Chapter Three

~ The Great Escape ~

 

I only meant to get some food and water for that pony, really. Like I said to Addie, if someone wouldn’t help an animal in distress, well, that person wasn’t much of a person. I had to help this pony right now. We couldn’t wait for an adult to decide to help. So we watched carefully for a few minutes and didn’t see any sign of Jake.

“He’s gone. Let’s get some water for her,” I whispered.

“Okay,” said Addie. “But where? I don’t see a bucket or anything.”

“Well, there’s the fountain and pool by the bank. We could take her there.” The bank was about a half block away. She could drink and eat some grass. We’d put her back and no one would know.

“Yeah, Jake’s probably in a bar somewhere for a couple of hours,” Addie said. “He’s probably planning to get drunk, swindle everyone in town out of all their money, and steal all their pets.”

I tiptoed over to Rosie, untied her lead rope and clicked softly to her. “Let’s go, girl.” She followed me calmly across the vacant lot and down the sidewalk to the bank building, hoofs clip-clopping on the cement. Looking around, I didn’t see anyone at all. That made me brave. We walked right across the lawn of the bank and up to the fountain’s pool, Addie right behind. Rosie put her lips close to the water, heaved a big sigh and started to drink. She drank for a long time. Addie and I smiled at each other and watched. Rosie lifted her head, looked at me and sighed again. She stood there with water dripping from her mouth and her eyes closed, kind of like my mom with iced tea on a hot day.

I tugged on her halter and led her to a patch of grass under a tree. She tore at the grass with her teeth, as if she was afraid someone would take it away. My eyes filled with tears. “You poor baby,” I said.

Right then, two things happened. Jake appeared from inside the bank, waving his arms and yelling, his lime-green Hawaiian shirt flapping like a flag in the wind. At the same time, a siren went off in the fire station on the other side of the square. Rosie had evidently never been around fire engines or lime-green Hawaiian flags. She jumped and pulled the lead rope out of my hands with a bug-eyed look of pure panic.

“Whoa!” I yelled, but Rosie was headed away from all that scary stuff as fast as she could go. Who would have thought that scraggly horse could move so fast?

“You stole my horse,” hollered Jake as he came puffing and wheezing up to me and Addie. “I’m calling the police. You brats are juvenile delinquents!” He tried to grab my arm, but I twisted away and chased after the pony, with Addie close behind. We lost sight of Rosie, but could hear her hoofs ringing on the pavement as she headed down the street.

We ran and ran; it seemed like for an hour. I worried that Rosie would get hit by a car, but then Addie yelled, “There!” and pointed. Addie had great eyes for finding things. Rosie turned a corner and ran up Mulberry Street, past the post office, past Rice’s Flower Shoppe. I saw her cut through some yards and race down an alley, and then I lost her.

“I’m out of breath,” said Addie.

“Me, too,” I said, “and my side hurts. Let’s just keep walking this way.”

We kept walking and panting, watching and hoping that she would stop somewhere. I could hear dogs barking ahead of us and a car honking. Stupid people. Didn’t they know that honking would just scare her more? A frightened horse would react by trying to get away.

The good thing was that she was headed away from the middle of town, so there weren’t many cars. I looked around and didn’t see Jake anywhere. We must have left him far behind.

Finally, as we came out from behind a big old two-story house surrounded by huge trees, we could see the pony galloping across an open field at the edge of town. Thank goodness there was no fence. Panicky horses didn’t do well with fences. We ran again, across the field and into the woods on the other side.

When we got to the woods, Addie and I stopped, gasping for air, both of us hot in the face and dripping sweat. Addie’s curly brown hair wound around her face like wet noodles while mine just hung flat, dripping in my eyes. There was no sound of hooves, no horse sounds at all. All I could hear over our panting was twittering birds high up in the trees.

“What if she hurt herself?” Addie said when she could talk again. “What if she broke a leg and they have to shoot her?”

“They don’t do that anymore,” I said, feeling kind of cross, because I was worried, too. “My dad can fix a broken leg on a horse.” But I knew that a pony like Rosie might not be worth the cost of setting a broken leg. I also knew that even though she wasn’t my pony, I was going to be her caretaker. I would find her and protect her. I could not let Nasty Jake get his hands on her again.

“Let’s just find her,” I said, kicking through the dry leaves that covered the ground.

After maybe five minutes of wandering through small, scrubby trees, listening and straining our eyes, Addie said, “Piper, look.” And there was Rosie. She stood in a clearing, nibbling grass and violets. The sun shone on her, turning her white mane to snow and making her beautiful.