by Kate Lattey
* * *
Three weeks pass, and I start to feel a bit more settled. School continues to be boring, although the lessons are still fairly easy and I can feel my attention wandering. I get through my requisite talk with the guidance counsellor, assuring her that everything is fine and that I don’t need more grief counselling, and she pretends to believe me. I ride at Alec’s most days after school, occasionally going to Tegan’s instead to share Nugget, and once she rode over to the Harrisons’ and did some jumping in their field. Nugget might be crazy, but he can certainly jump, and I had to admit that I was impressed with his efforts. Amy and I sit together sometimes in class, but Natalie still won’t even look at me - not that that’s any great loss.
Alec and I are hanging out at my place after school one day when it’s too wet to bother riding, drinking instant coffee at the kitchen table and flicking through the latest equine sales magazine. His mum’s been brilliant with helping me look for a pony. My ridiculous budget has, surprisingly, already pulled up a few potential ponies, although they’ve all turned out to be rubbish. One tried to kill me, bucking me straight off when I got on it, one was so lame it could hardly trot, and a pony advertised as being fourteen-two turned out to be closer to twelve-two. I did find one that I liked, a pretty black gelding who was advertised as being ten years old, but Tabby had taken one look at his teeth and said he was at least sixteen, and also reckoned he had a bit of arthritis in his hocks, so we’d had to walk away.
“That one looks nice,” I tell Alec, pointing to a photo of a solid bay pony jumping a log. He leans over to look at it and bumps my elbow, causing me to spill hot coffee across the magazine and myself.
“Ouch!” I yell as I jump to my feet, shaking burning liquid from my arm. Alec has the grace to look slightly guilty.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. “You all right?”
I inspect the red patch on my hand and stick my tongue out at him. “No thanks to you.”
He ignores me and blows on his own coffee nonchalantly, watching it ripple across the surface. “You don’t want that pony.”
Grumpily, I dab at the wet magazine with a tea towel. “Why not? It looks nice, and it’s within budget.”
“It’s like a hundred years old.”
“What?” I lean over and read the ad again. “There’s no mention of its age here.”
Alec raises an eyebrow. “Which should make you automatically suspicious. And before you start arguing,” he adds quickly, “I know it’s ancient because that’s an old photo of Tessa Kilway riding it. It’s called Buster Brown, and it’s gotta be at least 25 by now and probably riddled with arthritis. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”
I snort. “Yeah right. Says the guy who got two out of twenty in his algebra test.”
He waves a hand flippantly at me as he sips his coffee. “Who gives a crap about algebra? Seriously, when in life am ever I going to need to know what x + y equals?”
“Hopefully never, or you’ll be screwed,” I tell him and he punches my shoulder, almost spilling coffee on me again.
I hit him back as hard as I can, and he’s teasing me about my feeble punches when the door opens and Dad comes in, dripping with rain. He seems surprised to see Alec there. He looks at him, then turns to me, then back to Alec with a confused expression, as though me having a friend over is some sort of shocking event. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so awkward.
“Hello.” Dad eyeballs Alec as he pats the stupid dog, which is bouncing around in delight at seeing him arrive home. “How was your day?” he asks, more out of habit than from actually caring.
“Fine,” I mutter, turning back to the magazine. Alec glances at me, then gets to his feet.
“I should be going,” he says, and Dad doesn’t rush to disagree.
“It’s pouring with rain,” I object. “You’ll get soaked.”
Alec shrugs off my concern. “It’s all good.”
“No rustbucket today?” Dad asks rudely, but Alec just shakes his head, not taking offence.
“Carburettor’s shot. Need to get a new one, but I’ve got a bit more prize money to win before I can afford it.”
Dad nods, making no further comment, and Alec grabs his bag and heads out the door. “See you tomorrow Jay.”
I wave and tell him goodbye as he ducks his head against the rain and jogs across our lawn. Shutting the door, I turn on my father. “How hard would it have been to give him a ride down the road?”
