Greener Pastures

by Alyssa Brugman

  Greener Pastures

  Alyssa Brugman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Greener Pastures

  ePub ISBN 9781864714609

  Kindle ISBN 9781864717150

  Original Print Edition

  A Random House book

  Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060

  www.randomhouse.com.au

  First published by Random House Australia in 2008

  Copyright © Alyssa Brugman 2008

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Brugman, Alyssa, 1974–.

  Greener pastures.

  ISBN: 9781741662269

  For primary school age.

  Horses – Juvenile fiction. Friendship – Juvenile fiction.

  Pets – Death – Juvenile fiction.

  A823.4

  Cover and internal design by Sandra Nobes Cover photos by Alamy.com

  Typeset in Sabon 11/17pt by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Printed and bound by Griffin Press, South Australia

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 An Offer

  Chapter 2 Grass and Bread and Stuff

  Chapter 3 Castles

  Chapter 4 The Crush

  Chapter 5 Chance

  Chapter 6 Chicken

  Chapter 7 Birthday Party

  Chapter 8 A Serious Horse Person

  Chapter 9 A Jenny Craig Paddock

  Chapter 10 A Matter of Arithmetic

  Chapter 11 Shelby Names a Price

  Chapter 12 The Date

  Chapter 13 Googling

  Chapter 14 The Consult

  Chapter 15 Promises

  Chapter 16 A Dinner Cut Short

  Chapter 17 A Second Opinion

  Chapter 18 Prince Blue

  Chapter 19 Dandelion Flat

  Chapter 20 The Stupid Camel Club

  Chapter 21 Tongue-tied

  Chapter 22 Sunk

  Chapter 23 A Dumb Design

  Chapter 24 Boxes

  Chapter 25 New Recruit

  Chapter 26 Baby's Got Blue Eyes

  Chapter 27 Memorial

  Chapter 28 Halfway Out

  Author's Note

  1 An Offer

  'I've finally found something that my horse is good at and I don't want to do it!' Shelby wailed. 'What am I going to do now? I can't do dressage, or eventing, or hacking, or even interclub.'

  'Why not?' Chad asked. He was riding one of the trick-riding horses, Texas, along the sandy Gully track with the kind of comfortable lack of focus that Shelby had come to associate with riders who had not had a big fall. . . yet.

  It was the first of the humid spring days, which had taken Shelby by surprise after a cold and rainy August. She was hot in her corduroy jodhpurs. Chad had taken off his jumper and tied it around his shoulders.

  Shelby wrinkled up her nose. 'Because my horse is daggy.' Blue's ears flicked, and she patted him on the neck in apology.

  Blue was like a pair of old trackies, stretched across the knees and the seat, with food stains on them. You loved them and wore them every opportunity you could, but you wouldn't wear them out in public.

  'He's not too daggy for trick riding,' Chad observed.

  'Yeah, but when we do that he has blinkers on and a saddle that covers almost his whole body! Nobody can really see what he looks like.'

  It had been an exhilarating experience, performing in front of a crowd with Keisha and Molly at half a dozen shows and rodeos. They'd designed sparkling pink costumes, and matching blinkers for the horses. Shelby's parents had bought her a pair of full chaps with a fringe down the side, which she wore over her jeans. She'd worn lipstick, and sometimes caught boys staring at her.

  Even the grown-ups treated her differently. Strangers would ask her questions about the horses and how they did the tricks. She could tell by their faces that they thought the trick riding the girls did in the arena was something special.

  Shelby wasn't as confident as the other two riders. When they were performing she only did manoeuvres where she was able to hold on with one hand. Molly did all the really hard hands-free tricks, like the deadman's drop, where she hung off the side with her arms over her head, and only one leg in a strap, so it looked as if she was being dragged, like you see in the movies.

  Chad had come to all the shows close to home. He was a general dogsbody, helping Zeb carry buckets of water, filling hay nets and cleaning out the back of the truck so they could set up chairs and a table for their break times.

  The trouble was that Shelby hated the rodeos. She'd seen some amazing riders and some wonderful horsemanship, but lots of things she didn't like too. Most people seemed to feel the same about their horses as they would about a piece of equipment, or a car. To Shelby horses had always been people, with personalities and moods. Even her friends said she was too soft. They told her that horses adapt, but Shelby couldn't think about them like that. She felt it was a betrayal of the trust the horses put in her.

