The girls left their bags by the door, and Poppy giggled as Milly showered Joe’s nose with kisses when he poked his head over the stall.
‘Do we have to make up their feeds?’ Milly asked.
‘Whoa, slow down, I’ll go through everything with you.’ Aunt Sophie walked off down the middle of the stable block, and the girls scrambled to follow.
‘The feed room is this way. Poppy can help you to start with. Each horse has their feed written up on the board, but it won’t take you long to memorise. Once you know your chaff from your barley and pellets, it all becomes very simple, but make sure you follow my instructions. Too much grain for a pony like Joe could make him hot tempered and silly, and other ponies need more to keep weight on when they’re in work and being ridden regularly.’
Aunt Sophie walked on, talking as she went.
‘Tack shed is to the right – you all saw that the other day. Please keep your tack clean as there will be weekly inspections.’
Aunt Sophie stopped and Poppy watched the other two girls look around, bewildered expressions on their faces.
Sophie laughed. ‘You two look terrified.’
Poppy had to agree. Even Milly had gone from plucky and yapping to quiet and shell-shocked. When they didn’t answer, Sophie pulled up a feed bucket that had been left outside a stall and turned it over, then indicated for them to do the same. Poppy found another bucket and dropped down on it. Casper had followed them in and sat on her feet, and Poppy kissed his head and ran her hand down his back. He responded by thumping his tail so she kept stroking his fur.
‘It probably seems like a whole lot to take in, but I really need all three of you to fend for yourselves and your horses here as much as you can.’
Poppy understood all this already. She’d had the same conversation with her aunt and uncle a couple of years back.
‘With Mark buying the local vet practice and me training for the World Dressage Champs, time and money are hard to find,’ explained Aunt Sophie, her blue eyes searching out each girl. ‘For us to make the scholarships work, and to pay off your new ponies, we go without a full-time groom here, so that means you all need to chip in and help out where you can.’
No one said anything, and silence filled the stables. Poppy knew she should speak up, but she didn’t know what to say. Had she been wrong in thinking the other two were like her? Happy to work hard in exchange for riding every day?
‘I’m pleased to work here,’ chirped up Milly, back to her usual self. ‘It’s just a lot to learn.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ added Katie.
Aunt Sophie looked at Poppy.
‘You know I’ll do anything to help,’ said Poppy.
‘Okay then, girls, let’s have a quick run-down over the chores, and then Poppy can take you up to the house to settle in.’
‘Sure thing, Mrs D,’ said Milly, saluting her like an army cadet.
That sent them all into peals of laughter, Sophie included.
‘You don’t have to call me Mrs D,’ she laughed. Poppy smiled as her aunt touched Milly’s shoulder when she stood. ‘I want you to think of me like your big sister while you’re here. “Mrs D” sounds way too formal.’
Katie laughed and said it, too. ‘Mrs D.’
Milly gave Aunt Sophie’s plait a cheeky tug when she jumped up, which made them laugh all over again.
‘It kinda suits you,’ she said, and they all nodded.
Even Poppy had to agree with Milly that it was kind of cool. ‘I think so, too.’
‘Back to chores,’ said Aunt Sophie, firmly, but she was still smiling. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through.’
They all groaned, and Poppy dragged her feet as she stood and followed the others.
‘Poppy will be in charge for the first few days, as she knows the drill,’ Aunt Sophie said as they stood around her. ‘The paddocks need to be mucked out, stalls cleaned, and there are riding school horses that need to be exercised. We have fifteen horses here to keep fit for the weekend riding lessons, although many of those are currently being used for the camp so it’s a bit easier during the holidays. But in addition to your own pony and lessons, you will have to ride at least one other mount each day, once camp is over. Other days will be spent helping out with the summer camp kids for an hour or two.’
They had all gone quiet again, but this time Aunt Sophie didn’t pause.
‘Lessons will be held every second morning, alternating between dressage, jumping and games preparation. We’ll also alternate theory and practical skills once a week.’
‘Do we get time off to eat?’
