Foxy: Rivalry at Summer Camp

by Belinda Rapley

  As the orangey sun began to dip towards the treeline, everyone was still splashing about in the water or lounging on their towels.

  Rosie checked her watch. “Snack time,” she announced. “I’m like Dancer – I need feeding little and often.”

  She slid her flip-flops on and headed back to the tents. She walked through the stables, expecting to see Holly. Skylark’s inquisitive face bobbed over his stable door and he whickered to Rosie. Holly wasn’t there.

  “Where’s Holly, Skylark?” Rosie said, glancing round the empty stable. Rosie gave him a pat, then headed off to the tent. That was silent and empty too. Rosie found a cereal bar and was about to leave when she saw Holly’s pony care book partly hidden under her pillow. Rosie frowned, then headed back to the pool.

  “What’s up?” Charlie asked, as she climbed out of the pool and saw Rosie’s concerned expression.

  “I can’t see Holly anywhere,” Rosie said, and explained about the book.

  “Maybe she nipped into the Hall for something,” Charlie suggested.

  “We’d have seen her if she had,” Mia said, sitting up.

  But when it got to the ponies’ feed time, there was still no sign of Holly.

  The Pony Detectives wandered back from the pool. Behind them they heard a mobile phone neigh with an incoming text. They turned to each other and grinned, recognising Amber’s message alert.

  Amber was flanked by the blue team as she walked along, reading the text.

  “Any update on Foxy?” Mia asked over her shoulder.

  Amber looked up from her phone and shook her head. “Nope, no news yet,” she said, “but Lily said that Firestorm’s settled really well, which is brilliant.”

  Watty shrieked, and the blue team demanded to see the text for themselves. Mia turned back, leaving them to it, as Rosie, Alice and Charlie continued to talk about where Holly might be.

  As they neared the tent, they saw the door flutter, like someone had just ducked through it. When they stepped in, Holly whipped round. She was puffing slightly, and had a sheen of perspiration over her face.

  “Here you are!” Rosie exclaimed. “We wondered where you’d disappeared to. We were about to send out the search party.”

  Holly flushed and looked away. “I didn’t disappear anywhere,” she said. “I was here.”

  Rosie frowned. “Oh, right. Must’ve just missed you. Did you manage to read loads?”

  “Erm, a bit,” Holly replied, not quite looking at Rosie. But the pony care book was still tucked under her pillow, in exactly the same place Rosie had seen it over an hour earlier. Holly seemed distracted, and glanced over at Amber a couple of times. She took a deep breath, like she was steeling herself to speak. Then she braved it. “Um, Amber, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

  Amber yanked on her jodhpur boots without looking up. “Well, it’s the ponies’ feed time now,” she said, slightly frostily. “Can’t it wait?”

  With that, Amber stalked out of the tent. Holly flushed again as the Pony Detectives exchanging surprised looks.

  “What’s up with her?” Charlie frowned.

  “I don’t know.” Holly shrugged awkwardly, looking like she wished she’d kept quiet.

  “Well, it’s her loss,” Alice said, feeling bad for Holly. “Has she missed out on something exciting?”

  “Oh, no, not really,” Holly replied quietly. “It wasn’t that important.”

  As Holly turned to follow Amber out of the tent, Rosie noticed something odd on Holly’s pale blue T-shirt.

  “You’re covered in chestnut pony hairs!” She grinned. “How did you manage that when Skylark’s grey?”

  Holly glanced down at her shoulder and hastily brushed at them.

  “I must’ve leaned against one of the other ponies,” she mumbled. “Anyway, I’m off to the feed room. Coming?”

  Holly dashed out of the tent, leaving the Pony Detectives even more puzzled than before.

  “What was all that about?” Alice asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mia frowned, “but one thing’s for sure – Holly wasn’t giving anything away about where she’d disappeared to this afternoon.”

  MELISSA pinned the first score sheet up in the dining hall on Monday morning at breakfast time.

  “I said you’d be in the lead!” Watty gushed to Amber as they crowded round.

  “I wish I’d been able to watch you ride,” one of the green team piped up. “Our arena was too far away to see!”

