Finding Creatures Read online

her. One large, dewy eye observed me but didn't look worried at all. I held out the dandelion, but she wasn't interested, and after a while I dropped

  it on the ground. I could smell her brown earthy sweat and feel the air swish by me every time she tossed her tail, and when she sneezed once, the spray splattered across the side of my face and one hand.

  She was amazing. Big. Dark. Smelly. Beautiful. Real.

  "Come on,” I said. “Mom's going to see you and make you go home. You have to come with me. Come on, horsey.”

  I turned and took a few steps toward the stables, looking back at her over my shoulder and talking encouragingly, hoping she would follow.

  She did not.

  I swung about and crouched down and clapped my hands gently together, calling in a loud whisper, “Come on, girl! Come on! C'm'ere!”

  She did not.

  This was worrying. She was far too big for me to make her follow. I could try to lead her but she had no bridle or rope. I walked hesitantly back to her and looked at her glossy flank. I'd have to touch her—pray God she didn't stomp me to death. I did a quick sign of the cross. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” I whispered, the way Mom always did when she had to do something scary.

  Then I reached a hand out, oh, so tentatively, and put it to her skin. It was warm, wrinkly and finely haired, and it shivered under my touch as if I was a fly tickling it. Her long nose turned slowly toward me and rose to my hand. Great nostrils flared and sucked in my smell and blew out her own smell. She reached further and sniffed around my eyes, then opened her big lips to nibble my hair. I pulled away in surprise and she dropped her nose to look at me again. Then her head swung back to the weeds, and the clippers of her jaw began tearing them, the tongue pushing them back in her mouth, the molars grinding, plants moving back and forth as she chewed. I stared, fascinated.

  A voice rose from across the garden: my mother standing on the porch. “Bernad-e-ette!! Come and get it!”

  Lunchtime! She was looking around, her hand over her eyebrows to shut out the sun. I panicked, gaping at the giant at my side. There was no way to hide her. I was going to lose her!

  Mom's eyes swept over us unseeing and scanned the edge of the woods. She peered as if she could see down into the ravine and took a big breath, yelled even louder. “BERN-A-DEEE-EEETTE!!! Come and GET it!!!” Then she sighed, turned around and went back into the house.

  I was stunned. I looked at the horse. The horse looked at me. I couldn't think of a thing to do. But a moment later, my body did it for me. There was just no way not to respond when my mother called.

  She was just coming out the door again, having put on her outdoor shoes, when I reached the end of the garden.

  "There you are!” she said, looking relieved. “You had me worried. Come on in. Your soup's getting cold.”

  I couldn't resist glancing back at the horse. She was still there, watching us, munching. I felt dizzy and grabbed Mom's hand to steady myself.

  She smiled and gave my hand a squeeze. “Were you in the ravine?” she asked. “See any dinosaurs?”

  "No, Mom,” I said quietly. Then, growing bolder, “I saw a horse, though.”

  "Really?” she said, looking surprised. “You weren't at the road, were you?”

  I couldn't resist. “No, Mom. She's right there.” I pointed to the mare grazing in the garden.

  Mom looked quickly, then grinned. “You monkey!” she said, and started off down the hall. “Get a move on, Cheeky. There's egg sandwiches, too. Now hurry up.”

  I hurried inside, not daring to look back again.

  Mom invited me to help her with the laundry after lunch. Usually I liked to do that but today I just wanted outside.

  When I reached the veranda the garden was empty. No horses, not one. Where had she gone?

  Suddenly I began to doubt myself. I was sure that I had seen her. That I had really seen her. But if Mom hadn't, well … I stood there a while and then walked slowly down the steps to the yard. I didn't know what to do. She wasn't here.

  After a while, I wandered down to the ravine like I'd been planning to and looked for those dinosaurs. Now, somehow, they seemed pale and unexciting. I tried to pretend, but I couldn't concentrate. I kept glancing past the imaginary triceratopses for a glimpse of dark mane I gave up and searched the entire yard for her, even going out past the convent to the road (where I wasn't allowed), and down to the riverside and off the property on both other sides, too, but no. No horse anywhere. She was gone. Finally I went down on my knees in the garden and put my hands together.

