The Sea Pony Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Ellen Potter

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2016 by Qin Leng

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Yearling and the jumping horse design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Potter, Ellen. | Leng, Qin, illustrator.

  Title: The sea pony / Ellen Potter ; illustrated by Qin Leng.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2016] | Series:

  Piper Green and the Fairy Tree ; 3 | Summary: On an island off the coast of Maine, where children ride lobster boats to school, Piper wants a horse but finds, instead, another object hidden in the red maple tree.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015035219 | ISBN 978-0-553-49931-5 (trade) | ISBN 978-0-553-49932-2 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-553-49933-9 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-553-49934-6 (pbk.) | Subjects: | CYAC: Horses—Fiction. | Islands—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Family / General (see also headings under Social Issues). |

  JUVENILE FICTION / Imagination & Play. | JUVENILE FICTION / School & Education.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.P8518 Se 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/​2015035219

  ebook ISBN 9780553499339

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One: The Important Stuff

  Chapter Two: Neck Candy

  Chapter Three: The Little Store

  Chapter Four: Extra-Special Delivery

  Chapter Five: Cinnamon Snakes

  Chapter Six: Sternman Piper

  Chapter Seven: A Wicked Bad Gullywhumper

  Chapter Eight: Mystery Treasure Chest

  Chapter Nine: The Sea Pony

  Chapter Ten: The Terrible Thing

  Chapter Eleven: A Knock on the Door

  Chapter Twelve: Lola

  About the Author

  Look for Piper’s Newest Adventure!

  To Sonja Philbrook, who deosn’t mind silly questions

  —E.P.

  To Sarah

  —Q.L.

  Detail left

  Detail right

  My name is Piper Green and I live on Peek-a-Boo Island.

  There are two things you should know about Peek-a-Boo Island:

  1. All the kids on the island ride a lobster boat to school.

  2. There is a Fairy Tree in my front yard.

  You might not believe in fairies and things like that. That’s okay. Last Easter, my little brother, Leo, said he stopped believing in the Easter Bunny, because the Easter Bunny didn’t hide any eggs in our house that year.

  Then Mom marched into my room and found the thirty-six Easter eggs that I stashed in my underwear drawer.

  Now I’m not allowed to get up at four a.m. on Easter morning anymore.

  The first thing I did that Saturday was stare at my fingernails.

  “You look very splendid,” I said to them. “You especially,” I told my left thumb.

  Each fingernail had a tiny purple snail with a white swirl on it. My aunt Terry painted them when she visited yesterday.

  I hopped out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and ran down the hall to Erik’s room. He’s my older brother. During the week, Erik lives on the mainland and sleeps in his school dorm. That’s because there is no high school on Peek-a-Boo Island or any other islands close by. He comes home almost every weekend, though. This weekend, Mom was working at the health clinic, Dad was fishing on his lobster boat, and Leo was at his friend’s house. That meant I had Erik all to myself.

  Erik was snoring, with his head under the blanket.

  I sat on the edge of his bed.

  “Erik?” I whispered.

  “Unnngha?” he muttered.

  “Look at my nails, Erik.” I stuck my hands under the blanket. “Aren’t they gorgeous?” I wiggled my fingers. “Hey, I just thought of something! They’re not fingernails. They’re finger SNAILS!”

  “Hnnn.”

  “Okay, soldier”—I patted what I thought was his head—“get ready for action! First we are going to make tin-can stilts and stomp all over the house. Then we can go to the mudflats and find some clams—”

  Erik threw the blanket off his head.

  “Not today, Piper. I feel lousy. I think I have the flu or something.”

  I looked hard at his face.

  “What?” he asked.

  I pointed at a pimple on his chin. “That’s a fresh one.”

  He groaned.

  “I know what will make you feel better really quick,” I told him. “Cinnamon snakes. Whenever I’m sick, Mom makes them for me and I always get better the next day. Since tomorrow is Sunday, we’ll still have time to do all our fun stuff.”

  Cinnamon snakes are not real snakes, by the way. They are just cinnamon, sugar, and butter on bread, which Mom cuts into squiggles.

  Erik closed his eyes. “Sure. That sounds good.”

  I ran out to the kitchen, but two minutes later, I was back in Erik’s room.

  “There’s only one problem,” I told him. “We’re out of cinnamon.”

  “Okay.” He put the blanket over his head.

  “Don’t worry, though. I’m going to go to the Little Store and buy some,” I told him.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I took the blanket off his head.

  “So can I have some money?” I asked.

  He looked at me with his aggravated face. He pointed to his jeans on the floor. I took out three dollars from his pocket.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” I told him, and I put the blanket over his head again.

  Before I went to the store, though, I made a quick stop at the Fairy Tree. The Fairy Tree is a fat red maple tree at the end of our yard. First I made sure that none of its branches were broken after last night’s storm. They all looked A-okay. After that, I scrambled up the tree and sat down in the nice, cozy crook next to the hole in the trunk. That’s where the fairies leave treasures for me. Except first I have to leave one for them, which I did yesterday.