Milly’s question made Poppy giggle, but surprisingly her aunt kept a straight face.
‘If you’re good, meals will be provided.’
Katie looked worried, but Poppy jumped in.
‘I’ve been doing the chores since I was eight. They’re no big deal. And Aunt Sophie’s no monster. She hardly even checks.’
‘I don’t check because you’ve never given me reason to, Poppy,’ she reminded her sternly. ‘Yet! So, any questions?’
Katie put her hand up. ‘Are we only allowed to ride our pony every second day?’ she asked.
‘Good question. The lessons are to further develop your skills, but you girls can ride your own horses every day doing whatever you like. So long as you stay together, you can trail ride or hack out on the farm to your heart’s content.’
They all smiled.
‘Okay, class dismissed. Dinner is at seven every night, so just make sure you’re finished up and back at the house before then.’
Milly nudged Poppy and whispered, as Sophie walked away, ‘We’re heading back there tomorrow.’
Poppy felt her stomach jump as Katie leaned in.
‘Where?’
‘You both know where. We’re going to pay that Old Smithy guy a visit. I want to see what’s so scary about him.’
Poppy gulped and Katie closed her eyes.
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Poppy asked.
Milly grinned and picked up her bag. ‘Mrs D said we could trail ride every other day. Who’s even going to know?’
The girls all sat in Poppy’s bedroom, Katie cross-legged on the floor and Milly curled up on Poppy’s bed. Poppy stood with a wad of paper and a pencil in her hand, facing the other two. The room was usually spacious, but once they’d brought in the two stretchers for Milly and Katie to sleep on, there wasn’t a lot of room left to move about.
‘Okay, so who wants to go first?’ Poppy asked.
Poppy decided that Milly only ever looked enthusiastic if what they were doing was either at high speed or involved excitement. Katie, on the other hand, looked alert and interested. It was only Milly who was goofing off and staring out the window toward the stables.
‘What do we have to do again?’ Milly moaned.
Poppy glared at her.
‘For the hundredth time, Mrs D wants us to come up with three goals each,’ explained Katie, her expression serious. ‘We need them for our first lesson.’
Poppy chewed on the end of her pencil and thought hard. What did she want to accomplish this summer?
‘Okay, I’ll go first,’ Poppy volunteered.
She passed the paper and pencil to Katie for her to jot down what she said.
‘I want to be good enough to jump Crystal at a competition so I can enter the 60-centimetre show jumping class and win.’
‘Yep, that’s my first one, too,’ Milly said, putting her hand up and nodding her head.
Katie glared at her. ‘You can’t just copy ours.’
Poppy couldn’t be bothered with any arguing. She didn’t care less if Milly copied.
‘Number two,’ Poppy continued. ‘I want to learn to plait Crystal’s mane and tail properly, so I can do it myself before competitions. And third . . . Well, I can’t think of a third yet.’
Poppy took back the pencil and paper, ready to write down Katie’s list.
‘Okay, my turn,’ Katie said. ‘F
irst, I want to learn to ride dressage properly.’
Milly groaned, so Poppy leaned across the bed and thumped her. She liked that Katie was into dressage. It was the hardest thing of all to do, and Aunt Sophie would love teaching her. Nothing could be more difficult than getting a horse to calmly obey commands in an arena, head on the bit, not to mention how difficult it would be to commit a dressage test to memory. Poppy had a hard time even remembering which letter was where around the dressage arena.
‘Then I would like to learn how to ride a cross-country course correctly, at the right pace. And lastly, I want to win the 60-centimetre show jumping at the gymkhana. Sorry, Poppy.’
Poppy just waved her hand. ‘I don’t mind if you win, I just want to get around it without falling off or knocking a rail!’
Poppy turned to look at Milly then, and she saw Katie do the same.
‘What?’ Milly asked.
‘Your turn,’ said Poppy, pencil poised.
‘Okay, let me think . . .’
Poppy was just about to tease her about having nothing to say when the house phone rang. It was still on her bed from when she’d spoken to her mum, and its shrill noise made them all jump before Poppy picked it up.
