Pony Jumpers 9- Nine Lives

by Kate Lattey

  Harry scowled at me, kicking another stone, much harder this time. It skittered across the concrete and bounced off a parked car. “What’s so funny?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

  “Why?” he challenged. “Don’t think I’m good enough? You’ve never even seen me play.”

  “True,” I admitted. Then, because sometimes you have to lead by example, I apologised. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  Harry shrugged, scuffing his feet across the ground. Then he turned and looked at me. “Hey, I see what you did there.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “How’d it feel?”

  It was his turn to blush, ever so slightly. “Not bad.” He slid his arm around my waist and pulled me in closer to him. “I’m sorry too,” he said, and this time, he sounded like he meant it.

  “See now, was that so hard?”

  Harry’s fingers moved across my hip and slid underneath my top, brushing my bare skin and making me shiver. “You have no idea.”

  5

  HURT

  Squib was bouncing with enthusiasm as I cantered him bareback along the track that wound through the back of the Fitzherberts’ farm. Katy’s neighbours’ property was much larger than hers, and we were lucky that we had permission to ride over it whenever we liked. A lot of it was flat pasture, grazed by fat brown beef cattle, but there were a few clumps of native bush and scrubby forest to explore as well. Squib entertained himself by pretending to be terrified of the cows as we cantered past them, and I was glad that I’d buckled a spare stirrup leather around his neck for extra security. He still almost had me off when we startled a cow that was lying down in the long grass. It lumbered to its feet, bellowing at him, and Squib leapt sideways in fright, straight into a gorse bush. I grabbed the neckstrap, gripping hard with my thighs as I slid sideways on his bare back, and had just recovered my balance when he shot forward, dragging both of us through the prickly scrub for some distance before I managed to regain control of him.

  “Behave yourself,” I muttered as I shortened my reins and redirected him towards the next gate. Squib bounced on the spot, dropping behind the bit and threatening to bolt back home, but after a brief argument, I convinced him to continue on. We made it past the belligerent cow at a springy trot, and exited through the bottom gate with a sigh of relief.

  We were walking towards home on a loose rein when I heard the dreaded sound of a high powered engine approaching us. Squib’s head shot into the air and his muscles tensed, but I barely had time to shorten my reins before Phil crested the rise a few metres in front of us on his dirt bike. Squib tried to spin around, but I held the rein tight, refusing to let him. Deprived of his escape route, my pony switched tactics and reared. I felt myself slipping backwards and made a grab for the neckstrap but missed, only succeeding in painfully bending my finger backwards against the solid crest of his neck as it slammed up into my hand. Wincing, I dug my knees into his sides and grasped his mane with my other hand, desperate to keep my balance. Fortunately, by the time Squib had returned his hooves to solid ground, Phil had stopped, and shut off the bike engine, restoring peace to our surroundings.

  Squib stood still, his sides heaving as he stared at Phil like he was a demon that had just sprung up out of the ground, and still might decide to kill him.

  Phil flipped up the visor of his helmet and said something, but his voice was muffled.

  “What?”

  He pulled his helmet off and shook his head, but his brown hair stayed sweated flat to his skull. “I didn’t know you were out here,” he repeated.

  “Well, I am.”

  Phil just looked at me and said nothing. I started to shorten my reins, preparing to move on, but when I tried to move the middle finger of my left hand, a sharp pain shot right along my arm to the elbow, making me wince. I looked down at my hand and tried to make a fist, but I could barely move my middle finger at all, and my heart sank. The last thing I needed was another injury, especially since I was only just back riding again after breaking my collarbone. Especially since I had all of Katy’s ponies to ride for the week, and Tori to hand-graze, and a job that I desperately needed to keep in order to pay for a saddle that I couldn’t afford – all of which required physical labour that a busted finger would make impossible.

  But regardless of whether I needed it or not, another injury was exactly what I had, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  “Now what’ve you done to yourself?”

