Horse Dreams

by Dandi Daley Mackall

“How could you lose a horse, Bev?” Dad asks.

  “Well, it wasn’t all that hard,” Mom says as if she’s about to explain how she lost a game of Go Fish. She scratches Munch. The giant dog lays his head in my mom’s lap.

  “I was on my way to the cat farm,” she begins. “Then I remembered I’d promised to stop by the skilled nursing care center. I do love volunteering there—you know how much I love the elderly. But this morning, Mrs. Sanders insisted on planting violets. I said I’d be happy to do it for her. But no, she had to do it herself—with my help, of course. Now, it’s no secret that Mrs. Sanders is a couple of sandwiches shy of a picnic. But let me tell you, that woman has more energy in her little finger than any two people combined.”

  Mom has said all of this without taking a breath. Colt says my mother could get into Guinness World Records for longest talking without breath taking.

  Mom inhales and continues. “But that was nothing. Off to the cat farm I went. And the minute I arrived, things went completely catawampus! Mary Louise was in a tizzy because someone had called to say they were dropping off a new rescue. I thought it a bit odd because people generally don’t announce when they’re ditching their cats. We’ve taken on a dozen cats at once before, so I didn’t understand why Mary Louise was so bothered by a single drop-off rescue cat. Except that the woman—and I love her to death, you know I do—can have a cow over breaking her fingernail. So of course I told her not to give it another thought. I’d be happy to handle the new rescue by myself.”

  I’m dying for her to get to the part about losing a horse. But you can’t hurry my mom. Believe me. I’ve tried.

  She takes another breath. “I found an old crate in the barn and made a fine bed for the newcomer as far away from the other cats as I could. Well, I was just about finished when I heard Mary Louise holler, ‘Land o’ livin’! Bev! You’d best come out here and see for yourself!’ So I did just that. And what do you think I saw?”

  “A horse?” I ask, hoping we’re finally getting to the good part.

  Mom shakes her head and takes in a giant breath. “A long black trailer, that’s what! ‘Why would they waste a trailer on a cat?’ I asked nobody in particular because Mary Louise had disappeared. I admit the thought occurred to me that cat might also mean lion, tiger, and the like. So it was with great caution that I made my way to that trailer.”

  “And . . . ?” I urge.

  “Don’t tell me—!” Dad says.

  “Do tell me!” I beg.

  Mom looks from Dad to me and back before she goes on. “Well, I got up all my courage. I walked to the trailer and peered in. And what do you think I saw?”

  “A horse?” I cry.

  “A horse!” Mom exclaims. “I’ll be an ant’s aunt if I didn’t!”

  I can’t believe this. I’ve helped Mom at the cat farm before. There’s a barn there, and I guess it has stalls. But the whole barn is filled with cats.

  Mom takes in a deep breath and turns to me. “I wish you had been there, Ellie. You know I’m as useless as a trapdoor in a canoe when it comes to horses. But the driver of the trailer unlocked the tailgate and told me the horse was all mine. Then he just disappeared.”

  “What did you do?” I press.

  “I put down the tailgate and walked into the trailer. That poor old horse seemed half dead, tied up so tight it couldn’t move. So I untied it. I told it to stay put while I cleared the cats out of one of the stalls. And that’s exactly what I did. I went to the barn and chased the cats out of the corner stall. Only when I went back to the trailer . . .”

  “The horse was gone!” I shout because I can’t stand it another minute. “Mom, did that horse have black-and-white spots?”

  “Why, yes. It was spotted. I can’t say, though, if it was black with white spots or white with black spots.”

  “And did it look like it hadn’t had a good meal in a long time?” I ask.

  Mom looks amazed. “Oh, my, yes. That poor creature would have to stand up twice to leave a shadow.” She stops talking and stares at me. “Ellie, how on earth did you know that horse was skinny and spotted?”

  “Because you lost the horse I imagined! Mom, I found your horse!”

  6

  Coincidence?

  Dad and I do our best to bring Mom up to speed on my “imaginary” horse and Dad’s call from Principal Fishpaw. Then Ethan comes in. And we have to explain all over again.

