by Kate Lattey
I try to read Tegan’s expression, but I don’t know her well enough yet. I wonder if Alec is some kind of social outcast. That would be just perfect, my one friend turning out to be a pariah.
“Yeah, I rode with him and Pip yesterday. They have a pony for sale that I was trying out.” I decide not to mention not being able to afford him.
“Which one?” she asks with interest.
“Snoopy, the piebald.”
“Oh, I know him. He’s cute. Did you like him?”
I shrug. “He was okay. I’m looking for something a bit bigger though,” I say, which isn’t an outright lie.
“Fair enough. My pony’s only thirteen-three, he’s a midget, but that’s okay ‘cause so am I.” She flicks her hair out of her eyes and grins. I smile back, starting to warm to her buoyant enthusiasm.
“So do you know Alec well?” I ask.
Tegan shakes her head. “Not really. I see him around at shows and stuff, and he comes to Pony Club sometimes. His sister was watching us jump at Pony Club the other week and she said nice things about Nugget. Not many people do, so that’s Brownie points in my book. Everyone else thinks he’s useless because he can be a bit naughty sometimes, but I like ponies with a bit of spark.”
Tegan picks up where she left off this morning, still talking a mile a minute, telling me all about Nugget’s jumping record and how she’s hoping to get him into some Ring 1 classes this season, whatever they are.
“I mean, everyone thinks I’m crazy, ‘cause we were jumping Ring 3 only a year ago, which is like, tiny little jumps, but now that Nugs knows his job and I can control him, he’s going like a bomb and he’s been cleaning up Ring 2, so we’re gonna start out this season in Ring 2 and then move up to Ring 1, hopefully. Hey, you’re coming to ride him today, right?”
What else am I going to do with my afternoon? “Sure.”
“Good. You’ll love him. He’s great. I’m hoping to get him up to metre-fifteens this season, maybe metre-twenties if he goes good. But we’ll see. Don’t wanna overdo it, not that I could over-face him ‘cause he’s bold as brass and thinks he knows it all. Which he does. Man he’s so good at getting himself out of a tight spot. Honest, he can jump anything, he’s so clever. Last year, at the Wanganui A&P…” and she’s off again.
CHAPTER SIX
The bus drops us off on the corner and we walk up the road to Tegan’s place. It’s quite small – not as tiny as Dad’s, but not exactly vast. Nice though, painted white with a porch wrapping around it and grey-blue trim on the windows. Her mum’s clearly a keen gardener, with bright flowers blooming in the neatly arranged flowerbeds. Behind the house I can see gently rolling paddocks and a small barn painted to match the house, and I can’t help wondering how the wild and untidy Tegan fits into this neat, orderly place. My new friend jumps onto the porch and kicks off her shoes, then throws the door open and marches into the house. I take my shoes off and follow her in.
Their house is heavily decorated in bright colours and with a general sense of clutter, as though the interior of a much larger house has been squished into this small one. Persian rugs sit on top of thick carpet, windows are hung with ruffled curtains, and every wall has at least one piece of rather gaudy art. There’s a strong smell of incense which gets stronger as we pass the living room, and I glance in to see a fluffy black cat curled up on the red and gold upholstery. I can’t help feeling overwhelmed by the brightness of it all, but I suppose you’d get used to it after a while.
“It’s like being inside a rainbow,” I tell Tegan, following her into a bright orange kitchen.
“Bit much, isn’t it?” she agrees, opening the fridge and pantry doors and scouting the contents. “It’s Mum’s idea of interior decorating. She can’t do anything by halves. Drives me mental, but what are you gonna do? She’s the boss. Hungry?”
I nod, and she looks again. “Hmm, let’s see. Lentil soup, chickpea salad - bleuch. Looks like Mum’s on a diet again. Hate it.” She pulls a large covered bowl out and lifts the corner of the lid. “Curry. There’s a cliché for you.”
A smaller version of Tegan appears in the room, dressed in beige jodhpurs and a pink polo shirt. She looks at me shyly.
“Tegan,” I say. “It’s your Mini-Me.”
She glances over her shoulder at the girl, then rolls her eyes at me. “Yeah, she’s an evil midget all right.”
The kid sticks out her tongue. “You’re the evil one.” She marches out of the room without even saying hello to me.
