My RA Ch. 04

"You would not believe how many pieces of paper your Mommy and Daddy had to sign for that house. Even I had to sign all sorts of forms just to come to school."

"Don't lose that, ask Mommy where you should keep it."

"Molly, when we finish, we will have a statement and sign and date that. Think of it as a beginning and end of an agreement."

"I know this is confusing to you, this is a big learning jump for you."

An unfamiliar beaten-up old truck with a father and son in it pulled up to the stables just as Molly and Daisy had put their horses away; they were going to play at Molly's house. Molly recognized him, a leader at Meadowbrooke. Molly was leery. A big smile appeared on his son's face as he thrust out his hand. "Molly, we were never mad at you. We just thought we could help better doing other things, then people assumed things that weren't true, said things that weren't true. Everything got blown way out of proportion."

"Dad and I are here to see if we can reach some sort of reconciliation and maybe come spring we can help you."

Molly and Daisy looked at each other. "Let's go to the club, there are lots of kids and some parents. You can make your plea there and let them make up their minds."

The son spoke first, then the father. Then total silence. No one even played with their toys they had been playing with. The father and son left for Meadowbrooke. Daisy and Molly were in shock; they walked back to the ranch forgetting their horses were in the stable.

When they got to the ranch Molly and Daisy ignored all greetings, nor did they give any. They went right to Daisy's room and locked the door. Miss Dawn said, "What the hell happened to them? Where are the horses?"

Daisy said, "Molly, what just happened to our friends? Those people came from Meadowbrooke to reach out a hand of friendship, and we rejected them. I have never seen anything like that, and I hope I never do again."

"Do you have your candle here Daisy?"

"Yes Molly, it is over by the other window. They did not want it to fall on my bed."

Both moved over to the candle and Molly lit it.

Molly said, "Here is what we are going to do, first, hold hands, second, we will ask God for guidance, third we will go over what we saw and any ideas. Then we will bring everything to God and ask Him to help us. Remember, God wants to know how we feel. Cry be sad or anything else you feel. I know I am going to cry."

"You start Daisy."

Daisy said, "Oh God, I hope you hear me, I am not a Christian, but Molly and I need to talk to you. Something really bad happened today," Daisy started to cry and was sniffling, "Two people from Meadowbrooke came over with the hand of friendship. They told their side of the story at the club only to be met with total silence. I mean, how rude can you get. Can you please help us? We do not know what to do, we are just kids?"

Molly started to pray, "Oh God, it is Molly, a new child of yours. You saw what happened in the club today, I thought my friends were better than that. When a hand of friendship is offered to you, you do not reject it, as far as I am concerned. Mr. Jacob says you are just waiting for us to talk to you if we have a super hard problem. Well, we got one." Molly was crying through Daisy's prayer, now she was so choked up she could barely talk. "We don't know what to do."

Dawn said, "I'm going to go up there and find out what happened."

Sarah said, "Don't you dare, something in their eyes went wrong today. So, bad they forgot about the horses, which are probably in the stable with food and water. They didn't greet us because they were focused as one with the problem. They probably are in prayer right now and you can't interrupt that. We will learn what happened sooner or later."

Daisy continued, "Lord, they have been so generous to us and we have only been rude to them. I think friendship is an important thing. Thank you for bringing Molly back to me."

Then silence, so they could hear a response from God.

Sarah called and asked Daisy and Molly's friends to go check on Spirit and Angel to make sure they are both OK. One of the girls called back, "They are doing just fine Miss Sarah, we moved Peaceful and Courage next to them; they are good friends you know."

As Sarah hung up the phone Sarah said, "Oh my God, I know why they are praying. I just do not know what about."

"What brought them together? What was Daisy's theme when they argued? Why did Molly want Daisy with her when she became a Christian? What bonds them now? Dawn, you told me what the title was to the song you said down in Orlando when she dedicated it to her THREE best friends, not her two best friends?"

Dawn said, "It was 'You got a friend in me'."

Everyone stopped eating, there was silence.

Dawn said, "Thank you, Sarah, for not letting me go upstairs. If this is about friendship and I stopped them from talking to God about it . . .

"Daisy more than anyone else in this town covets friendship."

"What could they have seen or experienced today that would have them praying for four hours and counting?"

One of the hands said, "Well if you look at things from Daisy's point of view, the most traumatic day for her recently is when she lost Molly and her friends from Meadowbrooke all on the same day.

Miss April said, "Crap, someone from Meadowbrooke must have come all the way here to offer an olive branch. Since Daisy doesn't know how to refuse an olive branch, that means Molly accepted it also, then someone or some group figuratively burned it."

Zoe said, "Something they couldn't handle so much they forgot the horses. They didn't think the adults could either, so they did not even say Hello. Only God could help them, at least in their eyes." Another hand said, "Assuming all of this is true, which is a big assumption, it couldn't be just anyone who burned it. It had to be friends again, it would sting the most, as far as Daisy is concerned."

Molly said, "I got an idea Daisy, grab some flashlights." Both ran down the stairs, Daisy getting two flashlights from the drawer, ignoring the adults again.

"Molly, why are we going to the stables?"

Miss Sarah said, "Why are they going to the stables?

Miss Zoe said, "It looks like they are talking to Apache.

A hand said, "I think you should rephrase that."

Miss Zoe said, "Huh?"

The hand continued, "Don't you mean, they are talking to the horse that helped Miss Anna heal?"

Miss April said, "They are looking for a conduit to God?"

"We have been telling them to ask questions until they get the answer that they think God wants them to have. Does it have to come from speech or by a human? Body language is far more effective than speech. Just ask Miss Anna."

Sarah said, "Well they are on a mission about something they care about. Best of all they are doing it together as a team."

Miss Zoe said, "Whatever the origin of the problem was, it doesn't matter. They are working on a solution, if we interfered, we would just ask them a million questions and we still wouldn't understand. God has the answer, even if that means consulting a horse."

"Daisy, they came here to make our town look beautiful, right?"

"Yup."

"Miss Sarah pays you right."

"Yup, but not as much as she paid you. What are you getting at Molly?"

"Well, I think everyone at the ranch would want to be friends with the people of Meadowbrooke.

"Now I don't know what they need, but maybe the hands could help them build birdhouses, and we could get seed and feeders. Every home could use them. I think we each could put twenty-five dollars to the project. Bring Angel and Spirit up to the town and ride in first."

"Our town may not be friends with them yet, but I think most of the children want to be."

Daisy said, "How do we know they want to be friends with us? We have been only mean to them."