  “Well, if that don’t beat the band, as your granny used to say!” Mom exclaims.

  “Some coincidence, all right,” Dad agrees.

  I grin at Ethan. I know what he’s thinking. Ethan says there’s no such thing as a coincidence. Only God-things—events only God could bring together.

  I have to agree with my brother on this one. My seeing the same spotted horse Mom lost? Definitely a God-thing. “So wait a minute. Where’s the horse now?”

  “I have no idea,” Mom answers.

  “Are you saying the horse is still out there? She’s not still lost, is she?”

  “Mary Louise has the entire Hamilton police force out searching,” Mom says.

  “Mom, the entire police force means Sheriff Duffy and his deputy, right? And Sheriff Duffy is scared to death of horses. Not to mention cows and sheep.”

  “True,” Mom admits. “That sheriff is pretty much all hat and no cattle.” She yawns, stretching her long arms and knocking the plaque with our family crest off the wall. She picks it up with a broad sweep of her arm. “Mary Louise said if they had any trouble, she’d call the animal control people to come help.”

  “No!” I cry. “You can’t let animal control get to that horse! You know what they do to homeless animals!”

  I know what they do to them. They “put them to sleep.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Mom admits. She grabs her keys off the table. “You’re right. I lost that horse. And it’s up to me to find it. It’s my civic duty.” She aims a half smile at my dad, who is used to her civic duty. “There’s meat loaf in the fridge, Lenny.”

  “Bev, do you have to go?” Dad begs. “Can’t they get along without you for once?”

  Mom shakes her head. “I feel responsible. I’ve never lost a horse before.”

  Dad frowns at the papers scattered across the table. Then he scoots his chair back and stands tall. If my dad had two heads, one on top of the other, he’d be almost as tall as my mom. “I’m coming with you. You’re going to need help.”

  Mom leans over—and down—to kiss Dad’s cheek. “You are one sweet man, Lenny James. But a cowboy you are not.”

  That’s saying it nicely. I’ve never seen my dad on a horse. As the story goes, he only rode once, when he was a toddler. I guess he fell off and landed on his head.

  I take Mom’s hand. “Come on, Mom! We have to find that spotted horse before the animal control guys do.”

  Mom doesn’t argue. She knows I’m her only chance of rescuing that rescue horse.

  We jump into the car, and Mom heads toward Main Street. Gravel crunches under our wheels. After two blocks, Mom turns onto Main Street. It’s the only street that goes through town. She drives past the library, the bank, and the hardware store and up to the only stoplight. It blinks red instead of changing colors. She stops for half a second, then goes again.

  “Maybe we should check out by the cemetery,” I suggest. “People would have noticed a horse on Main Street.”

  Mom spins a U-turn, hangs a left, and drives toward the cemetery.

  “What if they already caught the mare?” I ask, bouncing with the bumpy road.

  “Mary Louise promised to call me if they did,” Mom says. “And I haven’t heard from her yet.”

  I scan each cross street we pass. When the gravel turns to dirt, I look for hoofprints. But I don’t see any.

  Mom drives out of town a couple of miles in each direction. Usually I gaze out the window and imagine riding my black show horse over the green Missouri hills. But right now I’m too busy searching for a runaw
ay horse.

  Mom’s cell phone rings.

  “I’ll get it.” I’m scared to death it’s going to be Mary Louise telling us the animal control people have the horse.

  The cell is in the bottom of Mom’s huge purse. The ringtone is almost over—an Elvis song that makes me want to fling the whole purse out the window—when I finally get to it. “Hello?”

  “Ellie?” The caller sounds confused. I think it’s Colt.

  “Colt?” I’m the only kid on the planet who doesn’t have a cell phone. So Colt calls Mom’s if he thinks I’m with her.

  “Yeah. It’s Colt.”

  “I can’t talk now. Mom and I are trying to find a lost horse before—”

  “I know!” he shouts. “I called your house to tell you. Your dad said to call the cell. They found it!”

  “What?”

  “The horse! They found the horse,” Colt says.

  “Where? Is she all right?”

  The phone crackles. I turn to Mom. “Hurry! Head back to town.” Then I scream into the phone, “Colt? Where’s the horse?”

