Page 17 of My Trojan Horse Majesty

“Normally I’d tie you up now.”

She’s always got a running narrative. It’s kind of cute. She must know I can’t understand her, in theory, but she’s clearly not someone who has trouble rolling with the unexplainable.

“But if you flip out, you might hurt yourself trying to get away, so I’m going to hope you’ll stand still and pray I can duck out of the way if you have a crazy moment.”

I blow air out of my nose and stomp once.

She looks suitably nervous, but then she picks up the saddle pad and slowly moves it toward me. When I don’t react, she places it on my back. After a moment, she smiles.

Again, for some reason, that makes me happy.

So I chuck the saddle pad off and into the dirt.

She throws her hands up into the air. “You know, I used to think I was good at everything.” She leans against the fence. “I used to think I was smart—brilliant, really. I got perfect grades in school. Teachers all sang my praises. Once, when I was in first grade, they gave me a test called the CogAt. It’s supposed to measure your cognitive abilities.” She snorts. “I got a perfect score, and they called my mom to tell her I was one of only two students in the entire country who got a perfect score.”

I lower my head a little and turn to the side so I can see her better.

She smiles. “You have no idea what I’m saying, which is why I’m saying all this to you. You’d think I’d be happy to find out I was smart, but it wasn’t good, not really. My siblings all got mad about it, for one, and for another, everyone had all these expectations. So if someone else failed a test, oh well. They just didn’t study enough or had a bad day. If I failed it was like, ‘whoa, Izzy, what’s going on? You’re not fulfilling your potential.’ And my mom would kind of freak out.”

She kicks the saddle pad.

“And then if I did well, no one was like, ‘nice work, Izzy. You worked so hard.’ Because I’m a super genius, and I didn’t work for that, so you know, nothing I do really counts.” She huffs. “That’s why I like breaking horses so much.” She holds out her hand.

I press my nose into it.

I’m rewarded with a smile. “All it takes to break a horse right is patience and time. That’s it. Horses are a problem I know how to solve. With enough patience, with enough hard work, you can always take a horse and make him something useful. You can take a horse that might be a danger to himself or other humans and make him safe. Only, you’re a little different.” She tilts her head, and she moves her hand up my face to rub the flat part between my eyes. “You—I’m not breaking you. I’m trying to figure out what you know, and what deficits there are in your education that make you dangerous.” She grimaces. “And the hardest part of all is that my stepdad, Steve, he’s basically the best trainer I’ve ever known. He never gets overly emotional. He’s hard-working, he’s fair, and he’s an amazing rider.” She sighs. “If he agreed you were a lost cause, then what am I doing?”

Her shoulders slump.

“I should just call my parents and beg them to loan me money. That’s the safe thing. But if I tell them what I did—that I stole you? There’s no way they’ll help. So now I’m stuck. If I die trying to train you, then what will they put on my tombstone? ‘Here lies an idiot criminal who also sucks at training horses’?” Her laughter sounds a little. . .off. “They’d be right.”

She picks up the saddle, and I jump back.

“No, no, I’m not coming at you with this. Maybe you had a bad experience with a saddle. So let’s not work on that for today. You let me on your back just fine last time. Let’s see if that was a one-time miracle, or if it’s the saddle you don’t like.” She puts the saddle near the gate, and she grabs the bridle, slinging it over her shoulder. “I’m going to take this halter off. If we aren’t saddling, I don’t need it.” Her hands are steady as she reaches up and lifts the strap and releases the buckle, freeing my face. Then she buckles it instead through a chink in the fence so it just hangs there. “Alright. Now let’s see whether you’re scared of bridles and bits.”

Before she can try to stick that metal bar through my teeth, her phone rings. She rolls her eyes, but she whips it out of her pocket. Her eyes widen. Whoever she thought was calling, it’s clearly not them. She shoves it back into her pocket, her face falling.

I bump her hand with my nose. Then I blow air on her pocket.

“If I really was crazy, and I thought you could talk to me and understand what I was saying, I’d assume you were asking me why I’m disappointed.” She chuckles. “I was hoping it was Tim.” She groans. “Which is silly.”

She picks up the bridle and shows it to me, holding it just far enough in front of me that I can see it with both eyes at once, which means I can see its shape and depth as well. Clearly she knows something about how horses see.

“My parents don’t like him. My friends don’t like him. In fact, they all complained about him so much that I just stopped talking to them about our relationship at all, really.” She shakes her head. “It’s tiring.”

She sidles around the side of me. “I’m going to try and put this on you and see if you’ll let me lead you around with it.”

I snort, but otherwise I don’t move.

She rubs my nose again, and she says, “Okay, here goes. Let’s hope no one slammed you in the teeth with a bit, because that just makes this way harder for all of us.”

But when she bridles me, I stand utterly still, opening my mouth as the bit comes closer. She slides the leather straps up my face and over my ears, and then she beams. I can only see it from my left side, of course, but it still makes me happy.

“See, you were amazing for that. You’re a stunning horse. You’re clearly athletic, and you’re really smart. You took the bridle like a champ.” She sighs. “But no one else sees it.”

She frowns.

“It’s just like my relationship. Tim’s amazing in so many ways. He’s handsome, rich, smart, and at the top of his field. He’s decisive, and he knows just what he wants. And anything he wants, he just goes and gets. My family and friends dislike me dating him because he’s older than me.” She scratches behind my ears. “But I’m sure his are just as frustrated that he’s dating a loser like me. He’s just so far out of my league.”

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