The Wish Pony

by Catherine Bateson

  ‘What?’ I stopped, right there and then. ‘What do you mean? Orange?’

  ‘Like a fox,’ Magda said and her eyes flashed at me with an expression I couldn’t read. I didn’t know if she was as angry with me as I was with her, or whether she was teasing me. I wasn’t going to be tricked again.

  ‘That would be ... interesting,’ I said. Our teachers always said someone’s work was interesting when it was weird.

  ‘Very interesting,’ Magda nodded.

  We got home and there was a message from Dad hoping that I was well again and saying that if Magda could just look after me, he’d drop in on Mum on the way home, rather than take me in to see her.

  I rang him straightaway at work.

  ‘I want to go and see Mum,’ I wailed. ‘I want to see her!’

  ‘You can’t go if you’re sick,’ he said patiently, ‘we don’t know what you’ve got.’

  ‘I’m feeling much much better, Dad, honest. I don’t think it was anything serious. Just something I ate, probably. That’s all.’

  ‘No, Ruby. Not this time. I tell you what, when I get home, you can ring her and say goodnight to her. Okay?’

  It didn’t matter what I said, I wasn’t going to see Mum that night. I couldn’t tell him that I’d deliberately made myself sick because that would make him even angrier. In the end, I said okay so sulkily he huffed at me and asked to speak to Magda. I went into my bedroom and pulled faces at the mirror, making my eyes totally crossed – which I couldn’t see of course, because you can’t when you do that. It stopped me crying, though.

  ‘Very attractive,’ Magda said, catching me, ‘very ... interesting.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Your father said you should have a light meal because you’ve been sick. Something very plain. He suggested toast and Vegemite, with no butter, of course.’

  ‘But I’m starving. I haven’t even had lunch yet.’

  Magda looked at me. ‘You’re hungry?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Well, that’s too bad,’ Magda shrugged, ‘you’ve been sick. You need to give your belly a rest. Toast with Vegemite tonight, perhaps. Have some water.’

  ‘Water? Is that all you’re going to give me? I’ll starve, Magda. That’s not fair. That’s like prison!’

  ‘You’ve been sick,’ Magda said, ‘I was asked to pick you up because you’ve been sick.’

  I was stuck with water – or the truth. I chose water. I drank three large glasses hoping to trick my stomach, but it still twisted and gurgled.

  ‘I wish Mum was here,’ I muttered. ‘I wish she wasn’t going to have another baby. She’d give me something to eat.’

  ‘I wish some children weren’t so rude – and so untruthful.’

  I glared at Magda. She wasn’t even looking at me, she was busying herself with the kettle and I knew she’d make herself a cup of tea and use Mum’s special cup again.

  ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,’ I told her back, and my voice sounded spiteful, even to me.

  Magda turned slowly to face me. I thought she’d be angry. She should have been angry. But instead she looked at me for what seemed a long time and then stepped forward and gently tipped my face up towards her. Her fingers were long but old and her fingernail polish was chipped.

  ‘I had a wish horse once,’ she said, ‘but my first husband, the jockey, fell under it. He broke his back and my heart. But I still have the pony. Come on.’

  I followed her obediently, right across the road and up her driveway, and waited for her to find her keys and let us both in. I’d never been inside her house and I couldn’t wait to see it. I jiggled with impatience. Magda hurried me down her hallway, past framed photos of her husbands. The little one on the big horse must have been the jockey.

  The teapot clock in the kitchen said 10.30. The big clock down in the lounge room wasn’t on the right time either. Magda opened the first of the three display cabinets that stood around the lounge room as though it were a shop. I saw a cat, a funny-looking penguin, some dainty glasses and a little box. Magda carefully took something from the same shelf.

  ‘Put out your hand,’ she ordered.

  I held it out and she put a little glass horse on the flat of my palm. I curled my fingers up so it wouldn’t fall, but the little thing seemed to almost steady itself. It wasn’t quite clear glass – you couldn’t see through it. It wasn’t white but it wasn’t grey. It looked as though wisps of smoke or cloud had been caught in it. He was beautiful.