  And the horses seemed to have the best of it. The other animals at the rodeo were merely entertainment. Shelby didn't understand how people could take pleasure from all these hurt and distressed animals.

  At one rodeo she had been near the cattle yards before the bull riding, and she'd seen some men prodding the bull to make it angry. The poor thing was enclosed in a metal crush and couldn't get away. It would try to get free, and bash its head against the sides of the crush. The more it bellowed with pain and rage, the more the men laughed. She had to cover her eyes. It made her cry even thinking about it.

  Nobody wore helmets. It made her feel stupid when she put hers on, but she wasn't going to risk her brain just to fit in with the crowd – especially with the falls she'd had already.

  Shelby hadn't hurt herself badly yet, but most of the falls had been dumb things – straps not tight enough, slipping when she wasn't paying attention. One time Blue had tripped and she'd hit her elbow on the metal rail at the edge of the arena. The bottom half of her arm had been numb for ten minutes. Towards the end she'd worried the feeling might never come back again.

  'Why do you need to do anything?' Chad asked. 'Blue likes trail riding. You like trail riding. Why don't we just do that?'

  She huffed. Even though Chad had done some exploring on his trail bike, there were lots of trails in the Gully that he hadn't been along yet. He didn't appreciate that the Gully seemed pretty small after you've ridden the same tracks for a few years.

  'What about showjumping?' Chad asked.

  Shelby bit her lip. 'I'm a scaredy-cat,' she blurted.

&nb
sp; 'You'll stand on a horse's back while it gallops around, but you won't jump?' Chad shook his head.

  'I don't mind when the horse jumps, I just don't like the part when they decide not to jump,' she explained. 'I suppose I could try endurance.'

  'You said you didn't want to do endurance because you don't get to wear a special outfit,' he reminded her.

  When he put it like that it sounded silly – as though what she really wanted to do was play dress-ups.

  'And I don't have a float,' she added.

  Shelby sighed again. Blue had coped with the travelling. Each time he walked down the ramp he blinked his blue eyes and snorted, as if he was saying, 'Same thing, different postcode,' but Shelby was sure spending all that time in trucks and tiny yards wasn't good for him.

  He was sooky with her, and instead of enjoying his reliance on her Shelby saw it as a sign that he was lonely. Blue should be in a herd with his own kind. His life should be boring.

  Shelby was working up to telling Zeb that she wanted to quit. She felt guilty because Zeb had trained her from trick to trick until she had mastered the hippodrome – standing on Blue's back as he galloped around the arena. She hadn't performed that one outside of lessons yet, but she was working towards it.

  Zeb never asked for payment. The expectation was that his investment in her would be returned when they went on tour.

  Even the thought of going around the state with the troupe made her feel tight across the chest and panicky in her throat. She wasn't ready to be away from her parents for so long. She knew she couldn't do it. Now she just had to find a way to tell Zeb.

  She had become quite fond of him over the last few months. He had the same mischievous sense of humour as her father, but with a hot temper, and an occasional brooding melancholy that she found frightening.

  'He's going to be cranky,' she murmured, running her fingers through Blue's mane.

  'Zeb? Nah!' Chad said. Then he reconsidered. 'Not for long, anyway.'

  There was a long stretch of flat, sandy track ahead.

  'Do you want to canter for a bit?' she suggested.

  Chad gathered up his reins and urged Texas forward. The big quarter horse broke into a beautiful rocking-horse canter. Shelby knew it wasn't Chad's riding skills that gave Texas such a smooth stride – this was only their third ride together out on trails and Chad hadn't ridden any other horse yet. Texas was comfortable, and beautifully schooled as well, perfect for a beginner.

  Blue, on the other hand, was horrible to ride, but Shelby didn't have to tell him anything. He would change direction when she shifted her weight, or halt before she even realised that's what she wanted to do. It was as though they were connected telepathically.

  Over the last few months Shelby and Chad had spent a lot of time together – almost every afternoon at troupe training with Keisha, Molly and Zeb, and sometimes weekends when they had a show. Even when Shelby's family was up the coast visiting Shelby's great-aunt, Jenny, Shelby would sometimes hang out with Chad at the shops near the beach, since Chad's older brother lived in the same suburb.

