Lead Change (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 29)

by Claire Svendsen

  “We’re not taking Faith, right?” I said. “Because you know that she is going to fall in love with the first pony she sees whether it's any good or not.”

  “Of course we have to take Faith,” Dad said. “We’re picking her up on the way. And I want you to bring your riding stuff too.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “If it's any good, Faith can ride it.”

  Dad looked at me and frowned. “But you’ll be the one who will be able to tell if the pony has any actual talent or not,” he said. “And it's not like I can ride the darn thing. Not without my feet touching the ground.”

  “Well then the kid who is selling it can ride it,” I said. “Because I’m not.”

  Later I noticed Dad throwing a pair of chaps and a helmet in the back of the truck when he thought I wasn’t looking. I didn’t care what he said. There was no way I was riding today. I wasn’t ready and I especially wasn’t ready to ride some unknown pony. If I was going to ride anyone, it was going to be Bluebird. I trusted him. He was my heart horse. He was the one who would take care of me and I was going to take care of him, which was why I wasn’t going to ride him, possibly ever again.

  The only trouble was that I’d seen both him and Arion moping around their field looking bored. I’d even caught Arion chewing on the wood fencing.

  “Knock it off,” I told him, pushing his gray face away. “You have all this free time. Can’t you just go and enjoy it?”

  But my horses were bored out of their minds. They were used to being ridden every day, going to shows, doing exciting things. Being stuck in a field all day wasn’t exciting at all. They missed the stimulation. I could tell. Maybe if they’d never had a show life then they wouldn’t have missed it but more than that I think they missed me.

  “I’ll give you guys a good groom when I get back,” I told them as I waited for Dad, who’d gone back into the house to get his camera in case the pony was any good and we needed photographs to show Faith’s parents. “That will be nice, won’t it?”

  Bluebird fumbled with the gate latch, trying to let himself out of the field. Arion was chewing on the wood again. Only Socks and Hashtag didn’t seem to care that they weren’t being ridden and that was only because I’d never really got Socks back into regular work in the first place after his sheath blew up like a balloon and Hashtag had been put off jumping for good after living with Jess. I was just wondering whether he’d make a good dressage horse when Dad finally came out of the house.

  “What’s with all that stuff that Cat keeps bringing home?” he said as she’d walked past him into the house with more bags full of clothes.

  I just shrugged.

  “You don’t know where she’s getting it all from?” he tried asking again.

  “Maybe she has a job?” I said.

  “I don’t believe that for one second,” Dad said. “And neither do you.”

  “But she’s so happy,” I said. “Don’t ruin it.”

  “I’d be happy too if I was getting hundreds of dollars’ worth of new stuff all the time,” he said.

  “Can’t you just leave her alone?” I said.

  “I’ll get to the bottom of it,” he said. “You know I will.”

  I didn’t like to tell Dad that Cat wasn’t his daughter. That she was nothing to do with him and that if he started to question her, she’d only get all defensive and turn sullen and moody again and maybe she’d even run away and I didn’t want her to. I liked having a sister again, even if she was turning out to be a thief.

  “Not the dog,” Dad said as I opened the door and Patrick jumped in.

  “If I leave him behind he’ll bark and whine and drive Mom nuts and she’ll probably let him out on the road or something,” I said. “Please?”

  Dad looked from me to the dog and sighed. “All right,” he said. “Just this one time.”

  I sat in the back of the truck and Patrick lay down with his head on my lap. He was like the security blanket that I hadn’t known that I needed. He made me feel safe when nothing else did. Before it had been riding that had kept me grounded. The horses I loved and being on their backs as we took on the world of show jumping together. Now that safety net had vanished and all I had left was a dog and a bunch of fragile nerves.

  And here Faith was, getting ready to go and try out a new pony, something that should have been fun and exciting but all I could think of was that what if something bad happened while she was riding the pony. What if it fell or she fell off or they both fell together?

  I hugged Patrick a little tighter as the vision of broken poles floated behind my eyes. It was always there and I couldn’t seem to get it out. I wondered if I ever would or if jumping had been ruined for me forever.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I imagined Faith and her family living in a small modest house but boy was I wrong. Their house was massive and in a subdivision that had a security gate. The guy took Dad’s driver's license and looked at him suspiciously like he was there to rob the joint. Patrick didn’t like the guy. He growled at him through the back window and I put my hand on his collar to stop him from lunging out the window because if he bit the guy's arm off, then we’d never get in.

  I guess the security guard finally decided that we weren’t there to cause any trouble because he begrudgingly gave my father his license back and pressed the button to lift the bar and let us through.

  “Did you know Faith’s parents were rich?” I asked Dad, thinking that maybe they could afford to buy Judy’s friend’s pony after all.

  “No.” Dad shook his head. “And now I’m thinking that we shouldn't be going to see such a shabby pony. We could be taking her to some really nice barns instead.”

  “Right,” I said. “Barns that her parents will probably want her to stay at instead of coming back to train with us.”

