"All right, helpers! It's time for Operation: Get Ready for Camp!" Mary Alice lifted her arms and gestured for Stacie and Tracey to approach her.
They did, but Tracey was slightly confused. "You mean we're going to operate on the horses?" he frightfully asked.
Stacie laughed. "Oh ho! You're hilarious, Tracey! Oh, that's a good one!" She punched him in the arm.
Tracey flinched and reached for it. "Ow!" While rubbing it, he heard two more excited voices behind him:
"Hey! We made it!" The last two helpers had arrived. Both were girls, which was not surprising.
There was another fourteen-year-old like Stacie. She was a bit bigger than her, but still healthily skinny. Her hair was also long and brown, but it was much curlier than Stacie's, and her eyes were blue. Her name was Corrine.
The final girl was younger. She was no more than ten. At Grove Station Farms, the age when horse students could help at camps was ten, so that was little Leah's first ever camp (much like Tracey). Despite her age, she was pretty tall. She was a skinny girl with brown hair.
It was easy to distinguish Tracey from the crowd with his black hair and golden-brown eyes. That wasn't a common hair and eye color combination. He was also the only boy helper.
"Corrine! Leah! Where have you babies been?" Stacie was the one who said that. She hurried to her friends and gave them a quick hug. She picked Leah up off the ground.
"Stacie, seriously?" she asked. "It's only been three days."
"But that feels like a century ago!" Stacie set Leah down. "Guys! Guys! Meet Tracey! He's our boy helper this week!"
Oh gosh. Tracey hated being put on the spot. He smiled nervously at the last two helpers.
Like Stacie and Mary Alice before her, Corrine's entire face turned red. "What the heck?" she spat.
Stacie cheerfully clapped her hands and said, "I know! Isn't he the cutest little thing you've ever laid your eyes on, Corrine?" She hurried to Tracey. Soon standing beside him, she pinched his cheeks and shook his head around so her friends could see every inch of it. "Just look at these thick locks! How many boys have you seen with this hairstyle? I'm sure he has the cutest ears!"
"No! No! No pulling my ears!" Tracey begged. He quickly pulled Stacie's hand away. He couldn't let the girls see that his ears were pointy.
It wasn't long until Leah rushed to him. She put her hands together and said, "Hi, I'm Leah. Where are you from? Do you really have exceptional talent with horses? Have you ever ridden one before?"
With a nervous chuckle, Tracey explained, "I'm from an island in the Atlantic. My horse skills are… I guess just average, and no, I've never ridden one."
"Really?" Leah asked. "But Mrs. Connie speaks highly of you."
"All right! All right! Let's quit dawdling." Mary Alice clapped her hands to calm everyone. "Sorry about this, Tracey. We've just never had a boy helper before. Leah, go ahead and put up your lunch, and then we'll start setting out food."
"Wait, are we having breakfast?" Tracey wanted to know.
Again, Stacie laughed. "Oh! You kill me, Tracey! But you have a point. I've never actually had horse food before."
"Balto may have some left over in his bin from yesterday," said Corrine. "I dare you, Stacie! I'll pay you five bucks if you eat a handful of his food!"
"Oh! You are so on!" said Stacie. "I'll do anything for money!"
"I know," Corrine said with a smirk.
Mary Alice started to make her way down to the last door in the stable, Leah following, but Tracey, Corrine, and Stacie stayed behind.
Stacie pulled open the door to Balto's stall and stepped inside. Sure enough, he had some leftover food.
Tracey didn't think that she would actually follow through with the bet, but she did.
Stacie picked up a handful of food and popped it into her mouth. Immediately, her cheeks puffed out. "Mmm," she said with a full mouth. "It's delicious! I've always wanted food that tastes like dead fish!"
"You're supposed to swallow it," Corrine said. "Come on, Stace. I have the five bucks right here." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill, starting to swing it in Stacie's face.
Stacie struggled to swallow the food, but did. The second it was down the hatch, she pushed past Tracey and Corrine and hurried to the barn's sink to wash out her mouth.
