A Hundred Horses Read online

  “What’s the Spring Parade?” I asked.

  “It’s a celebration of springs,” said Gem.

  “She means the spring equinox,” said Alfie. “It’s when the nighttime and daytime are as long as each other. It’s our tradition; everyone comes out at night and dresses up.”

  “Do you want to be in the parade too?” said Gem. “’Cause we can ask Mom to make you a costume.”

  “What do you have to do?” I said.

  “Nothing much. You just walk up and down,” said Alfie. “People clap when you go past, and then everyone goes to the fair to eat candy.”

  “It’s next Friday night,” Gem chirped, “and we’re allowed to stay up late.”

  “We’ve got a cart to decorate,” said Alfie, “and Mom’s going to put some lights on it so we glow in the dark. Except she can’t find the cart just now.”

  “This year we’re going as peas,” said Gem.

  “Peas?” I said.

  “Yeah, peas,” Alfie said, his cheeks glowing, “because Mom is going to grow lots of sweet peas this year. She’s going to be making something from the flowers.”

  “What, like tea?” I said.

  “No, silly,” said Gem. “Soup.”

  “She means soap,” said Alfie.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I hate school plays and things like that, where you have to be onstage with everyone watching. I’ll just come and watch you.”

  Aunt Liv said I could go to Rita’s to write out my Easter cards.

  I liked the way Rita smiled when I came in, made room on her bed so I could sit there. Mostly I was hoping Angel would be there, though.

  I thought about telling Rita that Angel and I had gone out riding on Belle and we’d found her now and all the stuff that had happened in the night. But it was our secret. It seemed to belong to us and nobody else.

  Rita chatted about the sheep and geese and horses and other animals she used to have on the farm. I tried to cover up my yawning so she didn’t think I was bored—because I wasn’t. I was just tired from being awake most of the night. It was like having another bedtime story, though, and I fell asleep.

  “All this fresh air tiring you out?” Rita chuckled when I woke. She had been sewing. Scraps of material and worms of thread were scattered on the floor near the alcove.

  “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  Rita nodded toward me. “Somebody left something for you.”

  The brown leather suitcase was right there, by the bed! And seeing it at that moment was a million times better than when I first found it.

  Rita smiled and handed me a cup of brownish tea.

  “Try some. I don’t know what Liv is putting in that tea she grows, but I’m feeling a lot more like myself today.”

  Which was funny, because who else can you feel like? The tea tasted sweet but like mud. It was strange on my tongue.

  “Angel stole the suitcase from me,” I said.

  I wasn’t angry with Angel anymore. And it made my heart laugh to think I would never have met her if she hadn’t stolen it.

  “She gave it back, though.”

  Rita seemed to like that I said that. I could tell Rita was smiling right through to her heart because her eyes filled with sunlight. I think right then we were the same. Exactly the same inside. Surprised by the things Angel did.

  “What’s inside the suitcase?” Rita said.

  “A toy carousel, with lights and music and everything,” I said. “Well, that’s what it used to be, but I won’t know until I put it back together again.”

  And that made me laugh, because somehow it was a completely new thing now.

  “Maybe you’re starting to feel a little more like yourself too,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you smile until now.”

  My cheeks warmed. Maybe she was right.

  “You won’t tell anyone about this suitcase, though, except Angel?”

  “Who else is there to tell?” She winked.

  “Can I go in the stables?” I asked. “I need some room to put it together.”

  Rita glanced up from threading her sewing machine.

  “Use the one at the bottom on the right. It’s dry and clean in there,” she said.

  “Oh, and do you know where Angel is?”

  She’d kept her part of the bargain by giving me back the carousel suitcase—eventually—and now I thought I ought to keep mine and tell her about what was inside it.

  “She might be out in the yard,” Rita murmured, squinting at the tiny eye of the needle. “She might not. You know how it is.”

  Just then a clock chimed: a brassy, familiar tune.

  Rita swiveled around on her stool.

  “Well, well,” she said. “I haven’t heard that for a while.”