  “I hope you liked my purple nail polish,” I said.

  I thought for a minute.

  “I also hope fairies have fingernails.”

  Before I reached into the hole, I took a deep breath. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about fairies, it’s that you never know what the heck they will put in the Fairy Tree. One time, they left me two kittens, which I named Glunkey and Jibs. Another time, they left me just one earring. My neighbor Mrs. Pennypocket says that the fairies don’t always leave things that you want. Instead, they leave things that you need…even if you don’t know that you need them.

  I reached into the
hole and felt around in there. My fingers touched something cold and smooth. I scooped it up, took it out, and looked at it.

  It was a necklace! At the end of a chain was a long, thin pendant made of slippery-smooth gold!

  “Ooooh!” I cried out. “Neck candy!”

  That’s what Aunt Terry calls a necklace.

  I’d never had a fancy necklace before. The only necklace I owned was made out of folded-up potato chip bags. My best friend, Ruby, made it for me.

  I put the necklace around my neck. The chain was so long that it reached my belly button. I held up the backs of my hands so that my finger snails could see it.

  “Nice, huh?” I said to them. “Plus, it doesn’t even smell like barbecue flavor.”

  The Little Store is right across from the wharf. It’s a pink building with a green sign that says “Peek-a-Boo Island Grocery Store.” But everyone just calls it the Little Store. You can’t believe how much stuff is crammed into that tiny place! Milk and eggs and bread, but also hammers and nails, flashlights, aspirin, bait bags, paint, rope, whoopie pies, soda, ice cream, Band-Aids, and little wooden lighthouses.

  “Well, good morning, Miss Sassy-Pants,” said Mrs. Spratt, who was arranging boxes of tea on the shelf.

  “Hi, Mrs. Spratt. How do you love my new necklace?”

  Mrs. Spratt knelt down to get a better look at it. Then she did the weirdest thing. She picked up the pendant and put it in her mouth.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “It’s not a chicken finger, lady!”

  Mrs. Spratt blew right into the pendant, and it went, PHWEEEEEE!

  “Whoa! How did you make my necklace do that?” I cried.

  “Because it’s not a necklace. It’s a whistle. Look.” She held it up and showed me the hole that you blow through.

  “Wow!” I put it to my mouth and blew.

  PHWEEE! PHWEE-PHWEE!

  “It’s called a bosun’s whistle,” Mrs. Spratt told me. “It’s a special brass whistle they used to have on ships to send messages to each other. It was made really loud so that people on the ship could hear it in bad weather.”

  Oooh! A talking whistle!

  “Guess what this means,” I said. Then I blew it as hard as I could.

  PHWEEEEE­EEEEE­EEEE!!!

  Mrs. Spratt jumped a little.

  “It means I need cinnamon,” I told her.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” said Mrs. Spratt. She found a little container of cinnamon on the shelf and brought it over to the checkout counter. I handed her Erik’s money, and she gave me back the change. She also gave me a lollipop that was root-beer-flavored, which I love, and a piece of bubble gum.

  I stuck the little container of cinnamon in my right pocket and the bubble gum in my left pocket. I was going to eat the lollipop, so I held on to that.

  Then I picked up my whistle to thank her.

  “No need to thank me!” she said quickly, holding up both hands.

  But I thanked her anyway.

  PHWEEEEEEEEEP!

  The store’s door opened, and old Mr. Mathers walked in. I waved and blew a special hello whistle for him. I made it kind of soft and shaky-sounding, like his voice. He smiled and waved back. Then he picked up a loaf of bread and brought it to the counter.

  “There’s an awful big crowd of folks out there waiting for the ferry to come in,” said Mrs. Spratt, peeping out the store window.

  “Ayuh,” said Mr. Mathers. “I hear there’s something special on board today.”

  “Really, now?” said Mrs. Spratt as she gave Mr. Mathers his change. “What is it?”

  Mr. Mathers shrugged. “No one seems to know. Everyone is on pins and needles waiting to find out.”

  I wondered what it could be. A candy-vending machine, maybe? Or a gigantic turtle?

  Then I thought of something.

  “I bet it’s a CIRCUS!!” I said in my whistle language.

  The whistle must have shouted this, because Mr. Mathers dropped his change all over the floor.

  That’s when Mrs. Spratt said that my whistle might be more of an “outside whistle.”

  Which is code for: “It’s time for you to leave.”

  Holy cow, there really was a big crowd waiting for the ferry! It seemed as if most of the island was standing out there.

  I looked around until I spotted my friend Jacob. Too bad I also spotted my not-friend Allie O’Malley standing with him. She was wearing a headband with red-sequined Minnie Mouse ears, which she got from Disney World over the summer. Jacob and Allie were both watching the big white ferry coming into the harbor.

  “Guess what the ferry is bringing, Piper?” Allie O’Malley said when I walked up to them. “Presents! Presents for everyone on the island!”