  ‘For you,’ Magda said. ‘A wish pony.’

  ‘For me?’ He was quite the most beautiful thing I had ever owned. I couldn’t imagine why Magda would want to give him to me, especially after I had been so mean to her.

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘But I ...’ I wanted to say I was sorry for being rude and horrible. But then it would sound as though I just wanted to own the little pony, and while it was true I wanted the little pony almost more than I’d ever wanted anything, I wasn’t sorry because of that.

  ‘You don’t deserve it?’ Magda smiled at me and shook her head slightly. ‘You weren’t the only person not behaving well. I shouldn’t have asked for your opinion, your candid opinion, and then dismissed it with an easy wave of my hand. I should have said, I would like your opinion, my friend Ruby, but then, I will disregard it because although we both know the coat is too young for me today, tomorrow it might be perfect. I won’t be an old chook forever.’

  I couldn’t see how that would work. If something was too young for you today, wouldn’t it be just that tiny little bit extra young the next day?

  ‘And look, here’s my old copy of The Secret Garden, to borrow. So, no more frowning, Ruby.’ Magda put two fingers at the side of my mouth and pulled them up gently. ‘The wish pony is yours. He’ll be someone to talk to. You put him somewhere in your room where he won’t be too lonely. He’s used to having company on his shelf.’

  I put the wish pony on my dressing table between the little ceramic bird Sarah had given me when she came back from a trip to the West and the small china dolphin Mum had bought after we’d seen real ones. They seemed strange company for my little wish pony, but Magda approved. She moved a photo of me, Mum and Dad a bit closer, too.

  ‘He might want to gallop over and see you all,’ she said and put my hairbrush away in the top drawer. ‘No way he could leap over those bristles!’

  ‘But he could have leapt over the handle,’ I told her, caught up for a moment in the idea of him galloping down the length of my dressing table, leaping over obstacles, stopping to have a drink at the small bowl in which my mother sometimes floated camellia flowers or scented candles for me those nights we’d cuddle up in bed and read stories together.

  ‘True, he might enjoy that when he feels more comfortable living here. For a long, long time – many years ago, before you were born, maybe before even your mother’s mother was born – he has lived in Glass Cabinet No. 1 with Egypt, the Emperor and the Red Soldiers.’

  ‘Egypt?’

  ‘The cat, you know.’

  ‘Oh, and Emperor’s the penguin?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Magda nodded.

  ‘The Red Soldiers?’ There had been no soldiers that I had seen.

  ‘My mother’s Venetian glass. There were six when I grew up but one was captured and died.’

  ‘What’s the wish pony’s name?’

  ‘You can name him – but I admit for as long as I’ve had him, he’s been the wish pony.’

  I couldn’t think of a different name though I ransacked through all the names I thought would suit. Magda must have seen me thinking furiously, because she laughed and patted my shoulder.

  ‘Not everything needs to be done at lightning speed – names and friendships happen more slowly. Come on, let’s watch telly and eat some toast.’

  When Dad came home, Magda pronounced me much better and Dad bought us all takeaway noodles for tea. After Magda left, Dad let me ring Mum and when I heard her voic
e on the phone it was almost possible to think she was just away visiting or on a holiday, rather than sick in hospital. We talked until Dad told me it was time to say goodnight and then Mum and I said that to each other over and over before she finally hung up.

  When I went to bed that night I could see, in the dim streetlight through the window, the Wish Pony, his nostrils slightly flared and his wild mane and rippling tail standing at the edge of my dressing table as though he could take one crazy jump out into the world. But I knew he wouldn’t. He was mine. Magda had given him to me.

  Magda rearranged things so there was no space where the Wish Pony had stood. She separated the dark red Venetian glasses so they no longer stood in a tight little cluster and moved the curled cat forward so she was in the centre front of the cabinet.

  ‘That doesn’t look so bad,’ she told the old grandfather clock, ‘not bad at all.’

  The clock didn’t so much as tick or tock but Magda nodded to it anyway.

  ‘It’s good to give things away,’ she said, ‘it makes you feel rich.’

