THE SECRET LIFE OF MODEL HORSES

A whimsical collection of stories about the author's model hoArses and the secret lives they lead in the absence of their humans. Written years before Toy Story, these tales sat hidden away until rediscovered by the author, who honed and edited them into the stories featured here. In these tales, the herd of plastic ponies and their new leader, deal with new dangerous feline additions to the home, strife between young herd members, and dangers from outside the old house that threaten their very existence. In this first volume, follow the early adventures of the old Breyer Family Mare, T'Pal, the Elder of Tardis Stables, and her ever growing herd, as she accepts her exploding powers, and growing responsibilities

Sample excerpt  

PROLOGUE – T’PAL’S INTRODUCTION

On March 18, 1962, I met my one and only owner, who, at five years old, thought me the best birthday gift she ever received in her short life. She gasped in delight, seeing me through the plastic cover of the box, and pulled me out. Holding me up, the little girl gazed at me through thick glasses, her eyes alight with joy. In her lenses, I saw my new glossy honey bay Family Arabian Mare body shining under the lights. Her joy infused me, but a mere six months into this existence, during a bout of rough play, my right rear leg broke, between the fetlock and hock joints. Pain shot through my entire hindquarter, as my owner burst into tears. She grabbed me and the leg, and begged her parents to repair me. After a few futile attempts to reattach my leg with Elmer’s School Glue, they gave up, tossing my hoof into a drawer, where it lingered for years before disappearing for good. Fortunately for me, I stood well on my remaining three legs, and ended up on a shelf. The pain ebbed and I accepted the loss of the leg.

In 1964, two glossy black and white pinto Western Horses joined me on the shelving. Their coats gleamed as our owner placed them beside me. I braced myself for snickers, as I appeared far older then my mere two years, but the snide comments never came. Both gentle souls treated me with respect and kindness. Our owner and her sister, who owned the second of the Western Horses, handled us more carefully these days.

In 1965, on a bright, snow covered Christmas morning, Thunderbolt joined us. A huge palomino Marx stallion of undetermined breed, he assumed the duty of protector of our tiny herd. He endured much rough play and lost his tail in one such session. The owner, older now, created a new tail out of yarn for him. Miraculously, it stayed put during years of rough play.

After my seventh birthday, in the hot summer of 1969, the family left their home, moving into a larger house. I missed the old place, as did my owner, however the big colonial provided us with our own room, and there she displayed our little herd with pride. 

I watched the world from that shelf, watching the family, but trouble reared an ugly head a year later. Angry shouting filled the sunny old house, and the family fell on hard times. I sorrowed for my owner, her siblings and their mother. Unlike the humans, I withstood cold, and needed no food or clothing. My owner packed us with care, and the family left that big sunny house. From that day, I saw little of the outside world for many years. My owner’s family moved often, and I spent much time bouncing and vibrating in a motor vehicles, and listening to life from the dark confines of a box or closet. I glimpsed many a toy given away or left behind with each move, but though my owner stubbornly held onto us, I wondered if the sight of falling snow, sunlight slanting into a room, or just watching the family activity left my life forever. I missed those simple things.

Right after I turned twelve, family life settled into calm for the first time in years. My owner, now seventeen, pulled us out of boxes and placed us on a low shelf in her closet, which always stood open to the world. Sunlight from both windows bathed us in the afternoons. Though not a true shelf, it sufficed, because I saw the world again. 

The following year, in 1975, we gained a new herd member, a petite palomino QH mare my owner named Topaz. Topaz told us of her origins, and showed us the stamp on her leg that read Hartland Plastics. Life remained uneventful until later that year when the owner’s boyfriend, a familiar face now at the home, while rough housing with our owner, slipped and fell into our closet! He landed on Thunderbolt, who by some miracle of the model horse gods, remained unharmed, but he unintentionally inflicted injury to the owner’s boyfriend, with a nasty puncture wound from an ear to the boy’s underarm. Not long afterward, our owner loaded up some old toys and clothes for the Goodwill box across town, and, to our shock, added Thunderbolt to the heap. I neighed and screamed my anguish, but my protests went unheard. We lived a less than perfect life, but our owner always resisted her parents’ urging to dump us as useless old junk. We grieved Thunderbolt’s departure, and feared we all might be next. Only Thunderbolt left us, but our owner paid little attention to us, giving it all to her boyfriend. I missed Thunderbolt and grieved many years for him, wondering where he was and if he was safe. I always felt his existence in peril, waking from dreams in which he lost leg after leg after leg. Though my anger at my owner and her boyfriend diminished with time, I never forgot old Thunderbolt.

