by Kate Lattey
“Westbrook Double Trouble,” I’d told her proudly, and as predicted, Donna’s expression had been priceless. Her jaw dropped a couple of inches, her eyes widened, then squinted in suspicion, but the other judge was already speaking.
“So it is! I know this pony. Good luck,” and she’d smiled at me and rung the bell, and I’d sent Molly off into her smooth canter, right from the halt.
And Molly had been amazing, jumping a super double clear round and winning the class. Not that Donna had been able to resist having another dig at me when she’d come out of the truck to tie the ribbon around Molly’s neck. She’d looked up at me, sitting so proud in my wonderful pony’s saddle, and done her best to take the shine off my success.
“Well aren’t you lucky,” she’d said. “To have a pony like this to ride, with all the work done for you.” As though I’d spent my life riding schoolmasters, and hadn’t been breaking in ponies and schooling them for sale. As if I hadn’t spent two months last winter schooling her daughter’s pony back to rideability after she’d almost destroyed his mouth by riding him in a Pelham with draw reins because she had no seat and couldn’t control him when he got a bit frisky. I’d scowled down at her and tried to think of something suitably cutting to say in response, but the other judge had intervened.
“I haven’t seen this this pony jump so well in years,” she’d told me with a genuine smile. “You gave her a super ride. Well done.”
I’d clung onto those words then, and never forgot them. Especially when I started taking Molly out at the registered shows, and had soon discovered that nobody had particularly high expectations of her. Mum and I had heard plenty of comments from the sidelines, especially in those early days.
She’s going well now, but wait ‘til the jumps get bigger.
Nice-looking pony, but it’s got a dirty stop and it knows how to use it.
Steph said it turned dog on her.
That kid’s only got her because she wouldn’t get in foal and the Marshalls didn’t want her wasting space in their paddocks.
Bit of a foul trick to lump a young kid with a pony like that.
But slowly and surely, Molly and I had proven ourselves. It hadn’t happened overnight. There had been bad days, days when Molly reverted to being an uncontrollable wild child, days when I’d lost my temper with her, days when she would refuse the jumps for apparently no reason. Our first trip to Nationals, all the way down in the South Island, had been a bit of a disaster, at least as far as Molly was concerned. I’d had Lucas too by then, but it was Molly that I’d wanted to do well on, to prove her worth – and mine. We’d started well, only to have a refusal at the first fence in our jump off for the title class, knocking us right out contention.
And then there’d been the agony of the day last December when I’d found her limping in the paddock, and discovered that she’d partially torn a ligament. I’d nursed her back to health, slowly and surely, writing off the rest of that season so that I could give her every chance to return to full soundness. Starting out walking, then trotting, and finally cantering and jumping. Schooling her steadily over winter, training her up until she was so rideable, so fit and strong and balanced and willing that I just knew that this was going to be our best season yet.
And now she was gone, and all of my hopes and dreams gone with her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Sit up, bring your shoulders back. Balance him!”
I stood in the middle of the arena, ignoring Critter scrabbling at my ankles and asking to be picked up as I watched AJ canter Squib out of the corner towards the jump. His bounding stride covered the ground effortlessly and he sized up the jump with an eager look on his expressive face. I could see AJ’s intense focus, and watched proudly as she found a perfect distance to the base of the oxer, folded forward as Squib took off, and sat up smoothly on landing, guiding him around the corner to the vertical.
“That was perfect! Stay as you are, don’t let him get quick.”
I could see from the ground what the adrenalin pumping through AJ’s veins disguised to her, the gradual increase in speed and lengthening of Squib’s stride as he approached the high vertical. I watched AJ listen to me and steady him, approving of the way that she used her weight and a firm but steady contact on the reins to bring him back to the pace she wanted. She’d improved so much in the past few weeks, it was hard to believe she was the same rider who’d been careening around at Pony Club when I met her, completely out of control. I hadn’t thought much of her then, but I’d changed my mind fast when I’d realised how willing she was to learn, and improve. And how incredibly cute Squib was when he jumped.
