Shama:
The woman was terrified. I could see it in her eyes, those huge pupils so wide they looked like they were about to pop out. And her face had blanched into the same color as the jugs of milk the boys drank at each meal. She was shaking, too.
I walked her over to the wiggly picnic bench, reaffirming to myself that the thing desperately needed some ramifications before it self-destructed. Martha would never forgive me if I allowed her daughter to hurt herself when the thing finally collapsed. And there were the splinters when a person wasn’t careful. I wanted to warn her about that, but Martha and the boys came running out of the house, yelling that someone had screamed.
I waited for them to come closer. No sense informing the neighbors about the presence of Frey, as if they didn’t already know with the delivery truck bringing a load of hay and oats every week. No doubt the neighbors believed that the big bag of carrots was for the boys, but I doubted it.
“The scream came from Sheila,” I said. “She came outside on her own and had no idea that the backyard was where we kept a large, gray stallion. Frey scared her silly.”
“But Frey wouldn’t hurt anybody,” Francis said, looking mystified by the woman.
“Yeah, Frey doesn’t bite. He’s a good horse,” Carlo added.
Sheila was shaking so badly, the whole picnic table was vibrating. She was also vocalizing deep down in her chest, something that sounded like “dddddd. . .”
“Sheila, come out of it,” her mother said. Martha didn’t really sound like herself. Her voice was flat as if she was angry with her daughter, or at least holding back from showing much sympathy. She definitely sounded like she had no interest in soothing her daughter’s stress.
Martha shot me a glance. “I hope my daughter didn’t frighten your horse.”
“Me? Me? Me?” Sheila started again on the mumble chants, although the shaking seemed less. Me, frighten that monster? He planned to run me down, then eat me. He was breathing fir like a dragon, maybe.”
The boys found that hilarious. They both dropped onto the ground and started rolling about, giggling so hard I knew it would be useless to order them to be respectful to their elder. Also too late to tell them get out of the dirt. Baths after breakfast, for sure.
I started to respond to Sheila’s ridiculous statements, cautiously, of course, because I could tell that the woman was a bit unbalanced. After the evening before and now this morning’s reaction to a horse in the backyard, I was wondering if it was time to call for Dr. Stevens so the doctor could give Sheila some medicine to calm her down.
Martha beat me to it. “I’m in the middle of pancakes, and you’re a grown woman. Stop this babbling about fire breathing dragons and act your age. As the boys said, Frey is not about to hurt you. He’s a sweet horse. I fed him a carrot, and he practically kissed my cheek. Even the boys ride him.”