The Penny Pony (3 page)

“We don’t have to,” I said. “Horses only need
to drink a few times a day. We can take turns bringing her over
here.”

“I guess so,” said Addie. “But what if I have
problems leading her or something? I haven’t done that very
often.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said. “We can practice
before you have to do it. She’s really gentle.”

We turned off the water and jogged back to
Rosie to make sure she was still there. She was standing in the
shade of the old oak with her eyes shut, looking like she was in
horse heaven. She opened her eyes as we walked up, and snorted at
us, then closed them again and sighed. I hugged her neck and
whispered that I would take care of her. I loved smelling the warm
horsey smell of her, the best smell in the world. I almost couldn’t
breathe I felt so happy. We had saved her and I was never going to
let Dirty Jake get his hands on her again.

Chapter Five

~ I Play Dumb ~

It was evening by the
time I slipped in the back door and snuck upstairs to my room. We
had taken Rosie to the barn for water and talked for a long time.
Addie practiced leading her, but tomorrow I would get up and take
care of her first thing. I fell on my bed and shut my eyes. My
mother wouldn’t have forgiven me for being gone so long without
telling her where I was going, even though she knew I didn’t have a
phone yet. Addie was lucky because her mother was still at work and
wouldn’t know how late she got home.

“Piper, will you come down here?” Mom said.
My mother sounded like she had been waiting for me. I slouched down
the stairs, ready with my excuses and my attitude, and stepped into
a roomful of trouble. Sitting on our couch was dirty, sweaty Jake
and next to him were Sheriff Martin and my father. My father! This
was bad. Mom had called him to help, and she hated to do that. They
don’t always get along.

My mother started in on me, “Piper how could
you possibly think you could...”

“Wait, Jean,” said my dad. “Let me start
this, okay? Piper, do you have anything you want to tell us?” His
brown eyes gazed into my scared green ones.

I said nothing.

“Piper?” repeated Dad.

“Look, Dan, this has gone too far,” said the
sheriff. “We have witnesses that were at the bank that saw the girl
with the horse. Jake here has a right to his property”

“That old nag is a registered purebred POA, a
Pony of the Americas, and it’s worth a lot of money.” Jake glared
at me. I could smell him across the room. What a creep.

I glared back at Jake. I said nothing. They
could put me in prison and throw away the key and I would say
nothing to him.

“Piper,” said my mom. “If you’ll just tell
the sheriff where the horse is, then they can collect it and
everything will be okay.”

I looked at my mother. “It’s a pony, a skinny
pony that’s in terrible shape. He didn’t feed her or water her or
take care of her. He left her in the hot sun all afternoon. She’s
got sores on her legs and she was limping. He shouldn’t be allowed
to have her. And I tried to get Dad or Mr. Martin to help.” I took
a deep breath and lied, “She ran off when we got to the woods.
Addie and I looked and looked, but we couldn’t find her. We almost
got lost. I don’t know where she is. I tried to find her. I really
did.” My being so tired helped me then and I started to cry.
Thinking about how sad a shape Rosie was in made me cry harder.
Even though I hated to lie to my parents, there was no way I was
going to tell Jake where that pony was.

Mom and Dad looked at each other. They seemed
to be getting along pretty well today, probably because they were
worried about me. That made me feel even guiltier, so I kept on
crying.

Mom came over and hugged me, which she hardly
ever did.

“Honey, I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said.
“I know you feel bad for the pony and you maybe should have stopped
and thought for a minute. But we’ll all try and find it.”

Dad started talking to Jake and Sheriff
Martin in a low voice. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and
that made me twist my bracelet. I tried to quit crying, but I was
really worked up and kept hiccuping and dripping tears. I wasn’t
faking. I was just crying for a different reason than they all
thought. And Mom being nice was making me cry more.

I blew my nose loudly as Jake raised his
voice, “I want my horse back, and I’ll be calling Sam Applegate in
Louisville. He’s the sharpest lawyer in the city. He knows how to
get things done. Your girl knows where that nag is and she’d better
tell, or you’re going to have a lawsuit on your hands.” He heaved
himself off the couch and stalked out the front door, slamming it
after him. As he walked down our front walk, I saw him talking on
his cell phone.

