by Nick Garlick
Or Mr. Mesman.
Uncle Andries stepped forward, but when he saw the alarm in the horse’s eyes as he approached, he stopped and stood still.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened?” he said.
So Flip did. He didn’t mention being chased by the Mesman Boys. And he didn’t say anything about the Ghost Girl being up in the rear turret of the bomber. When he looked around to see if she would confirm his story, he saw she’d vanished, as silently as ever.
“You didn’t see where it came from?” Uncle Andries asked when Flip finished. “There wasn’t a boat anywhere? A ship?”
Flip shook his head.
“You’re sure about that?”
“Positive,” Flip said.
Uncle Andries turned to look at the other lifeboat men. One of them nodded. Uncle Andries turned back.
“The boat we went to rescue was carrying horses,” he said. “But we couldn’t save anybody. Or the horses. We were too late.” Then he nodded at Flip’s horse. “It looks like this one escaped and swam for the shore. And you rescued it.” He gave Flip a curious look. “Can you swim?” he asked.
Flip shook his head.
“But you went into the water anyway?”
“I had to,” Flip said.
“Why?”
“Because if I hadn’t, the horse would have drowned,” Flip said.
That was when something changed in the way his uncle looked at him. But Flip didn’t get the chance to work out quite what it was because Mr. Mesman went over to Mr. Bouten’s cart and snatched up a halter from behind the seat.
“Right,” he said, “we’ll take it from here.”
“Take it where?” Uncle Andries asked.
“Somewhere safe, of course,” Mr. Mesman said. “Until we find out who it belongs to.”
“The mayor decides that,” Uncle Andries said. “That’s the law.”
“The mayor isn’t here today!” said Mr. Mesman. “He’s gone to the mainland.”
“Then we’ll let Flip decide. He—”
“He’s just a boy,” Mr. Mesman barked. “From Amsterdam. What does he know about these things?”
The voices were scaring the horse. Its nostrils were flaring, and its ears were flicking nervously back and forth.
“Not much,” Uncle Andries replied, lowering his voice when he saw the effect it was having on the animal. “But he rescued it. So until the mayor decides what’s to become of it, I say Flip says where it stays.”
“You don’t own this island, you know,” Mr. Mesman said, still talking as loudly as ever.
“And neither do you!” Uncle Andries replied, looking the hotel owner directly in the eye. “Not yet, anyway.”
Flip noticed several of the villagers, as well as Mr. Bouten and the lifeboat crew, nodding in agreement. Mr. Mesman saw it too.
“All right!” he said, hurling the halter to the ground. “You take him!”
This time the horse did break loose. Shaking its head and snorting, it backed up against a fence behind it and knocked down a line of parked bicycles. It took Flip more than a minute to calm the animal down, stroking its shoulders and up the side of its neck, pressing his body against its side to reassure it.
Totally oblivious to the damage he’d just helped cause, Mr. Mesman stormed off with his hands in his pockets, puffing furiously on his cigar.
The street began to empty both of villagers and of the few curious vacationers who’d stopped to see what was going on. Uncle Andries said he’d see the lifeboat back safely to its house if Mr. Bouten would escort Flip and the horse to the farm. When the boat rumbled away, the old man bent down, picked up the halter, and held it out toward Flip. He’d seen what happened with strangers and didn’t try to come closer.
But when Flip took the halter, the horse reared back. Flip stopped. He waited a few seconds and took a step forward. Again it reared back. Flip stood still, his heart pounding, his stomach fluttering with anxiety. What was wrong now? What was he supposed to do?
As if he could read the boy’s thoughts, Mr. Bouten spoke up. “You’re doing fine, Flip,” he said. “Don’t you worry about that. You’re doing just fine with him.”
Encouraged, Flip tried a third time, only to step back fast as the horse flinched once more and cracked its front hooves hard on the road.
“Something’s bothering him,” said Flip. “He won’t let me put the halter on.”
