Excerpt: Way Out West

‘Not for me,’ said Harriet, ‘I don’t like horses. Never have. Well, not since that one tried to eat my hair.’
‘Ha ha!’ laughed Harold, ‘That was so funny!’
‘No it wasn’t!’
‘It was!’
‘Not!’
‘What happened,’ asked Rose, eager to stop what could escalate into a punch-up.
‘Well,’ started Harriet.
‘Ha ha, hummm...’
‘Shut-up!’
‘It’s so funny!’
‘It isn’t’
‘Yes!’
‘HAROLD!’ shouted Rose and Harriet at the same time.
‘Ah.’
‘Quiet!’
‘What happened?’ asked Rose glaring at Harold.
‘Well, I had just washed my hair..’
Harold was rolling his eyes. Rose gave him the most evil stare Sam had ever seen and Harold stopped moving his eyes and fell silent.
‘And?’
‘And I used this apple scented shampoo.’
Sam suddenly understood what was coming but said nothing lest he face the wrath of Rose.
‘And then we went to a show where they had horses and one of the horses must have smelt the apple shampoo and thought it was real apples, so the horse came over and I went to pat it but it grabbed my hair and tried to eat it. I had long hair at that stage and it was very painful.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I screamed, naturally, and lots of people came running over and took the horse away. Some of my hair got pulled out and it was very painful.’
‘That’s horrible. What happened to the horse?’
‘I don’t know, what ever happens to bad animals?'