The Great Pony Hassle (5 page)

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.

“All right, I'll do it myself!”

Which she did. She ran a bucket of warm water and lugged it outside while the others watched through the window—as usual—in glum silence. She tied Noodles to a small tree. She brought the garden hose and sprayed Noodles. She shampooed Noodles. And while she was doing it, Noodles thought of several ways to make her wet all over. Noodles whisked her with his long, sopping tail. Noodles shook himself like a big dog and showered her with soapy water off his mane. Noodles nudged her with his bony nose so hard that she fell down in the mud puddle they were both making. Noodles took hold of the edge of the suds bucket with his teeth and tipped it and poured the suds all over Paisley's sneakered feet.

“Noodles!” Paisley screamed, sloshing up out of the mud, furious.

“She's going to hit him!” Inside the bedroom, Staci jumped up as if she were going to crash through the window like a TV cop hero to save Noodles.

But Stirling put a hand on Staci's arm. And as they watched, Paisley started laughing and put her arms around Noodles's neck, sopping wet as he was, and hugged him.

“She wouldn't ever hurt anything,” Stirling told Staci, her voice like a sigh. “She doesn't really mean to hurt us either. She just doesn't think, that's all. She's kind of gung ho. My dad says he used to be the same way.”

As soon as Paisley put Noodles back in his paddock after his bath, the pony went and rolled on the ground (fat belly wobbling, stubby legs waving in the air) and covered himself with dirt again.

“Noodles!” Paisley protested. “Jeez! All that work.”

The girls in the bedroom laughed at the rolling pony so loudly that Paisley heard them and thought they were laughing at her. She looked around and scowled. Then she looked back at her pony again. “Noodles! Oh, no.…”

Noodles had trotted to his bucket of drinking water, eager to have more fun. He nudged the bucket and tipped it over. He pawed at the puddle of water now on the ground, making himself a wonderful mud hole. He tossed the empty bucket into the air with his teeth and watched with pricked ears as it thudded and clattered to the ground. He bunted it with his nose. He tossed it again, so high it landed outside the fence. He looked at it, then looked at Paisley like a little fluffy-maned white-and-golden angel, waiting for her to come refill his water bucket so he could do it all again and make his paddock a muddy mess just like the rest of the backyard.

Paisley slumped to the ground, shaking her head. Noodles had settled in.

8

In Which an Expert Speaks

Even after Noodles was settled in, Paisley didn't ride him because of all his sore places. Every time she curried him, more sores appeared. On toward the end of the week she got so worried about them that she phoned her aunt Caledonia, Bruce McPherson's sister, the one with twelve horses of her own—all of them always too hot-tempered or too old or too young or too something-or-other for a kid to ride, Stirling told Staci. Aunt Caledonia lived more than an hour's car ride away, anyhow. And she was always busy. Paisley and Stirling didn't get to see her very often.

Most of this Stirling whispered to Staci and Toni while the three of them eavesdropped on Paisley's phone call.

“But Aunt Cal, I don't know whether I'm helping him or hurting him! Sometimes it seems like brushing him just makes things worse!” Paisley listened. “Uh-huh.… It's because they let him get so dirty? You're sure it's not my fault? Okay, I'll just keep piling on the ointment. Antiseptic spray? Right, I'll get some.… But do you think it's okay for me to ride him when he has sore places on his back? I could put a towel or something over them … no, there isn't any saddle. Nuh-uh. No bridle. Just a halter.… What? Hey, that would be great!” Paisley tilted her face away from the mouthpiece of the phone and bellowed, “Hey, Dad! Okay if Aunt Cal comes to visit this weekend?”