Jocky Dreams Chapter 1

Five Years Later

I tapped my pencil impatiently on my desk. My math assignment was half-done, but I was going to do the rest for homework. I stared at the clock, waiting for the second hand to reach the twelve. Finally, the bell rang, and I ran out of the classroom. My dad was waiting in his pick-up truck right outside. I threw my backpack in the backseat and jumped into the shot-gun seat.

"How was your day, kiddo?" he asked.

"Pretty good. Algebra's really hard. I hate how I have it last period."

He nodded in agreement. I stared into the road for a long time and Dad sighed, looking at me. "Kasie, you know that horse we have? The one that can't run. Can't pull anything and can hardly walk?"

"Yeah?"

"I think we're going to have to put him out of his misery, sweetie," Dad said. There was a long, nervous silence. A nuclear bomb could've gone off without me knowing. I eyed my backpack. Honestly, I never touched that horse in my life. I always communicated with its mother Felicia, our brown horse with a black mane. As much as I loved all animals, the horse was in pain with his legs. But I wasn't sure about putting him down.

"You promised."

"I promised that we'd keep him. I never said anything about letting him live a long and happy life. It's for his own good, Kasie," Dad told me. I pursed my lips and fought back tears, guilt flooding in for never giving love to the poor horse. But Dad was right about one thing: It was for his own good.

The horse was brown like a Hersheys Chocolate bar and had a mane black as a sparrow. He was probably the only horse for miles with leg braces. He stayed in the barn all the time, not wanting to put himself through the pain of walking. I never paid much attention to the animal, but that afternoon, I found myself watching his behavior patterns.

I sighed and got off my bed, turned my stereo off, and grabbed a notepad and a pencil. I ran out to the barn and sat on a pile of wood and hay and started to scetch the horse. I was half-way done with the drawing when I realized the poor horse didn't have a name.

I pursed my lips and smiled slightly, thinking I would name him later. I finished the scetch and started another. And another. And another. I drew the horse until it was night and I had to come inside. As I was falling asleep, I realized that I never finished that math assignment, but I didn't care anymore.

The following day was Friday. And that day changed my life forever.

I was in math again, only this time I was drawing the horse again, because I was finding it hard to focus. I had absolutely no numbers written on my paper. On the way out the door, I crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash. My teacher, Mrs. Hodson stopped me and picked the paper out of the trash.

"What is this, Miss Tredson?"

I widened my eyes and tried to think of a lie. I had a really good one, but all that came out was, "Uh... I..."

Mrs. Hodson opened the paper and studied the drawing of the horse. She smiled a little and looked up at me. I could tell she was trying to be serious. "How... How much math did you, um... do today?"

"None, ma'am," I admitted.

Mrs. Hodson nodded toward the door. "Go ahead out of here, sweetie. Do the math over the weekend."

I nodded and ran to the front of the school and looked for my dad's truck. He pulled up closer and I got in without saying anything. I pulled my knees close to my chest and nodded at my dad. He rolled his eyes, whispering "Teenagers." under his breath. He pulled out of the parking lot.

We got home and I ran up to my room. I was about to grab the notebook and pencil, but out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the horse, in the middle of the field. I looked at it and dropped my jaw in surprise. It stood by the white picket fence, where our nieghbor's horse was nieghing at him. As if he were laughing.

Our horse started hitting the dirt with his hooves, as if he was about to charge. I panicked and stuck my head out the window, anticipating what he was about to do. The other horse kept laughing and snorting at him, making our horse angrier.

"Come on," I murmured. "You can do it."

The horse took a step. And then another. One after the other. The next thing I knew, he was running. Fast. Faster than any horse I'd ever seen. I dropped my jaw in shock. His braces broke and scattered, but he kept running, like his legs were as good as ever. I nearly fell out of the window, I was trying to see and make sure my eyes were correctly connected to my brain.

The horse ran to the other one and nieghed. He shook his mane. His legs were working. Perfectly fine. As if they were never disordered. I blinked. Scraps of silver metal littered the lawn. Felicia looked out from the barn, neighing as well. I was too shocked to move or hardly think. And then something popped into my mind.

That night was the night my father was going to put the horse down.