The Painted Horse Read Online Free Page A

I’ll call you Ralph.” When the carousel stopped moving, Stevie whipped her camera out of her backpack and took a photograph of Ralph.
    Stevie rode and rode until it seemed as if Central Park were moving and she and Ralph were standing still. Finally her tickets ran out. She climbed off the carousel and wobbled. She had been going around so long that she’d lost her sense of balance. In fact, she felt kind of strange.
    Standing on the grass was a mare with a rich browncoat and large, intelligent eyes. The mare had long white socks on the right side and short white socks on the left. She looked almost like Belle, Stevie’s horse.
    I’m going crazy
, Stevie thought.
I miss Belle so much I imagine that she’s here.
She looked up and saw, to her relief, that the mare was real. She was being ridden by a policeman in a blue uniform. He had friendly blue eyes and a sandy mustache.
    “You wouldn’t believe it, but your horse looks just like my horse,” Stevie said to the policeman. “It’s uncanny. My horse has the same color coat, the same eyes. The only difference is that Belle has short socks on the right and long socks on the left. Our horses are opposites.”
    “Where’s your horse?” asked the policeman.
    “Back home in—” Stevie suddenly stopped. She didn’t want this policeman to know that she came from Virginia. Then he would want to know how she had gotten here. And if she told him she came with a school group, he would want to know where the rest of the group was.
    Stevie took a deep breath. “Belle is home on my grandfather’s ranch.”
    “And where’s that?” asked the policeman.
    “Idaho,” said Stevie. Chances were that the policeman didn’t know much about Idaho.
    “Why aren’t you in school?” the policeman asked.
    “I’m on vacation,” Stevie said. She could tell that the policeman didn’t really believe her, but she wasn’t actually breaking the law. Still, she thought the sooner she got out of there, the better.
    “I’m meeting my grandfather,” she said. “I like to ride on the carousel over and over and over again, and he gets bored. So he dropped me off, and he’s going to pick me up.”
    The policeman nodded. His blue eyes shined. “When I was a kid I liked to go on that carousel, too.” He smiled as he remembered. “I grew up here in the city. The carousel horses were the only horses I ever rode.” He looked at the carousel, which had started up again. “It was just the same then as it is now. Nothing has changed.”
    “My favorite is the black one,” Stevie said. “I call him Ralph.”
    “Good name,” said the policeman. “So, where’s your grandfather?”
    “He’s kind of a slow walker,” she said. “He was thrown from a bucking bronco when he was young. He’s a fantastic rider, but not like he was before the accident.”
    “I’d like to meet him,” said the policeman. “He sounds like an interesting man.”
    Stevie looked around desperately. It was getting later and later. She had to get back to the museum.
    “There he is,” Stevie said. “Right over there.” She pointed at the stream of people moving down the road. “I’m late. Gotta go! Great talking to you!” She dashed off.

“I GUESS WE should watch the news,” Lisa said.
    “Why?” said Carole. “So we can see how foolish we look?”
    Carole and Lisa had just come back from Pine Hollow. They were rummaging in Carole’s refrigerator for a snack.
    Colonel Hanson’s head popped around the corner. “Did I hear you say you were going to be on TV?”
    “It’s no big deal,” said Carole.
    “It’s a really
small
deal,” said Lisa.
    “You girls are just being modest,” Carole’s father said. “If you’re on television, I want to see it.”
    “No you don’t,” said Lisa.
    Colonel Hanson shook his head. “It’s good to be modest, but there’s no point in overdoing it.”
    Lisa and Carole exchanged miserable looks. “We’re not being modest,” Lisa said.