Wind Dancer Read Free Page B

quiet or we’re gonna get caught!” Ali groaned. “Better turn off the flashlight so nobody sees it if they look outside.” With the click of the switch, the barn was plunged into total darkness.
    A moment later, a bright beam of light cut through the barn, startling Ali and blinding her with its brightness.
    “What’s going on out here?”
    “Oh, no!” Cara hissed, opening the door to the stall. “It’s Mrs. Marshall! Run!”

Three
    Ali scrambled to her feet and bolted out the stall door behind Cara. They tore through the barn, the light from Mrs. Marshall’s flashlight bouncing crazily around the room.
    “Stop!” the old lady hollered. “You kids get back here! I’m going to call the police!”
    They ran out the back door of the barn and pounded down the road. Ali pumped her arms, trying to gain more speed. She didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t really care. She’d been a fool to go to Mrs. Marshall’s place. Her parents were going to be furious.
    After what seemed like forever, they stopped in the cover of a large tree. Ali bent over and sucked in huge gulps of air. She’d never run so fast or so far in her entire life. When her vision cleared, she looked around and noticed they were in sight of her house.
    “You okay?” Cara panted.
    Ali took several more deep breaths, trying to calm down before answering. “No, I’m
not
okay! We’re going to get in a lot of trouble!”
    She stared at her house, looking for a sign that her parents had noticed she was gone. It was dark and quiet. Did she dare hope that Danny had kept this adventure to himself?
    “We’re going to be fine,” Cara assured her. “We got away. No one followed us.”
    Ali took a good hard look at her friend. “Just because we got away with it doesn’t make it right. We shouldn’t have gone onto Mrs. Marshall’s property. She saw us. She could have us arrested.”
    “Maybe we will get into trouble, but at least now we know what happened to the horses. They need help. What are we going to do?”
    Ali tried to come up with an answer. She couldn’t get the image of the gelding, his ribs sticking out, and the poor mare, who could hardly hold her own weight, out of her mind. “I don’t think the black one will make it much longer,” she admitted.
    Cara jammed her hands into her pockets and stared up at the moon. “We’re going to have to turn in Mrs. Marshall. Maybe Animal Control will do something this time, once they know things are even worse than before.”
    “But if we report her, we’ll have to admit we were in her barn,” Ali said. “We could get in lots of trouble.”
    “Maybe we don’t give our names?”
    Ali thought for a moment. “With Caller ID, they’d know exactly where the call came from,” she said. “We wouldn’t remain anonymous for very long.” She crossed her arms and paced a few steps up and back. How had she gotten involved with this?
    Ali took a deep breath and slowly let it out. She’d gotten involved because two horses were in desperate need of attention. The adults were taking too long. “We’ll figure things outin the morning,” she said. “It’s too late to call anyone at this hour. We gave them water and some grass. Hopefully, that will be enough to get them through the next few hours. Right now I’ve got to get back into the house before my parents find out I’m gone. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    She ran up the front walk, slowing when she reached the creaky porch steps. The door was unlocked, just as she’d left it. She held her breath as she entered the house and crept past her parents’ bedroom. She felt lower than a snake’s belly in a tire rut.
    A muffled cry came from Danny’s room. She paused at the top of the stairs, listening. It came again, like something from a spooky movie, and the hair on her arms stood straight up. She crept closer and pressed her ear against the wood. Danny was moaning and thrashing, the bedsprings squealing in