Free Colt by Nancy Springer

riding so he didn’t have to struggle out of the braces before he got on the horse. No need, because he wouldn’t be riding.
    Four Flowerses and one Vittorio piled into the car to go out to Deep Meadows Farm, and it didn’t occur to Colt to wonder why everyone was coming along. It was Christmas, a family day. Naturally this family would do things as a family.
    Colt forgot he had ever felt angry and hurt at Liverwurst the moment he saw that familiar ugly head thrust out over the stall door. “Hey, Liverwurst!” he called in greeting, and he walked, crutches whirling, at top speed down the stable aisle. It was good to be standing up, to be able to cuddle Liverwurst’s head against his chest and lean his cheek against Liverwurst’s wisp of a forelock. He slipped off his crutches so he could use his hands, steadied himself against the stall door, and rubbed Liverwurst’s cheekbones. Liverwurst smelled the apple in his jacket pocket and nosed at it, hinting. Colt fed it to him, and then the carrot. “Merry Christmas, Liverwurst,” he said huskily. “How you been?”
    â€œHe’s been fine, but he’s missed you.” It was Janet Reynolds, in blue jeans even on Christmas day, smiling at him across the stable aisle. “How are you, Colt?”
    Coming from her, this was not just a polite thing to say. She was really asking. “I’m okay,” Colt said.
    And then he saw.
    In the stall beside her, a horse he had never seen on her farm before.
    Even though he could see only the head and neck, it was, he knew at once, the prettiest horse he had ever seen off a TV screen. It had a delicate, gentle face the color of old gold, with a wide starred forehead between eyes like the nighttime sky. Over the eyes cascaded a silver waterfall of forelock. A mass of mane of the same brilliant silver flowed down the horse’s neck, and in it Colt saw stirrings of red and green where thin Christmas-colored tendrils of ribbon were wound into the forelock and mane and tied in tiny bows at the horse’s arched crest. It looked like a horse out of a Christmas dream, all gift-gold and moon-silver and starlight sparkle in the eyes—so beautiful Colt gawked and leaned against Liverwurst for support.
    â€œWhat—what horse is that?” he gasped.
    Instead of answering, Mrs. Reynolds opened the stall door and led the horse out with just a rope looped around its neck. She brought it over to where it could snuffle Colt. It was a small horse, not much bigger than a big pony, and its body had a soft, round, graceful look. Even in velvety winter fur, its brown-gold haunches were faintly mottled with dapples. It was all of that rich color except for its heavy silver mane and tail, its star and its small hooves. They were clay-gray and unshod, and Colt noticed that when the little horse walked, it seemed to glide like a dancer, nearly crossing its feet in the front.
    â€œHer name is Bonita,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “She’s a Paso Fino. The color is called ‘chocolate palomino.’”
    Colt’s mother and Brad and Rosie and Lauri were standing in a cluster not far away, all watching, all smiling, looking content just to let Colt pat a horse on Christmas—which was all he was ever going to be able to do with horses again: pat them.
    Bonita smelled the carrot juice on Colt and nuzzled his hand. He felt sorry he did not have a treat left for her.
    â€œShe’s beautiful ,” he told Mrs. Reynolds. “Is she yours?” She might have belonged to someone else. Mrs. Reynolds kept a few horses belonging to other people at her farm.
    â€œIf you want to see whose she is,” said Mrs. Reynolds, “you’d better read the card.”
    Card? She pointed it out to him. Tied onto a ribbon, it hung nearly hidden in Bonita’s thick mane.
    If this is some kind of joke …
    Colt didn’t dare look at anyone as he reached for the card with a