  I remembered how mad Faith’s mom had been when her daughter fell off and broke her wrist. She thought she should have been supervised. That she never should have been allowed to ride off the property alone. I thought she was right but it wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t even been there that day. Dad was the one who hadn’t been paying attention but it wasn’t all his fault either. Faith knew she wasn’t supposed to leave the farm and she’d done it anyway. Still, I didn’t know what Faith’s parents did but they had to have pretty great jobs to live somewhere as fancy as this. If they turned out to be lawyers, we were lucky they hadn’t sued us by now.

  We passed massive houses on oak lined streets. They all had matching mail boxes and big sprawling driveways. They weren’t the cookie cutter houses of the cheaper subdivisions but they still gave off the feeling that they were all the same. The bright green grass that was required to be maintained at a certain shade. The uncluttered yards with blooming plants and neatly trimmed bushes. You wouldn’t find a leaf out of place here or a child's toy abandoned on the front yard and if you did, you’d probably get a notice about it and a reprimand. Or a fine. Our old, slightly beaten up truck looked completely out of place.

  “I feel like we shouldn’t be here,” I said, clutching Patrick a little closer. “It’s weird.”

  “Get used to it,” Dad said. “Where do you think most of the girls you ride with live?”

  He was probably right. Judy told me that her father was a lawyer. I bet she lived in a sprawling mansion too. Perhaps it really was for the best that I got out of the sport now before people found me out to be the fraud I really was.

  We parked in the driveway of a large, gray house next to a Mercedes and a BMW. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and both Faith’s parents were home. What kind of jobs could they have where they were able to afford this sort of lifestyle and still be home? I didn’t know but whatever it was, for a moment I wanted to be them. But then I thought of our tumbledown farm and the horses grazing right outside our back door and I knew that I couldn’t trade that in for all the mansions in the world.

  Dad turned and looked at me and I just shrugged.

  “Should I honk the
horn?” he said.

  “If you honk the horn, that mean looking security guard will probably have you arrested,” I told him.

  “Well go and ring the doorbell then,” he said.

  “You go and ring the doorbell,” I replied. “What if we got the wrong house and some mean looking housekeeper answers?”

  “Exactly,” Dad said.

  We were still sitting there trying to decide who was going to ring the doorbell when the big, wooden doors opened and Faith came tumbling out, dropping her bag and her crop as she flew down the steps. They landed at the foot of a big, stone lion, which she patted on the head before picking up the rest of her stuff and running over to us with a wave.

  “You made it,” she said, jumping into the truck. “Hi, Patrick.”

  She hugged my dog, who thumped his tail a few times, looking at me with his amber eyes as though checking that it was okay for him to like her. I patted his head and he sighed.

  “Um, Faith,” I said as my father reversed out of the drive before Faith’s parents could come out and stop us. “You didn’t tell us that your parents were rich.”

  “They’re not rich,” she said with a shrug.

  “Are you sure?” I probed, trying not to sound too nosey. “Have you seen where you live?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “So?”

  “Have you seen where we live?” I added.

  “I’d much rather live at your house,” she said, suddenly sounding sullen. “Then I’d get to see Macaroni all the time. Or not Macaroni but the new pony I guess …” her voice trailed off.

  She was just as upset as I knew she’d really be about Macaroni being sent away after all. She was just trying to pretend that she wasn’t.

  “It’s okay to be sad,” I told her. “I’m going to miss him too.”

  “I can’t be sad,” she said, gritting her teeth. “If I’m sad then I’ll never want another pony and if I don’t get another pony then I’ll have to give up riding for good and I just can’t do that. Riding is my life.”

  “You hear that, Emily?” Dad said from the front of the truck. “Riding is her life.”

  “It’s your life too, right?” Faith asked me.

  But I couldn’t find the words to answer her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The farm that we were going to wasn’t the shabbiest place in the world but it was no Fox Run. There were neat paddocks lining the driveway but they were mostly sand. Still, the ponies in them looked well fed and cared for.

  “Look at that one,” I said, pointing to a flashy black and white pinto pony with blue eyes.

  “I prefer that one,” Faith said, pointing out the other window to a bay pony with long legs and a stubby tail.

  That was Faith, always looking for the underdog. I couldn’t blame her. I’d always got a rush out of surprising people with Bluebird’s talent. A pony jumping against horses? That was something that people cheered for. And the underdog pony who won? They cheered for that one too. They didn’t cheer as loud for the hundred-thousand-dollar champion that any kid could win on. That was almost like cheating, only not in the sense that Walter cheated. That was something else. This was just winning by having the most money.

  The woman who ran the barn was older than I’d expected her to be. Her hair white and pulled back into a tight bun, her skin dark and leathery from years in the Florida sun.

  “You must be Faith,” she said, ignoring us and sticking out her hand in Faith’s direction.

  “I’m Miss. Emma,” she said her name like she was a school teacher. I wondered if that was what she made her students call her. “And I hear you are looking for a replacement pony.”

  She sounded kind of patronizing. Faith wasn’t five years old and anyone could see that she was older and wiser than her years. She shook the woman's hand solemnly.

