Winter Wonderland (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 13)

by Claire Svendsen

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  “I had a fight with my dad last night,” I told Mickey.

  “What about?”

  We were riding out on the trail. I was hoping to hear the hurricane horse again and follow the sound to the stable where he was being kept to prove that I wasn’t going crazy. Mickey just wanted to get out of the way of Miss. Fontain before she snagged her for another lesson because it turned out that Mickey was fast becoming one of her most promising students and that meant she was pushing Mickey and Hampton really hard. Mickey said that if Hampton had to go round in one more perfect twenty meter circle then his head was going to explode but all I could see were the muscles that were forming on his hind end and the way he carried himself now without tripping over his own feet. As far as I was concerned, Miss. Fontain was doing both Hampton and Mickey a world of good.

  “It was stupid really,” I said. “The girls want to take their ponies to sing Christmas carols at the retirement home.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Mickey said. “We should totally do that.”

  “Well Dad said no so that is that.”

  I kicked my feet out of the stirrups and stretched my legs down, trying to work out a cramp that was forming in my foot.

  “Can’t you talk him into it?” Mickey said.

  “That’s what we got into the fight about. He said that show ponies shouldn’t be doing dangerous things like visiting old folks so that their owners can parade them around with tinsel on and sing Christmas carols.”

  “But why not? You just have to talk him into it. I want to take Hampton too.”

  “I think Miss. Fontain would be just as against it as my dad was,” I said. “Besides, aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for your first dressage show?”

  “Don’t even mention it,” Mickey said. “I’m already having nightmares.”

  “You’ll do great,” I said. “I’ve seen you ride your test a million times already.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Hampton knows it off by heart and he does the moves before I ask him which means he does them too soon and then we get yelled at.”

  “Well stop working on the whole thing then. Just mix it up.”

  “Try telling Miss. Fontain that.” Mickey rolled her eyes. “In fact it’s impossible to tell her anything. She thinks she is right about everything all the time.”

  “She probably is,” I said. “She was right about the kids and the whistle.”

  “Don’t tell her that,” Mickey said. “Or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  We walked on in silence for a while. The weather had warmed up again and we were back in t-shirts. The sun felt warm on my bare arms and I closed my eyes as I rode, listening to the birds and the sound of the breeze rustling through the trees. Somewhere out there someone was burning something and the smokiness mixed with the dampness of the earth and pine trees to smell like winter even though it didn’t feel like it.

  “What are getting you for Christmas?” Mickey’s voice broke through the silence.

  “I don’t know,” I said, opening my eyes again only to be temporarily blinded by the sun. “Probably nothing.”

  “Nothing? You can’t get nothing. That’s so sad.”

  “Well Dad hasn’t asked me what I want and what with the new baby and all the work on the other property, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have any extra cash lying around to buy junk with.”

  “That’s why you are supposed to write a letter to Santa,” she said, sounding smug.

  “Don’t you think I’m a little old to be writing a letter to Santa?”

  “You’re never too old to write a letter to Santa and besides, how is he supposed to know what you want if you don’t tell him?”

  “It’s going to be pretty hard to write a letter considering I don’t even know what I want,” I said.

  I thought of all the times that I had asked Santa to bring my dad back home to us and how I had begged every year for a pony. Well I finally had those two things and even though my life wasn’t all perfect and rosy like I thought it would be, it was still pretty great. It felt greedy to ask for more, even though I really did know what I wanted. I wanted the hurricane horse.

  “I know what you want,” Mickey said with a knowing smile.

  “No you don’t,” I said.

  We bantered back and forth for a little while before I finally gave in.

  “Fine,” I said. “You know what I want. Well what is it you want? Wait, I know. You want one of those boys from that new band you like to fall in love with you and be your boyfriend forever.”

  “Oh no,” she said seriously. “I didn’t think to put that on my list.”

  We laughed and it felt good to just be girls riding their horses and not worrying about school or family or the shows that we were expected to go to and win. It made me miss Will. He got that riding was supposed to be fun too and he got me as well when almost everyone else didn’t really understand me at all. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to ask for a boyfriend for Christmas but how on earth was Santa supposed to stuff a boy down the chimney?

  We were just about to turn back when a whinny floated over the trees. Bluebird pricked his ears and let out a trumpeting cry in reply.

  “See,” I said smugly. “I told you.”

  “So a horse is out there somewhere. How do you know it’s really him?”

  “I told you, I’d know his whinny anywhere.”

  “I don’t even know Hampton’s whinny so how can you know the whinny of a horse that you’ve only met twice in your whole entire life?”

  “Because I do,” I said. “I know it’s him. Come on.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  This time we followed the sound to the edge of the property where there was a line of trees and a tumbledown fence. There were big gaping holes that you could ride right straight through but I didn’t know if we should or not because we didn’t know what was on the other side of the trees.

  “We should go back,” Mickey said. “What if they have a gun?”

