by Amy Brown
Jade’s eyes widened. ‘Yes, please!’
‘A week isn’t long enough to get Taniwha endurance-fit. But I’d like to teach you a bit about racing, so that when your pony is ready you’ll know what to do. Basil, here, can be your schoolmaster. So give him a good groom, and, when he’s done, get Blackadder and Jeeves spruced up. We have a German couple riding with us this afternoon.’
Grooming three 15.2-hand horses in a row on a hot late morning is no easy feat, but the pleasure at having been asked to ride one of Flora’s own horses kept Jade going. By the time she had polished the last of Jeeves’s white hooves, Nellie had finished the beginners’ lesson and needed help untacking the ponies and returning them to their paddock. It was a relief to sit down at the kitchen table, albeit for only ten minutes, and gobble down a piece of delicious cold quiche before greeting the afternoon riders.
‘Guten tag, Willkommen auf Samudra,’ Nellie said to the young couple. It wasn’t her German so much as her polite tone that surprised Jade.
‘Danke! Sprechen sie Deutsch?’ The young man was tall, with thick, dark hair and blue eyes. Seeing Nellie’s uncertainty and assuming, correctly, that she had exhausted nearly all of her German vocabulary, he continued, ‘My name is Daniel, and my girlfriend is Caroline. She is the rider. I am the English-speaker.’
Caroline, a striking brunette with very long legs clad in plaid jodhpurs, was looking at the horses in the yard, sizing them up. None of the horses was quite big enough for the tall couple.
‘Would you like a cold drink before the trek, or are you ready to meet the horses?’
Daniel patted the small pack on his back. ‘We have prepared a bottle of water. Which horse will be for Caroline? She wants to know.’
‘Blackadder, Blackie for short. Come and meet him.’
The Germans followed Nellie over to the handsome black gelding with a white stripe down his nose. ‘Ein sehr gutes Pferd,’ Nellie said slowly to Caroline, who burst out laughing.
‘Sank you,’ she replied unsurely.
When Blackadder was saddled, Caroline mounted elegantly and walked him in a circle around the yard. Daniel was helped onto the back of Jeeves, a reliable bay. Caroline turned to her boyfriend and spoke to him in German. She seemed to be instructing Daniel, because, as she spoke, his position in the saddle improved.
‘Use longer reins,’ Nellie tried to tell Caroline. It was an instruction that nearly all new riders at Samudra had to be told; Flora trained her horses to have very sensitive mouths.
‘Show her, Jade,’ Nellie said. Jade, who was now on Basil’s back (noticeably higher up than Taniwha’s), called out Caroline’s name. She felt embarrassed, correcting this German woman who was clearly a very good rider. Shortening her reins so that they resembled Caroline’s, Jade shook her head and frowned. Now lengthening them to the point at which she was almost holding the buckle, she nodded and smiled.
Caroline’s eyebrows rose, but she followed the instruction. Instantly, Blackadder’s ears relaxed and he stopped flicking his nose in the air.
When everyone was mounted — Nellie on Precious, Andy on Piper, and Flora on Poppet — the horses took the track down to the beach in single file.
Flora had given Andy a saddlebag of flyers to hand out to anyone who smiled as the horses went by. As soon as they passed Casey’s container, it became apparent that the girls wouldn’t be able to hand out the flyers and keep up with the others: the beach that had been empty only days before was now dotted with sun umbrellas, towels, cricket games and sandcastles. Jade stroked Basil’s spotty neck and was grateful for his calmness. Taniwha would probably have been a nuisance, faced with so many frightening new obstacles.
‘We’ll take the rock pool route, Andy. Catch up once the flyers are gone, or, if you feel like you’re too far behind, just go on your own ride. I want Jade to get used to Basil, which might be a challenge if you’re spending most of the time halted on the beach talking to strangers.’ Waving goodbye, they negotiated a pathway through the holidaymakers, Flora in the lead, Nellie at the back and the Germans in the middle.
‘Can I have a ride?’ A little girl in pink and black togs, carrying a plastic spade, ran up to Andy. Piper, nervy at the best of times, sidestepped. Jade moved Basil next to the nervous pony to provide moral support.
‘Not today. These horses are a bit big for you,’ Andy said. ‘But we’ll be giving pony rides here tomorrow.’