‘Hello, Poppy speaking.’
The voice on the other end belonged to a stranger. She’d thought for a second it might have been her mum calling back for some reason.
Poppy shrugged at Milly and Katie, and walked downstairs. ‘Uncle Mark, it’s for you,’ she said, passing the phone over.
Aunt Sophie looked up from her book and smiled as Poppy headed back to her room, but something made her stop on the stairs once she was out of view. Milly and Katie had walked out of the bedroom and were hanging over the banister of the stairs, chatting and looking down at her. Poppy planted her finger to her lips to get them to be quiet, realising something was going on by the tone of her uncle’s voice. She tiptoed back down to the bottom step so she could listen, straining to hear what Uncle Mark was saying.
‘Stolen? I can’t believe it!’
There was silence. Poppy’s heart was racing, but her body was frozen as she waited to hear more.
‘Five coloured horses?’
Uncle Mark’s voice was agitated, and when Poppy crept forward to look into the living room, she saw Aunt Sophie drop her book and start pacing the room.
‘Yes, all right, we’ll take all the necessary precautions,’ Poppy overheard. ‘If you need any assistance at all, please do call.’
Poppy bolted back up the stairs, eyes bulging.
‘Stolen horses!’ exclaimed Milly.
They all looked at one another. Milly and Katie looked as stunned as Poppy felt.
‘Do you think our ponies will be okay?’ asked Katie.
Poppy didn’t answer. The only thing worse than not having a horse would be having one stolen.
‘What does he mean by coloured?’ asked Milly.
‘You know, like pintos – brown and white,’ said Poppy.
Footsteps alerted them to someone coming.
Poppy pointed toward the bedroom and they ran back in. Once there, they lay on their beds, doing their best to recap on goal setting so that anyone listening from outside would think they’d been there the whole time, and not eavesdropping from the stairs. Poppy jumped on her bed and the other two sat down on their stretchers.
A soft knock sounded on the door, and Sophie’s blonde head peeped around it.
‘Girls, there’s something I need to talk to you about,’ she said as she walked into the room and sat down on the bed next to Poppy.
The front door slammed and they heard heavy footfalls outside, walking across the gravel driveway.
Poppy, Milly and Katie all waited, eyes on Aunt Sophie.
‘We just had a phone call from the police. It appears that there is a horse thief operating in the area.’
Katie looked terrified, but Poppy stayed calm.
‘What do you mean?’ Poppy asked, pretending like she hadn’t heard any of the conversation downstairs.
‘A number of horses from Brackenridge Stud have been taken. All the police have at this stage are some tyre tracks and a whole heap of hoof prints, but that doesn’t give them any helpful clues.’
‘Will our ponies be safe?’ asked Milly.
Aunt Sophie sighed, her shoulders low.
‘Mark is out now, padlocking the gates to both the main entrance and the working driveway that the tractors use. The stable block should be safe as it’s so close to the house and we’d surely hear any activity.’
Poppy dug her nails into her palm as she listened. Her aunt’s words were doing little to reassure her.
‘Mark will move all the non-stabled horses into the paddocks close to the house, so we can keep an eye on them, too, and Casper will spend the night in the stables as guard dog.’
Poppy was even more worried about Casper than she was about the horses. What if someone stole him? Her aunt and uncle’s dog was almost as special to her as the horses!
‘Will Casper be okay?’ A shiver ran down Poppy’s spine. ‘Can’t he stay in the house?’
‘Poppy, he’ll be absolutely fine. He’ll be warm in there, and if anyone even gets close to the stable, his bark will wake us up. We wouldn’t put him in the stables if we thought he wasn’t safe.’
Sophie slung her arm around Poppy and gave her a squeeze, her eyes warm as she looked at each girl in turn.
‘Safety has never been a problem here at Starlight, but I need all you girls to be extra careful now. No riding off the property alone, always stick together and keep your eyes open. If this thief thinks he’s got away with it once, he might just try it again. But you don’t have to be fearful. Just careful.’