“Rude,” Tegan mutters. “That was Maddie. She’s a brat.”
“I heard that!” Maddie yells from the hallway.
“’Cause you’re an eavesdropping little bitch!” Tegan yells back, just as we hear the front door close. Tegan freezes for a moment, then sighs. “I’m about to get grounded.” Raising her hand with splayed fingers, she begins a countdown, mouthing the words silently. “Three, two, one…”
A woman who can only be Tegan’s mother walks into the kitchen, hands on hips. She’s short like her daughters but with a rounder figure, and her black hair is peppered with grey and clipped back on her head with large gold clips. Her dark eyes glare at her daughter from behind gold-rimmed glasses and her tightly pursed lips are covered in a bright red lipstick that matches her loud red and gold blouse. If she sat down on the living room couch, she’d blend right in and disappear.
The lecture begins before she even gets into the room. “I do not expect to come home and hear that kind of language in my…” She cuts off short as she notices me standing there, staring at her.
“This is Jay,” Tegan interjects quickly. “Dave Evans’s daughter, you know, come over from England. She rides, so I said she could come over and have a go on Nugget.”
“The poor girl,” her mother replies. “Does she know what she’s gotten herself in for?”
Tegan gives her mother a look. “Ha ha,” she says sarcastically. “Don’t listen to her Jay, she hates Nugget.”
“I just wish you’d let me buy you a decent pony,” her mum replies, but the look on Tegan’s face leads her to give up that argument. I can only assume it’s one they’ve had before.
“There’s nothing to eat,” Tegan complains.
“Rubbish,” her mum says dismissively. She glances out the window behind me. “Is Lizzie home yet?”
“Yeah, she’s out in the arena with Tish,” Tegan replies. “She must have cut out of school early to beat us home though, she wasn’t on the bus.”
“Deborah picked her up,” her mum says distractedly. “She’s got a lesson today. You two will have to ride in the paddock.” She smiles at me and I recognise her daughter in her face. “It’s nice to meet you Jay. Don’t forget to wear a helmet if you get on that pony of Tegan’s.”
Tegan glares at her, then grabbing a box of cheese crackers out of the cupboard, walks out of the room. Feeling awkward, I follow her.
“Why does your mum hate your pony?” I ask Tegan as we go down the hall. We walk past a pink bedroom with bunchy floral curtains and a matching bedspread, clean white furniture and a framed poster of fluffy kittens in a wicker basket. The next room is done in sapphire blue, with similar furnishings, but I stop to stare at an entire wall covered in wide sashes and huge rosettes, and a couple of framed photos of a girl on a stunning liver chestnut pony.
Tegan sees me staring. “That’s Lizzie’s room.”
“Wow. She must be an amazing rider.”
She shrugs. “She’s okay. She’s got a good pony and Mum spends tons on getting her top instruction.”
Tegan opens the door to her room and I follow her in and laugh.
“I don’t know you that well yet, but I definitely could’ve picked your room out of a line-up.”
The walls are painted a deep crimson, but the colour is barely visible under the music and movie posters stuck haphazardly over every available surface. The furniture is solid, dark and covered in stickers, and the wall above her desk is layered with pictures, postcards,
cartoons and newspaper articles.
“My mural,” she says proudly as I walk over for a closer look. “It’s taken me ages, but I collect bits and pieces to add to it all the time. It’s a permanent work in progress.”
The only part of Tegan’s room that resembles her older sister’s at all is the smothering of ribbons and rosettes on one wall. The carpet is barely visible under a layer of clothes, magazines, CDs and anything else that’s spilled off the furniture.
“You never hear of a wardrobe?” I joke as Tegan wades through her cast-off clothing.
“Floor-drobe,” she says, kicking a discarded t-shirt across the room and dropping onto the bed. “Welcome to my mum’s worst nightmare.” She drops her schoolbag on the floor and drags a pair of dirty jeans out of the general mess, then looks at me.
“Hmm. Can’t ride in a skirt, but my clothes probably wouldn’t fit you. I could steal something of Lizzie’s only she might kill me. Or you. Oh.” She goes to the wardrobe and swings open the door. More clothes fall out and she rummages through them. “I have some pants here that someone gave me. Miles too big for me. Aha. Knew I still had them.” She tosses me a pair of trousers and I catch them awkwardly, one leg slapping me in the face, and I find myself laughing in relief.