  I followed her out into the hallway and saw the question in her eyes as we stared at the ivory face, at the second hand ticking away.

  “Was it broken before?” I asked.

  “It was Mr. Hemsworth’s clock. He used to wind it up every day after work.”

  She reached up and unhooked a small brass key hanging on a piece of string from one of the coat pegs. It definitely hadn’t been there before; I would have remembered. There had been two pairs of boots and a coat hanging there, but no key.

  Rita ran her hand across my shoulder and rested her arm there as we gazed up at the face. I could tell she needed someone to hold on to for a minute.

  “That’s the key to wind it up,” she said. “Mr. Hemsworth used to carry it in his pocket.”

  Angel wasn’t in the yard. All the stable doors were shut. As I passed the flattened grass, I wondered if Dorothy, the goat, and Belle were in there. I wondered if they minded being together, seeing as they weren’t even the same animal. But there was only one thing I really wanted to do. I hurried to open the suitcase in the last stable on the right.

  I pushed back the straw, and tipped all the pieces out onto the floor. I touched them all. I recognized lots of the shapes, where they went on the carousel, what they made. I thought about where to start, what had to be made first, and what was made last. I remembered the tin girl again. I shook the suitcase, burrowed in the corners, felt behind the lining. She wasn’t there. And I looked again because I didn’t want to believe that she wasn’t. Because what was bothering me, what was making me put my hands on my head and close my eyes, was thinking that my dad had taken her. And that meant I’d never get her back.

  Twenty-Six

  “I must be going mad,” said Aunt Liv. “The cart was behind the greenhouse after all.”

  We all made Easter cookies with yellow marshmallows stuck on top to make them look like fried eggs. Me, Alfie, and Gem were going to take them and trays of duck eggs in the cart up to the village to sell, but I was hoping we could hurry up and sell everything so I could go back to Rita’s, back to the carousel. We raced down the path, and I could hear Aunt Liv calling me, saying Mom was on the phone. I yelled to tell her I’d phone her later.

  We parked the cart on the village green. Gem still had sticky hands, but passersby bought the cookies from her and Alfie anyway. I stayed behind the cart and gave out change.

  Mrs. Barker was one of our customers.

  “It was you,” she said as I gave her some change. “You’re the one who told me you saw my goat up by the oaks.”

  I had forgotten all about the goat! I had lied to Mrs. Barker because Angel had said that if I helped her, she would give me my suitcase. And then she hadn’t let me take the goat back afterward.

  I nodded to Mrs. Barker and took my hand away quickly.

  “I thought so. Dorothy wasn’t up by the oaks; she was in my garden this morning, tied up where I left her. Did you find her and bring her back?”

  I didn’t want her to find out I’d lied, and that made me say too much.

  “Maybe she found her own way home,” I said. “Animals do that, don’t they? I mean, she’s not the only animal I’ve seen running around on the loose.”

  Mrs
. Barker’s head twitched. I knew she could see right through me. A goat wouldn’t be able to tie herself back up again! Which made me talk even more.

  “She probably just got fed up and wanted to go home. I know what that’s like because I’m away from home. And sometimes I just want to go back and sometimes I don’t. It depends.”

  And then I figured it out. Of course! Angel must have taken the goat back. And I was thinking I could just be quiet now, but Mrs. Barker said, “Other animals on the loose? What other animals?”

  What had I said? I was also talking about Belle. I suddenly remembered that Mrs. Barker was looking for Belle to take her back to Old Chambers’s farm. And Angel didn’t want Mrs. Barker to know she was here!

  “Was it a horse?” Mrs. Barker said, which made me knock the jar of coins over. They were spilling on the grass.

  “Where’s the horse now?” she said, even though I hadn’t said yes.

  “Nell?” said Alfie. “What about that girl on the horse the other day? The one down our lane.”

  “A girl?” Mrs. Barker said.

  I sucked in a sharp breath and bent down to pick up the coins to try to think, but then my elbow nudged a tray of eggs, and they were about to fall. Gem caught them. I saw Alfie blush when I stood up again.

