Aidan clicked the button. ‘Thirty-one seconds,’ he announced.
His dad grinned and clapped Folly’s white neck. ‘Good girl! We can show these youngsters all right.’
Folly’s huge nostrils flared red with effort. Dad gave her a long rein while her breath returned to normal. He watched with interest as Kitty took her turn. Thirty-nine seconds, with Midge’s little legs going like pistons.
‘Good girl,’ Dad said, and Kitty grinned at him. Aidan caught the grin and felt suddenly left out.
Wise up. You had your chance. You didn’t want to do it.
You mean you can’t do it, Ponyboy!
Chapter 13
Another Brilliant Idea
THE days galloped towards the competition and Lucy had never been so busy. She took to cycling to the yard and back, just to save a few minutes.
Puzzle, fretful and fed up, took a lot of time and care. Every time Lucy saw his head looking sadly over the stable door at his friends out in the paddocks, she had a fresh rush of guilt. Puzzle was bored and becoming naughty – nipping her and biffing her with his nose if she didn’t have titbits, fiddling incessantly with the clip on the bolt on his door, and restlessly paddling his bed into a messy pulp which made mucking out take three times as long as usual.
If only she’d obeyed Declan, Puzzle would be sound and happy now, and Aidan would have his own pony to ride.
But she loved riding Firefly. After the first few days, they had become used to each other. He needed more encouragement than Puzzle, but he soon began to realise that Lucy, unlike Aidan, was never going to ask him to jump and then change her mind.
‘He’s the kind of pony who needs you to instil confidence in him,’ Cam said one evening after she had given them a private lesson in the school. ‘But once he trusts you, he’ll do anything for you. And he’s talented. You and Puzzle were good, but I think you and Firefly could be even better.’
‘Only because he’s bigger.’ Lucy wasn’t having anyone finding fault with poor hurt Puzzle.
‘He’s starting to show the kind of form he used to have in his jumping days. He’s wasted on Aidan.’
‘That’s not fair.’ Lucy forgot how often she had thought the same thing herself. ‘Aidan loves him.’
‘Yes, but the pony could be doing so much more. Anyway, he’s getting his chance now. Just make the most of it.’ And, with a quick pat on Firefly’s shoulder, she headed off to her jeep.
Lucy dismounted and ran the stirrups up. It was darkish in the yard after the floodlit school and she didn’t realise Aidan was standing beside her until Firefly’s nostrils gave a low welcoming flutter. Lucy hoped he hadn’t heard what Cam had said.
‘I’ll put Firefly in,’ he said, taking the reins.
Lucy hesitated. It was up to Aidan, of course – she wasn’t going to tell him he couldn’t put his own pony to bed – but she didn’t want him thinking she expected to have the fun of riding Firefly without any of the work.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said.
‘I want to.’
‘OK. He’s going really well.’
‘I know.’
There wasn’t much she could answer to this. It was awkward, feeling so grateful. She couldn’t keep on and on saying thank you. And it wasn’t just gratitude. There was the shaming fact that Aidan was the only person who knew about the forbidden field, and he hadn’t told Declan. Lucy was going to confess, of course, just – well, just not yet.
‘I wish there was something I could do to kind of show him I’m grateful – well, all of them, really,’ she said to her mum when she got home and was meant to be doing her English homework. ‘Declan hoses Puzzle’s leg in the mornings when I’m at school.’
‘We’re paying extra for that,’ said her mum, who had no idea how busy Declan was.
Her mum didn’t know about her letting Ty out, or that Puzzle’s injury was Lucy’s fault. She had accepted Lucy’s story that it was just bad luck. Lucy’s dad had grumbled about the vet’s bill, but otherwise her parents, as usual, hadn’t shown much interest.
‘Even so. If there was something …’
‘Just help them to win.’ Her mum made it all sound easy.
But next day, when Lucy arrived home from school, there was a brand-new cross-country top sitting on her bed. Red and blue quarters, with a hat silk to match. She turned the top over. ROSEVALE was embroidered across the back. And piled up in their plastic wrapping, three identical tops – a little one for Kitty and adult-size ones for Declan and Cam. Lucy flew downstairs.
