Centaur Rising by Jane Yolen Page A

riders.
    Mom changed none of the decorations or furniture when we took over. She said we’d better places to put our money, meaning—I think—into food for horses and new tack. Still, with a desk full of pictures—Mom and me, Robbie and me, Martha and me (though Martha’s clearly snarling in the photo)—it looks like we put the room together ourselves. There’s also a picture of me holding Robbie when he first came home from the hospital. Pretty much all you can see is a bundle.
    Any pictures of my dad were removed after he left. Mom may have thrown them away or put them in the burn barrel along with his jodhpurs and riding jeans. What she doesn’t know is that I found a couple of pictures of him in an old album. I keep them in a box in my closet, along with his riding crop and the two blue ribbons he won on Bor at the county fair. I’ve never shown them to Robbie.
    *   *   *
    It was sure to be crowded in the office, what with the Angottis, Mr. and Mrs. Proper and their three children, Mrs. Fischer, and Professor Harries, who usually rode only on Sunday and was just here to collect her horse.
    I turned and winked at Robbie. “Aren’t we glad not to have to be official?” I said.
    â€œIt might be interesting,” he said.
    â€œIt might be hot and full of angry people,” I told him.
    He nodded. “It might be full of Mrs. Angotti’s words.”
    â€œAnd Joey picking his nose.”
    â€œAnd Angela sulking.”
    We ran out of mights , and I glanced over at Agora and Kai.
    It would probably take some time before Agora could relax enough to let her ears come forward again. But Kai was already fine, lying down in the straw and playing with his fingers as if counting them.
    I knelt down in the straw next to him and began to teach him a real game—peekaboo. After the first two times, he couldn’t get enough of it, breaking out into peals of laughter every time my face appeared from behind my hands. I got tired of it long before he did.
    Next I taught him patty-cake. And when I said, “Put it in the oven for Kai and me,” he said, “Kai, Kai, Kai,” and pointed to himself. So I taught him “Mama,” for Agora, “Mom” for Mom, and “Marmar” for Martha, and of course “Robbie” and “Ari,” though he had known some form of all those already. But this time we worked on proper pronunciation, no more baby talk.
    Boy, was he quick!
    Getting bored with the names and the patty-cake game—too tame, I suppose—he started back on peekaboo again, only this time getting to his feet and trotting over to play with Robbie, who had much more patience for the game than I did. They went on and on for such a long time, I walked over to Agora, who was getting anxious again because the two boys were laughing so loudly.
    Brushing her mane almost did the trick. I could still see those little ripples of irritation running like rivers under her skin, but what finally soothed her was that Kai remembered that he was thirsty and came over to nurse.
    Of course, as soon as he was done, he trotted back to Robbie. “More,” he said.
    â€œShould I tell him some nursery rhymes?” Robbie asked.
    I nodded and he started on the horse rhymes he could remember, like “Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross,” “Trot, Trot to Boston,” and “All the king’s horses…”
    Kai was standing by Robbie’s chair and smiling and nodding his head to the rhythm of the rhymes when his eyes began to go half-mast. And between one recitation of “Humpty Dumpty” and the next, he fell asleep standing up.
    â€œWow,” whispered Robbie, “isn’t that something !”
    â€œJust the way you used to fall asleep,” I told him. “Milk and nursery rhymes and”—I snapped my fingers—“out you went.”
    He giggled. “I bet I didn’t do