered brilliantly.

  Moments later, the foursome landed on the windowsill of Leanna’s classroom.

  “Quick,” Kona urged Brisa. “Put your surprise into Leanna’s desk before any of the children arrive.”

  Brisa zipped through the window and did as she was told. Just as she breathlessly rejoined her friends, the classroom door opened and the children tromped through it. The school day was beginning!

  Brisa held her breath as she watched Leanna trot over to her desk, her wavy hair bouncing. When Leanna lifted her desktop to put her books and pencil box inside, she gasped!

  Insi
de her desk, she discovered a curly piece of birch bark. And painted on the bark—in berry juice ink and decorated with flower petals—was a picture of a pretty horse with a beautiful coral-pink coat, a flowing blonde mane, sparkling wings, and jewels dancing all around her.

  Best of all was the caption underneath the picture: For Leanna. Here’s a picture of me, as pretty as anything in nature can be! Love, Brisa.

  Leanna burst into giggles, then gazed up at the window where the Wind Dancers were perched, her face shining with joy.

  And for once, Brisa didn’t feel sad that Leanna couldn’t see her. She was just glad to have made the little girl happy.

  Not to mention her pretty-just-as-they-were friends!

  As the four little horses took off for the dandelion meadow, they happily whinnied, twirled, and somersaulted through the air.

  “What a perfect morning,” Brisa said to her friends with a bright—and pretty—grin. “I wouldn’t change a thing!”

  Here’s a sneak preview of Wind Dancers Book 7:

  A Horse, Of Course!

  CHAPTER 1

  Horsework

  “What should we do today?” Sumatra asked her fellow Wind Dancers as they took flight over the dandelion meadow one sunny morning.

  But before anyone could answer, Sumatra made a suggestion of her own. “How about a dance-off?” she asked.

  “Well, we all know who would win that contest, don’t we?” Kona responded. “You!”

  “Okay,” Sumatra said, looking around. “How about … hey, what’s going on down there at Leanna’s school?”

  The other Wind Dancers turned to look. As they’d been flying, they’d come to their friend’s big red-brick school building. But today, there were a lot more grown-ups there than usual at the start of the day.

  “Don’t they have jobs to go to?” Sumatra wondered.

  “Jobs?” Brisa said. “You mean like how it’s Kona’s job to make our apple muffins every morning and Sirocco’s job to sweep the kitchen floor with his tail after breakfast?”

  “Not quite,” Sumatra said dryly. “People have jobs that take much longer than a floor-sweeping. Lots of them go to an office all day long.”

  Then Kona turned to Sumatra with interest in her coal-black eyes. “What do the grown-ups do in these offices?”

  “You know, they work and stuff,” Sumatra said vaguely.

  “What kind of stuff?” Sirocco asked. As the children and adults began to file into school, he landed on the windowsill of Leanna’s classroom.

  Sumatra frowned in confusion as she landed next to him, followed by Kona and Brisa.

  Before Sumatra could contemplate anymore, Leanna’s teacher spoke up.

  “Class,” she announced, “as you already know, today is Career Day! Several of your parents have come in to tell us about their different lines of work.”

  The Wind Dancers exchanged excited looks.

  Then suddenly, an idea occurred to Sumatra.

  “Let’s have our own Career Day!” she declared. “We could each decide what we want our jobs to be!”

  “Sounds like fun!” Sirocco said.

  Sumatra’s green eyes gleamed.

  “It sounds,” she declared, “like our day’s adventure!”

  A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK

  An Imprint of Macmillan

  WIND DANCERS: HORSES HER WAY. Copyright © 2009 by Reeves International, Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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  Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto

  First Edition: 2009

  www.feiwelandfriends.com

  eISBN 9781466890701

  First eBook edition: January 2015