‘Now we’ll look like a proper team. You’re brilliant, Mum.’ She gave her mum a quick hug and raced off to the yard to see to Puzzle, ride Firefly and show everyone their posh new kit.
And of course they loved it.
But it hadn’t even been Lucy’s idea. And though it was definitely something for Rosevale, it still wasn’t for Aidan. She would have to come up with something better.
AS far as Lucy could see, Olly and Josh didn’t vary their routine much: a foot stuck out from under a desk as Aidan walked past, a whispered Ponyboy when Miss Connor called his name in registration, GAY scribbled in black marker on his locker door, an over-enthusiastic rugby tackle. Actually Lucy only guessed at the rugby tackling because of the way Aidan always looked a bit battered on a Wednesday after PE.
More battered today than usual.
‘Ouch,’ Lucy said, as Aidan joined her on the bus and she saw the purplish bruise spreading across his cheekbone. ‘Who did that?’
‘Nobody,’ Aidan said, glancing behind him.
‘You know you should –’
‘I said it was nobody.’
Lucy gave up and satisfied herself with giving Olly and Josh her nastiest look, which was totally wasted on them.
If only they could see how capable Aidan was around the yard, she thought, frowning out the window at the drizzling grey of the late afternoon and hoping the weather would improve by Saturday. The trouble was, they’d decided it was girly to be into horses. (Well, how could they think anything else, when they were used to Jade and Sunnyside?) They had no idea of the real hard work that went on. If they could see some of the things Lucy saw Aidan doing: helping Declan calm a thrashing, plunging, terrified horse, hammering in fence posts, leading several horses together.
Was it time to tell Kitty what was going on? She would tell her parents and they would do something about it.
As soon as Lucy arrived at the yard that afternoon, before she’d even said hello to Puzzle, Kitty beckoned her into the little building where the small ponies were stabled.
‘Come and see this,’ she whispered.
This was September stretched out in her stable with her head on Aidan’s knee. Her tiny hooves peeped from under her. She still had a pinkish tinge but was starting to get fluffy. Aidan was stroking her ears and talking to her in a low, soothing voice.
‘Good girl. See, nobody’s going to hurt your silly old ears. Clever pony.’ He was so absorbed that he clearly hadn’t noticed the girls watching.
Lucy whipped out her phone and took the photo without thinking.
‘Ah, will you send me that?’ Kitty whispered. ‘My phone’s in the house.’
‘Course I will.’
Aidan and September looked up at the sound of voices, and the pony scrambled to her feet.
And Lucy had a brilliant idea.
By the end of the evening Lucy’s phone had been busy, and she had quite a gallery of Rosevale life. In bed she scrolled through the photos, deleting the duds, sending Kitty the one of September. She thought she’d been pretty clever. There were photos of Aidan grooming Big Sam – all eighteen hands of him – lunging Ty in the school, and a great one of him carrying a huge sack of feed over one shoulder. She bet Olly and Josh, rugby stars though they might be, couldn’t do any of those things.
She couldn’t just rush up to them, show them the photos and say, ‘Look, isn’t Aidan Kelly brave and capable and worthy of your respect and wouldn’
t you like to leave him alone?’ Subtlety wasn’t Lucy’s strong suit, but she wasn’t that dense. No. Somehow she would have to work through Jade. Jade would have to say something to Josh. Not that she could tell Jade the plan. She would have to just show her the photos and play it by ear.
At break-time Lucy and her friends crowded round their special place.
‘We’re all having plaits on Saturday,’ Jade said, opening her lunchbox and taking out her usual snack of perfectly cut carrot sticks.
‘You or the ponies?’ asked Lucy.
‘Both.’
With purple elastics, no doubt, Lucy thought, but she didn’t want to waste the precious few minutes of break talking about hair and mane styling.
‘I took some new photos,’ she said, taking out her phone. As predicted, they all gathered round.
‘What do you want, Erin?’ Jade asked.
‘To get to my locker. If it’s OK by your majesty.’ Erin stalked past, her red bob swinging. Lucy gave her a small apologetic smile.
