Runaway Pony

by Kristin Earhart

  To Moochie and Wendy, thank you

  Chapter 1

  FULL MOON FANCY. THE NAME sounded magical. Willa let the words swirl in her head. She couldn’t believe there was a new pony at Miller Farm.

  “Just Fancy for short,” Grandma Edna insisted. “No need for long, frilly names around here.” When Grandma said “here,” she meant the animal rescue center she ran. It was home to goats, chickens, rabbits, and especially ponies—Chincoteague ponies.

  Ben and Willa hurried over to the small paddock to meet Fancy. “Where is she?” Ben wondered, glancing at his big sister. Willa searched the field.

  “The small pasture’s empty, Grandma,” Willa called across the yard.

  Grandma looked up. Her scowl pushed her eyebrows low. She stood up from her rosebushes. “Now don’t tell me,” she murmured. Grandma made her way over to where Willa and Ben stood. “Sure enough,” she announced, examining the area. “We’ve got a pony to find. You two look on the other side of the house. I’ll check behind the barn.”

  Before rushing off, Ben yanked a handful of clover from the tall grass by the fence. “It’s a peace offering,” he said. “In case we find her.” Willa nodded, amazed at how well her brother understood animals.

  Even though Willa had taken riding lessons when they lived back in Chicago, she wouldn’t have thought to grab a treat for the runaway pony. Ben had not really been around ponies or horses before they had moved to their new house on Chincoteague Island, but he had an easy way with them.

  Now both kids were around horses and ponies every day. First, there was Buttercup. Buttercup belonged to their neighbors but was staying in the old barn at Ben and Willa’s house for a while. Second, there were the horses at Grandma and Grandpa’s place, Miller Farm. Of all those ponies, Willa and Ben shared a favorite: a sweet buckskin mare named Starbuck. Starbuck had arrived at the rescue center earlier that summer. At the time, her leg had been hurt. The kids had helped nurse Starbuck back to health, and now they loved her like their own.

  But they couldn’t think about Starbuck now. They had a lost pony to find!

  “Grandma sounded mad,” Ben remarked as they raced past the barn and the big pasture.

  “She’s probably just worried,” Willa said as she rounded the corner of the one-story farmhouse. The grassy part of the yard was small but there was a deep wooded area in the back.

  “We don’t even know what Fancy looks like,” Ben commented.

  “Well, she’s the one that’s just roaming around, not in the pasture,” Willa replied, swatting a bug away from her freckled nose. She squinted as she scanned the yard and trees. “I don’t see her. Let’s go to the garden.”

  Ben trudged behind his sister, glancing back over his shoulder. If he were a pony, where would he hide?

  No luck in the garden. All they found was their grandma.

  “I thought she’d be here too,” Grandma Edna said. “It’d be just like that pony to make a feast of my carrots.”

  “Hey! What’s going on?”

  They looked up to see Lena and Clifton heading their way. Clifton was a teenager and often helped on the farm. His younger sister, Lena, sometimes tagged along. Willa was excited to see her friend.

  “Lena, you have to help. There’s a pony missing!” As Willa shared the details, Lena listened closely, twirling a finger around one of her many beaded braids.

  “Let’s first look for clues,” Lena announced as soon as Willa was done. Together, Lena, Willa, and Ben went back to the small pasture. Clifton took the path through the woods. Grandma ran inside to recruit Grandpa. They would follow the fence along the far side of the barn, down toward the beach.

  Lena moved quickly, but she did not rush. She carefully walked around the outside of the paddock fence. Next, she checked the closed gate and its latch. “Evidence!” she called out when she noticed a pile of manure.

  “It’s still steaming,” Ben noted, his nose crinkled.

  “That means it’s fresh. Fancy can’t have gone far,” Lena determined. She shielded her eyes from the late-morning sun and turned a full circle. Willa and Ben searched too.

  Willa frowned. It didn’t make sense. Where was that new pony? If she couldn’t have gone far, why hadn’t they found her?

  “Who’s that?” Ben asked, pointing into the larger pasture area.

