‘There you are,’ his dad said, as if he had been half-expecting to see Aidan.
‘I was just giving him a bit of exercise,’ he said innocently. ‘He’s still my pony.’
‘The school phoned.’
‘Oh.’ The gallop had worked, because Aidan had briefly forgotten. Now it all flooded back. He opened his mouth to say something – anything – and found that he couldn’t.
‘I … something …’ he managed to splutter and gave up. He scratched his cheekbone.
Dad looked hard at him, but all he said was, ‘I could do with a hand with this new horse. Untack Firefly and turn him out in the school for ten minutes. He’ll cool himself down.’
The new horse came off the ramp like a dervish, a whirl of black flying mane and tail, shrieking.
‘Watch yourself, son,’ Dad said. ‘He’s a bit het up.’
At the end of his lead rope the horse reared.
Many of the horses who came to Rosevale were cowed, all spirit beaten or starved out of them. But occasionally there was one like this, whose fear of humans showed in lashing hooves and lunging teeth. Aidan’s dad spoke to the horse quietly, gradually shortening the rope until he was standing at the horse’s wet shoulder. ‘Easy,’ he crooned. ‘Good lad. Good horse. There’s the brave horse.’
It was a black cob of about fifteen hands, thin but not skeletal, with a long tangled mane full of burrs. Recent whip marks and what looked like burns stuck out, red and purple, along his heaving flanks. He stood trembling and snorting, ready to leap and run at the first chance, not knowing there was nowhere to go, not understanding yet that he’d arrived somewhere he’d be cared for.
‘I’ll lead him if you do the doors and things,’ Aidan’s dad said to him in the same low tone. ‘Isolation stable’s ready for him.’
The cob danced across the yard, head high, eyes goggling. It clearly took all Declan’s strength to hold him, but he never panicked or faltered, and kept up that running reassurance the whole time. ‘Good man, here we go, you can rest here.’
Aidan held open the door of the big isolation stable, but the cob pulled and jerked at the end of the lead rope, not trusting the narrow space. It took both of them, and a lot of false starts, to encourage him in.
‘How did you get him onto the horsebox?’ Aidan asked his dad, as the cob whirled away from the door a third time.
‘Policeman helped. Cruelty case,’ Dad said shortly. ‘As you can see.’
Finally the cob gave in, plunged into the stable and stood shaking in the far corner. There was a deep bed and a fat hay-net, but he was too upset to acknowledge these yet. Aidan liked it better when the new horses were just hungry, when they would stand knee-deep in the clean bed and pull at the hay-net in stunned delight.
‘We’ll leave him now,’ Dad said. ‘He’ll settle better on his own. And you and Kitty are not to go near him unless I’m with you.’
They walked back to the main yard. In the school, an impatient Firefly was digging up the sand by the gate. He had been rolling and would need a good grooming.
‘I’ll just get him,’ Aidan said.
‘He’s OK for the moment,’ Dad said. ‘Now – what happened at school?’
Aidan swallowed. ‘How do you know …?’
‘Well, something happened or you wouldn’t be here, would you?’
Aidan didn’t reply. His dad leaned against the sand-school fence, appearing to watch Firefly. He looked, for once, like a man with time on his hands.
‘You don’t seem so happy at school,’ he remarked casually.
Aidan shrugged.
‘You haven’t mentioned friends or …’
Aidan shrugged.
‘Your mum thought you might be having trouble settling.’
Aidan shrugged.
Dad picked at a green smear on the fence post. ‘Bit tough being a boy who likes horses?’
Aidan jumped. How did his dad –
Dad scratched his nose. Aidan knew he would have faced a dozen traumatised horses more easily than have this kind of conversation with his son.
‘Look, Aidan,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t want you to think … I mean, just because this – the yard and the horses – is so important to me … you don’t have to do it, you know. Your mum thinks I’ve been forcing you into it.’
Aidan didn’t even have to think about the answer. ‘You haven’t. What we do here – helping horses – I feel the same way you do.’ And for all his dad’s words, Aidan knew he couldn’t manage Rosevale without the help Kitty and especially Aidan gave him.