  Colt’s voice mixes with the crackles of the phone. “At school! And you’d better get here fast. I have a feeling this old nag is running out of time.”

  7

  The Chase

  “Hurry, Mom!” I grip the dashboard as Mom wheels back to town.

  “Sorry, Ellie,” Mom says. “I can’t afford to get another speeding ticket.”

  “But what if we’re too late? What if the animal control guys get there first? What if—?”

  “Stop what-iffing. Your engine’s in overdrive and nobody’s driving.”

  I’m not sure I get that one. I try to stop imagining what might be happening at the school right now. Only I can’t stop.

  The muddy, spotted horse staggers across the school lawn. She wobbles in the fading sunlight, dazed, sides heaving. Four animal control guys dressed in white stand in the corners of the yard and hurl a net into the air. It crashes down on the poor horse, knocking her to the ground.

  A guy from animal control smirks at the crowd. His face is scarred. His eyes are glowing beads of fire. “What say ye?” he asks the crazed crowd.

  A hundred fists rise. A hundred thumbs turn down. “Death to the nag!” they cry.

  The people in white yank the net. It closes on the horse. They drag her off to their cage on wheels and . . .

  Thankfully, Mom slams the brakes, stopping the car and my imagination.

  “Will you look at that crowd!” Mom exclaims.

  I gaze out my window at all the people in the streets, in the school yard, everywhere.

  Mom leans on the steering wheel. “Surely they can’t all be here for that little horse.”

  I hurry out of the car. Not only are the animal control people here, but the town’s two police cars are parked on the school lawn. Orange cones block off the roads in all directions. Even the fire truck is here.

  It looks like half the town found the horse before we did.

  I spot Colt up the street and run to meet him.

  “Ellie!” he shouts, waving both arms like he’s directing traffic.

  Larissa is with him. She doesn’t wave. Not even with one arm.

  “Cool, huh?” Colt says when we meet up in the center of the street.

  “What are these people all doing here? Where’s the horse? What’s going on?” For the millionth time, I wish I were taller. I can’t see over the heads in the crowd.

  “It’s been awesome!” Colt exclaims. “Nobody can catch that skinny horse.”

  Larissa takes a sip from a long, curly straw poked into her pink drink. The giant plastic cup says Crazy Larry’s Dairies. “All this fuss over a backyard horse?” She says this without bothering to look up from her Crazy Larry’s cup.

  “Backyard horse?” I repeat.

  Larissa sighs. “That’s what my mother calls them. Backyard horses. You know. A horse without papers. Not registered. Probably not even a purebred. The kind of nag somebody would keep in the backyard instead of paying to board it in a stable.”

  I stare at her and wonder why God gave Larissa Richland a champion show horse. Her horse has probably never even seen Larissa’s backyard. Custer’s Darling Delight (great horse, silly name) goes directly from the elite K. C. Stables to the horse show ring and back again.

  I start to argue with her, then stop. “I don’t have time for this.”

  Suddenly the crowd lets out an “Oooh—aah!”

  Larissa, Colt, and I spin around to see.

  “There it goes again!” Colt laughs.

  “What?” I stand on tiptoes and try to see. But I’m too short. Too many heads are in the way. “What’s happening?”

  “That horse just dodged a net,” Colt explains.

  “A net?” It’s like I imagined. This is not good. “I have to see what’s going on.” I leave Colt and Larissa and take off running for the horse.

  “You’re not supposed to go up there!” Larissa calls after me. “You’re going to get in trouble. Anyway, it’s just a backyard nag, Ellie.”

  I ignore her and her singsong threat. Just because her horse wins trophies all over the state doesn’t give her the right to make fun of other horses. But she does it all the time. My friend Rashawn has a sweet gray farm horse named Dusty. Larissa calls him Musty or Rusty and laughs about it every time, like she’s so funny. Rashawn’s best friend, Cassandra, has a Shetland pony, and Larissa is always making fun of him too. She calls him Phony Pony.

  I elbow my way through the crowd. “Excuse me, please!”

  “Watch where you’re going, kid!”

