The Great Pony Hassle Read online

  Her grandmother’s glance stopped her. But the stare was calm, and her grandmother’s voice kind. “Antoinette, you can see I am busy. If you think about it, I believe you will know who is the best person to help Paisley.”

  Toni wandered back out to the hallway, scowling. What could Grandmother be talking about? There were only four people in the house, and she had already asked two of them. And Grandmother couldn’t mean Staci. Grandmother didn’t say much, but she was not stupid. She had to know how Staci felt about Paisley. And with Staci feeling the way she did, there was no way Toni herself could help Paisley. She couldn’t go against her twin.

  Could she?

  Slowly Toni walked into her bedroom. Through the window she could see that Paisley had sat down in the chigger-infested grass, staring at a tangle of wire.

  “Stace,” said Toni, “c’mon. We’re going to go help her.”

  Staci sat up to stare her down. “Get real!”

  “I am real. You’re weirded out. C’mon, get human. We’ve got to help.”

  “Who says?”

  “I says.”

  “Well, you go help her if you’re so choked up about her. I’m not going near her or her pony fence.”

  Staci flopped back on her bunk, knowing that Toni would not do any such thing without her. Toni was her twin, and Staci could count on Toni to side with her through thick and thin.… When Staci looked up again, Toni had put on her yellow crew socks and high-topped turquoise sneakers and was heading out the door.

  “Hey!” Staci jumped up. “Where you going?”

  “Out to help Paisley.”

  “What—I can’t believe this! Are you siding with her against me?” Staci’s voice went up so high it cracked.

  “I’m not siding with anybody. I’m just helping a girl put up a pony fence,” said Toni.

  “You can’t! You do that and I’ll—”

  “You can do what you want,” said Toni. “We’re not joined together at the hips.” Toni went out, closing the door hard behind her.

  At the garage door she paused, looking at the bug repellent. Then she tilted her chin up a notch, walked on past it and out into the itchy, buggy back lot where Paisley was still trying to untangle her coil of wire.

  “Hi,” said Toni.

  Paisley looked up. Dirt and sweat and maybe tears were streaked over the red bumps on her cheeks. “If you’re coming to laugh,” she said, “don’t.” She didn’t look as if she had any smiles left in her.

  “It’s a two-person job.” Toni picked up the wire coil. “I stretch, you fasten. Okay?”

  Paisley didn’t say anything. She just handed Toni the work gloves and hunted in the grass for the pliers. She found them. Also, somewhere she found a smile.

  When Paisley and Toni went in for supper, the fence was strung. Paisley had 139 chigger bites. Toni had 57.

  6

  In Which Noodles Becomes a McPherson

  “Holy cats.” Standing out behind the house that same evening, Bruce McPherson scanned the paddock his daughter had made, then turned to his new wife with a dazed look on his face. “I don’t believe this. We go away, come back a couple days later, and the backyard’s turned into a pony farm.”

  “Bruce, didn’t you have any idea what you were getting yourself into?” Cathy’s tone was tender.

  “Marrying you?” he teased. “If I did, I probably would have run.”

  “I meant pony-wise, smartie.”

  “Huh. Pony-wise, I’m afraid to ask. Looks like I’m in for …” Bruce McPherson took another look. “For a pony circus,” he said. “How come all the doodads, Paisley? Did you want your pony’s pen to look pretty?”

  The strips of many-colored rag Paisley and Toni had tied to the wires fluttered extra bright in the evening light. In a few months sun and rain would weather them all to the same whitish shade, but for now they did make the paddock look pretty, Staci admitted sourly to herself. If you liked a paddock that looked like a used-car lot.

  “Dad. They’re so the pony can see where the fence is! Otherwise he might hurt himself on the wire. And here’s the gate, see?” She showed off the wire gate with its shock-proof orange plastic handle. “What do you think, Dad?” she rushed on. “The man’s coming tomorrow to hook up the box, and then we’ll be all set. See, the pony has some trees for shade, and we can keep the feed in the garage. All we need is a big bucket for water, and a salt lick, and—”

  “And a barn, I suppose.” Bruce McPherson tried to sound gruff, but everybody could see he was proud of what Paisley had done.

