Violet stood staring after her for a moment, then she shook her head, as if she was shaking off water. “Your horse?” she said, quietly enough that Shannon couldn’t hear her. “You mean my horse. There’s no way, now, that we would ever let you buy him.” She turned to her mother, her lip trembling. “I can’t believe you let her talk to me like that!” Then she ran out of the arena, crying.
Leela took out her phone and began texting madly, and Kai and I just stared at one another in shock. What was that?
This was my chance, I realised. This was my chance to make it up to Violet for laughing at her that day at pony club. This was my chance to help her feel better about Paris, the way I had so quickly started to feel better about Zen.
Pretending to be a busy field hand with important work to do, I walked towards the tack shed, determined to find her.
Nineteen
“Violet?” I called. I’d searched through all the outbuildings but there was no sign of her. I was up the back of Pocket of Dreams now, still looking. “Violet?”
Zen was standing with a group of horses in the valley, in the shadow of a dappled tree next to the dam. But I couldn’t see Violet.
I was about to turn and head back to the main house when I heard a sound. A sniffling sound. It was coming from the old disused barn at the edge of the property.
I turned back, but instead of calling out, this time I decided to get closer before making my presence known. I stepped inside. It was musty in here, and silent. I shuffled forwards, my feet disturbing clouds of dust, and ducked to avoid the cobwebs. I picked my way around a falling-down wall and there, sitting on the ground, leaning against a bale of hay, was Violet. And right next to her, patting her shoulder and speaking softly, was Kai.
I backed away as quietly as I could, but just as I reached the door of the barn Violet looked up. I saw her eyes widen in surprise, then I turned away.
As soon as I got outside I took a great, shuddering breath, and then I walked as fast as possible back up to the house. My heart was pounding, and I had a kind of surging feeling that was half-panic and half-wanting to cry.
Kai and … Violet? He always defended her whenever he thought I was being critical, but I didn’t mind that because he was my friend, not hers. I thought when he stood up for her he was just trying to make sure I wasn’t overreacting, that I was considering the other side – Violet’s side. I had been so happy to have my best friend back, who was always on my side. At home with Viv and Mum and Eloise we’d all been hanging out and making things together, like a family, and at school he always seemed pleased to see me when we passed each other in the hallways, and we always ate together during recess and lunch. I knew he sat with Violet in maths, and I’d seen them chatting sometimes, but it hadn’t occurred to me they might be close. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to say he couldn’t be friends with both of us, but somehow, I knew he couldn’t. Or at least, he shouldn’t.
When I got back to the house I went into the little bathroom near the entry and washed my face and smoothed my hair, holding my gaze in the mirror and making sure I looked the same, even though everything felt different. I took a deep breath and counted to five before breathing out again, the way Mum had taught me to when I was feeling upset. I drank some water and took some more deep breaths, this time counting to ten. Mum would be here to pick us up in a minute and I didn’t want her to know anything was wrong.
As I stepped out of the house I saw Violet and her mother leading Paris back into his float, Shannon watching on. Paris hesitated at the top of the ramp, and tried to turn back, but Violet was determined and Paris submitted. I chewed my lip as I watched them climb into their Range Rover and drive away. I didn’t want to comfort Violet anymore. That urge was gone. But what about Kai? I had to somehow get over this. After all, he couldn’t help it if I liked him more than he liked me. I mean, I couldn’t help it, so what was he supposed to do?
The clouds that had been threatening to burst all afternoon finally opened up, covering The Pocket with a curtain of rain. Kai’s schoolbooks and jacket were still under the oak tree and I ran over to rescue them before they got soaked. As I picked up Kai’s textbook to stuff it into his backpack, something fell out of it. I blinked the water out of my eyes and picked it up, staring, for a moment not recognising what it was I was looking at.
Twenty
This was weird. For a moment all my sadness disappeared and I simply stared at the thing in my hand. It was a sleek new phone, the kind Mum says I can have when I turn sixteen, if I am a perfect child for the next four years. I swallowed. What was the point of having it here, though? We couldn’t get wi-fi, were out of range of any signal, and in any case, Kai was banned. I looked closer at the screen and saw that, even though in most of The Pocket you couldn’t get a signal, there were four bars in the left-hand corner of the screen. Suddenly it all made sense.
Now I understood why he came with me to Pocket of Dreams all those afternoons, hanging around under the oak tree and pretending to be interested in my progress. I’d loved knowing he was there, catching up on all the schoolwork he’d neglected back home, while I spent time with Zen.
He doesn’t want to be with you at all, Frankie, I told myself. He couldn’t care less about the language of horse. He simply wanted to be with his phone.
I was getting soaked, I realised, standing there in the pouring rain.
“Frankie!” I heard someone call, and I turned around. “What are you doing?” yelled Kai, appearing from around the corner of the verandah.
I thrust the phone into his backpack along with the maths book he’d been hiding it in, put his jacket over my head and sprinted to join him under the shelter of the verandah.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m rescuing your things,” I said, pushing his backpack into his arms, harder than I’d intended. He stumbled backwards.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re not my friend at all, are you?”