  The disappointment in Mum’s voice matched the echo in my own head as I looked down at my finger that evening. I could move it a bit now, but it had swollen up substantially, and the skin under my fingernail was starting to turn black.

  “Squib got a bit excited when Phil the friggin’ idiot decided to try and flatten us on his dirt bike.”

  “Sit down and let me have a look at it,” Mum demanded, flinging open the cupboard above the pantry and pulling out the first aid box. “Is it broken? Can you move it at all?”

  I nodded. “I can move it, but I can’t bend it very far.”

  Aidan came into the room as I spoke, and he leaned over the table to inspect my injury. “Nice one, Poss. How’d you manage that?”

  “Oh good,” Mum said before I could reply. “Why don’t you take over, Aidan? You know a lot more about this sort of thing than I do.” She nudged the first aid box towards him with a smile, clearly hoping that my busted finger was all it would take to inspire my brother to return to university.

  Aidan didn’t exactly look enthralled, but he picked up the first aid box and motioned towards the living room with a nod of his head. “C’mon then. Step into my office.”

  I followed him into the living room where he’d been watching TV. Aidan picked up the remote control and muted the sound, then patted the couch next to him. I sat down and he took my hand in his, poking and prodding at it and watching me wince.

  “Is that really necessary?” I asked. “Or are you trying to inflict as much pain as – ouch!”

  “Sorry.”

  “You should be.” My eyes were watering, and I wiped at them with my spare hand. “That hurt.”

  Aidan reached for the first aid box and started rummaging through it. “Looks like you’ve sprained your metacarpophalangeal joint.”

  “Speak English.”

  “Your knuckle,” Aidan said as he fished out a roll of tape and pulled out one end. “I’ll tape it up to immobilise it, and you’ll have to give it a few days of rest. If it isn’t better by then, it’s probably broken.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  Aidan shrugged. “I can take you in for an x-ray now, if you want. But they’ll only do what I’m about to do anyway.”

  “Which is?” I asked, watching him cut a strip off the roll of tape and start taping my finger to the ones next to it.

  “Immobilisation. Painkillers. Rest,” he said. “Too tight?”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  Aidan tore off another piece of tape and continued wrapping my fingers, bringing the tape across just behind my knuckle and securing both ends to the first strip. I glared down at my hand, at the stupid swollen knuckle and the strips of elastoplast holding them together.

  “Well this is just great. Exactly what I needed. I only just recovered from a broken collarbone, and now I’ve broken my finger.”

  “Sprained.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  Aidan shrugged as he secured the last strip of tape, then tossed the roll into the first aid kit. “And you ask why I hung up on the physio career.”

  I lifted my head, successfully diverted from my pity party. “Because you don’t want to listen to people moan about their problems?”

  “No, because I don’t want to be sitting here saying ‘Sorry, that sucks, but I can’t help you’.”

  “What about the people you can help though?” I argued. “What if you rehab someone who thought they’d neve
r walk again, and they end up winning at the Olympics or something? It happens, right?”

  “Very, very rarely,” Aidan replied. “For every against the odds success story there are dozens of failures, masses of people who’ve had to abandon their dreams. And not just sports injuries either. Anders didn’t bust his knee playing rugby.” He put the lid back on the box and clipped it down. “I just don’t know if I can face people’s disappointment, day in and day out.”

  “What if you end up having more successes than failures?” I asked.

  “Even then.” He leaned back into the couch cushions and stared at the TV. “People remember failure even more than they remember success, and it eats away at them. It’s what gives highly competitive people their drive, and makes others give up at the first hurdle.”

  “Maybe you should’ve been a psychologist,” I teased him. “Since you seem to know so much about people.”

  Aidan snorted. “No thanks. I like doing things, not theorising about them.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.” I glared down at my mangled hand. “I’m not going to be able to work for the rest of the week,” I added sadly, trying really hard not to think about the money that I so desperately needed. Not that I was going to earn five and a half thousand dollars from working with my dad for a few days, but it was more money than I was going to have if I didn’t. “D’you think ACC will cover me for loss of earnings?”