  “We saw her and she was brilliant,” Watty said. “Trust me!”

  Amber looked slightly smug. “Funny, I thought Freddie said yesterday that Holly and Skylark were a winning combination. Maybe he was just being kind.” She walked off to get her cereal.

  Mia turned to check whether Holly had heard, but she was sitting down at the far end of the table with Alice. Mia looked back at the score sheet. She was in second place, with Destiny from the red team in third. Charlie and Alice were in mid-division with Holly, whose turnout score hadn’t been great. Rosie was near the bottom just above Watty and Emily. Overall, the purple team were in second place, just behind the reds.

  “I’m not sure that my scores will improve this morning,” Rosie smiled, unfazed by her position. She sat down at the table, opposite Destiny. “Showjumping isn’t exactly where Dancer’s talents lie.”

  “Where do they lie then?” Destiny asked seriously.

  “In eating,” Rosie explained. “She’s fab at that.”

  Destiny laughed and almost choked on her cereal, which set Rosie off too.

  “Do you know what Skylark’s like to jump?” Alice asked Holly at the other end of the table.

  “No, I’ve never seen him jump anything at Hilltop,” Holly said, “but his paces are pretty springy, so I reckon he’ll be amazing… Well, I hope so anyway. I only started jumping at the beginning of this year, but I totally love it.”

  “I do too,” Alice confessed, “but I’m a bit nervous about jumping in front of Amber.”

  Holly’s face lit up. “Me too! I wonder if she’ll be jumping massive fences… I hope Freddie doesn’t make them too big today!”

  Alice shivered. “Ugh, me neither!”

  Once the stables and the ponies had been inspected, the jumping lesson got underway. Freddie started them all off doing some grid work. He built up from three trotting poles on the ground to a cross pole, then two, then three fences in a row to get the ponies jumping athletically. They were streaming over the fences one after the other, so they didn’t get much of a chance to watch each other. But then Freddie took away two fences and they started to ride one at a time over the single fence that remained.

  “Let’s have you first, Amber,” Freddie called out across the grass arena.

  The rest of the ride watched as Amber and Copper sailed over easily first time round. Freddie raised the fence, and this time Copper met it on the wrong stride and adjusted himself, taking off a bit early. Amber lost her balance momentarily and jagged the chestnut in the mouth. He raised his head in mid-air and clunked the pole with his back hoof. It bounced out of the cups, thudding to the ground.

  “Copper was clever there,” Freddie explained as Amber got Copper back under control and rode back to the group. “He sorted himself out, but because you used the reins to balance, rather than go with him, he knocked the pole. So, remember to let your reins slip a bit, or grab a handful of mane if your pony takes off unexpectedly. That way you don’t hurt their mouths.”

  Phantom went next and he lit up the arena, clearing the fence by miles. Freddie raised the poles then sent Charlie round once more. As they finished, Freddie nodded, and called for the next rider. Scout followed and popped over the fences neatly, and Wish was hoof perfect. Then it was Rosie and Dancer’s turn, and they crashed through the poles, demolishing the fence. Freddie yelled instructions at Rosie, and the next time, she managed to clamber over in canter before Freddie told them to rest.

  Finally it was Holly’s turn. Alice watch
ed Holly as she approached with Skylark in a light, bouncy canter. She kept her eyes glued to the blue-and-white-striped poles as she turned Skylark towards the jump. The pair met it on a perfect stride.

  “Come round again, Holly,” Freddie called out. He was watching her intensely, his head cocked to one side. Holly repeated the exercise. Once more the pair met the fence at just the right spot. Holly wasn’t the neatest in the saddle, and she looked down, but she instinctively softened her hands and folded her upper body forward in harmony with Skylark.

  Freddie made them jump one last time, raising the poles slightly. Without Holly appearing to do anything in the saddle, the pair met it on exactly the right stride again. Alice sat, amazed as she remembered Watty saying that Skylark was terrible at jumping. Holly was making it look easy.

