by K. M. Peyton
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
About the Author
Also by K.M. Peyton
Copyright
About the Book
‘THERE ARE VERY FEW BORN STORY-TELLERS. K.M. PEYTON IS ONE OF THEM’ The Times
Kathleen M Peyton is a top-selling author of more than thirty novels, the best-known of which is FLAMBARDS which, with its sequels, was made into a TV serial. She lives in Essex with her husband.
To Hannah
CHAPTER ONE
GOING HOME FROM school, the path led out of Safeway’s car park and across a wide stretch of rough ground towards the railway. It was spring and the ground was greening happily, bright with dandelions and —
‘Hey, look!’
Ros stopped in her tracks and Leo, trailing, walked into the back of her.
‘What?’
‘Look!’ Her voice quivered with glory. ‘Look!’ It squeaked, out of control.
Leo looked. Usually the field was empty, except perhaps for an old man walking his dog, but today a pony was grazing in it, held by a chain fastened to a tether. It was, even Leo could see, a very spectacular pony. It was black and white, a circus pony, very round and strong-looking. When it saw them staring, it lifted its head and surveyed them with a bold look from beneath a long, thick forelock. It took several paces towards them, as far as its tether would allow, and let out a soft knuckering sound of friendliness. At least, it sounded like friendliness.
‘Isn’t he gorgeous!’
Ros stood rooted in admiration. She was potty about ponies, Leo knew, just as he was potty about frogs. But the pony was, indeed, gorgeous. Although standing still, he seemed to exude vitality. His eyes shone. His coat shone. His round hooves, planted squarely, gleamed as if they had been rubbed with polish. His black bits shone like coal and his white bits like silver.
Ros was enchanted. She was nine, a tough, amiable girl whom the shy Leo was glad to have as a friend (and protector). He was happy to go along where she led and, if she thought the pony amazing, so would he.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Let’s talk to him.’
Ros approached, holding out her hand.
‘I wish I had an apple or something.’
Leo kept well behind.
The pony made his knuckering noise again and reached out to Ros. She went up close and the pony pushed at her arm quite strongly, and wobbled his lips at her hand. But the chain stopped him, fastened to a collar round his neck. Ros stroked his nose, a bit nervously at first, then more confidently. Leo kept out of range. The grass all round the pony was trampled down, as if he had walked about a lot. The trampling made a perfect circle round the tether pin.
‘Isn’t he beautiful!’ Ros glowed with joy, as if he were hers. ‘Isn’t he marvellous? Where’s he come from? Whose is he?’
‘He wasn’t here this morning,’ Leo said, not very cleverly.
The pony shoved and rubbed at Ros, but didn’t bite. He was strong and pushy, but kind (like Ros, Leo thought. They were a good match).
‘He needs moving,’ Ros said. ‘He’s squashed all his grass.’
‘His owner will come and do it,’ Leo said.
‘Yes. I’m going to come back after tea and bring him an apple, and perhaps his owner will be here then. We can find out what his name is.’
‘What would you call him, if he was yours?’
They walked on home, considering this question.
‘You could call him Jigsaw. Or Jester.’
Leo thought of his nature book, and the picture of a black face with a white stripe, like the pony’s.
‘I would call him Badger.’
Ros wished she’d thought of this.
‘Yes, that suits him.’
‘Shall we call him Badger then?’ Leo asked, pleased.
‘Yes. We’ll call him Badger.’ Ros was a bit cross because she hadn’t thought of it herself. But it was too good to turn down.
‘Are you coming back later?’
‘No, I’ve got a music lesson.’
‘Ugh!’ Ros made a disgusted but sympathetic noise. Leo was forced by his parents to do uplifting things, more than she was.
They crossed the railway by the footbridge. It had high metal fences on either side at the top so you couldn’t lean over and drop things on the trains. At the far side they had to cross a busy dual-carriageway road that ran alongside the railway. They had been well-trained to walk down to the automatic crossing, press the button and wait until the light turned green for them, and stopped the cars.
