Pony Jumpers 9- Nine Lives

by Kate Lattey

  I twisted around to look at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just did.”

  I shook my head. “Before now. When it first happened. Why didn’t you text me right away?”

  Katy shrugged, looking down at Molly’s neck. “I don’t know. I haven’t told Mum yet either. She’s going to lose her mind.” She flipped a piece of Molly’s black mane between her fingers. “I guess I thought if I told you, it would seem worse. More real, or something. Or that your sympathy would make it even harder to deal with.” She shrugged again. “I don’t understand half of the things I do.”

  “Neither do I,” I told her. “Understand you, I mean. Everything I do makes complete sense.”

  Katy snapped a small branch off a tree and threw it at me. It landed on Squib’s hindquarters, and he shot forward, bucking, and it took me a few moments to regather my reins and regain control.

  “Some friend you are,” I scolded her when she came trotting up behind me with a guilty expression.

  “Sorry. I didn’t think he’d do that!”

  “Have you met Squib?”

  Katy smiled at me, then gazed up at the canopy of trees joined together over our heads. “I’ve missed this.”

  “Me too. I got lonely riding on my own.”

  “You’re telling me. I don’t know how I did it when you weren’t here.”

  I smiled back at her, feeling the bonds of friendship pulling us closer together. Katy drove me crazy sometimes, but I didn’t know what I’d do or where I’d be without her. Without a doubt, she was the closest friend I’d had in years.

  We came out of the trees and picked up a canter, and our conversation died as I focused on keeping Squib under control as he dragged me across the farm, pulling hard the entire way. Every now and then I would glance back at Katy, trotting or cantering sedately along behind us, Molly’s neck flexed and jaw soft against the bit. I was envious of her, and had a renewed appreciation for her riding ability. My recent rides on Molly had reminded me that it took a balanced, sensitive rider to keep her so soft and controlled, especially over rolling terrain and with a raving lunatic like Squib in front of her.

  “She goes so nicely for you,” I said eventually to my friend when we’d reached the end of the trail, and were walking the ponies home along the roadside.

  “I’ve had her a long time,” Katy reminded me. “We’ve had our fair share of struggles, let me assure you.”

  “Speaking of struggles, we have to change Tori’s bandage when we get back,” I remembered.

  Katy groaned. “You’re kidding.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. It’s a day overdue, but when I reminded your mum yesterday, she said it could wait until you got back.”

  “Ugh.” Katy shortened her reins. “In that case, slow down, Molly. Let’s not rush home.”

  “She’s not that bad,” I told Katy. “She’s actually getting a lot better.”

  My friend frowned across at me. “Really? Because Mum said she’s been pacing around her box like a caged lion, and trying to kick the walls in all night. I told her that we might as well turn her out into one of the small paddocks. No point boxing her if she’s not going to stand still and heal.”

  “She’s hardly lame on it now, anyway,” I replied. I wound a few strands of Squib’s mane around my finger, and he shook his head irritably. “I’ve been hand-grazing her every day, and she’s moving out freely as far as I can tell.”

  Katy turned in her saddle, her face registering surprise. “Really?”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant. “Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to tell when she’s walking next to me, because she’s still not the easiest horse in the world to lead, but I can’t see any sign of unsoundness.”

  “No, I meant you’ve been grazing her?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t your mum mention that?”

  Katy shook her head. “I got the impression she’d been in that stable since the day after I left.”

  “Then she really would be climbing the walls,” I told her. “Mostly she just grazes, but we usually walk most of the way up the race, and yesterday I took her into the arena and walked her over some poles.”

  Katy’s eyebrows shot up, almost disappearing under the visor of her helmet. “Did she flatten you?”

  “No, she was fine,” I said. “She got a bit tense being in the arena, I don’t think she likes it much, but she went over the poles without arguing.”

  “Huh.” Katy seemed impressed. “It’s weird that Mum didn’t mention that. She keeps saying that Tori has been an absolute nightmare.”