Tegan tilts her head, seeming confused. “What’s funny?”
“In England, when you say pants, well, that means underwear,” I explain, blushing.
“You thought I was gonna make you ride in undies? Hah! Oh, I wish I’d known that. I would’ve given you some, seen what you did!” Tegan giggles for a moment longer. “Well, try them on. They’ll probably fit you, they’re miles too big for me.”
“Yeah well you’re a midget,” I tell her, pulling the trousers on. Tegan doesn’t take offence at my comment. Anything you say to the girl is like water off a duck’s back.
“I know. Flipping genetics. I wish I was taller. When I move onto hacks I’m going to be screwed. I look like a pea on a mountain if I sit on anything over fifteen hands, but I wanna jump big classes, so hopefully I’ll grow a bit before then. Like a beanstalk.” She’s practically talking to herself now, muttering away about needing to get some magic beans. She’s rather odd, but she seems to like me, and I’m hardly in a position to be turning down offers of friendship.
The trousers are snug around my waist and a little shorter in the leg than I’d have liked, but they’re okay. Tegan keeps chattering as she pulls on her jeans and then unbuttons her skirt and lets it fall down around her ankles. She kicks it into the air and it lands on top of her bedside lamp.
“Stupid skirt. I wish I could wear trousers to school, we are allowed to if we want, but Mum won’t have a bar of it. Have to let her have her way sometimes, to keep the peace, you know?”
Between us we demolish the entire box of crackers, and Tegan makes herself a peanut butter sandwich as well before we wander out the back of the house towards the paddocks. Her sister Lizzie is riding in their arena, cantering in controlled circles on her beautiful dark chestnut pony. Small like Tegan but slimmer and more elegant, she is practically motionless in the saddle as her pony canters smoothly around with her neck arched. The woman in the middle of the arena is calling some instructions to her, but it all looks perfect to me.
Maddie is tacking up a small dark bay pony in front of the barn. We walk over to them and I reach out to pat her pony’s silky neck.
“This is Hamlet,” Maddie says proudly. “He’s the best pony ever. We win heaps.”
“Yeah, you do an ace job of sitting on him while he wins the ribbons,” Tegan tells her sister as she grabs a rope halter out of the tack room. Maddie ignores her and we walk up the hill to catch Tegan’s pony. She whistles as she opens the gate and a whinnied response comes almost instantly as a black tornado comes thundering towards us.
“And this is Nugget,” Tegan says proudly.
Compared to her sisters’ well-bred ponies, Nugget is almost ugly, a solid black gelding with thick short legs and a deep barrelled chest. He has a crescent-shaped star between his eyes and he pins his ears back at me, snarling his nostrils and doing his best to look dangerous. Tegan just laughs at him and rubs his ears, slipping the halter on.
“He needs a rope halter ‘cause otherwise he tows me around all over the place. He’s got absolutely no manners,” Tegan chatters away as Nugget practically leads her down to the yard. “It’s a shame we don’t have anything else for you to ride, otherwise we could go out for a hack or something, but we’ll have to take turns on this mutt in the paddock.”
Maddie is still grooming Hamlet to perfection, waiting for her turn in the school, but Tegan just whips Nugget’s cover off and throws his tack on without bothering to groom him at all.
“How come you’re not having a lesson?” I ask as I watch Lizzie canter a figure of eight with a flawless flying change through the middle.
“A dressage lesson? Dream on. I can’t be bothered. I used to have Hamlet, before I outgrew him and we did tons of flat classes and show hunters and all that, but I got sick of it. I like going fast, cross country or jump-offs. And a proper pony with a bit of fire in their belly,” and she pokes Nugget’s side as she pulls up his girths. He curls his lips back and stamps a hind foot, but seems to know better than to try anything with her.
Tegan rides Nugget around in the paddock for about twenty minutes while I watch from the shade of a willow tree. First Nugget attempts to gallop off with Tegan, then to pull her out of the saddle by jerking his head down, and I wonder if I even want to ride him. Turning down the opportunity would surely be a big black mark in Tegan’s book though, so I resign myself to having to at least make an attempt. I turn my head and watch Lizzie riding instead, admiring the control and calmness of the pony and rider, and the elegance and apparent effortlessness of their movements.
