367K: Pebble removed from horse hoof grows and explodes

The main character is a young girl, moody, sent to live with a family member (possibly aunt and cousin). She’s a bit of a troublemaker and/or lies a lot. – She sits on a fence outside and sees an old lame mare in the field. A man (named Joe, says “Aye” a lot) who owns the horse chats to the girl and gets a pebble out of the horse’s hoof to stop her lameness. – The girl likes this unusual pebble and keeps it on the windowsill in her room because the light hits it nicely. – The pebble grows and eventually falls off the windowsill. – It gets so big she and the other girl (her cousin?) have to lump it into a wheelbarrow and get it away from the house, where it tips the barrow and eventually explodes into many pebbles. Read between 1990 – 2005 in the UK.

1 thought on “367K: Pebble removed from horse hoof grows and explodes

  1. Gill

    “The Mother Stone” by Angela Pickering, is one of the short stories in ‘Mists and Magic’ edited by Dorothy Edwards. Published 1983/85 by Fontana.

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