“Are you lost?” the old lady asked, looking at them slightly warily.
The three girls looked at each other for a moment, wondering how to explain what they were up to. Then Mia saw an opportunity.
“Kind of,” she said, taking charge. “We’re on a treasure hunt for our riding camp. We’ve just come from the Dovecote Hall estate. We’re huge Lily Simpson fans though, so we thought we’d see if we could catch a glimpse of Chestnut Grove. Someone from camp lives there – we’ve been hearing all about it.”
“Ah, yes, I know about the camp.” The old lady relaxed and smiled warmly. She turned and gestured towards the high hedge beyond her small cottage garden. “Well, this paddock, next to my garden, is the furthest corner of Chestnut Grove. Not that it’s used very often. The front entrance is quite a distance away – off a different lane entirely.”
“Oh, right. Well, maybe we’ll get to see that another day,” Mia smiled, her heart rate rising. “Thanks!”
The old lady nodded, then watched as the girls turned their ponies. Mia, Rosie and Charlie couldn’t keep the smiles from their faces as they headed through the trees and back across the brook onto the Dovecote estate.
“So, there are hoof prints in the brook right opposite the most remote corner of Chestnut Grove,” Charlie said in a rush.
“Which means that Freddie could easily have led Foxy from his paddock,” Mia figured, “across this brook, then hidden him in Dovecote Hall!”
“We’d better hurry up, then,” Rosie said, starting to get excited. “We haven’t got long to check out the rest of the estate and find Foxy!”
They trotted, then moved into canter, following the sweeping curve of the brook. Then, as they came around a gentle hill, they brought their ponies back to a walk. There, in front of them, was a large fenced paddock. To the side of it, right against the trees that edged the brook, stood three old barns.
“These aren’t on the map,” Rosie frowned, double-checking it.
“Making them the perfect place to hide a pony,” Mia said triumphantly. Her heart began to beat faster as they walked over to them, their ponies’ hooves thudding on the grass.
Mia jumped off Wish, and opened the gate for the others. She was just closing it when she gasped.
“What is it?” Charlie asked, turning round to look.
Mia plucked some hairs that had got stuck on the rough wooden gate post. They were thick and long – clearly from a pony’s tail. She held them up for the others to see. “Chestnut,” she said, looking at Rosie and Charlie, wishing that Alice was with them to see their latest clues.
They walked their ponies towards the nearest barn with a mixture of fear and excitement. Mia slid the big, rusted bolt back on the huge doors and was about to yank it open when a horn beeped loudly behind them.
The three girls leaped out of their skins and Phantom shot across the field. Charlie just managed to stay in the saddle. As she reined him back around to rejoin her friends, she looked up to see a Land Rover bumping down the hill, from the direction of camp. It came to a bouncing halt by the barn, then Freddie jumped out.
“What are you looking for in there?” he snapped, frowning. Before he gave the girls a chance to answer, he continued. “I deliberately didn’t put those barns on the map because they’ve got lots of equipment and machinery in them. They’re not safe for anyone to go poking around in. Anyway, there are plenty of treasures nearer to camp. I suggest you start heading back there.”
“But…” Charlie started. She couldn’t believe they were having to leave the barns, especially as Freddie’s reaction seemed to point even more strongly to something being hidden inside.
Mia gave Charlie a warning look. “Okay,” she said. She swung back up into the saddle. They rode through the gate and Freddie clanked it shut behind them.
“Right, I’m going to carry on with my drive round to check on the rest of the teams,” he said, as he started the engine. “I’ll see you back at camp.”
He waited until the three girls and their ponies had trotted up the small hill, away from the barns. Only then did he slowly pull away.
“Should we nip back?” Rosie asked.
Mia shook her head. “Freddie seemed determined that we should leave, so I reckon he might hang around, just to double check we don’t head back. We can’t risk it.”
“So what do we do now?” Charlie asked, feeling frustrated.