Aidan turned away from his dad and went into the school. Firefly, bored, came up to him and plunged his head into the waiting head-collar, expecting a feed. Aidan led him to his stable, rubbed him down and checked the time. It was only three o’clock. Might as well turn him out for another few hours. He put on Firefly’s outdoor rug and led him to the paddock.
Where his dad was waiting for him.
Aidan sighed. ‘Look, Dad, it’s fine.’
‘And that’s why you’re at home with your eyes all red, because everything’s fine?’
‘I –’
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Aidan. When I first got into horses I got a hard time, you know. Lads on the estate calling me Horseboy, saying horses were “gay”. And remember, I lived in Belfast. I had to walk through a housing estate wearing jodhpurs.’
‘But I’m not like you!’ Aidan burst out. ‘You jumped at Balmoral.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ His dad looked genuinely surprised.
‘Because if I was good at it, it would be OK. I think. But being called P-Ponyboy when you can’t even ride properly – it’s just so … so …’ He frowned, wishing he hadn’t been so honest, vaguely aware that if it were his mum rather than his dad it would be quite easy just to give up and blub and let her comfort him.
Ah, Ponyboy’s cwying to his mummy.
But he didn’t want that. He opened the gate and led Firefly through.
Dad sighed. ‘You can ride properly. What were you doing when I came into the yard? Firefly was going brilliantly.’
‘Lucy’s got him going brilliantly, you mean.’
‘It’s only confidence, Aidan. I keep telling you.’
‘You mean I’m a wuss.’ Aidan unbuckled Firefly’s head-collar, and the pony plunged away, neighing at his friends.
‘I said confidence – not courage.’
‘Same thing. And you were the one said you were ashamed of me, that time when I quit the team …’ His voice trailed off. Just to remember his dad’s words that terrible morning made his face burn. ‘You said you wished I wasn’t so … I was in my room but I heard you – you and Mum.’
His dad frowned. Then smiled. ‘Aidan. Look at me.’ He took hold of Aidan’s shoulders and made him face him. ‘I know what I said. I said I wished you weren’t so worried about disappointing me.’
Aidan searched his dad’s face. His eyes were dark and honest. Aidan bit his lip. Shrugged. Shook his head. Fiddled with the head-collar rope in his hand.
Aidan’s dad massaged his shoulders. ‘I’ve never been ashamed of you. You’re my right-hand man on this yard. I keep trying to tell you. And confidence isn’t the same as courage. You’ve got plenty of courage. Did you flinch when that cob reared up at you? No. Lucy would have been at the other end of the yard. As for these boys, whoever they are, they wouldn’t come within miles of anything like that, would they?
‘No,’ said Aidan. ‘I suppose not.’
Chapter 15
The Row
‘DON’T ride Firefly tonight, Lucy,’ Declan said, stopping Folly beside Lucy and Puzzle. Lucy looked up in surprise, careful to keep the hose trained on Puzzle’s bad leg. Folly stepped back from the jet of cold water, her big black eyes horrified.
‘I thought we were giving them all a quiet school just to limber up for the morning?’
‘Aidan’s already ridden him.’
‘What! But it�
�s the competition tomorrow!’ Goodness knew what Aidan had done; probably let Firefly mooch along, not paying attention, getting him into bad habits. Why couldn’t he have waited one more day?
‘Lucy, he is Aidan’s pony.’ Declan’s voice was cool. ‘We’re just having a quick twenty minutes in the school. All you have to do is clean your tack for tomorrow.’ He nodded at her and rode on, just as if she wasn’t part of their blasted team!
Lucy pouted. So it was her tack when it needed cleaning, but it was Aidan’s pony when he wanted him to be. And this time tomorrow the competition would be over, and Aidan would take Firefly back, and Puzzle would still be lame, and she, Lucy, would have nothing to ride. And it was half-term on Wednesday and life would just be dull, dull, dull.
Don’t be silly, she told herself. You’re just nervous about tomorrow. Only that was stupid, because she didn’t get nervous. But something was twisting her inside and making her feel cross.
