A Hundred Horses by Sarah Lean Read Free Book Online

found her goat. Maybe it was stolen . . . ,” I said.
    I was only guessing, but Angel looked startled long enough for me to think I had guessed right.
    “What are you doing up there, anyway?” I said.
    She scowled again, shifted her back against the trunk, and pulled her knees up.
    “You might fall,” I said.
    She rolled her eyes and looked away.
    “I’ve got an apple for you,” I said, holding it up high so she could see it. I pulled the bag of cheesy puffs out of my pocket. “And these.”
    Her face changed so quickly, I could have been offering her a thousand dollars. But I’d already guessed she wanted me to know she was there, that she’d dropped the twig on me.
    “You come up,” she ordered.
    I went around and around the tree, looking for a ladder or some way to climb up. I reached up to the lowest branch, but I couldn’t hold on or pull myself up.
    “How?” I said.
    Angel smirked, and then she laughed out loud.
    “Easy,” she said. “You’re just not very imaginative.”
    There was a gentle thump, and she was crouched on the ground, looking up at me. Her dark, untidy hair was tangled around her face and dark eyelashes. She was still wearing the long coat, which obviously wasn’t hers, over black leggings and a faded black top and the black flats.
    She snatched the bag out of my hand. Her fingernails were chewed and dirty. She sat on a fallen tree branch, so I knelt on the grass nearby and listened to her crunch through the chips.
    “I’m staying with my aunt Liv, just over Easter,” I said, trying to be friendly, trying to lead up to asking her where my suitcase was. After all, I was sure now she would give it back because I hadn’t told anyone about seeing her.
    “So?” she muttered.
    She peeled open the side of the packet and licked the crumbs from the bottom. She crumpled up the empty packet and put it in her pocket and held her hand out toward me. I started to feel that it wasn’t actually bothering her that I knew she’d had something to do with Mrs. Barker’s chickens and the missing goat.
    “Apple,” she said, only flicking a screwed-up glance at me.
    I thought, The nerve of it, like I’m her servant or something. I had tried to be nice, but I smacked the apple into her hand. She laughed, like she was glad I was getting annoyed.
    And I couldn’t help saying, because she looked so smug, “You like winding people up, don’t you?”
    She lay back on the branch. She found that even funnier.
    “You’re really rude, you know,” I said, getting more irritated. “I can see why Mrs. Barker and my cousins told me to stay away from you now.”
    She was almost crying, laughing so much she nearly fell off the branch.
    “You didn’t listen, though,” she said, her jewel eyes sparkling.
    I huffed as hard as I could and stood up.
    “I wish I’d never bothered,” I said, and walked away.
    I could hear her, almost hysterical with laughter.
    “Nell!” she suddenly called.
    I turned to see her trying to hide a smirk.
    “What?”
    “There’s a huuuge spider on you!”
    I screamed and flapped, brushing at my clothes.
    “Where?”
    “On your arm.” She giggled. “No, the other one.”
    She rolled off the branch, clutching at her middle.
    “It’s on your back now,” she gasped, hardly able to breathe.
    I suddenly realized she was making me look like an idiot. My fists were clenched, my shoulders up, as I stared at Angel rolling around in the grass, tears streaming through her high-pitched laughter.
    She looked at me at last. I was barely able to control my own breathing.
    “There’s no spider,” I snapped.
    She took a last bite out of the apple, not laughing anymore, but still smirking. She threw the core away and walked toward me, stared right into my eyes.
    “I expect people told you not to believe anything I said, either.”
    I groaned through my teeth and marched off.
    I heard her footsteps behind me. I turned, punched my hands on my hips, only to find her mirroring