Nightmare by Bonnie Bryant Read Free Book Online Page A

called equine infectious anemia, or EIA. It was incurable, it was fatal, and, worst of all,it was infectious. If King Perry had it, what about Delilah?
    Carole picked up the phone to call Judy Barker and tell her to get there right away. It wasn’t necessary, though. Before she could even dial the number, a familiar truck pulled into the Pine Hollow driveway. Judy knew this was an emergency. She had come already.

I T SEEMED AS IF everything happened at once then. Judy arrived, Max finished his lesson with Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Reg returned to her office with Mr. Terban, and Red sent a gleeful trio of little girls back to their parents, all promising they would never fight over a pony again.
    The look on Judy’s face told Max, Mrs. Reg, and Red that this was not a casual visit. Carole handed Mrs. Reg the phone message from Mrs. Thomas.
    “Oh, no,” she said. “King Perry just died of swamp fever.” While Max and Red took in the horrible news, Mrs. Reg turned to her newest customer. “Mr. Terban, I’m afraid I’ve wasted your time. We can’t take any new boarders now. We’re about to be quarantined.”
    “Oh?” he said, perturbed. “Then I guess I should go back to Hedgerow Farms.”
    “No, you’re going to have to go elsewhere,” Judy said. “They’ll be quarantined, too. Okay, let’s get to work,” she said to the others, dismissing Mr. Terban. Carole suspected that Mr. Terban would think they were being rude, but that wasn’t the case at all. It was simply that there wasn’t a minute to waste!
    “My first job is to check on Delilah,” said Judy. “Carole, come with me. You can help with the checkup. Max, Red, here are some vials and needles. We need to draw a blood sample from every horse in the stable. Please label them carefully. Now, first of all, is there a place where we can isolate Delilah?”
    “How about the extra stall in the feed shed?” Carole suggested. Max nodded in agreement.
    “Let’s go,” said Judy. She left Mrs. Reg’s office so quickly that Carole found herself running to catch up. Without pause, Judy opened Delilah’s stall, clipped on a lead rope, and cast a practiced eye over the mare.
    “No obvious symptoms,” Judy said. Carole found herself sighing with relief, though she recognized that it might not mean anything. Obvious symptoms would indicate an advanced stage of the disease. It couldn’t move that quickly, could it?
    Carole took the lead rope from Judy and tugged gently to make Delilah follow her to the feed shed. Words kept tumbling through her mind.
Incurable, infectious
, and
fatal.
She knew what they all meant. What she didn’t know was how they applied in the case of this disease. Was it certain that Delilah had it? How would they know?
    “This is a serious disease, Carole,” Judy said, as if she could read Carole’s mind. “It’s serious and it’s deadly—as we already know from King Perry’s death.”
    “How do they get it?” Carole asked.
    “Only by blood transfer,” said Judy. “There are two ways we know it goes from horse to horse. One is from the careless use of a needle. If a vet or caretaker uses a needle on one horse that has the disease and then doesn’t clean the needle properly before using it on the next patient, the disease can be carried that way. More likely and more common—since any sensible caretaker cleans needles thoroughly—is that the disease is carried by insects. Commonly it’s the tabanid in the deerfly family. The insect will bite one victim that already has the disease, and then one that doesn’t. If the virus is in the blood of the first horse, it won’t be cleaned from the biting part of the insect before it gets to the second horse, and that’s how the second one becomes infected.”
    “Is it really common?” Carole asked.
    “No, not really,” said Judy. “And the reason it isn’t is because we are so extremely careful about it. Any horse that moves from one stable to another is tested. Any horse that