by Orr, Wendy
‘You’ve got horses on the brain,’ Hannah teased.
They kept on going.
The thieves had been driving all day. Their old truck was hot and dusty, and they were hot and thirsty.
At lunchtime they pulled into a service station. ‘Fill it fast!’ said the boss thief, and the smaller man jumped out.
Midnight started kicking. He thrashed and reared till the whole float rocked, and a hoof-sized dent appeared in the tailgate. People filling their cars stared.
‘Is that horse okay?’ called a woman in riding boots, coming towards them.
The thief jumped back into the truck. ‘The shaving cream’s run off!’ he hissed.
The driver swung back onto the highway so fast the tyres squealed. The float rattled behind, with Midnight still kicking and trumpeting.
‘We’ll take the back road,’ he decided. ‘We don’t want anyone else looking at him.’
‘Not till we get there!’ said the smaller man, rubbing his hands together greedily.
The back road was twisty and narrow. There were no service stations. An hour later, the thieves were sweating and the truck was spluttering.
‘What if we run out of petrol?’ the smaller man asked nervously.
‘We won’t,’ said the driver, slowing down to turn into a driveway with tall black gates. ‘This is where we’re going!’
The truck coughed, shuddered – and stopped in the middle of the road.
‘Get out and push!’ shouted the driver.
‘Get the horse out yourself!’ the smaller man shouted back.
They were shouting so loudly they didn’t hear the police car till it was right behind them.
CHAPTER 6
aybe Hannah’s right, Ellie thought as she and the Coopers walked on. Maybe I do just have horses on the brain. That’s what Mum always says.
The silver mare gave up whinnying and went on searching for food. She noticed a scrubby tree on the other side of the fence. It didn’t look like anything she’d ever eaten before, but it was green and fresh. She stuck her head through the two middle wires and snatched a mouthful of leaves.
Her rope halter caught on a twist of wire. She tugged, and the wire slipped further through the nose strap. The harder she tugged the tighter the wire got.
Pebbles was stuck tight with her head between the two wires of the fence.
The path took them right around the lake. Near the end, it forked again, with a shortcut leading straight back to the picnic site. The other arm looped back towards the creek and ended up where they’d begun.
‘I know which way I’m going,’ said Hannah’s mum, turning onto the shortcut.
‘But we wanted to do the ten k walk!’ said Hannah.
Her dad laughed. ‘Okay. Take the dogs and stay on the track. We’ll meet you at the other end.’
The two girls grinned at each other. They both wanted to say that they’d walked ten kilometres. It hadn’t been nearly as hard as it sounded.
‘It’s good walking with the dogs,’ said Ellie.
‘I knew you’d like it,’ said Hannah.
Ten minutes later, when the end of the trail was nearly in sight, Ellie heard it again: a horse whinnying. Peanut barked, and Molly stopped, listening.
‘That did sound like a horse,’ Hannah admitted.
‘But it sounds like it’s back at the creek! Nobody would be riding there!’
They turned around and ran back towards the sound. Here, the trail ran along the top of the ravine for about a hundred metres. Ellie knew for sure they hadn’t seen a horse when they’d walked along it a few minutes ago – and there definitely wasn’t a horse there now.
‘We’ll have to go back,’ said Hannah. ‘Mum and Dad will be wondering where we are.’
Ellie nodded, and turned around with her friend. There was nothing else she could do. If they really had heard a horse, its rider would look after it. It didn’t need her.
And then, just as they were nearly back at the end of the trail, Molly dashed into the bush, yanking her leash so hard she nearly pulled Ellie off her feet.
‘Whoa!’ Ellie shouted.
A horse neighed back. It was the strangest neigh Ellie had ever heard – but it definitely came from a horse. Ellie raced into the bush after the little dog. Hannah hesitated a moment, and followed.
Pebbles was normally calm and quiet, but she had been stuck with her head through the wire for nearly an hour. The more she struggled, the tighter the rope strap pulled, and the tighter it pulled, the more panicky she got. By the time Ellie burst through the trees, the horse’s ears were laid back flat with fear, and her silvery shoulders were covered with sweat.
