Discovering Emily by Jacqueline Pearce

1
The Cow Yard
    â€œIt’s so unfair!” Emily grumbled as she stood inside the cow yard fence, scratching the stiff hair on top the cow’s head.
    She glanced back at the house and scowled. All she’d done was slide down the banister and maybe sing out a bit as she sailed down. How was she to know that her oldest sister, Dede, was entertaining church ladies in the drawing room? Emily fumed at the memory of the scolding Dede had given her in front of the visitors. She could never do anything right in Dede’s eyes. When Mother wasn’t feeling well and Father was at work, Dede was in charge, and she took the job seriously. Dede, whosegiven name was Edith, was fifteen years older than Emily. Sometimes it seemed she was even stricter and harder to please than Father.
    Emily held out a handful of long grass, and the cow munched it slowly. The cow’s warm breath touched Emily’s fingers, and her big dark eyes seemed to regard Emily sympathetically. The chickens pecked in the dirt near Emily’s feet, making their soothing clucking sounds. Emily sighed. She always felt better after visiting the cow yard. She picked up a stick and began drawing in the dirt. Lazy circles began to take the shape of the cow.
    When she was smaller, Emily and her youngest sisters, Alice and Lizzie, had often played together in the cow yard. They’d visited the animals, fished for tadpoles in the pond and sailed paper boats down the little creek. But first Lizzie, then Alice, had tired of the cow yard. It was too dirty for them now. They liked to keep their frocks clean and pretend to be proper ladies. Emily had no interest in sitting around being alady. She would much rather be a farmer’s wife, with lots of animals to take care of, or a circus horse rider who jumped through hoops of fire.
    Emily looked over at the flower garden in front of the house where Alice and Lizzie were playing with dolls. Alice would be the mother, as usual, while Lizzie was probably pretending to be a missionary, quoting the Bible to everyone. Lizzie looked up.
    â€œMilly!” she called, using the shortened name the family often called Emily. “Come out of there before you dirty your frock. Father will be home soon.”
    Emily turned her back on Lizzie. How dull playing at ladies was. She set down her stick and gazed at the cow. She was no horse, but she was the right shape for riding. Emily hitched up her skirt and climbed onto the fence beside the cow.
    â€œI’m a circus horse rider!” she called as she grabbed hold of the cow’s neck and flung one leg out over her back. Suddenly, the slow, calm cow transformed into a bucking, kicking wild creature. Emily tried to holdon, but she lasted only a moment before she was thrown off into the mud beside the creek.

    Alice and Lizzie screamed and ran to the cow yard fence.
    â€œMilly! Are you hurt?” Alice cried.
    Emily got slowly to her feet, rubbing her bruised backside. The cow had run off kicking to the other side of the yard. Now she was calmly chewing again, her tail switching lazily.
    â€œIt serves you right,” Lizzie said. “You have such silly ideas, Emily. Imagine, pretending the cow was a horse. You couldn’t ride a horse, anyway.”
    Emily scowled at Lizzie and turned back to the cow. It seemed that she wasn’t good at anything. She walked over and stroked the cow’s side.
    â€œSorry, cow,” she whispered. “I won’t try that again.”
    The cow looked at Emily with her soft eyes, her ordeal already forgotten. Sometimes animals were much nicer than people, Emily thought.

2
In Trouble Again
    Emily hurried up the stairs into the kitchen at the back of the house. With all her strength, she pushed down on the handle of the pump at the kitchen sink. Water gushed out of the pump mouth and into the basin. She stopped pumping and scooped the cold water into her hands. Father would be home any minute, expecting to look