The dark grey gelding tucked his forelegs tight against his belly as he cleared the vertical, and AJ looked left as they landed. Squib cantered into the turn on the wrong lead, and I called out to AJ to fix it. Squib hadn’t quite mastered flying changes yet, so she brought him back to a trot, then asked him to canter again. He bounded forward so enthusiastically that I couldn’t help laughing, and I grinned as they soared over the last two jumps on our makeshift course.
“Super. Perfect. All the high fives to Squib.”
My friend was breathless and beaming as she eased her exuberant pony back to a trot, and looked at the high jumps in disbelief.
“I can’t believe we just did that!”
“Believe it,” I told her. “Didn’t I tell you that he’d be jumping Grand Prix by the end of the season? Only a few holes higher on these stands and you’ll be maxing out the pony heights.”
AJ walked squib on a loose rein, her feet kicked free of the stirrups. “How big does the Pony Grand Prix get?”
“Metre-thirty-five, at three-star level. Metre-thirty at two-star, metre-twenty-five at one-star. Basically. Those are the maximum heights, anyway. They don’t usually build everything to height, except in classes like Pony of the Year.”
AJ shook her head. “It still seems like an impossible dream.”
“Not nearly,” I assured her. “Not on a jumping machine like Squib!”
AJ grinned at me, then looked over towards our yard as we heard the crunch of tyres on gravel. “Who’s that?”
“Must be the new farrier,” I said, recalling that he was due today. “Coming to look at Robin. I’d better get over there.”
The new farrier was just stepping out of his dusty grey ute when I walked up. He was quite old, maybe fifty or so, with flecked grey hair and matching stubble. He smiled at me as he shut the door behind him and pulled his chaps out of the back canopy.
“Morning. Rick Conrad,” he introduced himself, taking my hand in his large, scuffed one and shaking it firmly. He had a competent, experienced air about him that I immediately liked, and I returned his friendly smile.
“Katy O’Reilly. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming to see Robin.”
“Not a problem. Is this the young man in question?” He was looking at Lucas, so I redirected him.
“No, that one’s got a strained ligament. This is the other hospital case.”
“Rough luck, having two of them out at once,” he commiserated, and I just shrugged, not wanting to get into just how much bad luck I’d been having lately. “Bring him out then, let’s have a look.”
Rick was removing Robin’s shoes a few minutes later when AJ rode back into the yard on a much cooler and calmer Squib, and I introduced them. I noticed him watching Squib walk past, and when AJ had shut him into a box near the tack room, I asked what he thought.
“Of the grey? Nice-looking pony. Well-built. Energetic type, would go all day.” He grinned at me as he picked up his rasp and started shaping Robin’s hoof. “Is that what you wanted to know?”
“I meant about his hooves. He’s not shod.” I couldn’t explain why it was bothering me all of a sudden, but it was. If AJ wanted to jump Squib in the Grand Prix, she was going to have to use studs, or he’d slip right over on the grass and have them both a nasty accident. I’d always assumed that she would just shoe him when the time c
ame, but she’d become increasingly cagey about it every time I brought it up, and when I’d suggested that she get Rick to shoe him on his visit today, she’d flat out refused.
“Doesn’t seem to be bothering him too much,” was all that Rick said. “Does he have trouble, is he feeling the ground?”
I was forced to shake my head. “No.”
“He’ll be right. Ponies like that have feet like rock. Ponies like this one, on the other hand,” he’d continued, snapping my attention back to the pony in front of me, “are not so genetically blessed. We’re dealing with some funky-shaped hooves right here, and it’s not entirely down to bad shoeing, though that is part of it, unfortunately.”
