Double Trouble

Chapter 1

Mel's POV

The bell rang, and I jumped out of my seat and snatched my messenger bag.

"Have a wonderful Christmas, class," my teacher, Mr. Racker said, and we all dashed out of the classroom, and out of the school.

I met up with my 2 best friends, Heather and Liv, in front of the school bus, and I spun around in my leggings, Bearpaws, and knit shirt in the chilly air. There were dark, puffy clouds in the sky, and I was hoping for snow later today.

"I'm soooo glad it's winter break! Finally!" I cheered as I followed my friends onto the yellow school bus.

"Me too!" Heather said.

"I couldn't agree more," Liv said, and we sat down next to each other in the back of the bus.

All I could think about right now was getting home to Century Farms, where I live, and working with all of the rescues.

Century Farms is the horse rescue farm that my family owns. We take in horses in need of rescuing, work with them, and once they are adoptable, we put them up for adoption.

Let me tell you about Heather and Liv.

Heather and I have been BFFs for as long as I could remember. We have always had so much in common. For starters, we have a mutual love of horses. She has a mare named Cloud, and her family owns a therapeutic riding center called Hunter Creek.

I've only known Liv since this summer, but already we've become great friends. She came to the summer camp that we hosted. We took girls with all levels of horse experience, and paired them up with a rescue horse. Liv was paired up with a saddlebred, Tye, and the two were inseparable. She adopted him, and now she keeps him at Century Farms and she works at Century Farms and a saddlebred training facility about 20 minutes away.

So yeah. Heather and Liv are my 2 horse crazy BFFs. That's a summary of them.

The bus screeched to a stop in front of Hunter Creek's driveway, and Heather got off the bus. Liv and I waved to her as she jogged off to her grandmother's house, probably to change so she can go on a ride with Cloud.

The bus made a couple more stops until we finally reached Century Farms. This was our stop!

Since Liv lived right next to our property, she rode her bike here in the morning, we got on the bus together in the morning, both come back here, then do homework and barn chores then ride together, and after she goes home.

We got off the bus and headed inside to my house. We dropped off our bags, then quickly changed into riding/barn gear.

We zipped up our coats, and slipped our boots on.

"Ready?" I asked, and she nodded. We walked into the cold air, and hurried into the barn.

When we walked into the main barn, I was immediately enveloped in the comforting smell of horses, leather, hay, and grain. It was a good mix.

We walked to the chore chart, and looked to see what chores we had.

Mel and Liv:

Bring in horses
Switch blankets on Minnie, Lux, Rocky, and Chex
Mix grain
Check water buckets
Clean stalls
*Take day off from exercising horses

We both grinned when we read the last part. Don't get me wrong-I love to ride the rescues, but it was the first day of break and freezing outside, and I was hoping to take a relaxing trail ride on Cowboy.

I grinned when I thought about Cowboy. Cowboy is my bay pony. He came to us as a rescue. We were his last chance. We had immediately made a connection, and we were the dream team. My parents were very sneaky, though. They had somebody pretend to adopt him, only to give him to me as the ultimate surprise birthday gift. That was the best day of my life. Hands down.