  “Nuh-uh, Dad! Just a run-in shelter. That’s why I put the fence right up to the garage.”

  “Paisley,” said Cathy, “well, um, I don’t think …”

  “She doesn’t want a pony in the garage.” At once Toni spoke up for her mother. Cathy seemed even more nervous and hesitant than usual, trying to deal with this new, loud, excited daughter.

  “Neither do I!” declared the daughter in question. “You don’t put a pony on concrete.” Paisley looked shocked at the idea. “I thought maybe you could build a little shed up against the garage, Dad. Just a roof the pony can get under. Ponies are tough, and it’s good for them to be out in all kinds of weather.”

  Bruce McPherson blinked at his daughter. “How come you know so much about ponies?”

  “Books, Dad! I started reading up the day I—the day you promised me a pony. Lots of library books. I took notes too.”

  “Huh.” Bruce McPherson shook himself like an old plow horse trying to wake up. “You’re really serious about this pony business.”

  “Of course I am!”

  It was getting late. Fireflies were coming out in the dusk. So were mosquitoes. Bruce slapped at his arms and looked longingly at the house. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to get busy and build your pony shed.”

  “It doesn’t have to be ready till winter, Dad. Dad, we can go ahead and get Noodles now!” Paisley jigged up and down like the fireflies dancing over the grass. “Dad, can we? Can we go see them tomorrow? Please?”

  “Yo, hold on! Who’s ‘them’?”

  “Whoever owns Noodles!”

  “Who or what is Noodles?”

  Staci stood off to one side, head down, slapping at mosquitoes. She knew she could have explained about Noodles in half the time it was taking Paisley, but she said nothing. She hated Paisley. At least she thought she still hated Paisley.… She didn’t seem to be able to pay as much attention to hating Paisley as she would have liked. She felt too miserable about being angry at Toni.

  Mr. McPherson finally figured out that his daughter had picked the pony she wanted already. “But what makes you think that these people, whoever they are, want to sell their pony?”

  “They’re not pony people, Dad!”

  Mr. McPherson blinked. “How would you know? Have you talked with them?”

  “No, Dad, but they’ve got Noodles in a fence made of barbed wire. Nobody who really cares about horses or ponies makes fences out of barbed wire.” Paisley was dancing from one foot to the other. “Can we go get him tomorrow, Dad? Please? Pleeze?”

  Bruce McPherson looked worried. “Don’t count your chickens, sweetheart.”

  “It’ll be all right, Dad, I just know it! Pleeeeze, can we go?”

  “Sure, we can at least try.”

  “All right!” Paisley erupted into cartwheels across the lawn. Her bare legs swirled in air filled with fireflies that glowed the same color as a palomino pony’s mane.

  Staci watched all this in silence.

  “I’m being eaten alive,” Stirling complained, swatting at her arms. No one paid any attention. Stirling shrugged and headed toward the house. Staci didn’t want to stay out any longer either. She followed.

  Stirling went at once to the bathroom and began dabbing itch cream on a few mosquito bites. Staci drifted to the open bathroom door, waiting for her turn.

  “I’m glad it was you and not me,” Stirling said, not turning around.

&nbs
p; “Huh?”

  “With Paisley when she found her precious pony.”

  Staci didn’t say anything, but she didn’t leave the doorway either.

  “Is he pretty?” Stirling asked, still talking to the wall.

  Something in Stirling’s soft voice let Staci tell this quiet, ladylike girl what she could not say to her own twin sister. “He’s cute as a—as a—he’s just too cute,” she said. The words came out choked. “I’m so mad I could bust.”

  Stirling looked at her then, but Staci didn’t mind, because Stirling didn’t smile. Stirling didn’t look as if she were going to make fun. In fact, Stirling looked as if she understood.

  Stirling said in the same soft way, “Why don’t you just tell your mom you want a pony too?”

  But it wasn’t that simple any longer. Staci couldn’t just say, “I want a pony.” It was Noodles she wanted. Noodles she dreamed about at night. During the day sometimes too.

