Pocket Pegasus

by Susan Stafford

  POCKET PEGASUS

  POCKET PEGASUS

  Flash and the Turtle Creek Triad

  SUSAN STAFFORD

  JESPERSON PUBLISHING

  AN IMPRINT OF BREAKWATER BOOKS LTD.

  P.O. Box 2188, 100 Water Street, St. John’s, NL, A1C 6E6

  www.jespersonpublishing.ca

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Stafford, Susan, 1954-

  Pocket Pegasus : Flash and the Turtle Creek Triad / by Susan Stafford.

  ISBN 978-1-894377-32-4

  1. Horses--Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

  PS8637.T325P62 2008 jC813’.6 C2008-905632-9

  © 2008 Susan Stafford

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  We acknowledge the financial support of The Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing activities.

  We acknowledge the support of the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

  Printed in Canada.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Special thanks to my test group of brave

  young book critics – Amanda, Alice, Josclyn,

  Emilee and Taylor.

  Also, much appreciation to Karen Briggs,

  Nicole Kitchener and Catherine Scholz

  for their expert advice and words of

  encouragement.

  Serious model horse collecters will know that the

  Breyer Mystical Pegasus mentioned in the story was

  never available for direct purchase, and as of this

  writing, is now retired. For the purposes of this tale,

  it was made available for sale.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my children,

  Dan, Laura and Ian, who provided

  inspiration, to my mother, Alice, who waited

  far too long, and to my husband, Ross,

  who has always been my biggest fan.

  CHAPTER 1

  The summer had barely begun, but Laura Connor was already bored, bored, bored. With her thirteenth birthday still three weeks away, the petite blonde was considered too young to land a “real” summer job, such as working at a convenience store, gas bar or fast-food restaurant. She could easily have rounded up some babysitting clients in the small town of Turtle Creek where she lived, but to be honest, as an only child she really didn’t like little kids that much.

  What Laura really wanted to do was work at a stable. She had loved horses since she was old enough to point and squeal excitedly from her car seat at the “Hossees!” grazing in the fields outside of town. She read about them, wrote about them, drew pictures of them, daydreamed about owning one. It was not to be, however. Her parents, both musicians, could not risk such a long-term financial commitment. Their seven-piece party band, High Octane, was in huge demand during the busy summer season, but the high times were often followed by long, lean winters.

  “It’s feast or famine,” Laura’s mom, CeeCee, would say good-naturedly, but it was painfully close to the truth.

  This was not to say that CeeCee and Tom Connor were irresponsible parents. There were lots of advantages to having a mom and dad who broke the nine-to-five mold. They were always around in the mornings to make Laura’s lunch and drive her to school if the weather was nasty. They were often at home in the afternoons when she returned from school – unlike most of her friends, who came home to empty houses.

  Weekend evenings, however, would find CeeCee and Tom off to a gig: a wedding, a dinner/dance, a black tie fundraiser. Until recently, Laura had been looked after on those occasions by an elderly neighbour, but her parents now felt their daughter was responsible enough to stay home alone. Laura enjoyed both the freedom and the solitude.

  Their house was always full of music and laughter, especially when her parents’ circle of friends, most of whom were also musicians, dropped in. Their summer barbeques were legendary. Her mom and dad were actually pretty cool, Laura thought – or at least as cool as parents could be.

  Laura had long ago accepted that horse ownership was out of the question for her, but she did have one passion she could pursue: she collected model horses. Her collection numbered twenty-three so far, most received as birthday or Christmas gifts from her parents and relatives, and a few purchased with money she had earned delivering the weekly paper in Turtle Creek. Most of the models were Breyer or Stone creations: horses standing, running and jumping; quarter horses, arabians and thoroughbreds; foals, mares and stallions. Her bookcases were scattered with them, and she had even fashioned simple stalls out of shoeboxes and orange crates. All her models had names and birthdays.

  Her very favourite model, however, was very different from the rest. He was made of porcelain, not plastic, and he was rearing, with forelegs raking the air, silver mane and tail flowing. He had wings, and he was spectacular.

  Laura knew the statue was fashioned after Pegasus, the fabulous winged horse of mythology, but she thought that name was too stuffy, so she just called him Flash.

  Flash did not reside in the bookcase with the rest of the herd. He was given a special place on the wide window seat in her room so that he could look outside at the world. Laura liked to believe that he enjoyed his position of privilege. She often rotated some of her other favourite models to the window bench to keep him company so he would not get lonely. He seemed to prefer the mares – or at least that was what she liked to think.

  Laura’s mother had found the unusual Pegasus figurine at an estate auction in Toronto when the family had vacationed there several years before. Laura had fallen in love with the statuette on the spot, and although the bidding went higher than her parents’ agreed-upon spending limit, her mom determinedly raised her numbered paddle again and again until the gavel fell in their favour.

  “Consider this your birthday and Christmas presents for the next three years,” her dad had joked.

