by Stacy Gregg
“Have you ever played hockey?” Claire asks her. “There are try-outs next week. I’m going – you should come along.”
“As long as we can be on the same team,” Haya says. “I wouldn’t like to confront you with a stick, you’d be deadly.”
“Oh, I’m usually too busy talking to hit anything,” Claire says blithely.
It is Haya who turns out to be the deadly one. She is a natural athlete, and is soon Badminton’s star hockey player. She is good at netball too, and tennis, swimming and gymnastics. If she has to be here at boarding school, then she is determined to do her very best and make her father proud.
“You’re such a swot. You always get A’s in absolutely everything,” Claire sighs.
“I got a B in maths,” Haya objects. “And I’m going to get thrown out of choir if they catch us talking again.”
“I wish they’d throw us both out!” Claire says. “Anyway, it’s their fault for making it so dull. If I didn’t talk to you, I’d fall asleep.”
The blondes that Haya once found so daunting are now her friends. Even the problem with Stephanie vanishes after the Upper Third’s class trip to London. It is supposed to be a geography trip, but really it is more like a day of sightseeing. In the afternoon, the girls visit Buckingham Palace and as they stand outside the gates Haya cannot resist leaning over to Stephanie and whispering, “My daddy is buying me this place; we’re going to demolish all the buildings and turn the gardens into fields for my horses.”
Stephanie’s eyes widen and her mouth hangs open in horror. Haya manages to keep a straight face and look serious for a second, before losing it and bursting into fits of giggles. It is a risky joke, but when Stephanie begins laughing too, Haya knows that the coldness between them is over.
Baba and Ali write to Haya every day, although Ali’s letters always say exactly the same thing. He is counting down until the end of term even though Haya has only just arrived.
Dear Haya,
53 days until you come home
I love u
Ali
Dear Haya
52 days until you come home
I love u
Ali
Mondays are the best because the letters have been saved up from the weekend and so Haya often gets three from Baba and three from Ali. One Monday morning, however, there is an extra letter, written in a hand she does not recognise. She opens the envelope and begins to scan the lines of scrawly writing and quickly realises it is from Zayn.
Your Royal Highness, Princess Haya,
I hope things are good at your new school. I know that I promised you that I would write with news, but I’m really not very good at writing. I hope you can read the words and I’m sorry if I make mistakes.
Bint Al-Reeh hasn’t been so good since you left. At first, when she stopped eating, we thought she had a virus. But the vet says she’s perfectly healthy. The filly stands at her door night and day and whinnies and Yusef says she is pining. Santi says it is because of her Arab blood – it makes a horse loyal. And Bree is a true Arabian, devoted to only one master – you.
I had to tell you because I promised I would write, but please don’t worry. Bree has started to eat now and I feed her by hand every day to make sure. I am writing this letter sitting on the straw in her loose box and when I told her just now that I was writing to you she seemed to cheer up. She even sniffed the letter with her muzzle – so I suppose she’s signed it with a kiss. She is waiting for the day when you will return, Inshallah. Until then, may Allah keep you safe and well.
Your faithful servant (and friend),
Zayn
In the dining hall, Haya’s hands tremble as she reads the letter. All this time she had been missing Bree so much, it never occurred to her that the filly would miss her too. She wishes desperately, more than anything, that she was home.
She folds the letter from Zayn and puts it in the breast pocket of her blazer, takes a deep breath and pulls herself together. There is no time for sorrow. It is 8.30 and she is late for maths.
In class, though, she cannot focus on the questions in her exercise book. All she can think about is Bree. She feels so helpless, being stuck here. She gives up on the maths problems and begins to write. She uses the back pages of her book, scribbling furiously, and by the time the class is over she has composed a letter back to Zayn, telling him all the things she knows about Bree. She tells him all her secrets – like the way the filly loves being scratched on her rump. Don’t be afraid when you start scratching and she reverses her hindquarters at you as if she is trying to take aim to kick you, Haya writes, it just means she wants you to scratch her tail. Oh – and for a treat if it is hot she loves ice cream – she licks it from the cone very daintily like a lady – oh, and she adores peppermints! I have taught her to nod her head and ask before I give her one. Also, if she is pacing in her box, maybe she is bored? Take her on a forest ride and let her gallop. I only got the chance to do this a few times before I went away, but it was the best. Bree loves to gallop …
For the next week Haya checks the postbox compulsively, desperate for news. When a letter from Zayn finally arrives, Haya tears at the envelope, her heart racing. As she begins to read, her eyes prick with tears, not of sorrow, but joy. I have done everything you told me in your letter, Zayn writes. When I took her to the forest, she was fretting at the bit so I let her have her head and gallop just as you told me and we must have gone for three miles before she tired enough to slow back down to a trot. She was a different horse on the ride home and from that moment her spirits lifted. You can imagine how happy I was when she ate all of her feed when we got home.
