This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Boehl, Dan
Naomi and the Horse-Flavored T-Shirt/Dan Boehl
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012904720
First Edition, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0-9838463-1-4
Acknowledgments:
This book would not exist if not for Naomi Tuchman. She traded
me this story for a t-shirt. It took me six years to complete the story
for her. Thanks, Naomi.
I would like to thank all the readers I’ve had over the years who
encouraged me to keep working on this book. Cordelia Jensen,
Sy and Teddy Redding, Jonathan Marshall, Molly Sullivan,
Donna Ingram, and Tory Gibler.
Thanks to Lindsay Schlegel for her editorial insights.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Her Name Means “My Delight”
Chapter 2: Dreams Are Where People Travel
Chapter 3: Like Any Town in Texas
Chapter 4: Horses Ain’t Real
Chapter 5: Strawberries Make It Better
Chapter 6: The White Army
Chapter 7: Breakpaste, Plunch, and Dinner
Chapter 8: Country Road, Paste Me Home
Chapter 9: Been Through the Desert on a Horse with No Paste
Chapter 10: Billions Served
Chapter 11: The Standard Paste Company, Inc.
Chapter 12: Equis Ex Machina
Chapter 13: Smells Like Burnt Paste
Chapter 14: Sector BZZ
Chapter 15: If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now
Chapter 16: Paste Sandwich
Chapter 17: Greenhouse
Chapter 18: An Interesting Specimen
Chapter 19: The Land of Paste and Honey
Chapter 20: Pastification
Chapter 21: The Miracle of Science
Chapter 22: Gypsy Grove
Chapter 23: De-Pastification
Chapter 24: Pink Lady
Chapter 25: Life in the Field
Chapter 26: The Underground
Chapter 27: Pocket Cowboy
Chapter 28: Naomi and the Horse-Flavored T-Shirt
Chapter 29: Riders on the Storm
Chapter 30: Wild Horses Couldn’t Drag Me Away
Chapter 31: In the Garden
Chapter 32: Homecoming
Chapter 1: Her Name Means “My Delight”
Naomi was born in a town called Endless Ranches, Texas, where a huge paste factory coughed plumes of smoke into the air. The paste factory made everything the people of Endless Ranches needed: clothes, school supplies, toys, books, magazines, and sold these things at the Pastery, the huge store in the middle of town. But mostly what the paste factory made was paste, the only thing to eat in Endless Ranches. As the townspeople would say, all there was to eat was paste for breakpaste, plunch, and dinner.
Naomi was a pretty, dark-haired, and clever girl. Though she was only thirteen, she had always had the feeling that things in Endless Ranches were not what they appeared to be. To begin with, as long as she could remember, there were no horses in Endless Ranches, but there used to be. The townspeople always talked about them. This meant there really weren’t any ranches there at all.
One Thursday morning just before she turned fourteen, Naomi was eating her breakpaste in the kitchen. She asked her mom for the millionth time how things used to be in their town. For once, her mom started to give her an answer. She told Naomi that Endless Ranches used to be surrounded by ranches. “That is where the farmers lived and grew food,” she said. “Then they would hitch their horses to the wagons and bring the food into the town market, where the townspeople would come and buy it.”
“So there really were horses?” Naomi asked. “And they lived on the ranches?”
“Yes,” her mom said.
“What happened to them?” Naomi asked. “And what kind of food did the farmers grow? All we eat is paste.”
Her mom said, “It’s best for us not to talk about this. Maybe when you’re older.”
“They disappeared when the paste factory came to town, right?” Naomi said.
“Yes. That was when everything changed. But that was before you were born,” said her mom, shaking her head. “We shouldn’t talk about this right now.”