The dogs barked frantically. Ellie pulled Molly back.
‘It’s okay, horse,’ she said, trying to keep her voice low and comforting. ‘I’ll help you.’
‘I’ll get Dad!’ Hannah called. ‘He can cut the wire!’
‘Take the dogs!’ Ellie said. ‘They’re scaring it.’
Hannah grabbed both leashes and raced back through the trees.
Ellie came closer. Of all the horse books she’d read and DVDs she’d watched, none of them had ever told her how to untangle a horse with its halter caught through a wire.
But the horse couldn’t wait for Hannah’s parents. Ellie had to do something now.
The wire hook was poking through the side of the noseband. A smear of red blood stained the horse’s silvery muzzle, where the wire and rope had rubbed the skin raw.
Ellie tried everything she could think of. She tried to pull the rope band off the wire; tried to straighten out the wire; tried to undo the halter’s rope knot. Nothing worked. The wire was too strong, and the rope was pulled too tight. Her fingers couldn’t even loosen the knot. Ellie’s eyes filled with tears as the mare pulled back again, yanking the halter tighter on her head.
‘NO!’ Ellie said desperately. ‘Bring your head forward!’
The terrified horse rolled her eyes.
Ellie put her arms around the big grey head and tried to pull it forward. The mare was too panicked now to know that she was being helped. She pulled back harder.
‘Come on,’ Ellie coaxed. She was still trying to sound calm, but her voice was squeaky and her hands were trembling. Angrily, she brushed her tears away. She was never going to be able to help this horse if she kept on crying.
But she knew she wasn’t strong enough to pull the horse’s head forward and down, the way it needed to go. Not from the ground.
Ellie looked towards the track, but there was no sign of Hannah and her parents. ‘You’ve got to trust me, horse!’ she said.
The horse’s back was higher than Ellie’s head, but the ground was steep. Ellie stood on a rock and grabbed the silvery mane with both hands.
The first time she tried to jump, she was standing too far away, and she just fell off the rock without touching the horse. She tried again, landed against the horse’s side, and slipped back off.
But I’ve got to do it! she thought. Nothing else is going to work.
She grabbed the mane again, jumped, pulled herself up … and landed across the horse’s back, with her head on one side and her feet on the other.
At the back of her mind, Ellie was surprised that she could do this – but she didn’t have time to think. She threw her right leg over the horse’s rump, and sat up as if she was ready to ride.
The mare didn’t seem to notice. She was still yanking back at the fence.
‘Come on, Silvie,’ Ellie said. She’d thought she was going to say ‘Silver’, but when it came out, Silvie seemed like a better name for such a pretty horse. She squeezed her legs against the round white sides the way riders did in horse books.
Silvie didn’t move. Ellie squeezed again, harder, and clucked the way a horse-whisperer did in a program she’d watched.
The horse swayed, as if she was thinking about moving.
Ellie leaned forward, sliding all her weight onto Silvie’s head, pushing it down as hard a
s she could. The horse took one step towards the fence, shifting her head just a few centimetres further out and down.
The halter unhooked itself from the wire.
Ellie slid down the smooth silvery neck and tumbled onto the ground just as Hannah and her parents rushed up to the corral.
CHAPTER 7
annah’s mum was mostly worried about whether Ellie was okay.
Hannah’s dad was wondering how and why the horse was there.
Hannah couldn’t believe that her horse-crazy friend had not only found a horse, but had rescued it.
Ellie was full of the warm smell of horse, and so jumbled with emotions that she didn’t know what she thought.
She wanted to laugh because Silvie was nuzzling her face, as if she was checking that Ellie was okay, and she’d never known that a horse’s lips would be so rubbery and tickly. She was glowing with happiness because Silvie liked her. She was just about bursting in amazement that she’d got onto a horse all by herself, even if she had fallen off in three seconds. She was sad about the cut on Silvie’s face, and angry when she noticed that her tail had been chopped off so that she couldn’t swish away flies.