“What do you mean?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“I mean you don’t really like me. You like Violet.” I felt so stupid saying it like that, but I was too upset and too confused by everything to hide how I was feeling.
“What?”
“I saw you in the barn, with Violet. I went to find her, to comfort her.”
Kai shook his head and pushed his hair back off his face. He hadn’t cut it since he’d moved here and it hung lankly, dripping water onto his shoulders. His dark eyes met mine intently. “I’m not with Violet. Not in that way, if that’s what you mean.”
I didn’t really know what I meant.
“I’m not with anyone, if that’s what you’re asking,” he added.
I didn’t really know what I was asking. I just knew how horrible I was feeling, and that feeling had started when I saw Kai and Violet huddled together in the barn.
“You had your arm around her shoulders. I saw you.”
“Because she was upset. Frankie, she’s my friend, and she was crying her eyes out. I know you’ve had your issues, but I’m pretty certain there’s been a misunderstanding. If you two could just …”
“Have you ever really even been my friend?” I cut him off. It felt terrifying to ask him that, but not knowing was worse. It was worse to wonder, the way I had for all those months after he dropped me in grade six, going over our conversations again and again, trying to work out what I had done wrong.
“Frankie, I think of you as …” He paused.
Go on, I thought. I wanted to hear him say it out loud. That I was just the daughter of his mother’s best friend, and he’d never really had a choice about hanging out with me. I was the one he could fall back on when he was in trouble and needed to lick his wounds. Good old Frankie, who never changed.
All those afternoons we’d spent walking here from school, taking it in turns to push my bike across the fields, licking icy-poles on hot afternoons and sharing hot chips on the cold ones. All those days at Mum’s, when we’d lay out the mater
ial for Viv’s quilting project together, suggesting hideous colour combinations, or mucking around in the garden, playing games with the donkeys and Eloise. He’d even come to have dinner with me and Dad a few times. I thought we’d clicked back into being best friends again, after a weird but temporary breakdown in communication, but I had been blind to what was really going on.
“I think of you …” Kai paused again and swallowed.
“Just say it!” I snapped.
“I think of you as my best friend.”
That was not what I had expected him to say, and for some reason it made me even angrier.
“You haven’t been coming here every afternoon to be with me,” I said, turning my back on him to stare out into the rain. I couldn’t believe anything he said now.
“I’m really tired, Frankie. Your mum’s late and I’m wet and I’m hungry. Please just tell me – what are you talking about?”
I was soaked and shivering, but I didn’t care.
“You haven’t been coming here to hang out with me. You haven’t been discovering the benefits of a more simple life, like you said on the weekend.” He’d told us that at dinner the other night and we’d all laughed, but I could tell Mum was secretly thrilled. Just as she was not-so-secretly thrilled about his job at the supermarket, and how much time he’d been spending here at Pocket of Dreams, studying. “You haven’t been saving, or studying at all, have you? You’ve been earning that money to pay for your phone. My mum was so excited to tell your mum about the progress you’ve been making!”
His face had gone white.
“This whole time you’ve been lying to me, and to Mum, and to everyone!”
“What are you talking about?” he whispered, but I knew that he knew.
“You’ve just been using me as an excuse to come here and use your phone.”
Kai swallowed and blinked rapidly. Classic signs, Shannon said, that a horse understands.
“That’s not the whole story,” he said.
“I’m sure it’s not,” I said. “But you have a lot of secrets, don’t you Kai? And whatever the truth is, I don’t want to know.”
This is exactly what I’d been afraid of when Kai first came up here: that I would let him get close to me and he would let me down again. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let that happen.
“Please, let me explain.” He was holding his head high, his body stiff. All classic horse signs, Shannon would say, of fear.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell on you.”
“Let me explain.”
“You know what?” I said. “If you want to lie to Mum and Viv that’s your business. I can’t stop you. I don’t suppose anybody can.” I brushed the water out of my eyes. “When Mum arrives, can you tell her that Shannon will drive me home? I still have a tonne of stuff I need to do.”
“Frankie,” said Kai, putting a hand out to stop me.
“Forget about it,” I said, and jumping off the edge of the verandah and walking into the rain. Goodbye Kai, I thought, and I felt a door slam somewhere deep down inside my heart.
Twenty-one
The truth is, I hate being cold and I hate being wet, so it didn’t surprise me to discover that Zen did, too. I found him in the stables, which were at the end of the tack shed, next to the undercover arena. Bravo, Dawn, Pippa and Spirit were bunched down the other end, huddled together for warmth, but Zen was standing alone, cosy and snug in his corner, nibbling at the remains of a net of hay.
“Hey Zen,” I whispered, resting my forehead against his neck. The warmth of his skin and the slightly rough feeling of his mane, the rippling muscles in his shoulders and the sheer size of him comforted me. I took a deep breath and then another, feeling all the upset of the afternoon drain away. I felt so warm and complete in here, as though this could be the whole world and I could be happy here forever, just me and Zen and the horses.