  “Well, she did break your mum’s foot,” I admitted. “I think she’s holding a grudge.”

  “She’s pretty good at that,” Katy replied wryly. “Just ask my dad.”

  When we got back, we untacked the ponies and turned them out before tackling Tori. Katy was happy to take over her mother’s role in the proceedings, holding Tori’s head and bribing her to stand still with small handfuls of sweet feed, while I did the bandaging itself. It was always a lengthy process, and I’d been lucky so far not to get hurt, but Tori’s attitude adjustment in the past couple of days had me hopeful that she would be easier to manage this time. I ran my hand over the mare’s rump and slowly down her back leg to the thick bandage. I cut the three-day-old bandage off with scissors and inspected the wound underneath.

  “It’s healing well,” I said. “But it’s going to leave a scar.”

  “Honestly, right now that’s the least of my worries,” Katy said. “Besides, scars don’t matter in show jumping as long as what’s under them is sound.”

  “Seems to be. Clive didn’t think she did any damage to the tendons or ligaments, just ripped the skin off the bone. I still don’t know how she did it,” I mused as I straightened up and went to the other side of the stable, where I’d laid out the provisions for re-applying her bandage.

  “Probably just did it for attention. That backfired on you though, didn’t it?” she asked Tori. “Because then we shut you in this stable for a week and made you super angry at the world. Hey now, don’t bite me because I’m just telling it like it is.”

  I smiled as I picked up the pot of manuka honey and unscrewed the lid. “Careful what you say around her,” I warned my friend. “I’m pretty sure she understands every word.”

  Katy snorted. “Hah. I wish. I’d have a few things to say to her if that was the case.”

  “Such as?” I asked, pulling a baby nappy out of the packet and spreading it open across my knee. It would never have occurred to me to use a nappy as a wound dressing, but as Deb pointed out, they were a lot cheaper and easier to access than veterinary gauze, and did the job just as well. I carefully poured a thick trail of dark manuka honey across the nappy, then spread it out with my finger. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to use honey either, but I’d learned that it had great medicinal value when used in healing wounds. And it tasted great, which Tori had also discovered, so the last step would be to apply a cayenne pepper paste to her bandage so that she didn’t chew it off to get to the sweetness underneath.

  “That’s easy. I would tell her to stop being such a bitch,” Katy replied. “Did you just lick your finger?”

  I shrugged, wiping my hand on my jeans. “It’s honey.”

  “That’s still gross.”

  I shrugged as I grabbed a roll of insulation tape and went back over to the mare. “Okay Tor, brace yourself.” I put a hand on her rump to warn her that the wound dressing was coming, and she twitched her hindquarters at me and swished her tail. “I know, but you’ve gotta suck it up, okay?”

  Tori butted Katy with her head, pushing her off balance and making her retreat a step, then swung her head around to watch me. The sweet scent of the honey wafted upwards as I carefully applied the dressing across the wound. Tori snatched her leg up and whipped her tail a couple of times, but she didn’t try to kick or flatten me.

  “I know. Be brave.” Slowly, the black mare lowered her hoof back to the ground
, and I taped around the top and bottom of the nappy to hold it in place.

  “Halfway there,” I told Katy as I went back to get the roll of cotton wool gauze. She nodded, her eyes flickering to me and then back to Tori.

  “You’re doing a good job.”

  “Thanks. I’ve had practice. Now if Squib ever tears his leg open, I’ll know what to do.”

  “Eat the wound dressing?”

  “Shut up.” I wrapped the gauze around Tori’s leg, and starting winding vetwrap around it. “Is that really what you’d ask Tori if you could?”

  “Huh? Oh.” Katy paused, and I concentrated on getting the bandage pressure even, not too tight, and not too loose. “I guess I’d ask her why she hates me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you,” I told my friend.

  “Pretty sure she does.” Another pause as I hunted for the scissors to cut the end off the hot pink vetwrap. “Are we done?”

  “Not yet. Got to make the bandage spicy so she doesn’t chew it off.”