  “How do you manage to get Skylark to exactly the right take-off point every time?” Alice asked, thinking that she just hoped for the best and trusted Scout. “That’s really hard!”

  “It’s probably just luck,” Amber jumped in. She acted like she was joking, but Mia noticed that her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Probably.” Holly said modestly.

  “There’s nothing lucky about that,” Freddie said firmly. “That’s what you call natural talent.”

  Alice saw Amber’s back stiffen, and she shot Holly a piercing glare.

  “Okay, walk your ponies round to cool off properly,” Freddie told them. “And remember to hose them down thoroughly before you turn them out.”

  As the ponies walked on a loose rein, Alice saw that Freddie’s brooding gaze was fixed on Holly and Skylark – and so, too, was Amber’s.

  When lunch was over the girls had a stable management lesson on bandaging legs for exercise, travelling and first aid. Rosie dropped her set of four exercise bandages on the way back from the tack room and spent most of the lesson picking hay strands off them and rolling them back up again.

  Afterwards, all the teams joined together for a musical drill ride. The instructors made it fun, getting riders into pairs as they all rode round the arena, and calling out instructions to the music. At one point there were four pairs of riders performing a circle, with Rosie and Dancer in the middle, walking a ten-metre circle, while Charlie had to canter to keep in line with everyone on the outside of the circle.

  As usual, Watty managed to create havoc. If she wasn’t turning the wrong way, she was shrieking – especially during the exercise that required ponies to criss-cross each other at canter across the arena.

  At the end of the drill ride, everyone rode back to the yard, grabbing headcollars and chucking down bridles. The ponies were led to the hosepipe and within seconds, foam from horse shampoo was flying in every direction.

  Alice was careful to make sure none of the shampoo got into Scout’s eyes. Once she’d finished washing him, she let Scout drink from the hosepipe. He nodded his head up and down, sploshing water everywhere. Alice glanced at her friends. “Did you see Amber’s face when Holly got all the attention in that lesson?” she asked them quietly. Amber had finished fly-spraying Copper and had led him to the paddocks, but Alice didn’t want anyone else to hear their conversation.

  “Well, she’d better get used to it,” Charlie pointed out, throwing a fly rug over Phantom, “because judging by Holly’s skills in the saddle, I think there’ll be a lot more where that came from.”

  When the ponies had been turned out, the boy campers decided to start a water fight. Mia stayed well clear in her neat outfit, but one of the boys, Harry, was an excellent shot and managed to soak every girl that ran past. Rosie squealed that she couldn’t get her socks wet because she didn’t have enough pairs left to change into. The air was filled with squeaks and shrieks as everyone tried to get near enough to get their revenge. In the end Charlie got nearest.

  “Use a bucket! Here!” Rosie giggled, picking up Dancer’s full one from her empty stable. Charlie grabbed it, and charged out of the stables at full pelt. She chucked it at the boys, just as they turned the hose on her.

  Charlie squealed and the boys dodged out of the way, and the whole bucket whooshed straight into the muck heap.

  “Loser!” Harry shouted, but as he came back to grab the hose again, he slipped on some wet droppings, and skidded into the muck heap. All the girls watching from the safety of the stables fell into fits of laughter, until Harry began to throw handfuls of manure in all directions.

  Suddenly Melissa appeared, drawn by the shrieks. “Right, that’s enough,” she said, trying to keep a straight face. “Harry, what are you doing in the muck heap?”

  “Charlie chucked a bucket of water at me,” Harry laughed.

  “Only to get you back after you’d soaked everyone with the hose!” Charlie protested.

  “But if you hadn’t thrown the water,” Harry pointed out, “I wouldn’t have slipped into the muck heap!”

  Melissa looked between them, pretending to be stern. “Well, Charlie, it looks like you’re the lucky winner,” she announced.

  “Of what?” Charlie asked, suspiciously.

  Melissa picked up a shavings fork and passed it to her. “You get to tidy up the muck heap!”

  Charlie groaned and stomped over to it, giving Harry a little shove on the way past.

  Mia, Rosie and Alice stayed behind to help Charlie as Melissa sent everyone else off to clean tack.

