A Summer Without Horses by Bonnie Bryant Page A

stopped as if he wanted to listen. His ears perked up and pointed around, like periscopes. Horses have very good hearing and if Topside was listening, I knew I needed to listen, too.
    I heard crying. It sounded like someone was hurt, and it was coming from over the top of the hill, right near the quarry. My worst fears were being realized.
    “I’m coming!” I yelled and then I gave Topside such a nudge that he was startled into action. He got the message, sensing my urgency, and he was up and over the hillside in a matter of seconds.
    “I’ll be right there! Hold on! Wait for me!” I called, sending my voice ahead, hoping to give some reassurance to the child in trouble.
    What I saw when we crested the hill will stay in my mind forever, along with the feeling of worry, shame, and embarrassment about my own part in what had happened. The kids were all on the far side of the quarry. Leslie was sitting on the ground, crying. Reuben and Natalie were standing next to her. There was no sign of any of their ponies. Mark and Jessica were still on their ponies, but just barely. Jessica’s saddle was slipping off to the left. Mark was having trouble controlling Penny and was clutching her mane for dear life.
    “I’ll be right there,” I called across the quarry. “Don’t do anything, okay?”
    It took me and Topside a few minutes to get over to theother side of the quarry. I only remember thinking how relieved I was to know that the kids were okay—if you didn’t count Leslie’s knee. I don’t even remember wondering about the three missing ponies. As long as the kids were safe, everything else was going to work out, right?

A LL FIVE KIDS started talking at once. Four, actually, because what Leslie did was to cry some more.
    “Stop, stop, stop!” I said, dismounting as carefully as I’d mounted in the first place. I secured Topside’s reins to a tree and then knelt as best I could beside Leslie to take a look at her knee.
    It was okay. She just needed to know that.
    “Oh, boy, I know that hurts, Leslie, but you’re going to be all right.”
    “I am?”
    “Sure. I’ve had worse.”
    “You have?”
    “Well, there was the time I thought it would be a neat idea to let our dog pull me along the sidewalk when I was on roller skates.…”
    Leslie got the picture and made a face.
    “The good news about that was that I did a job on both of my knees and it was so bad I charged kids twenty-five cents to take a look. I don’t think this is going to be worth more than a dime.”
    She laughed. That made me feel better. It made her feel better, too.
    “Look, the creek runs right over there. Natalie, take Leslie over to it and see if you can rinse away some of the dirt. We’ll give you a good cleanup when we get back to Pine Hollow, but for now, this’ll do, okay?”
    Natalie helped Leslie stand up, held her arm across her shoulder, and the two of them walked slowly toward the creek. I turned to take care of the next problem—Jessica.
    “Don’t do anything right now, Jessica,” I said as I walked over toward her. “If you move any more, you’ll shift your weight and the saddle will go the whole way. Stay steady. Hold the reins firmly. Not too tight.”
    I kept talking and she kept listening. She just froze in place. The pony, whose name was Dime, wasn’t any more comfortable with the saddle shifted to the side than Jessica was. He didn’t move, either. I stood next to Dime, offered my arms to help Jessica down, and she took the offer. The instant she was out of the saddle, the whole thing slipped all the way, and hung there, upside down. I hated to think what would have happened if Jessica were still aboard.
    “The same thing happened to Nickel!” Reuben said.That explained Leslie’s fall, but it didn’t explain why we had five riders and only two ponies.
    “As soon as Leslie fell, Natalie and Reuben got down off their ponies to help her. The ponies just ran off!” Jessica said. “Maybe they were scared