Haya still misses Bree, but it is good to know that the filly is no longer pining. Haya’s own homesickness too begins to abate, but she still dreams of being back in Jordan, galloping on her horse through the forests. If only she could ride like that in England! There is little hope of finding kindred spirits here when it comes to horses. Or at least that is what she thinks.
y dearest Baba,
It is hard to believe that it’s already the second term. I wish I could have come home for the holidays instead of staying at school for the hockey tournament. We had our first classes of the new term today and I got my exam results back. I got 89 per cent in English and I got A’s in all of my subjects, yes, even maths, so tell that to Frances!
It is cold in England – and it rains all the time. The horses here wear heavy rugs and they clip them, shaving all their hair off with shears and cutting patterns in the fur, leaving bits of coat on the top to keep their backs warm. It looks very odd.
The riding school ponies are lazy and you have to kick them and kick them to make them go. No wonder they are so slow when all the instructors let you do is ride round the arena doing quadrilles. We are hardly ever allowed to do any jumping!! It sounds mad, but I am thinking of giving up riding entirely for the rest of the year – did I tell you they have made me captain of the school hockey team?
Oh – also I have exciting news for Ali. One of the girls here has a father who does something to do with football for Manchester United and when Ali comes to England to visit me next term she has promised that we can go and meet the players and watch a game. Tell Ali that I miss him. I cannot wait to come home. I miss everyone so much. I love you very much, Baba.
Your daughter, Haya
*
On Sundays the Badminton pupils are allowed to take the ponies out of the arena and go hacking in the country lanes surrounding the school. The girls use this outing as an excuse to get out of school without supervision and head for the village shops. Haya often sees their poor horses, bored rigid, tied up to the hitching rail by the village green while the girls giggle and flirt with the boys from the nearby local school.
On one of these Sunday afternoons Haya is hacking along the lane on Tempest, a brown Fell pony gelding that the instructors at Badminton describe as bombproof and Haya would describe as half dead. She is thinking how it will take her forev
er to reach the village at this rate when she looks up and sees two riders moving at a flat gallop over the nearby field.
The rider at the front sits astride a heavy-boned bay hunter and rides boldly, urging the horse on the way Haya has seen racing jockeys do. Right behind her is another rider on an elegant, showy chestnut. It is too far away for Haya to see the riders clearly, but they certainly look very experienced. Haya watches as they approach a five-barred gate that leads from one field to the next and is surprised when they do not slow down in the slightest. She realises with shock that they are going to jump it! The big bay hunter goes first and the chestnut follows, both horses taking the jump off lovely forward strides, then continuing at a gallop without breaking pace.
“Why can’t we do that?” she murmurs to Tempest as she gives him a slappy pat on his rugged brown neck.
In the village, Haya is coming out of the sweet shop when she hears the staccato chink of metal shoes on the tarmac. She turns to see the chestnut and the bay that were jumping the fences between fields turning the corner of the lane. The riders she thought were adult professionals turn out to be girls the same age as Haya! She is certain she’s never seen them at Badminton. Their horses are sweaty and blowing still from the gallop, and the girls’ reins are hanging loose as they ride and chat. They look as if they are heading towards the café by the village green and without thinking Haya seizes her chance and runs across to meet them.
“Hello,” she says, panting a little as she catches up.
The girl on the big bay is very pretty with long blonde hair tied back in a thick plait. She pulls the bay to a halt. “Hello,” she smiles warmly. She looks at Haya’s helmet and jodhpurs and then back over at Tempest, who is tied to the hitching rail by the green. “Is he your pony?”
“No,” Haya says. “Well, yes, but he’s not mine. He belongs to the school.”
“Oh,” the girl says. “Are you at Badminton?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Haya says. She is losing her nerve a little, but she takes a deep breath. “I saw you riding through the fields on my way here. I love jumping. We never jump at our school, well, hardly ever. And the ponies aren’t up to much.”
“You should come and have lessons with us,” the blonde girl says. “We go to Shepperlands Copse. It’s not far from here. Lucinda and I have our own horses stabled there, but the Ramsays, they’re the ones who run the place, they have some really decent school horses too – if you want to do real riding, I mean.”
Haya tries to contain her excitement and not just shout, “Yes, please – take me with you!” She is certain for some reason that she has heard the name Ramsay before back in Jordan too.
“My name is Jemima,” the blonde girl says, “and this is Lucinda …”
Lucinda, however, doesn’t say hello. She is distracted by the man in dark glasses loitering beside Tempest.
“Did you realise that there’s a chap over there by your pony acting very strangely?” Lucinda says. “Is he one of your teachers?”
“No,” Haya sighs. “He’s my bodyguard.”
*
On the ride home Haya’s excitement at her chance encounter starts to dwindle. Badminton School may not be so enthusiastic about her traipsing off across to Shepperlands Copse for lessons when their own riding school is in the grounds. How is she going to convince them to let her go?
Haya is still mulling this over the next morning at breakfast when the post arrives. There is a letter from Baba. She reads the first few paragraphs with great interest, as her father writes about life at home at Al Nadwa. But it is when she reaches the fourth paragraph that Haya’s eyes widen in surprise.
I have spoken to Santi after your last letter, her father writes, and he reminded me that he has old acquaintances from England who once visited us here in Jordan. Their name is Ramsay – Richard and Marjorie Ramsay. They run a very professional stable that sounds perfect for you. Santi has contacted them and it has been arranged with the school that you may be given leave for lessons after school and on weekends. The name of the stables is Shepperlands Copse and it is very near your school …
Haya cannot believe her eyes. It is the same place that the girls in the village told her about!
