Horse Feathers Read Online Free

opening the folded instructions, “let’s see how to take care of your eggs.”
    While Lisa skimmed through the material, Stevie and Carole gently pulled the incubator and battery pack out of the crate, placing it on the floor beside them.
    “It says here that you’ll need to keep the eggs at a constant temperature until they hatch,” read Lisa.
    “That explains the thermostat in the incubator,” said Stevie, peering through the glass top of the incubator. Then she checked the sticker on the side of the box for the correct temperature, which varied depending on how old the eggs were. The thermostat read 99.5 degrees, which was the correct temperature for eggs incubated under twenty-five days. And according to the date on the label, the eggs were on day twenty-three.
    “Oh, and very importantly, you need to turn the eggs every four hours until they hatch so that they don’t spend too long on any one side.”
    “Every
four
hours?” Carole repeated, shocked. “Stevie, that’s impossible.”
    “No it isn’t,” Stevie answered confidently. “I’ll turn them before I go to school in the morning, then again when I come home for lunch—”
    “You don’t come home for lunch,” said Lisa.
    “Well, I do now. I’ll turn them again at dinner, andthen I’ll set my alarm to make sure I don’t miss any of the night turnings.”
    “You’re going to get up in the middle of the night?” Carole sounded skeptical.
    “Piece of cake.” Stevie waved off the words with a toss of her hand.
    “Well, then we’d better get to bed,” said Lisa, “since you have to get up in four hours.”
    The girls pulled their pajamas out of their backpacks and quickly got changed. This was a traditional part of the sleepover—to snuggle under the bedcovers or into their sleeping bags and talk about horses until they could no longer keep their eyes open. Only this time, Stevie’s thoughts remained on her incubated eggs.
    “I’m going to dream that it’s tomorrow and the mystery horse has just arrived,” said Carole as she snuggled into her sleeping bag.
    Lisa smiled, yawning sleepily. “While you’re at it, maybe you can ask Max what this horse does that’s so different and special. And if he tells you, wake me up and let me know so that I don’t have to wait until tomorrow.”
    “I wonder what color they’ll be,” said Stevie, crawling into bed.
    “Liver chestnut with four white stockings and a blaze.” Carole sighed dreamily.
    Stevie shook her head absentmindedly. “I don’t think they come in chestnut. They could just be white. Or maybe brown-and-black with the colorful tail feathers. It said in the letter that there could be as many as four different breeds of geese in the bunch.”
    Carole and Lisa exchanged concerned looks. It wasn’t like Stevie to confuse equines with waterfowl. Especially on a Saturday and especially during their bedtime horse talk. “Stevie, I was talking about the mystery horse. You know, Max’s surprise for tomorrow? Ten whole hours away, which earlier was making you crazy?”
    “Oh, I can’t believe I nearly forgot!” exclaimed Stevie.
    “That’s better,” teased Lisa.
    Then Lisa and Carole watched with confused expressions as Stevie jumped out of bed and grabbed a pencil off the desk. “I have to mark the eggs.”
    Carole and Lisa sat up to watch as Stevie gently took each egg out of the incubator and put a thin pencil line down one side before replacing it. That way, when she turned the eggs, she explained, she would be able to turn them evenly.
    “So, I understand that Veronica will be riding Belle in our next jumping lesson,” Lisa said casually as Stevie reached for egg number six.
    “Huh?” Stevie said distractedly. Then, without waiting for Lisa’s response, she replied, “Oh, that’s nice.”
    Carole and Lisa exchanged surprised looks. Typically the mere mention of Veronica’s name was enough to send Stevie into a slow burn, but the idea of Stevie’s worst enemy