And where had Aidan got to today? He wasn’t sick, and she didn’t think he’d had an appointment or anything. She had seen the photo – they all had – but surely nobody would walk out of school just because of a thing like that?
She led Puzzle back to his stable, trying not to let herself see that he was still obviously lame, and then gloomed into the tack-room. Firefly’s tack was filthy, spattered with sand as if he’d been raking round the school. With Aidan? And now she was expected to clean it? Unfair. Unfair. Unfair.
She settled herself on the chair in the tack room with the dirty saddle and bridle and her tack-cleaning stuff. She hated cleaning tack. And Firefly’s tack was horrible – much older than her own, which meant it needed a lot more work to make it look good enough for a competition. The tedium of tack-cleaning was made worse by the fact that the sound of the others riding in the school drifted in through the open window.
Finally she was done. She hung Firefly’s bridle on its hook. Lucy and Kitty had wanted the team all to have brow-bands to match their red and blue tops, but Declan and Cam had said no way. They might, Cam said, be jumping with children, but they weren’t going to look like children, and Declan had laughed and Kitty and Lucy had sulked.
Aidan came in, carrying two lots of tack – his dad’s and Kitty’s.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You’re in here.’
‘I was cleaning Firefly’s tack.’
Aidan set the two saddles carefully on their racks and hung up the bridles. He turned as if to leave, then hesitated at the doorway.
‘Why did you show people that photo?’ he demanded.
‘I didn’t … oh.’ She bit her lip. ‘I sent it to Jade – she must have shown Josh.’ She couldn’t even start to explain what her original plan about the photos had been. It sounded so lame and, like most of her brilliant ideas, it had backfired. ‘I didn’t know – I thought it would help.’
‘Some help! Butting in, telling the whole class I lived in a – a charity –’
‘But that’s true!’
‘Making me look like I couldn’t stick up for myself –’
‘Well, you couldn’t!’ His unaccustomed nastiness surprised Lucy into savagery. ‘Look at you – moping around, no friends, too scared to be in the team – you’re just asking to be bullied.’
Aidan’s dark eyes blazed.
Lucy didn’t know why he was being so nasty. It could only be jealousy, watching her get ready for the competition he hadn’t been good enough to do. But two people could be nasty.
‘Look, it’s not my fault you can’t ride your own pony.’
‘No,’ Aidan fired back, ‘but it’s your fault you can’t ride yours, isn’t it?’
‘What the hell …?’ Declan stood in the doorway, two head-collars hanging off his shoulder. ‘You two can be heard all over the yard. Do I need to remind you we have a very nervous new horse?’
‘Lucy’s got something to tell you,’ Aidan said, pushing past her. ‘Something she was too scared to tell you before.’
Lucy’s insides turned to ice. ‘I … I …’ she stuttered.
Declan looked bored. ‘Lucy, if you’re finally going to admit you raked Puzzle in the far field and that’s what wrecked his tendons, don’t waste your breath.’
Lucy swallowed. ‘Did Aidan tell you?’ She felt less guilty, now, about saying those nasty things.
‘Did Aidan know?’ Declan sounded surprised. ‘No, I saw for myself when I put the foals out. It’s not easy to cover a horse’s tracks in a muddy field, especially when you’re raking the hell out of it.’
Lucy looked hard at the floor, blinking back tears. Declan had always had the ability to make her feel small, but right now she felt about the size of a mouse. If only she were a mouse, she could scuttle through the skirting board and disappear.
‘I’d have thought more of you if you’d had the guts to tell me,’ he said. He hung up the head-collars and turned to go. ‘I want to lock up here now,’ he said. ‘Make sure you’re in good time in the morning – we want to leave at ten.’
LUCY buried her face deeper in Puzzle’s lovely springy mane. He blew at her in a friendly way and went straight back to attacking his hay-net. Around them the yard was quiet with only the little snufflings and shiftings and munchings of the horses.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy whispered. ‘I know it’s my fault. But you’ll get better. I promise you’ll get better and we’ll be riding and jumping and having fun again, and maybe we’ll go to the beach some day.’ But a permanently lame pony hobbled through her imagination.