  “That depends,” Aidan said, leaning back against the couch cushions and kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. “You got a contract? Pay taxes?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re outta luck,” Aidan told me. “But I can cover for you, no worries. Dad was talking about giving you the rest of the week off anyway, so you could play with the ponies instead of being stuck in the garden.” He grinned at me, like that was good news.

  I sat up straighter, shaking my head. “What? No! I need that job.”

  “Why?”

  He already knew most of it. He might as well know all of it. “Because I need the money to pay for the saddle.”

  “Don’t stress about that too much. You don’t know how much it’s going to cost to fix it,” he pointed out, reaching for the remote and turning the sound back on. “Could be less than you think.”

  “Doesn’t matter even if it is,” I told him. “I have to pay for the whole saddle, because the people who own it don’t want it back now that it’s damaged.”

  Aidan screwed up his face sympathetically. “Can they do that?”

  “It’s their saddle.”

  “What does your contract say?” he asked. I looked at him blankly, and he rolled his eyes. “Well, there’s your problem.”

  “So can you lend me five grand?” I asked him.

  “Sure. Let me write you a cheque.”

  “Bank transfer would be fine,” I told him hopefully. “No need for the extra paperwork.”

  He looked sideways at me. “What do you need all that money for, anyway?”

  I slapped him on the shoulder. “I just told you. I have to buy Squib’s saddle.”

  “And it costs five thousand dollars?” he asked in amazement. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Five and a half, actually, but I already have a few hundred in my bank account. I just need the five k.” I looked at him hopefully, but he shook his head.

  “Sorry, Poss. No can do.”

  I bit my lip. “Please?”

  “I don’t have it,” Aidan said. “And even if I did, I’m not sure I could wait the ten years it’d take you to pay me back. Have you asked Mum and Dad?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. They don’t have it to spare.”

  My brother drummed his fingers on his knee thoughtfully. “You could ask Anders.”

  I snorted. “Anders is always broke.”

  But Aidan shook his head. “Anders wants you to think he’s broke,” he corrected me. “He’s a tight bastard, is what he is. Last time he opened his wallet, moths flew out of it.”

  “D’you really think he’d lend me the money?”

  “No. But he has at least got it, so anything’s possible.”

  I sighed, collapsing back into the couch cushions. “I wish we were rich.”

  “Not much chance of that around here. In case you haven’t noticed, our parents suck at making money.”

  “Well, gardening doesn’t exactly pay well,” I pointed out.

  But Aidan shook his head. “That’s not true. Dad’s not making money because he’s not very good at running a business, not because there’s no money in the industry.”

  “Don’t let him hear you say that,” I cautioned my brother, but he waved a dismissive hand at me.

  “It’s true and he knows it,” Aidan said. “Question is whether he’s ever going to do anything to change things.”

  “Maybe you need to take over as his manager,” I suggested, and he shot me a smile.

  “See, now you’re talking.”

  “Woah, Tori.”

  As usual, the big mare didn’t listen to me. She had her eyes fixed on the long grass by the arena gate, and she was determined to get to it. I tugged at her lead rope with my one functioning hand, but I might as well have been a fly buzzing around her for all the attention she paid. Actually, scratch that. She paid more attention to flies.

  I had no choice but to scramble and keep up with her. As we entered the grassy raceway, Tori tossed her head and bounced on the spot slightly, and a cold wave of panic flooded over me. Don’t bolt, don’t bolt, please don’t bolt. If she decided to break free of me, I’d be powerless to stop her. And I would probably get my head kicked in when I tried to catch her again.

  Fortunately, the temptation of the sweet grass was too much, and Tori pulled her head down and began frantically grazing. I’d missed out on walking her that morning, and she was obviously not happy with the change in our now-regular schedule.