In 1978, conflict once again raised an ugly face in the family. This time, my owner rebelled, and left, moving in with her boyfriend’s family. Though her parents protested, she left, twenty-one years old now and an adult, able to make her own decisions. I know she felt badly for her mother and siblings, but anger at her father for forcing this issue drove her out. I knew not the details, and only understood she finally saw her sire for what he truly was and not the perfect parent she adored as a small child. We all moved in with her boyfriend’s family, and with her love away at college, she turned her attention to old pursuits. With money from a new job, she purchased models, and more herd members joined us. She constructed a small shelf for us in her attic bedroom for us.

Jalapeno arrived first, a kindly El Pastor Paso Fino. As she named him, I wondered why she never gave me a name. Such a thought never crossed my mind until this moment, since after all these years without one, I suddenly wished for one, as my status as herd leader bloomed with these newcomers, who saw me as Elder of our meager herd. Even the cantankerous, yet kind alabaster Fighting Stallion, Winterwind, turned to me as leader. 

The showy but friendly Midnight Sun, Lunar Eclipse, joined us next, and lastly a small but feisty rearing stallion the owner dubbed Sunburst completed our little herd. 

Our owner promised me a new paint job, yet never called me by name. One hot summer night, with everyone away on vacation, I desired to run across the floor, and run and gallop like a real steed. To my shock, my legs twitched, and danced beneath me in response. At that moment, I felt energies fill me, and I leaped from the shelf. My herd mates followed and we galloped all over the house. From that night we did so any time we found the house empty of humans. Such freedom filled me with joy and delight, and we relished our Awakenings. With each, my strength and power increased.

A year later, with the painting of the low ceiling in our owner’s room, to our horror, tiny white dots from the job covered all of us. My new companions expressed disgust and Lunar Eclipse, mortified, lamented at his destruction as a show horse. The pintos and I stared at him in confusion, until he spoke of something all new Breyers knew before they left the factory now. Some exciting hobby involving showing and collecting model horses exploded into existence a few years prior. Stunned, I stared, wishing I knew of a way to let our owner know of such a wondrous type of life! Hope flared briefly when she picked up the brochure that accompanied Jalapeno, and as she read, I neighed, “Yes! Yes! Send for JAH!!!

“Huh,” she muttered. “Probably has little to do with actual models.” She then discarded the brochure. I struggled to move, to neigh, to retrieve that slip of paper, but to no avail. Sadly, one evening, I heard her boyfriend’s mother ridicule her for wasting money on toys and junk. I wanted to kick the woman! How dare she call us all junk and pass judgement on us? Energy infused me and I reared. Rainbow sparks flashed in the dark room, and in moments we all neighed our displeasure. A number of days later, our owner packed us away in boxes, grumbling, scratching at the white dots, and thrust us in the back of her small closet. Our secret delightful freedoms abruptly ended. 

One day, I thought I heard my pinto friends whinnying to me, terror in their voices, but quiet quickly settled over the closet. I lay in that box, unable to see a shred of daylight, dreaming of the world Jalapeno and Lunar Eclipse spoke of. I soon slumbered, as time ticked into the future.

One cold winter day, my owner pulled us out, and I saw new things such as towels, blankets, dishes, bowls, mountains of art supplies, and other items in piles around the small room. A mound of discards grew beside the staircase railing. I sensed her deep frustration. Finally, she looked at me, fingering my stump of a rear leg, then placed me aside.

“No, I can’t get rid of you, no way. You are almost as old as I am,” she mumbled. She packed me alone, in a box full of keepsakes. I saw Winterwind disappear into a box of kitchenware, and wondered, at all the packing and rearranging. I never saw my pinto friends in all that activity. I learned two years passed while I slept, and that my owner’s boyfriend arrived home for good in late 1981. 

Packed once again into darkness, I tried kicking my opposition to the inevitable, but in my owner’s presence that power to move eluded me. She thought us useless toys! Might I ever see the sun again? Why did she let another tell her what was proper? I sank into depression and the years passed, lulling me into a hibernation-like slumber.

One warm day, when the summer heat beat through the attic roof, a subtle change permeated the stuffy closet. Excitement filtered past my numbed mind, and I slowly came to consciousness. I heard my old companions, quiet for years, stir. A strange equine voice, and then another broke the silence. 

I jerked fully alert and listened. A stallion’s voice, no, two stallions’ voices rumbled deep and rich, penetrating the depths of the closet. I neighed to them, but they never responded, unable to hear me and my companions from under all our owners’ possessions. But I knew something changed, and electricity filled the whole room as new voices joined those stallions. My owner’s voice rang with great joy, echoed by her boyfriend’s, no, now mate’s, deep voice.

