Ok, I'm really trying for long chapters involving Heartland, sorry about the slowness.

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting about disclaimers. Well I don't own Heartland (shucks), Lucky Whizelli (he is a real horse), or any of the supplements listed in this chapter, or Jolly Balls (they aren't really very sturdy though. We had one in the field for a few weeks until Lone Star broke it.).

Corkey- you still rock

PunkyCowgirl- ooh! A mustang! My friend has 3. and she's got a burro too! He bit my butt. I went over to their ranch on Saturday and spent the night and I got to ride Omni twice. She is completely green and she doesn't know anything except what a saddle (that thing that slides around on her chubby, round, nearly-witherless back) is and why she doesn't want a bit in her mouth. I LOVE OMNI!!!!

Oh yeah, I found out that the morgan that used to be at my stable could actually jump the back fence, from a standstill, WITH HOBBLES ON!!! Some horses are a little on the obsessive side.

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Leap of Faith

Chapter 4

My alarm clock went off bright and early at 4:30 and I quickly turned it off and got out of bed. It was a habit I had developed when I was 14. I'd get up really early and ride before school, then feed the horses, clean out stalls, and leave. I also didn't have to deal with the crowd of working students coming. Even my dad wasn't up that early.

I shivered slightly, grabbing a sweatshirt. It was a whole lot warmer than this in California. I walked out of my room and downstairs and out the door, not bothering with breakfast. Punching in the keyless entry code on my truck, I climbed in and took my key ring out from under the driver seat. I turned the key and drove the truck over by the barn, close enough to put some feed in the bed. I took the key out of the ignition and walked over to the feed room. Unlocking it, I walked in and managed to find a couple unopened bags in the dark. I picked one up, carrying it over my shoulder, and threw it into the back of the truck. The second bag quickly followed, as did a spare feed scoop.

I paused, glancing around. There were always spare tubs of supplements around here. I walked all the way to the back of the room and lifted up a large tub of Source, a supplement that improves several different things, like hooves, coat, mane, and tail, among others. I lifted this into the tuck before walking back, grabbing a tub of Farrier's Formula, a hoof supplement, and adding that into the growing pile of feed supplies in the truck. I also put in a tub of Weight Builder. I walked down the barn aisle and took a turn that led to another, shorter hallway, lined with tack lockers on one side. Each locker had two or three horses names and the name of their rider on a small whiteboard wired to the front of the wooden lockers. I walked down this hall all the way to the end, to a double-sized, very dusty locker. On the front, it said-

Ally

Tigger

Peppy

Emmy.

My horses. Ally, my big Thoroughbred. Tigger, my little pony, who was mine ever since I was born. He was a little "pony chestnut" Shetland. Peppermint, the pretty albino mare that I had taken to my first competition, and many after it. They were all gone now, every last one of them.

I picked up the dusty eraser and wiped off the board. My name, written by my dad when I was still too young to write it myself, Tigger's name, written in a sloppy, oversized, childish scrawl, Peppy's name, written in a slightly more refined cursive hand, still my own, with little smiley faces in every circle, Ally's name, big and loopy, written only four years ago, when I was 15. I wiped it all off, grabbed and old dry erase marker, rewriting my name, Emma, in a big, loopy hand, similar to the way Ally's name had been written. Below it, I wrote the horses' names.

Burn

Fiesta

Whiz

I went one locker down, to my dad's and grabbed the pack of markers off it. I pulled out a blue one and drew tiny blue flames on either side of Burn's name. Putting that back, I grabbed the red one and drew little red sombreros on Fiesta's name, with one hanging off the F, the other hanging off the t. I also changed the dot on the i so it looked like a miniature chili pepper. On either side of Whiz's name I drew green four-leaf clovers. I sighed, replaced the markers and put in the combination to open my locker, hoping the lock wasn't rusted shut. I pulled down on the lock to open it, but I wouldn't budge.

"Oh shit. Where's the darn WD-40 when you need it?" I asked no one in particular, banging my head on my locker.

"I've got some. The wasps seem to love my locker, so I always keep some handy." I heard a voice say somewhere down the hall, a hint of amusement in his voice. I turned to see Daniel standing in front of his open locker, grinning, holding a can of WD-40. I smiled in return, walking up to him and taking the can. I carefully fitting the straw sprayer-thing in and sprayed it into the grooves of the padlock. I let it sit for a few seconds and then opened it. It opened even easier than it had the last time I had opened it, nearly 5 years ago. I opened the door, quickly checking for any wasps nests that were immediately visable. None, fortunately.