My dad glared at the door and said, “What a
jerk. Harvey, what can we do?”

Sheriff Martin looked at me. I was still
leaking tears. “Guess someone will have to search for the pony. If
your girl doesn’t know where it is, then it’s probably running
around loose and scared. I’ll see if I can get some guys to drive
around and look for it.”

After he left, it was just me and my parents.
Mom said, “Piper, you go get yourself some supper. I left a plate
of spaghetti on the table and it’s still warm.” Mom always wanted
to feed me when she thought I was sad. It was a good thing I don’t
eat much.

Dad said, “Honey, do you have any idea where
the pony might have gone? It would give Harvey a place to start
looking. I know you don’t want Jake to have her, but a pony on its
own can get hurt easily. And maybe if I talk to him the sheriff
will look into the abuse charges.”

“Dad, is she really worth a lot of money?” I
asked.

“Well actually, hon, no. Even purebred POA
ponies aren’t bringing much lately. That’s why I don’t get why Jake
is so upset.”

“It would be great if you’d talk to Sheriff
Martin,” I said. “I think the tracks started going south of town
toward the lake and picnic grounds.” Applegate’s farm and Rosie
were north of town, but I had to stall until all the grown-ups
agreed with me that Jake didn’t deserve to own an animal.

Later, after Dad went home and Mom said
goodnight, I lay in bed and stared at the twenty-five plastic
Breyer horses that I had collected as a kid. Not one looked like
Rosie. She was one of a kind. I thought about all the fibs I had
told that day and how I would have to keep telling them. It took me
and my conscience a long time to fall asleep.

Chapter Six

~ Miss Julie ~

I tried to be calm
while eating my cereal and milk the next morning, but I was so
excited about seeing Rosie I could hardly hold my spoon. Mom came
in with a resume to redo and sat down at the table.

“What are you going to do this morning?” she
asked.

“Oh, I think I’ll go over to Addie’s and
we’ll try to figure out where the pony might have gone.”

“Okay, but if you find it, you let me or Dad
know. That Jake character is not someone I want you around.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to be around him either,”
I said as I snagged an apple and slipped out the garage door.
Easing my way out of the garage, I couldn’t let Mom see the plastic
bucket and purple dog brush I had with me. We used to have a
Sheltie with a really thick coat, so that brush was a good solid
one

Rosie whinnied when she saw me and came over.
Her limp was gone and she looked much happier today. I rubbed her
forehead and chest while she ate her apple. I whispered what a good
girl she was and led her to the barn for a drink. I checked the
sores on her legs, which had scabbed over. After we came back to
the shed, I brushed Rosie with the dog brush and told her how good
life was going to be for her from now on, away from Jake. Rosie
nodded, enjoying the scratching of the brush. I sang as I walked
back to town in the morning sun. I had a plan. I needed to ease my
conscience and let one particular adult know what we were
doing.

I whistled under Addie’s bedroom window.
Addie poked her head out, her gaze darting around to see if anyone
was listening. “What happened last night? I saw the sheriff’s car
at your house.”

It took a few minutes to explain everything,
and by that time Addie was climbing out her window. Her mother was
at work, but Addie always liked to climb out. I thought it made her
feel dangerous. I told her that we had to go find Miss Julie
Applegate in the retirement home and get permission to keep a pony
in her shed. We had to trust her not to tell on us, but at least
then if we were arrested for stealing, they couldn’t add
trespassing to the charges.

The Serendipity Springs Retirement Home
rested on a quiet, shady street. It was a one story, red brick
building, new-looking with small trees planted around and lots of
bright red, purple and pink flowers.

Inside, it was cool, after the heat of the
sun, and was decorated in cheerful colors. It seemed like a happy
place to live if you needed to be in a home with someone to help
you. We tiptoed to the front desk and asked for Miss Julie. The
smiling receptionist said she lived in Apartment 10 and we could go
knock on her door.

“How old is Miss Julie?” said Addie as we
walked down the hall.

“I don’t know,” I said. “One time my dad said
she wasn’t all that old and could have stayed at the farm if Sam
had stayed with her. But he wanted to live in the city.” I had
really good memories of riding on Dotty with Sam leading her. It
broke my heart back then when I realized that my parents were not
going to buy Dotty and let her live in our backyard.

