Horse Feathers

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Boys, stop teasing your sister,” admonished Mrs. Lake. “Go ahead, Stevie.”

  Encouraged, Stevie inspected the box closer and noticed a return address in small black type on one corner of the box. If someone was going to send a bomb, they wouldn’t give a return address, Stevie reasoned. She glanced closer at the writing. It read: JOB’S COMFORTERS, followed by a mailing address.

  “Job’s Comforters!” squealed Stevie excitedly, immediately forgetting her apprehension about the crate. “Maybe it’s the down quilt I’ve been hoping for!”

  “Stevie, if it were a quilt, why would they need to keep it warm?” Lisa pointed out.

  Stevie frowned. “They wouldn’t. Unless of course they wanted to make sure it was nice and toasty when I received it,” she tried hopefully.

  But her whole family, as well as Lisa and Carole, shook their heads in response. Whatever it was, it was definitely not a down quilt.

  Stevie carefully and somewhat nervously plucked off another layer of Styrofoam. There, beneath the Styrofoam, was a compact heating box. She searched her mind for things in the store that might have come with a heating unit. But she came up blank. Even more curiously, the top of the heating box was dotted with small holes.

  Stevie peered closely at the top of the box. “Could it be …” She paused midsentence as a thought occurred to her. She looked again at the writing on the outside of the box.

  “Livestock?” whispered Stevie. She very cautiously put her eye to one of the holes and peered inside the heating box. “Uh-oh …”

  “Well, what is it?” Alex demanded impatiently. “Move over so I can look.”

  Stevie rocked back on one foot, allowing Alex to have a peek. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked uncertainly.

  Alex stared through the hole for a long moment. Then he glanced over at Stevie, his face showing the same expression that hers had moments before. “Uh-oh …”

  Stevie sighed. “That’s what I thought.” She quickly took another glance through the small holes in the top of the box, just to be sure. But nothing had changed. There, in front of her eyes, or in front of one eye to be more exact, were twelve large eggs, gently nestled in an incubator.

  “Stevie! Tell us what it is!” Lisa said impatiently.

  “Eggs,” said Stevie flatly.

  “Eggs?” echoed Carole and Lisa as if they’d misheard her.

  Everyone stared at Stevie, their faces full of confusion, waiting for further explanation.

  Stevie shrugged helplessly and glanced down at the box. “I think I’m going to be a mom.”

  NEEDLESS TO SAY, dinner at the Lake house that night was louder than normal, with the eggs being the obvious choice of conversation. Stevie had even convinced her parents to allow her to bring the crate into the dining room where she could keep an eye on it during dinner. She’d already left the table three times to peek through the holes.

  On Stevie’s fourth trip to the crate, Mrs. Lake finally said, “Dear, they’re not going to hatch while we’re eating. Finish your dinner and then you can spend as much time as you like with them.”

  Stevie grudgingly made her way back to the table sitting slightly turned in her chair to keep one eye on the crate.

  “Stevie,” prompted Carole excitedly, “tell us what the letter said.” She was referring to the crisp white envelope resting on the table beside Stevie’s elbow.

  On closer inspection of the crate, Alex had found the letter slipped between the incubator and the battery pack. It was addressed to Ms. Stephanie Lake, which obviously meant that the eggs had been delivered to the correct house and that it was not a grocery delivery mix-up as Michael had suggested when they’d carried the crate into the house.

  “Well,” Stevie said casually, “remember the other week, Mom, when we went to the Bed ’n’ Bath Shop?” Mrs. Lake nodded. “And I had to wait while you searched the entire store for a purple bath pillow that was the exact same color as the purple flowers in the wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom?” Mrs. Lake nodded patiently. “And it took forever?”

  “Your point, Stevie?” said Mrs. Lake, smiling at her daughter’s flare for the dramatic.

  “Well, I was standing there, aging by the minute”—Stevie continued, ignoring her mother, who rolled her eyes—“and I noticed this contest being hosted by Job’s Comforters. First prize was a down comforter.”

  “But Stevie, you have a comforter already,” said Mr. Lake, clearly not grasping the significance of down versus synthetic fiber.

  “Dad,” replied Stevie patiently, “a down comforter isn’t just like any comforter. It’s filled with down. Trust me, there’s a huge difference.”

  Mr. Lake nodded slowly, knowing that when in doubt, the best defense was to nod.

