‘Go on, Mam, open it!’
She could hardly bear this moment now it had come.
Everyone had been sitting quietly watching television when Katie ran upstairs, pulled the big white plastic bag out from under the bed and carried it downstairs. She laid it in front of Mam.
‘What is it, girl?’ Mam wondered.
‘Open it!’ shrieked the twins.
‘Let your father do it,’ Mam offered.
‘Kathleen, get on with it,’ Da urged.
The bag was coming off. She could see the tip of his ears, his nose.
‘What is it?’ pleaded Hannah, pushing between the others to see.
‘A horse! Oh my God! It’s my blue horse.’ Mam could hardly speak. Her eyes met Katie’s.
‘Thank you. How can I thank you? It’s so beautiful, just like the old one. Perhaps,’ she felt it, ‘even better! Did you make it all yourself?’
Katie began to tell how she drew it first and then tried to cut it out, but she could tell that nobody was listening. Mam held the horse close to her, studying it. Then they all took a turn to pet it and stroke it before Mam let Da place it on the windowsill where the moonlight shone in on it.
‘Rest easy there for the moment,’ Da told it – you’d nearly think it was a child he was talking to.
‘It’ll bring us luck, Katie. I can almost feel it already.’ Mam was smiling. ‘No matter where we stop or where we travel, it doesn’t matter where we roam, it’ll stay with us. A sign for all the world to see that the Connors family will go on and on. Nothing will get the better of us.’
The blue horse stood still staring out through the glass. Beyond these walls were fields and roads and mountains and forests and winding cliff paths and clear cool streams.
Katie looked at it. The blue horse was home.