Free The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter by Holly Robinson Page B

detective Trixie Belden, one of my favorite fictional heroines because she survived rabid dogs and poisonous snakes while solving dark mysteries, I longed for a horse of my very own. At times I even went around quoting the opening dialogue from
The Secret Mansion
, with the appropriate dramatic gestures.
    “Oh, Moms,” I’d moan, running my fingers through my short, sandy curls. “I’ll just
die
if I don’t have a horse.”
    “Why are you calling me that?” Mom would respond. “Stop whining. If wishes were horses, you’d have stables full of them by now.”
    Finally, though, she gave in. As Mom reasoned with my father, sitting on a horse under the watchful eye of an Army instructor had to be safer for me than spending free hours in some teenager’s smoky basement or taking my new breasts for a strut around the pool. She convinced him to buy a small gray mare that I named Ladybug because Trixie Belden’s first mount was called Lady.
    People came and went from Fort Leavenworth every few months or years as Army orders dictated, and they rarely took their horses with them. The lieutenant colonel who sold usLadybug just days before he was sent to Vietnam assured us that the mare was “child-safe.”
    Ladybug certainly looked docile enough, with her long-lashed doe’s eyes, sweet brown freckles, round belly, and snow-white mane and tail. However, my new mount had a nasty habit of holding her breath whenever she was saddled, so it was impossible to get the girth tight. Later, we’d learn the knack of fastening the girth and then giving the mare a sharp knee jab to the belly to get her to expel her breath while we cinched the saddle tighter. But that first day, Mom mounted Ladybug, urged her to trot around the ring, and immediately found herself hanging upside down and being dragged through the dust by one stirrup.
    “That horse is cute but tricky,” Mom pronounced when she managed to get herself untangled and dusted off.
    Dad eyed my new horse with suspicion. “That animal doesn’t seem child-safe to me,” he said. “What if Holly gets hurt?”
    “Oh, she’ll be fine,” Mom said breezily, trying not to limp as she led Ladybug over to the mounting block. “You have to get thrown at least thirty times before you’re a real rider.” My mother pulled herself back into the saddle, wincing just a little. This time the horse behaved, trotting and cantering smartly about the ring, tossing her head just like all of my fantasy horses had tossed theirs.
    “Maybe we should try to get our money back,” Dad said when Mom finished riding and handed the reins to me.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure the owner’s already parachuted into some Vietnamese jungle,” Mom said.
    I took Ladybug’s reins and quickly led her out of earshot of my parents. “You’re the most beautiful horse in the whole world,” I whispered, stroking her velvety gray muzzle. “I’m going to wear a picture of you in my locket.”
    Ladybug was the sort of horse “who feels her oats,” as my instructor put it, bucking and spooking sideways whenever the wind whipped up mini-tornadoes in the dusty riding ring, or trying to rub me off on a tree the minute my seat was loose. Within six months, though, I was a competent enough rider to start entering equitation classes in the local horse shows, and Ladybug and I won ribbons and trophies together.
    My true love was trail riding, though, which brought a measure of peace not only to me but also to my mother, who would get babysitters for Gail and ride with me on a horse she’d bought for herself, an elegant bay Thoroughbred named Robin. When we were out on the bridle trails, alone on the narrow paths that wound through the fields and woods of Fort Leavenworth, it was as if she and I had assumed false identities and traveled to a foreign country.
    With nothing more to disturb us than birdsong and the soft snorting sounds of the horses, we were transported far away, and never fought the way we did