  Willa’s gaze fell on an unfamiliar pony, a shiny bay with a bushy mane and tail. The pony was standing right next to Starbuck. She had her head down and was busy ripping up tiny bites of grass.

  Just then Grandma and Grandpa hurried out the farmhouse door. Grandpa had his keys, and Grandma held a lead rope.

  “Grandma!” Willa called. “Is that her? Is that Fancy, grazing by Starbuck?”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Grandma exclaimed. “How on earth did that mare find her way in there?”

  It was a good question, but neither Grandma nor Grandpa attempted to answer it. Instead, they immediately headed for the gate and began to fiddle with the latch.

  Willa, Ben, and Lena watched, confused.

  “Do you think your grandma forgot she put Fancy in the main pasture?” Lena questioned.

  “I doubt it,” Willa answered. “Grandma never forgets anything.”

  “Especially not about the animals,” Ben added. Grandma Edna had been a vet, and she prided herself in taking the best possible care of each and every creature at Miller Farm.

  “Well, the fence looks too high for a pony to just jump over, and your grandparents are acting strange,” Lena said. “I think there’s something special about that new pony.”

  Willa knew Lena loved a mystery. Lena would turn anything into a whodunit, just so she could investigate. But, this time, Willa suspected her friend might be right.

  “Let’s go see what they’re looking at,” Lena suggested. The kids approached the entrance to the pasture quietly, curiously.

  “What are you three doing here?” Grandma asked as soon as she noticed them. “Why don’t you go for a walk down by the beach?”

  Willa and Ben were happy to take their grandmother’s suggestion. They loved to explore by the ocean, but even after they had arrived at the beach, Lena was certain they had been chased away on purpose. “Your grandparents are hiding something,” she insisted.

  “Don’t be silly, Lena,” Willa replied, curling her long toes into the wet sand. “My grandparents have nothing to hide. They only want to take good care of the ponies.” Willa was sure of that.

  By the time their parents came to pick them up at the end of the day, Willa and Ben hardly remembered the earlier excitement of the escaped pony. The new excitement was that Dad was meeting Starbuck for the first time.

  “So this is the pony I’ve heard so much about,” Mr. Dunlap said. With a gentle nudge, Mom encouraged him to reach out his hand. Ben quickly put an apple slice on his dad’s palm. After a few warm sniffs, Starbuck took the treat and crunched it happily. Dad had grown up in the city, so he didn’t have much experience with horses.

  “Isn’t she great?” Willa asked, looking into the pony’s warm brown eyes.

  “She seems nice enough,” Dad admitted.

  “Starbuck’s the best,” Ben said, and he gave her another apple slice.

  Chapter 2

  BEN’S GOOD MOOD HAD DISAPPEARED by the next day. “When does school start?” he mumbled. When Ben was grumpy, all his words came out low and rumbly, running together.

  “Next Tuesday,” Mom answered as she pulled into a parking spot in front of Seacoast Elementary. “Aren’t you excited?” Mom’s voice was high and chirpy. Willa wondered if their mom was most excited of all.

  Everyone got out and closed their doors. “This is exactly how they did it when I was a student here,” Mom explained. “They would post th
e class lists on the front windows of the school.” Willa and Ben rushed forward, but Mom lingered on the edge of the sidewalk.

  Willa spotted the sheet for fifth grade immediately. As soon as she found her name, she scanned farther down the roster. Sarah Starling! Lena Wise!

  “Willa!”

  Willa turned around when she heard her name. “Sarah!” she yelled back to her friend, who had just arrived. “We’re in the same class. Lena, too.”

  Sarah grabbed Willa’s hand and pulled her back to the windows to survey the list.

  “Mr. McGory! He’s supernice, and he has lots of animals in his room.” Sarah gave Willa’s hand a happy squeeze. Only then did the two delighted girls notice their less-than-thrilled brothers standing next to them.

  Ben and Sarah’s brother, Chipper, shared the same dismal expression. They did not have the same teacher.

