Clearwater Bay 1- Flying Changes

by Kate Lattey

  I want a pony. I desperately want a pony. It’s the only shining light about living in this wretched place. But I want a pony that I can take out and compete. I want to be able to email my friends in England and tell them what a wonderful time I’m having, show them pictures of the big fences I’m jumping, the shows I’m winning at. I don’t want some scraggly pony that I practically have to break in before I can start taking it anywhere. I don’t have time to do all the work first, because I won’t be here for any longer than I have to be. I push my face down into the pillows, feeling the tears start to escape out from under my eyelids.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As I walk down to the Harrisons’ the next morning, I wonder if perhaps the state of the place isn’t that bad. Maybe it looks worse from the road than it really is, and I remind myself that Snoopy looked rather nice in his photo. But as I walk through their gate, I realise that up close it’s even more dire than it looks from the road. I find it hard to believe that anyone as nice and as normal as Pip seems to be could actually live here. I wander down the rutted driveway as she comes out of the falling-down house wearing ripped jeans and hiking boots.

  “Ready to ride?” I nod, feeling self-conscious yet again in breeches and leather gaiters. My feet are screaming in protest at having to walk around in the boots again, but the option was gaiters with my trainers, which would look beyond stupid. If I’d thought about it, I could have walked there in the trainers and carried my boots, but once I’d walked out the door I wasn’t going back. Dad and I still aren’t really talking to each other, but I don’t know him well enough to know how to fix it, and deep down, I’m still too mad to try.

  “Cool. Gear’s all in the woolshed. This way.”

  I follow Pip to the old woolshed, looking at it uneasily. Built on two levels, with the sheep held in yards down below and the shearing done on the upper floor, it’s in desperate need of repairs. The door to the upper level is a good metre and a half off the ground, and the steps leading up to it have rotted into a heap and are being rapidly overgrown by thistles. A couple of concrete blocks and some old tyres serve as a makeshift staircase, and Pip scrambles up and disappears through the doorway. I follow suit, stepping onto the well-worn floorboards of the top floor. The reek of sheep manure wafts up from beneath us.

  There are a few saddles slung haphazardly over a railing, and Pip grabs one and then starts pulling bridles off nails on the wall. Nothing is named or in any apparent order, and I wonder how she keeps track of it all.

  “Bit of a mess, as usual,” she says cheerfully. “But we manage somehow.”

  “Organised chaos?” I suggest.

  “Apart from the organised bit,” a voice replies. I turn to see a boy my own age standing in the opposite doorway, and instantly recognise him from when he almost had a head-on collision with us on the road. He shares Pip’s thick eyebrows and strong jawline, but the familial features suit a boy better. His hair is darker than Pip’s, more like their mother’s, although his short crewcut makes it impossible to tell whether he shares Tabby’s loose curls. The siblings both have the same easy grins and hazel eyes that crinkle at the edges when they smile. I wonder what it would have been like to have a brother.

  “My brother Alec,” Pip introduces him. “This is Jay.”

  Alec looks me over and raises an eyebrow, presumably at the fact that I’m actually appropriately dressed for riding, then turns away and starts chatting to his sister. I’m left in the corner, feeling useless and self-conscious, watching them. Alec is wearing the most worn-out pair of jeans I’ve ever seen and a t-shirt covered in paint and oil stains. He looks like he’s been wearing the same clothes for the last week without changing.

  “Jay’s looking for a pony,” Pip tells her brother. “She’s gonna have a go on Snoopy.”

  “Okay.” He seems unfazed about the prospect. “Snoop can get pretty strong. You ready for him?” he asks me.

  I had been waiting for the right moment to tell them that I won’t be able to afford the pony, but Alec’s doubt at my ability to ride the pony gets my back up, and I’m instantly defensive.

  “I can handle him,” I assure Alec. “My old pony could be naughty but I hardly ever came off him.”

  A flicker of a smile appears on Alec’s face as he leans down to grab a dirty yellow halter off the floor and shakes loose bits of hay off it.

  “That’s good, ‘cause you’re gonna have your hands full.”

  Pip passes me a saddle and bridle, and I notice that they use a Pelham bit on Snoopy. Jigsaw always went in a snaffle, and while I can identify a Pelham from years of Pony Club instructors drilling it into me, I have no idea how to put one on an actual pony. But I don’t want to look like a fool in front of Pip and her brother, so I say nothing and figure I’ll work it out when the time comes.