  She thought of telling Stirling this, and then she forgot about how she felt, because she saw a familiar glimmer in Stirling’s dark blue eyes. Stirling more than understood about wanting a pony. Stirling—suddenly Staci knew that Stirling felt just the way she did.

  “Why don’t you say you want a pony too?”

  “Me?” Stirling shrugged, turning away. “I don’t, not really.”

  “But you do!” Staci was sure. She knew that look. Hey, she’d seen it often enough in the mirror. But now Stirling, lips tight, was staring at the floor.

  “Would you leave, please?” said Stirling. “I have to use the toilet.”

  Staci left, and went to bed early to avoid her sister, and noticed that Stirling stayed in the bathroom a long time.

  “Oh! Oh my gosh, come look!” Toni squealed from the bedroom window.

  Carried away by excitement, Toni actually seemed to be speaking to her, Staci. And it had been a whole day since she and Toni had said anything to each other. So even though she was deep in her book, trying to forget Paisley and all the rest of it, Staci came and looked.

  The van had just pulled into the driveway, and Noodles was peering out the side window like a big dog.

  And Paisley was already yelling even before she got out the passenger side door, “Hey, everybody! Come meet Noodles!” Being in the bedroom was no defense against Paisley. A person could have heard her in Europe, probably.

  And Toni was saying high and squeaky, “Oh my gosh, he is so adorable.” And he was too, looking out through the window with big, calm eyes, his golden ears pricked forward and the sunny forelock piled high between them.

  Staci hadn’t meant to say anything, but her voice came out of her like hiccups. “I—can’t—stand—it.”

  Toni looked at her, then put her arms around her. Staci appreciated that. She really needed a huge hug.

  7

  In Which Noodles Settles In

  “I was right!” Paisley was explaining to Stirling—bellowing, rather. “Those people weren’t pony people at all! They just got the pony for when their grandson visited, and then they found out he’d rather watch TV!”

  Toni rocketed out of the house, with Staci trailing after. Once she was done hugging her sister, Toni wanted to see Noodles. Staci didn’t want to be anywhere near Noodles—it hurt too much. But she didn’t want to sit in the bedroom by herself, and she didn’t want to argue with Toni anymore. Never again would she feel one hundred percent sure Toni would follow her lead. It looked as though this time Toni was leading her.

  “Rather watch TV!” Paisley repeated in outrage to Stirling and Cathy, who were listening patiently. “Rather watch TV than ride Noodles! So they just stuck Noodles out in an old cow pasture, with no oats or anything, and—”

  “Don’t knock people who like TV,” interrupted her father, who hardly ever missed Monday Night Football. “Can we get this pony out before it does something in my van?”

  “Oh!” Paisley jumped to help. She had to get back into the van through the front passenger door and go hold Noodles by the lead rope before her father opened the sliding door on the side. But Noodles was in no rush to get out of the van. He seemed to like the van. He let Paisley get out first, then came out after her with a brave little leap. His thick tail flew briefly, and his mane and forelock flounced. He stood blinking at this strange new place, and Paisley patted him between the ears. His pink nose could barely reach her shoulder.

  “Oooh,” Stirling and Toni said softly, and they rushed to stroke the pony’s silky golden neck, his cheeks, his forehead. Even Cathy said “Oooh,” and patted Noodles’s shoulder.

  Staci stayed away and said nothing, but she saw everything. She saw that Noodles had a tiny white star, no more than a whorl of white hairs, between his eyes, hidden by all that forelock. She saw that he had a snip of white on one soft nostril, and four perfect white stockings above four small, round hooves the color of taffy. She saw that he was short-legged and round-bellied and long, built like a fat dachshund, and she didn’t care. She saw that his tail, tangled even worse than his mane, stuck out like a bush from his back end. It needed to be combed out and smoothed down and maybe shampooed. Noodles’s mane hung down on both sides to a shaggy point below his neck. Staci wondered how it would look washed and combed and braided. It would be a big job, but if Noodles were her pony she would keep him clean and pretty no matter how much time it took.… Her hands ached to touch Noodles. They twitched with wanting. She shoved them deep in her jeans pockets.

  “Staci,” her mother called, “come pat the pony!”