Wow. Tracey wondered if he was just as crazy as she was when he was fourteen.
Before long, Stacie wandered back to Corrine, and she held her hand out to her. "I believe you owe me five bucks, Corrine."
"A deal's a deal." With that, Corrine set the money in Stacie's hand. However, while she was at the sink, she switched the five-dollar bill for four one-dollar bills.
Stacie counted it before she headed down to join Leah and Mary Alice. "One, two, three, four. Yep, five bucks." And just like that, she jogged down the barn's main room.
***
"So, what do we do after we set out the food?" Tracey asked a little later. He, Mary Alice, Leah, Corrine, and Stacie stood in the middle of the room. Mary Alice had pulled out a wheelbarrow from the food room. In it were a few large bags of horse food and a few buckets.
"You don't know? My goodness, it's like you've never worked at horse camp before, dude," Mary Alice said in a sarcastic voice. "Nah, I'm kidding. We send Corrine and Stacie down to catch the horses."
"Don't y'all also close the gate? What about the barn and stalls?" Leah curiously asked.
Mary Alice glanced at her and explained, "We do close the gate, shortstack, but we need to keep the barn and stalls open. How else will the horses know where to go?"
"It'll be a horse riot! I call it!" Stacie lifted her hand high. "Monkey will kick everyone's butts!"
"Nah hah! I say Haddie will!" Leah argued.
"Now just wait a minute, girls! What about Baze?" Corrine included. She bopped each of her friends on their heads.
"This is terrific!" Stacie cheered. "We can pop popcorn and sit on the benches while the horses headbutt each other! It'll be like watching a wrestling match!"
"Wrestling? What's wrestling?" Tracey wanted to know.
"Oh, honey, I'm just kidding," Stacie chuckled.
Leah, who stood beside Tracey, tapped his shoulder and whispered to him, "She's good at that."
"Um, Tracey." Mary Alice blushed, but handed Tracey a yellow bucket with some food in it. "This is for Chuck. However, it's hard for him to eat it raw. Do you think you could soak it for me?"
"Wait, water?" Tracey suddenly looked frightened. "Uh, no thank you!"
Leah tapped his shoulder and asked, "What's the problem, big boy? Cat got your tongue?"
"I-I just can't!" Tracey stammered. "Please, Mary Alice! Give me another horse!" He did not feel like popping a merman tail in front of these girls. It happened whenever he got wet.
Mary Alice listened, but only because she was in love. "All right, then, munchkin. Not a problem." She shoved Chuck's bucket into Stacie's tummy. "Stacie, can you feed him instead?"
"Heck yeah!" Stacie cheered. "Feeding the horses is just as good as mucking out the stalls!" Grinning stupidly, she rushed toward the sink.
Tracey looked a little embarrassed. He felt embarrassed. He said not a word, even when Mary Alice handed him another bucket and asked him to feed Maddie. Luckily, he didn't have to soak that bucket.
Still embarrassed, Tracey hugged the bucket to his chest and made his way back down the main room.
Leah watched him. She looked like she was thinking.
Maddie's stall was at the entrance of the barn, beside its main opening. Down there, Tracey was away from the crazy girls. He wasn't used to those kinds of personalities. It honestly made him feel a little overwhelmed. Then again, he grew up isolated on Merlin's Island. Tracey wasn't the crazy, upbeat, girl-lover kind of guy; he was more the cool, calm, and collected—like a ninja.
Inside Maddie's stall, he felt a little better. He had his own little place to think.
Tracey poured Maddie's food into her bin, which was located in the far-right corner of the stall. It was behind a fan. During the summer months, each stall usually had a fan to keep the horses cool.
Tracey heard a small squeak behind him when he finished his task. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a rat. It was looking for food.
The rodent scurried around the stall and sniffed the sawdust-covered ground.
"Are you hungry, little guy?" Tracey asked. He set the bucket down and knelt to the rat. He held his hands before him and started twirling them. Only a few seconds later, a piece of cheese appeared between them. Tracey offered it to the rat, and it accepted it.
