Night Mare

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  Colt scrunches his eyebrows. “I still don’t get it. Who are Shad and Me-whatever and Bednego?”

  Colt’s mother doesn’t take him to church. Neither does his dad when he goes to St. Louis to see him. Every time we’ve asked Colt to go to church with us, his mom says he can’t.

  I explain as much as I can remember from Sunday school about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. “They were three Old Testament guys who were captured by a mean king. The king tried to make them pray to an idol instead of to God. When they wouldn’t, the king threw them into the lions’ den.”

  Ethan shakes his head. Daniel got thrown into the lions’ den. Daniel’s friends—Ethan nods to the fish—were thrown into the fiery furnace.

  “I get it,” Colt says. He presses his nose against the fish tank. “These fish do look like they’ve been through the fire, all right.” He looks back to Ethan. “Did they die? The Bible guys, I mean?”

  Ethan grins and shakes his head again. They prayed, and God rescued them. They didn’t even smell like smoke when they got out of the furnace. Ethan strokes the tank as if he’s petting his new fish.

  Before Colt has to go home, we go to Ethan’s room to check our blogs. Ethan and I share a computer. Last month I had the computer in my room. This month it’s in Ethan’s room. My brother’s room screams “Baseball!” He pitches for his baseball team, and he has pictures of famous pitchers covering one wall. His throw rug is a big, fluffy baseball. And his bed is covered with a Kansas City Royals blanket.

  Colt takes Ethan’s desk chair and checks the Starring Larissa blog. “Man, Larissa and her mom have added a ton of stuff since this morning.”

  “I still can’t believe you let Larissa get away with that blog name, Colt.”

  He ignores me and keeps squinting at the screen.

  While I’m waiting on Colt, I take out my blog folder and thumb through some of the recipes. Winnie the Horse Gentler gave me a great idea for a treat you don’t have to cook. I’m going to change the recipe a little and call it Molasses Monster Munch. But my favorite recipe is for Oat and Apple Bars. Cassie and I made two dozen of them. Dream would have eaten every last bar if we’d have let her.

  Colt groans. “Ellie, you better read this.”

  “A blog starring Larissa? No thanks. I get enough Larissa at school.”

  “I’m serious, Ellie. Get over here.”

  Something in Colt’s voice makes me walk over to the computer. The first thing I see is an old picture of my horse. The dirty, scraggly pinto in that photo hardly looks like Dream. Her ribs are sticking out, and her ears are flat back.

  “Leave it to Larissa to post the worst possible picture of Dream,” I say. “But so what? I’m not going to let her get to me.” I turn my back on the screen.

  “I’m not talking about the picture,” Colt says. “Or her version of the story.” He frowns at me. “I’m talking about the comments, Ellie.”

  “What comments?” I don’t like the way my stomach feels, like it’s tangled inside.

  “Well, there are a bunch of dumb comments after the story. Somebody wrote that he didn’t think the picture was real because the horse looks like a scarecrow. Somebody else tried to make a joke about ‘backyard horses’ being ‘backward horses.’”

  Whenever anybody says something mean about Dream, it turns me into a cross between a bucking bronco and a wild mustang. But Dream doesn’t even look like that picture now. “Colt, who cares what strangers have to say about an old picture?”

  But Colt isn’t finished. He’s still staring at the screen, still shaking his head. “It’s this last comment, Ellie. You better read it.”

  “You read it.” What could somebody say that hasn’t been said already?

  “Okay.” Colt glances at me one more time. Then he reads the comment. “It says: ‘Hey! The horse in that picture—that’s my horse!’”

  4

  No Comment!

  I stare at the computer screen. My fingers grip the chair so I don’t fall down. The words blur together: Hey! The horse in that picture—that’s my horse!

  “Are you okay, Ellie?” Colt asks.

  I can’t answer him. I can’t take my gaze off the final two words in the comment: my horse!

  Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m screaming, “No!” Then I shout even louder, “Mom! Dad! Mom! Dad!”

  My parents thunder up the stairs and into Ethan’s room.

  “Ellie?” Dad says. “What on earth . . . ?”

