Pony Jumpers 9- Nine Lives

by Kate Lattey

  Katy smoothed the soil around the akeake that she’d just planted next to me, glanced at my idle spade, and collapsed gratefully onto the ground.

  “Are we done yet?”

  “Not far off,” I told her, nudging her with the side of my boot. “Just that area over there left to plant, and then we get to help with the mulching.”

  Katy groaned, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Remind me again how you managed to talk me into this?”

  I smiled at her. “It’s just one of the many perks of being my best friend.”

  She closed her eyes. “I need water.”

  “What you need is stamina,” I said, nudging her with my toe. “Come on, get up and keep going. We don’t have all day to laze around in the sun.”

  She sighed, but scrambled to her feet. “You know what? I can’t wait to go to Ireland.”

  * * *

  Katy flew out of the country on the day before Tori’s surgery. We said our goodbyes the night before, hugging each other tightly as the reality of the situation sank in for us both.

  “I wish you were coming with me.”

  “I do too,” I said. “More than you know. But you’ll have an amazing time.”

  She smiled weakly. “I’ll miss you.”

  “Pfsh. You’ll be having way too much fun over there to worry about missing me,” I told her. “Besides, you’ll have your phone with you, and I’ll be expecting daily updates.”

  “I’ll Facetime you.”

  “You’d better.”

  We stepped apart and looked at Tori, grazing in her paddock and swishing her long tail at the irritating flies.

  “I’ll take care of her for you,” I promised.

  “I know you will.” Katy leaned on the gate, resting her chin on her arms. “You really love her, don’t you?”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked in surprise. I liked Tori a lot, but I wasn’t sure it was love, not the way that I saw it. Love was unconditional, an unconscious response to those in your life that you couldn’t bear to be without. The ones who made your life feel more complete, and whose absence would be a wound that would never quite heal. I had a soft spot in my heart for Tori, but was it love?

  Katy was still looking at me, and she shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the way you look at her, the way you fought so hard for me to believe in her.” She flicked her hair out of her eyes and straightened up. “You see her as she is, not what you want her to be.”

  “I don’t want her to be anything,” I told my friend, wondering if she would ever realise just how alike she and Tori really were. “Just happy.”

  Katy tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “That’s what we all want,” she said. “But it’s only the people who love you that go out of their way to try and make it happen for you.”

  “Well then, we’re lucky,” I told her. “Both of us, because we’ve got families that love us, and we’ve got each other.”

  She nodded, and we stood together under the setting sun, watching Tori graze, and wondering what the future held for us all.

  Tori’s surgery was a success, and Deb and I drove down to Massey to pick her up two days afterwards. It was raining when we arrived, and we dashed across the parking area towards the big concrete vet hospital. It took us a moment to find someone who knew where Tori was, but soon enough we were following a vet student towards the stables. The place smelled strongly of antiseptic, something like a cross between a stable and a dentist surgery, and I peeked in at the horses that we walked past, wondering why they were there. Some were obvious, like the small pinto pony with a thick curly coat and sunken quarters, or the black Thoroughbred with its leg heavily bandaged. Others were less easily diagnosed, like the droopy-lipped Clydesdale or the nervous chestnut, who showed the whites of his eyes as we approached.

  “I hope Tori hasn’t caused you too many problems,” Deb said.

  “Not at all,” the vet student assured us. “She’s been a great patient.”

  Deb and I swapped surprised looks. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same horse?” she asked.

  “Of course. She came through the surgery great, with no complications. She’s lost a bit of weight, but that’s to be expected, and I’m sure she’ll put it back on quickly enough.”

  We stopped outside a loosebox with bars on the door, and I looked between them at Tori. She was facing away from us, sipping water from the automatic drinker at the back of her box. Her bedding was rucked up and messy, and she had shavings stuck to her polar fleece sheet and scattered through her mane.

  “She’ll need to be on box rest for a couple of weeks, but she can go for short walks in-hand every day,” the vet student continued. I smiled at the familiarity of that routine, wondering if it would be easier this time around. “Then she can go out into a small paddock for a few weeks, before coming slowly back into work.”

  “Can we go in to see her?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  The young woman pulled down on the bar that released the sliding stable door, and dragged it open far enough for me to step through. Tori turned her head at the sound, and looked at me. Her coat was slightly duller than before, and she had a clipped patch on her neck and a hospital collar on, but her expression was different too. Some of the wariness had gone from her eyes, and she kept her ears flicked forwards in my direction.

  I held my hand out to her, and Tori turned around to face me, then flurried her nostrils gently and walked right up to me. Her rough lips caressed my palm, and hopeful tears prickled the corners of my eyes. She really had changed, and I felt like I was meeting the real Tori for the very first time.

  “Hi, Tor. You miss me?” I asked her.

  Tori took another step closer, then lifted her muzzle to my face, brushing her whiskers against my cheek. I reached up and ran my hand down her soft neck, still blown away by the difference in her demeanour.

  “I always knew you were a nice horse,” I whispered softly. “I told them, but they didn’t believe me. But you knew, didn’t you? You didn’t want to be mean. You just wanted someone to believe in you.”

