No Small Thing Read Online Free

three?”
    Queenie doesn’t answer but just keeps walking, a little smile on her face.
    “See! She’s lying!” Cid shouts. “It’s not fair! This is such crap!”
    Queenie and I keep walking along. I want to make Cid suffer for a while before I tell her that she can ride first, after all. I knew all along that I would let her ride the pony first. I just don’t like her bossing me around all the time.
    Eventually, we come to a fork in the road. I have to stop to figure out where we are. I squintat the trees and the sun. Beyond the trees, fields of green corn roll out to meet the blue sky. There’s a little stone farmhouse perched on a hill at the end of a long lane. Nothing looks familiar. I don’t know where to go.
    “We’re lost!” Cid says furiously.
    “We are not lost!” I yell back, although I’m not sure. “Just keep your mouth shut or you’ll scare Queenie!”
    But Queenie doesn’t look scared. I pull out the piece of phone book with the directions that Cid wrote. “The lady said we need to go left at this point,” I say, trying to sound confident.
    “You have no idea,” Cid says, sneering.
    “Then, why don’t you go your way and Queenie and I will go my way?”
    Cid glowers at me. She doesn’t have the guts to go off on her own.
    We walk along in silence now and it seems to be taking forever. I’m thinking that maybe I was wrong, and wouldn’t Cid just love that. But the farm finally comes into sight. I know it’s the right one because it has a small red barn with hay up to the rafters, just like the woman described over the phone. The house is bright yellow and as neat as a daffodil. There is a clean white picket fence around the perimeter. It looks like it would bemore comfortable in the city. In fact, it looks as out of place here in the country as Dorothy’s house looked after it dropped out of the sky in the land of Oz. There is a split-rail paddock to the right. A boy and a girl are sitting side by side on the top rail. They are as clean and orderly as the picket fence. They look as though they never fight. The boy is holding a Luke Skywalker action figure—the same one I want—twelve inches tall with the Tatooine desert outfit, grappling hook and light-sabre. Removable tunic, pants and boots. Fully articulated at the shoulders, legs and hips. The stores have been sold out for weeks. I can’t help but feel jealous. I bet he’s lost all the accessories already. For a second I consider taking it from the kid….
    And then I see the pony. He’s standing in the middle of the paddock, sniffing the air. He is a pure white stallion with a black muzzle. His mane and tail are long and flowing. His eyes are dark and his coat is shaggy. He has three black hooves and one white one at the front. He’s wearing a worn red webbing halter. And he is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
    Queenie starts to run towards the paddock. Suddenly, I can’t help myself and I start to run too. Then all three of us are running. The boyyells to his mother that we are here. I don’t even tell them my name as I skid up to the fence. I can’t take my eyes off the pony. The mother comes out of the daffodil house, the screen door slapping shut behind her.
    “Hello,” she says cheerfully.
    She has smooth blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Her hands are delicate and soft, not at all like the farm wives I know. She’s perfect in every way. She looks like a movie star.
    “There he is,” she says, pointing at the pony.
    “He’s beautiful,” I say at last. “We’d like to take him.”
    “Don’t you want to get a closer look?”
    I shake my head.
    Queenie is staring at the pony, not saying a thing. I know she’s getting thoughtful.
    “Don’t your kids like to ride him?” she asks in a soft, faraway voice.
    “Oh, they’re kind of afraid of him,” the woman admits. “He’s a little bit wild. We only bought him because we thought the children would like a pony. But they never really took to him.