Trevor’s heart was still pounding by the time his hooves stepped off the dirt and onto the concrete lining Stable 3. A staff member greeted him as soon as he entered.
“Reservation?”
“Wilkinson,” he said.
The staff member looked over the list on her tablet that had the Down on the Farm seal on the back for a few seconds before she glanced back into Trevor’s eyes. “Got you. You’ve got Stall 14. It’ll be down this aisle and to the left,” she said plainly. After tapping a few more things on her tablet, there was a soft wire that made Trevor’s ears twitch. Following the direction of the sound, he found a small label printer on top of the staff member’s desk.
She quickly grabbed the sticker before bending down and grabbing Trevor’s right front pastern. He snorted in shock.
“Sorry,” the staff member said, looking back up at Trevor. “I didn’t mean to scare you. This is just an electronic sticker that I’m going to attach to your right front hoof – unless you want it on your left one. Since most of our guests can’t use keys, this sort of acts like one for you. Just press the button on the floor in front of your stall and this sticker will open it.”
Trevor shot her a quizzical look, or at least the best he could. “Why do we need keys? I’m a horse right now. It’s not like I have anything worth stealing in my room.”
The staff member pursed her lips as she applied the sticker on the front of his right hoof. “Yeah, I know. But this keeps unwanted guests from coming in to your stall and doing something that you don’t exactly consent to, if you catch my drift. It’s mostly for our female guests, but we do it for everyone now as a courtesy.”
“Oh,” Trevor said sheepishly. “Sorry.”
The staff member quickly waved it off, though. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, Stall 14. It’ll be three quarters of the way down the aisle and to the left.”
“Thank you,” Trevor said as he started stepping down the aisle lined with panel wood walls and iron bars, not too different from horse stables he’d seen on TV. The sound of his hooves clacking against the concrete echoed noisily through the stable.
A few seconds later, Trevor found his stall and pressed down on the button in front of the door. There was friendly chirp before the door slid open. Flicking his tail anxiously, Trevor stepped inside onto the straw covered stall. Another chirp echoed through the stall and Trevor tilted his head to the side in time to see the stall door slide shut and lock as soon as his back end had cleared the doorway.
Letting out a sigh, Trevor inspected his stall. It didn’t look much different than a regular horse’s stall at first, but Trevor soon realized this one was much roomier. Obviously, there wasn’t any furniture, but the walls did have square holes cut into them at about eye level that housed lights behind a plate of plexiglas. He wondered how he would turn them off for a second before he spotted a panel on the wall he could use to turn off the lights when he was ready.
On the wall across from the mound of straw he guessed was his bed, he spotted two troughs built into the wall that hugged the floor. Both had faucets on top, but one had a watery smell to it and the other smelled similar to oats, but a bit different. Trevor guessed that one was for horse feed.
Just beyond that, was a partitioned off area that appeared to serve as his restroom. Tilting his head to the side to look up at the ceiling with his right eye, Trevor could see a large fan in front of a vent that went to a grate in the ceiling. No wonder it at least smelt somewhat fresh in here.
Another area next to the partitioned area led to a set of bars lining an opening. His window. The view wasn’t great since it just looked out at the barnyard – or, at least, that’s what Trevor guessed it was in the dark – but, as a horse, what did he care about views anyway?
All in all, it was a pretty posh stall for a horse. Trevor remembered there being more authentic stalls in other stables for those that wanted them (or couldn’t afford these), but, at the moment, he was glad he’d gone with this one. Part of him wondered which one Rita had chosen, considering she was trying to see things from her horse’s perspective.
Realizing just how heavy his eyes felt, Trevor looked down at the straw bed and wondered if he should sleep laying down or experiment with sleeping standing up, just like he’d seen Duster do back in the day.
As tired as his muscles felt, though, it was a no-brainer, and Trevor lowered himself down to rest on his side. Within minutes, he was sound asleep.