  “Brushes are in that bucket, grab what you want,” Pip adds as she ducks out the door, arms full of tack.

  I dig out a dandy brush, curry comb and hoofpick, none of which have been cleaned in a long time and are caked in hair and dirt.

  “What about a numnah?” I ask Alec as he heads towards the door, carrying his own tack.

  He turns around with a furrowed brow. “What’s that?”

  “A numnah?” I repeat. He clearly has no idea what I’m on about. “You know, to put under the saddle.”

  “You mean a saddle blanket? Over there,” he tells me, gesturing with his chin. I look over to see a pile of dirty numnahs hung haphazardly over a railing.

  “Thanks.”

  I walk over, pull a faded green one off the top, and walk towards the door. Alec is still in the doorway, watching me with some amusement. He grins and steps back as I approach the doorway, letting me go first. I’m surprised at this random act of gentlemanly behaviour, which seems incongruous with my observations of him so far. I walk carefully down the steps, taking my time and making sure I don’t fall flat on my face. Alec jumps down easily behind me and we walk towards the yards side by side. He’s slightly shorter than me and not particularly good-looking, but like the rest of his family, there’s something about him that puts me at ease. Pip has slung her tack onto the yard railing and Alec and I follow suit. As I follow the cheerfully bickering siblings out towards the fields, I think perhaps I have misjudged them, taken their poverty at face value and assumed that it meant they were not good people. Dad doesn’t seem to think much of them, but he’s hardly in a position to be such a snob.

  Once we’ve caught the ponies and start grooming them, I quickly discover that I’ve been taught very different horse management skills to the Harrisons. Pip and Alec handle their ponies competently but without overt affection. Misbehaviour isn’t tolerated, and when Alec’s mare takes fright at something in the nearby bushes and skitters sideways into him, she earns herself a smack on the shoulder with the back of his dandy brush. Pip’s pony is more placid, and she chats as we work, telling me stories about some of the various adventures they’ve had, and I can’t help laughing at the descriptions of their mishaps.

  Snoopy is a cute pony, very inquisitive and constantly nuzzling me, trying to fish out some kind of treats. Alec keeps looking at me with this strangely amused expression, which I can’t figure out until Snoopy nips me sharply on the hip.

  “Ow! Naughty,” I scold Snoopy half-heartedly.

  “Give him a whack if he does that again,” Pip tells me matter-of-factly. “He was real spoiled and bullying when he came here, and you can’t let him get back into bad habits.”

  I nod, embarrassed, and watch as Pip swings her saddle onto her pony’s back, flicking the girth off the top and pulling it through from under the dun mare’s belly in one smooth motion. As she buckles it the mare flattens her ears and aims a kick at Pip, who elbows the pony in the ribs.

  “Oh come on, Trix, I did not do it tight,” she tells the mare, who seems determined to disagree. “Thin-skinned, foolish mare,” she says with a grin over her shoulder at me.

  I manage Snoopy’s saddle with
out any problems, but the bridle looks properly complicated. I fiddle with it for a moment, trying to work it out without seeming stupid.

  “You nearly ready Jay?” Pip turns around and sees my confusion. She calls to Alec, who’s already mounted on his pony, to help me while she gets her helmet. She disappears back into the woolshed as Alec slips his feet out of the stirrups and slides gracefully from his mare’s back. I can feel my cheeks burning as he comes to rescue me.

  “Here,” and he tosses me his pony’s reins. I take them and stroke the grey mare’s ugly Roman nose as Alec quickly shakes out the bridle and then slips it onto Snoopy’s head.

  “You could’ve just shown me how to do it,” I tell him indignantly. “I’ve never used a bit like that before. Jigsaw went in a snaffle.”

  Alec has the grace to look slightly guilty. “Sorry.” He motions to the chain, still hanging down from the bit. “There’s roundings on it, so you don’t need to worry about using two reins. Just whack it in like a normal bit. Only part you can screw up is the curb chain,” and he shows me how to twist the chain until it lies flat, then hook it up beneath Snoopy’s chin, making sure to be able to fit two fingers beneath it. “That’ll give you some brakes, which you’re going to need.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter, slightly annoyed that everyone around here seems to assume that I can’t ride to save myself.

  Alec grins at me. “Not just for you, I can’t hold him in a snaffle either.”