While it ate, Tracey picked it up. He smiled feebly, asking, "Are you alone, too? Believe me, I know how that feels. I have no idea if Emilee and Jesse survived that hurricane. It's just so much to take in. Tell me, how many fairies and claxtons have you seen?"
The rat, who just finished its meal, yawned.
"Yeah. None right?" said Tracey. Inhaling a breath of dusty air, he set the rat down on the ground. On his way out of Maddie's stall, he saw Stacie and Corrine heading outside to the parking lot. It looked like they were going to catch the horses.
"Horses! Come!" Stacie shouted. She headed toward the pasture, while Corrine went to close the gate.
Mary Alice called a board meeting for her, Tracey, and Leah, but had a hard time talking. To refocus, she looked away from Tracey. "Now, Tracey and Leah, the horses are going to come in small groups. Most of them are really good about going to their stalls, but there are a few exceptions. Tia always thinks that Gus's stall is hers, so we need to make sure we grab her and take her to hers. Rain sometimes goes into the wrong stall as well. When this happens, we want to use these lead ropes." To Tracey and Leah, she held out two ropes. One was red, and the other was blue. "Toss the rope over the horse's neck and take them to the right stall," Mary Alice continued. "Watch out for Chance and Baze. They tend to canter into the barn, and I don't want either of you getting trampled. Do not do anything with Monkey. Leave him to me."
"Why?" Tracey asked.
Leah gasped. "Tracey, seriously? You don't know about Monkey? He's crazy, I tell ya! He'll fight horses and trot all over the barn!"
"Why?" Tracey asked again.
Mary Alice chuckled. "So many questions. It makes you even more cute than you already are. The thing is, Monkey is the newest horse, and he's been having trouble adjusting."
"Where did he come from?" said Tracey.
"We're not sure." Leah shrugged. "Mrs. Connie and Mary Alice found him injured in the forest behind the pasture two years ago. They nursed him back to health, but he suffers from PTSD."
"I've always wondered what happened to him," Mary Alice said. "Well, whatever. Get in position, soldiers! It's time for Phase Two of Operation: Get Ready for Camp!"
Tracey and Leah did, but Tracey could not stop thinking about what the two girls told him. He'd never heard of a horse suffering from PTSD. Unfortunately, he did not have much time to think, because before he knew it, horses started arriving.
After opening up the barn's main entrance, Mary Alice glanced toward the pasture. "All right, Haddie, Bullet, and Tia are coming. Leah, tell Tracey which horse is which. I'll get Tia."
Leah nodded. "Right."
The first horse to come in was Haddie. She was a Palomino who was quite fat.
The next horse was Bullet. He was tall, with a shiny, dark brown coat, four white socks, and a black mane and tail.
To Tracey, Leah said, "The lighter horse is Haddie, and the darker one is Bullet."
Both Haddie and Bullet went straight to their stalls. Good horses. They just wanted food.
Tracey tossed his lead rope over his shoulder and quickly closed their doors so they wouldn't escape. Throughout the operation, he tried to narrow down the horses to who might be the alicorn.
As Mary Alice said, Tia tried going to Gus's stall, but Leah put her lead rope over her neck. She led the animal to the right stall. Tia was a bit smaller. She had a light brown coat and a light brown mane and tail. Two of her socks were white.
Tracey examined Tia carefully. No, she wasn't the alicorn.
"Watch out, guys!" Mary Alice called. "Chance and Baze are coming! Wait until they get in their stalls before you go near them!"
To Tracey's surprise, the next two horses cantered in. They were super excited for breakfast.
Chance was enormous, about seventeen hands. He was a Thoroughbred with a brown coat and a white mark running down his forehead. He was a bit funny. When he entered the barn, he cantered by his stall. Tracey went to grab him, but before he could, the horse turned back around. That time, he went into his stall.
Tracey closed it right as Baze cantered in. He was also a large horse. His coat was almost black, and he had four black socks. Tracey kept his distance from him, but followed him to the end of the barn to close his door. No, those horses were most definitely not the alicorn.