  “It’s been two days,” I reminded the horse as she tore up mouthfuls of grass. “It’s hardly had time to become a routine, so don’t go getting mad at me. Besides, it’s your fault that I wasn’t here this morning.” Tori’s ears flickered vaguely in my direction, and more from boredom than anything else, I kept talking to her. “Where was I, you ask? With my dad, picking up seedlings in Masterton. Carrying seedling trays back and forth to the truck is one of the few things I actually can do with a broken hand, and I was only doing it because I desperately need the money. Because of you.”

  Tori didn’t care. She cleared her nostrils as she ate, swishing her tail irritably at her glossy flanks as the flies pestered her. A mosquito whined near my head, and I waved my arm at it.

  “But I’m trying not to think about that right now,” I continued. “What I’m thinking about is how the hell am I going to get you back into your stable when the time comes? Because I’m starting to doubt that you’re going to go quietly.”

  I was right. My attempts at gentle persuasion were fruitless, and I didn’t even try the aggressive route, because I wasn’t stupid enough to think that I could overpower a horse like Tori. Especially with one functioning hand. In the end, it wasn’t until Deb arrived home almost an hour and a half later that we managed to bribe Tori back into her box with a bucket of sweet feed, which she proceeded to pull out of her manger and kick all around her stable, scattering most of it through the bedding.

  “You’re not getting any more,” Deb told her as she walked past with the evening’s hay rations in her arms.

  “Maybe we need to do some more ground work with her,” I suggested. Deb was a ground work guru, as evidenced by the fact that she’d got Squib from a nuisance to load onto a float to a pony that ran eagerly up the ramp.

  “Which one of us is going to do that?” Deb asked, looking down at her moon boot and then over at my taped-up hand. “I don’t think either of us are in shape to deal with her right now. Maybe tomorrow you can put her in the anti-rearing bit, so she can’t get away from you.”

  I frowned. “What’s an anti-re
aring bit?”

  Deb hobbled towards the tack room, and I followed her.

  “Aren’t you supposed to still be on your crutches?” I asked Katy’s mother as she flicked the light on.

  “Only according to the doctors,” she said casually. “I’ve got painkillers, I’ll be okay. Here.” She unhooked something from the wall and handed it to me. “Of course, you’d have to be able to get it on her in the first place,” she added doubtfully. “And she’s not exactly easy to bridle.”

  I looked dubiously at the thin piece of metal hanging from the narrow leather strap. The bit was shaped kind of like a stirrup iron, only smaller and upside down, and with an indentation across the flat piece at the top. The leather strap was attached to small rings on either side of the bit, and as I held it up, Deb flicked the bottom ring with her finger.

  “Lead rope clips onto here.” She hooked her finger through the ring and pulled it towards her, while pressing the finger of her opposite hand onto the dented piece at top. “This part goes in her mouth for leverage.”

  “It seems a bit harsh,” I said doubtfully. “I don’t think Tori would like it much.”

  “I’m beyond caring what she’d like,” Deb grumbled. “Right now I’m just trying to keep you and Katy and everyone else who has to handle that mare safe.”

  She took the bit back from me and hung it up on the wall again. “I don’t think you should take her out of her stable if I’m not here,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  I frowned, looking through the open door at Tori as she kicked her bucket against the wall. “She’s going stir-crazy in there.”

  “Whose fault is that?” Deb asked. “If she hadn’t gone and torn a strip off her cannon bone in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Speaking of which, we need to change that bandage soon, and I don’t even want to think about how we’re going to manage that.”

  I followed her back out into the darkening evening. “Maybe we need to get some help.”

  “I’ll call Clive,” Deb said resignedly. “He’ll come and do it. Charge an arm and a leg, of course, but since between us we’re missing one of each, I suppose that’s only fair. And I’ll just pass the invoice over to Lionel. His horse, so he can pay for it.”