  Still, after spending so much time together Shelby had no idea at all what Chad was thinking. She'd never really had a friend who was a boy before, so she had nothing to compare it with.

  Shelby's best friend, Erin, had urged her to ask him out, but Shelby didn't know how to do it. She'd asked Chad to go to the movies, and they went, but they didn't hold hands or anything, so she wasn't sure that he understood that it was supposed to be a date. She wanted to make it official, but whenever she planned to raise it with him her face went red and she became tongue-tied.

  What if he said no? What if he laughed? She could just imagine him trying to let her down gently. I'm sorry, Shel, you've got the wrong end of the stick! You're like a little sister to me. Shelby would be so embarrassed. She would never be able to speak to him again after that.

  It made her blush just thinking about it. She was glad she was cantering with the wind rushing across her face, cooling her cheeks.

  Texas was zipping ahead and so she urged Blue to go faster – lifting her backside off the saddle and leaning over his neck. Her little paint pony leapt forward, lashing his tail, eager to race. Shelby grinned.

  At the end of the sandy stretch the trail opened out to a long grassy expanse passing beneath some power lines. Here several trails intersected, so Shelby and Chad slowed their horses to a walk in case someone was coming along one of the other tracks.

  'Are you ready to head back?' Chad asked.

  'Just a bit longer.'

  He raised an eyebrow.

  'We can go around in a loop,' she told him.

  He glanced at the sinking sun. 'Come on, scaredy-cat. It's time to go back,' he said, turning Tex around.

  Reluctantly, Shelby followed.

  She loved this time of the year in the Gully. Sometimes in the grey of winter all of the trees and bushes would blend in together, but in early spring they flowered, or burst out with colourful new growth, and all of a sudden there would be a vivid blanket of yellow, patches of bright red, or even a carpet of tiny blue or purple flowers that caught your eye.

  She would see flocks of finches flitting from bush to bush and families of wrens arguing over territory, and hear the first cicadas that in the coming months would become a roar.

  Texas walked faster when he realised they were heading for home, and soon they were past the water tower, past the old lounge chairs, around the corner, and along the track to the back fence.

  While Chad opened the gate Shelby looked out across the arena where Keisha was still working a Clydesdale in long reins. She waved and Keisha waved back.

  Keisha had planned to go on the trail ride with Shelby and Chad, but the lesson with the Clydie was taking longer than she had thought. She looked tiny behind the big horse. His huge hooves sent up little sprays of sand as he trotted around. He was doing a lovely shoulder-in, which had been the lesson for the day. Shelby knew Keisha must be pleased with how he was working.

  Up at the stables the white stallions poked their heads out of the half-doors, watching what was going on. In the paddock the miniatures were playing a vigorous game of bite-face, pig-rooting and squealing. Behind them Shelby could see the semitrailers signwritten in bright colours with 'Equus Caballus'.

  Zeb had added a cartoon of three girls standing atop their horses and waving. One of the cartoon characters was a blonde girl aboard a paint pony, and Shelby was ashamed that she was going to let him down after all he'd done for her.

  Zeb had been mending one of the fences near the round yard. Shelby guessed that he had decided to mend that particular fence right at that moment so that he could chip in his two cents to what Keisha was doing with the Clydie. Keisha had never broken a horse into harness by herself before, and Shelby knew Zeb wouldn't be able to resist bossing her around a little bit. Zeb walked over to help Chad unsaddle. Chad shot a meaningful look over Tex's back and Shelby sent a frown back that said, I'm doing it already!

  It was now or never.

  'Um, Zeb, I don't think I'm going to be able to do the troupe any more,' she muttered.

  'Is that right?' Zeb said, resting the saddle on the gate. He waited for an excuse. Shelby didn't have one, except that she didn't want to do it, and that sounded weak. Anything else would be a lie, and she didn't want to lie to Zeb. It would be disrespectful.

  Zeb patted Tex on the rump as Chad led him away. Instead of demanding an explanation, losing his temper, or trying to change her mind, he surprised her by saying, 'I'll buy your pony. I'll give you three thousand dollars. He's solid, trustworthy, hardworking – he's a beaut.'

  Shelby shook her head. 'Blue's not for sale.'

  In the wash-bay Chad hosed down Texas, and just beyond him, up at the house, Zeb's wife and Keisha's mum were talking and laughing. Two fox terriers were playing with a ball on the lawn.