They had been doing the journey on their own for two years, since they were seven. Their mothers had taken a lot of trouble to train them to be very careful about the railway and the dual-carriageway, but once across those, they needn’t bother any more, because they only had to cross another field, with cows in, and go into their back gardens by gates their fathers had built in the fence. They lived three houses apart, their houses being in a higgledy-piggledy row of six old cottages, once lived in by railway workers and farm labourers. Now the cottages had been made rather smart, and had had garages built in their gardens.
‘What time are you going to see Badger?’ Leo asked, trying out the new name. He stood with his hand on his garden gate.
‘Six o’clock.’
‘That’s the time I have my lesson.’
‘Bad luck,’ said Ros, not unkindly.
But she wasn’t sorry she would be going on her own. Leo didn’t feel the same as she did about Badger, she knew that. To her, Badger was a fantastic bonus in her unexciting life: she had him to look forward to every day, with any luck, and she could get to know him, and he her, and feed him apples and be his friend. She couldn’t have riding lessons because her parents said they couldn’t afford it. Ros didn’t whine or argue because, with her parents, it never made any difference. Instead, she had imaginary ponies, written down in a book, with names, and she collected pictures of racehorses for her own imaginary string. She went to horse shows, and pretended all the winners were hers, really – she just let other people ride them. She pretended it all. It was hard work. But now, suddenly, there was real Badger.
Perhaps whoever owned him wanted a rider for him . . . perhaps a kind old man had bought him who was looking for a little girl to exercise him . . . Ros’s imagination started work again. She saw herself, crash hat over eyes, galloping over the fields on Badger. She had never actually sat on a pony, but in her imagination she could ride like the blonde and smiling British heroines of the Olympic games.
‘Hey, Mum, what do you think?’
She crashed into the kitchen and poured it all out.
‘How do you know it’s called Badger?’ her mother asked.
‘I – we – called it Badger!’
‘Oh. Very nice.’
Her mother was a strict but homely woman called Dora, once a farmer’s daughter. She worked now as a part-time secretary at the local secondary school, and was usually home well before Ros. She regretted not being able to afford a pony for Ros, but she liked animals, and they had two cats, a dog called Erm, some rabbits, and Leo’s wretched frogs in the garden pond. Leo’s mother, Mrs Cross (she was rather suitably named), had refused to let Leo dig a pond in his garden, so he had dug one in theirs instead. Ros’s father Harry had helped him line it with a plastic sheet and fill the bottom with earth and gravel and plant it with frog-cover: water-lilies and reeds from the garden centre. From frogspawn there had been tadpoles, and now frogs . . . it h
ad all been a great success. Leo spent hours in their garden. The cats, having caught a few small frogs at first, now ignored them. They didn’t like the taste. Harry had to be very careful when he mowed the lawn. Leo went ahead of him, anxiously looking.
‘I’m going to take him an apple after tea.’
‘Take a carrot. Apples cost too much.’
Her mother found her two large ones, and cut them up and put them in a bag. She showed her how to offer food to ponies, with the palm held uppermost, the titbit lying in the middle.
‘He doesn’t bite. He’s very friendly.’ Ros knew about palm uppermost anyway. Grownups were always telling you things you already knew.
‘Your father’s going to be late. You needn’t wait for him. I’ll do your tea now.’
Dora Palfrey understood about things, which was more than Leo’s mother usually did. (Ros liked her surname being Palfrey. It was an old-fashioned word for a riding-horse, the sort medieval ladies had ridden on, draperies trailing. She liked her name actually meaning ‘horse’. It was a great privilege.)
Mrs Palfrey did Ros her favourite fish fingers and chips, and Ros changed into jeans and anorak and set off back to see Badger, the carrots stuffed in her anorak pockets. It was a fine evening with a strong smell of spring and the blackbirds singing in the hedges. Ros felt very cheerful, having discovered a pony that was almost her own, so close and friendly. But when she came over the railway bridge she saw that the pony was no longer alone, and she stopped, deeply disappointed.