“He doesn’t mind walking, he said so.”
“You wouldn’t have been like that if it was Tegan.”
“No, I probably wouldn’t have,” he agrees. “She lives a lot further away.”
“You know what I mean. Did you have to kick him out? Are you mad because I was alone here with a boy? Or is it just because you hate his family?” I don’t know why I’m starting an argument again. I seem to do it every day, but Dad keeps rubbing me up the wrong way and I can’t help myself.
Dad lifts his hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t kick him out. He left of his own accord. And I don’t hate his family, though his old man’s a bit of a nutter.”
I haven’t met Alec’s father yet, so I can’t really argue the point, but I repeat what Pip had said about her dad having fights with the Council.
“She said that, did she?” Dad raises an eyebrow. “Well Liam Harrison knows as well as anyone around here that he can’t go chopping down protected native bush, whether or not it’s on his land. The last bloke didn’t have the spine to stand up to him, but once I took over I put Harrison straight. He didn’t like that much.”
“Because you don’t have enough bush around here,” I snark.
“He can get a resource consent to do it,” Dad explains. “Just has to file the paperwork, and he hasn’t bothered. I think he’s just biding his time until I move on and he finds someone he can intimidate again.”
I’m still dubious, unable to imagine anyone being intimidated by the easy-going Harrisons. Dad goes on. “Rest of the family’s probably all right, but I don’t see much of them. We don’t exactly move in the same social circles.”
“Why, because they’re poor?” I ask him, looking pointedly around the room. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black. I haven’t noticed that you have much of a social circle anyway, other than the famous Bill McLeod. Would you rather I hang out with the twins because they have a nice house and expensive ponies?”
Dad is looking at me with a weird expression on his face. “It’s been too long since I lived with a woman,” he says, almost to himself. “You twist all my words around and make me say the wrong thing.”
“So now it’s my fault that you’re a hypocrite?” I pick up my books off the table and deliver my parting shot. “The Harrisons might be poor, but at least they’re not snobs like you and the rest of the people around here. Besides, even if I did make friends with the twins, I’d be far too ashamed to bring them back here to this stupid house with you and your manky dog, so why don’t you just stay out of it!”
With those words, I storm out of the room and up the stairs to my bedroom, slamming the door loudly behind me. I can feel the tears coming again and I wish I could stop them, but I haven’t got a hope. I fling myself onto my bed and close my eyes, feeling horrible about what I just said, but lacking the courage to go back downstairs and apologise.
CHAPTER SEVEN
On the weekend a boy from Tauranga comes and rides Snoopy. I’m crossing my fingers that the pony will misbehave, because I’ve become fond of him, but Snoopy jumps well and the boy really likes him. His parents write Alec a cheque, load Snoopy onto their truck, and just like that, he’s gone.
“Aren’t you sad?” I ask Alec as we watch the truck head off down the road.
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Why, because I just made six grand? Hardly.”
I can’t speak as I watch yet another pony rumble steadily out of my life, and seeing my face, Alec gives my elbow a friendly bump.
&n
bsp; “Jay, don’t worry. He’s gone to a good home. They’ll take real good care of him and he’ll get to hunt and do lots of cross-country jumping. He’ll love it. And,” he adds with a grin as he whips the cheque out of his pocket and waves it in my face. “Now I can get my car fixed!”
I’ll miss Snoopy, although part of me is glad that I didn’t buy him. I wouldn’t admit it to Alec, but I want a properly nice pony, a real head turner that will get people’s attention at shows. Alec’s ponies do their job, but none of them would win any beauty competitions. His dun mare Trixie is a sweet pony, but her conformation is average and she has the most uncomfortable canter I’ve ever sat on. Jumping her is like riding a rocking horse up to a fence and then pinging over it on a pogo stick – straight up and down. She gets over some pretty big jumps though and Alec says she can turn really tightly, so she’s great against the clock. Still, I wouldn’t want to take her out to a show. And I’d not be seen dead on Jess. She’s a mess, with her sway back, Roman nose and knobbly knees. Not to mention the fact that she’s certifiably crazy and almost broke Alec’s nose at Pony Club the other day. That was a fiasco and a half.
