“Tell that to the owners when they get hurt,” she said, leading Roxy past in the protective equipment that Infanta was wearing.
Hanna didn’t get up and help us. Instead she stayed in bed. I guess she knew she’d been fired or dismissed or whatever it was that happened when you got kicked out of a working student program. I tried to ignore her but it was hard. I wanted to tell her I was sorry but I knew she wouldn’t believe me.
The paddocks were full since the horses all had the day off and that meant that Shelby and I had to take turns putting them out for an hour or two and then bringing them in and putting the next batch out. An ever rotating circle of turnout because we didn’t have enough paddocks for all the horses to be out at the same time. It was hot too and only some of them had shade. Not only did owners not like their horses getting hurt, they didn’t like them getting sun bleached either so by the time it got to lunch, it was too hot and sunny for anyone else to go out.
“We’ll put the rest out later,” Shelby said as we fed lunch. “After the sun goes down.”
“So what do we do now?” I said.
“Whatever you want,” she replied with a grin.
It felt weird to have free time, like I was a prisoner who’d been given a reprieve for a few hours. I grabbed a book out of my bag and took it and a big cup of iced tea into the shade of a tree over by the ring. I’d really wanted to take advantage of the air conditioning and lay on my bed but Hanna was still in there and I was avoiding her.
I tried to read the book but I was so tired that even the adventures of Spunky the circus pony and his runaway owner couldn’t keep my eyes open and at some point I nodded off. I woke to a rumble of thunder off in the distance, the bright blue sky now dark and menacing. A truck was coming down the drive. At first I was worried that it was one of Rae’s students disobeying her but then I realized that it was Esther. She’d driven all this way to pick up Hanna and I knew she’d be mad about it. In fact, part of me was also worried that she’d come to get me too. A package deal. If one had to go, we both did? I wasn’t sure what the deal was. I just hoped that Hanna hadn’t ruined things for me too.
CHAPTER SIX
“Hi Esther,” I said as I got to the truck.
I figured I might as well get it over and done with. There was no point in hiding and pretending that she wasn’t there.
“I’m really sorry that I couldn’t keep Hanna out of trouble,” I added.
Esther looked mad. Her lips were pursed and she had those lines on her forehead that she used to get when Mickey and I had done something wrong but I was pretty sure that we’d never done anything this wrong. Hanna had embarrassed herself and in doing so had embarrassed Esther as well and I knew that she wasn’t going to live it down for a long time.
“Hanna is not a baby,” Esther said with a sigh. “She knew better and now she has to pay the price.”
“But I don’t have to pay the price too, do I?” I asked as she got out of the truck.
“Of course not,” she said. “You stay. Do well. Rae said you are getting along fine. A really hard worker though this I already knew.”
She smiled at me sadly and all the tension melted away but I also felt sorry for her.
“Well, let’s get this over with without a scene,” she said.
She put the ramp down on her trailer and for the first time I realized that Hemi would be leaving too. And even though Hanna had been a pain and had been rude and horrible to me, I didn’t really want her to go. I wanted her to get over herself and be nicer but that wasn’t going to happen now.
“I think I’ll stay out of the way,” I said. “Hanna is kind of mad at me.”
“She’s mad at everyone,” Esther said. “And she has no right to be mad at you but I see your point.” She pulled me into a quick hug. “Do good here, okay?” And then she released me and went into the barn to get her niece and her horse.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hanna and Hemi left without a scene. I’d expected one. I thought that she would yell and scream that it wasn’t fair but she just walked over to the truck and got in, sitting there quietly as Esther loaded up the horse. I felt bad that my pony was losing his paddock mate because Hemi had been a quiet influence on my pony, even if he was a bit of a bully.
Esther waved goodbye as the first drops of rain fell from the dark sky and I waved back. Hanna just stared at me or rather through me. I think she was maybe in shock or something, like she didn’t think that she’d actually get kicked out but she had. It was a stark reminder to us all that just because we were there, didn’t mean we couldn’t be sent home if we did something wrong. I imagined my father’s disappointed face if I was dismissed and vowed that I would never do anything as stupid as Hanna had done. My career was too important to me and I didn’t have money to fall back on like Hanna did. I had to make it on my own and that meant being professional at all times if I wanted people to not only notice me but respect me as well.
I ran to the barn just as the sky opened and the rain came pouring down.
“She’s gone then,” Shelby said.
She was sitting on a folding chair watching the rain. I sat down next to her on the floor, stretching out my tired legs.
“She’s gone.” I nodded. “It’s going to be kind of quiet without her.”
“Don’t worry,” Shelby said. “There will be another girl who will take her place.”
“Really?” I said. “How soon?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s here by tomorrow,” Shelby said. “There is a whole list of girls just waiting in the wings to replace us.”
“Great,” I said. “Guess we’d better not screw up then.”
“You’re okay,” Shelby said, leaning back and closing her eyes. “Rae likes you.”
“She does?” I said. “I can’t even tell.”
