Authors: Natale Ghent
“Don’t take so much syrup, Queenie, or it won’t last longer than one meal,” Cid scolds.
“It’s okay,” Ma says. “When it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s Christmas, so let’s not be stingy.”
I’m with Ma. I’ve had enough scrimping and scraping for a lifetime. My mind wanders to Dad and the laughing woman, and I can feel the rage spark in my heart again.
“Aren’t you going to look in your stocking, Nat?” Queenie asks.
I look through my stocking just to please her, even though I know it contains exactly the same things as the other stockings.
When we’re done with breakfast, Ma lets us open our gifts. Queenie gives everyone corn-husk dolls that she learned to make in art class. Cid gives me a set of red glass clackers. They’ve been outlawed at school because kids have been fighting with them or clacking them so hard they explode, so I’ll have to use them at home. Ma gets bubble bath from Cid and the same thing from me, plus some bars of Pears soap because I know she likes it but won’t buy it for herself. I give Queenie the tins of hoof paint—one black and one silver—and a package of Silly Putty. Her face brightens like I just gave her a million dollars. She rushes over and hugs me. She puts the two tins of hoof paint in the pockets of her house robe. Theunwrapping continues. Ma gives Queenie a mood ring and a watercolour kit with brushes and palettes and rows of colourful little paints. Cid gets a mood ring too, a shirt and a makeup set. I get a Stretch Armstrong from Ma instead of the Luke Skywalker action figure that I wanted. I can’t help but feel disappointed, even though I know it’s not her fault. The stores have been sold out for months. I open a strange box containing an unfinished sweater sleeve, the needles still tucked in the loops of wool.
“I didn’t have time to finish it,” Ma sheepishly says, as I produce the half-knitted sleeve from the box. “It’s going to be nice, though. Look, there’s the pattern at the bottom of the box.”
I look at the pattern. It shows a young, successful-looking man modelling the sweater, standing with one foot on a rock. In the photo, the sweater is off-white with thick cables that twist down the front. “So this is what a half-knit looks like,” I say, just to make Ma laugh.
We play on these words for a while, calling each other half-knits, making up sentences with the expression
half-knit
and such. We do this until we’ve wrung all we can from the joke and we’re all laughing.
“I’m making yours in moss green because Ithought it would look nice with your brown eyes,” Ma finally explains. “And it will stay clean longer,” she adds.
“It’ll be really nice, Ma,” I tell her, putting the unfinished sleeve back in its box and pushing it under the tree.
Then I give Cid the fawn. She holds the tissue package in her hand and looks at it for a bit before loosening the ribbon.
“It’s not as much as I wanted to give,” I tell her apologetically.
Cid unwraps the tissue, revealing the little fawn inside. It’s sleeping peacefully, the tiny blanket tucked around its shoulders. Cid looks at me in amazement. “Oh, Nat, it’s beautiful!”
“I’m sorry about the basket. It got kind of wrecked….”
“It doesn’t matter. The little fawn is beautiful.”
She holds it delicately in her hand, showing it to Ma and Queenie.
“It’s adorable,” Queenie says, admiring the little blanket, then tucking it back around the fawn.
“I was hoping you could start your collection over again,” I explain.
Cid carries the fawn up to her room. Queenie and I follow. We watch her place it carefully on top of her dresser.
“I know it won’t replace the others right away, but it’s a start,” I say.
“It’s nicer than the ones Dad bought,” Queenie says. “He never gave Cid one in a little bed.”
Cid fixes the blanket around the fawn. “I love it.”
We all stare at the fawn for a while, then go back downstairs to where Ma is cleaning up the living room. We help tidy, but Ma can tell we’re anxious to get to the barn to see Smokey.
“Go on,” she says. “It’ll be a Christmas gift of sorts just to have the house to myself. Mind you bundle up. This weather is getting worse by the minute.”
And she’s right. You can barely see the big maple tree on our front lawn, the snow is blowing so badly. We’re the only ones out in the street. The wind whips at our faces. The snow pelts our clothes and sticks in our eyelashes and hair.
“Only a half-knit goes out in weather like this,” I joke.
Cid and Queenie laugh.
“I don’t think we’ll be riding Smokey outside today. Looks like we’ll have to take turns riding him in the barn.”