“We go back tonight,” Mia said, “when everyone’s asleep.”
“But it’ll take ages to walk all this way,” Rosie groaned.
“Well, then we only have one choice,” Mia said. “We’ll have to ride.”
“READY?” Charlie whispered. The others nodded. “Let’s go.”
Even after racing round for the last fifteen minutes of the treasure hunt, Charlie, Mia and Rosie had brought back a pitiful number of items from the list. Luckily Alice, Amber and Holly had done better, and the purple team managed to come second. Mia had updated Alice on their discoveries, then Alice had told them about the frosty atmosphere in her little treasure-hunt gang, with Amber criticising every idea Holly came up with.
After they’d untacked, the four friends had stashed their bridles in Wish’s stable, rather than locking them in the tack room as usual. After dinner and lights out, they hadn’t undressed, just yanked their boots off, then hidden under their sleeping bags. It seemed like for ever before Holly and Amber fell asleep, especially as Amber had left her phone in the stables, and had disappeared off just before lights out to try and find it.
It was after midnight when Mia nudged the others, and the Pony Detectives finally crept out of the tent. An owl screeched from one of the paddocks and a deer barked an eerie call in the distance.
Alice jumped at every spooky sound, her breath shallow from fear of the dark, mixed with fear of being caught.
Just before they reached the stables, Alice noticed something small and white scrunched up into a ball in the grass. She bent down and picked it up, smoothed it out and then gasped, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
“What is it?” Charlie whispered, pulling Alice inside the stables with the others. Skylark gave his customary welcome whicker. Charlie panicked and rushed over to pat him, in order to keep him quiet. For a second the girls stood still, their hearts thundering in the fresh silence, wondering if he’d woken anyone.
After a minute, they began to settle. Alice held out a crumpled white sachet with the words, ‘Devil’s Claw’ typed on it. It was empty. Rosie whimpered, as Mia took the sachet and read the tiny wording on the back.
“This is a herbal remedy for horses,” she frowned. “It says here it reduces swelling, and it gives pain relief too.”
“The instructors are meant to dish out all the medication,” Charlie pointed out. “Maybe one of them dropped the packet?”
“But why would they drop the packet out here, miles from the feed room?” Alice asked.
“And I’m pretty sure I didn’t see devil’s claw written up on the feed board,” Rosie said quietly. “It sounds terrifying – I’d definitely remember it!”
“Why don’t we go and check quickly now?” Mia suggested. “It’ll only take us five minutes.”
As they were about to leave, Rosie noticed Dancer leaning against her stable door. The mare’s eyes closely followed every move Rosie made. Rosie nipped over to her, and Dancer fluttered her nostrils, hopeful of a treat. “We’ll be back in a second,” Rosie whispered, “promise.”
She quickly patted her pony, then the four girls left the stables and crept through the dark towards the feed room.
Charlie turned the big, old key in the feed-room door, which creaked open. It was cold and damp in there as they stepped in. The morning feeds were already made up and lined along the back wall. The girls looked through the gloom at the big whiteboard on the wall. The only ponies with anything written in the medication column were Topaz and Skylark, for their laminitis.
“Nothing about devil’
s claw,” Charlie said grimly. “So that means someone here is adding devil’s claw to one of the ponies’ feeds.” Charlie frowned. “Without the instructors knowing.”
“But why would anyone want to keep that secret?” Alice asked. At that moment, they heard Dancer bang impatiently on her stable door with her hoof.
“Quick,” Rosie said, “Dancer must have heard the feed-room door open. I bet she thinks it’s breakfast time. We’d better get going before she wakes up the whole camp. We haven’t got time to solve this particular puzzle right now.” She dashed out of the feed room and back towards the stables.
Mia shoved the mysterious sachet in her pocket as the Pony Detectives locked the feed room back up, then rushed to their ponies. Next door to Scout, Copper lay asleep. His head wobbled sleepily as it rested on his front leg, his eyes closed. Alice stepped out as quietly as she could with Scout, trying not to wake him.
