Free A Horse Called El Dorado by Kevin Kiely

you’re able to crack a joke like your father,’ she laughed.
    I laughed too. I had never heard of anyone ‘cracking’ a joke before.
    I was left alone in the quiet bathroom. It had thick bubble glass and outside it was pitch dark. I rubbed soap into my hair and played with the sponge, submerging itin the water and then squeezing it out over myself. Then I lay there for a long time in the hot water, wondering what would happen to me.
    After my bath I got into bed and Grandma brought me some hot cocoa. It was sweet and delicious, but after one sip I was fast asleep. It was dark and I could hear jeeps coming into the commune and shots being fired. The guerrillas were back. My mother was shaking me to get up and run, but when I opened my eyes it was Grandma, with Grandad standing behind her.
    ‘Are you all right, Pepe?’ she asked, sitting down on the bed and stroking my forehead.
    ‘You gave a shout. I think you must have been fighting a tiger in the jungle,’ said Grandad. ‘You’re safe here. We have two dogs, Bran and Emo, and two cats, Max and Mojo. They’re all outside keeping watch.’
    Grandma stayed in the room with me, talking softly until I dozed off again.

Chapter 15
    I woke to a damp, grey October morning. It took me a few moments to remember where I was, and then I jumped up out of bed and pulled back the curtains. With my nose up to the glass I had a view of the yard at the back of the house. There was a wheelbarrow with buckets in it. Behind a hedge were four goats. To the right was a small, stone outhouse and to the left another hedge. In front of this on a clothesline, my towel hung to dry among some other items. Some chance in this damp weather, I thought to myself. Where was the sun? The light outside was very dull. It looked cold. The hedge was a tangle of different types of leaves and thorns, an incredible weave of growth and colour. The few trees I could see had bronze and copper leaves that seemed to be shivering. I felt a bit of a shivering leaf myself.
    Downstairs there were voices so I crept to my door, opened it and listened.
    ‘There isn’t a pick on him,’ Grandma was saying, and she did not mean her favourite goat.
    ‘He is small for his age all right,’ said Grandad, ‘and thin as a greyhound.’
    ‘Well, I can fatten him up, but what will we do with him then?’ ‘He can help out. Sure, there’s plenty to be done,’ Grandad said.
    They talked on about me. About my papa and mama. They had not a good word to say for my parents. ‘ Irresponsible ’ was what they called my papa. I would look that word up when I had a chance. Then I heard another word, one that I dreaded: school. It seemed that Grandma was a teacher, because Grandad kept saying, ‘You can teach him at home,’ but she did not agree.
    ‘He cannot stay with us every day,’ she argued. ‘We can put up with each other, but why should he have to put with us?’
    ‘I think he might like it. He’s used to life on a commune and that is what we have here, sort of, a commune of our own.’
    ‘Commune!’ Grandma exclaimed. ‘Are you cracked? We’re not a commune! There are only the two of us. Can you not count?’
    Her tone of voice was not cross, though. In fact, as I would learn, my grandparents never argued. Instead they laughed a lot, each making out that the other one was daft or going ‘batty’.
    I waited until it was quiet before I came downstairs. Grandma had gone to her class. She taught in a school for children with special needs in Navan, a big town near us, but further away than Kells. I had a chance toexplore while Grandad was outside, washing some buckets in the yard.
    The house was very old. Every ceiling in every room had damp patches and cracked plaster. The stairs wobbled and squeaked loudly. There were two windows in the long kitchen, an Aga cooker, a radio and a small television on a shelf above the door. Everything in the house seemed to lead into and out of the kitchen – the back door, a