“I’m not sure what it is,” said Mr. Bouten. “He should be used to it by now. But why don’t you just drop it on the ground for now and lead him home the way you led him here. He doesn’t seem to mind that.”
So that’s what Flip did. Taking hold of the horse’s mane, he turned him away from the village and began to walk slowly in the direction of the farm. Mr. Bouten went with them, but made sure to stay at a safe distance.
“Looks to me, Flip,” he said after a few minutes had passed with no further upsets, “like you’ve just made yourself a new friend.”
“DO YOU KNOW anything about horses?” Mr. Bouten asked as they strolled along toward the farm. “You’ve certainly got a way with them.”
Flip shook his head. “I’ve seen them pulling carts in Amsterdam,” he said. “But that’s all.”
“Well, you’d never know that, now, would you?” Mr. Bouten said. “Not from the way he treats you. Perhaps it’s your name.”
“My name?” Flip asked. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing at all,” Mr. Bouten said. “Don’t you know what it means? Flip?”
“No. It was my mom who chose it.”
“It’s short for Fillipus. That’s Greek. It means ‘lover of horses.’ Did she like horses?”
“She did,” Flip said. “But she never got the chance to ride them. We never had enough money for that.”
“Well,” Mr. Bouten said, nodding at the creature as it plodded along, “perhaps he senses that. Horses are good at sensing things.”
Flip had never been this close to an animal in his life—not a cat or a dog, or even a guinea pig at school—and he didn’t know the first thing about them. Which was why he still couldn’t get over how much this one seemed to like him. Or Mr. Bouten saying he had a way with horses. That really surprised him.
“They are?” he asked.
“Comes from when they lived out in the wild,” Mr. Bouten said. “If they wanted to stay alive, they had to be able to notice even the slightest change in their surroundings. And when they did, off they’d go, as fast as they could on those big long horse legs of theirs, away from whatever was trying to hurt them.”
“But you don’t want to hurt him,” Flip said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Then why won’t he let you near him?”
Mr. Bouten smiled again. “Because there’s no telling what a horse’ll decide to be scared of. They’re also very unpredictable creatures.”
Flip shook his head, puzzled.
Mr. Bouten explained. “Say you’re walking down the road and you see a scrap of paper blowing along the ground. You think, Oh, there’s a scrap of paper blowing along the ground, and you don’t take any more notice of it. But a horse doesn’t know it’s a scrap of paper. It just thinks, I haven’t seen that there before. Perhaps it’s going to attack me! And off it goes at a gallop. Or jumps sideways. Or turns around and runs back the way it came. Reason I limp like this is because of a horse that got scared.”
“A horse?” Flip said.
Mr. Bouten nodded. “A young mare she was. Anja. I used to ride her everywhere on the island. One day I was out late, after dark in the winter, and we were going home past the churchyard. There was a wind blowing, but I didn’t take any notice of that. Or the creaking branch. It was a big branch too, swaying back and forth, just about ready to break. I didn’t pay it no mind, but Anja did, and she didn’t like it. Kept trying to get away. I ignored her, though. I made her keep walking.” Mr. Bouten shook his head at the memory. “And when that branch did break, she bolted.”
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“What happened?” Flip said.
“She went one way—and I went the other. Flew right out of the saddle like my backside was made of butter and landed with my leg bent up under me and broken in three places. Nobody found me until the next morning. By which time my leg was in a right mess.”
“Couldn’t they fix it?”
“Oh, they tried,” Mr. Bouten said. “But they had to take me to the mainland, which was a long journey in them days—1938 it was, before the war, and the roads weren’t anything like as good as they are now. By the time I got to the hospital, my bones were in a terrible state. The doctors did their best, but they never could get everything straightened out properly. I’ve been limping ever since.”
“What happened to Anja?”
“Nothing.”
“But she hurt you,” Flip said.