  "Please, Jesus. Bring back the horse.” I couldn't think of any fancy words to say, so I just kept repeating those ones, putting all the remaining faith and hope I had into them, pushing away as best I could the niggling fear that because I wanted her so much, because I had prayed and hoped for her, she would be taken away forever. I had asked too much.

  Big tears fell onto my hands and then I was sobbing and hunching down on the ground and wailing so loud my Mom came running out to see if I was dead.

  She picked me up and cleared the hair out of my face, saying, “What's wrong, Bernie? What's wrong?”

  "God hates me!” I cried.

  She looked shocked. “No! He loves you! Why would you think He hated you?”

  All I could do was turn to her belly like a baby and cry even more, till she stood up and carried me into the house and sat with me on the couch, holding me till my tears finally dried.

  Days passed and I stopped looking for my friend, and spent more time trailing after Mom because it seemed even lonelier

  than before. She must have said something to Dad because on the weekends, all of a sudden, we were doing things together besides church. We went to visit Auntie Trish and Uncle Bill's, walked to the zoo, even went to Lake Winnipeg with blankets and hats and a huge picnic lunch.

  But the days in between, when Dad and Mom were busy, I was still on my own. The only neighbours we had were the nuns, and I didn't know them, even though I would watch them from the trees sometimes. I liked the way they played with their big dogs and worked in their garden with their long black clothes on. Friendly as some of the nuns were, I never tried to get to know them, but shied away when they talked to me. And they were the only people around but Mom.

  So summer dragged on.

  There was one sister who kept mostly to herself. I watched her sometimes when I was playing in the woods. I was surprised to see her there—to see any grownup not doing the jobs they always have. When she worked in the garden with the other nuns, she kept silent and seldom looked at them. I noticed her because the others were so ready to talk and laugh.

  The first time I saw her alone in the woods, though, she was resting on a fallen tree and her face was soft and open. Her eyes had a kind of happiness in them I hadn't seen before. She didn't notice me. I was creeping through the undergrowth, sneaking up on the English explorer I was going to throw into my pot. When I saw her, I held perfectly still.

  There she sat. The stiff white cloth that covered her forehead came almost to her eyebrows and narrow grey eyes. Above the stiff white cloth and hanging down her back was a black, straight veil. A large linen neckpiece spanned her shoulders, making a beautiful white crescent across her chest. Her hands rested on her knees, holding a large crucifix at the end of a long beaded string, and she was looking around at the trees, listening—to the birds, maybe?—or thinking some pleasant thought.

  Was this the silent, standoffish nun who didn't seem to fit in with the others? She looked like someone from a holy card, sitting there. She seemed as though she loved the whole of creation. I wondered if she only looked that way when she was alone.

  One day I was digging little ditches to pour tap-water in, making streams for my green plastic soldiers, my baby-dolls left at home to sleep so they wouldn't get dirty (this was Mom's unreasonable rule) when I heard a chuckling snort behind me and looked, and there was the horse, as glossy and serene as before. She was looking at me in a friendl
y way. My mouth dropped open and I gasped.

  All I could say was, “You came back! You came back!” I imagined she was smiling at me in a horsey way; she bobbed her head up and down and rubbed my arm with her nose. I threw my arms around her face and gave her my biggest hug.

  That day I sat on a horse for the first time. It wasn't easy getting up. She stood patiently, even when the chair fell over and I was dangling by her mane Through all my kicking and scuffling, she was very still . Then I was up, and oh, my goodness! I was high above the world.

  Mom was in the bright, glassed-in room where she did her paintings. Babies and snowmen and Jesus praying on the mountain-top. She wouldn't be looking for me for quite a while. But I wasn't even thinking of that. I was a bubble of happiness and all I knew was that the red-black mare was here at last. She felt so familiar, like someone I knew and loved, someone who loved me … Like my guardian angel, come to play.

  The mare turned to look at me on her back and nuzzled me with her nose, then made her funny soft chuckle and started walking slowly through the garden. I wobbled back and forth and nearly fell, but I clung to her mane and after a while got used to the swaying and my heart stopped beating so hard. I stared at her head and neck and shoulders as they moved and listened to

  the thump, thump as her feet gently hit the earth, the soft drop of poop when she lifted her tail. She walked where she wanted to. I didn't know how to tell