  Mom strides to the computer in two steps. “I’ll be a mummy’s mummy if you didn’t scare ten years off my life. What’s so catawampus that you had to ruin a perfectly good rerun of Saved by the Bell?”

  “Ellie read something on Larissa’s blog and freaked out,” Colt explains.

  “The freaked-out part we got,” Mom says.

  “What’s on the blog?” Dad asks. “Aren’t you doing a blog with Cassandra?”

  “Read it.” My voice sounds like I’m under murky water. A dying fish. That’s how I feel—like I’m drowning in pond scum. I can hardly move. Mom and Dad have to crowd in to get a better look at the computer screen.

  “Is that Dream?” Dad asks, pointing to the old picture. “I almost forgot how sickly your horse was before we got her.” He scrolls up a little. “Is that Larissa’s horse?”

  I glance at the photo. Larissa is holding a trophy. Next to her is her American saddle horse, Custer’s Darling Delight.

  “The one on the right is Larissa’s horse,” Colt informs Dad. “The one on the left is Larissa.”

  Mom chuckles. “Well, that Larissa has a way with words, all right. She got the story wrong. But it’s kind of funny. You shouldn’t take it so personally, Ellie.”

  “It’s not the story we’re worried about,” Colt explains. “It’s the comments. The last comment.”

  I watch Mom’s eyes narrow as she reads.

  “I’ll be a blue-nosed gopher,” she mutters.

  Dad is reading through the comments too. His eyebrows shoot up and down like the wings of a bird trying to take off. “It has to be a joke or whatnot,” he finally says.

  “Do you think so, Mr. James?” Colt asks.

  “Must be,” Dad answers.

  Mom slaps Dad on the back. “You are the smartest man I know, Lenny James! Of course it’s a joke. A very bad joke.” Mom looks totally relieved.

  I want to believe them. I want to feel relieved. “But what if it’s not a joke?” I demand. “What if whoever had Dream before she showed up at the cat farm really did recognize her from Larissa’s blog?”

  My mind flashes back to the day when I saw the shaggy pinto from my classroom window. Nobody else saw her there. And by the time Colt and I walked home from school, he almost had me believing the horse was all in my imagination. Then Mom came home from volunteering at the cat farm and announced she’d lost a stray spotted horse. And that was the beginning of my dream come true.

  Mom puts her arm around me. She has to bend in half to look me in the eyes. “Sugar, whoever had that poor horse before you got her wouldn’t likely be admitting it.” She points toward the picture on the screen. “Who would confess to starving a horse like that? Why, I’d arrest him myself for being cruel to animals. He’d be hog-tied and strung up in a court of law.”

  “Your mom’s got a point, Ellie,” Colt says.

  “She always does,” Dad agrees.

  “Hey!” Colt scoots his chair up to Ethan’s desk again. “I’m going to comment on the comment.”

  “Can you do that?” Dad asks.

  “This is my blog too,” Colt says. “I got teamed with Larissa for the blog project.”

  “And you call it Starring Larissa?” Mom asks.

  Colt types, and the rest of us read his comment as he goes along: Oh yeah? This is NOT your horse. And even if you did own this horse once, you better not admit it. They put people in jail for starving horses.

  “There!” Colt leans back in the chair and clicks the button to post it.
Only Colt’s comment doesn’t show up. Instead, he gets a message back that says, “Thank you for your comment. All comments must be approved by Larissa. Have a nice day!”

  “That stinks!” Colt shouts.

  It’s at that moment when I get it. “Yes! I should have thought of that right off. It’s Larissa!”

  “What do you mean, honey?” Dad asks.

  “That comment! Don’t you get it? I’ll bet you anything Larissa is the one writing all the comments on her site.” I can picture her sitting at home making up every word. “She’s the one calling Dream a scarecrow. She’s the one making fun of backyard horses. And she’s the one trying to stir up trouble by claiming my horse is really her horse.”

  “Well, I’ll be a four-toed fiddler,” Mom mutters.

  “I guess,” Colt says. “I know she and her mother were worried that nobody would see the blog. Larissa really wanted people to write comments.”

  “See? I’m right!” I’d love to send Larissa a few comments of my own right now.