“If we ever make it there,” Cid says.
We pull our scarves over our noses and tip ourchins into our chests to keep the snow from blinding us altogether. It takes us nearly three times as long to make it up the hill to the end of the lane that leads to the barn. When we get there, the lane is erased by smooth white drifts.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here,” I say.
We cut through the drifts with our bodies, the snow up over our hips in some places. I go first. Then Cid and Queenie. I can feel the carrots that I brought for Smokey in my pants pocket. Despite the cold, I’m sweating from the effort of moving through so much snow. When we reach the barn, we see that the drifts practically cover the door. We start to dig with our hands, clearing a space. We dig and dig until finally we have enough room to open the door a crack. I squeeze inside and push the door with my whole body. The door creaks and groans. I manage to open it enough that Cid and Queenie can come through.
Inside, the horses are wide-eyed and spooked, including Smokey. He’s spinning around in his stall, tossing his head and pawing at the ground. The other horses are shifting and snorting. We go into Smokey’s stall and calm him with carrots and gentle talk. He responds right away, lowering his head against my stomach as I scratch his ears.
“I don’t think anyone else has been here fordays,” Cid says. “None of the horses have much food.”
“Did you top up their bins yesterday?” I ask.
Cid and Queenie exchange nervous looks. Queenie pulls the tins of hoof paint from her coat pockets and places them in the wooden box with the brushes. “We were afraid of Clem,” she finally blurts out. “The wind was blowing and the snow was whipping against the windows. We thought we heard voices upstairs.”
“Well, it’s not our job to watch the other horses,” I say, even though we do anyway. For some reason, the people in this barn don’t seem to care much about their animals, except maybe for the Gorilla. But even he hadn’t come yet today. I can’t help but think they’re all just a bunch of creeps. “Go get some hay and we’ll feed them. We can’t let these horses go hungry on Christmas. And who knows when their owners will come, with this storm going on. I imagine some of them are stranded by the weather.”
I don’t know if this is true, but I’d rather the girls believe that it’s the storm and not irresponsibility that’s keeping the owners away. This makes us all feel a little bit better about the horses being neglected on Christmas day.
Cid and Queenie busy themselves by throwingflakes of hay from the loft into the aisle below. When they have enough for all the horses, they climb down the ladder and begin stuffing hay into the feed troughs. The horses nicker hungrily.
“Give them water too. And don’t forget to sprinkle the hay to keep the dust down,” I call out from Smokey’s stall.
I fill Smokey’s trough with hay and top up his water. Then I take the curry comb and start to brush the dirt and dust from his coat. I rub the comb along the roots of his mane where I know he likes it the most. He closes his eyes contentedly, blowing softly through his nose. The storm rages outside, battering the dirty windows of the barn with snow. I put my arms around Smokey’s neck, just to feel the life in him.
I’m holding him like this, my face pressed against his neck, when I hear Cid scream from the back room.
“Nat! Come here!”
“Oh, Nat, hurry!” Queenie cries.
Smokey throws his head back in fright. I run from the stall, slamming the door shut behind me. When I reach the back room, Cid and Queenie are staring into Jed’s stall, their hands covering their mouths in horror. I see a huge beam lying across the trough. Beneath the beam lies Jed, hisneck all twisted and broken, his legs stiff and sticking out from his body. His eyes are open and his tongue is blue and pinched between his teeth, just like I imagined Clem’s would have been. In the background, the radio is faintly playing “Dancing Queen,” as though nothing was wrong.
“Oh my God …” It’s all I can say because I can’t believe what I’m looking at.
“What happened?” Queenie chokes out. “What happened to him, Nat?”
I know what happened. It’s all too clear. The poor horse pushed his head between the rungs of his stall to grab a few wisps of hay that were outside his reach. But getting his head through was easier than getting it back out, and he panicked. All his kicking and slamming around must have loosened that beam and it fell, breaking his neck.
“He must have been starving,” Queenie sobs. “It’s all our fault. We should have fed him.”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell her. “Ted Henry should have been here taking care of him. How did we know he wouldn’t do right by Jed?”
But Queenie is inconsolable. She wails bitterly into her hands.
“What are we going to do?” Cid asks.