‘Mum!’ the child hollered. ‘Look at the horses!’
A woman lying on a towel removed an open book which was resting on her face and blinked as if she had just woken.
‘Don’t scare the horses, Audrey.’
‘I’m not!’
‘Speak in a quieter voice.’
‘But we’re outside.’ The child had a point. ‘Mum, can I have a pony ride tomorrow?’
‘Okay.’
‘They’re free,’ Andy said, fumbling for a flyer in her saddlebag. As she opened the buckle and pulled out one sheet of paper, a gust of sea breeze snatched the other sheets and threw them across the beach. Both horses shied at the surprise.
‘Careful, Audrey!’ The mother grabbed her child’s arm and pulled her back to the safety of the towel.
‘I’m sorry,’ Andy said — Piper had kicked over Audrey’s sandcastle.
‘I don’t think you should be offering pony rides to children on dangerous horses like these,’ the mother said.
‘They’re not dangerous. They were just scared of the paper,’ Jade tried to reason.
‘And besides, we’ll be using smaller, older ponies for the rides,’ Andy explained.
‘What’s this anyway?’ Audrey’s mother asked, picking up one of the pieces of paper — the rest were still blowing along the beach.
‘It’s a flyer to raise awareness,’ Andy said. Jade thought she sounded quite grown up. ‘Samudra Riding School, an Ocean Bay institution, is under threat.’ Again, Jade was impressed by Andy’s spiel.
Basil ruined the effect of the speech, however, by choosing this inopportune moment to raise his tail and deposit a pile of droppings right next to the ruined sandcastle.
‘Yuck!’ Little Audrey squealed with delight and horror.
‘Girls, it’s a shame about the land being sold, but I don’t know if this is the way to — how did you put it? — “raise awareness”.’ Audrey’s mother was right: so far, the horses were gaining more hostile looks than smiles.
‘You two!’ An icy voice shouted behind the horses. Jade turned and saw a bronzed figure in sunglasses, a black bikini and leopard-print sarong striding towards them. The woman’s platinum-blonde hair was perfectly arranged — it had clearly not been in the sea that day.
‘Kim Bandt,’ Andy whispered, mortified.
‘What’s with littering the beach?’ Now standing only a safe distance from Basil’s manure, Jade could see Kim Bandt’s angry, lipsticked mouth and implausibly white teeth.
‘Well? Are you trying to wreck everyone’s relaxing holidays? Is the idea to pollute the habitat of seventeen species of sea bird by scattering paper down the beach?’
‘We just wanted to tell everyone about the riding school,’ Andy said, as firmly as she could. ‘About how you’ve evicted my Aunt Flora.’
‘This isn’t the way to win friends and influence people.’ Kim Bandt picked up one of the flyers and tore it in half. ‘You’re only little kids, but your Aunt Flora ought to know better.’
‘My Aunt Flora knows far more than you about Ocean Bay!’ Andy yelled. ‘She actually cares about the beach, not about making money. If you get your way, you’ll ruin this for everyone. It will become over-populated and pollution will really be a problem. I accidentally dropped some paper — that’s nothing compared with what a huge subdivision will do to the ecosystem.’ Although her voice was creeping steadily higher and becoming shrill, Andy’s words were impressive — to Jade at least.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, little girl,’ Kim replied. ‘Take your pon
ies home, while they still have one, and let everyone else enjoy the beach.’ Turning on her espadrille, Kim Bandt adjusted her sarong and stalked off.
Audrey’s mother, who had been watching quietly from under her sun umbrella, folded her flyer in half and used it as a bookmark.
‘What time are the pony rides starting tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘Audrey and I will be here with bells on.’
Andy grinned at Jade. Their efforts hadn’t been in vain.
Little Audrey was back for pony rides every morning until Christmas Eve. Each day she would bring another friend from a neighbouring bach. Jade and Andy, who had been put in charge of the pony rides, had painted a placard saying A Pony Ride if You Sign the Petition. Audrey, a precocious five-year-old, took this deal seriously, and asked if she could ride Dumpling all morning if she found ten adults to sign their name in favour of Samudra.