With a sigh, Aunt Sophie rose and left the room.
Poppy was still taking in everything Sophie had just said when Milly leapt from her bed onto Poppy’s.
‘You know what this means?’ she asked excitedly.
‘Uh-oh,’ groaned Poppy.
‘Tomorrow, we’re going to look for them. And we’re starting at that creepy guy’s farm.’
‘What?’ Poppy didn’t know what she was more scared of; her pony being stolen or snooping around somewhere they shouldn’t be.
‘You saw the hoof marks. It could easily be the stolen horses,’ said Milly.
‘There could be lots of reasons for those hoof prints,’ argued Katie. ‘There must be heaps of horses all around here.’
‘She’s right. There are other riders who use the trails through the forest,’ agreed Poppy. ‘Riders on the other farms, and–’
‘Yeah, but you said that no one’s allowed to ride on Old Smithy’s land,’ Milly interrupted. ‘Come on, Pops. There are some stolen horses, a weird guy over the fence, hoof prints going onto his land, and you’re not even a bit suspicious?’
Milly made a good point, and Poppy couldn’t help but agree with her. She was suspicious, but weren’t they better leaving this up to the police?
‘I think we should just wait and see,’ she said.
Katie nodded. Milly didn’t.
‘This is our chance to save them!’ Milly said, flinging her arms out dramatically. ‘Come on, just one look over there. One look.’
Poppy sighed and looked at Katie. She couldn’t help but smile as Milly glared at them both.
‘Okay, fine, but just one look, one time.’
Katie flopped face down into her pillow.
‘Great,’ said Milly, beaming from ear to ear. ‘We’re going to find those horses, I just know it. And if they’re not there, then we’ll just have to keep looking.’
What are we getting ourselves into, Poppy wondered. And how on earth was she going to stop Milly from doing anything stupid?
Poppy knew they were up to no good. She’d never disobeyed her aunt before, and she couldn’t stop the worrying thoughts from running through her mind as she got Crystal ready for their ride. She was also nervous about the horse thief, who could be lurking anywhe
re, waiting to steal their ponies.
‘You girls have fun,’ called Aunt Sophie as she rode Jupiter out from the stable block. ‘And if you go on a trail ride, make sure you take a phone, okay?’
They all nodded and waved and went back to their ponies. Milly already had her saddle on Joe, but Poppy had only just finished grooming Crystal, and Katie was still brushing Cody.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ Milly stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for them to answer. Today, her dark brown hair was divided into two plaits, and one was hanging over each shoulder.
Poppy and Katie gave one another the ‘uh-oh’ look. Even though they hadn’t known each other for long, it was clear that Milly was trouble. With a capital ‘T’.
‘We’re off on a trail ride, back by lunch?’ Poppy tried.
Milly faked a yawn before turning her attention back to Joe.
Katie walked toward the tack room, and Poppy followed, needing to get her saddle and bridle. When she caught up with her new friend, Poppy saw that Katie looked as worried about their ride as she was.
‘Are you okay about this?’ Poppy hissed.
‘Not really,’ said Katie, glancing over her shoulder. ‘Don’t you think we should tell Mrs D what we’re up to? I don’t want to be sent home if they find out.’
Poppy shook her head. ‘No way. She’s always told me not to go near the place, so we can’t tell her.’
‘What other option do we have?’ Katie said.
‘Hu-hmmm!’
Poppy turned around and found Milly leaning in the doorframe. She looked mad as she stood twirling one of her plaits around her finger.
‘Come on, guys,’ she said. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure? We can go explore, have some fun and be back before anyone knows where we’ve been.’
The last thing Poppy wanted was to be the spoilsport, but she hated getting into trouble. What if Sophie did catch them? Would she send them all home? And how would her mum cope if Aunt Sophie had to phone and tell her . . .?
‘You’re not scared, Poppy, are you?’ Milly said.
Poppy straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. Scared? No, she was not. She didn’t want to get into trouble but she wasn’t scared.
Pony Detectives Page 4