“I guess we have to go tell Ted. It’s the right thing to do. He’ll have to call the disposal.”
“But it’s Christmas,” Cid says. “No one’ll be working today. How can we be here with Jed like that? It’s just awful, Nat!”
“We have to go tell Ted,” I say soberly. “Christmas or not, he has to do something about it.”
We check to make sure that Smokey is okay, then tighten our scarves and make our way through the storm again. I have to push extra hard on the door just to open it. The snow has already erased our tracks. The wind seems worse than ever, tearing at our coats and our hair. We have to yell to hear each other over the roar. We shield our eyes from the snow. It hits our faces like handfuls of dry rice.
It seems to take forever to reach Ted’s house. When we get there, Queenie and Cid wait at the bottom of the stairs. I bang loudly on the door several times before it opens. Ted stares at me angrily, like he’s been drinking. I don’t care because I’m madder than hell. I lay right into him and I don’t let him get a word in edgewise.
“You better get to the barn because your horse is dead! A beam fell on him and broke his neck. He was trying to find hay. He’s all twisted up in there. You better do something about it right away!”
To my surprise he looks shocked and doesn’t say anything. I point right at him and go on.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, neglecting him like that. It’s your fault he’s dead. If he had food, he wouldn’t have stuck his head through the rungs in the first place!”
I don’t know if what I’m saying makes any sense to him. He’s just staring at me, his stupid mouth opening and closing like a goldfish’s, but nothing’s coming out. I turn and stamp down the stairs, leaving him gaping in the doorway. Cid and Queenie loop their arms through mine as we make our way in the snow.
“Can we go home, Nat?” Cid asks. “I can’t stand the idea of being there with Jed dead like that.”
I nod. I don’t like the idea either. It was bad enough dealing with Clem, let alone the ghost of a mistreated horse. Well, at least Clem has company now, I think. I imagine him riding around on Jed like a demon. I imagine them both, half decayed, their bones visible in places. It makes me shiver. I shake my head to get the picture out of my mind.
“Don’t tell Ma about Jed,” I yell over the roar of the storm. “She’ll never let us go to the barn again if she hears about this.”
We lean into the wind, struggling through the storm in silence. The only thing I can hear is the sound of my own breathing through my scarf.
Ma wonders what’s up when we come back home so soon. I tell her that the weather was so awful, we just tended to Smokey and came home. Ma is happy with this explanation and even commends us on our common sense, which makes me feel bad.
Cid and I spend the rest of the day sitting by the fire. We drink tea, listen to the storm and talk in whispers about what happened and what we think is going to happen next. Queenie sneaks off to her room to dance. She does it in private so no one will catch her and tell her to stop. I know she is still suffering with guilt over the whole deal, no matter what Cid and I say.
To be honest, I feel responsible as well, considering why Queenie and Cid had to go to the barn alone. What if I hadn’t been so angry about Cheryl? I never would’ve been in the bath, and Cid never would’ve kicked the door in. What if I hadn’t hidden Cid’s figurines and she hadn’t broken them? I wouldn’t have had to take the day togo looking for the fawn. I would have been at the barn, and Queenie and Cid wouldn’t have been so afraid of Clem’s ghost. We would have checked on all the horses, including Jed. But a guy can go crazy thinking about all these what-ifs….
* * *
By morning the storm is over, but we take our time getting ready to go to the barn. We’re all dreading the idea of seeing Jed again. We talk about it the whole way, trying to ease our fears. We drag our feet, even though the going is much easier because the day is clear and quiet, which seems somehow strange after all that wind.
When we get to the barn, the lane has been plowed. A truck with a horse trailer is idling in front of the barn. We exchange nervous glances, then go inside. The Gorilla is there, packing up his things.
“Damned if I’m going to keep my horse in this barn,” he rages. “If it’s not people stealing my tack, it’s beams falling down. I’ve had enough!”
I remember the noseband in my coat pocket and feel a rush of guilt. Cid and Queenie don’t even know that I still have it. I tried to put it back that night Cheryl and I were here. I never meant to keep it.
Despite our fear, we walk cautiously to the back room. But the only reminder of the horrible event is the fallen beam. It’s been pushed to one side, the butt end still resting in the trough where it ended Jed’s life. Ted Henry is nowhere in sight.