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  Horse Dreams

  Copyright © 2011 by Dandi Daley Mackall. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph of horse copyright © by Brandy Taylor/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph of fence copyright © by Rowan Butler/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Jacqueline L. Nuñez

  Edited by Stephanie Voiland

  Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked NIrV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Reader’s Version,® NIrV.® Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mackall, Dandi Daley.

  Horse dreams / Dandi Daley Mackall.

  p. cm. — (Backyard horses)

  Summary: Horse-crazy fourth-grader Ellie James constantly dreams about having a horse of her own, and God finally seems to have answered her prayers, but not with the gleaming black stallion she has been longing for.

  ISBN 978-1-4143-3916-0 (sc)

  [1. Horses—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Christian life—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M1905Hno 2011

  [Fic]—dc22 2011008111

  To Helen Isabella Hendren, “Ellie”

  Backyard horses are the opposite of show horses. They don’t have registration papers to prove they’re purebred, and they might never win a trophy or ribbon at a horse show. Backyard horses aren’t boarded in stables. You can find them in pastures or in backyards. They may be farm horses, fun horses, or simply friends. Backyard horses are often plain and ordinary on the outside . . . but frequently beautiful on the inside.

  * * *

  The Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

  1 Samuel 16:7

  Table of Contents

  1: Imagine!

  2: Trouble

  3: Hope

  4: Sorry

  5: Lost

  6: Coincidence?

  7: The Chase

  8: Caught

  9: Journey

  10: Worry

  11: Teamwork

  12: Horse Show

  13: Showtime

  14: Lost Again

  15: Found Again

  16: Dream

  Horse Talk!

  Sign Language Alphabet

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  Imagine!

  It’s the moment the world has been waiting for. Ellie James enters the horse show ring on her champion stallion, Ellie’s Prancing Beauty. The crowd at the Hamilton Royal Horse Show goes wild. They jump to their feet and clap. The lean, black American saddle horse prances past the stands. The judges can’t take their eyes off the gorgeous horse and his talented rider. Ellie is dressed in a classic black riding habit and tall English boots. She is the youngest rider in this year’s contest. The horses are called to a canter. Ellie and Prancing Beauty float around the ring. The crowd cheers. The horses line up. The winner is announced. . . .

  “Ellie! Miss James!”

  I look up. But instead of a judge carrying a trophy for me, it’s my fourth-grade teacher standing over my desk.

  “Ellie?” Miss Hernandez taps her foot. She frowns at me.

  I stare at her for a second before the dream fades. The horse show ring turns back into four walls and twenty-three desks. “Sorry, Miss Hernandez,” I mutter.

  She keeps staring at me like she’s waiting for an answer. “Well?”

  But I didn’t hear the question. “Um . . . you see . . .” I am about to give up and admit I’ve been daydreaming—again. Then I see Colt Stevens. He sits in the desk in front of me. Behind our teacher’s back, Colt is using sign language to spell out r-e-p-o-r-t.

  “Right,” I say, getting my brain back. Colt and I both learned how to sign so we could talk with my little brother. But we’ve discovered that sometimes sign language can come in handy at school too.

  Like now. “My report?” I give our teacher my best smile. Colt’s older sister says my smile is the best thing about me. That and my eyes. I have big brown eyes, the only thing big about me. I’m the smallest kid in fourth grade.

  Miss Hernandez looks surprised that I know what she’s talking about. “Yes. Your report.”

  “I’m going to do my science report on horses,” I tell her. I haven’t quite figured it out yet. But I know it will have something to do with horses. Everything I do has something to do with horses.

  A wave of laughter splashes around our classroom.

  Miss Hernandez sighs. She’s tall and skinny like a racehorse. The best thing about her is her long, black hair that she wears in a ponytail almost every day. “Your science report is about horses?” she asks. “You do remember that the report is on an experiment you choose to do? What will you try to prove scientifically?”

  I shrug and hope she’ll move on to somebody else.

  She doesn’t. “Ellie?” Our teacher is nice. She says this in a friendly voice. But it still makes my stomach churn.

  I bite my bottom lip for three seconds. Then it comes to me. “My experiment will discover the best way for me to get a horse.”

  A bunch of kids laugh, including Colt.

  “That doesn’t sound very scientific,” Miss Hernandez says. She crinkles her nose like she’s afraid she might be hurting my feelings.

  “It is, Miss Hernandez,” I tell her. “I’m going to report on three ways to get a horse. I’ll try all three ways and see which works best.”

  Her thin lips twist. She’s either about to sneeze or about to laugh. “And what exactly are the three ways you plan to try to get this horse?”

  “Begging, crying, and praying.”

  Miss Hernandez turns around, with her back to the class. Her shoulders are shaking. When she faces me again, I’m pretty sure she’s trying not to laugh. “Let’s talk after school, Ellie. Who wants to go next?”

