There were four of us - Shining Armor, Mr. Cake and myself, and Winona. We were sitting in my room, and we were talking about how bad we were - ill, I mean, of course.
We were all feeling in poor health, and we were getting quite worried about it. Mr. Cake said that he felt really bad sometimes, and he did not know what he was doing. And then Shining said that he felt bad, too, and that he did not know what he was doing either. With me it was my heart. I knew it was my heart because I had read something in a magazine about the symptoms of a bad heart. I had all of them.
It is a most extraordinary thing, but every time I read about an illness, I realize that I have it too - and that my symptoms are very bad! In fact, my health has always been a worry, I remember...
One day I had a little health problem, and I went to the Pony Museum Library to read about it. I took the book off the library shelf, and I began to read. After some time, I turned over the page and began to read about another illness. I don't remember the name of the illness, but I know it was something really terrible. I read about half a page - and then I knew I had that disease too.
I sat there for a time, cold with horror. Slowly, I began to turn over more pages. I came to a disease which was worse than the last one. I began to read about it and, as I expected, I had that disease too. Then I began to get really interested in myself, so I went back to the beginning of the book. I started with the letter 'a' to 'z'. I found that there was only one disease which I did not have. This made me a little unhappy. Why didn't I have that disease too?
When I walked into that reading-room, I was a happy, healthy young stallion. When I left I was a very sick stallion, close to death.
But I was talking about my health - nopony understood how ill I really was. I had this bad heart when I was a boy. It was with me all the time. I knew that it was my heart because I had all the symptoms of the bad heart. The main symptom was that I did not want to work. Of course, nopony understood that the problem was my heart. Doctors were not so clever then. They
just thought that I was lazy!
"Why, you lazy boy, you" they used to say. "Get up and do some work once in your life!" They did not understand that I was ill.
And they did not give me medicine for this illness - they hit me on the side of the head. It is very strange, but those blows on my head often made the illness go away for a time. Sometimes just one blow made the sickness disappear and made me want to start work immediatelly...
Anyway, that evening, Shining and Mr. Cake and I sat there for an hour, and described our illnesses to each other. I explained to them how I felt when I got up in the morning. Shining told us how he felt when he went to bed. Then Cake stood in front of the fire, and, with great feeling, he showed us how he felt in the night.
Cake always thinks he is ill, but really, there is never anything the matter with him, you know.
At that moment Mrs. Cake, Mr. Cake's wife, knocked on the door. She wanted to know if we were ready to have supper.
We smiled sadly at each other, and then we sad that perhaps we should try to eat something. Shining said that a little food helped to prevent illness. So Mrs. Cake brought the supper in. We sat down at the table, and for half an hour we managed to play with some steak and chips - and with a large cake that Mrs. Cake had made.
When we had made ourselves eat something, we filled our glasses, and we lit our pipes. Then we began to talk about our health again. We were not quite sure what was the matter with us. However, we were all quite certain of one thing - we had been doing too much work.
"We need a rest." Shining said.
"A rest and a change," Cake added.
I agreed with Cake, and I said that perhaps we could go to the country. We could find a nice, quiet place. We could go somewhere peaceful, far away from other ponies.
Shining said that he thought that would be awful. He added that he had been to a place like that once. Everyone went to bed at eight o'clock, and he had to walk for an hour to buy cigarettes and a newspaper.
"No," Shining said. "If you want a rest and a change, then the sea is best."
I said that this was a terrible idea. A sea trip is fine if you are going for a month or two - but not for a week. I know what it is like...
You start out on Monday and you think that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave goodbye happily to your friends. You walk up and down on the ship, like Captain Clock, Sir Ponake, or Stalliontopher Columbus. On Tuesday you wish that you had not come. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday you wish that you were dead. On Saturday you are able to drink something. You begin to smile a little at the kind of people who ask you how you are. On Sunday you start to walk again, and you eat a little. And on Monday morning, as you stand and wait to get off the ship - you begin to enjoy yourself.
I remember that a friend of mine once took a short sea trip from Pondon to Marepool for his health. He bought a return ticket, but, when he got to Marepool, he sold it and he came back by train...
So I was against the sea trip - not for myself, you understand. I am never seasick. But I was afraid for Cake. Cake said that he would be fine. In fact, he said he would quite like it, but he thought that Shining and I would both be ill. Cake said that he was never seasick. In fact, he had often tried to be ill, but he had not succeeded. It is very strange, but, when you are on land, you never meet anybody who has ever been seasick!
So Cake said, "Well, let's go up the river, then."
He added, "We'll have fresh air on the river. The hard work on the boat will make us hungry, so we'll enjoy our food. We'll sleep well, too."
Shining replied, "Well, you never have any trouble sleeping, anyway. In fact, you are always going to sleep!"
But, in the end, Shining agreed that it was a good idea. I thought that it was a good idea, too. The only one who did not like the idea was Winona.
"It's different for me," her face said. "You like it, but I don't! There's nothing for me to do. I don't smoke. I don't like looking at the trees and the flowers, and when I'm asleep you'll play about with the boat and I'll fall over the side!"
Winona's idea of a good time it to collect together all the most awful dogs he can find and then go round the town, looking for other awful dogs to fight.
But we were three to one, so we decided to go anyway.
