A Hundred Horses Read Online Free PDF Page A

couldn’t see anyone else there. I wondered who Rita had been talking to.
    “My name’s Nell,” I said. “I’m staying at Lemon Cottage with my aunt Liv. She asked me to bring you some things.”
    Rita didn’t speak again right away but then said, “I don’t get many visitors these days.”
    She had gray hair, with brownish-reddish waves grown out long ago.
    “So you’re Liv’s niece. She mentioned you were coming to stay.” She patted the spot next to her on the bed. “Sit, sit. Tell me all about yourself.”
    I sat on the end of the bed, but there was nothing to say. So I gave her the thermos and said, “Would you like some tea? Aunt Liv made it for you.”
    A tired smile carved into her cheeks.
    “How do you like it here?” she said, pouring greenish tea into a cup.
    “I just got here yesterday,” I said. “I don’t know much about animals and plants and things.”
    She looked at my dirty clothes.
    “It’s not something you can read about in schoolbooks,” she said. She gave me the cup, held her hands out, turned her palms over and back.
    “See these hands?”
    They were wide and freckled, with knotted knuckles, and they reached toward me.
    “That’s how you know, with your hands.”
    The cup was getting hot, and I tried to give it back.
    “Drink,” she said. “It’ll make your hair curl like mine.”
    She smiled, but I didn’t get it.
    “Take no notice. Just a saying. And brussels sprouts won’t put hairs on your chest either.”
    She laughed, but I still didn’t know what she was on about.
    “Go on, try it.”
    I tasted the tea, and it was horrible. Like watery grass.
    Rita chuckled again and took it away, then sipped from the same cup.
    “Well, you can tell Liv I think it’s delicious.”
    Then she put the cup down and knitted her fingers together.
    “So what is it you wanted to tell me?”
    Well, I didn’t know what she meant by that either, but I was waiting for my chance to ask her about the horse.
    “Aunt Liv said you used to have a hundred black-and-white horses,” I said. “I saw one yesterday, and my mom thinks it might be dangerous.”
    Before she could answer, there was movement from the alcove in the far wall. Out of the shadows stepped a girl, with long, dark, unbrushed hair, a big coat, and a mean scowl. She stepped into the light, and her eyes flashed sky blue.
    “ You’re the dangerous one,” the girl hissed. “It’s all your fault, jumping out and scaring her!”
    “Now, now, Nell’s just telling it like she saw it,” Rita snapped. “Don’t you mind her, Nell. Angel doesn’t care much for people and being pleasant.”
    So this was Angel—the angel. And what I’d told Alfie was true: just because you’re called something doesn’t mean anything. This girl looked more like a mean pixie than an angel.
    Rita reached for Angel’s hand.
    “Is it Belle we’re talking about? What are you doing with her? She should be with the others at Old Chambers’s farm; the auction is coming up soon.”
    Angel didn’t take her piercing eyes off me.
    “Old Chambers said I could look after her for a couple of weeks.”
    “Oh, he did, did he?”
    “Yes, he did!” Angel shouted. “But now she’s spooked her and Belle’s got lost—”
    Rita held on to Angel’s arm, stopped her from flying across the room at me, pulled her back.
    “That horse knows this place even better than you. She won’t have gone far.”
    Rita tried to look into Angel’s face, but Angel wasn’t having any of it. She shook Rita’s hand away, came around the bed. I saw her feet. She was wearing black flats.
    “It was you!” I gasped.
    But before I could say any more, Angel’s eyes narrowed. She stared into me without speaking, right into me, mean and angry, as if she were trying to make me not say what she’d done. I backed away as she stalked toward me.
    “Angel, this has nothing to do with Nell—leave her be,” Rita snapped again.
    But Angel wasn’t listening.
    “You tell