  Stevie continued, “Now, let me also remind everyone that a down comforter was at the top of my wish list last Christmas. Which, in case no one has noticed, has come and gone.”

  “You mean, at the top of your list right under the four million horse-related items,” joked Chad.

  “The point is I didn’t get one. So, I thought, maybe, just maybe, I’d win one.”

  “You won the contest?” Mr. Lake asked, getting confused.

  Stevie hesitated. “Well, if you can call it that. I won sixth prize. Not the comforter, not the down jacket—which, let me add, would have been the most practical choice to keep me toasty warm at the barn this winter—not the comforter cover, third place; not the pillow, fourth place; not even the mittens, fifth place—which, let me point out, also would have been a bonus for those long winter horseback rides along the snow-covered trails to keep my fingers toasty warm. But nooooo. Instead I won sixth place: a dozen goose eggs and an incubator.”

  “Let me guess,” said Mr. Lake lightly. “Practical only if you’re short on breakfast items for the weekend.”

  Chad almost choked on his carrots and Mrs. Lake covered her mouth with her napkin to try to disguise her smile. Stevie ignored them all.

  “I guess, when you think about it,” she mused, “there is a connection between the eggs and the comforter. It’s sort of like a make-your-own comforter.” She glanced over at the eggs, which had yet to hatch, and therefore had yet to produce down. “It’ll just be a little more time-consuming.”

  “Not to mention slightly traumatizing for your little friends over there,” said Chad, indicating the crate.

  Stevie frowned, confused.

  Chad explained. “Well, the only way to get down off of a goose, Stevie, is severely and permanently unpleasant for the animal, although it may add something special to our Saturday-night dinners.” He grinned, displaying an even row of white teeth.

  Stevie’s eyes darted protectively toward the crate. She suddenly had terrifying visions of those twelve little yet-to-be-born eggs becoming someone’s comforter stuffing. It just wasn’t possible!

  “We can’t let that happen,” Stevie finally croaked. “Mom, Dad”—She glanced around the table desperately—“these particular eggs are definitely not comforter material.” She looked to Carole and Lisa for support. “I mean, have you ever seen eggs that looked more unlike comforter material than those?”

  “Absolutely not comforter eggs,” agreed Carole.

  “Too … eggy,” added Lisa. Stevie gave her an odd look, and Lisa shrugged helplessly.

  “See!” exclaimed Stevie. “We need to help these eggs keep their down! I mean, these future goslings.”

  Mrs. Lake, who already had a pretty good idea of where this conversation was headed, said gently, “Stevie, you know we can’t possibly keep them.”

  “Mom! If we don’t, they could end up as part of someone’s decor!” Stevie turned pleading eyes toward her father. “Dad, please, I promise I’ll take care of them. I’ll feed them, I’ll clean up after them, and I’ll love them with all my heart. I swear. Double swear,” she said earnestly. “Please, Dad, pleeease.”

  “Stevie,” her father began skeptically, “we need to be practical about this. For
one thing, geese are outdoor birds. They don’t belong in a house.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say they don’t belong, exactly,” quipped Chad, tapping his dinner plate teasingly. “Served up with mashed potatoes and gravy, I think they’d be quite acceptable.”

  Stevie noticed Lisa quickly and discreetly tucking her napkin into the top of her T-shirt, spreading it out to cover as much space as possible. Carole was doing the same thing. Stevie knew the two girls had had enough dinners at the Lake house to know an invitation to a food fight when they heard one. And Stevie, who was extremely efficient with a spoon and a bowl of food, needed very little in the way of motivation when it came to getting even with her brothers.

  “Stevie!” Mr. Lake’s warning shout halted Stevie just as she reached for the bowl of mashed potatoes, clearly intending to catapult a wad in Chad’s direction. Mr. Lake put out his hand. “I’ll take that.”

  Grudgingly, Stevie handed over the bowl, having to satisfy herself with an evil glare at Chad.

  “Well, I think it’d be cool,” said Michael. “I’ve never had a pet goose before. It could sleep in my bed and share my pillow and everything.”

  “There,” declared Stevie. “Finally someone with an appropriate appreciation for waterfowl.”

  “You know how you like to play by the pond in town?” Alex asked Michael.

  Michael nodded.

  “And you know those little mementos that the geese leave that you always end up slipping in and they end up all over your shoes?” Alex continued.