  “So when she didn’t get any comments, she must have decided to write them herself,” Colt says, like he’s thinking aloud.

  Dad sighs and backs away from the computer. “If this crisis is over, then I guess I’d better get back to my own crisis. Fish rhymes.”

  “I’ll help,” Mom offers, even though she once tried to rhyme bowling with sewing. That jingle almost got Dad fired.

  After Colt leaves, I fill Ethan in on Larissa’s blog. He makes me find the website so he can read it for himself. When he’s done, he signs, Are you sure Larissa wrote that comment?

  I make a fist and wave it up and down at him, signing, Yes! But I wish he hadn’t asked.

  Ethan shakes his head. That’s awfully mean, even for Larissa. You’d better take the computer to your room so you can keep an eye on her blog.

  After we move the computer into my room, Ethan and I check on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They’re still alive, but they’re not swimming much.

  By the time I’m ready for bed, I’m pretty tired. I open my bedroom window and call, “Dream!” Stars are just starting to light up the sky.

  In seconds I hear my horse’s hoof beats and know she’s trotting toward me. Dream appears at the edge of the yard, tossing her head. Her white mane floats across her neck. Dream doesn’t stop until she’s at my window.

  When Dad and I fenced in our backyard, we decided one side of the fence would be our house. That’s why my bedroom window opens up into Dream’s pasture—our yard.

  Dream nickers and sticks her head in through the window so I can pet her. I sit on the window ledge, and my horse stretches her neck until her head rests in my lap. When I scratch her jaw, her eyes droop shut.

  “You’re mine, Dream. All mine.”

  I usually say my going-to-bed prayers when I’m in bed. But I’m so wound up from Larissa’s blog that I decide I’ll say my prayers with Dream tonight. “God, thanks for helping Dream and me find each other.” I thank God for Ethan and Mom and Dad and Colt and Cassie and everybody else I can think of. Only not Larissa.

  “Dream,” I whisper when I’m done talking to God, “you and I have a lot to be thankful for, including that trail ride tomorrow.”

  I kiss Dream good night and watch her trot off in the starlight. Then I curl up in bed and try to sleep. Only I’m so excited about the trail ride, sleep stays away for a long, long time.

  Just when I start drifting off, I jerk myself awake because I’m starting to have a nightmare. In my dream, Larissa is taking my horse and handing her over to some stranger.

  And then I can see Ethan’s hands signing, That’s awfully mean, even for Larissa.

  5

  Happy Trails!

  The sun is barely rising when I open my window and whistle. A cool breeze sweeps into my bedroom, and with it the sweet scent of horse. Dandelions have popped up all across the yard. Dew sparkles in patches of clover.

  Dream canters up to the window, and I give her a good morning kiss right on her blaze. “Trail ride today, Dream. We’re going to have so much fun. Hang on. I’ll get your breakfast.”

  I pull on jeans and a T-shirt. On the way out of my room, I notice the computer. So I stop and check my e-mail. All junk, except for one from Winnie the Horse Gentler. I open it right away.

  Happy trails, Ellie! Have fun on your trail ride today. I ran across one more recipe you might want for your blog project. Nickers loves these treats, and they’re easy to make.

  Nickers’s Noshes

  1 cup flour

  2 cups oatmeal

  3 cups unsweetened applesauce

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  Grease a 13-inch pan and pour in mixture.

  Bake for about 40–45 minutes. Cool completely before giving a piece to your horse.

  I copy the recipe. Then I write Winnie a thank-you note before heading to the backyard.

  My dad is already hard at work in his dining room office. “Ellie, what are you doing up so early on a Saturday?”

  “Trail ride. Remember?” I walk over to him. Stacks of papers litter the whole table. Paper wads cover the floor like giant snowflakes. “Tough night, Dad?”

  “A rhyme-less night, if that’s what you mean.”

  I feel sorry for my dad. I’m about to go on the most fun ride ever, and he’s stuck at home trying to rhyme fish. I start to sit down in the chair next to Dad, but Squash, our cat, is curled up there.

  “Hey, Dad. How about this?

  “There’s nothing fishy about our food.

  We’ll put your fish in the very best mood!”