“Well, I have work to do,” I said finally. I opened the gate into the arena and started folding up the rugs and putting away the grooming tools from the class Shannon had held earlier that afternoon, and after a little while Zen followed me. As I threw a currycomb into the bucket he sniffed at it, and as I raked the dirt smooth he walked behind and slightly off to the side, following me. Every time I took a step forwards with my rake, he followed, coming close and nosing it, or pretending to be startled and throwing up his head. Soon the two of us were taking turns pretending to charge one another, or back up, in a kind of exaggerated game of attack and defend. I still felt upset about Kai, but somehow it felt like a distant thing now. In this moment, with the rain thrumming down, the horses nickering and sighing in their stables and my own beautiful pony playing with me, none of it seemed so bad.
If only I had some friends. If only Kai wasn’t the only real human friend I had – Kai, who wasn’t even my friend any more. If only Lesley and Ash wanted to come to Pocket of Dreams sometimes.
“It’s not that you’re not my best friend,” I said to Zen. “You are and I feel very lucky about that. It’s just that it looks like you’re going to be my one and only.”
I looked at Zen and he looked at me. He pushed his nose against my arm and blinked at me, encouraging me to start playing again. And that’s when I had my brilliant idea. Or ideas, rather. Because, all at once, I had three of them.
Twenty-two
I found Shannon in her study, sitting at her desk and going through a huge pile of paperwork. Gillie was curled up in his basket at her feet, looking smugly as though there was nowhere better to be.
“We can start our own riding club, here at Pocket of Dreams,” I told Shannon breathlessly.
“I was just about to come looking for you,” she said, looking up and smiling at me.
“We can play games and learn horse language instead of just going around and around the way we did at pony club,” I went on excitedly. “We can meet every Saturday. Or Sunday maybe,” I corrected myself. “Pony club is on Saturdays, and there’s no reason some people wouldn’t want to come to both. After all, if Violet wants to do both, other people might want to, too.”
“But Violet doesn’t want to,” said Shannon, pushing aside her papers with a sigh. “And after today, I wouldn’t let her. She won’t listen. It isn’t safe.”
“Well, good,” I said, mentally kicking myself. Given what had happened this afternoon, Violet was a terrible example. “But I’m sure there are a lot of kids who would want to. Including a lot of kids who don’t want to be in pony club. Like me.”
Shannon stared out the window. It was dark out there, the only light coming from the lamp in the living room, which spilled out onto the verandah.
“It’s a great idea,” she said finally, and I sighed in relief. “But I don’t think we have time.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I’m so sorry to break it to you this way, Frankie, but I don’t think I can keep Pocket of Dreams open much longer. I’m running out of money.”
I quailed for a moment at the thought of losing all this, but forced myself to rally.
“You know I saved up for years before giving up my job to come down here,” Shannon was saying, “but now I think maybe I was too optimistic about how quickly things would fall into place.”
“Uh huh,” I said, trying to look businesslike and intelligent. “How many people would we need to sign up for a riding club here, for you to be able to keep going?”
Shannon thought for a few moments. “Around five to start with, I suppose, especially if some of them kept their horses here, but ideally I think we’d need around ten.”
Ten! That would be ten potential friends, all hanging out with their horses and going on trail rides with me and Zen.
“That kind of thing can take time to build up, though, even though it’s a wonderful idea,” said Shannon.
“I’m going to do it in three weeks.” Frankie, what are you doing? a voice inside me said. You don’t know what you’re talking about!
Shannon swive
lled around to face me. She seemed tired, I thought. Her eyes weren’t sparkling like usual, and something about her voice sounded a bit flat. “You are?” she asked, frowning at me quizzically. “How are you going to do that?”
This was my first genius brainwave. The one I’d thought of when I was in the arena with Zen. “Zen and I are going to do a demonstration of natural horsemanship at the Mullumbimby Show.”
“Oh Frankie.” She looked at me sympathetically. “That’s three weeks away. Even though you’re making wonderful progress, you’re still just a beginner rider.” I could tell she didn’t like saying this, but Shannon was always honest.
“That’s the point. Don’t you see? Even Oliver was impressed at how much progress we’d made.”
Shannon was listening seriously, but I could see she wasn’t convinced.
“And it won’t just be me riding,” I said. “You’re competing in the show, aren’t you?”
“Yes, on Spirit, but …”
“And you won the State Dressage Championship last year, right?” Her trophy was on the bookshelf behind her, and a photo of her mounted on Paris, looking spectacular with a huge blue sash across her chest, hung on the wall.
“Yes, but …”
“We’ll put flyers around, explaining how you can teach anyone to be a better rider,” I said. “I even have a name.” This was my second brilliant idea. “We’re going to be called the Dream Riders. Like Pocket of Dreams, get it? And also because this is my dream.”
Shannon was smiling but shaking her head, looking down at her piles of paper. They were bills, I realised.
“We should at least try,” I urged. “After all, you said it yourself, it’s only three weeks.”
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