Alec had said that I could take Dolly to the local Pony Club’s evening rally, so I’d gone down after school in what I thought was plenty of time. I’d been quite shocked when I’d arrived to find Alec already mounted on Jess and dragging a reluctant Dolly out of the yard behind him.
“Finally!” he’d yelled when he saw me. “C’mon now, get on the horse and hurry the hell up.” I’d grabbed Dolly’s reins from him and prepared to mount. “We’re gonna have to hoof it,” he’d said, checking his watch. “Or we’ll be late.”
“We’re riding over?” I’d asked, settling into the hard saddle and picking up the pony’s reins. “Why not take your truck?”
“Who’s gonna drive it?” had been his reply as we sent the ponies down the road at a fast trot. “Mum’s at work, Dad’s always busy and I don’t have my HT license yet.”
It’d been a fast and pretty hair-raising ride to the McKendrick property, where the rally was being held. We’d trotted halfway down Valley Road, then turned onto what Alec called the ‘short cut’, a narrow and steep path that shot almost straight down the hill. Dolly scrambled down behind Jess, her ears pinned back the whole way, and I’d braced my feet against the stirrups as the saddle slid further down her neck. I had to get off and fix it at the bottom of the hill, much to Alec’s annoyance and prancing impatience. When I was finally remounted, we crossed a shallow creek before picking up a fast canter across the paddock to the next gate. Alec opened and closed it expertly and we crossed the road, which was thankfully clear of logging trucks. After almost two miles of steady trotting along the roadside, we’d finally got to the beach. Dolly was sweating already, but she’d been nowhere near as tired as I already was. Up ahead, Jess was still fighting for her head and Alec was sitting comfortably on her back, seemingly completely unconcerned about the intensity of our pace.
“Now for the fun part,” he’d grinned at me as we’d crossed the road by the shops and headed into the sand dunes. Jess had taken hold of the bit and was flinging her head around madly, fighting for the reins. Alec managed to hold her back until we reached the flat sand, then dropped the reins and she’d shot forward into a fast gallop. Dolly’s eyes had popped and she’d practically tripped over her own feet as she jumped into a gallop herself and struggled to keep up with the bigger pony. At first I’d been terrified that she was going to fall on her face at any moment and we’d both die a crushing death, but she’d battled gamely on and after a while I’d started to enjoy myself as we’d pounded across the sand, the wind in our faces and the taste of salt in the air. We’d finally reached the point and Jess’s stride had eventually eased to a canter. I’d pulled up alongside Alec, both Dolly and I puffing hard.
“Fun, huh?” he’d said as I’d flopped forward onto Dolly’s neck, exhausted, his laughter ringing in my ears. He’d checked his watch. “We’re making okay time, we’ll ease off a bit now.”
We’d ridden up onto a well-used cycle track, where we’d had to go slow anyway, as we kept running into people who were out walking their dogs and pushing their babies in strollers, or almost being run into in turn by small children on wobbling bikes. Jess barged past everything and Dolly scuttled along behind her, pressing herself closer to the other pony the more scared she got, which almost got her kicked several times. We came out onto a network of suburban streets, and wove our way along past neatly fenced gardens and station wagons parked in sloping driveways before we reached the rally. The ponies were both sweating profusely by the time we arrived, but we were barely late.