I’d never paid much attention to my ponies’ hooves before, but then Don had never spent much time explaining things either. Just cut and rasped away the excess wall, whacked a shoe into an approximate shape, and nailed it on. Rick explained what he was doing as he worked, telling us why he was trimming the way he was, how ideally he’d take more toe off but he wanted to do it in increments so it wasn’t too uncomfortable for Robin, and why he’d chosen to use rubber pads and bar shoes to relieve the heel pain in the meantime. After a while it started going over my head, but AJ had come over and was listening with rapt attention, so I did my best to stay focused, hoping Rick would influence her into seeing the sense in shoeing Squib.
By the time he’d come to fitting Robin’s back shoes though, we’d run out of hoof-related explanations and had moved on to more ordinary topics, like where we went to school, and whether we knew his son Harry who, as it transpired, went to our school but was a year older. I’d winked at AJ when he’d brought it up, and given her a little nudge that she’d returned tenfold, sending me sprawling against the wall and startling Robin into kicking out, which in turn made Rick mutter something unsavoury under his breath.
“Now I know you’re a real farrier,” AJ told him with a grin. “I thought for a minute there you must be a fraud, since I hadn’t heard you swear yet.”
Rick laughed, setting down Robin’s hoof and straightening his back. Trickles of sweat were running down his forehead and he wiped them off with the back of his hand.
“First thing they teach you at farrier school,” he assured AJ. “How to swear like a sailor in front of impressionable young clients.”
Mum turned up then and diverted his attention for a while, and I grew bored and went inside for something to drink. I was feeling hungry, but there was nothing in our pantry that looked very appealing, so in the end I settled for half an apple. I tried not to look at the photos of Molly on the wall, or the sashes she’d won that were hanging over the fireplace. I tried not to think about her at all.
“Wait!” I ran towards the departing bus as it pulled out of the high school carpark, but all I got was a face full of diesel fumes, and I used all of the most colourful language that I’d learned from farriers over the years to vent my frustration. That was the last bus, and I’d missed it. Mum was at work in Napier and she wouldn’t finish until 5pm. I knew that, and I still rang her, because I was frustrated and annoyed and couldn’t think of what else to do. It hadn’t helped. She’d impatiently told me that I should run faster next time, and I would have to get the next bus.
“But there won’t be one for ages!”
“Not my problem, Katy. Wait or walk, those are your options. I have to go.” And she’d hung up before I could argue the point.
I scowled at my phone, then went to check the timetable on the bus shelter, where I discovered that the next bus wouldn’t arrive for almost forty-five minutes. I swore some more, just in case it helped. Other than making me feel slightly better, it didn’t, but I noticed something else that did.
It was the First XV rugby team, training on the adjacent sports field. Not that I’d ever been much of a rugby fan, although Dad was, and I’d gone to a few games with him when I was little. But it was the player in the middle of the field with blonde hair and broad shoulders that had caught my attention. I’d recognise Anders from a mile away, even if he wasn’t wearing the Number 15 jersey. He was running backwards now, his eyes fixed on the rugby ball that was spiralling through the air towards him. I watched as he caught it, then dropped it onto his boot and punted it back downfield. His teammate caught it in turn and fired it straight back at Anders, which I supposed meant they were doing some kind of kicking and catching drill. But the other guy had overcooked it, and it sailed high over Anders’ head and hit the ground a few metres behind him, bouncing awkwardly as only a rugby ball can do, and coming straight towards me.
I flinched, ball sports being a long way from my forte, but fortunately the ball bounced again and pivoted off to the side before dribbling to a stop. Anders jogged towards it, then noticed me and grinned, and the butterflies in my stomach erupted into chaos.
“Hey Katy.”
“Hi.” I aimed for nonchalance and missed, my voice coming out squeaky and desperate.
“You miss the bus?”
“Yeah.” I wished I could think of something more interesting to say, but my brain was too busy noticing how tall he was, and how good he looked in his rugby uniform, and how the corners of his mouth quirked upwards when he smiled, to think of anything smart or clever.
Anders leaned down and swept the ball up off the ground in one easy motion. “There’ll be one at half four.”
“I know. I guess I’m stuck waiting.”