There was a family with him: a dad, a mum and four children. They were all rather noisy and excited. The mum was trying to calm them down and the dad was putting a saddle on Badger. Badger was circling restlessly and a girl of about eleven was hanging on to his head, shouting at the others to keep out of the way. As a family, they seemed to use a lot of swear words, although they were laughing a lot too.
Ros went nearer. It was public ground, after all. She stood on the path, her hand closed round the carrots in her pocket.
The girl was the eldest. She was very active and tough, and had a mass of thick wiry hair that looked like a pot-scrubber on her head. She squashed a riding hat over it and hooked up the harness. Her father bunked her up into the saddle.
‘Hold on now, Fi!’
Badger was barging about in great excitement, pawing the ground and snatching at his bit. He looked nothing like a child’s ‘first pony’. But Fi’s dad was laughing, and let go without seeming to have any doubts, although mum looked a bit worried. Badger plunged away and came straight towards where Ros was standing, at a very fast trot. He lifted his knees high and held his head up and snorted as he went, looking very flashy and strong.
Fi was hauling on the reins to steady him, but did not seem frightened. She saw Ros standing there and shouted, ‘Watch out!’ in a very imperious, bossy voice, but Ros did not move. She had as much right there as Fi, and Badger liked her, she knew. She wasn’t frightened. Fi shouted something rude to her and steered Badger past. His eyes were shining with half-excitement, half-fear, Ros thought. He looked barely under control. But Fi was strong too, and not afraid.
‘Ride ’im, Fi!’ her father shouted. ‘You show the little devil!’
The girl and the pony seemed well-matched. They were both fit and strong and bossy, and Fi circled and cantered and even galloped, and her family stood watching and applauding and shouting rude remarks. It was all very jolly. When Fi had got Badger tired, all the other children had a go, even the little one, with Dad running beside and crying out, ‘Of course you can trot – there’s nothing to it! Up down! Up down! Hold on, you little so-and-so!’
Ros stood there until it was nearly dark.
When they had finished, they put Badger back on his tether again and brought him a bucket of water from the car. Then, trailing the saddle and bridle, they all piled into a large car on the edge of the car park and drove away.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN THEY HAD gone, Ros went across to Badger. This time he looked at her rather nervously, not in his friendly, eager way of the first time. Ros rather got the message – ‘Oh, not again!’
‘It’s me, Badger. I’ve brought you some carrots.’
Although his owners had moved his tether peg, the grass was still rather trampled. The whole field looked rather trampled. And Badger had already drunk nearly all of the bucket of water they had left him. The pony’s coat was curly with sweat, and hot and damp under Ros’s hand. But the air had gone cool and sharp with the onset of dusk.
‘I can’t stay, Mum’ll be furious,’ Ros told him. She wanted to. She didn’t think Badger was happy. He was all stirred up with the fast riding, and moved about restlessly, pulled up sharp all the time by the tether. Ros talked to him softly, and she thought her presence soothed him. When she left him, he walked after her to the end of the chain, and stood and watched until she was out of sight. He whinnied after her once. She heard the whinny in her head all the way home.
‘I was just about to send out a search party!’ her mother said crossly (but not too crossly). ‘You can’t have been talking to a pony all that time?’
Ros explained.
It was hard to say exactly why, but she felt cast down by her evening. She didn’t like Fi very much, and Badger belonged to Fi. She tried to tell her mother this.
‘Well, they wouldn’t buy a pony if they didn’t want him, which means they must like ponies, doesn’t it?’
‘I suppose so.’
But her father Harry said, ‘Funny place to keep one, all the same. They’re not gypsies, from the sound of them.’
‘Well, that ground was part of a common, once. Before Safeway’s. It was all common land, before the railway and the arterial. I think they’ve got right on their side.’