  Michael nodded again.

  “Well, I hate to break it to you, but they go where the geese go.”

  Michael’s mouth formed a small o as he thought about that. “Ewww …” He turned to Stevie. “Changed my mind.”

  Stevie rolled her eyes in frustration. “Look, if it helps, I’ll litter train them. How hard can it be?” She looked again to her parents. “Please, please, please?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Lake exchanged glances as Stevie held her breath. Then her mother nodded. “You can keep the goslings—”

  Mrs. Lake’s announcement was momentarily interrupted by Stevie’s squeal of joy.

  “—as long as you agree to be solely responsible for them,” Mrs. Lake finished. “But first they have to hatch!”

  “I absolutely promise,” Stevie chattered excitedly as she jumped up from the table to hug her parents.

  “I guess you’d better start practicing your goose skills,” teased Chad. He stuck his fists under his armpits, flapped his “wings,” and said, “Quack quack!”

  “Mother Goose!” squealed Michael. “Stevie’s going to be Mother Goose!”

  Stevie, still too excited from her mother’s announcement, wasn’t even bothered by her brothers’ teasing. In fact, she thought Mother Goose kind of had a nice ring to it.

  Suddenly, a loud, distinctly catlike howl added to the commotion. It was a sound of pure glee.

  “Madonna!” Stevie shouted.

  In total panic, Stevie raced back around the table to find her cat poised on the crate, trying to squeeze one calico paw through the small openings in the top of the box. “Madonna, no!” she scolded. She quickly scooped up the delinquent feline and walked into the living room, dropping her gently on the couch. “There will be no more of that,” she told the cat firmly.

  Madonna, offended at being expelled from the dining room, pulled herself up to her full regal height of nine inches. With great dignity, she jumped up onto the back of the sofa to stare out the window, turning her back to Stevie.

  As Madonna began cleaning her paws, Stevie glanced back nervously at the crate. She was beginning to get the feeling that being Mother Goose would be harder than she thought. And the eggs weren’t even hatched yet.

  “Stevie,” Mrs. Lake suggested, “why don’t you take the eggs up to your room where they’ll be less of a temptation?” Then she added, “For everyone,” as she glared at her sons.

  Stevie glanced back at Madonna, still perched on top of the sofa. The cat had turned around and her eyes were now fixed on the crate as her tail twitched in anticipation.

  “Good idea,” Stevie said quickly.

  Carole and Lisa immediately excused themselves from the dinner table to help Stevie carry the crate upstairs. The girls gently placed the crate on the floor of Stevie’s bedroom, and Stevie shut her door behind them.

  “As long as we keep the door closed, the eggs should be safe from any further Madonna trauma,” said Stevie, walking back to the crate. She knelt in front of the box. Carole took a seat beside her. Lisa sat at Stevie’s desk, reaching for the instructions that had come with the eggs.

  “Okay,” said Lisa, 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, and then 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 u
p 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 riding her beloved mare, Belle, should have caused an explosion beyond measure. Instead, Stevie was still calmly drawing lines on her eggs. This was serious.

  “There,” said Stevie as she replaced the last egg in the incubator. She crawled back into bed and reached for her alarm clock. She set the alarm for the next turning. It hardly seemed worth going to sleep. On the other hand, she was pretty tired. Stevie took one last look at the eggs lying peacefully in the incubator, then lay back in the bed, fluffing a pillow under her head. “You know,” she said, staring up at the ceiling, “this could be a great opportunity to learn something new.”

  “I’m sure that’s exactly what Max has in mind,” said Lisa.

  “And when it come to horses,” Carole added happily, “I’m always up to learning something new.”

  Stevie stared at her friends, wondering how they could possibly get so off the topic so quickly. “I was talking about the eggs,” she said slowly. “You know, the ones we’ve been talking about all evening?”

  Lisa looked over at Stevie—checking to make sure that it really was Stevie. It certainly looked like Stevie. And it even sounded like Stevie, except for the non-horse-related words that kept coming out of her mouth. “Goodnight, Stevie,” said Lisa.

  Carole burrowed further into her sleeping bag. Not to worry, she thought. Stevie will be back to her old self the moment her head hits the pillow. She took a quick peek at Stevie and realized that her head was already on the pillow. Okay, first thing in the morning, Carole corrected herself.