  “No one knows what’s on the ferry, Allie,” Jacob said.

  “Well, I think it’s presents for everyone,” she told him.

  “You wish, jellyfish,” I said in whistle talk. “Anyway, I think it’s a circus.” Then I put my whistle down and gave my lollipop a lick.

  Allie squinted at me. Then she squinted at my whistle. “What on earth are you doing with that thing?” she asked.

  I put my whistle back to my mouth and blew out, “Talking to you, Allie O’Malley. Obviously.”

  It sounded like PHWEEE-PHWEE PHWEEP PHWEEP, PHWEEEPY PHWEEP PHWEEPY. PHWEE PHWEEPY.

  In the harbor, the water whooshed loudly as the ferry came in. The crew put the metal gangplank into position. First, the cars that were on the ferry drove down the gangplank. Then the passengers walked down the gangplank, carrying bags of groceries and dragging coolers on wheels.

  “Can you see anything?” Allie asked, standing on her tiptoes and stretching her neck up.

  “Nope,” said Jacob.

  Suddenly there was the sound of clackety-clackety-clackety against the metal ferry floor. Then we saw it, walking across the deck. A horse! Which is the exact thing I have always wanted for my entire life!

  It was a dark brown horse with a white stripe down its nose. Its mane was shiny black, and its tail was so long it almost touched the ground. A man was holding it by a rope and leading it toward the gangplank.

  There were lots of oohs and aahs. That’s because there were zero horses on Peek-a-Boo Island.

  “I wonder who it belongs to,” said Jacob.

  I wished with all my heart that it belonged to me. I imagined sitting on that horse’s back and galloping all around town. I might even ride with no hands when I passed Jacob’s house so that I could amaze him.

  “I’m going to get a horse,” I whistled.

  Allie fluttered her eyelashes at me in a disgusted way. “No one knows what you’re saying, Piper.”

  “Jacob understands me,” I whistled, looking at him. “Don’t you, Jacob?”

  PHWEEP PHWEEEP, PHWEE PHWEEP?

  Jacob thought for a minute.

  “I bet she’s saying that she wants a horse,” he said.

  “Horses are expensive, Piper,” Allie said in her smarty-pants voice, “and your family isn’t exactly rolling in money.”

  Allie O’Malley’s dad owns the biggest, fanciest lobster boat on Peek-a-Boo Island. I imagined the O’Malley family rolling around the living room floor on piles and piles of dollar bills. Mrs. O’Malley would have dollar bills stuck in her hair. Allie’s little sister, Wanda, would probably eat the money, because she eats anything that’s on the floor. She once ate her own baby wipes.

  “My dad said I might get a pony when I turn double digits,” Allie said. “Maybe I’ll let you ride my pony once in a while, Piper…if you are a little more mature by then.”

  I blew my whistle at her. This time my whistle didn’t say anything, though. I just felt like blowing it at her.

  Allie put her hands on her hips and turned to Jacob. “She’s being ridiculous, as usual.”

  “I know you are, but what am I?” I whistled.

  Allie turned back to me and shook her head. “You are so weird, Piper.”

  “And you are a BAG OF SM
ELLY TOENAILS!!” I said this in my loudest whistle voice.

  It turns out that loud whistles make horses jumpy. Because, all of a sudden, that horse started stomping its feet against the metal gangplank and shaking its head.

  “Who is blowing that darn whistle?” asked the man who was leading the horse.

  That’s when I snuck away.

  I know Mrs. Pennypocket said that the Fairy Tree gives you stuff you really need. But the only thing that the whistle seemed to do was get me into trouble. And I don’t need any help doing that.

  I kind of wished I had my purple nail polish back.

  Suddenly I had a great idea!

  I ran up the road and back to the Fairy Tree as fast as I could. I climbed up to the fairy hole and gave the tree trunk a friendly pat.

  “It’s me again, guys,” I said to the fairies. “So I was thinking…if you want to give me something that I really need, you should give me a horse. Because a horse would come in handy during emergencies. Like if Mom ran out of milk or something, I could just jump on my horse and ride to the Little Store and get her some.”

  On second thought, that didn’t seem like too much of an emergency.

  I put my chin on my knee and I thought a little more. I tapped on my forehead, because that’s how you knock some sense into your brains.

  Then I got it!

  “Another emergency might be if Mrs. Snortingham is choking on a Brussels sprout.”

  Mrs. Snortingham is a pig. She belongs to Nora Bean, who owns a farm all the way on the other side of Peek-a-Boo Island.

  “And what if Nora Bean calls Mom for help? A horse would really come in handy then, right? I could gallop Mom straight over to Nora Bean’s farm, top-speed, and Mom could pull that Brussels sprout right out of Mrs. Snortingham’s mouth.”

  I took the whistle off my neck. “So I’ll just be tucking this old whistle right back in here,” I said as I put the whistle into the fairy hole.