Horseshoe Read Free

Jessica.
    Jessica ran to get it from its hook on the stall door.She handed it to Carole without saying a word. “Now the lead rope,” she said. Jessica gave it to her. Carole tied the other end of rope to a ring built into the stall wall for just that purpose. Penny stood quietly.
    “Now,” said Carole, “next time, take her saddle off first. That way you can still hold on to the bridle if she starts to move away from you. Or put the halter on first and tie her in the corner. Then she’ll stay put when you groom her too.
    “And don’t ever chase a pony around in its stall like that,” she added. “Penny started out thinking it was fun, but she might have decided you were scary and tried to kick you. You could have been hurt. Next time you have trouble, come get me, or Max or Red, or one of my friends. We’ll help you.”
    Jessica nodded and sucked in her breath with a quivering noise that still sounded very much like a sob. “Okay?” Carole asked.
    “I guess so.” She didn’t sound convinced.
    Carole felt sorry for her. “Jess, it wasn’t your fault,” she said. “Penny’s being uncooperative and you just don’t know all this stuff yet. You’ll learn. I didn’t know it either when I was your age.”
    Jessica shrugged. “She hates me,” she repeated, and went to get Penny’s grooming gear.
    Carole wished she knew of something to say tomake Jessica feel better. Unfortunately, just as she’d understood how Jasmine felt, she also understood how Jessica felt. Carole could still remember when she didn’t know how to control a horse, and she knew that when the horses she rode misbehaved, she had sometimes felt that they had done it on purpose, because they hated her. Now that she was older, she knew that horses had good days and bad days, just like people, but she realized she probably couldn’t explain this to Jessica. Instead, she decided to talk about something else, to get Jessica’s mind off the pony.
    “Did you just move to Willow Creek?” she asked when Jessica came back. She knew Jessica had been riding at Pine Hollow for only a few weeks.
    “We moved here six months ago,” Jessica answered. “I took riding lessons for about a year where we used to live. My parents work, and for a while they didn’t have time to find me another stable.” She brushed Penny’s ears carefully and smoothed her copper mane.
    “We used to move around a lot when I was little too,” Carole said. “My dad’s in the Marines.” Only, Carole thought, her parents made sure they found her a place to ride right away, because they knew how important it was to her. Of course, Marine Corps bases often had riding stables, but still—
    “Do you have brothers and sisters?” she asked Jessica.
    “No.”
    “Me neither,” Carole said.
    Jessica continued as if Carole hadn’t spoken. “We have a yellow house with eleven rooms and 2.2 acres of land. There are three houses down the road and there are no kids living in any of them.” She was brushing Penny’s legs now. Carole rested her arms on Penny’s back and leaned over to look at her. Jessica’s bent head looked sad.
    “Who do you play with?” she asked.
    Jessica shrugged again. “Just me. I play by myself. The school bus stops at the end of the lane and I walk home from there. I have a snack usually. Sometimes I read, or watch TV. I wait for my dad—he gets home first.
    “I know lots of girls at school, but I’m not allowed to go home with them,” she continued, “because somebody would have to go pick me up, and my parents don’t have time. I can’t have anybody over at my house either, because my parents trust me home by myself but they don’t trust me home alone with friends. Now I get to come here once a week to ride. I take a different bus.” She stood up as she was sayingthe last part, and Carole was amazed at the soft smile that spread over her face. Clearly, riding was important to Jessica.
    “You love horses?” she asked the little