Free Chocolate Horse by Bonnie Bryant Page B

backthen. She was utterly confused by her feelings and even more confused by her confusion. At the time when she should be happy that Alex was getting better, she was getting angry at him for being sick! Or was she angry at him for getting better? Or was she angry at herself? She had no idea. All she knew for sure was that she had spent all her time with her brother, who didn’t seem to care, and no time at all with her friends, who seemed to care only about her brother. She wanted everything to be the way it used to be. She wanted to be with Carole and Lisa, and she wanted to be with Phil.
    She wanted to go to the dance. She wanted to forget that she’d been sad and worried. She even wanted to forget that she’d done every single assignment from school since Alex had gotten ill!
    She reached for her pillow and hugged it tight until the tears slowed down. Then she lay on her bed, exhausted and spent. She looked around her room. Everything there seemed familiar, but not comforting. She’d cried all right, but it hadn’t changed anything. She was still unhappy and confused. She looked at her horse posters and the model horses on her bookshelves. She loved them, every one of them. Each was special to her. Then her eyes came to the foil-covered chocolate horse. The repair work she’d done on his leg hadn’t held up.He’d fallen over and gotten even more damaged, smashing his nose when he went.
    Stevie stood up from her bed and went to examine him. She’d loved the neat way his ears were so perky and the way his tail fanned out as if brushed by a breeze. A lot of times when people were making horse models of one kind or another, they were sort of phony looking, but not this chocolate horse. He’d been a beauty. Stevie had really loved him. But he didn’t look lovable now. He just looked broken down and even a little melted from when Stevie had left him in the window in the sunlight. That part wasn’t Alex’s fault. She could only blame him for the broken leg. On the other hand, the melted part wouldn’t have been so noticeable if it hadn’t been for the broken leg. Maybe it
was
Alex’s fault. Maybe everything was Alex’s fault. Maybe nothing was.
    Stevie lay back down on her bed and, finally, fell asleep, exhausted and still confused.

“W OW ! W E DID a wonderful job, didn’t we?” Carole asked, walking into the totally transformed feed building. No longer was it a mere shack to hold grains and grass. It was a perfectly decorated old Western dance hall. Everywhere she looked, there were bright red, white, and pink streamers. Red hearts and lanterns hung from the rafters, and the hay bales made perfect benches for kids to sit on when they weren’t dancing.
    “And look at the food!” Lisa said excitedly. They hadn’t been in charge of food. Someone else had done that, and they’d done a wonderful job. Everything was red, white, and pink. There were apples, cherries, fruit punch, cupcakes decorated with pink and red frosting,and even some cookies that had had food dye added to make them pink.
    “Not only does it look pretty, it also looks good,” Phil said, leading the way to the refreshments.
    “Except for the pink cookies,” said Cam. “I just can’t get too excited about pink chocolate-chip cookies.”
    “Until you have a taste,” Carole said, nibbling cautiously at one. “They taste just like the real thing.”
    Cam tried one and relented, agreeing that they did, at least,
taste
good.
    “Wait until our St. Patrick’s Day dance and they all turn green,” said Lisa. “Those take a lot more courage to taste.”
    “I’ll pass,” Cam said.
    “All the more for the rest of us,” Phil said brightly.
    That remark made Lisa smile. It was exactly the kind of thing Stevie would have said. She missed Stevie. She and Carole had missed Stevie a lot over the last ten days. Lisa loved being with Carole, and Carole loved being with Lisa, but each knew that when Stevie was with them, they had more fun.