  Ashley Harper raises her hand. She reads her plan right off her paper: “I’m going to do an experiment on how to make a horse’s coat shiny. I think molasses added to a horse’s breakfast will do it.”

  Ashley has long, curly blonde hair and blue eyes. Colt says Ashley will probably be a movie star when she grows up. Her dad—not Ashley—loves horses almost as much as I do. He’s the 4-H horsemanship leader. He keeps about a dozen show horses as a hobby. Every Saturday we meet at the Harpers’ stable for horsemanship practice, and he lets me ride one of his horses. Ashley can ride any horse she wants from her dad’s stable. They’re all hers, really. And she still skips half our practices.

  Miss Hernandez talks to Ashley about her
plan. Ashley has it all worked out. She’ll give molasses to some of her horses and not to others. She’ll keep track of everything in a notebook that she shows our teacher.

  I try to listen to other people’s ideas. Colt plans to experiment with kites and keys and lightning. Miss Hernandez wants to make sure he does it safely, but I can tell she’s crazy about the idea. But it sounds like cheating to me because Ben Franklin did it first.

  It’s hard to stay tuned in to our class. My brain keeps wanting to change the channel. Seth is talking too fast about his basketball experiment. Something about balls with different amounts of air in them. He gets so excited that it’s hard to keep up with him. His words turn into a buzz inside my head.

  So I turn to the window.

  Colt teases me about sleeping in class, but I don’t. I dream in class, but I don’t sleep.

  I dream horses. I don’t just dream about horses. I dream up horses so real I can smell horse. Horse is the best scent in the whole world. They could put that stuff into perfume bottles and make a fortune. Or candles. Maybe I’ll do that when I grow up. Then I’d have enough money to buy all the horses I want.

  I dream horses at night too. Maybe it’s because every single night before I go to sleep, I pray that God will give me a horse. I’ve prayed that same prayer as long as I can remember. I’ll be 10 in a few months, and still no horse.

  I tune in to my classroom again. Larissa Richland is explaining how she’s going to prove that hot air is lighter than cold air. Or the other way around.

  My head turns back to the window even though I don’t tell it to.

  I know every inch of the school yard outside this window. A green shrub with shiny, pointy leaves grows under the window ledge. Then there’s grass and dirt. One wall of our red brick school sticks out on the left. I can see a maple tree just past the wall.

  Out a little farther is the flag pole. I imagine riding to school on a beautiful black stallion and tying my horse to the pole. I picture myself slipping down from a shiny English saddle, then hugging my horse’s neck before jogging in for class.

  In the middle of the Hamilton Elementary School lawn, a sign says, “Welcome!” Sometimes it announces things, like visitors and days off school.

  Now I imagine that school is over and I’m sitting on my black stallion.

  I’m wearing a black velvet riding helmet and tall black boots. My coat tails fly behind me as my horse and I gallop toward the welcome sign. The sign says, “Go, Ellie!” because the whole school is counting on me to win the Hamilton Royal Horse Show.

  As I gallop toward the sign, students watch from their classroom windows. My horse picks up speed. We close in on the sign. It’s our jump. I imagine my horse springing off the ground. Up, up, up we sail. Clouds circle us. We clear the sign and thump to the ground without losing stride.

  I glance over my shoulder at the cheering crowd of students. I wave. I see my little brother, Ethan, standing nearby and grinning proudly. I give him the I love you sign—outside fingers up, thumb to the side. He returns the sign. Then I turn—

  But wait. Another horse is coming. A shaggy horse, covered with mud. It trots one way, then the other. It zigzags like it’s lost. I’m not sure what color it is. But I think it’s spotted. A pinto? One blob of spot looks like a crooked saddle. The horse is so skinny. It gallops up a side street and disappears.

  But it was there.

  It was real.

  “Miss Hernandez!” I cry, turning back to my classroom.

  Miss Hernandez is writing on the whiteboard. She stops in the middle of a word. “Ellie? What’s the matter?”

  I can hardly get the words out. My throat is dry. I point to the window. “Out there!”

  “What? What is it?” our teacher asks.

  “I saw a horse!”

  2

  Trouble

  “Ellie James,” our teacher says, laying down her marker. “What did you just say?”

  “A horse!” I exclaim. “I saw a horse! Right out there!” I point to where I saw it. But of course, the horse isn’t there anymore. It has galloped off by now.

  Our whole class groans.

  “Didn’t anybody else see that horse?” I ask. “It was right there in the street.”

  Larissa rolls her eyes. Her green eyes and short red hair make me think of a fox. Plus, she can be sly like a fox. She also happens to be the tallest girl in both fourth grades. It’s hard to think of the best thing about Larissa, but I guess it would have to be that she has a beautiful horse that she gets to show all over Missouri.

  Larissa leans over and whispers something to Ashley.