Mr. Bouten disagreed. “She was just being a horse,” he said. “She knew something was wrong in that churchyard. She could hear the tree wasn’t right. It was me what wasn’t paying attention. That’s when I learned it’s usually a good idea to pay attention to animals. And I have done so ever since.”
By now they’d reached the farm. Aunt Elly and Renske were waiting outside. Flip told them both what had happened. When he was finished, Renske went toward the horse, only to stop abruptly when he backed away in fright at her approach.
“Doesn’t he like me?” she asked. “Is he scared of me?”
“I think he’s scared of everyone,” Flip said. “Not just you.”
But that didn’t help. Renske walked sadly back to her mother. “I’m only seven,” she muttered. “Nobody’s scared of you when you’re seven.”
Flip looked at the horse. Then at Renske. She looked so disappointed that he went over to her, took her hand, and walked her slowly back. The horse snorted, but let the children approach. When they were close enough to touch, Flip made Renske stand still while he counted silently up to sixty. Then he lifted her hand in his so the horse could smell them both at the same time. After counting to thirty, he very gently slid his hand away from hers and stepped back to leave them alone. This time the horse made no complaint—he even blew on Renske’s fingers, which made her giggle.
“What kind of horse is he?” she asked.
“He’s a Friesian,” Mr. Bouten said.
“That’s here,” she said. “Friesland.”
“Yes,” Mr. Bouten said. “This part of the country’s where he comes from. Smart, Friesians are. Strong too. Good horses.” Then he pointed at the spot where the ropes and the wire had dragged and rubbed against the skin. They’d left a shallow ragged gash the size of Flip’s hand. “We need to fix that,” he said. “But we’ll clean him up and give him some food first. And before we do that, we’ll make him a nice warm bed to lie down on for when we’re finished. After everything he’s been through, he must be absolutely exhausted.”
Flip led the horse into the barn and helped Mr. Bouten scatter a thick layer of straw in one of the horse stalls. Then they gave the horse a drink of water.
“But not too much, mind,” Mr. Bouten said. “Don’t want him to get colic.”
“What’s that?” Flip asked.
Mr. Bouten thought for a second or two. “A really, really bad bellyache,” he said. “That’s the simplest way to describe it. Probably doesn’t sound so bad to you, but it’s serious for a horse. You don’t want your horse to get colic if you can help it.”
He handed Flip an old towel and told him how to rub the animal down and get him as clean as possible. When he finished, Mr. Bouten mixed up some oats and water in a bucket, added a spoonful of cod-liver oil, and placed it on the ground. The horse polished it off in seconds.
“Good appetite,” he said.
He filled a net with hay, hung it up high on a hook on the wall inside the stall, and stepped aside to let Flip lead the horse in. Then he fetched some warm salty water and, while the horse munched happily on the hay, he instructed Flip how to clean the wound left by the ropes and cables.
“And now,” he said, sliding the bolt on the stable door, “we’ll leave him alone and let him get some rest.”
“Can’t we stay and watch him?” Renske said, a second before Flip asked exactly the same thing.
Mr. Bouten shook his head. “He needs his rest. And the best way for him to get that is to leave him on his own. Give him a chance to relax. I think he’d appreciate that.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” Renske asked as they all walked back to the house.
“Oh, the owners’ll come and fetch him, I expect,” Mr. Bouten said. “Soon as they find out he’s missing.”
When he heard that, Flip stopped and glanced back into the barn at the horse. He was still looking forward to leaving the island. He still wanted his mom to come and get him so they could go. But he couldn’t get over how the horse had looked to him for protection. How he had let only him stay close in the village.
Nobody had ever wanted Flip to look after them before. Not at school. Not at home. But the horse had. The horse had turned to Flip for help. And he’d liked helping him.
He hoped he could go on helping him until the owner appeared. That, he thought, might be fun.