  Then she carried a small straight-backed chair into the hallway and had an earnest if one-sided conversation with the portrait of her last husband. Every so often she leant forward and laid her hand on his black and white cheek.

  When she had finished she carried the chair back and checked – as she did every night – that no messages had been left on her phone.

  ‘Oh well,’ she said, hearing just the dial tone and not the agitated twitter the phone made if a message had been left, ‘nothing,’ and she put the phone gently back in its cradle.

  She read for the rest of the evening. It was an old book with beautifully coloured illustrations. It was an odd book for an adult to read as it seemed to be about a girl. But Magda enjoyed it and marked her place with a fluoro orange shoelace when she went to bed.

  The next day at school, Waddle gave me a sealed note to give Dad. I opened it on the way home and read it.

  Dear Mr Logan,

  Much and all as I don’t like to trouble you at such an anxious time in your own life, I am afraid that Ruby’s behaviour of late has worried me and been deliberately hurtful to fellow classmates. We would like to discuss this matter at a mutually convenient time.

  I didn’t get notes like that. Only kids like Sharnie and Luke, who needed to kick walls sometimes just to get rid of some of his feelings before they bubbled over like an erupting volcano, got notes like that. I got star stamps and lollipops from the glass jar on Waddle’s desk. I got Lovely work, Ruby, This is beautifully presented and Excellent! Except for maths.

  I didn’t know what to do with the note. I certainly couldn’t give it to Dad, not now I’d opened it – unless I could stick it shut again. But a corner of the sticky flap had torn and the rest was crumpled. He’d know. I shoved it right to the bottom of my bag and kept walking. Maybe it would look as though it had caught on my pencil case and just torn open? I wished I’d never opened it.

  Thinking that made me think of the Wish Pony and I walked more quickly. At lunchtime, with Sarah and Bree totally ignoring me except to toss their heads at me and whisper loudly things like ‘Total loser’, and ‘See her zits? She’s the toadface’, I’d thought of how he felt warm, not cold like glass, in my hand. Thinking of him made me feel better. I’d left my old curtains wide open so he could see out the window at the tree ferns and the blue sky. Though he could have practically seen through the curtains, they were so thin and holey.

  Mum had promised me new curtains. But when was she going to make new ones if she always sick or in hospital? I kicked a squashed can that was in my way. I knew how Luke felt. That was because I was now a kid who got notes to take home.

  But all thought of the note vanished when Mum opened the front door for me as I was hunting through my bag for the key.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Hi, darling, thought I’d surprise you. Missed you!’

  ‘I missed you, too,’ I hugged her sideways, so I didn’t squash her belly. ‘Are you better?’

  Mum screwed up her nose, ‘Well, perhaps not entirely better,’ she said, ‘but I feel a hundred per cent on what I was. Come and tell me everything that’s happened!’

  The kitchen smelled of cinnamon – she’d made muffins, chocolate for me and apple and cinnamon for Dad. There was a tray of lasagne in the oven and flowers on the table. I squashed any thoughts of showing her the horrible note or telling her what had happened. Why ruin her first day home? Instead I told her about Magda and showed her the Wish Pony. When I ran out of other things to tell her I told her about Bree, the new girl, but left out the fact that Sarah was now best friends with her, and hated me. I just wanted to keep her talking.

  Then she let me feel the baby kick. It was very strange imagining him curled up inside her tummy. I wasn’t sure I liked it. Imagine having another person growing inside you. I’d decided ages ago, when Mum told me how babies are made and all about having one, that I was never ever going to do all that. I’d decided to get a dog instead. Dad said we might get a dog when my brother is older.

  I didn’t always like feeling the baby kick. But this time I did.

  ‘He’s going to be a footballer,’ Dad said when he got home and felt it.

  That was such a strange thing for Dad to say. He didn’t even watch football.

  Mum caught my look and laughed. ‘It’s what all dads say,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t mean anything. I’m going to look at my collage. Want to see it too?’