But most of all, Ellie was worried about what they were going to do with Silvie now that she was free. ‘We can’t just leave her here!’ she said.
‘She must belong to somebody,’ said Hannah’s mum. ‘We can’t steal a horse.’
‘But there’s no grass for her to eat!’ Ellie protested. ‘And what if she gets stuck again?’
‘There’s definitely something strange going on,’ said Hannah’s dad. ‘But I don’t know what we can do about it.’
‘We could phone Mona,’ said Hannah.
‘I’ll meet you there,’ said Mona.
While they waited, Ellie used Mrs Cooper’s phone to call her parents. At first her mother thought she was joking when Ellie said she’d found a horse.
‘She really did!’ Hannah’s mum said.
‘Rescued it!’ said Hannah’s dad.
‘I’m very proud of you, Ellie,’ her mum said. ‘And I wish I could say that you could keep it. But even if they can’t find out who it belongs to, there’s absolutely no way we can have a horse.’
‘I know,’ Ellie whispered, even though deep down she’d been wishing that she could keep it. She gave the phone back to Hannah’s mum and went on patting the horse’s face. Silvie was busy checking the ground for any blade of grass she might have missed, but she didn’t mind Ellie patting her at the same time.
Ellie wished she had something for her to eat. ‘When I was little,’ she told Hannah, ‘I always used to put a carrot in my pocket, just in case I met a horse.’
Hannah laughed. ‘I used to stuff biscuits in my pockets in case I met a dog.’
‘So that’s why dogs always followed you!’ exclaimed her dad.
‘We’ve got carrot sticks left from the picnic,’ said her mum. ‘The horse can have those.’
Ellie could hardly bear to leave for a minute, but she knew Silvie needed food more than pats.
‘I’ll go with you,’ said Hannah’s mum.
They pushed their way back through the trees to the trail. Mrs Cooper was walking so fast Ellie had to jog to keep up. ‘I don’t like leaving the dogs alone in the car,’ she explained.
‘I wonder how long that poor horse has been all alone!’ Ellie burst out.
Hannah’s mum hugged her. ‘What matters is that you found it. It’ll be all right now.’
Ellie hoped she was right.
Six leftover carrot sticks didn’t seem very much to feed a horse. There was some chocolate cake left too, but Mrs Cooper said it was better to wait for Mona than to feed the horse something that might make it sick.
‘I’ll pick her some grass too,’ Ellie decided, because the grass around the picnic site was thick, green and exactly what horses liked. She picked handfuls of grass into a shopping bag. It was going to take a long time to fill.
‘If we had a leash we could bring the horse up here to eat,’ she said.
‘A dog leash wouldn’t be strong enough,’ said Hannah’s mum, but she opened the car boot and started rummaging. ‘Here you go!’ she said, pulling out a piece of rope. ‘I knew there was something here somewhere! Ask Mr Cooper to help you bring the horse back, if he thinks it’s safe.’
They walked the dogs back down to where the trail ended. The path through the bush was easier to see now they’d been back and forth a few times. ‘I’ll keep the dogs out of the way up here,’ said Hannah’s mum.
Ellie raced through the trees with her bag of carrot sticks and grass, and the rope. She was almost afraid that Silvie would have disappeared, but the horse was still there, with Hannah stroking her nose.
‘I was patting her for you while you were gone!’
‘I patted Peanut for you too,’ said Ellie. And she knew her friend understood how much Ellie wanted to be with the horse for every minute that she could, while she could still pretend it was hers.
She took a carrot stick from the bag and held it out with her hand flat. Silvie’s warm lips brushed against her palm, and the carrot stick disappeared. I’m feeding a horse! Ellie thought. It was just as fun the second time, but she gave the next carrot stick to Hannah.
Hannah fed it to the horse and grinned. ‘Horses are nearly as good as dogs,’ she teased.
The grass was harder to feed because it kept blowing off their hands, but Hannah’s dad said taking the horse up to the picnic ground was a good idea. He tied the rope to Silvie’s halter and she looked up, waiting to be led.
