Horse.
◊ When I was about 12, I walked into the backyard and there was a horse tied to the tree out back.
My mom said something about seeing a horse trailer and asking the owner if he wanted to keep the horse in our yard because the weather was so hot, but all I knew was that there was a real, full-size Quarter Horse in our yard. It was beautiful.
Like most young girls I loved horses, but my dealings with them included handling real horses, not just purple plastic ones with glitter hooves and brushable hair. I dug a plastic brush out of the laundry nook and went out back. I sidled up next to the horse, watching his feet to see if he felt like kicking. I talked steadily so he would know where I was, since I was a small kid and this was a tall horse: 15 hands at the shoulder, easily, and definitely tall enough not to see me.
I eased the brush onto the horse's side, running it over his flat muscles and barrel chest, brushing his coat until it glowed. I spent the next couple of hours brushing his coat, combing out his mane and tail, talking to him and sitting down with paper and pen and drawing him like the horse-crazy kid I was.
Eventually its owner came back, as he had to. He was surprised to see me brushing the horse. "That horse doesn't like kids," he said. "I'm surprised he didn't kick you."
Shy and weird as I was, I couldn't even tell him: it was a million times easier dealing with animals than other children. If the horse had felt like biting or kicking, I'd have known it. But children -- those vicious little beasts will turn on other children and rip them to shreds with the same kind of tacit coordination you see in flocks of birds or schools of fish.