“She let you ride Rags, didn’t she?” she said. “She’s never let anyone else ride him before.”
“Well you said she offered him to you first,” I said.
“But I declined.” Shelby sighed. “And I won’t be offered again. If you get a chance here, take it. They don’t come along very often.”
“Right.” I nodded. “Thanks.”
We both sat there for a while, watching the rain as it bounced off the ground, the parking area steaming as the cool water hit the hot cement. Lightning hit in the distance but the storm wasn’t bad. It was just a regular one. Nothing to worry about. And in ten minutes it was over and the world was hot and humid again.
“You don’t think we have to worry about this new girl, do we?” I finally said.
“You have to worry about every new girl,” Shelby said. “They are all your competition.”
“Great,” I said.
I wondered what the girl would be like and now wished that I’d made more of an effort to keep Hanna in line so that she could have stayed. It turned out that she hadn’t really been much competition at all but the new girl might be. What if she was some kind of amazing rider who made me look bad? What if Rae decided that she should get to ride Rags instead of me? I went into my pony’s stall where he had his head down taking a nap and hugged his neck.
“I think that the next few weeks might be the hardest of our lives,” I told him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Just as Shelby had predicted, the new girl arrived the very next day. When the trailer pulled in, I knew it was her. It had to be. She was tall and thin with long brown hair and freckles. As she backed her horse out of the trailer, I knew that she was going to be much more competition than Hanna had ever been. Her horse was tall and leggy with a broad chest and big head. He looked around and whinnied, then pranced his way into the barn.
“Where shall I put him?” she asked me.
“There I guess,” I said, pointing to Hemi’s empty stall.
“Thanks,” she replied. “I’m Jessica and this is Rocket.”
“Is he fast?” I asked.
She scowled at me and right then and ther
e I realized that she wasn’t here to play around. She was here to work and probably be the best.
“I’m Emily,” I told her. “And that is my pony Bluebird.”
“A pony? How cute,” she said, which was probably what I deserved after asking if a horse named Rocket was fast.
But when people said my pony was cute, it annoyed me, which she had to know it would and yes he was cute but he was also really talented as well. Jessica didn’t know that but she’d find out soon enough.
“Are you a working student or a client?” Jessica asked me.
She was pretty nosey for a new girl. If I was her I would have been intimidated and shy but Jessica just seemed to spout out whatever popped into her head.
“Working student,” I said. “You can put your stuff in there. The empty bottom bunk is yours.”
I pointed over to the room where we slept.
“Thanks,” she said and then she was gone.
I stood there looking at her horse. He had his head up and was checking out his new surroundings. He wasn’t what I would call a horse with perfect confirmation. Everything was either too big or too small. Not that any of it mattered if he could jump and I suspected he could otherwise Jessica wouldn’t be here.
“New girl’s horse?” Shelby asked as she came to stand next to me.
“Yeah, Rocket,” I said.
“Looks weird,” she said.
“I know, right?” I told her. “And she told me that my pony was cute.”
“He is cute,” Shelby said, putting her arm around me.
“Shut up,” I told her with a laugh.
I was getting to know Shelby a little better now and I’d let my guard down around her, that prickly cactus thing that Jordan said I had but it was still there when I met new people like Jessica and especially when that person might dethrone me as the most promising working student there.
“Clients will be here to school in thirty minutes,” Julio said, glaring at us since we were daring to stand there not doing anything. “Horse list is on the board. Get busy.”
“Yes Sir,” Shelby said, giving a small salute behind Julio’s back.
“He’s a bit grumpy today,” I whispered.
“You mean extra grumpy?” she whispered back. “I heard that Rae blamed him for not keeping Hanna in line.”
“I don’t think anyone could have kept Hanna in line,” I said as we ran to check out the list of horses we had to get ready.
And I couldn’t help wondering what kind of punishment Esther was going to give Hanna and whether it would have any effect at all on the wayward, free-spirited girl.
CHAPTER NINE
I liked getting the horses ready for the clients, making sure that they were groomed and tacked up with all the paraphernalia that the clients used. There were extensive lists in the tack room. Who got which bridle and which horse needed wraps versus boots.
As I held the supple leather in my hands, I longed for the day when my own horses would have tack trunks filled with expensive stuff. For now, I had a small but precious selection of good show tack and the rest was just hand me downs and stuff that Dad had picked up in the used sales. It was usually on its last legs and I was constantly checking for loose stitching and dry rot. The last thing I needed was something breaking while I was galloping around a course of jumps.
The clients were mostly gracious that we tacked their horses up for them, thanking us and sometimes slipping a few dollars into our hands as they took their horses from us. Then there were the ones like Faye who thought that it was their right to have their horse tacked up and ready to go and that we didn’t deserve anything but a scowl and maybe a little dirt kicked our way for good measure.
“I swear that girl hates me and I don’t know why,” I said as Faye took her horse out to the ring.
“You don’t have to make everyone like you,” Shelby said. “That is not why we are here.”