‘I think she’ll be happy to get out of here,’ he said. He pulled out his big silver pocketknife, unfolded the pliers, and cut the wire. Together, they rolled the fence back out of the way.
With Mr Cooper holding onto the end of the rope, Ellie led the horse back to the grassy picnic spot. Hannah and her mum followed, keeping the dogs well out of the way, even though Silvie didn’t seem afraid of them now that she wasn’t stuck in a fence. For the next hour, she grazed all around the clearing, with Ellie beside her.
Ellie had never been so happy.
CHAPTER 8
hen Mona saw where they’d found Silvie, she said it wasn’t safe for her to stay there, and that she would have to take her back to Rainbow Street. She put up a notice on a tree, with the shelter’s phone number in big clear printing.
The grey mare abandoned here has been taken into custody by the Rainbow Street Shelter. If you have any information about this horse, please contact us immediately.
‘Why would someone leave her here?’ Ellie asked.
‘I can’t figure it out,’ Mona said. ‘Maybe they just didn’t have any place to keep her – but there’s no point hiding her out here and not looking after her.’
‘Maybe she was stolen!’ said Hannah.
‘It’s too bad she’s not that stolen racehorse,’ said Hannah’s dad. ‘You might have got a reward, Ellie!’
Ellie smiled. She knew exactly what reward she’d have asked for: to go for a ride. A proper ride, not just sitting on the horse’s back for three seconds before sliding down her neck.
Mona had hay in the horse float, and Silvie walked right in. But once she was in there, she kept looking around behind her, as if she was waiting for something.
‘Are you used to having another horse with you?’ Mona asked her. ‘Never mind; you can share the yard with Bessy until we find a better place for you.’
‘Will she like her?’ Ellie asked anxiously. Bert had told her that the goat was always the boss when other goats or sheep came to stay.
‘If they don’t look happy when they meet, we’ll separate them,’ Mona reassured her. ‘But horses like company, and so does Bessy.’ She locked the tailgate of the float.
‘Come on, girls!’ called Hannah’s mum as she loaded the dogs into the car. ‘The adventure’s over for the day!’
Ellie didn’t want the adventure to end. She didn’t want the horse to disappear out of her life
. Hannah might be able to tell her what happened to Silvie, but Ellie needed to know for herself.
‘Could I please visit her at your shelter?’ she asked.
Mona smiled. ‘I can’t very well say no to the person who rescued her! As long as you remember that she won’t be there forever. If she can’t go back to her owner, we’ll have to find her a new home.’
Ellie nodded.
Ellie nodded again that night, when her mum sat beside her on her bed and said, ‘I know that Hannah’s parents let her have a dog after she worked at Rainbow Street – but a horse really is different. We can’t keep a horse in the backyard, and we can’t afford to pay someone else to look after one.’
‘Maybe we could think about getting a dog,’ said her dad.
Ellie fell asleep thinking about the feeling of Peanut lying beside her in her bed at Hannah’s house, and the fun of running along the trail with Molly on her leash. But it was horses that galloped through her dreams, just like they always did.
CHAPTER 9
llie woke up fizzing with excitement. First thing this morning, she was going to Rainbow Street to visit the horse. ‘My horse,’ she said to herself, but very quietly, because she knew that would never be true.
‘The shelter won’t even be open yet,’ said her mum, as she picked up the newspaper. ‘There’s plenty of time for breakfast!’
Ellie’s parents always read the paper with their breakfast on Sunday mornings. Sometimes they found so many interesting things to read and discuss that they forgot to eat.
Ellie sighed, and got out her Horses of the World book. She’d studied it so often she thought she knew every type of horse there was, but a real horse was different from a picture. She wanted to figure out everything she could about the mysterious horse from the ravine.
She was glad she’d given Silvie a girl’s name, even before Mona had told her that she was a mare. Ellie flicked through the book as she ate her cereal. Silvie’s face didn’t look like an Arabian’s, and she was too small to be a thoroughbred or a draft horse.