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Page 6 

Katy laid down her pencil and looked down at Nicole, who was lying on the lower level of the bunk bed reading a fictional horse book. Her sister put her book down and looked up. She smiled when she saw Katy looking down at her.

Nicole was spending the night at Katy's house, although their parents were still in the neighboring house. She loved Katy's room. 'I love this house! It's going to be so much fun living here. And just think. Soon I'll have the huge room next to this one. I don't even mind that it doesn't have a bathroom!' she complimented it. 'Even my room doesn't have this much stuff!' she had said, looking around.

Now Nicole rolled off the bed. 'Let's play a game. Or let's play horses."

Katy hopped down, not even bothering with the stairs on the bunk bed. 'Yes, let's play horses. You brought one, didn't you?'

'Yes. I brought my favorite two.' Nicole reached for her backpack and pulled out two models. One was a palomino yearling colt. His tail was arched and his eyes were wide, and he was in a stance that suggested sudden surprise. The other one was a blue roan Thoroughbred gelding in a jumping form.

'The palomino one is a one of my favorites because he's so cute. His name is Beggar's Pride, and the blue roan is named Speed Demon, after a racehorse that my friend's father owns. He's really cute. I'd like to own him one day,' she explained.

'Hey, that's pretty neat. I like the colt.' asked Nicole, pulling Fairy, her gray jumping Trakehner mare, down from her shelf. The mare was her favorite model. She surveyed the other models and finally settled on Rufflame, a red chestnut rearing Thoroughbred stallion.

'Yeah, I do too,' exclaimed Nicole. 'He looks like a horse I saw one time on a farm that we were passing on one of our vacations. I'll probably never see him again, but I wish I could. He's gorgeous!' Nicole told Katy all about the fantastic horses while Katy was getting out her bins of homemade horse tack.

Katy spread out perfect replicas of halters, with real metal rings and chains on the leads, and even hooks and snaps. There were all sizes and colors, and they were all adjustable, so they could fit any horse that Katy wanted them to. There were real leather bridles and saddles, both English and Western. They were perfectly detailed down to the adjustable girths and saddle flaps. There were miniature brushes, currycombs, mane and tail brushes, hoof picks, blankets, coolers, saddle racks, and everything else imaginable.

Then Katy opened the closet and pulled out the massive homemade horse barn that she and her grandfather had built. It had ten stalls and two tack rooms. There were runs attached to the stalls, with turf outside. The roof lifted off, and the swinging stall doors with working latches and hooks were revealed.

The barn was almost perfect, down to the tiniest detail. There were tiny shavings in the stalls, and Katy brushed some of them aside to show off the little stall mats. There were hay feeders stuffed with hay mounted on the walls and rubber corner feeders full of birdseed-for grain, Katy explained.

There were lots of bridle hooks and saddle racks in the tack rooms, and separate from the barn was a shed full of real little hay bales and tiny grain cans full of grain that was much too large for the horses. Katy explained that it came from her old barn. 'You should grind it up with a coffee grinder or something,''' suggested Nicole.

'Hey, yeah! That's a great idea! I'll have do that, but not right now.' She went back to sorting tack, uncovering everything from pitchforks and brooms to muck buckets and wheelbarrows.

There was another part of the set that was collapsible; it opened into a stable yard, and it had three paddocks and a riding arena, with bleachers and even a separate dressage arena. There was realistic turf on it, and it hooked onto the barn part of the set. It was a real work of art. There was even a tractor with a miniature metal harrow to smooth the dirt in the arena. Katy had made everything imaginable.

'This thing is such a pain to put away, though. Every time I fold it up I have to dump all the dirt in a bag, put all the tack away, make sure everything's secure-I guess that's why I just store the whole thing on the floor in one piece,' Katy explained.

Katy set Fairy and Rufflame in adjoining stalls. Nicole put Beggar's Pride and Speed Demon into the stalls across from them. To fill up the other stalls, Katy grabbed six more horses.

There was Rejoice, a little shaggy black pony; Enquirer, a chestnut Thoroughbred gelding; Countess, a bay Arabian mare-named after the real thing; Bailey, a gray Belgian Warmblood gelding; Star of Heights, a palomino mustang mare, and Wonderworld, a black Arabian stallion.

Nicole had only a few of the horses that Katy had, so they decided to compare horses later. For the time being, they dressed up their horses in their homemade tack. When Nicole was finished with her story of the colt and gelding, Katy told her all about the beautiful gray mare that she had walked at the rest stop. Nicole was amazed. 'I can't believe he let you walk them!' she exclaimed. 'I never have that kind of luck!'

'I don't know, I guess he thought I was trustworthy'Hey! He said he was taking those horses to Idaho, and Spruce Ridge! I wonder if she is here, at Spruce Ridge! Wouldn't that be great?!' Katy had a sudden thought. 'I've already seen Jehosephat and Phantom! Maybe they are all here!'

Nicole looked up from the jumps she was assembling on the floor into a show jumping course. 'Yeah, it'd be great, but I don't think that could happen. It would be too coincidental. You'd be too lucky to have all the horses end up here. You said that he said that they were going to different parts of the state, right?'

'Yes-still, though, it is possible. Wouldn't that be so wonderful? Maybe I could get Gran and Grampa to let me buy the mare. Oops, I mean Mom and Dad. Oh, wow.' Katy sat back, a look of pure rapture on her face.

Nicole shook her. 'Let's play now. And yes, that would be great if she was here and you got her.' She rolled her eyes. Fortunately, Katy didn't see her, as she was putting the horses in the stalls, trying to figure out which horse should go into which stall.

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