Secondhand Horses

by Lauraine Snelling

  The goat and the mini, apparently thinking they’d been standing still long enough, stepped forward. Aneta dug her sandals in, but the two of them just kept walking, dragging Aneta as though she were water-skiing on dirt.

  “Sunny! I cannot stop them when they do that. I already fell once and got dragged.” A long green scrape ran from her bare anklebone to halfway up her calf.

  Another door groan. Why was he coming out again?

  Her gaze darted to the front of the house and then took in the outbuildings. That building with all the farm tools and the tractor. The one—she gulped—the one Uncle Dave had asked her to clean out and organize yesterday. Ugh. She’d forgotten. She waved toward the buildings.

  “The outbuilding in the middle. Put them in there. Once I’m sure it’s safe, we’ll wash them in the barn. Go!”

  Esther and the goose turned to go. “I’m not happy,” the shorter girl said over her shoulder. “We need an emergency meeting of the Squad.”

  “That’s for sure.” Vee stepped in front of the pig. It backed up. Taking a step to the side, she again moved into the pig, tapping it with the branch, and finally got it turned around, Vee and the pig grunting all the way.

  “The goat and the horse are cute when they are not making me ski on dirt, Sunny,” Aneta said. Putting a lead rope in each hand, she turned and walked back the way they’d come. The mini and the goat followed.

  “I’m coming, Uncle Dave,” Sunny hollered, jogging back to the door. She put her mouth to the door where she could hear her uncle tugging. “You have to kinda lift it up.” She heaved up on the door handle. “While you SHOVE—” Her own shove carried her right into the entryway where … she tripped and fell on the body of her uncle. “Oh, Uncle Dave, are you okay?” Peering down at his face, she parted his long bangs. A large red spot showed on his forehead.

  “I—,” he said, wheezing, and then gestured for her to get off him.

  “Oh.” Sunny rolled off and reached to help him get to his feet. He pushed her away and rose, groaning. His hand flew to his forehead.

  “Ow.” He pressed his lips together. “Ow.” Then he slowly turned and headed down the hall to his room. At the doorway, he stopped, turned, and regarded her, his hand still cupped over the red spot.

  Sunny was pretty sure that was going to turn into a big lump—a real goose egg. Maybe someday he would laugh at getting his own goose egg the day a goose arrived?

  “I am going back to bed. I do not want breakfast.”

  She heard his final mutter. “Servants.”

  Chapter 9

  Great Idea or Deep Trouble?

  Eager to get to the tractor shed where the S.A.V.E. Squad waited with the zoo, Sunny raced through the feeding and watering of the two horses. Mondo ignored her since he only liked Uncle Dave. Shirley, a palomino with a beautiful white mane and tail, nuzzled Sunny and wuffled into her ear. “You guys have new friends. Wait till you meet them.” Then she was off to the middle outbuilding.

  The morning light had yet to skip through the wide spaces in the old wooden roof as she slipped through the double doors. The pig grunted. The goose honked. The mini stomped its foot. The goat said, “Baaaaaahb!”

  Achoo—dust alert!

  “Whoa!” Sunny stopped just inside and peered at the rest of the S.A.V.E. Squad. “Did that goat say—”

  With a choking laugh, Aneta responded, “Bob. He says Bob.”

  Sunny pointed to the goat. “He never said a word at the carnival.”

  “Maybe he didn’t like talking to the creepy carnival guy.” Aneta shrugged.

  “The pen in here was too disgusting to put them in.” Esther wrinkled her face. “I wouldn’t put someone I didn’t like in there.”

  Sunny stuck out a foot to prevent the goose from escaping while she closed the doors.

  “Hey!” Vee said. “Instant dark!”

  “Close your eyes tight, count to ten, and then open them,” Esther’s voice ordered through the gloom.

  Ten seconds later, Vee’s surprised voice said, “Hey again! Now I can see. Sort of.”

  “I found it on the Internet once,” Esther said. “There’s a water spigot out that back little doorway and a ramp down to it.” She leaned against the pen railing. “Since I don’t see you with towels and soap, I guess we’re just hosing them off?”

  Guilt picked away at Sunny. Esther was right, of course, about needing towels and whatever you washed animals with. Sunny’s only thought had been how cool it would be to clean up the zoo and parade them before Uncle Dave. She’d forgotten to follow through. Again.