Mary Alice held her hand up to her lips and yelled at her helpers again. "All right! Muffin, Gus, Kit Kat, and Chuck are coming!"
Muffin was an Appaloosa. Her coat was gray, as well as her mane and tail, and she had black spots on her rump.
Gus looked like an Oreo. He was black and white and was most definitely not a horse, but a pony.
Kit Kat was barely a horse. She had a light brown coat, a golden mane and tail, and a white mark on her forehead.
Now, Chuck was adorable, but also large. His coat was deep brown. The white mark on his forehead was much smaller than Kit's and Chance's. His face looked like a baby's face. It was soft and well cared for.
The four horses went to their right stalls, but Tracey still didn't see them as the alicorn. He was looking for a horse that looked to be a bit uncomfortable at the barn, because it was from another world.
The next horses to run in were Balto, Rain, and Maddie.
Maddie, a small horse who was black all over, had a little trouble finding her stall, but Mary Alice got her in.
Balto, a light and fat pony, just walked into the barn. He didn't trot or canter.
To get him moving, Leah clicked her teeth and guided him into his stall, right as Rain entered.
She was crazy. She bucked a few times and snapped at some of the other horses. She was a fast little pony with a golden-brown coat. There were a few white spots on her belly. So far, she had to be one of the smallest horses, next to Gus.
Leah yelled at the animal, "Rain!"
For a second, Tracey thought he had found his alicorn, but he quickly dismissed the idea when Leah managed to calm Rain in under a minute.
She now shook out her head and trotted into her stall.
Ugh, Tracey was so sure she was it!
"All right, the last three horses are coming!" Mary Alice shouted. "Monkey, Cowboy, and April! Remember, stay clear of Monkey! I'll handle him!"
April, a small, white pony with black spots on her socks, cantered inside. Like most of the other horses, she went into her stall.
Tracey had just finished shutting it when he heard whinnying from the barn's entrance. There came Cowboy and Monkey, but Monkey was pitching a fit. He looked a little like April: small and white. His muzzle was black, as well as his socks, and his mane was white.
Cowboy, on the other hand, was brown.
Monkey snapped at him. He scared poor Cowboy into his stall.
Quickly closing the door, Leah yelled at Monkey, and so did Mary Alice. She attempted to toss her lead rope over Monkey's neck, but he tried to kick her.
Tracey noticed that Leah was frightened. She hid behind the wall in the barn's rest area.
"Monkey, calm down!" Mary Alice shouted.
Tracey stared at the horse in awe. A horse that wasn't used to Grove Station Farms, one that suffered from PTSD. Monkey was his alicorn.
"Wait!" Tracey yelled at Mary Alice. "Let me!"
"Are you crazy?" Mary Alice continued to struggle. "I told you to keep clear of him!"
"Please, just give me a chance," Tracey begged.
Mary Alice thought for a moment. She remembered what Mrs. Connie told her: Tracey had a natural talent for horses. Sighing, she gave him a slow nod.
Tracey stayed calm. It was crucial to stay calm around a horse, especially when they were raging. He held his arms out to his sides and inhaled.
Slowly and carefully, Tracey started toward Monkey. He held his hands out to him, saying in a gentle voice, "It's okay. It's okay."
Monkey glanced at him out of his deep, brown eyes.
"It's okay," Tracey repeated. He was getting closer to the horse.
Amazingly, Monkey started to calm down. He stopped bucking and rearing.
Mary Alice and Leah watched, amazed.
Now standing beside the horse's face, Tracey brought his finger to his lips. "Shh." He then tossed his lead over Monkey's neck.
Unlike Mary Alice, he did not fight him.
Giving the lead a quick tug, Tracey took Monkey down to his stall. He pushed his rump to ensure his whole body got in there. Once Monkey was inside, he closed the door and turned on his fan.
Sighing a breath of relief, Tracey tossed his lead over his shoulders. However, when he turned around, he received quite a surprise.
Leah and Mary Alice stared at him, as well as Corrine and Stacie, who had just returned from the pasture.
Tracey smiled nervously and gently asked, "Okay, so what's next?"