  “I got Ms. Hardy,” Chipper moaned. He turned to Ben. “In case you wondered, her name fits her. She is not easy. You have Ms. Freeman. She is nice and funny.”

  “At least you’ll know someone in your class,” Ben complained back. “You are the only person I know in the whole school.”

  “Um, exaggerate much?” Sarah asked. “You kind of know your sister . . . and me.”

  Ben’s face scrunched up. Big sisters—and their friends—didn’t count. Ben scooted closer to Chipper. Then he started whispering.

  The moms had been talking near the parking lot, but they came toward the school entrance now.

  “What are you two up to?” Mom asked with a coy expression when she saw Ben and Chipper.

  “Nothing.” The boys answered so quickly they gave themselves away. They were concocting a plan.

  “Nothing big at least,” Ben added.

  The moms looked at each other and smiled.

  “I like when school starts again,” Mrs. Starling said.

  “Me too,” Willa and Ben’s mom added. “Once the kids are in class, I can get organized and really think about the inn.”

  “Your bed-and-breakfast!” Mrs. Starling exclaimed. “When’s the grand opening?”

  The Dunlaps had a big, old house, and they planned to use the extra bedrooms for guests—paying guests. There would be a restaurant, too.

  “Not for a while,” Mom admitted. It was taking longer than they had thought. “We just finished the website. We put it up so we could feel like the inn is a real thing, but we’re still a far cry from being ready for business. Maybe later this fall.”

  Willa was listening to the parents’ conversation. “Later this fall” sounded far away. Summer had been so nice, so carefree. No school, no real routine. Willa liked school, but she wished things didn’t have to change.

  “No way!”

  Willa had never heard Mom use that phrase before. She exchanged glances with Ben between bites of spaghetti. They were the only ones at the big wooden dinner table. Mom and Dad claimed they were too distracted to eat.

  “No way!” Mom repeated.

  “You’re the one who wanted to put up the website,” Dad said, shaking his head. “You said it would make the inn seem ‘real.’ ”

  “I didn’t think someone would book a room in the first twenty-four hours.” Mom was pacing now, striding from one side of the kitchen island to the other. She stared at the laptop on the counter. She glared at it as if it were a bully who had played a mean trick.

  Dad slouched on a stool and watched Mom go back and forth. His eyebrows were up, but the corners of his mouth turned down.

  “It’s so soon!” Mom continued. “We still need to paint the downstairs bathroom, and clean out all that stuff behind the barn.”

  Willa and Ben looked at each other. Mom was just getting started. She always rattled off long lists of things to do. “And put up towel hooks, and—”

  “We can do this,” Dad announced, interrupting the list.

  “We can?” Mom questioned.

  “Of course,” Dad said, slapping his hand on the counter. He was sitting up nice and straight now. “It’s just one weekend. We don’t need to have the restaurant up and running. We don’t have to have every detail in place.”

  “You’re right,” Mom replied. “Just the one room, and then a nice breakfast.”

  “Yes. A bed and a breakfast,” Dad confirmed. “That’s it.”

  Mom and Dad both sighed.

  Willa and Ben both took deep breaths. To them, it sounded like a lot.

  Chapter 3

  “I’M NOT SURE YOU’RE OLD enough for that,” Mom said, putting a stack of dirty breakfast dishes in the sink. It was the next day, and Willa was trying to make the most of the end of summer vacation.

  “But it would be so much fun,” Willa insisted. “Maybe Grandma would let Sarah ride Fancy; then we could take a picnic down to the dunes. I’ll bet Starbuck would love it.”

  “It sounds lovely, but I don’t think your grandma would let you girls go off on your own with two ponies, especially two ponies she doesn’t know that well. Grandma would feel too responsible if something went wrong.”

  “What could go wrong?” As soon as the words slipped out of her mouth, Willa wanted to take them back. She knew you could not plan for everything, especially when animals were involved.

  “Besides, you can’t just go off and leave your brother.”

  “Ben could hang out with Chipper,” Willa suggested. “He doesn’t like to ride as much as I do.” Willa was pretty sure of that. Ben seemed to enjoy just being around the animals.