  Ughness.

  “You’re better at this, Vee.” Sunny cocked her head at her taller friend. “I forget everything. Everyone says so.”

  “But you cannot do that anymore now,” Aneta said from her place on a very old, very broken saddle on the floor. “You have a zoo.”

  “We have a zoo,” Sunny reminded her. The little goat had its feet tucked up underneath him and was settled in next to Aneta. I wonder what Aneta’s mom and Wink the basset puppy would think about a goat? Aneta might find going home without the goat a little tough.

  Sunny moved toward the back door and nearly tripped again over something. Nobody could walk through the shed unharmed. Even the animals were colliding with various broken and rusty bits of forgotten old stuff.

  The mini picked his way through some old tires and stuck his nose near her face, looking like he was asking, “What’s next?” She grinned and scratch-scratched the white blaze on his silver face. Uncle Dave thought this building had been cleaned out yesterday. She’d have to do it right after they cleaned up the zoo and presented them to her uncle and before the Squad got picked up. She peered in the gloom.

  Picked up. Yikes!

  She gave a little hop and scraped her ankle on a metal bucket. “You guys! We have to hurry! Aneta’s mom is coming to pick us all up for church. What time is it?”

  Aneta checked her watch. “My mom is coming in forty-five minutes. Is that enough to clean a zoo?”

  It was. Vee found empty burlap bags and two empty cloth feed bags that they used to rub down the animals. The goose liked the pump, or he just liked anything that Esther wanted him to do. The goat, not so much. Aneta was wet at the first refusal. But between gales of laughter and water everywhere, the zoo was soon rid of all its carnival and escape dirt.

  Sunny couldn’t wait to get a curry brush on the dapple gray mini. The long, flowing mane and tail would look like white-silver dust when she was through. Maybe moondust. Whatever, it would look better than carnival dust. The horse—all of the zoo—seemed a lot friendlier than when they lived at the carnival. “Okay, guys, we’ve done it. Now we can show Uncle Dave that rescuing a petting zoo will be okay.”

  “What are their names?” Aneta asked, stroking the pygmy goat that butted her hand like a dog when she stopped. “His name is Bob, don’t you think?”

  A chorus of laughter greeted that.

  “I already named the pig,” Vee said offhand. “Seems like Piggles the Pig to me.”

  “Great.” Sunny nodded in agreement. “Esther?”

  “When the goose waddles, his behind goes which way and that. So his name should be Which Way.”

  “I like it!” Aneta chuckled.

  The three girls looked at the mini standing close to Sunny, blowing on her neck. She hunched her shoulders and shivered. It was a crazy cool feeling.

  “Snuffy?” Sunny ventured. The small horse turned its back on the girls. “Guess not. I don’t know yet. Just not Mini. That sounds like Minnie Mouse.”

  With the zoo cleaner than before and the pen just as dirty, the girls decided to leave them loose in the tractor shed while they told Uncle Dave how lucky he was to have a secondhand zoo on his secondhand ranch. They headed toward the door, taking care not to trip on all the lurking objects waiting to send them tumbling. First thing tomorrow, Sunny vowed, she’d dive into this mess and make it look amazing.

  With her hand on the latch,
Vee shook her head. “Like I said before, this rescue was too easy. I mean, we had a couple of scares this morning, but …” Her voice trailed off.

  “Why can’t it just get easier as we go?” Esther asked.

  They were halfway through the door when Sunny remembered the trampoline. Grabbing Aneta’s wrist, Sunny checked the time. “Oh, yayness! We have time. I want to show you something completely fun-dee-niably wonderful!” She turned and pointed to the stairs that went up into the loft. “C’mon.” She hopped over the obstacles.

  “Are those stairs safe?” Esther wanted to know, standing at the bottom.

  “Yup. See?” She bounded onto each step. “No problem.”

  “What about talking to your Uncle Dave?” Vee was right behind Sunny. “We still have to introduce the zoo before Aneta’s mom comes.”

  “It’ll only take a second, and then you’ll see how splendiferous it is and how much fun we’ll have whenever you guys come to the ranch.” Sunny stepped up into the loft, gave the unlatched window a hearty shove, taking care to hold on to the side of the opening. It swung out with a baby squeak compared to the front-door screen. Cool air filtered in.

