No Horse Wanted Read Online Free PDF Page B

to
come the rest of the way so I backed up. With a sudden scramble of
his hindquarters, he followed. I gave him the handful of hay.
Crunch, munch, and it was gone. Then, he found the hay net and the
rest was history. He started pulling out a mouthful and chewing. If
a horse could look blissful, he did. I praised him, ducked under
his neck, and tied him securely to the ring on the wall. He not
only had the net of alfalfa grass hay, the manger was full too.
    How far had Jack thought we’d have to go to
find a horse? Canada? Petting Twaziem’s neck one more time, I eased
past him to the back door of the trailer. Mom waited for me,
Felicia beside her with a file folder of papers. “What do you
have?” I asked.
    “A bill of sale,” Felicia said. “I made sure
that his poor condition was detailed. We don’t want a hassle from
the Animal Control people. And his papers are in order. You just
have to send them to the registry to transfer him to your
ownership. His registered name is actually Twa Ziemlich
Sonne , which is a bit strange. Twa means ‘two’ in old
Scots and Zeimlich Sonne is ‘pretty sun’ in German, but
normally you’d say...”
    I tuned her out again and locked the trailer
door. Hmm. I wanted to make money, but I didn’t have to buy a
lottery ticket. I could just sign her up for Jeopardy . She’d
win thousands. Would she give me enough for my car? While she
blathered about Twaz’s name, I eyed Mom.
    “Can we go now? Or do we have to stay
forever? And do we have to take her? Maybe, they could feed her to
the cougar.”
    “I don’t think so.” Mom patted my shoulder.
“And I’m proud of her. When she and Mrs. Bartlett got to talking
about cancer, Felicia provided some very good resources.”
    “Who has cancer?” I blinked and looked back
at the trailer. I could hear Twaziem chewing away. “Is that why he
didn’t get fed? Was she in the hospital? Now, I feel really bad for
getting on her case.”
    “That’s kind of you,” Mom said, “but she
could have had someone check up on her grandkids and make sure they
were feeding the horse.”
    “Well, who fed the cougar?” I asked. “And
why?”
    “He hasn’t been here that long,” Felicia
said. “The animal rescue people brought him when he was injured in
the woods. They fed the horse when they came to take care of the
cat. It’s the only reason Twaziem made it. And can you imagine what
would have happened if they hadn’t fed the cougar, and he got
loose? He’d have gone hunting, and it might not have been your colt
that wound up as dinner.”
    Those were all good points, but I didn’t tell
Ms. Knows-Everything. Her head was big enough. She didn’t need me
saying she was smart. She already knew it. In our family, Felicia
was the brilliant one, Jack was the brave one, and I was the
beautiful one. We all had our roles to play, and they didn’t
change.
    We climbed in the pickup, and Mom started the
engine. “I think we found the perfect horse for you to ride,
Robin.”
    “Not until he turns three,” Felicia said.
“That’s next April, a little more than seven months from now.”
    “Works for me. He has to be old enough and
strong enough,” I told them. And a lot could happen in that amount
of time. By then, I’d convince my parents he was ready to move onto
a new home. I’d get him the best one I could find. Maybe Rocky
would help with that. She always had people looking for safe, sane
mounts for her beginning riders and Twaziem might turn out to be
perfect for them. All anyone had to do was feed him and he
obviously thought the person was a friend.
    It took over an hour for us to get home
because of the traffic. Mom always drove carefully, and when she
hauled a horse, she took more precautions. She signaled for turns
early, slowed down before she braked, stayed five miles under the
limit and pretty much ticked off every speed demon in forty miles.
It didn’t bug me as much as usual, not with Twaziem on board.
    We pulled into our