“Are you going to ride?” she said when she finally came back into the barn. “Can I ride too?”
“That’s what you are here for, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes,” she shrieked, startling Arion who pulled back and almost broke our makeshift cross ties. I only just managed to unclip him in time. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly.
“Just tone it down a notch,” I said. “The horses are all still settling in. This place is new to them and they have to get used to it. But you can saddle Macaroni and join me in the front field if you like. That is going to be our ring from now on.”
“Cool,” she said as she ran off to get her pony.
“No running,” I called after her. “This may not be Fox Run but we still have rules.”
“I know,” she called back, slowing to a really fast walk.
I shook my head. Faith was incorrigible but I admired the kid. She had guts. She wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted and I liked that about her. Lying down in front of my father's truck? If I’d done that he would have just driven around me. Or over me, depending on his mood.
I let her have the cross ties and stood there with Arion, waiting for her. After she was done, I gave her a leg up and then hopped about myself trying to spring up onto Arion’s back. I hadn’t realized how tired my legs were after all the fence rebuilding and lifting heavy boxes and we’d forgotten to bring a mounting block.
“You could climb on the fence,” Faith said, making me feel like a hundred year old grandma.
“I’ve got this,” I said, finally getting up in the saddle.
We rode around to the front of the property. As we passed the kitchen window I saw my mother look up, her smile fading as she saw that I was riding. I wasn’t sure how this was all going to work out. She didn’t even like living at Fox Run because I was riding there all the time and this wasn’t going to be any different. In fact it was going to be worse because now I’d be doing it right under her nose. I looked the other way and pretended that I hadn’t seen her.
“This is it,” I said to Faith as we got to the front piece of grass.
“You have jumps,” she said, pointing excitedly.
“We have two jumps,” I told her. “And they are still wet so unless you want your pony covered in white splotches, we can’t use them today.”
“Okay,” she said sadly. “Well then what are we going to do?”
“How about we just ride around,” I said. “You could follow me and Arion and do as we do.”
“Alright.” She nodded.
I thought it sounded kind of boring. She’d be sick of us in no time and begging for my father to take her pony back to Fox Run once the novelty wore off but she followed at a respectable distance behind us as I worked Arion at the walk and then the trot. Both our mounts were fresh, excited to be in a new place and showing off, though to whom I wasn’t sure because there was no one around to see them.
“Can we canter?” Faith asked.
“You can canter,” I said as I tried to get Arion to stand. “We’ll sit this one out.”
I knew that if I asked Arion to canter, he’d take off like a rocket, gallop down the street and out of sight and we’d probably end up back at Fox Run. But Macaroni was far too lazy to be naughty like my frisky Thoroughbred. He gave Faith a few good laps around our makeshift ring at a mediocre pace and then fell into a trot where no amount of heel pummeling against his sides would encourage him otherwise.
“I guess I’m done,” Faith said, out of breath and red faced.
“You need spurs,” I told her.
“Missy said I was too young for spurs,” Faith said.
“Well Missy isn’t here,” I told her. “Let’s go and see if we have a pair that will fit you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“I gave Faith spurs,” I told Dad later.
I’d found the smallest pair we had in the bottom of a tack trunk and strapped them onto her boots. She stood there looking at them proudly like she’d just graduated to some kind of older class.
“Good,” Dad said. “She needs them. That pony has dead sides.”
“I know,” I said, watching Macaroni sleeping in the sand. “But she is also getting too big for him.”
“Try telling her that,” Dad replied. “That would be like me telling you that you are too big for Bluebird.”
“But I’m not,” I said indignantly. “Am I?”
“See?” Dad said. “You are just as bad as each other.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
I kept growing taller, I couldn’t help it. That was something that was out of my control. And even though Bluebird was a large pony, almost practically a small horse really and I knew that I wasn’t too big to ride him, I had to wonder how fair it really was to make him keep competing at my level, even though I barely had to make him. He loved jumping. But maybe he’d love just hanging out in the field and being a pony for a while more.
The next day Mickey came over to see the place. I was kind of hoping she wouldn’t for a while. Mickey had higher standards than I did and I knew she’d think that the place was a dump but the first thing she did was run up and hug me.
“I miss you,” she said.
“It’s only been one day.” I laughed.
“One day that felt like forever,” she said. “It's so empty over at Fox Run now.”
“What are you saying? That we took up all the stalls?”
“Something like that,” she replied.
“So how is Missy?” I said.
Part of me didn’t want to know. I wanted to imagine that she wasn’t over there pretending to be us.
“Well she rode Socks,” Mickey said.
“Oh,” I said with a shrug, pretending that I didn’t care.
“And she fell off,” Mickey said.
“No way.”
“He went one way, she went the other. I think she was hoping that no one saw but everyone totally did.” Mickey grinned.
“She was okay though, wasn’t she?” I said, feeling a little worried.
“Why do you care?” Mickey said. “She got you kicked out of your home and your barn.”
“I know,” I said. “But I still don’t want her to be hurt. And she is the mother of my half-brother.”