The sky was cloudless and a full moon illuminated the campsite. The four girls led their ponies quickly past the tents, holding their breath and hoping the ponies’ hoof beats on the grass wouldn’t wake the other campers. They checked the coast was clear, then they silently used the paddock fencing to slide onto their ponies’ backs. Alice had ridden Scout bareback lots of times, but not as far as to the barns, and definitely not up and downhill. His summer coat was silken and warm and she could feel all his back muscles moving.
“I’m so glad that Dancer’s got such a wide back,” Rosie whispered. “She’s so comfy.” She glanced over to Charlie, who was sitting on the rangy and less well-padded Phantom. All the ponies seemed to think it was an adventure and they stepped out, their ears pricked as they made their way through the gloom.
They jogged quickly over the top of the hill, keen not to be making a silhouette for anyone at camp or in the Hall to see. Once out of sight on the other side, they slowed the pace again. Alice slipped slightly from side to side as Scout’s hips rocked with the downward steps.
“There they are,” Mia whispered, pointing through the trees. In the distance the three barns appeared, their tiled roofs clear in the moonlight. They trotted the rest of the way, then slid to the ground at the gate.
“I’ll hold the ponies,” Charlie offered. “I’d better stay out here with Phantom in case he does anything silly.”
“I’ll stay too,” Rosie said. “There’s no way you’d get me sniffing around inside those old wrecks – imagine the rats and creepy crawlies that could attack at any second.”
“If it’s all the same, Rosie,” Alice said bleakly, “I’d rather not imagine them.”
An owl suddenly hooted right behind them, making them all leap out of their skins.
Alice passed Scout’s reins to Rosie, and Charlie took Wish’s. Then Alice and Mia crept up to the first barn – the one they’d tried to look in earlier. Mia shone her pocket torch through the slats. Inside it looked dusty, with broken shafts of moonbeams piercing the gloom. She could just make out a huge tractor towering monstrously in one corner. It wasn’t the kind of place that a pony would be safe in, but even so, they had to check. They tiptoed to the doors, undid the bolt, then yanked the door. It opened with a loud groan that filled the still night air.
They stood together on the threshold, looking in. Mia swept the torch into the furthest dark corners. It smelled musty, with a strong whiff of oil. There was the huge tractor, with massive wheels that were taller than the girls, towering high off the ground. The rest was filled with farm clutter – a quad bike, spare wheels, rolls of chicken wire and odd bits of machinery.
“Come on,” Mia whispered, regretting not changing out of her favourite pink jodhpurs, “we’d better go right in to check, just to be sure.”
Alice could hear the waver in her friend’s voice. Normally Mia was the brave one, but this time, without speaking, they linked arms to step over broken feed troughs and old tarpaulins. As they crept further in, they heard scuttling on the beams above them. Alice wanted to squeal at the thought of rats racing above her, or dropping on her hair. Instead, she and Mia sped up, hastily searching each corner before turning and gingerly hopping back into the night.
They closed the tall, gaping door and caught their breath. “One down,” Mia said, sliding back the bolt. They moved onto the next barn – a smaller, brick-walled outbuilding with a tiled roof. It had an old, rusted padlock on the door. It looked like it hadn’t been opened for years.
Mia shone the torch through a gap between the two doors, but it was piled up with junk.
“There’s no way a pony could be hidden amongst that lot,” Mia whispered.
“Last one, then,” Alice gulped, as they stepped along to the third barn. It was bigger than the other two, and the door was closed, but not locked.
“Please be in here, Foxy,” she whispered, almost under her breath, her heart thudding in her chest.
Together, the girls hauled the door open. They held their breath as they peered in, desperate to see a chestnut pony looking back at them from some dark corner. But instead the torch picked up a couple of old two-seater carriages and an ancient, cracked leather harness. Apart from that, the barn was empty.
Alice’s heart dropped into her boots.