  “You really think they would shoot us just for riding on their property?”

  “Hello! Have you already forgotten what happened to you and Bluebird? He got shot with a pellet gun in the butt, remember? What’s your dad going to say if you come back to the barn with a pellet in your butt?”

  “I’m not entirely sure he would notice,” I said.

  I stood up in my stirrups, trying to get a better look.

  “I think I can see a barn,” I said. “And some paddocks.”

  “Do you see any gray horses?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “We should go,” Mickey said, sounding nervous. “I don’t like this.”

  “What’s not to like?” I said. “We’re just standing here on the edge of Fox Run property minding our own business. There is no law against that.”

  “But there is a law against what you want to do which is probably ride over there and steal that gray horse.”

  “I would never do such a thing,” I said, sounding mock hurt. “I just want to buy him, that’s all.”

  “And your dad is fine with that, is he?”

  “You know he’s not,” I grumbled.

  “Well come on then, let’s go.”

  Mickey turned Hampton away. I knew she wasn’t going to be a part of my crazy scheme to get the horse. She had turned into the sensible one lately and I was now the one with the crazy schemes that usually back fired.

  Bluebird started to dance about, fussing to go with Hampton. He didn’t want to stay behind on his own and really, neither did I. We trotted after Hampton’s bay rump and rode back to the barn in silence.

  “So if I can talk my dad into the whole carol singing thing, do you still want to come?” I asked her, trying to break the awkward silence.

  “Of course.” She grinned. “We could decorate the horses tack with tinsel and ribbons and put reindeer antlers on their heads. It would be so much fun. You have to talk him into it.”
r />   “Talk him into what?” Dad appeared from nowhere, his hands on his hips and a suspicious look on his face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  We managed to talk Dad into it but it had nothing to do with our powers of persuasion and everything to do with the fact that Miss. Fontain, the woman we all assumed was a Grinch, wanted to go too. It turned out that her mother was in the retirement home as well and she wanted nothing more than to brighten her Christmas. Little girls singing on ponies was apparently just the way she wanted to do that and so began the last minute rehearsals.

  “You know, we should have thought this through a bit more,” I said as we stood in the tack room with the girls all excitedly buzzing around us. “Dad was right. This is going to take far too much time, time that we should be practicing for the show.”

  “Life isn’t all about shows, remember?” Mickey said.

  “But they can’t even sing,” I whispered.

  We’d gathered everyone together for what I’d hoped would be our one and only rehearsal and had picked four nice and easy Christmas songs for everyone to sing. But it turned out that half the girls were too embarrassed to actually sing out loud and so just made these little whispering sounds and the ones who weren’t were completely tone deaf and sounded awful.

  “This is never going to work,” I said. “They can’t sing and they won’t even listen to me. I might even have to break out the whistle again.”

  “Is this the rehearsal room?” Miss. Fontain appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a Santa hat and it looked completely ridiculous against her stern face. The girls all went quiet.

  “Yes,” I said. “But we have a problem.”

  “What’s that?” She crossed her arms.

  “Well it turns out that we can’t sing.”

  “Nonsense.” She strode into the tack room and picked up a sheet of music. “Everyone can sing. You girls just lack discipline, that’s all.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to take charge, would you?” I asked her as Mickey nudged me hard in the ribs.

  “Well,” she said, flipping through the sheet music, “I was the choir master of the all-girls Vermont Music Academy Ensemble.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “You’re hired.”

  Mickey gave me a desperate look but I didn’t care. Desperate times called for desperate measures and I wasn’t too big headed to admit that the whole carol singing thing was way over my head. Besides, I still had two horses to get ready for the show so I needed all the help I could get and I had to admit that by the time the rehearsal was over, Miss. Fontain had all the girls singing the same song at the same time and it no longer sounded like a bunch of drowning cats.

  “I think that was the worst singing I’ve ever heard in my whole life,” Jess said as the girls all spilled out of the tack room, talking excitedly amongst themselves.

  “There is always room for one more,” I told her. “Want to spread a little Christmas joy and think about others instead of yourself for a change?”

  “Why on earth would I want to do that?” She looked down her nose at me.

  “Jess, you really are the most awful, spoiled brat I’ve ever met,” Mickey said.

  “Oh drop dead,” she said before walking away.

  “Wow, I can’t believe you actually said that,” I told her, feeling proud of my best friend.

  “Well she’s just so annoying. How can you be so mean and selfish at Christmas time?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  With school being out for Christmas break, the barn was extra busy. All the girls were there every day, riding and singing at the same time. Miss. Fontain seemed to have found her secret calling and was instructing them in small groups and then all together every evening. Just as I predicted, Jess didn’t bother and join in but in a strange twist of fate, her sister Amber showed up one night with a guitar.

  “Need someone to play while you guys sing?” she asked.

  “Perfect,” Miss. Fontain told her. “You’ll fit right in.”

