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muddy mess just like the rest of the backyard.
    Paisley slumped to the ground, shaking her head. Noodles had settled in.

8
    In Which an Expert Speaks
    Even after Noodles was settled in, Paisley didn’t ride him because of all his sore places. Every time she curried him, more sores appeared. On toward the end of the week she got so worried about them that she phoned her aunt Caledonia, Bruce McPherson’s sister, the one with twelve horses of her own—all of them always too hot-tempered or too old or too young or too something-or-other for a kid to ride, Stirling told Staci. Aunt Caledonia lived more than an hour’s car ride away, anyhow. And she was always busy. Paisley and Stirling didn’t get to see her very often.
    Most of this Stirling whispered to Staci and Toni while the three of them eavesdropped on Paisley’s phone call.
    â€œBut Aunt Cal, I don’t know whether I’m helping him or hurting him! Sometimes it seems like brushing him just makes things worse!” Paisley listened. “Uh-huh.… It’s because they let him get so dirty? You’re sure it’s not my fault? Okay, I’ll just keep piling on the ointment. Antiseptic spray? Right, I’ll get some.… But do you think it’s okay for me to ride him when he has sore places on his back? I could put a towel or something over them … no, there isn’t any saddle. Nuh-uh. No bridle. Just a halter.… What? Hey, that would be great!” Paisley tilted her face away from the mouthpiece of the phone and bellowed, “Hey, Dad! Okay if Aunt Cal comes to visit this weekend?”
    â€œAaak!” Staci complained, covering her ears. “Where does she think he is, China?”
    â€œSure!” Bruce McPherson bellowed back just as loudly from the living room. He got on the phone and arranged the visit. All the McPhersons seemed excited. It was not often that Aunt Caledonia came to see them. She wanted to meet Bruce’s new wife, she told him.
    In fact, she had another reason as well. As Paisley admitted much later, what Aunt Caledonia had really said was, “Wait until I have a look at this pony before you kill yourself or him trying to ride him.”
    Saturday morning Paisley was up and dressed and out tending Noodles—behind the garage, out of sight—while the other girls were still yawning in front of TV cartoons in their nightgowns. After a while, curious, Toni and Staci and Stirling got dressed and wandered out to the paddock. They found Noodles spotless (except for the already-healing sores) and Paisley dirt-covered and kneeling on the ground, brushing something clear and shiny on the pony’s hooves.
    â€œIs that, like, nail polish?” Toni exclaimed.
    â€œHoof polish. Same idea.” Paisley lifted a smudged and excited face. “I want him to look nice for Aunt Cal.”
    â€œPaisley,” Stirling accused suddenly, “have you been spending your savings account money for all this stuff?”
    â€œSo what? It’s my money. Want to help me braid a mane?”
    â€œForget it,” said Stirling, though her glance lingered on the freshly washed, fluffy creamy-blond mane.
    â€œToni? Staci?”
    Staci felt a strange sensation in her mind, a sort of click, as if something had either snapped into place or broken loose. She felt like saying, Sure, she’d help braid Noodles’s mane. She felt like saying, Hey, Paisley, you’re not so bad, you’re not an incredible brat after all. In fact, she didn’t say or do anything. But she didn’t go away either, and while she and Toni and Stirling were standing there, around the corner of the garage strode Aunt Caledonia.
    First she hugged and kissed Stirling and Paisley. Then Bruce McPherson came out of the house and she hugged him. Then she had to be introduced to Staci and Toni. All this took a little time and while it was going on, Staci noticed something. Aunt Caledonia was built