“Come on,” Mia sighed, “we better tell the others there’s no sign of him.”
Rosie and Charlie were waiting for them. Phantom circled as Rosie and Charlie stood anxiously. Once they caught the look on Alice and Mia’s faces, they both knew the result of the search without even having to ask.
“So what now?” Rosie said, feeling thoroughly disappointed by the unsuccessful night-time raid.
“Well, the clues definitely point to a pony being led into the estate through the brook, and we know that Chestnut Grove is just the other side of it,” Charlie said, thinking hard. “And the chestnut hairs on that gate post prove that a chestnut pony’s been through here recently. So, if Foxy isn’t hidden in one of these barns, where else could he be?”
The girls looked round the field. In the opposite corner to the gate they’d come in through stood another gate. They led the ponies over to it. The other side of it was a dirt track, wide enough to drive down.
“Do you reckon we should check where that path leads?” Rosie asked, peering into the darkness unenthusiastically.
“Come on,” Mia said, taking charge. “It’ll be less scary if we all go.”
She opened the gate and the girls tip-toed through, their ponies’ hooves scrunching as they stepped off the grass onto the track. They edged their way down a dark path, jumping as the hawthorn hedges either side of them rustled. In the silence of the night, every tiny snap of a twig was magnified.
Rosie shivered, losing her nerve with each step. It didn’t help that Dancer spooked and stepped on the back of her boot, almost knocking her over. Rosie’s stumbling spooked Phantom and Scout too, unsettling the whole group. Her nerves now jangling, Rosie was about to suggest they turn back, when Mia stopped abruptly.
“Look!” she whispered.
The others followed Mia’s gaze. They saw a bridleway leading off to the right, into woods. At the turning there was a metal sign, pointing into the darkness. On it, in peeling letters, was written: ‘To Hilltop Riding School’.
“Freddie’s parents run that riding school, don’t they?” Alice gasped.
“Hang on,” Charlie said, piecing everything together, “so Freddie might have led Foxy from Chestnut Grove, across the brook into the estate…”
“…but instead of hiding him somewhere here,” Rosie continued, “he could have hidden him at Hilltop!”
“And guess what’s on our timetable for tomorrow?” Mia smiled as they began to head back to the yard. “Our vaulting lesson – at Hilltop!”
“That’ll give us the perfect opportunity to see if our theory’s right,” Alice said.
“And if it is,” Charlie grinned, “we may finally find Foxy.”
“YOU’LL never believe it, Amber!” Watty guff awed at breakfast on Wednesday morning as she st
ared up at the score sheet.
“Does she always have to be so loud?” Rosie groaned through a huge yawn. The Pony Detectives had put their ponies away the night before, then crept past Holly and Amber, climbed back into their sleeping bags, and crashed out straightaway. But Mia’s alarm seemed to go off only minutes later. Now they all felt sluggish.
“What?” Amber asked, walking over to stand next to Watty.
“Holly’s only gone and pinched the lead from you,” Watty squawked, “on her riding-school slow-coach!”
Watty seemed to have been tickled by the scores, and was completely oblivious to the fact that Amber was quietly fuming beside her.
But it was clear that Holly had noticed. “It’s only by a couple of points,” she said, trying to play it down.
“I can count, you know,” Amber snapped icily.
As she sat down at the long table, Rosie attempted to cheer her up, saying, “At least our team’s still in first place.”
But Amber just glowered at Rosie over her cereal.
“Are we keeping you up?” Freddie asked as the Pony Detectives spent the warm-up yawning their heads off.
“Sorry,” Charlie called back. Phantom skittered away from the first cross-country fence, sensing Charlie’s lack of concentration, but they jumped it the next time round. Then the group moved on to the water complex. First there was a log pile, and then the ground sloped into a gulley of water with another slope back up on the other side. Two strides of canter would bring them to a narrow brush fence, called a skinny.
Foxy: Rivalry at Summer Camp Page 7