Jade, who alternated between finding Audrey charming and irritating, suggested that poor old Dumpling would get tired if he had to walk up and down the beach all day. ‘I don’t mind a different pony,’ fickle Audrey replied.
The rotation of ‘petition ponies’ was putting a strain on the riding school’s regular business, so Pip’s addition to Flora’s herd had proved very useful. She was happy to work as a ‘petition pony’ for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, provided that a good portion of the rides she gave involved a walk in the sea. The young riders enjoyed hearing their ponies’ hooves splashing through the shallows, and in the summer heat Jade didn’t mind getting a bit wet herself.
Some of the riders weren’t as enchanted with the ponies as young Audrey was, though. In fact, there was one case of a young mother who had always wanted to ride, eagerly signing the petition while her four-year-old son’s bottom lip began trembling. At the suggestion of being hoisted into Pip’s rather high but inviting saddle, the child started howling.
‘What if I rode with you, Harry?’ the young mother coaxed. ‘I’d hold you tight; nothing would go wrong.’ The idea of his mother on a horse seemed even more upsetting to the tow-haired boy. A sensible grandmother, waiting in line with her granddaughter, offered to look after wee Harry while his mother had a ride herself.
‘It’s just for children, though, isn’t it?’ the mother asked, suddenly embarrassed.
‘Pip’s big enough for you,’ Jade said, wondering if the mother was much older than Nellie. ‘And the rides are for anyone who signs the petition.’
Not needing to be told twice, the young mother kissed Harry’s red, tearful face and giggled as Andy legged her up into Pip’s saddle.
‘Is Pip your pony?’ she asked, grinning as Jade led her towards the sea.
‘She used to be, until recently. Flora, the lady who runs Samudra Riding School, has offered to give her a good home.’ Enjoying the mother’s enthusiasm for Pip, Jade rabbitted on about the old pony for some time, before realizing that she had walked quite a long way past the limit she and Andy had decided on.
When they got back to the queue of prospective riders, the young mother thanked Jade and Andy profusely.
‘See, it’s safe, Harry. Mummy is fine on the horsey’s back. You don’t want a little sit in the saddle?’
Harry, who had overcome his bout of sobbing, solemnly shook his head. He was pleased to see his mother back safely, but would have no part in equestrian activities himself.
‘It’s so good, what you’re doing,’ Harry’s mother enthused again, once her feet were back on the sand. ‘How many people have signed so far?’
‘A hundred and twenty-six,’ said Jade at the same time as Andy said ‘A hundred and twenty-eight.’ They stopped and laughed.
‘Quite a lot, anyway,’ Andy said.
When they stopped at four o’clock on Christmas Eve, they had 203 signatures on their petition.
‘That means you each must have walked up and down that stretch of beach at least a hundred times,’ Flora said. ‘Thank you so much!’ She stopped rubbing butter into sugar for the Christmas shortbread, rinsed her hands and gave the girls an uncharacteristic hug. ‘And, Nellie, I haven’t forgotten that you’ve been doing more than your share around the school while we’ve been distracted by this little problem.’
‘Don’t even think about it!’ Nellie dodged out of the way. ‘You know I’m not a huggy person.’
‘Fine; neither am I. But I do want you to know how grateful I am. At least tomorrow we’ll all get a break.’
‘Not from the feeds,’ Nellie sighed. ‘There’s never a day off when you’re looking after animals.’
‘Someone’s full of Christmas spirit,’ Flora said, rolling her eyes. ‘Lighten up, Nell. And go and yell to Casey that dinner will be ready in half an hour.’
When Casey came to the kitchen, he seemed agitated. Without saying hello to anyone, he sat at the table and started cutting up the newspaper with the scissors Flora had been using for the baking paper.
‘Is everything all right?’ Flora asked. ‘Don’t tell me you’re in a bad mood, too. It’s Christmas!’
‘That’s right! What kind of people harass someone during the festive season? It’s the birth of Jesus tomorrow and they want me to just pack up and leave.’
‘What? Who?’ Flora stopped stirring the bowl of mixture.
‘The council!’ Casey snapped. ‘Gone and taped a warning to my container. They want me gone by the 28th.’
‘They can’t do that!’ Nellie took the opportunity to focus her bad mood on a real cause. ‘That’s no warning at all.’