  She shook her head no and stayed where she was. Couldn’t pat Noodles, not in front of Paisley. Wouldn’t give Paisley the satisfaction of seeing how badly she wanted him.

  “Did you get a saddle and bridle?” Toni asked Paisley.

  “No. He doesn’t have any, he’s so good he doesn’t need any. Would you believe,” Paisley’s voice rose, “that those people didn’t give him a name? I asked them what they called him, just for fun, and they didn’t call him anything! I couldn’t believe it! A super pony like this—”

  Stirling looked up and eyed her sister curiously. “Why’d you call him Noodles?”

  Paisley glanced with a teasing smile at Staci standing off by herself.… The smile faded. Paisley looked away from Staci, looked at her pony instead. “Huh? Oh … no reason. I just liked the way it sounded. It’s a nice word, Noodles.…”

  “I thought it was just some dumb name he had before you got him,” Stirling complained. “I would have named him something prettier.” She backed away from Noodles suddenly and turned to Staci. “C’mon, Stace. Let’s go watch some TV.”

  “Hey! Aren’t you guys going to help me put Noodles in his new pen?” Paisley sounded more puzzled than peeved.

  “Nuh-uh. Not us.” Stirling led the way into the house, and Staci gratefully followed.

  They did not, however, watch TV. Without talking about it they drifted into the Fontecchio bedroom and gazed at Noodles as Paisley led him into the paddock and showed him around. Toni appeared with a bucket of water and set it inside the gate for Noodles. Paisley patted him awhile longer, lingering, then finally slipped the halter off him. Noodles at once plunged his head and started to graze.

  “I hope Noodles doesn’t mind chiggers,” Staci said. Her voice came out sounding harsh, as if she was being mean, but she wasn’t. She really hoped the little pony didn’t get chigger bites all over his tender nose.

  Stirling seemed to understand. “They probably had just as many bugs wherever he was before,” she said.

  Paisley had disappeared somewhere. And Toni walked in at the bedroom door. “I thought you guys were going to watch TV,” she said.

  Staci ignored that. “Tired of playing with the pony? Already?” she grumbled. Surprise; her voice still had that same harsh tone.

  “Get human, Sis.” Toni vaulted onto her bunk. “Paisley’s gone to the feed mill to get supplies,” she said, even though no one had asked her where Paisley was. “Brushes and a hoof pick and stuff. We’
re supposed to watch Noodles while she’s gone.”

  “We’re watching him, all right,” said Stirling from the window. She rolled her eyes—those big, beautiful, indigo-colored eyes—in such a funny way that all three girls looked at each other and started to laugh. They giggled, and then they whooped, and then all at the same time they stopped with a sigh. Lined up at the window, chins cupped on hands, the three of them watched Noodles graze.

  “It’s going to be a long summer,” Staci said. But the hard edge was gone from her voice.

  Paisley was a good pony owner, Staci had to admit after the first long week was over. She was taking good care of Noodles.

  For one thing, even though she badly wanted to ride, Paisley didn’t get on Noodles. “All the books say to let a new horse or pony settle in,” she announced at dinner the first evening. “So I’m not going to do anything except just clean Noodles up until I’m sure he’s settled in.”

  She cleaned him up for three solid days. She got all the tangles out of his mane and tail and combed them smooth. She curried him with her new blue plastic currycomb and brushed him with her new brush all over his body and down his legs clear to the hooves. She wiped his nose and eyes with a damp sponge and washed under his belly and tail with an old washcloth. As she cleaned caked dirt off his back, she found sore places under it, and she worried about them. Probably they were because of the dirt, but what if they were her fault somehow? Was she cleaning him wrong? She biked to the feed mill, asked for advice, and came back with ointment, iodine shampoo, hoof dressing, and fly spray.

  “Feed man says when the weather’s hot like this I can just hose Noodles down like he was a car and use the iodine shampoo all over him,” she reported at lunchtime. “Some of you guys help me? Toni? Sis?”

  They shook their heads. Since she had seen Noodles, Toni felt some of the same heartache as Staci. She didn’t want to hang around Noodles either. It was just too hard to take, that he was Paisley’s and not hers. The three ponyless girls were keeping to themselves these days, and leaving Paisley pretty much alone.