  Laura turned away from her bedroom window, sighed and opened the local newspaper she had scooped from the kitchen table on her way upstairs. She spread the paper out on the bed and pored over the classified section, skipping over the ads for strange positions such as “boring mill operator” and “tool and die expert” (what was that, anyway?), looking for some kind of job with a title she actually understood.

  Maxine, the family tabby, sprang onto the bed and plopped directly on the very section of paper Laura was reading.

  “Beat it, Maxi,” she said, annoyed.

  Maxi purred loudly and stretched her considerable length and girth across the paper.

  Laura eased the newspaper out from under the large cat and took it over to her window seat. She settled on a soft upholstered pillow and continued reading. Suddenly, she saw an item that tweaked her interest:

  * * *

  STABLE HELP WANTED:

  Exp. pref. Part time incl. some

  wknds & heavy lifting. Call

  519-555-3213.

  * * *

  Laura’s eyes widened. Horses! She could do this. That is, as long as they overlooked the fact that she had little practical experience handling horses and was probably too small to sling heavy bags of grain around. Minor details.

  Laura wondered which farm had placed the ad, as the number listed was a local one. She gathered up the newspaper and sc
ampered downstairs. Maxi, startled, leaped off the bed and bolted down the steps as well, nearly taking Laura’s legs out from under her.

  “Mom? Mom!” Laura found her mother in the kitchen, frying bacon and making French toast. “I found a job I really, really want. It’s on a farm. With horses and everything. Can I call about it?”

  Mrs. Connor slid the French toast from frying pan to plate. “May you call, you mean,” she corrected. “Is it nearby? I don’t mind driving you, as long as it’s not three counties over.”

  “I’m pretty sure it is,” Laura replied. “I’ll call and find out right after breakfast.” Laura added two strips of bacon to her plate and poured maple syrup over the fragrant, cinnamon-sprinkled eggy toast.

  While she ate, she thought about what she would say when she answered the ad. I have to sound really confident, she thought. I’ll tell them I know a lot about horses, even if it is mostly from books and DVDs. What are my strong points? Well, I’m reliable, hard working…

  After tidying up the kitchen, Laura dialed the number. Four rings later, she was listening to a woman who bore the slightest hint of an English accent: “Good morning. Banbury Cross Stables.”

  Laura swallowed hard and dove right in. “My name is Laura Connor and I’m calling about your ad in the paper for part-time stable help.”

  “Oh, lovely,” the woman replied. “Our regular girl broke her leg in a riding accident, and most young people already have their summer jobs lined up, so we’re very keen to hire someone straight away. Do you have much experience? How old are you, dear?”

  “I’m, uh, thirteen.” Laura winced and corrected herself. “Next month, actually. I really, really love horses, and all animals, and I mucked out stalls once with my friend Krissy at her uncle’s farm in Blackstock. They have Belgians and one of them stepped on my foot and I’m really reliable and I’ll work so hard, you won’t regret hiring me, I promise…” Her voice tailed off. Yikes, she thought, I’m babbling like a crazy person.

  Banbury Cross lady laughed. “Well, you’re certainly enthusiastic! We really were looking for someone a bit older, but I suppose you could come out to the farm and we’ll have a chat, at least. My name is Mrs. Leeds, by the way.”

  Mrs. Leeds gave Laura directions, which she relayed to her mother. They agreed to meet at two o’clock that afternoon.

  Laura hung up the phone and bounced like a cheerleader across the kitchen. “I can’t wait! This is so awesome! Oh!” She had a thought. “I have to do some research.” With that, she bounded upstairs. She powered up the computer in the den and spent the next hour and a half on her favourite horse-related internet sites, absorbing information on equine nutrition, stable skills and horse management.

  When she finished, she knew by heart that a 1,000-pound horse in light work requires 15 to 20 pounds of hay each day, that oats come in crimped, rolled or whole form, that you always lead a horse from the left, that the feed-room door should always be locked. Horses are groomed from the top down using brushes that progress from coarse to fine. They need up to 12 gallons of clean water every day, even in the winter.

  “And their hooves need trimming every six to eight weeks,” Laura announced with satisfaction to no one in particular.

  Feeling much better prepared for the interview, Laura stretched, reached over to turn the computer off, then hesitated. She signed onto her email account and fired off a message to her best friend, Krissy Martineau.

  Hey K, got a job interview this

  afternoon. At a real horse farm.

  Sounds sweet.

  L8R,

  L.

  CHAPTER 2

  The day seemed to creep along at a painfully slow pace. Laura passed the time by helping weed the front yard flowerbeds with her mom, and tidying her room. She showered and changed into a nice pair of working jeans, a t-shirt and paddock boots. Laura pulled her hair up into a ponytail, secured it with a scrunchy, and took a final glance in the mirror.

  The bright June day was already becoming quite hazy and humid, and thunderstorms were forecast for the evening. Laura gazed out the window at the distant billowing thunderheads as the minivan headed north through town.

  “I wonder how much the job pays?” she said.

  “Make sure that’s not your first question,” cautioned Mrs. Connor. “I’m sure the farm owner will want your biggest concern to be the welfare of the horses.”

