Free Season of Ponies by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Page B

black water. For a moment her cloak of feathers spread out behind her and she looked like a huge black bird in flight. Then she disappeared beneath the slimy surface.
    Pamela and Ponyboy watched in horror. The dark water swirled. Bubbles foamed upward and then stopped. Finally all was still.
    For a long minute the boy and girl stared at each other in horrified silence. Both of Pamela’s hands were pressed to her mouth holding back a scream, and even Ponyboy’s face was pale.
    But soon Ponyboy was himself again. “Cheer up,” he grinned, giving Pamela a shake. “I don’t think we’ll miss her a bit.”

Back to Oak Farm
    O N THE WAY BACK across the swamp Pamela couldn’t help asking some questions even though she knew how Ponyboy felt about them.
    “Why didn’t the Pig Woman’s song enchant me?” she asked.
    Ponyboy shrugged. “Because you’re just a girl,” he said. “It didn’t work on girl things.”
    “What will my aunts say?” Pamela asked later. “I’ve been gone a long time.”
    “Oh, we’ll make it look as if you’ve been lost in the woods,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”
    But Pamela’s last questions Ponyboy couldn’t answer. “What,” she said, “are we going to do with all those pigs?”
    They were all following, quietly and tamely, dozens and dozens of thin black pigs with sad pleading eyes.
    “Do you suppose all those pigs were boys once?”
    “Maybe some of them,” Ponyboy answered. “But some were probably animals. The Pig Woman’s song worked on animals, too. Some of them might even be girls. Her song didn’t work on girl things, but she might have caught them some other way.”
    “Oh, the poor things,” Pamela cried. “Won’t they ever change back?”
    “I don’t know,” Ponyboy answered. “But they can’t follow me around forever. The ponies wouldn’t like it.”
    Pamela was so tired that they had to rest many times on their way across the swamp, so it was almost evening again before they reached the other side where the pony herd was waiting.
    The ponies crowded around them wild with joy. They pushed and shoved as each tried to get closest to the children. But when they saw the pigs, they snorted and shied. Ponyboy had to lead them away before he was able to calm them.
    When they reached the meadow, they all stopped to drink from the spring and eat some food. By then Pamela was so tired and sleepy she could hardly move.
    “You might as well sleep a little while,” Ponyboy said. “You’re so late now, a few more hours won’t matter.”
    So they lay down in the soft warm grass, each with a pony for a pillow, and fell fast asleep. All around the meadow the poor ugly pigs lay down and slept, too.
    Pamela awakened first. She sat up and stretched and rubbed her eyes. Then she stared in shocked surprise. The ugly black pigs were gone, and all around the clearing were sleeping animals and boys, lovely spotted fawns, wooly bear cubs, lambs and colts, and perhaps a dozen real live boys.
    Just then Ponyboy woke up, too. When he saw the boys and animals, he grinned and motioned for Pamela to be quiet. Silently they roused the ponies and rode away from the clearing.
    When they were well into the forest, Pamela asked, “Why didn’t you want to wake them?”
    “There you go again, asking questions.” Ponyboy grinned. “They won’t have any trouble finding their way back to where they came from now. They don’t need us any more, and besides—they might ask questions. And you know how I feel about that!”
    As they drew nearer and nearer to Oak Farm, Pamela became more and more worried. She was quite sure that Aunt Sarah would never accept so simple an explanation of where she had been as the one Ponyboy suggested. After all, she couldn’t get lost in the forest for a whole day and part of a night (and in her nightdress, too) and expect people not to ask how and why.
    Pamela felt odd as the pony herd crowded around her to say good-by in the little grove behind