"Well I'm going to have fun cleaning this stuff up. Gosh, and I need to use this saddle for Fiesta. The gullet on my regular saddle will be too narrow for her." Daniel walked up behind me, glancing into my messy locker. He raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Nice mold." He said sarcastically, referring to my saddle.

"Hey, could I keep the WD-40 for a while until I get this junk cleaned up?" I asked.

"Sure, knock yourself out." He said with a grin. I put the can of oil into my locker and came out with a large Jolly Ball, so dusty that you could hardly tell it was blue.

"I guess I'll go hose this off before I take it out to Fiesta and Burn, not that it'll really make a difference, but hey. Who cares anyway?" I said, mostly to myself. "Hey Daniel! What are you doing here this early?"

"Oh, I figured I'd come early to give Storm his usual workout before my friend Amy comes over. She used to own him, so I'll let her ride him a little, but I want to get some time in with him myself." He explained. I just nodded, getting ready to leave. "Oh, and she'd kinda like to meet Fiesta and Burn. Is that alright with you?"

"Oh yeah, that's fine." I said dismissively.

I walked out of the tack room-ish place and over to the hose, cleaning off the ball, then tossing it into the bed of the truck with everything else. Then I walked into a storage shed, and, after rummaging around for a few minutes, found a plastic water tank. I managed to fit this into my truck too and I climbed into the cab, driving down the bumpy road to the lower fields.

When I got there, I hopped out, stuffing the keys into my pocket and pulling out the water tank. I set it close to the gate along the fence. I grabbed a hose, turned it on, and put it into the tank and leaving it to fill. Then I tossed the newly cleaned ball out into the field. I hauled the two feed bags into the small feed room, placing one along the wall and putting the other in a tall beige trash can with a lid. I also opened it, just to save time later. I tossed the feed scoop in along with the bag of feed and closed the lid. I also carried in the supplements and lined them up against the opposite wall.

On the inside of the door was a small whiteboard. I like whiteboards. They're nice and erasable and not dusty like chalk. Anyway, I wiped off my notes about Ally's food and took a marker out of a small unopened pack of them and wrote each horse's name. Glancing quickly at them, I decided how much grain they would each get. Looking at the tubs of supplements, I decided how much of each they would get and wrote it on the board. I took Ally's old nosebags off of the pegs they hung on on the wall and checked them for holes. Not finding any, I filled them up with right amount of grain and supplements for each horse.

Once their nosebags were on, I walked into my old tack room. It was dusty, with the sun barely getting through the small window on one wall. Not a single piece of tack remained hanging in the room. The three saddle racks were folded in for safety and the bridle racks hung empty. There was one tack trunk in a corner, but when I opened it, I found that it contained nothing but a couple broken hay nets, a bucket that was missing a handle, three overstretched horse rubber bands, and a broken stirrup rubber band.

I slowly walked back outside slowly, finding the horses trying to eat grass and the water tank about to overflow. I quickly turned off the hose and removed it from the tank and then I slipped into the field, carefully approaching the horses. It was so much easier when you had a bag full of grain to lure them. I managed to get both horses' nose bags off anyway and then I headed back up to the barn.

I walked over to his stall, checking the information card stating the horse's name, breed, age, sex, feeding instructions, and other notes.

Name: Lucky Whizelli

Breed: Thoroughbred

Age: 7

Sex: Gelding

Feed: 1 1/2 scoops grain, 1 scoop Farrier's Formula

I went back to the feed room, grabbed a bucket and put his grain and supplement into it, then I took it back to his stall and hung it up. Whiz attacked it like it was his last meal. I grabbed a hose and dragged it into the barn and filled his buckets, then I dragged the hose back and turned it off. I walked into the back of the barn where the hay was kept and grabbed two flakes and carried them back to his stall where I stuffed the hay into his hay net.