The next weekend Haya pulls on her jodhpurs and her bodyguard drives her over to Shepperlands Copse yard. Richard Ramsay is in the middle of giving a lesson when she arrives and so Haya waits for him in his office. She is admiring the champion sashes from the Horse of the Year, the Royal Windsor Show and Olympia, strung up all over the walls, when she hears hoofbeats in the stable corridor and familiar voices.
“Oh, hello again!” Jemima says with delight when Haya emerges from the office. “Mr Ramsay said we would have a new girl joining our ride, but I had no idea it would be you!”
Behind her comes a tall, smartly kitted-out man in beige breeches and a khaki gilet leading a grey pony. “You girls have already met?” Mr Ramsay is surprised. “Well, that makes life easier. We can dispense with the introductions and get started then.”
The grey pony that Mr Ramsay is leading is called Toby and he is intended for Haya. “He’s a real showjumping schoolmaster,” Mr Ramsay tells her as they head for the arena.
“Hello, Toby.” Haya takes the reins and looks the grey gelding in the eye. There is a kindness about this pony, but a feisty spirit in there too. She likes him immediately.
The Ramsays’ arena is set up with showjumps and painted rails arranged in a course just like on TV at the Horse of the Year Show with pot plants at the corners and everything. Haya’s only other jumping experience has been over jumps that she made herself on the Tank. Not that she is about to tell Jemima and Lucinda that. They are both so elegant, mounted up on entirely different ponies to the ones that Haya saw them exercising earlier in the week, looking every bit as confident on showjumpers in the arena as they did on hunters out in the fields.
“Take your stirrups up to jumping length,” says Mr Ramsay. Haya didn’t even know there was such a thing as jumping length, but she takes the stirrups up a couple of holes and joins in at the back of the ride behind Lucinda. It is hard enough to keep up at a trot with these two riders, and when Mr Ramsay calls out instructions to the girls, it is like he is speaking another language. “Your pony is too much on the forehand, Jemima; give him a half-halt! Better. Make him use his hindquarters more, Lucinda. More leg and less hand! Good …”
The first fifteen minutes of the lesson they do not jump at all; they trot and canter and work on their position in the saddle. Mr Ramsay shows Haya how to ride perched up on her stirrups in two-point position. Then he shows her how to make a bridge with her reins over Toby’s neck to help keep her hands in a crest release so that she won’t jag Toby in the mouth as they go over the fences.
“Right then!” he says brightly. “You’re looking quite secure up there – you’ve clearly got natural balance. Why don’t you follow behind the others and pop over the red and white rails, then the blue and white planks, and let’s see how we go?”
As Jemima and Lucinda confidently steam off ahead on their horses, Haya does her best to keep up. Toby leaps off from too far back on both fences and she is quite certain Mr Ramsay must be able to see blue sky between her legs and the saddle as she gets left behind both times, but she manages to stay onboard. Thankfully Mr Ramsay doesn’t chastise her like Mrs Goddard would surely have done.
“I like the way you let Toby have his head and kept the release even though you were left behind,” he says. “You’ve got good hands. We just need to work on those legs of yours.”
As Mr Ramsay walks round the jumping course lowering the fences to cross rails, he talks to the girls about the importance of the lower leg. “It must never leave the horse’s side at any stage when they are jumping. That is where your security comes from. Position your lower leg, plug in those seat bones and sit up.
“Right!” he says as he lowers the last jump in the course. “Can we have you on your own this time, please, Princess Haya
?”
When Haya finishes jumping the small crossbars, Mr Ramsay raises them back up to their original height for the other girls and Haya watches on the sidelines as Jemima and Lucinda take their turn over the bigger jumps. She watches the way they canter in with perfect timings and flying changes at the jumps and she is aware of just how good these girls are, and even more aware that she is not as good as them. Not yet anyway. Watching the other girls, she is gripped by a desire to rise to their level.
If Jemima and Lucinda realise that they are better riders than Haya, they don’t gloat about it. After lessons, the three of them hang back at the stables to help the Ramsays muck out and feed.
“What are the Arabians like at the Royal Stables?” Jemima wants to know. “I bet they’re gorgeous!” Haya finds herself telling them all about Bree, and the stables at Al Hummar.
Being a part of the team at the Ramsays’ encourages Haya to raise her game. Her ability comes on in leaps and bounds and soon she is riding the same fences as Jemima and Lucinda. She is discovering that showjumping is not just about pointing the horse at the fences, being brave and hoping for the best. She is learning how to ride in deep to a fence and judge the stride so that the horse takes off at the perfect moment.
When Haya started, she thought that a cavaletti was huge. Now the jumps go up to eighty centimetres, then a metre, and a metre ten. When they reach a metre twenty, Mr Ramsay pronounces them, “Too big for Toby.” He tries her on several of his jumpers before eventually settling for Victorious, a headstrong, A-grade competition pony. Haya clicks with Victorious immediately. The jumps go higher still.