“Your turn,” Tegan calls as she trots her pony over to me and jumps off. I squash her too-small helmet onto my head and mount up. Nugget feels wider than Jigsaw but is about the same height, making me uncomfortably aware of how much I’ve grown. I let my stirrups down several holes, then squeeze his sides and walk him on. Nugget takes about five strides, somewhat reluctantly, then swings around to the left and dashes back to his owner. Tegan laughs at him and shoves him away, telling me to keep my legs on and get him going.
“He’s a bit of a brute,” she admits. “You’ve just gotta tell him who’s boss.”
Riding Nugget is hard work, I realise as I struggle to keep him going. I manage to make a circle, but it bulges towards Tegan on one side, then towards the gate on the other, resulting in a rather oddly-shaped oval. I ask him to trot on, but he ignores me for as long as possible until I finally give him a small kick with my heels. Squealing in protest at this harsh treatment, he shoots forward, making me lose my balance and sensing this, the black pony promptly takes off for the gate.
As I struggle to turn him around, I see Tegan laughing so hard she’s clutching her sides. I drag the right rein out towards my knee, but Nugget locks his jaw and refuses to turn, obstinately facing the gate. I can see Maddie watching me, and realise that Lizzie and her instructor are looking at me too.
“Get UP!” I growl at Nugget, feeling my face redden. I kick him hard in the stomach and he abruptly charges forward, turning sharply and almost taking my knee out on the gatepost. He’s decidedly reluctant to leave the gate, but I jam my heels down, kick him firmly and send him back towards Tegan.
“Oh man, that was so funny!” Tegan’s crying, she’s laughing so hard. “I forgot how naughty he can be. You’re doing great,” she insists. “Keep going, he’ll settle down soon.”
Ten minutes later, I’m getting the hang of Nugget. I need to concentrate every second or he’ll be off back to the gate, but I manage to get him to trot and canter under reasonable control. His paces are bouncy and rough, and I feel strangely seasick as I dismount.
“Isn’t he cool?” Tegan grins, ignoring my slightly green face. She flings her arms around Nugget’s neck an
d he nibbles the seat of her jeans. “Pervert,” she teases him, pushing his head away and remounting. “You wanna see him jump?”
Tegan’s mother invites me to stay for dinner, and knowing that all Dad is likely to give me is tinned spaghetti, I accept. Tegan’s father is home from work and sitting at the head of the table in his shirt and tie, looking respectable and fatherly as I sit down to a proper meal for the first time in this country. They make small talk for a while before Tegan’s mum decides to involve me in the conversation.
“How do you like New Zealand, Jay?”
I shrug. “It’s okay.”
“She’s only been here five minutes Mum, give her a chance,” Tegan snaps back. Her mum purses her lips and ignores her daughter.
“I bet it’s a bit of a change of scenery from living in England.”
I nod, shovelling more of the spiced potato into my mouth and knowing where this is headed. She keeps looking at me, so I swallow and tell her that it’s fine.
“Did you enjoy your first day at school?” she continues with the inane questioning.
“Talk about your stupid questions,” Tegan says. “Nobody enjoys school. Might as well ask if she likes going to the dentist, or…”
“Be quiet,” her father tells her sharply. Tegan shoots him a sulky look but does as she’s told.
Her mother shakes her head and looks at me. “I bet you don’t talk to your mother like that, Jay.”
“My mum’s dead.” Everyone looks awkward, and even Tegan is quiet. I shovel more food into my mouth and wish they’d change the subject and stop staring at me like I have some kind of disease.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” her mum says nervously.
A new, even more awkward silence lingers as everyone tries to think of a way to change the subject that won’t seem totally rude. I keep my eyes on my plate and keep eating, and after a long moment Lizzie asks her mother a question about her piano recital on Thursday. Conversation resumes, but the atmosphere is strained and it’s a relief when Dad picks me up just after seven. Fortunately he has the sense to sit in the car and not come marching up to the door to collect me. Not that I give him the chance. As soon as the car pulls into the driveway, I’m grabbing my bag and yelling goodbye to Tegan. I hope she doesn’t think I don’t like her. It’s just that I don’t want my Dad making a fool out of me in front of my new friend. Anyway her house is giving me a headache, what with the incense and all the bright colours. Dad asks me if I had a good time, and I mumble a response, looking out the window instead and trying not to think about my mum.