  So Amber joined our band of carol singers and with the musical accompaniment, the whole thing was coming together quite nicely, considering we’d come up with the idea a few days ago and were supposed to go to the retirement home in two days’ time.

  “Do you think she’s a spy?” Mickey whispered as Amber played her guitar.

  “A spy? For who?”

  “For Jess of course,” Mickey said like I was stupid.

  “A spy for what? Jess already knows we suck. What more could Amber tell her?”

  “I don’t know.” Mickey shook her head. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

  “Nothing feels right,” I said.

  Missy and the baby were still in the hospital and my dad was ferrying back and forth every day. Christmas was only a week away and so was the show and yet despite the decorations and the carol singing, it didn’t feel like Christmas. I missed our fake tree and the cookies that my mom and I used to bake together. We’d decorate them with sprinkles and say that we were saving them for Santa but would inevitably eat them all long before Christmas Eve. We’d watch Christmas movies curled up on the couch together, sharing a blanket and saying the actors lines before they had a chance to because we knew the movies off by heart. Was Mom curled up on a couch in Wisconsin with Cat? Was my step sister eating my cookies and watching my movies with my mother? It hurt too much to think about so I threw myself into carol singing and preparing both Bluebird and Socks for the show. Both my horses were coming along nicely and I was proud of them and I wasn’t planning on taking either of them carol singing because like my father, I actually was afraid that one of them would get hurt before the big show. It wasn’t as important for the other girls. They weren’t eligible to win the spot in the Young Riders clinic but I was and I wasn’t about to blow my chance by having Bluebird take off like a rocket at our shaky rendition of Holy Night.

  In the end it was decided that we wouldn’t take all the ponies anyway. Some of them were far too highly strung to try and get them to stand still whilst we sung and even attempting to put any kind of Christmas decoration on just sent them into orbit. Plus it was safer to have two girls to one pony, that way they could stand on either side and hold on for dear life if one of the quiet ones suddenly decided that they weren’t so quiet after all.

  “Don’t you think he looks handsome?” Faith asked.

  She’d been working all afternoon on getting Macaroni ready because of course he was one of the most bombproof of the group and I think Faith would have had a mini meltdown if she hadn’t been allowed to take him, especially since it was her idea. He had tinsel in his tail, glitter on his hooves and his mane was braided with red and green ribbons. He looked adorable and the look on his face was priceless. He was not amused.

  “You know he’ll probably dump you off at the show now that you’ve embarrassed him like this,” I told her.

  “He loves it really.”

  She threw her arms around Macaroni who closed his eyes and sighed like he was the longest suffering pony in the whole world. And he really was a kind of saint.

  When the other ponies were decorated and the girls had donned various Christmas outfits, we loaded up the trailer. Miss. Fontain had taken over and was now in charge, which made everyone happy, including my father because he said he’d rather stay behind and clean stalls than come and watch us make fools of ourselves. But he said it with a smile so I knew that he wasn’t really being mean. It just wasn’t his thing. It wasn’t mine either but I was trying to make an effort because I thought that doing nice things for other people might be good for my karma and maybe then I’d find a way to buy the hurricane horse after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  I’d never been to a retirement home before. I imagined that it would be sort of like a hospital with beeping machines and the scent of antiseptic and death in the air but it wasn’t like that at all. It was just like a really big house with common rooms like
a kitchen and dining area where the old folks got together and then private rooms where they had their space and some of their belongings. But luckily we didn’t have to take the ponies inside. Instead they came to us. They knew we were coming and many of them had been pushed out in wheelchairs. Others were sitting on rows of folding chairs that had been set up in a little garden where there were twinkling lights and a splashing fountain.

  “Don’t let the ponies drink out of the fountain,” I told the girls but they were too busy excitedly buzzing around to hear me.

  The ponies came out of the trailer all decked out like they were about to pull Santa’s sleigh. Some of them had reindeer antlers on and others had Christmas hats. They snorted at their surroundings, probably wondering why they weren’t at a show or a barn. Their hooves skittered and clattered on the concrete and I crossed my fingers and hoped that the girls all managed to keep hold of them because it may have been the Christmas wish of the old folks to see the ponies and watch the girls sing but it certainly wasn’t my wish to chase a runaway pony down the highway as it trailed tinsel and glitter behind it. But I didn’t have to worry. Miss. Fontain took charge and soon had the girls and their ponies lined up in front of the crowd which by now had grown to include nurses and doctors and by the looks of it the whole staff.

  We sung our carols under the light of the moon and the twinkling lights and no one seemed to care that we were almost out of tune or that one of the ponies pooped. In fact the old folks thought it was funny, even though Miss. Fontain didn’t. I wasn’t really very good at singing but standing there that night it didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was the look on the faces of the men and women who were watching us, some of them smiling, others actually crying. Our little act of Christmas cheer had meant so much to them that even I had to blink back the tears as we finished our shaky version of Holy Night and everyone clapped.