BY NOW, FLIP had grown used to waking up at dawn, when Uncle Andries brought the cows in for milking. But the morning after he rescued the horse, he was awake even earlier, while it was still dark. He could hear something banging down below in the barn. Dressing as quickly as he could, he went downstairs and realized that it was the Friesian, kicking at the stall door with a front hoof.
The horse’s head loomed out of the shadows as Flip approached. He gave a little nicker of recognition and let Flip stroke his muzzle.
“Hello,” Flip whispered. “What do you want?”
The horse proceeded to rub his muzzle against Flip’s hands and up under his arms. Flip laughed. He couldn’t help it. The horse went on poking and rubbing with his muzzle.
“Of course,” he said, finally understanding. “You want something to eat.”
He realized he was talking out loud, which was silly because an animal couldn’t understand him. Feeling embarrassed, he glanced over his shoulder to see if anybody had heard him. But he also couldn’t help noticing that the horse had calmed down and pricked his ears up with each word he spoke.
“I don’t know how much food to give you,” he said.
The horse stared down at him and again banged his hoof against the stall door.
“I really don’t,” Flip said.
All at once he remembered Mr. Bouten filling the net with hay the day before and decided it couldn’t hurt to do the same. He reached in and untied the net, then filled it again and hung it up from the hook beside the door. By then the first faint traces of sunlight were breaking over the horizon and shining through a dusty window in the rear wall of the barn. He stood back and watched as the Friesian began to eat.
It was quiet inside, and peaceful. Flip liked the silence.
When the horse had finished and was licking his lips to get every last scrap of enjoyment out of the hay, Flip reached up to take away the net. As he did so, the letter from his mom—the one he’d folded up for safekeeping between two sheets of cardboard—rode up out of his pants pocket. The horse saw it and promptly tried to eat it.
Flip jumped back. “You can’t have that!”
The words came out louder than he’d intended and the horse pulled away. He stood at the back of the stall, scared, ears flicking.
“It’s from my mom,” Flip explained quietly, sliding the letter safely back into his pocket. “It’s the last thing she ever wrote to me. It’s almost all I’ve got left of her.”
The horse walked cautiously back toward him. Flip climbed up to perch on the edge of the stall.
“Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have shouted.”
The horse poked his head over the door and looked around the barn.
“I wish I knew what to do with you,” Flip said. “My mom probabl
y would. She liked horses. She always stopped when they rode past in Amsterdam, especially the ones the policemen rode. She said they were beautiful. I bet she’d like you.”
The horse was now standing with his head resting against Flip’s arm. Flip scratched his muzzle. His voice really did seem to calm the animal down, so he went on talking. And the more he did, the more he enjoyed it. He didn’t feel silly at all.
“That was nice what you did yesterday,” he said. “For Renske. Letting her be your friend.”
The horse looked into Flip’s eyes.
“I think you like the Ghost Girl too,” Flip went on. “She’s the other girl. She was with me on the beach. Except you never know when you’re going to see her. Oh, and I’m Flip, by the way. That’s my name. Just so you know.”
The horse let out a little snort and twitched his ears.
“Flip,” Flip repeated.
The horse lifted his muzzle and snorted a jet of warm air right into Flip’s face.
“I like you too,” he laughed. And then he grew serious. “I wonder where you come from,” he said. “What your home’s like. And your owner. It must be fun to look after a horse.”
Abruptly, the horse swung around to face the entrance to the barn. Flip looked up to see Mr. Bouten standing there, ready to bring the cows in for milking.
“Hello,” the old man said. “You’re up early.”
“Yes,” Flip replied, feeling awkward, wondering if Mr. Bouten had heard him talking. “I gave him some hay,” he said, hoping to change the subject. “I filled the net, like you did yesterday, hung it up just like you did. I hope I didn’t give him too much.”
“Not at all,” Mr. Bouten said. “Just the thing for him. Well done. I heard you talking to him, by the way,” he continued. Now Flip really felt awkward. But the feeling vanished as Mr. Bouten came closer. “Good for you,” he said. “They like the sound of a friendly voice.”