  Our classmate Rashawn tilts her head. I can tell she feels sorry for me.

  Sarah, a friend from Sunday school, makes a face at me. I think she’s warning me to back off.

  “I did see it!” I shout, even though I know I’m supposed to use my inside voice.

  “Yeah, right,” Larissa mutters.

  “That’s enough,” our teacher says. “I guess I’d better take a look.” She walks to the window and peers out. “Where exactly is this horse?”

  “In the street, in front of school,” I explain.

  Miss Hernandez stares out the window. Her ponytail swishes like a horse’s tail. “I don’t see anything, Ellie.” She turns and smiles at me. “Are you sure it wasn’t your imagination?”

  “I’m sure! I saw a horse! I think it was a pinto. You know, a spotted horse. Why won’t anybody believe me?”

  “Uh . . . maybe because you’re always seeing horses?” Larissa says.

  Ashley and some of the kids in her row laugh.

  “I said that’s enough.” Miss Hernandez frowns at them. “Let’s get back to work.” She glances at me. “Ellie, you and I can talk about this after school.”

  “Ooooh.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Dumm-duh-dum-dum.”

  I keep my head down. If I stare hard enough at my desk, I can keep from crying. I think.

  “No more talking. Got it?” Miss Hernandez means business. “Copy your assignment from the board, everybody.”

  Without turning around, Colt raises his hands where I can see them. Then he signs, Way to go.

  “I said no talking. That goes for you, too, Colt.” Miss Hernandez is good. She can’t read sign language, but she sure knows it when she sees it.

  I get out my notebook and copy the assignment. But I can’t stop thinking about that horse. Our town, Hamilton, Missouri, isn’t very big. We have only about two thousand people. So I know most of the horses around here.

  But I don’t remember seeing a scroungy pinto like that one.

  We should all be out looking for that poor, lost horse. I raise my hand. Then I put it back down. I know Miss Hernandez doesn’t believe I saw a horse. Nobody in this whole classroom believes me. Nobody in this entire school will believe I saw a wild horse run by, no matter what I say.

  It’s a horrible feeling when the only one who believes you is you.

  Finally the bell rings. I grab my books and hurry toward the door. Miss Hernandez stops me before I get there.

  “Ellie? Don’t forget. We need to talk.”

  “Oh yeah,” I answer.

  Miss Hernandez and I wait until everybody else files out of the classroom. I study the coffee mug holding down a stack of papers on her desk. The mug reads, #1 Teacher. Larissa gave it to our teacher the first day of class. That was before any of us knew that she really is the #1 teacher.

  I lean against the big wooden desk. But I have to be careful because of the stacks of books and papers piled all over it. That’s one of the things I like about Miss Hernandez. Ms. Jones, my third-grade teacher, had to have everything in perfect order. She expected us to be perfect too.

  Miss Hernandez closes the door after the last kid is out. It’s just the two of us. I think I’m in big trouble.

  “Have a seat, Ellie,” she says. She sits in her chair again and opens her desk drawer. “Want a peppermint?” She hands me a
red-and-white peppermint candy.

  I unwrap it. We each pop one into our mouths. “Thank you,” I say, and my voice cracks. I settle into the big chair beside her desk.

  She sighs. “So what are you and I going to do about daydreaming?”

  “Do you daydream too?” I ask.

  She grins. “As a matter of fact, I do. Sometimes I daydream I’m on a beach, lying under the sun. Only I make sure not to daydream at school.”

  I look down at the paper clips on her desk. I know she means that I shouldn’t daydream at school either. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” she says. “It’s just that when you imagined seeing that horse this afternoon, you—”

  “No! I didn’t imagine that!”

  “Now, Ellie,” she says.

  I shake my head. “I saw it. A muddy, scraggly horse trotting this way and that, like it was lost.”

  My teacher takes in a big breath and holds it. I think she’s counting to 10 before answering. My mom does that a lot.

  “I’m not sure how to handle this,” Miss Hernandez begins. “Disturbing the class is one thing. Not knowing the difference between what’s real and what’s not . . . that’s another.”

  “But I—!”

  She holds up one finger to stop me. It works.

  “I think you should go home and give this some more thought.” Miss Hernandez scribbles something on a piece of paper and puts the paper into an envelope. On the outside she writes, Mr. and Mrs. James.

  She hands me the envelope. “See that your parents get this note, okay? I think it would be a good idea for all of us to talk about this together.”

  I think it would be a lousy idea. A king-sized, rotten, crummy, superbad idea.

  But I don’t say so because I’m already in enough trouble.

  3

  Hope

  Colt is waiting outside for me. “So? What happened?”

  I shrug and keep walking. “Miss Hernandez doesn’t believe I saw a horse.”

  “No kidding.” He falls in step beside me.

  “Great. You don’t believe me either?” I wish I’d never seen that ugly horse. Still, I can’t stop worrying about it.