Pony Jumpers 7- Seventh Place

by Kate Lattey

  Bruce lit his cigarette, watching me pick up my reins and take a deep breath. He’d been putting the pressure on me for the past half hour, seemingly determined to expose me as a complete fraud. As if I needed him to. I was well aware that I wasn’t a confident, competent Pony Grand Prix rider like my friends. I was a girl doing what she had to to keep the peace at home, riding my sister’s pony because she was sick and might be dying and selling her best friend wasn’t an option right now. That meant me riding him, whether I wanted to or not. Plus she still had this crazy idea that I was going to jump Misty in Pony of the Year next month, and what Hayley wanted, Hayley got. So here I was.

  I steered Misty’s stampeding trot around the outside of the course, trying not to look at the height of the jumps.

  You’ve jumped bigger, I told myself.

  Are you sure?

  Just focus. Breathe. Get it over and done with.

  I took a breath, then let it out as I did my best to slow Misty’s rampage, bringing him onto a smaller circle, slowing my rising, closing my fingers around the reins. The hard crest of his neck rose up in front of me, and I battled with the instinct to shorten my reins. That would only make his head come higher and his neck brace harder against me, and then Bruce would yell at me again. I’ve never liked being yelled at, have never been one of those people who thrives under a merciless coach who is sparing with compliments. I need someone to reassure me, to tell me that I can do it, to remind me to breathe. But he wasn’t here. He was back at the farm, and I wondered what he was doing.

  Focus.

  What would he tell me to do? I conjured up Jonty’s face in front of me, his thick dark hair falling into his eyes, his light brown eyes, his crooked smile.

  Breathe. You’ve got this.

  Easy for him to say. My mind skipped back to yesterday, when he’d been schooling Misty in the home paddock for me. Watching the wilful grey pony trot smoothly across the grass with his neck proudly arched, his paces rhythmic and steady, his curved ears flickering back and forth attentively. I wanted to go back to that moment, to be sitting on a sun-warmed oil drum in the middle of our paddock watching my boyfriend ride my pony far better than I ever could. It was a peculiar twist of fate that he had all the talent and none of the opportunity, while I had all the opportunity but none of the desire.

  “Sometime today would be good,” Bruce called as I trotted past him, and I knew that I couldn’t put it off any longer.

  Sliding my leg back a fraction, I touched Misty into his boisterous canter, looked at the first fence on the course, sat taller, lowered my hands, and tried to convince my fingers to soften against the thick rubber reins. Misty sped up, and I stared at the painted rails as they approached. My brain froze, and my vision blurred slightly.

  Find your distance.

  It was all Bruce talked about, and everyone else seemed to be able to do it, but not me. Not when the jumps were this big. I might have gone from falling off Misty every time I jumped him to winning and placing in some big Pony Grand Prix classes in the past few months, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed it. I’d convinced myself not to think about the height or width of the obstacles, had managed to make my determination to succeed trump my fear of falling, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still afraid.

  Misty plunged forward, and I checked him instinctively, but I was too late to steady his pace. He threw his head up, took a stutter step in front of the fence and jumped awkwardly. The back rail of the oxer crashed to the ground as we landed, and Misty tucked his head down and bucked hard to tell me off. I dug my knees into the rolls of the saddle and gritted my teeth.

  Breathe. Get his head up. Keep going.

  “Stop!”

  I managed to drag Misty back to a trot as Bruce picked up the pole and replaced it in the cups.

  “Start again, and don’t just sit there like a zombie. Ride your pony. Help him out! You can’t wait until the absolute last second to check him.” He spoke around the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, then took a long drag from it. “Again. Get it right this time.”

  I shortened my reins, and Bruce snapped at me. “Quit climbing up his neck. Give him some room to move.”

