The Storm Before Dawn

Chapter 14

Picture of Asha's outfit
Sorry for the bad quality!
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At 5:03am, my room was still dark, it made it so hard to wake up. It took me about ten minutes to get up and get ready for feeding the horses. During the school year, I wake up at five so I can feed the horses and work one or two of the rescues.

Peppermint and I trot down the stairs and into the barn, grabbing an apple and a granola bar on the way. Mint stops to take a bite out of her food bowl as her snack.

"Hurry up Mint, the horses want their food too," I whispered to her

Mint just looked up at me and stared.

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Once the horses were fed, Mint and I grabbed Sweets and Cheerio. After a quick brushing I led Cheerio into the arena where we practiced some showmanship. My mom wanted me to do showmanship with all of the horses, so we could adopt them out easier. Cheerio had a possible adopter coming to look at him on Saturday, and I am really excited for him!

Cheerio and I practiced for a half hour then I put him into his stall. Sweets was still pretty new so all I did was work on joining up with her. She did really good and after 30 minutes she went back in her stall.

After making sure all of the horses had food, I jogged back inside and got ready for school.

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The school bus drove up to where I was standing at the end of my driveway.

"Hi! Asha!" Zara shouted at me.

"Hey!"

I walked over to where Zara was sitting and sat down next to her. Zara was wearing a brown flowy shirt with a orange skirt that went down to her knees.

"Has Zœ gotten on yet?"

"Not yet, I think she is the next stop though" I replied

A few minutes later, the bus stopped at Zœ's house and she got on.

"Hey Zœ you ready for school?"

"No"

"Are you grumpy today?"

"No, I just don't want to start school"

"Oh''

The rest of the bus ride passed by us chatting about horses.

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RRRRRIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG...........

"Yes one week of 7th grade DONE!!" Zara shouted

"I know right we survived!" I replied. "You guys want to celebrate tonight?"

"Where?" Zœ asked

"My house! But there is a twist...''

"And what would that be?" Zœ questioned.

"You guys would have to help me get Cheerio ready for tomorrow"

"Count me in!" Zara said.

"Me too!" said Zœ

"You call your parents and I'll call my mine"

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An hour later the three of us were brushing Cheerio before we got him wet. Cheerio was gleaming in the sunlight, and looking quite proud of himself. Zœ tied Cheerio into the wash rack and we started to hose the dirt off.

He was really dirty, but after some scrubbing all the dirt came off and he shone. We washed his mane and tail twice, once with shampoo and then with conditioner. Zara started to brush out his mane, Zœ trimmed his whiskers and I brushed out his tail.

After he was dry we braided his mane and tail, so they wouldn't get dirty overnight. Zara and I also put on a sleezy and a super light horse sheet.

Zœ walked him over to the pasture, where he would spend the night, then helped us clean up.

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"So what is his main problems?" the lady asked.

"He is kind of lazy and he spooks quite a bit," I said.

"Well I would like to try him out, can I go get my tack?"

"Sure, I will take his blankets off"

The lady comes back a few minutes later with a jumping saddle and a figure eight bridle. She tacks him up and walks him out to the jumping arena. I hadn't noticed before, but she had rowel spurs on.

Josie finished warming Cheerio up and started cantering him. She turned him towards the first jump, and about two strides before he took off, she spurred him really hard. Cheerio didn't like it, but still had a really nice tuck and a good landing. This pretty much continued the entire round, and when she was done she had me raise the jumps up to 4 foot.

Cheerio cleared the first one, then tripped after. Josie started stabbing him with her spurs. Cheerio bucked a little bit, then Josie started stabbing him even harder. He started cantering again and cleared the rest of the verticals perfectly.

"He may be a little bit difficult, but I love a challenge. I'll take him!" Josie said coming up to me.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think you are the type of rider we want for Cheerio," I said practically fuming.

"Oh, I will pay extra if that's what you want"

"No, what I want is for you to leave. Without Cheerio" I said, now fuming.

She looked at me like I was crazy, got off, took her tack and left.

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"So how did it go?" my mom asked me.

"Josie is not the one for him"

"Oh"

"Yeah"

I scurried up to my room where Zara and Zœ were just waking up.

"How did it go?" they said in unison

"Terrible"

I collapsed on my bed and started talking to Zara and Zœ about what had happened. Zara was disgusted, but Zœ was making excuses for Josie.

"Zœ! How can you make excuses for someone who was abusing a horse?!" Zara yelled at her.

"Well it makes sense"

"Zœ get out of my house!" I yell at her.

Zœ glares at me, but starts to clean up her stuff. Within five minutes, she's gone.

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