  When all four stood together, Sunny cried, “See ya!” and jumped out the window.

  As her hair streamed up behind her, Sunny grinned. Hearing the screams of her friends above her put this trampoline jump right into the Top Five Great Ideas she’d ever had. It had been worth tugging that old tramp under the window yesterday.

  A breath later, she hit the tramp. Three of the rusty legs collapsed on one side. Up in some serious air, Sunny looked down and saw her new landing position was now a slanting launch pad. Right into that pile of old wood-slat boxes she’d looked down on yesterday, the kind she’d seen in history books when people shipped stuff.

  Bounce!

  “Yikes!” Her feet hit first, and landing off balance, her hip and shoulder followed. Her head was still on the tramp when the rest of her body rose like a missile and torpedoed into the boxes.

  Crash!

  Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

  Instant splinter-fest.

  Not daring to move lest more splinters attack her, she rolled her gaze around the boxes on top of her and on each side. This was going to hurt big-time.

  The girls’ screams were louder now. Sunny could hear each of them as she lay. Her plan had dropped from the Top Five Great Ideas to that other list her parents called You Should Have Known Better.

  “Sunneeeeee!” She heard Aneta’s wail and Vee and Esther shouting at each other as footsteps pounded down the stairs. “Do not move! Are you hurt?”

  Then she heard her uncle’s deep bellow and his boots grating on the gravel. “What’s going on? Sunny? Girls? Where are you?”

  Aneta’s voice: “Sunny’s uncle! Sunny’s uncle! Help!” Sunny bet Aneta had clean forgot Uncle Dave’s name and most of her English in her terror.

  This was going to ugh pretty fast. Sunny swung her legs to the side and then on to all fours. Ohhhhhhhh… her insides. After a moment the dizziness passed, and she stood. She heard the girls yelling at Uncle Dave and him bellowing at them as he neared the shed.

  The shed!

  The zoo!

  Deep Trouble!

  She had to get to him before he opened those doors. Visions of escaping animals one more time tore across her mind. She staggered to her feet.

  She rounded the corner in time to see the last bit of her uncle’s jeans enter the shed.

  “Uh-oh.” Sunny dashed the last yards.

  First her uncle’s yell, “What’s this—ahhh!” Then a piercing, every-sound-at-once noise of the goose, the pig, the goat, and the mini reacting to their abrupt introduction to Uncle Dave.

  As she charged through the door, the goat rose on its hind legs, plunging its head up and down as though ready for a charge. Uncle Dave leaped back and tripped on the old coffee can of bolts and nails and stuff. His arms windmilled.

  “Sunny!” As his right foot slid over the top of the old wooden yoke with its shreds of leather and caught, his voice pitched higher. “What have you—” A sickening pop sounded a second before a horrible yell exploded from her uncle.

  Esther, Vee, and Aneta stood at the bottom of the steps, eyes big, mouths open, clutching each other.

  Chapter 10

  No More Great Ideas

  With the muted voices of the surgical floor waiting room in the background, Sunny inspected her feet. Anything was better than thinking about what had happened to Uncle Dave. One shoelace had bigger loops in it than the other. Mud from Uncle Dave’s ranch had mushed up over the toe of the right sneaker. The holes for both sneakers’ laces were just slightly off from being exactly across from each other.

  This is the worst day of my life. I’ll never have another Great Idea as long as I live.

  “Code blue, code blue, to room 213,” the voice on the speaker urged.

  Sunny sat across from her parents. She didn’t deserve to be part of the family. The boys were home with a neighbor. At least her parents could have them for kids.

  Daring to peek up, she scanned her parents. Dad held Mom’s hand while she chewed the inside of her cheek—a sure sign she was stressed. Dad was tapping his first two fingers on the arm of the really uncomfortable chairs. What had happened wouldn’t stop playing like a scary movie in Sunny’s head.

  Aneta’s mom had arrived to pick up the girls moments after Uncle Dave fell. She had stuffed the girls into the SUV along with Uncle Dave and zoomed to the emergency room. He’d been hustled up to surgery. The family had made its way through the maze of halls to the waiting room.