I glanced at my watch. It was 6:30 and the working students were starting to arrive. I decided that it would be a good time to attack my locker and stay out of the early morning feeding frenzy. I walked back to the tack area and down to my locker. I grabbed a saddle stand and a plastic chair from a corner. I took my old saddle out and set it on the rack. Diving back into the locker, I came out with a tack trunk. It was covered in dust too, but I remembered it from when I was little. I could remember sitting on the pink trunk holding the sparkly pink lead rope that I always used with Tigger. I closed my eyes, thinking about what was in the trunk. My saddle pads were in there. One of them had butterflies and flowers on it. There was another square pad. It was solid pink. I also had a fluffy white pad in there. There was a pony-sized bridle with a small dee-ring snaffle and a very small girth. There would be a tube of Corona and a few rolls of pink vet rap. The little pink halter and lead rope would still be in there too. It was Tigger's tack trunk.

Underneath that trunk was another one. It was blue. I remembered without even looking at it. It had a mint-green square pad and another fluffy pad, but this one was bigger than Tigger's. This one still had Peppy's bridle too. It wasn't too small. I could probably use it on Fiesta if I cleaned it up. There was a French-link loose-ring bit on it. There was a little jar of Corona in this trunk. For some reason, I felt like I couldn't use Tigger's stuff on Peppy. There would be one roll of mint-green vet rap and a mint-green halter with a white cotton lead rope. I could remember all of that without even looking. I moved that trunk out too, setting it beside Tigger's trunk. I felt along the side of the locker until I found the flashlight hanging on a nail. I took it down and turned it on, pointing it into the locker. No creepy crawlies visible yet. I pulled out all the loose bottles, jars, wraps, bits, pieces of bridles, a stirrup, rubber bands, and sterilized bandages that didn't look very sterilized at the moment.

I just sat for a minute among the heaps of tack. Then I decided that I would put the throw away/give away stuff into Tigger's trunk. I didn't want the pink monstrosity anymore. I don't like pink much. I dumped out everything. I took one of the trays out and decided to put throw away stuff in it. I put bottles and jars without labels, overstretched wraps, a ripped up flymask, some very old Corona, and a shampoo bottle that appeared to have more dirt than shampoo in it into the tray. I kept the square pink pad, the mint-green pad, and the larger fluffy pad, but the other saddlepads went into the trunk to be given away. Tigger's bridle and girth joined them, as did her vet rap. I also kept Peppy's halter and lead rope. A bottle of shampoo and a bottle of conditioner joined the "keep" pile, so did a bottle of Betadine, a jar of Corona, Peppy's flymask that she didn't rip to pieces, Peppy's vet rap, her bridle, and an unopened bag of rubber bands.

I put all of the stuff in the keep pile into Peppy's trunk and the rest went into Tigger's. I had also managed to find some leather therapy stuff which included cleaner, restorer, conditioner, and water-proofer. I had set that and a rag aside for my saddle.

"Emma! Emma, where are you?" I heard Daniel call.

"I'm in the tack area attempting to clean this darn saddle." I replied. Daniel walked in, followed by a girl with long, light brown hair who looked about 16. I recognized her from somewhere, but I had no clue where.

"Emma, this is Amy, Amy, Emma." Daniel said, introducing us.

"Oh, yeah. I remember you from that auction. How's it going with those two horses?" she asked.

"I haven't had a chance to work with them yet, but I did manage to get nosebags on them earlier. Do you want to go see them?" I offered.

"Ok, sure. Where are they?" she asked. I stood up, motioning Daniel and Amy to follow me. We walked out to the truck and got in. I drove down to the pack pastures and all the way down to Burn and Fiesta's field.

"Why so far away?" Amy asked.

"It's quieter, everything I need is down here. They've got a private field, a round pen, tack room, feed room, and if I mow that field over there, there's a pretty good riding ring underneath that grass." I answered. "And I don't have to deal with the whole rush of people, or the occasional visitor or whatever."

"Yeah, I guess this really is pretty nice." Amy said.

Daniel's cell phone rung and he answered it, listening for a moment, every once in a while making some kind of affirmative noise before hanging up and putting the phone away.

"Amy, Ty says that Kryptonite hung his leg on a bar of the fence, they got him out, byt it's pretty cut up and they've called Scott and Ty thinks it would be a good idea if you came to help calm him down a little."

I just felt like stopping cuz this is taking me forever and school just started and I can't get on the computer much anymore. Next chapter will (hopefully) be up in the next couple weeks.