  “That’s what Nell said,” said Alfie, looking at the ground.

  He thought he was helping me! They were all looking at me now. Gem clutched my hand. I tried to tell Alfie and Gem with my eyes not to say anything more.

  “Which girl?” Mrs. Barker said.

  When nobody answered, Mrs. Barker nodded, saying, “It’s her, isn’t it? Angel Weston. She’s back.”

  “Mrs. Barker,” Gem said, pushing in front of me so Mrs. Barker had to step back. All our eyes switched to Gem. “You know the other day when your chickens got out and you lost your goat? Well, it might not be Angel doing it.”

  “Pardon?” Mrs. Barker said, taken aback.

  “Because you know that old fairy’s tail about the hundredth horse? Well, it might be here, and it might be setting the animals free instead.”

  Mrs. Barker’s brow was furrowed, her nostrils wide. My shoulders sagged. This wasn’t helping either. But then I saw that Mrs. Barker was distracted from asking any more about Angel. I squeezed Gem’s hand.

  “What nonsense!” Mrs. Barker said. “That old tale is about one bad horse spoiling the whole herd,” she said, huffing and walking away. Then she called over her shoulder, “And if anyone is going to spoil things around here, it would be Angel Weston.”

  When we got back, I was desperate to tell Angel what Mrs. Barker had said, mainly because I wanted her to know that I hadn’t actually told her that Angel was here. I felt sick again, hoping I hadn’t said too much.

  I looked in the yard and went into the stable where I’d left the carousel all over the floor. The metal pieces were like the bones of a helpless creature. I knew my hands wanted to put them back together. And I stopped thinking about everything else and sat down.

  I organized the pieces by size, collecting all the bits that looked similar into piles. I started to lay them out, like a skeleton of the whole thing. When I touched the metal pieces, I could tell where to begin with the drum-shaped base, the spinning part in the middle, and the black battery cylinder on top. I could see how the silver strips connected all the side pieces together. I could feel how it should look. But there was a tiny part of me that didn’t want to see the carousel without that one special piece missing from the top.

  I heard shuffling coming from the stable next door. I crawled over and put my ear to the wall. I heard something shift against the other side of the wooden panel. A snort, the purring breath of a horse.

  I went outside and saw the string was hanging loose from the door. I opened the top half of the stable. Goose bumps fizzed up my arms and prickled my neck.

  Belle was in there. So was Angel. She was asleep, leaning against the wooden panel. A dark gray foal lay next to her.

  Did this mean there were a hundred horses?

  Twenty-Seven

  I wanted to touch the foal.

  “Can I see him?” I said.

  Angel’s eyes startled me, how bright they were against the dark skin under her eyes. She didn’t tell me to go away.

  The foal raised his head, rocked onto his side, swiveled his ears toward me.

  “His name’s Lunar. Like the moon,” she barely whispered.

  “Hello, Lunar,” I said.

  I thought my hand might sink right through his rabbit-soft coat. Lunar was the color of the deepest storm, a white stripe down the middle of his face, white legs, a pale, fuzzy mane. He was wearing a blue cardigan with the arms chopped off, wrapped around him, and buttoned along his back like a back-to-front waistcoat. Rita’s missing cardigan!

  “Is he Belle’s foal?” I said.

  Angel nodded.

  “Was he just born?”

  “No, Saturday at Old Chambers’s farm. But I brought him here.”

  Belle blew through her nose and nudged the foal. He staggered to his feet. I took a sharp breath. Something didn’t look right. His front legs stuck out at funny angles. He looked like a giraffe does when it bends down to drink water.

  “Sometimes they get born a bit wonky,” Angel whispered, seeing me look shocked as Lunar staggered to his mom and suckled. “He’s got to stay in the stable to help his legs straighten up.”

  Angel watched me, blinking slowly, but didn’t say anything more.