  She noticed a pad of paper on the table across from her. “What’s this?” she asked, reaching for it.

  “It’s our to-do list,” Mom answered.

  “Wow, you actually wrote it all down,” Willa commented. “Instead of just announcing everything at dinner. That’s good, Mom.” Willa had always believed in lists herself.

  “Yes, if we are going to have other people in our home, we have to get serious, get organized,” Mom said. “For starters, you and your brother can’t leave your stuff down here.”

  “Okay,” Willa said.

  “It has to go in your room, first thing after you get home from school.”

  That made sense. “I’ll make sure Ben does it too.”

  “Great. Your dad and I really need your help.”

  “Okay,” Willa said again. She wasn’t sure how their conversation had changed. It had started with her talking about taking ponies for a picnic on the beach, and it had ended with Mom handing her and Ben a basket of clean clothes to put away and talk of even more chores. Summer was definitely coming to an end.

  “Really?” Ben asked when Willa passed on the news later that day. He kicked the toe of his sneaker in the sandy driveway dirt. “We never had to keep our school stuff in our rooms in Chicago.”

  “We never ran an inn in Chicago either.”

  Ben turned toward the old white house. He looked way up to where the guest rooms were, on the third floor. “Do you really think Mom and Dad can do this?”

  Willa looked up too, her eyes squinting against the sun. “Yes, I do. Mom made a real list this time. On paper.”

  Ben’s eyebrows shot up. A real list.

  “And they didn’t give us any crazy jobs, like cleaning out all the weeds behind the barn. We got easy chores, like being in charge of Amos after school.”

  “But what about all our other chores? Will we still be able to go to Miller Farm?” Ben asked.

  Willa bit her lip. She was worried about that too. They had to make it to the farm to visit Starbuck.

  Willa and Ben had taken on a number of chores over the summer. They helped care for Buttercup by cleaning her stall. They were responsible for feeding Amos, the adorable black-and-white puppy who was Buttercup’s best friend. Willa and Ben also took care of New Cat, who was in charge of mouse control. There were other jobs that didn’t have anything to do with animals, but those were not nearly as much fun. Those jobs did, however, take time. “We’ll have to do our chores first thing when we get home, the
n head straight to the farm. And we’ll have to take Amos with us.”

  “If we take Amos, we have to walk. That’ll take forever! He’s always sniffing.” Ben was right, the puppy hardly took three steps without stopping to smell something.

  “I have a plan,” Willa reassured him.

  For the next half hour, Willa and Ben searched through the barn for supplies. Mom and Dad used part of the old red barn for storage. Plus, there were lots of things left from the previous owners. The kids had spent a lot of time in the building. They were the ones who had cleared out the stalls, just in case. Thanks to them, Buttercup was able to come stay at Misty Inn when he had become sick. Buttercup was great, but there were two stalls, and Willa and Ben hoped that one day the other one would belong to a certain special pony.

  “I couldn’t find a straw basket,” Ben told Willa. “Only this old crate.”

  “That’s fine. This isn’t The Wizard of Oz,” Willa said, examining the plastic crate to check the size. “We just need some cardboard on the bottom so his legs don’t poke through.”

  “And a blanket, so he’s comfy. Or he’ll jump out.”

  Willa studied her brother’s face. She thought it was funny that he could think of that, but he couldn’t remember to put on clean underwear unless someone told him.

  “Look! I’ll bet this crate was used as a bike basket before.” Willa pointed to where a bracket and some screws hung from one of the crate’s corners. That setup made it easier. Willa held the crate in place while Ben tightened the screws.

  All the hard work was worthwhile. Amos loved the crate. As soon as Ben plopped him inside, he smelled the soft green blanket and woofed happily. Then, when Willa put her weight on the bike pedals and started riding, Amos placed his front paws on the edge and yipped for joy. Willa pedaled as carefully as she could. It was hard not to laugh, the way Amos’s tongue dangled from his mouth.

  “That’s one problem solved,” Willa announced after their quick ride around the neighborhood. “Now we can take Amos with us when we go to the farm.”