She imagined she heard George, the vet’s, voice: ‘I’m sorry; the damage is permanent.’ And her dad: ‘We can’t keep a useless pony. He’ll have to be put down.’
These were the thoughts she didn’t usually allow herself, the thoughts she could keep away by concentrating on the competition. Everything was focused on that one event. Beyond that she couldn’t let herself think.
But now, after the horrible row, and realising that Aidan despised her much more than she despised him, and Declan saying she had no guts, the magic distraction wasn’t working.
Her phone pinged. Your tea is ruined! Home NOW!!!
She supposed she should go. Staying here, torturing herself, was only making her feel worse. And Puzzle was happy with his hay-net. It wasn’t as if he was in agony. And maybe, after all, George would say, ‘He’s doing really well; he’ll be good as new in no time.’
She let herself out quickly, grabbed her bike from where she’d left it and jumped on. It had no lights. She’d have to sneak in without her mum realising she’d been cycling or there’d be another row.
In the house behind the yard, a warm light glowed in the window of the room where the Kellys did most of their living. It was a big untidy room with a huge old range and squashy chairs that usually had cats curled up in their shabby depths. Lucy’s mum, on the one occasion she had been in it, had said it was a hovel. Lucy loved it, but she had a horrible feeling she wouldn’t be welcome there any more. She imagined them all talking about her, laughing at her: Silly Lucy, thinking we didn’t know. What a coward!
She wished she could go in, say she was sorry, admit she had indeed been too cowardly to own up. But her stomach twisted sickly at the very idea.
She would just go home and have her tea and a good sleep, and next day she would ride for Rosevale and be so brilliant, so instrumental in winning that five-thousand-pound prize for the yard, that everything would be forgiven.
Her wheels whirred through the darkness. Scuds of wind pushed clouds across the moon so that sometimes moonlight brightened the pitted lane. Other times she had to rely on luck as she pedalled through darkness. But the lights of her own house guided her, and she arrived home safely. Tea and TV, a bath steaming with bubbles and a hot chocolate in bed went a long way towards making her feel better. And after all, she thought, banging her pillow into a more comfortable position, the competition is the perfect chance to make amends to everyone, and to show the Sunnyside girls that Rosevale is a much better yard. And
Puzzle will probably be fine.
Puzzle … something about Puzzle. On the edge of sleep she remembered him munching his hay. And herself racing off at her mum’s text. And closing the door behind her. She remembered kicking the kick-bolt home – she thought – but what about the bolt itself? Suddenly wide awake, she forced her memory through her leaving of the stables. But no matter how many times she went over it, her memory refused to give her the reassuring click of the clip being put in to secure the bolt.
HER bike having no lights was actually an advantage. Even if someone happened to be looking out the windows at Rosevale, they wouldn’t see her. With coat and wellies pulled on over pyjamas and socks, she pedalled furiously up the drive, trying to avoid the potholes which the moon obligingly picked out for her, her mind flitting between certainty that she must have closed the door properly and horror that she hadn’t, that Puzzle, bored after finishing his hay, had managed to let himself out – was even now rampaging round the yard or grazing along the lane or – she couldn’t bear to think of this but her brain tortured her with it – already on the road, with the cars.
Here was the yard, dark and silent. No lights shone from the downstairs windows of the house, only upstairs. They must all have gone to bed early because of the big day ahead. Lucy left her bike against the wall and slipped round to the main stable block. There were a few surprised low nickerings at her approach but the steady happy chomp told her that the horses were still eating and not likely to kick up a fuss. She didn’t dare turn the lights on, but she could see what she needed to see.
Puzzle’s door was closed. The sigh of relief she let out felt so loud that she was surprised it didn’t wake the Kellys. The kick-bolt was done properly. The door was bolted, but she hadn’t put the clip in. Thank goodness she’d come! Puzzle was still munching hay, but she could easily have come up in the morning and found him gone. And quite apart from the horror of something happening to him, the very thought of what Declan would have to say – and Aidan, and Kitty, who probably wasn’t her friend now anyway – was alarming.
She did the clip, looked in at Puzzle – a black hump at the back of the stable – and was speeding down the lane again within seconds.
Too Many Ponies Page 8