  She pulled out her latest one. She’d started it ages and ages ago. We both looked at it for a while. It wasn’t for a book or anything, though sometimes she does that. This was something personal she was making, though it might end up in an exhibition. There were two people, who looked quite small in an immense garden of trailing vines, fruit trees, big wavy ferns. It was very beautiful even though the two people were naked. It wasn’t finished.

  ‘Are you going to do more?’ I asked. Mum only works on personal collages when she’s feeling really good. If she’s not feeling so good, she’ll do some cards – something quicker – ‘instant noodles’ she calls that kind of work. But it is still beautiful, because how can it not be? Even the cards have this treasure load of stuff on them – scraps of patterned material, gold and silver threads, old postage stamps with fruit or butterflies or even people on them and sometimes even little beads.

  ‘Not tonight,’ Mum said, ‘tonight I’m going to wallow like a great whale in the bath. But I might work on it tomorrow. I’d like to put some little white daisies in the garden. And maybe some pansies. What do you think?’

  ‘I love pansies,’ I said, ‘they’ve got little faces.’

  ‘Maybe all those little faces should watch my couple?’

  ‘But they’re naked! You can’t have them being watched if they’re not going to wear any clothes.’

  ‘Oh Ruby! Come on, come into the bathroom and watch me have a bath.’

  ‘That’s different,’ I said but I didn’t go anyway because it was my bedtime. The rose oil Mum used in her bath drifted out from the bathroom, right down the hallway into my room and I felt as though I was going to sleep in a garden.

  ‘Goodnight, Wish Pony,’ I whispered into the darkness after Mum had tucked me in and I thought – but I might have been mistaken – that there was a faint whinny from my dressing table.

  The next morning Dad drove me to school so Mum didn’t get tired out. I was really pleased about that. If Mum had walked me down to school, she might have met Sarah’s mum and been told the whole horrible story. Or she might have run into Waddle and then Waddle would have taken the opportunity to talk about my behaviour. Either way, Mum’s day would be ruined and it would all be my fault. It was much safer having Dad drive me.

  Sarah and Bree still weren’t speaking to me but I’d expected that and I’d packed Magda’s book to read. It made my bag heavier but I didn’t care. No way was I going to sit next to Sharnie.

  Generally people left me alone. Luk
e came up, snatched the book away from me and read out the title in a posh voice. ‘The Secret Garden, ooh what a good book, don’t you think?’

  ‘Very good book, Luke, all about gardens that are, well, secret,’ Tod said, but the new teacher, Ms Saunders, came up and took it off them.

  ‘Good book,’ she told me, ‘I read it when I was about your age. It made me cry.’

  I was pleased someone at school was talking to me. Waddle glared at me in class and Sarah and Bree whispered behind their hands. Still, Mum was back from hospital, I kept reminding myself, and that was the only thing that really mattered.

  She was waiting for me at the end of school and I took one look at her face and knew that she wasn’t happy.

  She waited until I had my backpack on and we were out of the school grounds and then she started. Why had I written that note? What was wrong with me? She was so disappointed. She’d always been proud of me coping so well with school and everything. Clearly, however, I wasn’t and what did I think we should do about it? But she didn’t stop for me to answer – she just went on. Dad was worried too and where was the note that had been sent home for him? Was I becoming deceitful? Then there was the cheating incident. Was it true? What was she going to do about all this? Was it attention-seeking behaviour? Did I need help?

  I couldn’t answer. She whirled me around and made me look at her, even though my eyes were streaming tears and my nose was running in sympathy.

  ‘Ruby, we have to sort this out. I should be able to trust you. But I get sick and look what happens. I can’t begin to tell you how – how shattered I feel about all this.’

  I couldn’t even say sorry.

  When we got home she didn’t ask me whether I wanted a chocolate muffin. She just upended my bag right there on the kitchen floor and found the squashed note for Dad in its torn envelope.

  ‘Oh Ruby,’ she said and walked away, leaving everything of mine just strewn over the kitchen floor – the banana peel from recess, my maths sheet, my reader and pencil case which was leaking pencil shavings, even The Secret Garden. She didn’t care if they got trodden on or not. I thought of just leaving them there – I hadn’t tipped the bag up, why should I clean it up?