Centaur Rising Read Online Free PDF

morning. As you don’t actually have to be sterile, you can use them again and again. And if anyone sees me, it helps reinforce that this is an unusual situation.”
    â€œBesides,” I said, “you’re the only one who can say Puericentaurwhatchmacallit.”
    â€œDon’t be a smart-hat,” Martha warned me.
    â€œI can say it!” Robbie crowed, and proceeded to prove it, not once, but several times, and then sang it to the tune of “Frere Jacques” with additional words he made up on the spot.
    Puericentaurcephalitis,
    That’s its name, that’s its name.
    Can you say it with me, can you say it with me?
    What a shame. What a shame.
    â€œ What a kid!” Dr. Herks said to Mom.
    â€œOh, he does that all the time. Mom calls it his party trick.”
    As for Robbie, he was too busy singing loudly and banging his hands on the arms of his wheelchair to hear what I said.
    *   *   *
    After Dr. Herks left, Martha hand-lettered a sign that read QUARITINE and put it on Agora’s stall. “Till we figure out what to do.”
    â€œThat’s not spelled right,” I said.
    Hands on hips, she glared at me. “People will understand.”
    â€œIt still doesn’t make it right.” I was a champion speller in school. Won the all-school spelling bee three years in a row, which didn’t help make me popular. Between the spelling and the fact that I always had to get back right after school to do my horse chores, and Mom not wanting kids over who might laugh at Robbie, I had no friends I could bring home. Most of them thought me weird anyway, so I didn’t care. Well, maybe I did—a little. But not enough to do anything about it.
    There were two girls from another of the middle schools who occasionally took riding lessons from Mom, Patti and Maddi. They were both a year ahead of me, but we still got to talk some. Horse talk mostly. But, since we went to different schools, we didn’t hang around together except at the barn.
    I went into the house, printed out the right spelling of quarantine with markers on a piece of yellow poster board, and brought it back to the barn.
    Begrudgingly, Martha put it next to the first sign, saying, “Let ’em choose.” Then she locked the stall door, stuck the key in her back pocket, and left to get Agora clean bedding straw.
    Robbie was already back in the house doing his homework, so Mom and I began to move all the other horses to the near side of the barn, which shouldn’t have been difficult, but they were all a bit spooked. I think they sensed the magic even if they hadn’t seen it. We didn’t want to move Agora and the foal. We didn’t know how fragile he might be.
    â€œAnd we don’t want anyone seeing him by accident,” Mom added.
    â€œWho could do that?” I asked.
    â€œThe milkman or encyclopedia salesmen knocking at the door at the worst time.”
    â€œLike right when we’re moving him?”
    She touched her pointer finger to her nose and grinned. “Bingo!” It was something she hadn’t said in a long time.
    *   *   *
    We started with Hera. She’s the boss of all the other horses. If we could get her to move stalls quickly and without a fuss, the rest would be easy.
    â€œWell, easier ,” Mom said.
    Hera stared at me with her deep brown eyes. She’s a dainty Arabian mare with large nostrils. There was something different in her eyes that morning. Someone who didn’t know her well might have said that it was a look of alarm. But really, she just looked confused.
    Basically, Hera hates change. New straw, different food, a new rider—and she shows her displeasure, usually by gnawing on the side of the stall window. We have to make a new frame for that window at least once a year.
    I rubbed her nose, especially where the halter strap crossed. She leaned into my hand, her nose soft and warm, while I