Photo Finish by Bonnie Bryant Read Free Book Online

he’s really eating it though, does it?” she said. “Maybe that rag filled him up.”
    Blackie shook his head, seeming annoyed. He spat outthe mouthful of hay. Then he picked it up again and worried it with his teeth. After a few seconds he spat it out again.
    “What’s this? Have pigs learned to fly?” said Eddie Hernandez’s voice from behind the girls. “Did I really just see that bottomless pit spit out some food?”
    Carole turned and saw that Eddie had an armload of hay and a couple of halters slung over one shoulder. His eyes were riveted to Blackie. “I guess he’s full,” she said with a shrug.
    “Full?” Eddie shook his head. “I doubt it. We’d better ask your pal Judy Barker to take a look at him when she gets back. If Blackie has stopped eating, there’s got to be something seriously wrong with him. Maybe I’ll take a look at him myself when I have a half a second to do it.” With that, Eddie disappeared into a nearby stall.
    Carole was pretty sure the groom was joking, but just in case, she hurried forward and knelt down in front of the goat. “Are you feeling all right, Blackie?” she asked, scratching his head between the hard little horns. On a hunch, she leaned over and picked up the slightly soggy mouthful of hay the goat had dropped. She examined it for a second, then jumped to her feet. “Hey, you guys! Look at this,” she exclaimed. “This hay is moldy through and through!”
    Stevie and Lisa hurried over to see for themselves. “You’re right,” Stevie said with a low whistle. “No wonderBlackie didn’t want to eat this. It would have made him as sick as—”
    “Monkeyshines!” Carole interrupted her. She rushed off down the aisle. “If Blackie stole it from Monk’s stall, there might be more. We have to get it before he does—if we’re not already too late!”

“O H , GOSH , SHE ’ S right,” Lisa said, hurrying after Carole. Stevie was close behind her. All three of them knew that just a few bites of the moldy hay could make Monkeyshines much too sick to race that day.
    Eddie reemerged from the other stall in time to see them racing down the aisle. “Whoa there, what’s going on?” he shouted, hurrying after them.
    Carole didn’t pause to answer. Calling a greeting to Monkeyshines so he wouldn’t be startled by her abrupt arrival, she quickly unlatched the webbing that was stretched across the open doorway and let herself in. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the colt was facing away from his metal food manger. He greeted her with a nicker, and she reached out to pat him with herleft hand, while her right hand searched the manger for more hay.
    “Got it,” she said a moment later, emerging from the stall and latching the rope carefully behind her. She was clutching a handful of moldy hay.
    Eddie reached them at the same moment. “All right, what’s going on here?” he demanded, sounding a little angry. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t go barging into a racehorse’s stall like that, no matter how good-natured he is?”
    “Sorry,” Carole said. “I do know. But this was an emergency.” She held out her hand so the groom could see the hay. “I had to stop him from eating this.”
    Eddie took the hay from her and examined it. The angry lines in his face relaxed, and he looked puzzled. “Moldy hay. How did you know this was in there?”
    “That’s what Blackie had that he wasn’t eating,” Stevie explained. “Carole saw that it was moldy, and she figured it must have come from Monk’s stall. She didn’t want him to eat it and get sick.”
    Eddie’s eyes widened. He looked down in time to see Blackie scoot under the rope and into Monkeyshines’s stall. “Boy, it’s a good thing that goat is such a pig!” he exclaimed. “That was good thinking on your part, Carole—I can’t believe I didn’t think to stop and check on Blackie myself. I should know better than to just let that kind of strange behavior go, no matter how