  I let the reins out and Misty bounded forward as we approached the oxer again. Had Bruce put it up higher when he’d replaced the pole? I felt my heart squeeze inside my chest, my breath coming in short gasps. I didn’t want to do this. Every fibre of my being screamed at me to stop, to turn away, to say no. But I kept riding down to the jump with my eyes up and legs on, pretending that I wanted to jump it.

  Fake it ‘til you make it, right?

  This time I let Misty hold his own pace, and we made it over cleanly. I exhaled as we landed and looked around to the next fence.

  One down, four to go.

  I turned towards the red oxer and Misty plunged forward, dragging the reins through my fingers. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to sit still, waiting for that magic moment when I would see the distance to the jump and be able to check him back or ride him forward or just stay doing what I was doing and get over the fence.

  But the distance never showed up. We arrived at the jump completely wrong, and I felt Misty suck back behind the bit, preparing to stop. I couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t need to give Bruce any more ammunition to yell at me. So I dug my heels in and cracked the short crop I was carrying down onto Misty’s shoulder.

  “Hup!” I cried, throwing my weight forward and making a grab at Misty’s short mane.

  Startled by my sudden commitment, the grey pony made an effort to jump, but he was too close to the fence to get over cleanly. He caught his legs on the front rail, and after a heart-stopping moment as he scrambled in mid-air, he fell forward on a head-first trajectory towards the ground. I saw it coming and closed my eyes as I flew over his head, landing hard on my shoulder. The breath was knocked out of me, and I curled instinctively into a ball as the rails fell down around me. I felt the ground in front of me shudder and opened my eyes to see Misty’s hoof only centimetres from my face. I watched in terror as he scrambled his way out of the fallen jump, somehow avoiding me with his other three hooves, before closing my eyes again and wishing myself away.

  For a brief moment, it worked. I was no longer on my back in the dirt with everyone staring at me, winded and bruised and defeated. Instead I was at home, standing on my own two feet in the middle of a windswept paddock with long golden grass brushing against my legs, staring out across the hills and valleys that made up our farm. Blobs of white sheep were scattered across the paddocks below, the warm smell of the pine trees wafted down from the hills above, and the sun baked my skin as I surveyed the land around me. Home. The only place I wanted to be.

  “Are you okay?”

  And I was back, looking into AJ’s concerned blue eyes. I pushed myself up into a sitting position, adrenalin pumping through my shaking body, and lied to her.

  “I’m fine.”

  AJ reached down a hand to me and I grabbed it, then cried out as she tried to pull me to my feet. My shoulder was badly bruised, and I gasped with pain as I sank back down, tears prickling my eyes. This wasn’t how this lesson was supposed to go. I was supposed to become brave and get my shit together and come home ready to compete in Pony of the Year in only three weeks’ time. But as usual, nothing was going to plan.

  “What do you mean, you fell off?”

  Mum glared at me as I led Misty up the ramp of our horse truck, my shoulder still throbbing relentlessly.

  “I fell off,” I repeated.

  Why was she acting as though she was surprised? It was hardly out of the ordinary for me to hit the dirt. Especially off this pony. I thought about how close he’d come to standing on my face, and felt physically sick.

  “But you got back on.”

  I swallowed the bile that was rising in my throat and turned Misty around in the truck, nudging his hindquarters back into the gap between the dividers.

  “Tess?”

  My hands were shak
ing as I tied Misty’s lead rope to a frayed piece of baling twine attached to the bar. It wouldn’t take much for Misty to break that twine – just a quick snap back of his head and he’d be free. But he stood quietly in the truck, his shenanigans forgotten. He knew just as well as I did what the truck meant. Home, dinner, and then bed. But first, I had to go through a full interrogation.

  “Tell me you got back on and kept going.”

  I stepped back and swung the divider over, using my left hand to pull the pin back and my right hip to shove it into place.

  “I hurt my shoulder.”

  “Oh for God’s sake, Tess. Honestly, sometimes I wonder why I bother. Are you determined to ruin that pony’s reputation?”

