Chapter four

I opened my eyes and realized it was day three, after night two on the farm. I put on a red top and a pair of old jeans,
combed my hair and put it in a long blond tail. Then I washed my face and got downstairs. “Morning, Joan”
“morning” and after some other greets and nods I asked “Where’s Alec?” He’s still upstairs I guess, Joan dear, would
you mind waking him up?”
“no of course not, I’ll go right a way.” So I went upstairs and knocked at the door. I slowly opened it: “Alec?”
“hmmf”
“you awake?”
“yeah, I’ll be down in to minutes” he mumbled. So I went down. And half an hour later the two of us walked outside,
Henry’d soon show up to pick us up. “Hey uh..” Alec started and stared at the ground. “..I haven’t given you much of
a chance for a good start…I realise..
and..I’m sorry” I looked up and waited a while before answering: “It’s ok, it’s past, I don’t hate people to hate them.”
He looked up now, but my face was
already turned to the street.

We got to the stables along with some helpers, I was cleaning stables while Alec and Henry trained. I felt stupid,
thinking I’d have to do this all the year. But all of the sudden Henry, who was bringing Satan back to his stable
while Alec rode Black spiced, told me to ride
Chinook first. I very happily did.
When finishing riding I brought Chinook to her box and saw all the horses were inside already. The young
horses were out. I put my saddle away and saw the stableboys leaving, one of thm saw me and waved, so did I,
surprised. I got in the stables and found Herny.
“Alec is putting Black away, we can start feeding.”
“oh, ok” So he pushed the car and I held the can, feeding the horses we past. “Say Joan, I just realise…we
didn’t introduce you to the others…”
“…”
“I’m sorry for that, I will tomorrow”
“ok thanks”
He smiled and at that time Alec got to us, “hey Henry, let me take it from here, your back…Could you close
down the saddle room and stuff?” Henry nodded and took off, Then there followed an awkward silence, until:
“Hey uh Joan, when the breedings are all
finished, Black usually goes to accompany Napoleon…” I looked up in surprise, but then continued feeding.
“yeah?”
“Well, what about… Chinook?” I looked up again and shrugged “we’ll see”
“thank you, Joan”
“For what?”
“for forgiving me so fast…I was jerkish.”
“yeah well” We finished and got it the car. Henry dropped us off and we walked to the door in silence.
The next day at the farm Henry kept his word. “ Most of you probably already noticed her yesterday…”
He explained the whole story and they all greeted me. Then we started cleaning stables again. I cursed
myself, my back hurt and I had no distraction, on the contrary I knew Alec and Henry were training
horses outside. I was stunned: I was being jealous!
“hi” a sudden voice startled me. It was the guy waving the day before, “o hi”
“shall I help?”
“oh please!”
“So tell me again” he started while taking a fork: “ain’t it darn weird, comin’ here fo just a year?”
“Well, actually it is, but it’s what I want, so”
“wow..so you WANNA clean stables all day?”
I laughed, “ok, it’s a bit weird indeed” He laughed and reached out his hand: “I’m Ty”
“hi Ty, Well I’m Joan, but..”
“yeah”
A bit later it turned half past twelve and we went eating. I talked to Ty a bit more, the other
guys looked a bit scary and not to nice. I talked about my family, the western riding and Kay.
“What’s he like?”
“he’s cool”
“your boyfriend’s…cool?” he asked sarcastically and laughed at my expression. “hi Ty” Alec joined us,
he smiled at me and sat down next to us. “ he never does that!” Ty said afterwards,
“I didn’t even knew he knows my name!”
“I don’t like him” I answered. “respected, yeah, like, never”
“you’ve only known him for four days!”
“in which he was rude and made clear he didn’t want me here.”
“JOAN!” Henry yelled in the stables.
“yeah, in here”
“you can ride Chinook now”
“see you in an hour” I said to Ty and left. Chinook had a real good day, so I was happy and
satisfied when going back to the stables.
“you look happy” Ty welcomed me.
“I am” I answered smiling. The boxes were clean and we started putting horses in and out
the boxes. Then we fed them and the stable boys left, “see you tomorrow Joan”
“bye Ty”
“you get along well, don’t you?” I turned around to face Alec. “..what?..yeah, he’s nice..”
Alec grinned “you guys were around each other all day.”
“So? The other, no offence…”
“GUYS? Are you ready?” Henry yelled in.
“come on” we locked of and got in the car.