‘Ah, look at the wee foals,’ Miranda said. ‘Why are they all in together? And have they no mummies? That’s really cruel.’
Lucy explained about the foals.
‘There’s a good one – if you scroll on a bit – of Aidan grooming Big Sam. He’s eighteen-two!’ She didn’t add that Big Sam was as gentle as a Labrador.
‘There’s a lot of photos of Aidan,’ Jade remarked.
Lucy’s face burned. ‘Well … he does live there,’ she said.
‘Ooh, Lucy’s gone all red! Lucy fancies Aidan!’
‘Shut up, Jade.’ Her plan wasn’t going too well.
‘Oh my goodness!’ Miranda gave a sudden squawk. ‘That is so cute.’
Lucy leant over her shoulder. It was the photo of September. It had come out really well, though the electric light in the stable had made the pony look really quite pink. It was the cutest thing Lucy had ever seen. It was the cutest thing, the girls agreed, that any of them had ever seen. They all wanted copies. Even Erin came over to look and exclaim.
‘My granda’s getting me a pony,’ she said.
Jade rolled her eyes.
‘Rosevale looks lovely,’ Erin went on. ‘Do they do lessons? I’m going to start lessons.’
‘No,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s not a riding school.’ She was about to say that Erin should contact Cam if she wanted lessons – though she couldn’t help thinking Cam might be a bit expensive – when Miranda said quickly, ‘And they don’t take beginners at Sunnyside. Or people without their own ponies. Before you ask.’
‘I wasn’t going to ask,’ Erin said. ‘I’m kind of fussy where I go.’
Lucy couldn’t help grinning, but she bit it off. She wanted to tell Erin to come to Greenlands on Saturday, but something about Jade and Miranda stopped her. Anyway, she had a more important mission just now.
She sent the photo to all their phones quite happily.
It was only afterwards that she had a faint stirring of unease.
A tiny pink pony in the straw, resting her head on his knee. That hadn’t been quite the image she had been trying to cultivate for Aidan.
Chapter 14
My Little Ponyboy
OLLY blocked the doorway to the boys’ lockers.
‘Excuse me,’ Aidan said. As always when he didn’t want it to, his voice came out thin and high. He wanted to shove Olly out of the way but he knew from experience that Olly would shove back harder.
‘My Little Ponyboy. Bless!’ Olly said. ‘I can’t wait to see you at the competition tomorrow. Are you sure that pony’s not too big for you, though?’ He clapped Aidan’s cheek in a pretend matey way and swaggered out. ‘Oh,’ he said, half-turning, as if he’d suddenly remembered something important, ‘Josh is just coming. He had a wee bit of decorating to do in there. You’ll love it.’
More graffiti about him, he supposed. Maybe he wouldn’t bother going to the toilet after all. Or he would ask out of French – Madame Sudret was dead soft – and see what the latest was then.
It wasn’t graffiti. And photos could be pulled down, even if you were meant to be in French. Aidan didn’t know how Olly and Josh had got hold of the picture of him and September, but he could guess. And by the time he had torn down nine copies of it – four in the boys’ toilets, one outside the maths room, one on the library door, and three in the junior boys’ lockers – he was ready to kill Lucy. Especially when he didn’t get back to French until just before the bell, and Madame Sudret asked in a loud and meaningful whisper if he was sure he was quite well, and everybody laughed.
He shoved his French books into his bag. The tenth photo peeked out from between his geography book and The Outsiders.
Between the French room and the top of the stairs down to science there were three more. He wasn’t going to tear them down in front of people, so instead he walked straight past the science room, out of the building, down the main driveway and out of the gates. Nobody stopped him.
It wasn’t noon yet, and there wouldn’t be a school bus for hours, so Aidan walked into the centre of town and caught the normal bus instead.
The yard was empty. His mum was at work but the Land Rover was away too, and the trailer, which must mean Dad had gone to pick up some new animal, though he hadn’t mentioned it. Puzzle’s head looked out from over his half-door, glad of the distraction. In all the paddocks, horses nosed at tough autumn grass.