  “Yes!” Dad exclaims. “I can work with that. I need to put in the name of the company, of course. And a tune and whatnot. . . .”

  I leave Dad to his jingle, and I rush out back to give Dream her oats. Pinto Cat, the calico who followed Dream and me home from the cat farm and decided to stay, demands her food too. While Dream eats, I brush her. “So, Dream, what do you think about riding bareback today?”

  Dream keeps eating and acts like she doesn’t hear the question.

  “You’ve filled out enough. I can ride you bareback now without killing myself on your bony spine.” I give her back an extra brushing. Instead of her bone sticking up there, she has a nice, padded, broad back now. I love my horse’s spots. I brush my favorite spot, the one that looks like a shiny black saddle. “You know, Dream, this saddle spot looks like God drew it on you Himself.”

  When Dream is finished eating, I lead her over to my mounting post, a tree stump we already had in the backyard. Even standing on the stump, I have to jump a little to get up on her back.

  “You are so not a pony,” I tell her. “Once again, Larissa doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Dream and I trot across the road to Colt’s. I expect to have to wake him up for the ride. But Colt is already in the barn, with his horse saddled and ready to go.

  “Wow! Bullet looks great, Colt. He’s thinned down a lot.”

  “I think so too,” Colt says. “See?” He pulls back the big stirrup of his Western saddle to show me the cinch buckle. “Two notches tighter than the last time I rode with this saddle.”

  Bullet still needs to lose another three or four notches. But it’s progress. It has taken me a long time to fatten up Dream. I suppose it will take Colt a long time to “skinny down” Bullet.

  “I think we can get into some serious barrel racing this summer,” I say.

  “Counting on it.” He unties Bullet and leads him out of the barn. Colt mounts his horse from the left, the way we learned in horsemanship. He lands on Bullet’s back with a thud.

  I bite my tongue to keep from telling him he needs to grab a bit of the mane from the base, along with the reins, in his left hand. And he should face the back of his horse and take hold of the cantle, or the back of the saddle, with his right hand. That way he could bounce on his right foot, with his left in the stirrup. That would help him spring into the saddle without thumping down so hard.<
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  I only know these things because I’ve been going to Mr. Harper’s horsemanship classes forever, long before I had my own horse. But today isn’t for the how-tos of horsemanship. It’s for the sheer joy of riding. That’s what Mr. Harper said when he invited us to his property for the trail ride.

  “Let’s go,” I say, reining Dream around.

  Colt and I ride side by side down our road. Our homes are the last two houses on this end of town. I love living out here, where our yards are the size of most people’s pastures.

  The gravel road turns to dirt. Wildflowers peek out from ditches on both sides. I spot tiny sweet clover. “Colt, do you remember when we used to pull out the purple from those clovers and try to taste the sugar?”

  He laughs. “You always claimed you could taste it, but I never did.”

  A cardinal zooms right in front of us, but neither horse shies at it. It’s like the birds are as excited about our trail ride as we are. We pass pastures of black-and-white cows. Before long, the only sounds are the clip-clop of hooves and the squeak of Colt’s leather saddle.

  “I heard from Larissa this morning,” Colt says.

  “What did she want?”

  “She wanted me to come to her house and help with the blog instead of going on the trail ride.” Colt reaches down and pats Bullet. That’s one of the best things about Colt. He treats his horse like he’s a best friend. “I told her thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Did she say anything about the comments on her blog?” I know Larissa wrote those things. But my stomach still flips over just remembering that half a second when I thought somebody else wrote that comment.

  “I asked her about it. She acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about.” Colt glances at me. “But she did. She just didn’t want to admit we’re onto her.”

  I remember my nightmare. And for a second, worry creeps like a cockroach up the back of my neck.

  Neither of us says anything for a while.

  I shake off my nightmare and refuse to think about Larissa. I’m glad she’ll be home working on that blog of hers instead of riding on the trail with us. Larissa’s horse lives at K. C. Stables. Maybe she didn’t think it was worth the hassle of having somebody drive her horse to the Harpers’. Custer’s Darling Delight wouldn’t do so well on a trail ride anyway. He’s used to practice arenas, not forest trails.