‘Could get stolen.’
‘You’d have to take him through the town to get away! Out through the car park. I can’t see anyone risking that.’
‘I suppose not.’
When Ros was in bed, she lay thinking about Badger. In the morning she was off early for school, with more carrots in her bag. Leo wasn’t ready, and she wouldn’t wait.
Badger was standing with his head down, dozing, not looking as smart as the day before. His coat was curled and stiff with dried sweat. His water bucket was empty and kicked aside. But he was very pleased with the carrots and snuffled at Ros in his friendly way. Ros was longing to spend the day with him, take him for a walk to find some nice grass, and groom his lovely coat back to its sleek shine. But she knew Fi or Fi’s dad would come soon and see to him, move his tether peg and bring him some water.
But when she came home from school in the afternoon, no one had been. His kicked bucket lay where it had been in the morning, he was ungroomed and unmoved. He whinnied to her when he saw her, quite anxiously, she thought.
Ros went up and stroked and patted him, but she had given him all the carrots in the morning.
‘I’ll bring two lots tomorrow,’ she said to him. ‘And I’ll come back tonight.’
Fi and her dad must come soon, she thought, to look after him. He had no grass, only a beaten-down mud-patch. She was worried about him, and started to dream that Fi and her dad never came back, and looking after Badger fell to her and after a bit he became hers . . .
She told her mother about it all and her mother said, ‘He must be terribly thirsty by now. They’re bound to be back to see to him.’
‘Can I go?’
‘Yes. Look, I bought more carrots on the way home. But you mustn’t be so late tonight. You’ve got your homework to do.’
Ros gobbled her tea and ran.
When she got back to Badger the family were just arriving, this time just Dad and Fi and two of the small children, no mum. Dad pulled a five-gallon water-container out of his car boot and filled Badger’s bucket, and Badger drank the whole bucketful in one go.
‘You thirsty little blighter!’ Dad exclaimed. ‘You’ve drunk the lot!’
He sounded most surprised. But
without more ado he put the saddle and bridle on and bunked Fi up on Badger’s back. Once more Fi trotted and cantered round and round the field until Badger was covered with sweat, then dad propped a pole up on a couple of oil cans and Fi jumped backwards and forwards over it, with much applause from her brothers and encouragement from dad. Badger was a very good jumper, Ros noted, but he got very excited and started to pull hard at Fi’s strong hands. Fi had obviously done plenty of riding and was in no danger of falling off, but she was a very hard and unsympathetic rider and, when Badger started to pull, she sat back and heaved on the reins. Badger pulled back and started to gallop. Fi steered him in a circle, hauling viciously on the inside rein, and eventually Badger came to a halt.
‘The little beggar!’ Dad shouted. ‘I thought he was supposed to be well-mannered!’
‘He’s terribly strong!’ Fi said, looking slightly anxious.
‘Yeah, too strong. If we give him less food he’ll quieten down I reckon. We’ll teach him, eh?’
So Dad did not move Badger’s tether peg, leaving the pony without any grass at all, nor did he refill the empty bucket, whether because he thought one bucket a day was enough, or whether to teach the pony a lesson Ros could not tell.
When they had gone, Ros stood miserably feeding Badger his carrots. She was now far more than anxious, in fact slightly desperate.
‘I shall move you, dear Badger. You can’t go all night without any grass!’
It was a terrible struggle getting the tether pin out. While she was trying, the old man who walked his dog came by. He lived in one of the houses that backed on to the waste ground at the far end, and Ros had always said hello to him. His name was Albert. He was a gloomy sort of man but his dog was nice and got lots of walks, Albert not having much to do all day and used to an outdoor life.
‘Watcha up to then?’
Ros told him, and he helped her. They took the peg to some new grass, not too far, in case Dad noticed. Ros didn’t think he would.
‘Funny way to keep a pony,’ Albert said.
‘They’ve left him without water!’