Scarecrow on Horseback Read Online Free Page B

night at supper.
He talked to my mother, but he wouldn't even look at me.”
    “Uh huh. He told me not to count on you for
anything.”
    “He thinks I'm unreliable ?” Mel was
shocked. “That's not fair. Just because I walked out on him in the
barn? I'm not that great a student, but I always do what the
teacher says. Always.”
    Sally spat out the grass stem he was chewing
on. “That's what I said, that you seemed like a dependable
kid.”
    “Thanks,” she said.
    “But the way he thinks is that if you're too
skittish to get on a horse's back, you'll likely get yourself in
trouble working around horses.”
    “How am I going to get in trouble? Horses
like me, and I like them.” Anger made Mel's heart thump as fast as
a running rabbit. She looked around the corral at the horses
standing in companionable groups. She'd begun to recognize some of
them—Zorro and Stilts and the two handsome bays that Jeb and Sally
had test ridden. She felt comfortable amidst the horses, as if she
were somehow related to them, physically different, but with the
same emotions. She could get close enough to a horse so they could
read each other's mind the way human friends could. Until she had
tried to ride him, she'd certainly been able to read Wonder Boy's
mind.
    * * * *
    The second morning that Mel had come to
clean out Wonder Boy's stall in the little barn that had been built
for him, the palomino had raised his head and studied her. He'd
taken a few steps toward her and stopped to chew at something
beside him, but one eye stayed on her. He'd looked a little goofy,
as goofy as an animal as golden as he could look, with his jaw
moving from side to side and hay sticking out of both sides of his
mouth.
    “Hi,” she'd said, keeping her throaty voice
low and soft. “If you're looking for something better to eat, I
can't help you. I'm just here to do Lisa's chores so she can sleep
in. I'm going to clean up your poop and put in some fresh straw in
case you want to lie down.”
    He'd bumped her leg lightly with his
head.
    “Do horses like to be petted?” she'd asked
him in surprise. “Like dogs? She'd reached out and stroked his
neck. He stood still as if he liked it.
    She'd brought him an apple the next morning
and she made up lines in a two-way conversation for him like,
“What's new with you?” Her question.
    “Same old. Same old thing. Chomp my feed and
hang out waiting for Lisa to ride me.
    How about you?” His answer.
    “Well,” she'd told him. “School's okay. I
sit with Lisa's friends at lunch. They talk so much, all I have to
do is listen and smile. They all like boys. Me, I prefer
horses.”
    He bumped her chest with his nose. “I like
you.”
    “Must be you think I smell good,” she'd
said. “Maybe you like the soap I use, huh?” And she'd told him he
was a good boy, and she scratched under his chin and around his
ears, which he seemed to like.
    All Lisa's free time went in training Wonder
Boy. There never was an hour to spare for Mel to ride him. “Why
don't you bug my father about leasing a horse for you, Mel?” Lisa
had asked her. Mel didn't have the nerve. She'd already been given
so much—her own room after having slept on a folding cot or in the
same bed as her mother for years, not to mention the luxury of
calling Max's spacious house home. Just the year before in fifth
grade, a girl had asked Mel why she kept wearing the same shirt so
often. And in fourth grade in a different school in Arizona, Mel
had been the only one not to go on the field trip to Sea World in
San Diego because she hadn't asked Dawn to sign the slip and give
her the money when she saw how expensive it was going to be. To
have so much and to have Wonder Boy like her was enough to make Mel
happy even if she didn't have a horse to ride.
    * * * *
    “What happened, Mel?” Sally broke into her
thoughts to ask. His voice was buttery. “You have a bad fall?”
    “Sure,” she said to put him off. “Once I fell
off a horse and banged my butt