  “No one can ever replace Macaroni,” she said. “But I’ll look at what you’ve got.”

  Miss. Emma nodded. “I see,” she said, though I wasn’t sure how she could. She didn’t know the first thing about us.

  She led us through an old barn where the floor was clay and the stalls had sand in them. A couple of ponies were inside but most of them were out. I guess Miss. Emma didn’t have much help other than one or two eager looking kids who were mucking stalls and cleaning tack, probably in exchange for free lessons. It made me think of Esther and what she’d say if she found out I was thinking of giving up riding for good. I knew she’d say that I was throwing my talent away but since she wasn’t here, it didn’t really matter what she’d think anyway so I pushed her out of my head.

  “This is Twinkle,” Miss. Emma said, pointing to a pretty gray pony with long eyelashes.

  “Twinkle?” Faith said. I could already tell she hated the pony just on the principal of her name.

  “And that is Moon Pie.” She motioned to another gray across the aisle with dapples and a long tail.

  “Did you get them from some Disney movie set?” Faith said. “Because they look like they should be pulling a carriage that turns into a pumpkin when the clock strikes twelve.”

  “Faith,” I said, nudging her in the ribs.

  It wasn’t the poor ponies fault that they were pretty and Miss. Emma was probably only trying to show us the best that she had.

  “Don’t you have anything more realistic?” Faith said as though the ponies were fakes, imposters that would change into plastic ponies that came with bright pink combs and ribbons for their hair at any moment.

  “Realistic?” Miss. Emma said.

  “Faith is an accomplished rider,” Dad said, finally stepping forward. “And she rides in the jumpers. She isn’t looking for pretty and perfect. She’s looking for talent and maybe a little rough around the edges.”

  The woman looked at Faith and frowned. I could see why she’d think that Faith would want either of the gray ponies. What little girl wouldn’t want a picture perfect princess pony but Faith wasn’t really a little girl anymore and I knew she’d never betray Macaroni by replacing him with some pony that outshone him like that.

  “I have a couple out the back,” Miss. Emma said, sounding a little hesitant. “But they’re not really the sort of thing I show people who are looking for something to buy.”

  “Great,” Faith said, striding past the woman and out the back of the barn. “We’ll look at those ones then.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  There were four ponies in the back paddock. They eyed us warily as we approached and then galloped off to stand under a tree, snorting at us with wild eyes. They looked like they’d been bought at auction or rescued from a truck that was headed to slaughter. They didn’t look like they were trained or broken to ride or even tame. There were two bays, a chestnut and a sun bleached black. Faith hung on the fence and called to them. They ignored her.

  “I love them,” she said.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I told her. “I mean I like hard ponies too but these guys are going to take ages before they are ready to go in the show ring. Years even. Are you willing to wait that long?”

  I couldn’t understand why Faith was making it so hard on herself. Her parents had money. She didn’t have to ride the difficult horses like I did because I didn’t have a choice. Didn’t she know that if I could afford a champion, I would have probably bought one by now? But then I realized that maybe she was punishing herself for sending Macaroni away, the same way that I was punishing myself by not riding because of what had happened to Grace and that meant that I wasn’t really in any position to criticize.

  “Don’t make any decision today,” I told her, my voice low. “You don’t want to make one you’ll regret.”

  “I’m not going to regret anything,” she said, turning to Miss. Emma. “I’ll ride the black one first.”

  The black one was big. He was about Bluebird’s size so almost a horse and a lot bigger than Macaroni. He was also mean. He bit Faith twice as she tacked him up. Each time she slapped him back but he hardly look
ed like he felt the sting of her small hand. He just pinned his ears and rolled his eyes.

  “Are you sure we should let her ride that one?” I whispered to Dad.

  “No,” he said. “That’s why I brought a helmet and chaps for you.”

  “You think I’m getting on the back of that?” I said. “You must be crazy.”

  “He’ll be okay when we get in the ring,” Faith said, her voice determined and strong.

  “They’re rough,” Miss. Emma said. “But they’re not dangerous. Well I don’t trust the chestnut but the rest are okay. They’re just out of shape and a bit willful. You can always change your mind and ride one of the gray ponies instead?”

  Faith shook her head. There was no way she was going to trade in rough and ready for pretty and perfect. I knew her too well. She’d take one of those naughty ponies just to spite Miss. Emma for not showing them to her in the first place. And she’d end up spiting herself too because she’d have a pony that wouldn’t do anything and then where would that get her.

  We trailed her out to the dirt ring, Patrick following quietly at my heels. I almost wished I hadn’t come. I didn’t want to see Faith get hurt.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The black pony was called Mikey. He didn’t seem to like Faith. In fact, he didn’t seem to like anything. She got him to walk and trot but he wouldn’t canter, just trotted faster and faster until his legs were going a million miles a minute. Even when Dad got in the ring to help her, passing her up a crop, the pony still didn’t really want to canter and when he finally did, he was on the wrong lead. He also tossed his head a lot and nearly smacked Faith in the face.