Read Online Boy on a Black Horse by Nancy; Springer - Free Book Online

I bet we don’t. Or oatmeal bath, or Caladryl ointment …”
    â€œYou need some things?” Topher asked her. “I’ll go get them.”
    â€œWould you?” She sounded surprised and glad to see him there. “I’ll give you the money.”
    â€œNo, you won’t. And any other kind of help you need, you call me. I feel responsible, bringing this passel of God-knows-what in here.”
    I missed the rest, getting a thermometer for Chavali. Chav wouldn’t put her down. Instead of tucking her into the ruffled bed in the peach-colored bedroom that used to belong to Cassie, he sat on it and held her. Baval said, “Chill out, bro,” and sat beside him.
    â€œOne-oh-three,” Liana read the thermometer a few minutes later. “That’s not so bad, but let’s get her in a tub of tepid water to bring that down.” She peeled back some of the blankets and said straight to Chavali, “Is that okay, honey? Will you come with me and get a bath to make you feel better?”
    It was like a little miracle. Chavali, the shy one, smiled and held out her arms.
    A couple of hours later, after chicken soup and a dose of Tylenol and an oatmeal bath and some Caladryl ointment on her spots, Chavali really was feeling better. In fact, she was feeling good enough to make Chav do something he didn’t want to do.
    â€œStory!”
    â€œNot right now.”
    â€œYes, right now!”
    â€œC’mon, sis. Give me a break.”
    They were in the peach bedroom, with Chavali snug in the bed now, and Liana and I were out in the kitchen putting things away after a late supper. Their voices floated down the hallway to us.
    â€œI can’t,” Chav was saying. His voice sounded very tired. “Baval, you tell it to her.”
    â€œYou tell her. You’re the one who remembers.”
    I looked at Liana, and my eyes signaled, That’s strange. Baval was old enough to remember most of what Chav did.
    She nodded and stopped banging bread pans. We both eavesdropped.
    â€œListen,” Chav said, “how about a new story?”
    This must have been okay with Chavali. There was a silence and a rustling of the quilt while Chav stalled for time by getting himself settled on her bed. “This is a story about the night,” he said.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause in a minute I am going to turn off the light and you are going to go to sleep. And it will be night in here. Now, listen. In a stable there is a black horse in the black night.”
    â€œRom? Our black horse Rom?”
    â€œYes, Rom. The black horse is in the stall in the strange stable all by himself, and he’s a little scared. So he listens hard, like this.”
    I just knew he had his hands up to his head like horse ears pricked forward to hear. To give him some noises to hear, I started sloshing dishes in the sink, and Lee finally got her pans of bread clunked into the hot oven.
    â€œAnd he hears he isn’t alone after all,” Chav said. “There’s a fuzzy little horse in the very next stall. A fat furry mare with curly hair is eating her hay.”
    â€œDiddle!”
    â€œYes, Diddle. The stable man with the sandy mustache has brushed all the dried sweat out of her hair. And he gave her oats and water and hay. Rom too. Now he has gone away, but Diddle is there. What else is there?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Chavali whispered.
    I sneaked a few steps up the hallway to take a look. Sure enough, Chav was doing horse ears.
    â€œThe birds are there in their nests on the beams,” he said. “The mice are there in their nests in the hay. There’s a fat black cricket right on top of the manure pile. There’s a fat black spider on a cobweb on the wall.”
    It was strange what I was thinking, that there were other things in the night too, dangerous things. Once a rabid raccoon had walked right into the stable. Topher had tried to hit it with a shovel,