And The Winner Is...Abby Comeau!

Abby wrote an amazing story. The first 2 chapters are posted here as a teaser and I'm working on editing the rest. Abby is 12 years old and lives in Nova Scotia with her family. The rest of the story is fantastic and definitely worth a read! I'll discuss posting it with Abby, but I think that she should publish it as a 99 cent book on kindle and amazon to get some money out of all the hard work she's put into this. Either that or I'm buying the rights and publishing it! Anyways, here's the beginning... pardon the bad formatting from one computer to the next but I really want you to see this book!

Lead Me Home

by Abby Comeau

Table of contents

Tara Kelly------------------------------------------------------- 3

The trail ride---------------------------------------------------- 8

Stranded--------------------------------------------------------11

Spencer hurry up----------------------------------------------14

One more loss--------------------------------------------------17

Fire!------------------------------------------------------------20

Desperately Seeking Truffles--------------------------------22

Homeward bound--------------------------------------------25

White coats don’t know nothin'-----------------------------27

Vet check------------------------------------------------------29

Wait till the time----------------------------------------------34

Simon’s black gold truffles-----------------------------------37

Chapter 1

Tara Kelly

“Hello! And welcome to the fifth and..."

The clock radio was cut short by a hand slapping the snooze button. 13 year old Tara Lynn Kelly sat up in her bed, her raven black hair was knotted and in her freckled face. She sat for a minute, then flopped back over backwards and put her head under the pillow………. “Tara get down here, I heard that clock radio go off!” called Dad from somewhere downstairs.

Tara slowly dragged herself out of bed, she picked out her favourite John Deere T-shirt that her dad gave her, blue jeans, old ropers, didn't bother putting on make-up. She lived with 4 boys and had no choice but to be tomboy herself. Her mom had left 2 years ago and she was so full of resentment and anger for being left, she hadn't returned any calls, letters of emails since. She pushed aside the beaded strings in her doorway and walked out.

On the stairs she was greeted by her twin brothers knocking pictures off the wall, and sticking their tongues out at her.

“Jake, Cody, get outta the way!!!” She said to the 7 year old identical twins had copper hair and brown eyes. Tara sleepily made her way down the rest of the stairs and turned the corner towards the kitchen, where she found her 20 year old blond brother, Spencer, eating a bowl of fiber nuts. He was listening to the radio while he ate.

"8:00 news, 2 escaped prisi- “shut up!” He turned it off.

"Oh look, its sleeping beauty, without the beauty” said Spencer humorously.

"Dad told you to come down over half and hour ago, and now he is P.O'd” he said.

Tara mutely sat down and poured herself a bowl of dry fiber nuts.

“Dad told me to tell you there is no school today”

Tara practically jumped out of her seat!

“Why?” she said.

“It’s an in-service, what are you so excited about?”

“Because Eric has been following me around for weeks, making kissy faces and it’s been driving me berserk.

“Ooohhhhh, Tara has a boyfriend.” He said in a sing-song voice.

“Shut up you idiot”

“Now I can go on a trail ride…. ALL DAY. Can you pass me a banana?”She said as she gathered an apple, a carrot, 2 peanut butter sandwiches, and a jar of ice water.

“I’m putting it in my saddlebags.”

He tossed a banana at her.

“Where are you going anyway?”

“I’m going to Fairview Wood; I’ll try to be back before sundown”

“I think you’re really going to the woods to meet Eric.”

She ignored him and stuffed every thing in the saddle bags.

Tara walked into the porch and shoved her feet into her brother’s old cowboy boots (with some difficulty), grabbed her Dad’s worn leather barn coat off the hanger and walked out in the crisp morning air with her hands in it’s holey pockets. She walked to the old broken down barn were she found her grey-and-white welsh x pony Truffles who, at 12.3 hands, had her fuzzy head barely reaching over the roughly chewed stall door. She had been trained by her mother who had put the many miles on her; and that made her the pony that she was now. Tara grabbed a handful of oats and let the pony greedily take them from her hand; her lips were soft to the touch. As she turned to get a couple flakes of hay she ruffled her forelock and said

“When are you going to shed out girl? Dads penners are already all shinny… its June 1^st….hurry up!”

“Fancy seein' you here Tara!” Tara wheeled around to see her Dad, Charles Kelly, wearing his old weathered cowboy hat. Sometimes she wondered what he would look like without it!

“Oh hey Dad” she said as she stuffed some brushes in her saddlebags.

“Came down the feed that cow of yours huh?”

“She’s not a cow Dad, she’s a pony“

“Well she might not look like one of the Montana mustangs, but I’ll turn her lose with ‘em if you don’t get your butt in gear!”

“I packed a lunch in my saddlebags; I’m going on a trail ride”.

She tacked her up in her Dad’s old hand-me-down western rawhide and an old one eared roping bridle, and started leading her towards Fairview Wood.

Chapter 2

The trail ride

As she mounted her pony, and sank into the old saddle, she remembered how her Dad had given her this saddle, and said

“It’s not mighty pretty, but it’s the comfiest thang you’ll ever sit in.” He was right on both counts.

She called over her shoulder to her Dad who was walking back to the house.

“I’ve got my cell phone if you need me, I told Spencer the details.”

As Tara heading into the woods, she quickly put in her head phones and she looked around at the familiar surrounding. She closed he eyes and thought to herself about how quiet Truffles was now. She wasn’t always like this, when her mom got her 10 years ago, she was a hyper 3 year old that knew nothing, not even how to walk on a lead. She remembered all the trail rides she and her mom had gone on while Truffles was in training. Back then Tara was still riding her father’s old mare Nancy. He had since retired her and she was now a lawn ornament. Tara was excited about this trail ride, even though it was a spur of the moment decision. She knew that Truffles wouldn’t do anything bad; she wasn’t the slightest bit nervous.

As they walked deeper and deeper into the woods, Tara opened her eyes and noticed that she didn’t exactly know this part of the woods. She slid her feet out of the stirrups and rolled her ankles to get the kinks out, and glanced at the time. Where had two hours passed?! At that moment, a pheasant that was walking on the trail in front of them noticed them and flapped away. It was not characteristic of Truffles to spook, but that didn’t matter, as they were now galloping down the trail at full speed.

By the time she calmed her to a complete halt, they were in a totally unfamiliar part of the forest. It was a very thick part because if she looked up all she could see was pine branches. Even though they were in the woods, there were no birds, except a couple of crows, which looked mean. They were standing in the middle of the wood, they were alone.

Tara was about to cry, then she remembered the cell phone; she took it out and started typing in numbers she put it up to her ear. No dial-tone; there was no service.

They were stranded.

To Be Continued....