He juggled the ball from hand to hand. “Guess so. Unless you want to join practice? We could use a spare tackle bag.”
“Haha,” I said, deadpan, and his smile grew wider until that dimple appeared. Oh, help. How can anyone actually be so good-looking?
“You sure? I promise to be gentle.” He was still standing there, still smiling at me, and my mouth went dry. Was he flirting with me? I felt my palms starting to sweat as I tried to formulate an answer, but then as Anders’ teammate yelled at him from downfield to come back and get on with it. He rolled his eyes at me. “Better get back to it. See ya.”
“Bye.” I watched him run away from me, then pause mid-stride and fire off another long kick before jogging back into position. I looked at my watch. Ten to four. Well, I might as enjoy the scenery while I waited, so I dropped my bag onto the grass bank that surrounded the rugby field and sat down. I pulled out my Bio textbook and pretended to be studying from it while surreptitiously watching the players practice. Okay, watching Anders practice. There were a couple of other decent-looking guys on the team, but none of them held a candle to Anders McLean. I couldn’t decide whether it was bad luck that he was AJ’s brother, which made him off limits to me, or good luck that he was AJ’s brother, which meant that he knew who I was, and gave me the excuse to talk to him.
My stomach rumbled, and I fished out a half-eaten muesli bar and nibbled at it as I waited. The minutes ticked past, and I knew I should get up soon and walk to the bus stop so I didn’t miss the next bus, but I couldn’t convince my legs to move. Not until I heard a car slow to a stop behind me, and I turned to see a big black Range Rover pull up on the gravel. Oh no. Please, no. How did he know I was here?
My father stepped out of the car and walked towards me, his jeans and polo shirt making him look like he was trying way too hard. He pushed his sunglasses up into his thick dark hair and I glared at him as he walked up and stopped in front of me.
“What’re you doing here?” I demanded.
“I came to pick you up. Heard you missed the bus.”
How in the hell did he… “Did Mum ring you?” I couldn’t believe the level of betrayal, but he shook his head.
“I called her, actually. Wanted to take you out for dinner, have a catch up, but there was nobody home when I went over so I gave Deb a ring, and she told me where you were.”
“That’s trespassing,” I told him. “You can’t just turn up at our place whenever you like.”
Dad frowned, his expression darkening. “Come on now, Katy. Get in the car.”
“No wa
y! I’d rather walk home than go anywhere with you.”
He looked exasperated. “I’m still your father,” he reminded me.
“Yeah, well if you wanted to be my father you should’ve stuck around and acted like one,” I told him ruthlessly.
“That’s not fair,” he argued, and I gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“That’s not fair? I’ll tell you what’s not fair. Running off to Australia and pretending we don’t exist. Shirking your child support payments and making us live on rice and beans for months on end. Making me have to go to school in second-hand uniform,” and my throat clenched up on those words. I hated wearing other people’s clothes. Dad looked like he was about to say something, so I kept talking before he could interject. “And don’t you dare tell me you fell in love or something gross. You were supposed to be in love with Mum, remember?”
Dad was looking horrified, and I realised that the entire First XV were staring at us. They’d finished practice and were heading towards the sheds to change, and I felt my face flush with embarrassment at the scene we were making.
“We definitely need to talk,” Dad said. “But not here. Get in the car, and we’ll go somewhere more private.”
I got to my feet, stuffing my books into my bag. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Is everything okay?” I looked up to see Anders walking towards us, looking concerned.
Dad turned and looked at him, and more than ever, I wished that Anders was my boyfriend and was here to rescue me. Wouldn’t that just be a kick in the teeth for my father?
“I’m not getting in the car with you,” I repeated to Dad, and I watched Anders’ concern turn into immediate defence.
“You heard her.” He stepped closer to me, smelling of sweat and grass and body spray, and I knew I’d never been more grateful in my life to have someone standing next to me. Is this what falling in love feels like? I thought for a second as Ander’s arm bumped against mine, making my skin prickle. “Maybe you should clear off and leave her alone.”