Snow Ride by Bonnie Bryant Page B

hurts.”
    “Let’s take a look,” Stevie said in her most matter-of-fact, mother-taking-charge tone of voice. Obediently Dinah swung her feet over the edge of the bed and sat upright. First Stevie checked the scrape on her face. It was definitely ugly, but it seemed to be healing. Then Dinah hiked up her pajama bottoms to display the damage on her legs. Stevie examined them, pretending that Dinah was a horse who needed some tending. Stevie was pretty good at tending to horses. She didn’t have much experience with humans, butshe figured they couldn’t be terribly different. At least she hoped they weren’t.
    The long scrape on Dinah’s leg was red, but less so than it had been. “The infection is going away,” Stevie said. “See how the redness is paling. So keep putting the goo on it. The same goo should go on your face, too. It helps.”
    There was a deep purple bruise on one thigh that Dinah said hurt, but was okay. Stevie agreed. It was just a bruise. No swelling or anything. Then, on one of Dinah’s knees Stevie found something that worried her a little. It was purplish and swollen. The bruise had the distinct shape of a horseshoe.
    “I think I remember Goldie using that knee as a starting block for his hundred-meter dash,” Dinah joked weakly. “It’s hard to put weight on it.”
    Stevie wrinkled her brow and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “You need a leg wrap,” she said finally.
    Dinah laughed. “You think I’m some kind of a horse?”
    “Not really,” Stevie said. “But you know if you saw that kind of swelling on a horse, you’d wrap it, right?”
    “I guess,” Dinah agreed. “But you were always better at horse care than I was.”
    “So wouldn’t that be right for a person, too?”
    “Why not?” Dinah answered. “I think there’s an elastic bandage in the bathroom. You do the honors.”
    Stevie felt comfortable doing this. Horses often needed to have their legs wrapped. Sometimes it was to help withhealing. Other times it was to avoid injuries. In any case, one of the first things she’d learned to do for horses was to wrap legs. She did it quickly and efficiently.
    “Makes me feel like having oats for supper,” Dinah said. She giggled. Then she whinnied for emphasis. It was just about the first laugh Stevie had heard from her since her fall. It sounded very good to Stevie. She thought that maybe laughter would be better medicine even than leg wraps.
    “No, hot mash,” Stevie said. “We believe in it for our sick horses. Of course, the vet says it doesn’t make a darn bit of difference to the horses, but it makes
us
feel better.”
    Then Stevie finished checking the other wounds. Like the first bad scratch and the bruise, they all appeared painful, but healing.
    “Now it’s time to walk you around the paddock a few times,” Stevie said. “If you don’t keep moving at least a little, you’re going to stiffen up.”
    Dinah was afraid and Stevie could see it. She was afraid of how much it was going to hurt. Stevie didn’t know what to do for a person who was afraid, but she knew what to do for a horse who was. The first thing any rider did with a frightened horse was to talk. Stevie helped Dinah stand up, and she began talking.
    “I couldn’t believe how high that beginners’ hill was when we first got off the lift,” she began, holding one of Dinah’s arms across her shoulder and putting her own armaround her friend’s waist. She helped her stand. “The lift ride had made it seem like nothing at all, but the first look down …”
    Dinah took a few steps.
    “… then by the time I’d fallen down eighteen times, I seemed to be getting the hang of it—skiing, I mean, not falling down.”
    Dinah laughed and walked some more. Stevie let her walk more on her own.
    “I’ve got to tell you, though, there are a lot of people out on that hill who really don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just falling all over the place. One guy actually fell on me twice! Of