Lucky Horse by Bonnie Bryant Page A

you get back.”
    “Okay.” She took a small toiletry kit and a towel down to the little creek that ran close to their tent. A chorus of yellow warblers serenaded her as she splashed the cold creek water on her face. By the time she had finished brushing her teeth and combing her hair, her stomach was growling, so she packed up her things and hurried back to their tent.
    She found her father standing in the middle of the equipment, a frazzled look on his face. “Is it pancakes yet, Dad?” she called.
    “Uh, not quite,” Colonel Hanson answered, his mouth pulled down in a puzzled frown.
    “Need some help?” Carole tossed her things inside the tent and went over to the solar cookstove. The grilling surface was red hot, sending rays of heat shimmering into the air.
    “Well, I can’t seem to find the pancake recipe.” Her father scratched his head. “Or the pancake bowl, or even the pancake flipper. But I’ve got the syrup!” he announced.
    “Maybe I can find the other stuff.” Carole got down on her hands and knees and began to sift through thehalf-dozen boxes that lay piled behind their tent. In the first one she found the pancake flipper, then the set of collapsible bowls. She never did see a recipe, but she did find some pancake mix.
    “Here,” she said. “All you need to do is add water to this.”
    “Thanks!” Colonel Hanson grinned. “Now I’ll have these babies cooked in no time!”
    He measured out enough pancake mix and began to stir everything together. “Okay. Now, if you’ll hand me the butter …”
    “The butter?” Carole blinked.
    “Yes. The butter. So the pancakes won’t stick to the griddle.”
    “I don’t think we have any butter, Dad.” She checked the refrigerator to be sure, but she was right. They had coffee, orange juice, sodas, apples, jam, and pancake syrup, but not one stick of butter. “Sorry,” she said with a shrug. “I guess we forgot the butter.”
    “Oh well,” said Colonel Hanson. “This grill is so hot we probably won’t need any. I’ll just pour these things on here and flip ’em real quick and they probably won’t stick at all.”
    Carole didn’t say anything. She’d never seen a pancake cooked like that, but maybe her dad had some secret Marine Corps trick she didn’t know. She watched as he poured four circles of batter onto the sizzling stove top.
    “Okay,” he said confidently. “Where’s the flipper?”
    “Right here.” She handed it to him quickly.
    Tiny bubbles were already forming on the first pancake. It was time to turn it over. Colonel Hanson scooted the flipper under one edge and gave a quick twist upward, but instead of flipping in midair, half of the blackened pancake just flopped over and collapsed across the raw side. It looked awful.
    “Okay.” Colonel Hanson shook his head. “That one was just a test. Let’s go on to number two.”
    He went to work on the other pancakes, trying to pry them up before they burned. The whole batch went the same way: Some flipped and then burned, others burned before they could be flipped. By the time he’d used up all the batter, he had a grand stack of three pancakes that looked vaguely edible.
    Colonel Hanson looked sadly at the mound of charred pancakes. “I didn’t think pancakes would be quite so much trouble.”
    “Don’t worry, Dad,” Carole reassured him. “We’ve got lots of syrup. They’ll taste great.”
    They divided the pancakes in half. Carole doused hers with syrup, and Colonel Hanson ate his with some blueberry jam.
    “Mmm,” Colonel Hanson said, an odd look on his face. “Aren’t they good?”
    Though Carole’s pancake tasted somewhere between burned toast and soggy cereal, she tried tosmile. “They’ve really got the flavor of the outdoors,” she said, forcing down the gummy, burned dough. “You know, Dad,” she said, changing the subject with a gulp, “I really loved looking at the stars last night. Those planets were unbelievable.”
    “They were