  Tori dropped her chin onto my shoulder, and let out a deep, contented sigh. I smiled, happy tears sliding out from under my eyelids as I understood what she was trying to say.

  “I know. And you’re welcome.”

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to Laura Murray from Laura Kate Photography for the cover photo, and to Xena for being such a gorgeous model (and a much better mannered horse than Tori!).

  PONY JUMPERS

  Follow AJ, Katy, Susannah and Tess

  as they negotiate the ups and downs of

  life, love and show jumping.

  #1 First Fence

  #2 Double Clear

  #3 Triple Bar

  #4 Four Faults

  #5 Five Stride Line

  #6 Six to Ride

  #7 Seventh Place

  #8 Eight Away

  #9 Nine Lives

  Special Edition #1 - Jonty

  COMING SOON:

  #10 Top Ten

  Keep reading for a sneak preview of the next book in the series, Top Ten.

  PONY JUMPERS #10

  TOP TEN

  1

  DEPARTURE

  The morning dew was heavy on the grass outside my bedroom window, and the clear sky above promised a sunny day to come. Not that I would be here to see it. I leaned my forehead against the window pane and stared out at the unkempt garden, overgrown with weeds because Mum and I didn’t waste our time on pointless things like gardening. Beyond the scraggly shrubs lay our neatly fenced paddocks, and I counted off the ponies grazing contentedly in them. Lucas and Puppet happily coexisting in one paddock, with Molly in the smaller field next to them. Squib and Robin in the narrow ‘fatty’ paddock without much grass, because they lived off the smell of it. And Tori, just visible from here if I turned my head and leaned into the cold glass, impossibly beautiful, impossible to ride.

  Tori
lifted her head and pricked her ears, staring at something away in the distance. I opened the window and leaned out, ignoring the chilly wind that went straight through the thin t-shirt I was wearing, and as Tori snorted and spun on her hocks, cantering to the other end of the paddock in mock terror, I heard the same thing she did. The growl of a dirt bike, coming our way.

  Like my horse, the sound jolted me into action. I pulled the window shut and grabbed a hoodie off the floor, tugging it on before pulling on a pair of jeans and buttoning the fly. The dirt bike got louder and louder, then cut out abruptly, and I hurried down the hall in bare feet and threw the back door open to see Phil step off the bike and pull his helmet off.

  “Hey.”

  He turned towards me and smiled, that slow smile that I especially liked. “Hey yourself.”

  I stopped on the bottom step of the front verandah, curling my bare toes over the wooden edge. “You’re up early.”

  He shrugged. “You said you were leaving at half six, and I wanted to see you before you were gone.” His boots crunched across the loose gravel as he made his way towards me.

  “That’s funny, because I could’ve sworn we said goodbye last night.”

  Phil shrugged sheepishly and stopped in front of me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him, and he pulled me close, holding me tight against his warm, lean body.

  “I don’t want to go,” I whispered into his ear, knowing I could say that to him.

  Knowing he’d understand. That he wouldn’t tell me that I was crazy, that going to Ireland to ride for my country was the opportunity of a lifetime, that I’d love it once I got there. He knew how I really felt about it, that deep down, I was utterly terrified.

  “I know. I don’t want you to go either.”

  His mouth brushed against my cheek, and I closed my eyes, leaning into him, absorbing his strength. He wasn’t a big guy, but he was stronger that he looked, in a lot of ways. Most people underestimated Phil, but they didn’t know him like I did. No-one did.

  A flicker of light made me turn my head, and I saw Mum walk into the kitchen and pull a loaf of bread out of the pantry. My stomach clenched at the thought of breakfast this early in the morning, but I had a long day ahead and I knew I needed to eat something. If I could convince myself to, that was. Lately, I hadn’t been too good at that.

  Phil lifted his head and when I looked back at him, he kissed me. Like everything he did, it was intense, no-holds-barred, and I kissed him back, hoping I didn’t have terrible morning breath, since I hadn’t had time to brush my teeth yet. I could hear Mum clattering dishes in the kitchen, reminding me that she was right there, but neither of us cared. We stayed where we were, holding onto each other, knowing that in a matter of hours I would be on my way to the opposite side of the world, both of us wondering how we were going to cope with the long separation.

  I heard the window swing open, then Mum’s voice. “Katy, breakfast.”

  Reluctantly, I broke off the kiss, and looked up into Phil’s dark eyes. “You hungry?” I asked.

  Phil smiled. “I could eat.”

  I don’t think Mum was super happy to have Phil with us, although I’m not sure whether it was because she was running low on eggs or because we sat at the table holding hands while we ate. I knew that annoyed her, even though she liked Phil okay, but I didn’t care. I wanted to hold tight to everything I had before I had to leave it behind. My little dog Critter was curled up in my lap, unimpressed by the early start, and his warm body and Phil’s warm hand comforted me in a way that no reassuring words ever could.

  Mum sat down opposite us and started cutting into her bacon. “Nervous?” she asked me.

  Couldn’t she tell that by looking at my face? “What do you think?”