He looked into the stables: all mucked out, all the hay-nets filled and tied up for the evening. There was nothing to do and he needed, suddenly, to be doing something. Something that would distract him from those stupid photos, from the trouble he was going to be in for walking out of school. He wandered down to the paddock to see Firefly, hardly noticing the mud clinging to his school shoes. Clipped and in his winter rug, standing beside the gate with a faraway expression in his eyes, his pony looked unfamiliar and smart, his clipped ears nearly transparent. He didn’t look like Aidan’s pony any more.
‘Want to come for a ride?’ Aidan asked.
He hadn’t brought a head-collar, but Firefly walked placidly beside him with Aidan leading him by the forelock. It comforted Aidan just a little to know he wouldn’t have done that for Lucy.
Firefly bustled into his stable and started to pull at the hay-net. From his own stable, lonely Puzzle let out a high-pitched neigh.
‘We’re going out,’ Aidan said, ‘so don’t fill your belly with hay.’ He untied the net and threw it outside, much to the pony’s door-kicking disgust. He unrugged Firefly, gave him a quick groom and tacked up. He grabbed his hat and they were off.
He didn’t know where they were going. But he needed to be moving and he needed company, and not human company.
Aidan had been worried that his pony would feel different after three weeks of Lucy’s bolder riding, but, after he adjusted the stirrups, which had been set to suit Lucy’s shorter legs, Firefly felt only familiar, walking out with a long stride, snuffing the cold autumn air, glad to be out. The brambles lining the lane were all withered now; the few blackberries clinging on looked sour and nibbled.
Relaxing into the easy swing of Firefly’s walk, Aidan tried to forget about school. But everything he tried to distract himself with – Firefly, September, the competition tomorrow – led up the same path, the path that ended with Josh’s big red face and his sneery names. My Little Ponyboy. And they would be there tomorrow, supporting that annoying Jade.
He knew he couldn’t get out of going. OK if they were going to see him jumping huge fences and helping to win the money, but what would they see? A harassed groom, doing all the donkey work. He remembered the day he’d been sick and stayed off school. Could he fake something tomorrow?
As soon as he had the idea, his disgust for himself doubled. Trebled. He leaned forward and straightened Firefly’s neat red mane. Honestly, no wonder people thought he was feeble. He hadn’t even stayed at school to stick up for himself. He imagined them noticing he had gone. Ah, wee Ponyboy’s run home to his
mummy! Wee Ponyboy’s cwying.
He wasn’t crying. He bashed one hand crossly at his eyes. Firefly, always hyper-sensitive to his rider’s moods, started to jog and pull. For once, Aidan was tempted to let him go, to tear up the long lane as fast as they could, to let speed and wind and power hammer out his twisted fears and self-loathing.
But, even after the wet summer, the lane was hard and stony, and Firefly had an important competition next day. And he wasn’t as stupid as Lucy. Blasted Lucy. He knew where that photo must have come from. If it weren’t for Rosevale, he’d tell her she couldn’t ride his pony after all.
Aidan turned the pony for home.
The yard was still empty. In the school the jumps were still up from a recent jumping practice, Cam’s good painted poles looking solid and forbidding. The gate was open.
‘Come on, boy.’ Aidan guided Firefly into the school and pushed the pony into trot and then canter. Firefly responded with a tiny buck, but then settled into a lovely fast powerful canter which seemed to eat up the long sides of the school in a few strides. The jumps in the centre flew past in a blur of colour. At first Aidan sat down, pushing the pony on, but after a few circuits he stood in his stirrups and crouched over Firefly’s withers as if he were racing or riding cross-country.
‘Faster,’ he whispered. Firefly plunged into a gallop, his red ears pinned back, stretching and reaching like a racehorse.
It was brilliant. It was the fastest Aidan had ever been, apart from once when a rescue pony had bolted with him. It was powerful and thrilling and –
And a stupid way to ride a pony who was taking part in a competition next day. Aidan knew that, and reluctantly asked Firefly to slow down. The pony was excited, and it took another circuit of the school before the gallop became a canter.
‘Aidan?’
He hadn’t seen his dad drive into the yard. Dad leant out of the Land Rover window. At a very proper walk, letting Firefly stretch his neck, Aidan rode to the gate.
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