The Painted Horse Read Online Free

second. “To tell you the truth, we’ll be cleaning bridles.”
    Veronica’s eyes widened, but then she caught herself and smiled. “It’s one of my favorite things,” she said. “I love cleaning bridles.”
    Lisa and Carole gave each other despairing looks. Tomorrow they would have to be even more helpful.
    A HORSE - DRAWN CARRIAGE rumbled past Stevie as she walked through Central Park. The carriage had white wheels and red seats, and the driver was wearing a top hat and a black coat with tails. The horse looked kind of bored, but it was a real horse.
    Stevie followed the flow of skaters and joggers along a curving road. Eventually she came to a sign that said BOAT HOUSE in front of a cheerful redbrick buildingon the edge of a lagoon. At tables along the water, people were eating and talking. Stevie smelled the enticing odor of french fries.
Fries would taste good right now
, she thought.
With ketchup.
But she didn’t stop. It felt too good to be moving. She just wanted to walk outside.
    As Stevie walked past the lagoon, she saw people in rowboats. Other people were in a gondola propelled by a man standing up and handling a pole. She had never seen anything like it. But she didn’t stop to investigate. She wanted to see as much of the park as possible.
    The road turned right, and after a while she heard cheerful, tinny music. There was something familiar about it. She followed a path down the hill and saw a carousel with colorful wooden horses. She sighed. The horses in the carousel were beautiful.
    Stevie had to smile. There was a line of small kids with their parents. Stevie remembered that when she was little, riding the carousel in the Willow Creek mall had been the scariest and most exciting experience of her life. Stevie got in line, even though she felt a little silly because she was a lot younger than the parents and a lot older than the kids.
    When she got to the head of the line, the ticket seller, who was a chubby man with fuzzy hair, said, “How many?”
    “Just one,” Stevie said. “There’s only me.”
    “You can ride more than once,” the man said with a smile.
    When Stevie was little, she never got to ride the carousel for as long as she wanted. Now she could ride forever.
    “Give me five,” she said. “No, ten.”
    The man smiled more broadly and counted out the tickets.
    When the carousel stopped, half the kids didn’t get off. There were only two horses left when it was Stevie’s turn to get on. She chose a black one and climbed on. She grinned happily. New York was starting to be a lot more fun.
    “Excuse me,” said a man with a baseball hat on backward. “Please strap yourself in.”
    “Me?” said Stevie. “I know how to ride.”
    “It’s the rules,” the man said, smiling at her.
    Stevie put the leather strap around her waist and buckled it. She remembered how safe the strap had made her feel when she was little. A bell rang, and the carousel lurched into motion. She thought about how when she was little the carousel had seemed as fast as the wind.
    There was a squeal of fear from a little kid in front of her. “I’m here,” his mother said, putting her arms around him.
    Stevie’s horse moved up. She imagined she was rising over the treetops. The horse went down. It was like sinking into the earth. Up and down. Stevie put a hand on the horse’s neck. “You’ve got nice gaits,” she said. “Very regular and smooth. If you weren’t wood, we could ride off into the sunset together.”
    “You can’t do that,” said the man with the baseball hat. He had climbed on the moving carousel and was taking tickets. “The carousel has been here since the turn of the century. This horse is about ninety years old.”
    “He looks pretty good for a ninety-year-old horse,” Stevie said.
    “He’s one of my favorites,” the man said with a smile. He walked forward to take more tickets.
    “I like you,” Stevie said to the horse. “I’m going to give you a name. I think