Carolyn McSparren - If Wishes Were Horses

Kimberly was right, Pat really is afraid, Liz thought. I was. sure she’d be raring to go.

Liz held Pat’s stirrup. After two tries Pat got close enough to the pony to actually put her foot into the stirrup. As her bottom hit the saddle, Wishbone snorted. Pat froze. “What’s the matter with him?”

“He’s lazy. He’s just realized he’s going to have to work some more for his supper.”

“He’ll be mad.”

“Wishbone? He doesn’t know what mad is.”

“I don’t want him. I want Traveller.”

“You’re not ready for Trav...Iggy. Start with the basics. Ready?” Wishbone walked to the end of the line and began to circle Liz at a walk. Liz watched Pat with narrowed eyes. She could see Pat’s chest heaving. The girl held tight to the front of the saddle. Her lower lip trembled.

Suddenly she hauled back on the reins so hard that Wishbone nearly sat down on his tail. “Stop! No. My daddy says I get to ride whoever I want to ride.”

“If your daddy said that, which I doubt, he was wrong.”

Pat turned a furious face to Liz. Now she looked like her father, except her eyes smoldered while his froze. “I want my very own pony. You’re not the boss of me.” Without waiting she threw her leg over the saddle, dropped to the ground and ran as hard as she could straight into the stable.

“Told you she was scared,” Kimberly said smugly, moving forward to take Pat’s place. She looked over her shoulder, “Scaredy-cat, stuck-up scaredy-cat!”

“Cut that out,” Liz snapped. She glanced over at Vic, who stood frozen in the center of her circle with a horrified expression on her face. “Oh, da...drat!” Liz said. “Albert?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where’d she go?”

“She’s in the barn. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Thanks, Albert.” Liz turned back to Kimberly. “Okay, your turn. And remember that anybody who is not scared at some time on a horse is just plain dumb. Got that?”

Chastened, Kim climbed aboard.

The rest of the morning went smoothly but with no sign of Pat. When they came into the barn for lunch, Liz raised her eyebrows at Albert. He jerked a thumb overhead. The hayloft. Oh, great. Momma Kat had a fresh litter up there, and if Pat tried to bother the kittens, Momma Kat would rip her to shreds.

“I’ll do lunch,” Vic whispered. “Go.”

Silently Liz climbed the hayloft ladder. Bales of hay were stacked like stairsteps across the big platform. The ceiling fan kept the shadowy air circulating.

Liz waited for her eyes to adjust as she searched for Pat. At first she saw nothing except hay, then movement at the far back caught her eye.

“Lunchtime,” Liz said matter-of-factly.

“Don’t want any lunch.”

“You brought it, you eat it.”

“Not with them.”

Liz walked toward her and was vastly surprised to find Momma Kat curled against Pat’s thigh and all five kittens asleep in her lap. Pat’s dusty face was streaked with sweat and tears. “Quite a coup,” Liz said, pointing to the kittens. “Momma Kat avoids people when she’s got kittens.”

“They’re beautiful,” Pat said, stroking a small gray kitten who was busily stropping its needle-sharp claws on Pat’s fine new jodhpurs.

“You can have one when they’re old enough, if your daddy says its okay.”

“He won’t let me. He won’t even let me have goldfish. They carry germs.”

“So do you.”

“Tell him that, why don’t you?”

“I did already.” Liz sat on the bale nearest to Pat but on her level.

“You’re kidding! What did he say?”

“Never mind. Tell me what happened out there this morning?”

Pat turned away. “I want to ride Traveller and not that stupid pony you put me on.”

“That wasn’t it. You froze.”

“Liar.”

“I know what I saw. Incidentally, don’t ever call me a liar again. It’s rude, untrue, and I don’t like it.”

“Who cares what you like? My daddy says—”

“We’re not talking about your daddy, we’re talking about you.” Liz realized her tone was harsher than she’d planned. And Vic said she had such a great way with kids.

Abruptly, Pat dumped the kittens, who protested loud enough to wake Momma Kat, and stood up.

So did Liz. “We don’t run from things in this barn, especially the things that frighten us and embarrass the hell out of us.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Sure I can, but I shouldn’t have to.”

Pat sank onto the floor, put her head down and began to sob.

Whitten would have this kid home and that contract nullified before dark at the rate she was going. She reached out and touched Pat’s shoulder as though it were a hot stove.

Pat flinched. “All right, I’m scared, I admit it. Now are you satisfied? You can just throw me out right now and I’ll never come back, never get to ride, never get my pony, never...” The sobs turned to wails.

Liz was stunned. She sat down. “Come here, Pat,” she said and opened her arms. Pat sniffled and knee-walked over to her. “Lesson number one. Everybody. gets scared.”

“I’m scared all the time.”

“Trust me, you do not give that impression.”

“I know!” Pat wailed. “My daddy thinks I’m tough, but I’m so scared something will happen to me and then he’ll just die and it’ll be my fault.”

Mike Whitten, I will have your hide!

“Bull. Nothing’s going to happen to you, and if it does, it won’t be your fault, and your daddy looks like a pretty tough character to me.”

“He’s not. he’s not. You don’t know what he’s been through.”

“Then tell me.”

“No!” Pat cried.

Liz opened her mouth, then remembered she wasn’t supposed to know anything about Pat’s illness. “Okay. Forget your daddy for the moment.” She gestured toward the floor and the office below. “Did you know Aunt Vic was an Olympic rider?”

Pat sniffled, suddenly interested. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Great teacher, great barn manager, best friend I have in the world.”

“Uh-huh.” Pat regarded her suspiciously.

“She hasn’t put her foot in a stirrup for twenty years.”

“Why not?”

“She was warming up her jumper at Madison Square Gardens, and some fool crashed into her.”

Pat’s eyes widened.

“Broke her collarbone, her pelvis and one leg. Nearly killed her.”

“And she got scared?”

“The other rider was one hundred percent responsible for the crash, but that didn’t help Vic. The horses came out without a scratch. She was hurt, but at least she lived.”

“He died?”

“Broke his neck.” Liz realized suddenly this might not be the absolutely perfect story to tell a kid who was terrified of walking around in a circle on a quiet pony at the end of a lunge line.

But Pat seemed absorbed. Liz plunged ahead. “Vic couldn’t ride for nearly eight months. The first time she tried to get back onto a horse, she completely freaked. Everybody knows about it, and they don’t laugh at her. She works around horses, lunges, feeds, does everything else, but she can’t get up and ride. You can.”

But...

“Make you a deal. Call your nanny and tell her to pick you up at four o’clock this afternoon instead of three—make up some excuse. Not unusual to run late the first day. After the other kids are gone, you and I will work through your fear.”

“On Traveller?”

“Absolutely not. No temper tantrums, and you do what I tell you when I tell you or the deal’s off. Take it or leave it.”

“But...”

“My way or the highway.”

Pat stared at her for a long moment, then she nodded. “Okay.”

“Good, now get your tail downstairs and eat lunch. I’m starved.”