My eyes flickered open, I turned to see my clock but Zeke was blocking my view. I kicked off my bed covers and found TigerMoth sleeping under my desk.

I sleepily stretched and then dragged myself downstairs. I caught a glimpse of the kitchen clock. The time was 6:30 am. I grabbed out an apple and a banana for breakie. ( breakfast ) I squealed in fright when I noticed mum sitting at the table eating some toast. She was all dress in jodhpurs and a horse jacket. Mum looked at me with a shocked expression on her face.

"Your suppose to be dressed by now!

"I just woke up!"

"Just woke up! I woke you up half an hour ago!"

"What?"

"Oh wow! It's your first day at the SPCA and your going to be late!"

I dropped my banana and ran upstairs. I slipped into buckskin jodhpurs, the white flowery T-shirt from yesterday and some socks. Swallowing the apple hunk by hunk. I flew back down stairs to get a glass of water. I heard a honking car and find mum outside the silver Toyota car. I grabbed my black horse boots as I ran past and hopped into the car.

"Mum the horses are still in the barn!"

"Don't worry, Erica is going to do them."

----------------------------

A huge surge of excitement swam through me as Rebecca led our small group of new horse section workers towards the stables. The girl Lucy that I saw at the interview was here as well but the two other boys I didn't know. Rebecca opened a double door and pointed to the stables ahead. "Welcome to the Horse Section!" We were all ohhhs and ahhhs as we stared wide-eyed at the sight before us. There was a huge stable that could fit around twenty five horses in it! I could see three horses gazing at us from their stalls, in the distance I could see two horses grazing in a lush green field and one in a corral with a trainer. A young vet walked into one of the stalls, when he came out he was leading a young chestnut Arabian colt. The poor thing cowered when the vet tried to pat him, he was obviously head shy because he was being neck reined without a halter. Rebecca turned to one of the boys, "Ty, you are assigned to that young filly over there." She pointed the closest horse to us, she was a pretty black horse. "Lucy you'll be working with the next horse down, he's the bay called Bronco. Daniel, your horse is the white one in the paddock and Elisabeth, you'll be training the chestnut colt. Each one of your horses has a personal assistant who will tell you how to train and look after your horses. Good luck!" With that, everyone set off towards their horses and I did the same.

"Hi! You must be Elisabeth! I'm Anthony! This handsome beauty here is called FlameHeart!"

"He is beautiful! How was he mistreated?"

"Well, the owners got him as a foal but they didn't know how to break him in. They knew a very forceful technique and used on him, see these cuts on the side of his lips? They're from the bit being pulled to hard. I don't know the detail of the technique but it's ruined him."

"I don't understand why people even use bits, at home we only have bit-less bridles!"

"Hey do you think you could spare a bridle for him!"

"Yeah probably!"

I spent the next two hours showing Anthony how we train head shy horses at River Stone Ranch. FlameHeart stayed quivering with fear. He was lying down in the corner of his stall, he made me think of how Madalian was when we first got him. I couldn't stand it anymore. I kelt down in the straw bedding in the corner opposite Flame and slowly crawled towards him, when he saw me coming his whole body tensed and I could see the whites of his eyes. Every time he quivered, I shuffled away from him, when he finally calmed down again, I would advance. I remembered a song that I used to sing to SugarFoot during stormy nights, SugarFoot hated storms because he was sleeping through a storm when a tree crashed through his stable roof! "Hush little baby, don't be scared, take a deep breath and open your eyes, nothings gonna harm you because I'm here." FlameHeart slowly relaxed and the whites of his eyes disappeared. I reached out to touch his shoulder but he stood up. Suddenly FlameHeart turned and nipped my hand, "you better leave him for today, let him think about all of it." He had an astonished look on his face when he added.

"He never calmed down and let me get that close. Could you please teach me what you did?!"
"Sure!" I answered, feeling kind of full of myself.

For the next few hours we worked with FlameHeart, and by the end of the day we had him haltered and walking reasonably well while being led. After wards mum picked me up and took me home for a well awaited sleep!