Flora looked serious. Jade and Andy, not wanting to be snapped at, sat quietly, watching. Jade was suddenly starving, and could hear her own stomach rumbling during the awkward pauses. But it wasn’t the time to ask if the shortbread would be ready soon.
‘They shouldn’t — it’s a nasty thing to do — but they can, can’t they, Case?’
‘Why?’ Nellie was fuming.
‘The container isn’t actually on my land. It sits on a sort of no-man’s-land between the beach and the paddocks, which technically would belong to the council. They’ve been “overlooking” it for years because no one has complained and Casey hasn’t been doing any harm.’
‘Until now. Now I’m in that madam’s way and she’s not having any of it.’ Casey wasn’t just angry, he seemed defeated.
‘Well, neither are we,’ Nellie said. ‘We’ll fight back. What’s the urgency of the 28th, anyway?’
‘Yes, I wondered about that, too,’ Flora said, taking off her glasses and cleaning them on her apron. ‘It’s all a bit of a worry, really.’
Flora tried to call the council to ask what was planned for 28 December, but of course nobody answered, it being early evening on Christmas Eve.
‘I hate this uncertainty,’ she said, dishing up a simple dinner of Caesar salad. ‘Why can’t I just enjoy my horses, my business and my Christmas cooking? I have to feed,’ she paused, counting on her fingers, ‘eleven people tomorrow.’
‘And twenty-three horses,’ Nellie said, her mouth full of lettuce and bacon.
‘That’s right. Kim Bandt’s timing is barbaric. Why couldn’t she have waited until the New Year, at least?’
‘Because then you wouldn’t be so off-guard — so busy with the riding school high season, endurance and the holidays,’ Nellie said bitterly.
Refusing to let the impending eviction ruin Christmas, Flora put on her favourite Christmas album, poured the adults a glass of port, and gave everyone a culinary job. While Casey scrubbed potatoes and Nellie separated eggs for the pavlova, Jade and Andy hulled strawberries.
At quarter to eight, the phone rang. It was Jade’s dad, confirming directions to the beach.
‘So how has it been? Is Aunt Flora working you hard?’
Jade raved about the idyllic week she had spent working there so far. ‘But, Dad,’ she said, having told him that Pip had found the best possible retirement home, ‘Samudra is getting closed down. Flora and her horses have been evicted from the land.’
> Explaining as much as she could remember about the letters, the warnings, Kim Bandt and the petitions, Jade was surprised at her dad’s genuine interest.
‘Poor Flora must be beside herself. Are you sure she doesn’t mind you staying? Doesn’t mind us visiting for Christmas?’
‘No, we’ve been helping!’ Jade replied indignantly. ‘But, Dad, I haven’t got her a present. I didn’t think of it before I left Flaxton. And there’s Andy and Nellie, too.’
‘They probably won’t have presents for you either. I wouldn’t worry too much,’ her dad said. ‘But I’ve been to the supermarket and stocked up on festive things. Perhaps a little hamper of sorts would do for Flora?’
‘There’s lots of food here,’ Jade said, peeking into the industrious kitchen, ‘But Flora seems to like wine. Maybe if there’s a bottle of wine?’
‘Of course there’s a bottle of wine. I’ll even tie a ribbon around it if you like.’
‘Thanks, Dad!’
‘No problem. And I’ll look into this Kim Bandt woman. It all sounds a bit fishy to me.’
‘If you can somehow stop her pushing Samudra off the land, that would be the best present of all for Flora.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Back in the kitchen, Casey — who now had the port bottle sitting in front of him and his pile of potatoes — was telling stories.
‘I didn’t know you had brothers,’ Flora said. ‘What are they doing these days?’
‘One’s a doctor, one’s a teacher.’ It was difficult to know whether Casey was telling the truth. ‘We had this game when we were kids. Not a game, really — more of a tradition, a custom. On Christmas Eve we’d pull each other’s socks off before bed. Don’t know how it started — something to do with hanging our stockings and putting out a beer and peppermints for Father Christmas.’
Andy looked at Jade. It sounded like Casey was starting a long story.
‘Pull each other’s socks off?’ Flora asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘That’s right, by the toes. I used to hate it if he pulled the sock off properly, from the elasticized top, without stretching it. I was very small.’