We found a wooden door painted the color blue
my mom called Wedgwood. There was a gold number 10 and some silk
flowers in a glass holder on the door. We knocked softly. The place
was like a library, where you didn’t want to be loud. The door
opened and there was Miss Julie. She was thinner, grayer and older
than I remembered, in her purple track suit, but Miss Julie’s smile
and bright blue eyes were the same. She leaned on one of those
silver walkers with rubber tips on the feet, and took her earbuds
out of her ears.

“Why, Piper Jones! What a nice surprise! I
haven’t seen you for two years.” I thought back to when I had seen
her at a summer church picnic. Her memory was just fine. I
introduced Addie to Miss Julie, who knew Addie’s mother from a book
club they both belonged to. Miss Julie invited us inside. Her rooms
looked very neat, and she had a lot of the old furniture I
remembered from the farmhouse. My parents were still married then
and drank iced tea with Miss Julie while I rode the pony.

“I thought this would be like a hospital,” I
said. “It’s more like an apartment.”

“It is,” said Miss Julie, “except if I get
hurt or sick, there are buzzers I can push and get medical help
right away.”

“Cool,” said Addie. We all sat down on rose
velvet chairs. I didn’t do well with antiques. Bad things just
happened, and I got klutzy, so I was extra careful.

“Piper, you’re still wearing the horsehair
bracelet we made! That brings back some wonderful memories. I’m
sorry your parents got divorced, but I bet you’d rather I didn’t go
on about it. What brings you here to see me today?”

I said, “Miss Julie, would you mind if I kept
a pony in your old shed and paddock for a little while?”

“Why, of course I wouldn’t mind, honey. That
would be fine.” She smiled at me and laughed. “I’m glad someone is
going to get some use out of the old place. I couldn’t bear to sell
it even if the real estate market was any good. I really miss
living out there, but Sam never cared for living in the country,
even as a boy. Did your dad finally get you that horse you always
wanted?”

I had planned not to tell Miss Julie
everything, but I didn’t want to lie to her. She was always good to
me. I just had to start trusting someone besides Addie, but her
eyes looked into me so that I couldn’t tell any more lies. I
started talking and couldn’t stop. I talked and talked about Rosie
and how we found her, and when I got tired of talking, Addie took
over. As we were telling about Rosie, I noticed that Miss Julie sat
up straight, like she was going to speak, but then kept quiet. She
listened carefully to us, but she kept fidgeting, like she had
something to say. Her hands played with the wires to her iPod
tucked into a pocket. When we had told her the whole story, I was
so relieved I actually felt lighter.

Afterward, Miss Julie was quiet. She moved
slowly without the walker into her small kitchen and brought out a
pitcher of lemonade, then got three glasses down. She poured us
each a glass, handed them to us and sat on the couch with her own
drink.

“Girls,” she said, “think very hard and very
carefully. Tell me about the pony, how old she is and what she
looks like.”

“I don’t know how old she is,” said Addie.
“Jake called her an old nag.”

Miss Julie made a face. “I can see why you
don’t like him. I don’t, either”

“I think she’s pretty old,” I said. “Her back
is a little swayed, and the hairs on her muzzle are turning white.
My dad could look at her teeth and tell, but I don’t know how to do
that. Anyway, she’s young enough to run fast for a long ways. We
should know, we had to chase her!”

“Tell me what she looks like,” said Miss
Julie Applegate patiently. She had been a teacher and knew how to
get answers from kids. I described Rosie the best I could by
saying, “She looks exactly like the pony you used to have. She
looks like Dotty.”

Miss Julie took a sharp breath and sat back.
She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. “It never sounded
right, what Sam told me about that pony. Dotty wasn’t that old. She
had a lot of life and love left in her for some child. Does Rosie
have white tips on her ears?” I nodded. She looked at me then. “I
think that could be my pony. Sam told me she died after I came to
live here, but he never really said why, and he was so busy with
his work, I didn’t like to keep bothering him. I wish I had now.”
Miss Julie had a sweet face, but right now it looked hard. Her eyes
didn’t twinkle any longer; they shone like polished stone.