Dolly had been excited after her hair-raising ride, but settled down eventually and only reared once which was an improvement for her. We’d done some dressage, which Dolly wasn’t particularly good at, tending to poke her nose in the air and run off with me when she got bored. The instructor had kept telling me to relax my hands, but as soon as I did that Dolly just went faster, so I’d tuned her out and concentrated on holding the little mare off everyone else’s heels. Natalie had been there, of course, beautifully turned out and riding around with her nose in the air, but Sarah totally upstaged her on her much prettier grey show pony. Topaz had bucked into every single canter transition, making Amy yell at her constantly, and Tegan had just charged around on Nugget without even trying to control him, barging past me on occasion calling “Sorry, no brakes!”
I could tell, just by looking, which riders were into jumping and which were more into dressage. Our instructor had kept saying that dressage was important for jumping, but it had been quite obvious when we’d started to jump that she was wrong, because the dressage ponies were useless at it. Spider had refused every other jump, despite Natalie’s mum yelling “LEGS! LEGS! LEGS! Come on Natalie, it’s not rocket science!” from the sidelines every time Natalie approached a fence, making me and Tegan giggle hysterically. Sarah’s pony had jumped them all hesitantly and knocked three rails down, and Topaz had jumped Amy right out of the saddle over every jump before bucking her off as the grand finale. On the other hand, Nugget and Dolly had jumped perfectly, and although Jess did throw her head up between two of the fences, smacking Alec in the face and giving him a bloody nose, he’d still jumped a clear round. That’s the kind of rider he is. Those others, they’d burst into tears and fall apart if that happened to them, but Alec just keeps on riding. He might be a bit rough around the edges, as Mum would’ve said, but he always gets the job done and he doesn’t give in, and I have to say I admire him for that.
* * *
Two more weeks roll by, and I’m adjusting to my new life. I’m starting to learn the lingo, a necessary requirement to prevent making too much of a fool out of myself. It seems like everything has a different name. A numnah has become a saddle blanket, and a hard hat is a helmet. A riding coat is a jacket, a pony’s rug its cover, and a horse trailer is (inexplicably) called a float. One goes out for a ride, not for a hack, and rides in an arena, not a school. A field has become a paddock, a slab of hay is a biscuit, and apparently, my Dad’s truck is a ute.
Dad and I are still barely speaking. He seems to have taken me at my word and has gone from trying to control my life and make my friends for me, to not caring at all what I get up to. If I go to Tegan’s or Alec’s after school, he doesn’t expect me to call and tell him where I am. One Wednesday night I stayed up late playing cards with Alec and Pip, and didn’t get home until after eleven. I’d expected Dad to be sitting up waiting and ready to tear my head off, but instead I’d walked into a dark house and heard him snoring through his bedroom door. It should be making me happy, having him finally butt out of my life, but for some reason it’s just making me angrier at him.
In my latest attempt to rile him up, I tell him that I’m going to a show that weekend with the Harrisons, and that I will be spending the whole weekend in their company and sleeping over in their horse truck, which, I take pains to point out to
him, is even more rundown than their house. He doesn’t seem bothered though, just nods and keeps on reading the paper. I want to yell at him and throw things, but instead I lock myself in my room and play rock music so loud that the walls vibrate. I wait for him to come and tell me to turn it down, that it’s doing his head in, but five minutes later I see him walk out of the house with the dog and get in his ute.
“I’ll still be here when you get back,” I mutter to myself as he drives away. “Much as you wish I wouldn’t be.”
* * *
The weekend finally rolls around. Saturday morning dawns bright and clear, and I head down to Alec’s to help him get his ponies ready for their next competition. The show is on Sunday, but it’s a long drive there and an early start in the morning, so Tabby has decided to drive us over there on Saturday evening and stay overnight. Alec mentioned yesterday that the truck needs to be cleaned out before we go, and he’s taking all four ponies to the event, so it’s going to take a while to get everything ready. I figure I’ll do the ponies and he can do the truck, then we’ll go over the tack together.
Alec is sitting on the edge of the porch eating toast, apparently having just gotten out of bed.
“You’re early,” he greets me.
“I came to help you get everything ready.”
He squints up at me in the bright sunlight. “Get what ready?”