  I saw AJ look up from where she was sitting on the edge of a water trough, saw Katy frown in my direction as she wrapped Molly’s legs, saw Susannah’s head swivel towards me as they listened to my mother’s remonstrations. It was nothing they hadn’t heard before. It was nothing I didn’t hear on a daily basis

  And now I got to sit in the truck and listen to it all the way home.

  “Hey you.”

  I looked up from mixing Misty’s feed and felt my heart lift as Jonty walked into the feed room with a smile just for me.

  “Hey yourself.”

  “How was your lesson?”

  I picked up the feed bucket with my left hand and pulled a face at him. “Terrible. I fell off.”

  I saw the sympathy in his eyes, portraying the lack of judgement that I loved so much about him. He didn’t expect me to be the best. He thought I was brave just for trying.

  “You hurt yourself?”

  “Just my shoulder. Not that it was a good enough excuse for my mum. We had the whole trip home for her to remind me how much of a disappointment I am.”

  I didn’t have to tell him which shoulder I hurt, or have to ask him to carry the heavy bucket for me. He did these things instinctively, his quick eyes noticing every detail around him. This hyper-awareness had been misconstrued when he was younger as hyperactivity, and he’d been the bane of his teacher’s lives, unable to sit still or stop talking for more than ten seconds at a time. Gradually, over the years, he’d managed to channel it more productively, and I was certainly grateful for it now.

  Jonty’s warm hand slid into mine and our fingers slotted together easily, the way they always did. As though they were made to. My thumb brushed the scar on the back of his hand, and he smiled at me as we took Misty’s feed out into the yard.

  “Three more weeks,” Jonty reminded me as Misty bashed his broad chest against the yard railing, demanding that his dinner be served without further delay.

  “Three more weeks,” I repeated. Jonty slung the bucket into the yard and Misty shoved his face into it and started eating frantically. “If I survive them, that is.”

  Bad choice of words. We didn’t make jokes about survival around here. Not lately. Not since Hayley had been diagnosed with a brain tumour. She’d only just finished her last round of radiation therapy, and here I was making survival jokes.

  But Jonty understood. He came over and put his arms around my waist, pulling me in close against him, and I rested my head on his shoulder and watched Misty stuff his face with feed. It was a waiting game to find out whether the radiation had done enough, or whether Hayley was going to need surgery. We were all living on tenterhooks, and I knew that my mother’s harsh words to me were due, in large part, to the extreme stress she was under. But it didn’t make them any easier to hear.

  “She’ll be okay.”

  “I know.”

  We told each other these lies daily, and pretended to believe them. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, listening only to the sounds of Misty’s munching. A slow, creeping sense of peace stole over me, and I leaned into it, grasping at the promise of serenity.

  It didn’t last. What had started out as a distant rumble of a quad bike was coming ever closer, and moving quickly. I straightened up and stepped back from Jonty, who reluctantly released me. I shot him an apologetic smile. My parents weren’t particularly happy with my choice of boyfriend, and I didn’t need my father to turn up and find us mid-embrace. The day had been bad enough already without dealing with his silent, disapproving glares.

  But it wasn’t Dad on the quad bike that came battering around the corner with two weary farm dogs loping behind it. It was Bayard.

  “Oh, great. This day just keeps getting better,” I muttered, turning my back on my former best friend and leaning against the yard railing to watch Misty eat. He was pawing at the bucket in feverish delight. “Don’t expect a refill if you tip it all out into the shavings,” I warned him as Jonty’s arm brushed against mine.

  “Should I go home?”

  “No. You shouldn’t have to,” I told him. “It’s not your fault that Bayard inexplicably hates you. Let him be the one to go home.”

  “Looks like he’s still got work to do though,” Jonty pointed out, looking over his shoulder at Bayard. “And I’ve got homework.”

  “A likely excuse. Since when do you do your homework?”

