BOOK WHISKERS

I was a horse-crazy little sister that always got in the way of my older sister when she wanted to do anything that involved horses. I only sort of felt bad when Mom made them drag me along.

I especially remember one time when my sister, three years older than me, was getting ready to go somewhere. I think I was about seven. I remember because of what happened.

“Where ya’ goin’?” I asked her.

“I’m going to see a horse get shooed.”

Shooed? Why would someone shoo a horse away? Maybe I could catch it when they shooed it. Then it would be mine.

“I want to go too,” I whined.

“No! This is for my Girl Scout Badge. You’re just a Brownie.”

Mom overheard us. “Gayle, you can’t go unless Teresa goes too.”

Gayle huffed. “I don’t see why Teresa has to go everywhere with me.” She stomped her feet and headed for the door.

I ran after her, out the door and down the street.

To my surprise we ended up at my friend’s house. Holly was the luckiest girl in the world because her family had two horses, right in their own backyard! My family had a pool, and everyone said I was lucky, but I would’ve traded my pool in a minute for a horse.

I traipsed after Gayle all the way back to the horse barn. She walked fast and I could barely keep up.

A man had one of Holly’s horses tied up by his truck. It was Penny Boy, a palomino gelding with big brown eyes and a sweet face. My favorite.

Gayle joined her Girl Scout friends gathered near Penny Boy, said something, then they looked at me and giggled, while I stayed by myself, ready to burst into action whenever someone shooed the horse. Where is that horse anyway? I fidgeted in the hot sun.

Clang, clang, clang. The man banged a hammer on some big old iron thing set up by his truck. He held up something metal up in the air, squinting at it, then nodded his head before walking over to Penny Boy. He picked up one of Penny Boy’s front legs and held the metal thing against the bottom of his hoof.

I trotted over to Gayle and whispered. “When are they going to shoo the horse? What horse are they going to shoo anyway?” There were only Holly’s two horses there and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t shoo either of them.

Gayle looked at me like I was a creature from Mars. “That’s what he’s doing. He’s shooing Penny Boy now.”

“But why are they shooing Penny Boy? Don’t they want him anymore?”

Again, the look from my sister. “No—they are putting shoes ON him. See, that man is the shoer, and that’s a horseshoe he’s putting on Penny Boy.”

Thud, thud, thud. The man hammered the shoe onto Penny Boy’s hoof.

Ouch! I moved closer to see if it hurt Penny Boy.

“Teresa,” Gayle said, “he puts the nails into the hoof wall. That’s the outer part of the hoof. It’s just like our fingernails. It doesn’t hurt when Mom clips your nails, right? So, Penny Boy doesn´t feel any pain when the nails get hammered into the hoof wall.”

“Oh, so that’s what you meant when you said a horse was getting shooed today?” My heart and my hopes were shattered, as only a seven-year-old’s can be.

There were a few titters among the older girls. One of them spoke up. “Well, actually it’s called getting ‘shod’. That’s what we’re learning today. And that man is a farrier.”

“Oh.”

I never did get to catch a shooed horse that day. But I did learn a lot, and I had many wonderful adventures with Penny Boy in the years ahead. But that’s another story.