  I watched Lunar sway as he came to me and nuzzled at my clothes. I saw the dark glass of his eyes, the curve of his jaw, the peachy skin of his nostrils, the wrinkles in his soft lip speckled with whiskers. Longer feathery hair grew from the back of his awkward knees and around his hooves. I felt down his strange legs.

  “Will he be all right?”

  Angel didn’t answer. She was asleep.

  I ran into the farmhouse. I had to tell Rita. Angel’s eyes had told me that it was all too much for her.

  “Rita, there’s a foal in your stables! He’s wearing your cardigan. And Angel found Belle too.”

  Rita raised her eyebrows.

  “A foal!” She seemed just as surprised as I was.

  “Belle’s foal! He was born nearly a week ago, and he’s got a problem with his legs. Angel’s been looking after him in one of the stables.”

  Rita leaned heavily against the kitchen worktop and muttered, “Mr. Hemsworth said he was going to breed Belle, but then he . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “He wasn’t a man of many words; he didn’t tell me Belle was in foal, and I didn’t notice any signs. I was so busy worrying about what to do with the horses over the winter and how I’d cope without him . . . I just turned them over to Old Chambers. I needed time to think what to do. But why didn’t Old Chambers tell me she’d had the foal?”

  She sighed heavily, rubbed her forehead.

  “Let me tell you something about Angel,” Rita said.

  She rested her hand on my shoulder, and I knew we were now somehow together in this story.

  “Belle was the first horse we had, long before we took on the herd. Mr. Hemsworth chose her; she’s from a fine heritage. Angel’s mother was helping out here then. Sometimes . . .” She shook her head but continued. “One night Angel’s mother was putting Belle in her stable. It was the night Angel was born. Right there in the stable, with Belle watching over them. You know, I think that from the first moment, Belle raised that child. Taught Angel everything she knows.

  “I’ll let Old Chambers know Belle is here. We’ll keep quiet about how she got here, though.” She looked puzzled. “But he should have told me about the foal.”

  “Gem told me Angel stole all your horses,” I said.

  “Village gossip and tales,” she huffed. “Angel led them over to Old Chambers’s farm for me last autumn. I couldn’t face doing it myself. She was the only one who still seemed to care about them. Old Chambers runs the horse auction every spring
. I thought if I didn’t see the horses, I would get used to being without them, just move on after the auction. I hadn’t seen Angel since she took the horses over there until she turned up the other day.”

  She sighed again wearily.

  “Angel was always a bit of a hooligan; perhaps someone saw her taking the horses over to Old Chambers’s farm. People believe what they want to believe, make up stories to explain what they don’t know.”

  Now there seemed to be another Angel, one who I was still getting to know. Rita appeared lost in the past for a moment. Then she squeezed my hand.

  “I didn’t know about the foal. Angel didn’t tell me either.”

  So Lunar had been Angel’s secret in the stable all along.

  “Angel did steal Mrs. Barker’s goat,” I said. “But she’s taken her back now.”

  Rita shrugged and waved her hand in the air. She took the comforter off her bed for me to take out to the stable and put over Angel. Then she stopped gathering it into a bundle and laughed suddenly.

  “The foal would have needed milk until Angel found Belle!” Rita tapped the side of her nose. “A nanny goat can stand in as a kind of foster mother. Up on a couple of bales of straw, she’d be about the right height. Goat’s milk is rich and almost good enough for a foal; Angel would know that.”

  “Really?” I said. But I was laughing inside because now I knew why she had stolen Dorothy.

  Rita was more serious now.

  “You know, Nell, I think Angel is just trying to hold on to Belle a little longer. I won’t deny her these last couple of weeks with her, with them both, before they go to auction. Come next Saturday, we’ll all have to move on.”

  Angel was a thief, but only because she had been stealing some time with the things she loved.

  Rita sat down then, as if something was too heavy for her to stand anymore. “What to do?” she muttered to herself.

  I went back to the stables. I covered Angel as she slept on the straw with the beautiful foal, Belle watching over them. I left some cheesy puffs and a thermos of warm milk. Belle watched me close the stable door. I kind of liked what I saw. The three of them, like a family.