  Phil squeezed my hand, and I responded in kind as Critter sat up and licked tomato sauce off my chin.

  “Don’t let him do that, Katy,” Mum complained.

  “He can do what he likes,” I replied, because my nerves were making me irritable and I didn’t feel like being read a lecture when I felt this edgy. “He loves me, don’t you Crit?” I put down my fork and wrapped my arm around the little dog, clutching him to my chest. He squirmed uncomfortably, but I selfishly held him for a few seconds longer before letting him go. Critter leapt onto the floor and stalked off to his basket indignantly, his short tail sticking up in the air.

  “I’ll miss you too,” I told his rear end.

  “Eat up,” Mum nagged, and I reluctantly picked up my fork as Phil’s thumb methodically stroked the back of my hand. I didn’t know what I’d be doing right now if he wasn’t there to keep me calm. Having a full-blown panic attack, most likely.

  Mum was still watching me like a hawk, so I filled my mouth with scrambled eggs, forcing myself to chew and swallow the food. My stomach argued, insisting that there was too much uncertainty ahead to bother with such unnecessary things as eating, but in the face of my mother’s glare, I overrode my instincts and ate half of what was on my plate, before lowering my fork definitively.

  Mum accepted that, because she knew me well enough to pick her battles, and she stood up and started clearing the plates.

  “It’s ten past,” she announced, as though nobody else in the room could see the clock on the wall. “Are you all packed?”

  “Almost.”

  “Well, hurry up then. We need to leave in ten minutes.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to steady my anxiety. Pretend you’re going to a show, I counselled myself. Just another early morning on the way to a competition, like you’ve done hundreds of times.

  “Can Phil come to the airport with us?” I asked her.

  Mum frowned, but Phil spoke before she did.

  “Can’t,” he said ruefully. “I’ve got work.”

  “Oh.” He’d recently started working at a local supermarket, stocking shelves. He hated it, but it was a way to get out of the house and earn some money, so he put up with the inconvenient hours and crappy working conditions. “Call in sick?” I suggested, but he shook his head.

  “I wish.” He stood up as Mum cleared his plate away. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  “Any time,” she said, although she clearly didn’t mean it.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I told him.

  “Six minutes,” Mum warned me.

  I ignored her, following Phil outside and giving him a long hug and another lingering kiss before he got back onto his dirt bike and rode it back home. I watched him go, the cloud of dust he’d kicked up making my throat dry. Mum flung the kitchen window open and yelled at me again.

  “Katy! Would you get a move on?”

  There wasn’t much traffic on the road at that time of the morning. I stared out of the window while Mum ran over my itinerary again, out loud, in case I’d somehow forgotten it in the last half hour.

  “So you have three hours at Auckland airport before your international flight leaves,” she said. “Your luggage is being sent straight through, and you’ve got your boarding pass, so you just have to find the Christiansons and they’ll take care of you.”

  “So you keep saying,” I muttered.

  Personally I had doubts about how willing my teammate Lily and her parents were to take responsibility for me, but with Mum unable to get leave from work, and Dad’s business commitments, the Christiansons had been coerced into acting as my chaperones for the trip. Lily was only twelve, had only just started jumping at the top level a year ago, and although she had a decent seat, she was as green as grass. How she’d been picked for this competition was beyond me, except that she had very good ponies which she had steered around to win very big classes, albeit more by luck than anything else. If she drew any kind of horse or pony that required actual riding, we were stuffed, and I wished bitterly that my friend Susannah Andrews had made the team, instead of being named as a non-travelling reserve. I’d been keeping my fingers crossed that Lily would fall off or fall ill before the trip, meaning Susannah could come instead, but
to no avail.

  When I’d applied to go on this team exchange, I’d assumed that we would all fly over together, actually travelling as a team, but the reality had turned out to be quite different. The two senior riders were already based overseas – Imogen Davis-Blake had been riding and competing in Scotland for the past six weeks, preparing herself for competition on foreign soil, while Ellie Warren had picked up a spot as a working pupil for a yard in Belgium just after the Horse of the Year Show, and was planning on training there until spring. Stacey Winchester might not have made it into the team, but that hadn’t stopped her from flying over to visit her cousins in Yorkshire two weeks ago, and she’d taken our Intermediate riders Charlotte Yeats and Anna Harcourt with her for an extended holiday. I’d already seen their Instagram accounts filling up with videos and selfies as they rode around Stacey’s wealthy relatives’ estate on borrowed horses, and toured around the big British summer shows. Charlotte’s mother Maureen was our Chef d’Equipe, so I wouldn’t see her until we came together as a team in over a week’s time. And although Dennis Foxhall-James had been announced as our team coach, he’d pulled out at the last minute over a pay dispute, which had caused an enormous kerfuffle that I had done my best to stay out of. In the end, they’d told us that they would find someone to coach us in Ireland, which sounded to me like a terrifically bad idea. I didn’t like Dennis much anyway, but that hardly boded well for the organisation level of our trip.

  “You’ll have a six hour layover in Los Angeles, then fly on to Dublin,” Mum continued, breaking into my thoughts.