  “Right.” Katy readjusted her grip on the rope while I started smearing the paste that Deb had made from cayenne pepper and vaseline over top of the pink bandage. “I dare you to lick your finger again.”

  “I’ll do it for a hundred bucks,” I replied.

  “Ew. Seriously?”

  “Absolutely.” I turned and wiggled my vaseline-covered fingers at her. “Do you dare me?”

  “I’ll dare you, but I’m not paying you to do it,” Katy declared as I held up my vaseline and cayenne covered hand, and mimed licking it. “Oh gross, don’t.” She averted her eyes, going slightly green. “I’ll be sick.”

  “You’ll be sick? Think how I’d feel.”

  “I can’t believe you’d even consider it.”

  “That’s because you didn’t grow up with two older brothers who dared you to do stuff like that all the time,” I told her. “And you’re not desperate for money.”

  “I’m always desperate for money,” Katy countered.

  I straightened up and stepped back from Tori’s increasingly twitchy hind end. “Okay, we’re done. And you’re not as desperate as me,” I assured my friend as I walked towards her. “I haven’t told you this yet, but there’s a reason I was riding Squib bareback today, and it’s not good news.”

  I explained quickly, and Katy stared at me in horror, then turned to glare at Tori. “Just when I was starting to think you might not be so bad,” she scolded the horse. “You go and do a thing like that. You could at least have busted a cheap saddle.” She looked back at me. “She’d have been doing you a favour if she’d torn up that old Wintec of yours, but the Antares?” Katy shook her head in apparent disbelief.

  “I haven’t even got to the best part. I rang Susannah to tell her, and I got her dad, and he told me I have to pay for it. The whole saddle, not just the repairs.”

  Katy’s eyes widened. “Holy crap. Do you know what that saddle is worth?”

  “I do now,” I told her. “And I don’t know how I’m going to afford it. Anders says he’ll lend me some money, and I might be able to weasel a few hundred out of Aidan, but I’m still way short of what I need.”

  “Your parents won’t pay for it?”

  “I haven’t told them,” I admitted. “I can’t. They’ll be furious.”

  “Sure, but what can they do?” Katy asked. “Other than reading you the riot act and making you do extra chores or something? It’s not like they’ll beat you senseless or kick you out of home.”

  “No,” I admitted. “But they might make me sell Squib.”

  Katy’s jaw dropped. “WHAT!?”

  “Think about it. They don’t have spare cash lying around, and they’re big believers in personal responsibility,” I reminded her. I’d avoided talking about this – avoided even thinking about it, but what else were best friends for except for spilling your guts to? “When they bought Squib for me, they agreed to pay for minimal expenses but they won’t consider a five-and-a-half thousand dollar saddle to be minimal. And the only way they’d be able to think of to recoup the money would be to sell the pony. They’d call it a life lesson.”

  “Well that’s ridiculous,” Katy declared. “Okay, so that’s off the list of options. But there must be some other way to get the money.”

  She looked pensive, and hope fluttered inside me that she would have a magic solution, but then I heard a motorbike approaching. Katy’s expression changed, losing its thoughtful gaze, and I knew she had put my dilemma out of her mind.

  “I’ll figure something out,” I said as the motorbike came closer.

  “I know you will,” Katy agreed distractedly.

  We were both out of Tori’s stable by now, and she threw her head up and backed across her box as Phil rode in on his dirt bike. Either Bradley hadn’t dobbed him in, or Phil’s mother had decided it wasn’t worth a week-long sulky silence. To his credit, he approached slowly, and cut the engine when he noticed Tori’s distress. My finger throbbed at the sight of him, so I went to put the armful of bandaging equipment away while Katy made her way across the yard to greet her friend.