“Some mother,” Mickey said. “Owen has a nanny now. I bet she never even holds him anymore and yes she was fine. I think Socks misses you though.”
“I miss him too,” I said. “But he was never mine anyway.”
I’d come to accept the fact that horses that didn’t belong to me would come and go in my life. Even horses that did belong to me would as well. And I had three of my own who needed me and they deserved my full attention now. That was all that mattered.
“So are you going to give me the grand tour or what?” Mickey said, looking around.
“What tour?” I laughed. “This is it.”
“It’s not like I remember it,” she said.
“It’s not like I remember it either,” I replied.
I showed her the empty barn, the make shift tack room and the fences we had cobbled together. She grinned and said it was great but I knew she felt sorry for us and I didn’t want to be pitied.
“Want to see my room?” I asked her as she looked at our sad front yard ring with its two wonky jumps.
“Okay,” she said.
But when she got up there she was actually impressed.
“This room is huge,” she said, swinging her arms wide. “You could do so much with it.”
“What like turn it into a disco hall?” I said.
So far all I had in there was my bed and a pile of boxes that I hadn’t unpacked yet. Looking around I couldn’t see the potential that Mickey could and I didn’t really care anyway. I’d sleep in a cardboard box if it meant my horses had a better place to live.
“And look at the view,” she said, rushing over to my big window. “You can see the horses and up the hill. I wonder if you can see Jess
’s barn from here?”
“I hope not,” I said as she craned her head sideways, trying to look.
“No,” she said. “Too bad. Otherwise you could totally spy on her.”
“I don’t want to spy on her,” I said. “I want to pretend that she doesn’t exist.”
“Good luck with that,” Mickey said. “She’s your neighbor now and besides, aren’t you guys on the same team?”
“Yes,” I said, flopping down on the bed. “A team that I don’t even have a horse for.”
“That’s right,” Mickey said sadly. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to put my horses into boot camp and hope that one of them steps up to the job.”
“But I thought you were giving Bluebird the winter off?” she said.
“I will,” I replied. “If he’s not good enough for the team.”
But deep down I was really hoping that my wonder pony didn’t need any time off after all. That he would step up to the plate and put his game face on and that we’d be able to show Jess that despite her evil plans, she hadn’t ruined anything.
“When is the first show?” Mickey asked, flopping down next to me.
“Next month,” I said with a sigh.
“I think you are going to need more than two jumps,” she said sadly.
“I know,” I said. “Believe me, I know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
I rode my horses every day in the makeshift ring but it was boring work. Even the horses thought so. There were only so many combinations you could make out of two jumps and Arion thought that it was so boring, maybe he’d just try and jump the standards instead, which he did. And cleared them.
“Maybe you should be my team horse,” I said, patting him on the neck. “You sure have the scope.”
He was also silly and green and threw in a buck as we went back to the barn just to make sure I knew it.
Hashtag, on the other hand, decided that these jumps were not the sort that he was accustomed to after recently coming back into work and so he refused to jump them at all.
“Really?” I said as he slid to a stop in front of the white vertical. “You were quite happy to jump them at Fox Run. What is the matter with these ones?”
I let him sniff them and circled him so that he could try again but he still wouldn’t do it.
“Use your crop,” Dad yelled from the kitchen window. “Make him jump the jump.”
I waved him away with my hand. I wasn’t about to beat Hashtag into jumping. That was probably why he’d ended up so emotionally scarred in the first place. Instead I kicked the poles out of their cups with my boot. They tumbled to the ground and Hashtag didn’t even flinch. Then I made him walk over them, which he did.
“See?” I said. “They won’t eat you, I promise.”
But the fact that Hashtag was almost certainly out of the running for team horse meant that all the responsibility was now falling on Bluebird and Arion.
I didn’t ride my pony over the silly jumps. I knew that he could jump them blindfolded. Instead I rode him away from the house and the fields and up the hill. Through the tiny wooded patch where Mickey and I had once set up fallen logs to jump. They were overgrown now and had tumbled back to the ground. Overtaken by vines and weeds. You could barely see that anyone had ever ridden through at all but we had, once upon a time in a different life.
At the top of the hill I looked back at our small farm. The horses were grazing and Mom and Cat were tossing buckets of black water out of the back door, their third attempt at cleaning the floors. Phoenix heard the splash and skittered across his paddock and then looked around and snorted. Chantilly trotted over to make sure he was okay while Bandit stood guard by the gate incase the water monster tried to make it inside their field. Canterbury and Macaroni were busy working on a hay pile. It was calm and peaceful. Like we’d stepped back in time and were going to start keeping cows and churning butter. We could forget about the horse show life and just live with our horses in peace. But we couldn’t. Dad needed a job and the only thing he knew how to do was train horses and people and I needed to compete in order to get to the Olympics. That was our life and while things were nice and quiet now, I knew they wouldn’t always be.
