Horsing Around (5 page)

As Katie took her place in the line, Becky suddenly got a weird look on her face. She crossed her legs.

“Oh, no,” she said.

Katie cocked her big horse head and looked at her curiously.

“What’s the matter, Becky?” a tall girl with a long braid asked.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Becky told her.

“So go,” the girl said.

“But I’m supposed to stay with Brownie,” Becky said.

“He’ll be fine for a few minutes,” the girl told her. “We’re all here to watch him.”

Becky nodded. “Stay here, Brownie,” she told Katie.

Katie watched nervously as Becky walked away. This was really scary.

She couldn’t think about anything except how Becky was going to try to ride her in front of all those people.

She couldn’t think about anything except how all of their friends would make fun of Becky for messing up.

She couldn’t think about anything except . . .

SUGAR!

Katie smelled something sweet and yummy. A sugar cube was in somebody’s pocket. Katie was sure of it.

She raised her horse nose high in the air and sniffed. The sugary smell was coming from the left.

She sniffed again. Yes. The wonderful smell was coming from a guy working in the stalls nearest the waiting area. He was filling the water trough.

Katie really wanted that sugar. But she knew she was supposed to stay put.

Still, a cube of sugar melting on her tongue would taste sooo good right now. It might even calm her down a little bit.

No. NO! She wasn’t supposed to move.

But Katie couldn’t help it. She had to have that sugar. Getting around on four legs wasn’t something Katie really had the hang of yet. As she tried to turn to the left, she banged into the brown and white pony on her right.

The pony whinnied angrily and kicked Katie’s behind.

“Hey,” Katie whinnied loudly. “It was an accident.”

Katie’s whinnying upset two other horses. One white pony stood up on her hind legs and whinnied loudly.

Katie backed away and banged into another pony, who reared up.

“Powderpuff ! Calm down!” a small boy with glasses shouted.

“Down, Chester!” the girl with the long braid cried out. She struggled to keep standing while she held on to her horse’s reins.

“Behave, Stardust!” another rider cried to her horse.

All the horses were whinnying. They’d smelled the sugar. And they wanted it, too!

The man with the sugar cubes in his pocket came walking through the waiting area.

Katie trotted after him.

The other ponies pulled and jumped away from their riders. The kids weren’t strong enough to hold on to the reins.

Which meant the ponies were free!

A moment later, five wild ponies were stampeding into the ring. And Katie was leading them! Woo-hoo!

The sound of the ponies’ hooves hitting the dirt was like a drumbeat. Katie was happy to be part of the rhythm.

“Please stop, Brownie!”

Katie turned her head. Becky was running several yards behind the ponies. So were the other kids. But Katie didn’t stop. She couldn’t. It felt too good to run. She didn’t even care about eating the sugar anymore. All Katie wanted to do was gallop as fast as she could.

Katie loved the way the sun felt on her back. And the way her legs stretched out with every stride. Mostly she just loved the freedom of running around the ring. Being cooped up in that little stall all day wasn’t any fun.

Okay, so it hadn’t been Katie who had been cooped up all day. It had been Brownie. But right now that was the same thing. And whether she was Katie or Brownie, this pony wanted to run!

The fun came to an end when several grown-up horse trainers ran into the ring. As one of them pulled the reins on her bridle, Katie halted, coming to an abrupt stop.

Becky looked horrified!

While the trainer led Katie back to Brownie’s stall, she heard kids talking.

“This is all Becky Stern’s fault,” the girl with the long brown hair said.

“Becky doesn’t know anything about training horses,” a boy in a black riding helmet added. “She shouldn’t have left Brownie alone in the waiting area.”

Katie put her head down. Poor Becky. Everyone was blaming her for the pony stampede.

But it wasn’t Becky’s fault. It was Katie’s.

Unfortunately, at the moment, she was the only one who knew that.

 

As the door shut on Brownie’s stall, Katie went over for a big drink of water. In the distance, she could hear Becky talking to someone. It sounded like Mrs. Stern.

“I’m giving up riding!” Katie heard Becky cry out. “Did you hear what all those kids were saying about me?”

“Becky, this wasn’t all your fault,” Mrs. Stern told her daughter. “That man shouldn’t have had sugar in his pocket when he came near the horses. He told you that. And he said he was sorry.”

“But it was Brownie who started misbehaving,” Becky insisted. “That means I didn’t train him well enough. And I should never have left him—even to go to the bathroom.”

Katie tried to frown. But her horse lips wouldn’t turn down that way. Still, she was definitely frowning on the inside. Poor Becky. She had loved horseback riding—until Katie ruined everything.

Just then, Katie felt a cool breeze blowing on her long horse neck. It felt good. She was kind of hot after her run.

But that breeze didn’t feel good for long. A moment later it was blowing wildly. In fact, it turned into a tornado. A tornado that was blowing only around Katie.

The magic wind was back!

Katie’s horse ears perked up. The whooshing of the wind was really loud now.

It was so strong it could have blown
all
the leaves off a tree in one big whoosh. Katie had never heard anything like it.

Then the noise stopped. So did the tornado. Just like that. The magic wind was gone.

Katie Carew was back!

Brownie was back, too. The poor little pony seemed very confused.

But there was nothing Katie could do about that. She couldn’t even explain the magic wind to her human friends. So what could she possibly say to a pony?

Besides, right now, Katie had to find Becky. She needed to convince her to get right back up on that horse and ride in the competition.

But Katie was going to need help to do that. This was too big a job for just one fourth-grader!

A few minutes later, Katie and the other kids found Becky standing all by herself behind the stalls. She was crying.

“Becky, there you are,” Katie said. She tried to sound cheerful.

“Hi,” Becky mumbled. “Um . . . I’m sorry you all came out here for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” Katie told her. “We’re here to see you ride Brownie.”

“I am never getting on that pony again,” Becky said. “Or any other horse, either.”

“Come on, Becky, you love horseback riding,” Emma W. reminded her.

“
Loved
,” Becky corrected Emma. “But not anymore. Didn’t you see what happened out there? That whole stampede was my fault.”

Katie looked at the ground. Becky’s fault? Not exactly.

“You didn’t make Brownie run into the ring,” Mandy told Becky.

“But I should have been there to control him,” Becky said.

“You’re just a kid,” Kevin told her. “You’re still learning.”

“So is Brownie,” Kadeem pointed out.

“We’ve all made dumb mistakes,” Katie told Becky. “Like the time Mr. G. caught me drawing on my sneakers. It was embarrassing. But I didn’t stop drawing.”

“And what about when Tony Raven came to town during that big snowstorm?” George reminded her. “He’s a professional snowboarder, and he freaked out on that little hill on Surrey Lane
in front of everyone
.”

Katie frowned. She knew that wasn’t exactly true.
Katie
had been the one to freak out. The magic wind had turned her into Tony Raven that day.

“But he didn’t stop snowboarding,” George continued. “Last week he won the Snowboard Showdown!”

“And what about my karate tournament?” Kevin remembered. “I tried to break a board with my foot and I fell on my rear end!”

Katie sighed. It hadn’t been Kevin who had missed the kick. It had been Katie—thanks to another switcheroo.

“But I went back and did my next event. And I got a medal,” Kevin continued.

“See, Becky? We all make mistakes,” Katie said.