  “I know, and it is,” Laura replied. “I’d probably do it for free, just to be able to hang around the barn.”

  “Well, let’s not get too carried away,” said her mother, laughing.

  Turtle Creek was a pretty little community with a river winding through the centre of the grandly named “business district,” which consisted only of a couple of clothing stores, a bakery, a gas station, a bank and a church.

  “Clean and safe,” her parents said proudly of their town.

  “Lame,” Laura complained to her friends.

  There wasn’t much for kids to do in The Creek – no bowling alley, no theatre, no skateboard park. Adults loved it, though, for the wine festivals hosted by local vineyards, street parties, concerts by the river, and art exhibits in the park. For Laura, the real fun took place thirty kilometres north in the “big city,” where the family occasionally ventured to shop at the mall or take in a movie.

  Between the small town and the bright city lights lay thousands of acres of farm land. Most were occupied by corn and soybean crops, but there were also, to Laura’s delight, horse farms of every description. Thoroughbred and standardbred breeding operations churned out the winners and losers at several local racetracks. The riding stables had fields dotted with sturdy school ponies, while the boarding barns sported paddocks enclosing leggy dressage horses and hunters and jumpers. And then there were the private farms, with a couple of fat family horses grazing in the front yard.

  Fifteen minutes later, the van pulled into a long, maple-lined driveway. Banbury Cross Stables was one of the tidiest farms Laura had ever seen. The barn and outbuildings were freshly painted, and the old cobblestone house was surrounded by neat lawns and gardens.

  “Wow, this is nice,” Laura said in awe. “Mrs. Leeds said to meet her in the barn.”

  They parked and walked through the stable’s airy aisles. A fit, fiftyish woman standing outside the office greeted them warmly. “You must be Laura,” she said, smiling and extending her hand. “Welcome to Banbury Cross Stables.” She repeated the gesture with Mrs. Connor.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” Laura gushed. “You’re so lucky!”

  “Come on, I’ll give you the tour.” Mrs. Leeds walked them through the barn. “This facility is set up for a dozen horses, but we currently only have six in residence. Two belong to boarders, and the other four are ours. We like to keep a mare in foal, and have a buy/sell horse as well.”

  They walked down the spacious aisle that smelled of fresh, fragrant wood shavings and something faintly medicinal. Liniment? Antiseptic? Through the far door were four large paddocks. Three horses occupied the nearest.

  “This is Phantom, Dudley and Smidge,” Mrs. Leeds said, indicating a lanky grey gelding, a large bay warmblood and a very small black pony. The trio raised their heads from grazing in the lush, early summer grass to stare inquisitively at the intruding humans.

  “Over here we have Morning Glory, Bates Motel, whose stable name is Psycho, and Alba de Oro. Alba – her name means golden dawn in Spanish, apparently – is in foal to Bikini Bay, a really nice thoroughbred sire whose babies have done well at the track.”

  The dark bay mare stared aloofly at Laura from across the paddock, but Glory and Psycho, the two chestnuts, sauntered over to investigate Laura’s outstretched hand. She laughed as she patted the gelding nicknamed Psycho. “He seems sane enough.”

  “On the ground, he’s a sweetie,” Mrs. Leeds admitted, “but put someone on his back and it’s a different story.”

  They re-entered the barn, and Mrs. Leeds took Laura and her mother
through the organized tack room, feed room and finally, the office, where they were invited to sit.

  “So, Laura.” Mrs. Leeds came straight to the point. “What makes you so sure you’re the one for the job?”

  For the next few minutes, Laura explained her lifelong addiction to horses, her vast (albeit book-learned) knowledge, and limited hands-on experience. She provided the names and phone numbers of some character references: a favourite teacher, the supervisor at the local newspaper, and her friend’s uncle.

  Mrs. Leeds looked thoughtfully at the young girl for several moments, then rose from behind her desk. “How does this sound? Because you are the first person to answer the ad, I’d like to give it a week in case there are any other interested people who would like to apply. I do like you. I think you’re smart and eager and will try hard. You could learn a lot with supervision, which I would be happy to provide. I promise I will give you fair consideration, in spite of your age, when I make my decision.”

  Laura’s shoulders sagged; this was not what she wanted to hear. A week? That seemed like a very long time to wait. But she smiled anyway, shook Mrs. Leeds’ hand and said, “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  “We’ll be looking forward to your call,” said Mrs. Connor. She put her arm around Laura’s slim shoulders and gently steered her toward the door.

  The day was becoming increasingly gloomy and oppressive, which was reflected in Laura’s mood. They drove home in relative silence; none of Laura’s bubbly optimism remained.

  “Well, I thought that went pretty well,” Mrs. Connor finally offered. “I’m proud of you.”

  Laura shrugged. “I’m afraid that someone older and better will come along in the next week, and I won’t get the job.”

  While her mother didn’t disagree, she tried to sound positive. “Keep your fingers crossed. On a different subject, remember that your dad and I have a job tonight. It’s from eight to midnight, so we probably won’t get home much before one or one-thirty.”