  I threw the old bandage into the trash, put everything else away in the vet cupboard, wiped the vaseline off my hand and then rinsed it at the sink before walking back out into the yard. I guess I should’ve come out yodelling or something, because Katy and Phil were both standing next to his dirt bike now, and she had her arms around him, and he was leaning in to kiss her…

  I ducked back into the tack room and counted to ten, then twenty. Maybe I should’ve seen it coming, but I’d still been convinced that Katy wouldn’t sink that low. Phil mightn’t have purposely spooked Squib when he’d hurt my finger, but he hadn’t properly apologised either.

  I leaned back against the wall and sighed. I just didn’t like the guy, and it was going to take a lot to change my mind about him.

  10

  UNWILLING

  I arrived at Katy’s the next morning to find her saddling a grumpy-looking Tori.

  “You’re here early!”

  “Yeah, I got Dad to drop me off. Are you riding Tori?”

  Katy shrugged. “Attempting it. Mum doesn’t want me to,” she added with a sideways look at her mother, who was coming out of the tack room with a bridle over her shoulder.

  “I don’t want you getting hurt before you go away to Ireland,” Deb said as she walked between us. “You’ve only just got that cast off as it is, and I don’t want those airfares going to waste.”

  “Why do you care? You didn’t pay for them,” Katy replied, being snarky because that was her natural reaction whenever she was feeling anxious about anything. I knew that she was just wound up about getting back on Tori after her long break, and quickly changed the subject.

  “When did your cast come off?”

  “Last night.” She grinned and wiggled her fingers at me. “No more showering with a plastic bag over my arm.”

  “Good work,” I said approvingly, watching as she tightened Tori’s girth, dodging the mare’s cow-kick. “Do you want me to ride with you? I could take Robin, if you want a calming influence.”

  “That’s very generous of you, since I know how much you love riding him,” she said. “But I’m just going to ride her in the arena today.”

  Deb handed her the bridle, and Katy flipped the reins over Tori’s neck, then held the bridle up. Tori threw her head up defiantly, holding it well out of Katy’s reach.

  “Why can’t you be normal for once, Tori? Just once? That’s all I ask.”

  Katy reached a hand up and laid it across Tori’s nose, then attempted to get the mare to lower her head. Tori threw her head up higher, and Katy winced as her shoulder was wrenched. “Ow!”

  “Hang on a sec. I’ve got an idea,” I said, hurrying to the tack room and grabbing a scoop of sweet feed.

  “That’s just what she needs. More energy,” Katy said, but Tori’s ears were pricked as I let myself into her stable.

  “Bribery works wonders,” I told my friend
. “C’mon, Tor. Food’s down here.” I held the scoop out, low down so that she had to drop her head to eat from it. It took a couple of attempts, but pretty soon Katy had the bridle on her.

  I smiled in satisfaction. “Worked like a charm.”

  “It’s a temporary measure though,” Katy said, pulling Tori’s forelock through. “I can’t feed her a ton of grain every single time I want to get the bridle on.”

  “Why not?”

  Katy just looked at me and shook her head as she buckled Tori’s cavesson noseband. She pulled it tight, then fastened the flash equally firmly so that Tori couldn’t open her mouth and evade the bit. She led the horse out of the stable, then stopped as her mother handed her a long, thin piece of leather with clips at each end.

  “Put these on.”

  Katy glanced at me, and sighed. “Don’t judge me,” she said, handing Tori’s reins to me to hold while she attached the draw reins to the girth and threaded them through the snaffle bit.

  “I didn’t say anything,” I pointed out.

  “Uh huh. I know what you’re thinking.”

  I’d come across the draw reins in her tack room weeks ago, and when she’d told me what they were, I’d been shocked. Everything I’d read about them online said they were unnecessary and barbaric, and Katy had defensively said she only used them on very rare occasions as a safety measure.

  “Hey, if you want to ride Tori, be my guest.”

  She motioned towards the saddle as my heart leapt. I couldn’t honestly say that I wasn’t tempted, but I’d seen her play up enough times with Katy to know that was a risk I wasn’t yet willing to take. Not with our last show of the season only a few days away.

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Katy snapped up the chinstrap of her helmet, and took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”