I looked over at Jess’s farm. You could see it from the top of the hill. Her sprawling mansion and pool. The tennis courts that she never played on and the fancy barn, twice as big as the one that used to sit there. Next to it was a new ring with all the jumps you could ever want. They flashed red and green in the sunlight. Poles were stacked up by the fence and there were double the standards you would ever need. I wondered if she’d even miss it if I borrowed some but of course she would. She’d call the cops without a second thought. They’d want payback.
In fact I could just make out Mr. Eastford, still limping on crutches as he came out of the back door, smoking a pipe. I backed Bluebird into the trees and out of sight. I wasn’t sure if he could see me or not but I didn’t want him to think that I was spying on them. I wanted them to think that I didn’t care what they did because mostly I didn’t. I was just curious, that's all. Curious about the horses that grazed out in the pristine fields. Horses I’d never met and didn’t know the names of. Horses that her father would have imported from Europe or bought from fancy trainers who promised they would jump the moon. Horses that would easily beat me, my pony, my greenie and my horse that wouldn’t jump.
I wandered back down the hill with a sigh. I knew that I would never live the life that Jess did. I’d almost had it at Fox Run. We’d had the fancy barn and I’d had the opportunity to ride some great horses but at the end of the day I knew it was just me and my talent that I had to rely on and not much else. And at least they could never take that away from me.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
“I made a casserole for dinner,” Mom said that evening. “You’ve all been working so hard, you deserve something nice to eat.”
She was beaming, her face plastered with a happy glow and a yellow apron tied around her waist. I don’t know who this domestic person was but she wasn’t the mother I remembered who was happier to order take out than even attempt to turn on the stove. Cat stood off to the side with a smudge of flour on her face, having apparently helped.
“It looks great,” Dad said, pulling up a chair. “Doesn’t it, Em?”
“Yes, great,” I said.
But the whole thing was weird. Now that we’d settled in I could see that Mom was going to try and make this place her home and it wasn’t. Dad specifically said that they weren’t getting back together and yet here Mom was, playing the good wife and doing it well. Missy never cooked. She’d never had a casserole on the table when we came back from a long day down at the barn and from the look in Dad’s eyes, I could tell that he thought that having home cooked food on demand was pretty much the best thing ever.
“You know I was thinking,” Dad said as the rest of us sat down to eat. “You should look online to see if anyone is giving away any free jumps.”
“Why would someone be giving away jumps for free?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Dad said. “Maybe they bought new ones and don’t need the old ones anymore or maybe they are falling apart.”
“Or maybe they are not free at all,” I said. “But they’ll want money for them instead like a normal person would.”
“We could pay a little,” Dad said. “We’re not completely broke you know.”
“Yes we are.” I laughed.
“You do have a boarder now,” Mom added, like she knew what she was talking about.
“Boarding doesn’t pay the bills, Mom,” I said. “Lessons and sales do that.”
“Well why don’t you just sell one of your horses then,” she said, sounding exasperated. “You have so many. I don’t know why you need them all in the first place.”
I looked at her like she was crazy. She might as well have told me to sell my arm or my leg. Dad saw my face and quickly tried to contain the situation be
fore it spiraled out of control.
“No one is selling any horses,” Dad said. “Well, unless I can get a decent price for Canterbury.”
“Now that is a good idea,” Mom said, clapping her hands together.
“You can’t sell your only horse,” I told Dad. “Then you won’t have anything to ride.”
“I don’t have time to ride anyway,” he said with a sigh. “And when am I going to go to a show? No, I need to concentrate on you and on building back some clients and fixing up this place so that clients will actually want to come here.”
“See?” Mom said. “Dad has it all worked out. And maybe if he is selling his horse then you could sell one of yours too so that he doesn't feel bad.”
“I’m not selling any of my horses,” I said, standing up now. “I already rehomed Four. He’s still at Fox Run, isn’t he? Dakota is going to pay me for him when she can. What more do you want?”
“I’m just saying that we are all downsizing so maybe you could too,” Mom said.
Her voice was sweet and she had that smile on her face, the one that said she was faking it. If she could have her way she’d have me selling all my horses but then what? Why would we need to live on a farm in the first place? Maybe then she’d get Dad to sell up and buy her that condo by the beach that she’d always wanted. The woman was tricky and it seemed she’d learned a few new ones in the time she’d been away.
“Just sit down and eat,” Dad said. “No one is selling anything.”
“I’ve lost my appetite,” I said.
I went up to my room and stared out the window. Part of me knew that Mom was right. I needed Bluebird and Arion and Hashtag but what did I need with a mare and a foal? They were taking up space that we could use for another boarder and food that we could use for our own horses. But I’d tried so hard to save Phoenix that I couldn’t abandon him now. Dad understood that. He’d never ask me to sell my horses but Mom would because she wasn’t a horse person and she didn’t understand and she certainly didn't belong here. She belonged somewhere else, far away from all of us and really Missy and Owen should have been here. Laughing about our silly ring and makeshift jumps and already planning how we were going to turn the place into a top notch private facility.
Boot Camp (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 24) Page 5