  He takes the grey back from me and starts to vault on from the ground. He’s halfway into the saddle when Jess pins her ears and sidesteps away from him. Her hogged mane offers no grip and as she swings her quarters away from him, Alec slides to the ground and lands on his bum in the mud. I can’t help bursting into laughter, and he looks embarrassed as he gets to his feet and mounts with the stirrup this time. He sits down in the saddle and kicks the pony with his right leg.

  “Get over, ya stupid mare,” he growls, but he’s grinning as he says it.

  Pip comes back and mounts Trixie, and I snap up the chinstrap of my hard hat and pull down Snoopy’s stirrups, then check their length against my arm. They’re a bit short, so I lower them three holes. The stiff leather objects, but I manage to get them adjusted correctly before tightening my girth another hole. As I’m swinging myself up onto Snoopy’s broad back, he decides to start walking, and I almost repeat Alec’s performance of falling into the mud. However sheer will gets me enough momentum to land in the saddle. My face is burning with embarrassment as I turn to face the Harrisons, but they’re chatting to each other and didn’t even notice my awkward mounting, which is a relief. I lean down to tighten Snoopy’s girth another hole, but he puffs his stomach out, so I decide to leave it for now, and catch him off guard later.

  “You’ll wanna jump him,” Pip tells me. “See how he goes for you. We’ve got a course set up down in the creek paddock. Dad makes us move the jumps all the time so we don’t churn up the ground. Be good though, give you a chance to get a feel for him on the ride over. It’s not far.”

  I’m already on the pony, so I might as well come clean. “Actually I talked to Dad last night, and he said that he can’t afford more than two thousand dollars for a pony.” I wait for their laughter, but it doesn’t come.

  Pip shrugs. “Shame. Mum and I decided that if you liked Snoopy we’d drop the price, but we can’t go down that far. We need four-and-a-half, minimum.”

  I shake my head, determined not to tear up. “Dad said two thousand was the absolute most he could afford. I don’t know how I’m going to find any kind of reasonable pony for that amount. I looked on the computer last night, and anything that’s any good is five thousand at the least.”

  Alec snorts, and when I turn to him he’s unsympathetic. “That’s bull. We didn’t pay that much for any of our ponies. In fact, we’d barely have paid two grand total for the lot of them.”

  I stare at him disbelievingly. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope,” Alec replies, and Pip shakes her head. “Dolly we paid a few hundred for, she came off of Trade Me. That’s why we named her Dot.com - Pip’s idea. Trixie came from the hunt master after his son gave up riding, they’re old family friends. Jess was off the dog tucker truck, because everyone said she was crazy and ought to be shot, but we decided to give her a chance. Lucky’s a Kaimanawa pony who was mustered from the wild as a two year old, so we tamed him and broke him in ourselves. And then Snoopy was cheap because his feet were so cracked he was really lame, but we managed to sort them out.”

  I glance down at Snoopy’s solid feet which look absolutely fine to me.

  “Took a while,” Pip tells me. “But he’s come right. They were dry as anything when we got him though, so we had to keep him in the creek or bog paddocks and overflow his water troughs so that he always had to stand in a bit of water. And in the worst of the summer we rode him down and stood him in the river for half an hour at a time.”

  “Which he hated,” Alec interjects. “But the point is, you don’t need megabucks to get a decent pony. Not every one’s a winner, but we haven’t had one yet that we didn’t turn a profit on.”

  I mull over his words as we head off into one of the nearby fields, Alec in the lead on Jess, striding out with her head held high, and Pip right behind on the bustling Trixie. I clap Snoopy’s neck and tell him he’s a good pony, and he flicks an ear back in vague response and then proceeds to ignore me, more interested in trying to push past Trixie. His short stride is similar to Jigsaw’s, though the old, hard saddle and dirty tack feels strange, and the sight of dirt and scurf matted into the pony’s mane is very foreign to me. At our yard back home, we’d spend hours grooming our ponies to perfection before we rode, and cleaned our tack every time we were done with it. Our yard manager Charlotte insisted on it, because she said it was important for the yard’s reputation that everyone was turned out smartly and made a good impression. When Becky had tried to ride Rio out with a bit of mud still on his legs and his tail not brushed out completely, she’d about had her head torn off by Charlotte, who was in a proper fit of rage over it. She’d have a heart attack if she could see me now, yet I find myself grinning at the thought.