In the coming days the newcomers neighed and whinnied with happiness, and I longed to hear their talk. Boxes and cloth muffled every tone and word to inaudible. Time passed, but my anxiety grew with the cooling of the attic. Activity increased to a frenzy one cool autumn day. Boxes moved out of the closet. In my owner’s tired voice, I heard delight, but I felt fear as my box moved once again. Another move! I feared what waited ahead, but something about the new voices filled me with strange hope and longing. The familiar bounce, lurch and vibration of a moving vehicle shook my body. Finally the journey ended and my box moved again. My owner placed the box down after climbing stairs. She left, and dark silence filled my world once again. I feared a lifetime inside this cramped box. An old birthday card stabbed me in the flank, and I kicked in anger, and stopped suddenly, shocked at the movement. That one ray of hope soon died as the box top never opened.

I awoke one evening to the keen of a bitter wind that rattled the windows in the quiet room. I heard my owner’s footfalls. Urgently she hurried up the stairs, came into the room and rummaged in the boxes.

“Here little brown mare! Oh, T’Pal! Where are you? I have looked everywhere else!”

I realized with a start she searched for me, and bequeathed me a name! T’Pal! It rang so wonderful in my old ears. The top of my carton tore off, and the soft amber light of a wall lamp bathed me. With a cry of relief, my owner grasped me and pulled me out of the cramped box. She actually hugged me, for the first time since she was a child. I sensed change in her, but dare not hope, as too many wishes in the past fizzled into empty air and dark cartons. The old colonial reminded me of the long gone sunny home of my youth, but this time, I felt my owner’s strong sense of possession. Downstairs, I heard only one other voice. Her mate sang in the shower, loud enough to echo up to the second floor. Amusement trickled into me, but anxiety quickly forced it away.  

My owner carried me up another flight of stairs. Pink insulation filled the space between bare rafters, and my heart sank. What box or container waited to imprison me? Drowned in sudden depression, I heard none of my owner’s soft words. We reached the top of the stairs and turned sharply right, and I saw not empty rafters but walls. 

I paid attention and heard not only the strange voices of the new stallions, but familiar ones as well. As my owner carried me into the west side of the attic, I saw a large desktop covered by horses! I gazed in stunned, jubilant disbelief. A beautiful bay Trakenher and a bay Clydesdale owned those deep voices I remembered. 

My gaze locked with dark eyes belonging to a black Arabian stallion, and he melted my insides. What a beautiful stallion! My owner placed me beside him and in his expression, I saw attraction and respect. Might he really be interested in a crippled old Family Arabian Mare? Our owner smiled.

“Ah, and Tardis Stables is born” she said, and draped Christmas garland across the desk, before leaving the roomy attic. 

The herd gathered around me, radiating with deep respect and acceptance. I glanced at a small magazine on the desk, and noted with joy the cover read JAH. 

The year 1986 drilled into my mind and I realized five years fled past while I hibernated in depression. Our owner finally discovered the wondrous world Jalapeno spoke of years before.

As Christmas decor blinked, twinkled and sparkled all over the house, our owner picked us older herd members and washed us. The promised paint jobs materialized, and we all enjoyed the feel of the brushes over our bodies. Lunar Eclipse soon sported a black roan coat which covered those horrific white specks. Jalapeno possessed a deep red bay coat, and Winterwind’s touch up brought him back to youthful splendor. Sunburst loved his new appaloosa coloring. The owner promised to repair my leg and make me whole again. Many herd members earned the moniker TS before their names, denoting their status as customized show horses. I felt like a filly, so excited at this obvious dramatic change in life. The little girl of my memory finally grew up and realized our full worth.

I felt sorry for her some days, as she searched for in vain for my old pinto friends, kicking boxes, kicking herself all over Watertown, knowing they followed years ago in Thunderbolt’s wake. I missed them, but joy at this new life permeated my grief, and I hoped I might see them again someday. In the dark nights, when silence hung inside the old colonial, and, in the back yard, the giant old Norway Spruce sang in the wind, I stamped a hoof on the new wooden shelving, afraid to sleep, fearing to wake up in some dark box somewhere to find this all a cruel dream. Instead, I fell asleep many times, dreaming of dingy closets and dark cartons, to awaken to the song of the old spruce, sunlight slanting in the window, and the wind rattling the siding of the old house. At night, or during times when no human occupied the house, we moved, galloping along the floors in glee. The Awakenings grew in scope, and the power gathered within me, growing stronger each day. We enjoyed fun and freedom such as I never knew before, racing the stairways and hallways, retreating to our shelves when the owner and her mate returned home.

Far from the end of the line, I eagerly accepted the beginning of an extraordinary life ahead. At the end of a quarter century of life, in the year 1987, I stood, proud and stronger than ever.

In the following pages, our adventures follow the growth of the new herd, and the startling scope of my own power and responsibility as the Elder of Tardis Stables.