‘Great,’ she muttered to herself. ‘What are you going to tell Dad about that?’
She decided to worry about that later. Instead she opened the medicine cabinet. It was still filled with all the medicated creams they’d used to treat her mother’s sores when her illness had confined her to bed. Neither she nor her father had had the heart to throw them out. For once, she was grateful.
Grabbing all she could, Emily then went into the kitchen. There she gathered together clean dish towels, disinfectant soap and one of the large pots of collected water.
As she packed the items into bags, she noticed a pool of water on the tile floor in front of the refrigerator. Without power, the freezer section was starting to defrost. Pulling open the door, she saw two tubs of ice cream mixed in with the thawing bags of frozen vegetables. She suddenly felt very hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the previous day.
Emily reached for one of the tubs, grabbed a spoon and put it in her bag of supplies for the roof. She then thought to take some carrots, fresh green beans and a few apples for Pegasus.
She caught hold of the flashlight and headed back up to the roof.
The sun was steadily climbing higher in the sky. But as she stepped out on the roof, Emily still found the city was unnervingly quiet. It was Wednesday. Usually the garbage trucks were out early making all the noise they possibly could. But not today. With the blackout, Emily figured they would have the day off. She also assumed her school would be closed. Even if it wasn’t, she wasn’t going in. Pegasus needed her, school didn’t.
‘I’m back,’ she called as she walked up to the garden shed. Part of her expected to find nothing there; as though everything that had happened the previous night had been some kind of strange dream. But as she approached, she heard the sound of hooves moving on the shed floorboards.
Pegasus poked his white head out and nickered softly to her.
‘Told you I wouldn’t be long,’ Emily said as she started to unpack the bags. ‘OK, I’ve got some water here, a bit of disinfectant soap and some medicated creams we used to treat my mom’s bedsores. The package says it’s good for burns too. So I thought it might help you.’
Pegasus peered into the bags as she unpacked them. Emily giggled as his long mane tickled her face. He soon found the tub of ice cream and pulled it out of the bag.
‘Hey, that’s for me,’ Emily complained as she tried to reach for the tub. ‘I’ve got some apples and vegetables for you.’
But the stallion ignored her. Putting the tub on the ground, Pegasus used his hoof to hold it still while his sharp teeth tore off the top. His long tongue started to lick the melting chocolate ice cream.
‘I don’t know if you should be eating that,’ Emily warned. ‘Chocolate isn’t good for dogs, maybe it’s the same for horses.’
Pegasus stopped and looked at Emily. The expression on his face gave her the impression that he didn’t much care for being called a horse.
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ Emily said. ‘I just don’t want you to get sick. You’ve got enough problems already.’
Pegasus stared at her a moment longer before going back to the ice cream.
‘Fine, suit yourself,’ she said as she unfolded a deck chair and sat down to eat the fruit and vegetables that Pegasus had refused.
As the morning passed, Emily did her best to clean and treat Pegasus’s many wounds. While working on his neck, her cellphone went off.
‘Hi Dad,’ she said, reading his name on the screen.
‘Hey Kiddo, you all right?’
Emily looked at the cuts on her arms, then over to Pegasus. ‘Sure, everything’s fine. You wouldn’t believe what happened last night! There was this big crash on our roof—’
Before Emily could say more, Pegasus nudged her and pounded the floor with his hoof. He shook his head and snorted. Emily looked at him and knew he didn’t want her to tell her dad about him.
‘What happened?’ her father repeated. ‘Emily, did something happen?’
‘Um, no Dad. It was just the garden shed. The wind blew it over. But there are no problems here at all apart from the power being out. What about you?’
Her father sighed. ‘I’ve been held up a bit, so I’m going to be late getting home. I’m at Belleview Hospital at the moment, trying to do a report on this kid that fell out a window. Things have gone from weird to really, really weird.’
Emily was looking at Pegasus. He was still staring at her intently, as though he was listening to her every word.
‘Em, you still there?’ her father called.
‘Sure, Dad,’ she answered quickly. ‘Sorry. What’s so weird about the kid?’
‘I can’t get into it right now. I’ll tell you when I get home later. Should be sometime before dinner. Just take it easy today.’
‘I will,’ she promised.
After she hung up, Emily looked at the stallion. ‘You didn’t want me to tell my father about you, did you?’