  I glance up to see a guy in a baseball cap that says Channel 5 News. He has a video camera strapped to one hand. Two more cameras dangle around his neck.

  Next to him, six middle school girls are snapping photos with their cells.

  Finally I break through the pack. Somebody behind me gasps. I look up in time to see the spotted horse trot right in front of us. It’s the first good look I’ve gotten of the horse. I hate to admit it, but if Larissa ever had the right to make fun of a horse, this would be the one.

  If anything, the mare is dirtier than when I saw her the first time. And skinnier. I could count her ribs from here. Her backbone sticks up so far she looks swayback, although I don’t think she is. What mane she has is knotted into tangles of burs and sticks. Her dingy black-and-white tail looks shorter than Miss Hernandez’s ponytail.

  The horse takes off again, tearing chunks out of the school lawn with her hooves. People scatter out of the way. I spot Principal Fishpaw. His face is as red as Larissa’s hair. I’m not sure if he’s screaming at the pinto or at everybody else.

  On the other side of the lawn, Sheriff Duffy waves his cowboy hat at the horse and shouts, “Shoo!” When the pinto keeps trotting toward him, the sheriff explodes at his deputy. “Get her, Jeremy!” Then he dashes behind a tree. If Sheriff Duffy thinks he’s hiding behind the tree, he’s wrong. His belly sticks out on both sides.

  I need to get closer to the horse. But I don’t want to scare her. She’s had enough of humans. I dash to the maple tree I observe every day from my classroom. Pressed against the rough bark, I can hear the pinto’s breath coming in snorts. The sound seems to be getting closer with each breath.

  Carefully, I peek around the tree for a better look.

  The pinto is so close I could touch her spots if I had longer arms. She’s definitely spotted black and white under all that mud. One spot on her back really is shaped like a saddle. Without measuring her, I can’t tell if she’s over 14.2 hands, which would make her a horse instead of a pony. Her neck looks long, but it might be because it’s so skinny. And that might be why her ears look too big for her head.

  All in all, this horse is not much to look at. But she sure can run.

  “Chase her this way!” a tall man in a white uniform shouts from the other side of the lawn. This guy I recognize. Mr. Yanke from animal control.

  About a year ago
he captured Squash, our cat. And Squash wasn’t even lost. He’d just wandered off to explore. He would have come home if Mr. Yanke had left him alone. We had to fight—and pay fifty dollars—to get our own cat back.

  Mr. Yanke has something in his hands. Sunlight gleams off the object when he lifts it and points it at the pinto.

  I have to find out what he’s holding and what he’s planning to do with it. I shoot off a prayer. Then I step from my hiding place and jog over to him.

  I’ve almost made it when, from the far end of the lawn, I hear, “Yee-haw!”

  I spin around to see the other person from animal control, Yanke’s partner. She’s waving her arms and running behind the pinto.

  The poor horse lunges left. But Sheriff Duffy is there, screaming. With a screech like that, he could star in a horror movie.

  The horse breaks right. But the deputy is there. Then the animal control lady, the sheriff, and his deputy join forces to chase the pinto up the lawn . . . and straight toward Mr. Yanke.

  I can still see that silver thing in his hand.

  “Ellie!” Mom comes running up. “I’ve been searching all over for you, and—” She gasps. “Oh no. He’s not going to—”

  “Mom, what? What’s he going to do?”

  “That thing in his hand,” she whispers. “I think it’s a stun gun.”

  8

  Caught

  I know what a stun gun is. I’ve seen it on TV. Policemen use it to shock bad guys. That thing can zap even a big man off his feet.

  But this pinto isn’t a bad guy. She didn’t do anything wrong. The only reason she’s running away is because everybody’s chasing her.

  With the sheriff, the deputy, and the animal control lady coming after her, the pinto breaks into an unsteady gallop. She’s getting closer and closer to me . . . and to Yanke, who is ready with his stun gun. The siren on the fire truck goes off. People are shouting. It’s a disaster movie. The only thing missing is a sky filled with helicopters to film the big event.

  That’s it!

  “Mr. Yanke!” I leap in front of him and point to the sky. “Are those helicopters? Are they filming us?”