  We go through a gate, Alec closing it expertly behind us, and start up a narrow track that winds up the hill ahead of us. Alec pushes his pony into a trot, Pip follows, and my arms are almost yanked out of their sockets as Snoopy pulls like a train to catch up. I give him his head for a couple of strides before reining him back, but he doesn’t like that idea and locks his jaw, running right up Trixie’s rear and making her swish her hindquarters in warning. Pip turns her head.

  “Stay off her butt, she’ll kick him,” she warns me.

  I nod, arms already aching from holding Snoopy back, and Pip frowns.

  “Don’t let him pull you around like that,” she tells me sharply. “Sit down hard and give him a yank in the gob.”

  I sit down as deep in the saddle as I can and tug firmly on Snoopy’s mouth. He doesn’t slow down but he stops pulling so hard. Relieved, I relax my hands on the reins and he grabs the bit again. I shorten my reins further and yank at him again, harder this time, glad also that Charlotte’s not here to see me riding like this. Snoopy reluctantly slows his pace and relaxes his jaw slightly.

  “That’s better,” Pip nods. Ahead of me Trixie is calm and well-behaved, and Jess isn’t giving Alec any trouble either. My heart sinks. Finally I find some people who seem to like me, and I can’t ride their pony.

  We canter to the top of a hill and then walk the ponies down a sheep track that zig-zags down the other side. It’s a sunny day, but on top of the hill we’re caught by a chilly breeze that brings goosebumps to my arms. The view is pretty impressive though, and I check Snoopy slightly to admire it. He’s seen it all before and is unimpressed, yanking the reins out of my hands and rushing to keep up with Trixie, so I settle for looking around as we go.

  There are rolling hills for miles, just begging to be cantered over, and I can see th
e beach, that long, enticing stretch of ocean and golden sand curving up to the point. I can’t wait to get down there to ride, and can imagine Snoopy galloping his little legs off across the sand. The high ranges behind us are thick with pines, and as we descend the hill I can see properly over the stone walls into Clearwater Estate.

  “That’s such a nice place,” I tell Pip. She turns in her saddle to see where I’m pointing.

  “Oh, yeah. Not bad huh? That’s the Owens’ place. They don’t live there anymore though. I think they’re selling it.”

  “They’ve got nice stables,” I comment.

  She shrugs, unimpressed. “I guess. Don’t have much use for stables myself. All that mucking out just means more work. Our brother Brad is working on a polo yard in Egypt, spends hours mucking out every morning. Bugger that.”

  We reach the road at the bottom of the hill and trot along the verge for a way before turning to another gate. Alec flicks the latch open and Jess barges through, pushing the gate wide with her chest. Pip and I pass through behind him, and he shoves it closed behind us. As he leans down to latch it, his mare’s ears prick up and she lifts her head, straining against the running martingale. I turn to see a large cattle truck hurtling up the road towards us.

  “Truck,” Pip calls needlessly as the grey shies violently and bolts off across the paddock. Alec loses a stirrup and my heart’s in my mouth, but Alec never looks like falling off. He turns Jess in a tight circle, bringing her easily back under control and trots towards us, patting the mare’s sweaty neck as she prances and sidles, still wary of the road.

  “I can get the gate,” I offer, but Alec shakes his head.

  “She’ll be right, she has to learn.”

  He urges Jess over and manages to latch the gate, then makes her stand for a moment as she gazes up at the road, muscles tense and ready to spring away again if another truck monster decides to appear. I suddenly remember that I haven’t tightened my girth yet, so I swing my left leg forward and pull the first strap up. I’ve only got the one buckle fastened when Alec turns Jess away from the gate and urges her into a canter. Trixie follows suit and I grab frantically at Snoopy’s reins, trying to hold him still as I fumble with my girth and mutter under my breath about people not waiting for the rest of the ride. I somehow manage to restrain Snoopy long enough to get the second buckle fastened and move my leg back into place before, furious at being left behind, the piebald grabs the bit between his teeth, sticks his head between his knees and charges off after the others. Jamming my heels down as far as they’ll go, I saw on the reins in a desperate attempt to slow Snoopy down, but it has no effect. He rips past Pip’s sedately cantering mare and tears up next to Jess, who pins her ears and unleashes a huge buck, hind legs lashing out at Snoopy for daring to attempt to overtake her. Alec barely moves in the saddle as he reins her in, Pip pulling up behind him, and I canter a circle around them before I can get Snoopy to stop.