  It’s been over three hours. An ankle wasn’t very big; what could they be doing to it?

  Sunny squirmed when her father’s gaze met hers. With Dad, Sunny could expect a wink and a smile just because their gazes met. Not now. There was something in his eyes that Sunny couldn’t read.

  “Dad, I’m so sorry,” she said for about the zillionth time. She’d been saying it since Aneta’s mom pulled into the driveway to be met by four screaming girls. Being a lawyer must mean you know how to deal with truly ugh stuff because Aneta’s mom understood the story while running for the shed. She’d never freaked out once.

  Swallowing past the growing lump in her throat, Sunny remembered seeing her uncle laying in a weird way on the floor, his ankle trapped in the yoke. For as long as she lived—and that might not be too long—she would not forget his gasping, and the groans that burst from him as Aneta’s mom got him up and half carried him to the SUV. Aneta whispered on the way that her mom worked out. Good thing.

  “So you’ve said.” Dad shook his head. “Oh, Sunny.”

  Mom squeezed his hand, crossed the room, and sat down next to her. The tears that had been sprinkling out on Sunny’s cheeks gave way to deep, shoulder-rattling sobs. Leaning forward, she buried her face in her hands, feeling the wet of the tears and snot.

  “Honey,” Mom said, her left hand rubbing Sunny’s back. “Talk to me.”

  “If I hadn’t thought it was such a great idea—” Where to start? The Great Idea of pulling the tramp under the window instead of cleaning out the tractor shed like Uncle Dave asked? Or persuading the girls to see her Great Idea of the window jump because it was “just for a second”? Or the Great Idea of jumping out the window that made the Squad wail and Uncle Dave wonder what was going on so he came running out and …

  She shook her head. Her mother handed her a tissue, and she blew her nose. Hard. “If I hadn’t had any Great Ideas, none of this would have happened. I’m never having a Great Idea again.”

  “Sure you will, honey.”

  The doctor, who had explained to Mom and Dad what type of surgery they would be doing on Uncle Dave, appeared in the doorway. “He’s in recovery now. Everything went well.”

  A big sigh whooshed from Mom.

  “He’ll need somebody to help him get around for a couple of weeks.” The doctor looked at Mom. “As I recall, you said he isn’t married?”r />
  Like a lightning bolt zapping down and zinging her, Sunny knew what she had to do.

  Chapter 11

  A New Sunny Coming Right Up!

  Uncle Dave was el-supremo before. Now he is the complete yayness of an uncle.” Sunny bounced in the passenger side of the minivan as it turned into the ranch.

  Her mother glanced at her, shaking her head. “I’m not sure he didn’t hurt his head in that fall.” At Sunny’s look of alarm, she smiled. “I’m joking. It’s just—well, I’m wondering if being Dave’s nurse, handling the zoo, and the two other horses isn’t too big a job for you. Might be easier to start with something smaller.” She reached over and squeezed her daughter’s knee. “Like, maybe finishing your schoolwork consistently?”

  Sunny chewed the inside of her bottom lip. “I’m going to be the best nurse and ranch hand that’s ever been. You’ll see. We’ll do video chats. You can ask me, and my homework will be done!” After a sleepless night of sitting by the window, she had decided to get serious about becoming Sunny the Finisher. New Idea, not a Great Idea: she’d practice by being like each of the S.A.V.E. Squad. First: Aneta, the kindest and nicest of the Squad.

  Her mom parked the van. Sunny leaped out and slid the side door open. “I still don’t see why you got so much microwave stuff. I do all right on my night to cook.” Memory: burned spaghetti. Memory: Uncle Dave hates boxed mac and cheese. “Oh.”

  “Let’s just say I know sometimes it’s nice not to have to cook,” Mom said with a wink.

  She was the best.

  The front door screeched open, and three bodies hurtled out. “Sunny! Sunny!”

  In the two days since she’d seen them, their grins had returned.

  Before the girls descended on the minivan, Mom said quietly to Sunny, “I think you better not mention the zoo until Dave is off the pain meds. Just take care of them and don’t let them bother him. I mean it, Sunny.”

  No problem, Mom. I am now a nice, helpful person who finishes things. Sunny stepped out of the van. “You guys!” A happy spin elevated the bags in either hand. “The Squad!”