  Jonty turned back towards me with a crooked grin. “Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf this year.”

  “Maybe you’re full of shit,” I suggested playfully, and his smile widened.

  “You love me.”

  “Lucky for you,” I told him.

  Jonty stepped in closer and put an arm around me, then kissed my forehead. “Lucky is right.”

  Bayard chose that moment to cut the quad’s engine, and an uneasy silence filled the yard.

  “I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” I told Jonty, tilting my head up to look into his soft brown eyes.

  “Not if I see you first.”

  I could hear Bayard’s footsteps approaching from behind us, and the dogs appeared by our side, nudging us eagerly for attention. Jonty let go of me and leaned down to greet them by name.

  “Hi Rusk, hi Loki.”

  “That’s Thor.” Bayard stopped next to us, a bucket of fencing tools in his hand.

  “Oh.”

  “They look practically identical,” I said in Jonty’s defence. “I thought it was Loki too, at first.”

  “Well, they are brothers,” Jonty said with a wink in my direction, and I grinned.

  But Bayard didn’t get the joke. “No they’re not. They’re not even related.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It was a joke, Bay.”

  He frowned. “Not a very funny one.”

  “It is if you know anything about Norse mythology.” He just stared at me blankly, and I shook my head. “Never mind.”

  I turned my back on them both and looked at Misty, who was kicking his bucket around the yard in disappointment that he’d finished his feed. “Right, are you done?”

  “Looks like it,” Jonty confirmed. “I’ll put him out for you, if you want. Save you trying to chuck a cover on with your sore shoulder.”

  I smiled at him. “You’re my hero.”

  Bayard snorted disparagingly and marched into the barn without another word. The two border collies followed him loyally to the door, then lay down to wait for his return. Jonty led my angry pony across the yard otwards the paddock, and I leaned on the fence and carefully kneaded my shoulder, trying to figure out whether it was strained or just badly bruised. Either way, I was going to have to get back on him tomorrow. I dreaded the thought.

  “Tess!”

  I looked across to the house, where the porch light had just come on. My mother was silhouetted in the doorway, staring in my direction. I felt the same surge in my chest that always accompanied someone yelling my name these days. Far too many times it had been the precursor to calamity, to Hayley having a seizure, to another ambulance call out, another overnight stay in hospital, another day or two before she could come home and we could all continue with the pretence that we were living some kind of normal life, all of us waiting with bated breath for it to happen again.

  I found my voice. “What?”
/>   “Hurry up, would you? Your dinner’s getting cold.”

  I felt my entire body sag in relief. I wasn’t sure how much longer we could all live like this, always on the edge, waiting for disaster to strike.

  Knowing that it was only a matter of time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ~ FIRST PERIOD ~

  I nudged my locker shut with my shoulder as the warning bell rang, and struggled to shove my Biology textbook into my backpack. There was a tight cluster of younger girls in crisp new uniforms standing in my way, and I shrugged my bag onto my good shoulder as I looked for a way past them.

  “Someone should tell her.”

  “Bags not!”

  “No way!”

  They were staring at someone behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to see another young girl with her back to us. It took me a moment to notice the dark stain on the back of the girl’s skirt, and I winced in sympathy. Not what you wanted when you’d just started high school. I felt for her, but I was going to be late for my class if I didn’t get a move on.

  Then she turned around, and I recognised her tear-streaked face at once.

  “Bella!”

  Jonty’s sister looked simultaneously embarrassed and relieved to see me. She wiped at the tears on her cheeks as I hurried to her side, all hesitation gone. I put my good arm around her shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze.

  “It’s okay. Come with me.”

  Bella sniffled, but didn’t resist as I started steering her towards the other end of the corridor. “Where are we going?”

  “To the nurse. She’ll give you another skirt to borrow for today.”

  Bella took a shaky breath, walking alongside me with her head still bowed, then spoke so softly that I almost missed her words.

  “Do you have any…stuff?”