  The four friends started to sweep the fallen, scattered droppings back. Then they dug into the front of the muck heap, piling it further back before starting to square off the edges.

  Sweat made Rosie’s eyes sting as she dug a bit further and hit something more solid. She tossed up another forkful but it didn’t get very far, and quickly spilled back down again.

  “What happened there?” Rosie frowned.

  Mia peered at the muck heap. “There’s something in there,” she said, stepping forward. Forgetting her clean outfit for a second, she grabbed Rosie’s fork and eased the muck-coated object out of the heap.

  “It’s Pony Mad!” Rosie said, surprised. Charlie, Alice and Mia gathered round. “And look! I don’t believe this! There’s a rip in the cover – this is my copy!”

  Rosie wiped her forehead, streaking it with muck at the same time. She picked up the magazine and shook some of the slimy, wet droppings off it.

  Alice shook her head, totally confused. “But what on earth is your Pony Mad doing buried in the muck heap? I thought a Lily Simpson fan had taken it!”

  “Me too,” Mia said, “but at least this means we’ve finally got some more information on Foxy – and a photo!”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Rosie gulped.

  “What are you talking about?” Charlie asked, leaning closer over her shoulder.

  “Part of the Lily Simpson article’s gone,” Rosie said, looking up. “The competition preparation’s still here, but the facts page about her other ponies, including Foxy, is missing.”

  “Why would anyone take just that bit?” Alice frowned.

  The girls were silent for a second. Then they looked over to the other campers sitting around on hay bales, drying off in the sun and cleaning their tack. The green team’s instructor, Lara, was standing nearby, checking their work and joking with them. But when the Pony Detectives saw Amber look over to where they were standing, they noticed that she wasn’t smiling. In fact, she looked thoroughly fed up. She couldn’t get near her own tack. The blue team had all argued over who was going to clean what of hers, and she’d been left with nothing.

  “Something weird’s going on here,” Mia said. “I’m going to grab my notebook. We need to have a proper think about this.”

  While Mia rushed to the tent, the other three squelched to the hall to grab drinks. When they got to the open back door, Charlie suddenly held up her arm, and the others stopped. They could hear Freddie’s lowered voice, talking in hushed tones just inside the hallway.

  “Amber’s really upset, too,” they heard him whisper. Then he paused. “I know, but
we’ve got to stick to the plan. You’ll just have to trust me. I’ll look after everything this end – you just concentrate on winning up there. Okay?”

  Charlie stood, open-mouthed, as she stared at Rosie and Alice, who were straining to hear. She peeped round the doorway just as Freddie ended his phone call. The next second Melissa’s voice rang out.

  “Freddie, can you come in here a sec? We need to go through the list for the treasure hunt tomorrow.”

  Charlie saw Freddie jump and hastily drop his mobile on the side table as if it were on fire. Distracted, he disappeared into the lounge.

  “Come on,” Charlie said, pulling Alice and Rosie into the hallway. From just the other side of the lounge door they could hear the instructors chatting. Charlie sneaked closer to Freddie’s phone. She peered at the swipe screen. It was still lit up – Freddie must have forgotten to lock it when he rushed off . Charlie looked back at her friends with a doubtful expression. “Should I?” she asked softly.

  “You have to!” Rosie whispered dramatically. “Foxy will thank us if it helps us solve the case.”

  “Just be quick!” hissed Alice, nervously looking around her.

  Charlie checked the phone to see who the last call had been made to, and a photograph of an eventer filled the screen.

  “Georgie Belle…!” Rosie gasped.

  Suddenly they heard footsteps coming towards them. The three girls turned on their heels, raced along the hallway and skidded breathlessly out of the back door.

  HETTIE the sheep kept her distance, nibbling the grass around the roots of a tree while the ponies wandered over to see the girls. Even Phantom came near, huffing gently down his silky nostrils over Charlie. He ran his muzzle over her hair, then stepped lightly away to graze near Hettie. Charlie smiled. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d hated to be in the same stable as Charlie. Now he was seeking her out in a big paddock, making her feel like the most special person alive.