Free Gift Horse by Dandi Daley Mackall Page A

frowned at the little white dog.
    Just being inside the Barkers’ house felt like Christmas, as if they loved each other so much it spilled over and got into the furniture and stove and everything else in the house.
    Granny B had a story for every ornament she hung on the tree, and every story embarrassed one of the Barker boys.
    M stared at a tiny nativity ornament, picturing Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus in the stable. “Nice-looking baby,” he commented.
    Granny Barker stared at the ornament with him.
    â€œDid you see my Christmas bulletin on the Pet Help Line homepage?” Barker asked, standing on a stool to hang Matthew’s old baby shoe on a high branch.
    â€œExtremely cool!” Catman said, stringing a gold cord where Mrs. Barker pointed.
    â€œWhat?” I asked, struck with a pang of guilt that I hadn’t answered the horse e-mail in a couple of days.
    â€œI made a dog lover’s Christmas list on how to dog-proof your house at Christmas. You know—like no tinsel.”
    â€œIt’s metal!” Matthew added, glaring at me as if I’d dared to bring tinsel into his house. “Tinsel can mess up a dog’s insides. And cover your tree water with foil!”
    Barker got down from his stool. “And warnings about Christmas-light cords and berries on string, things dogs could chew. And no English holly, amaryllis, or mistletoe.”
    â€œThey’re poison to dogs!” Matthew declared, petting Bull.
    M had disappeared. I glanced around the room.
    â€œPuppies,” Catman said, as if reading my mind and telling me where M would be. He headed down the back hallway, and I trailed after him.
    Mark scurried after me. “My dogs are growing fast,” he said.
    Poor Mr. and Mrs. Barker still had a fight on their hands.
    We found M lying on his back, with all four puppies crawling over him. The biggest one was chewing on M’s ponytail. Two of the others were licking his face.
    Catman and I played with them, too. And for almost an hour I forgot about everything that was going wrong with Christmas.

    On Thursday, Mason helped M and Catman and me pile fresh grass hay in Gracie’s stall. We let Mason, secure in his cowboy boots and riding helmet, sit on Gracie’s back while we led her up and down the stallway. M was the one who got Madeline to give us the okay.
    When we finished, M held Mason up and let him press his ear against Gracie’s belly.
    Mason giggled, and his thick-lensed glasses scooted down his nose. “Is it hard for a mommy horse to have a baby?” he asked, his voice soft as a horse’s muzzle.
    â€œEasier than it is on cows,” I answered truthfully. I didn’t add that if something does go wrong with a mare in foal, it’s almost always serious, a lot more dangerous than with cows.
    â€œI love Gracie and her baby,” Mason said, trying to wrap his thin arms around the horse.
    God, please don’t let Mason get hurt. Make everything go okay. I’d been thinking it, and then I was praying it. God and I had come a long way since I’d moved to Ashland. For a time after Mom died, I refused to talk to God, much less listen to him. But praying was getting more natural, even automatic sometimes. I had a long way to go before I prayed like Lizzy or our mom, though.
    Mason was staring at Gracie’s gray-dappled splotches.
    â€œWill you help me make a first-aid kit, Mason?” I asked, not wanting him to go away to the secret place in his mind. I knew Madeline still hated it when Mason followed us to the barn. But I also knew it wasn’t because she thought we couldn’t take care of him. She didn’t want her son to get too attached to the mare.
    It was too late for that.
    Mason brought out towels from the supply room. I gathered clean strips of cloth, string, scissors, a squeeze bottle, iodine, soap, bandages, and plastic sleeves, which are like big gloves. We packed everything into a