“You are not here to stand around gossiping either,” Theresa said. “There are stalls to be picked while the horses are out. Get to work.”
It was like now Hanna had been caught fooling around with a boy, even though she swore nothing happened except swimming, they had cracked down on us big time. I guess it made Rae look bad when a working student was dismissed. Like she couldn’t keep control of her own barn and I felt bad for her but it wasn’t our fault and I’d certainly gone out of my way to keep Hanna in line and tried to cover for her by doing extra work. Both of those things had failed. I wasn’t sure whether that meant I was in trouble too or not.
By the time we had freshened the stalls the lesson was over and the horses were coming back in all hot and sweaty, handed off to us while their owners went and sat in the air conditioned office or just drove away.
We untacked and rinsed horses until we were soaking wet but it felt good, my sopping clothes clinging to my hot skin and cooling it down. Then there was more tack to clean and saddle pads and wraps to go into the washer. It was a never ending procession of doing and undoing the same things. I had to wonder how one day was really any different from the next. And the temperature kept rising. We were stuck in the middle of a heat wave. The highs in Florida were usually in the low nineties but we were hitting one hundred degrees almost consistently. It was too hot to ride after lunch unless you wanted both rider and horse to suffer heat stroke. We spent the time re-cleaning the tack and dusting the stall fronts for cobwebs and doing things to look busy because there really wasn’t much else to do.
The new girl jumped in and did what we did, which I had to give her credit for. She seemed to know what she was doing. So much so that I felt the need to try and find out more about her as we stood in line at the water cooler for a cold drink.
“Have you been a working student before?” I asked her, trying to sound casual.
“Last summer.” She nodded. “For Parker Wilson.”
“The show jumper?” I said.
Parker Wilson was a big deal, much bigger than Rae was. He was short listed for the last Olympic team. I would have given anything to be his working student but I tried not to let it show that I was impressed and jealous.
“Of course,” she said like I was stupid.
“Well how come you’re not back with him this year?” I asked her.
“Because he’s out of the country trying to get qualified for the Olympic team again,” she said. “And he looks like he’s going to make it this time too. He doesn’t need working students getting in the way right now.”
“Wow,” I said. “You must have learned a lot from him.”
“I did,” she said. “He was amazing.”
“Rae is pretty amazing too,” I said, feeling like I had to stick up for our new boss.
“She’s not short listed for the Olympics though is she?” Jessica said, sticking her nose in the air. “And so far all this seems like is a glorified lesson barn.”
“That’s enough chit chat,” Theresa snapped as she caught us chatting, even though we were waiting to get water so that we could stay hydrated and not pass out from heat stroke.
I wondered if she’d heard Jessica put Rae down and got a little satisfaction that if she had, Jessica wouldn’t be the new favorite for long.
CHAPTER TEN
Because it was so hot, the show had shifted a lot of the classes to the evening, which meant that we had a lot more to do than we normally would, including packing up the trailers because it was too late to ride the horses back to the barn along the trail in the dark.
“I’ve entered you and Rags in a class tonight,” Rae told me. “Nothing big. You’ll do fine.”
“What about Bluebird?” I asked her but she’d already walked away and was talking on her phone.
“She wants you to ride Rags because if he does well then she can sell him,” Shelby told me, obviously having overheard. “You are here to help her, remember, not yourself.”
“I know,” I said, looking forlornly at my pony. “I just thought I’d get to show him more.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want you to be embarrassed by having to ride a little pony,” Jessica said.
“Bluebird won his class here the other day,” Shelby said, sticking up for me.
“What class was it then?” Jessica said.
“The pony jumpers,” Shelby told her.
I shook my head. I knew what was going to come out of Jessica’s mouth next. In fact, the more I got to know her, the more I thought of her as some sort of Jess clone. Like Jess had somehow managed to split herself in two and part of her was back home resting her broken leg and the other part was here, tormenting me.
“Pony jumper classes are for little kids,” she scoffed.
“Bluebird doesn’t usually compete in that class anymore,” I said. “We ride against horses all the time. It was just that Rae didn’t know, that’s all.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “And I’m not saying that he isn’t good.” She looked at Bluebird. “But come on, he’s only a pony.”
Only a pony. The words screamed inside my head and I wanted to go off on her right then and there. How dare she insult my pony like that? Who did she think she was? And if she was so good and brilliant and all that, why was she a working student and not a paying client. I looked over at her horse, who wasn’t exactly the best looking horse in the whole world and wanted to tell her something horrible about him but I couldn’t because I loved all horses and ponies and it didn’t matter to me if they were too small or too big or didn’t have the best confirmation.
“Come on,” Shelby said, pulling me away. “Theresa wants us to put the buckets in the trailer.”
“Right,” I said.
“You shouldn’t listen to her,” she told me when we were out of earshot.
“She just gets on my nerves, that’s all,” I said. “There is a girl back home just like her and she’s done some horrible things to both me and my pony. I was hoping to have a nice summer away from her and now I’m stuck here with her doppelganger.”
Show Days (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 32) Page 2