Gerta lost her mother in the fifth grade and became a horse for a year.

I tried to talk to her on the playground, she was always alone. But she only neighed and shook the fence, trying to escape our parameters, to get to the rambling hills, where she could be free. For me, I liked the fence. We were safe, and nothing could get to us.

Did your mother like horses? I asked Gerta, once she had calmed down.

Gerta galloped toward the swingset, and I followed. Other kids cleared out, afraid of contagion.

I was afraid of many things––bugs, blood, fathers––but not Gerta. Gerta I felt sorry for. And I had few friends myself, nothing much to lose.

Can horses swing? I asked the girl, sitting on one of the wood planks. Gerta used her head to nudge me forward, to push my swing, and I realized we were playing. I felt a little ridiculous, the other girls were watching us and I knew what they were thinking. Another goner. Two loons.

But Gerta was good to me. She listened, licked my face, ate carrots right out of my hand. Even let me ride her, though that didn’t work so well. It worked better when I galloped beside her.

Of course, it’s only so long you can be friends with a horse, before becoming one yourself. At first it was just on the playground. Galloping, neighing, feeling my mane billow in the wind. I stopped caring what the others thought, because they were kids and I was horse. Then it trailed into the classroom, came home with me.

Stop it right this minute, my mother said, watching me trot around the kitchen. You’ll be sorry when your father gets home.

At this, I neighed like mad, my horse body shaking wildly.

You’re not an animal, my mother stomped, you’re a girl!

But I wasn’t so sure. I ate face first, diving into troughs, moved mostly on hands and knees, tried to sleep standing up, and felt desperate, most of all, to roam free with Gerta.

We shook our playground’s fence, gnawed on it with our teeth, picked at it with our hooves, until one winter morning, it finally happened: an opening. We nudged it with our noses until it was big enough to climb through, and climb we did. Gerta ahead of me, her body magnificent beneath the gray sky. We roamed and roamed, two horses, finally free.

It wasn’t long, our freedom. Because they caught us, eventually the humans caught us, put us in stables. Made us talk with human speech, stand upright, sit criss-cross, pretend to be like them. Gerta would look at me longingly, let out a small neigh, and go about her business. She was trying to be human, even though she was horse. Poor Gerta. I knew what I was, and I would keep neighing, neighing until my throat went dry, for the rest of my horse life.