by Kate Lattey
Tess turned the volatile pony away from the jump and trotted him back in our direction, looking anxious. Jonty leaned on the rail and she went straight to him, her face white.
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her calmly. “Just found a bad spot. Hold him together a bit more and you’ll be fine.”
Tess nodded, and the bell rang to tell her that she could finish the course. She set Misty back into a canter and, with some difficulty, steered him back towards the triple bar that was the final fence on course. Misty eyed it up and tried to gallop towards it, and Tess braced her back and did her best to hold him together, but they were coming in way too fast, and even from where I was sitting I could see that they were on a very long stride. I sucked in a breath as disaster loomed, but Tess saw it too and, knowing she couldn’t convince Misty to slow down, pulled hard on her left rein and swung him away from the jump.
“Bloody hell,” her mother grumbled. “She’s going to teach him to stop now.”
But Jonty ignored her, watching intently as Tess hauled Misty back to a walk, then turned tightly around towards the jump, touching him into a canter as she turned, forcing him back onto his hocks. He only had a handful of strides in front of the fence, but she finally had him under control, and they cleared the jump on their third attempt. Misty let out a couple of angry bucks after landing, but Tess sat them well as the steward sent me into the ring.
“Off you go. Wait for your bell,” she told me, as if I didn’t know how show jumping worked. I trotted Molly in Misty’s direction, keeping a wide berth of his wicked heels.
“Bugger,” I told Tess, then noticed how pale she still looked. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Misty bucked again, and her head snapped back as he gave her whiplash. “Ow, Misty! Cut it out.” She gave up trying to convince him to walk, and let him trot towards the gate. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
I ran my eyes over the course, committing it to memory, then set Molly into a canter at the sound of the bell. Unlike Misty, she behaved perfectly, allowing me to adjust her stride however I liked throughout the round, and came home with a tidy clear that ended up being good enough for third place.
It was about the only thing that had gone well all weekend, and I cried off the rest of my classes, convincing Mum that I still didn’t feel well and we should just scratch Squib and go home.
So we did.
CHAPTER TEN
Puppet’s swinging walk took us up the driveway of the Fitzherberts’ farm three days later. It had been warm and muggy from the moment the sun came up, and I’d laboured through my morning run, the air hanging thick and humid around me as I pushed my muscles as hard as I could, struggling to breathe through the damp air, feeling the concentration of energy in every fibre as my feet pounded the road. Almost six kilometres this morning, and if it cooled down at all by tonight, I’d do it all again. Lately it seemed I could only fall asleep if my body was completely exhausted, forcing my brain to shut up and shut down.
Puppet marched eagerly forward, then slammed to an abrupt halt as a chicken came squawking out of the hedge, jarring my spine and making my teeth clack together. I grumbled at him as I regathered my reins and my wits. I was still sore from my fall off Tori, and I didn’t want a repeat performance just because Puppet was feeling fresh.
But none of that was his fault, and the chicken had startled me too. I reached forward and stroked the young pony’s neck reassuringly, and he walked on, still a little tense. The arena gate was open, but I stopped him on the threshold, noticing that it was freshly harrowed and cleared of jumps. I had an open invitation to use the Fitzherberts’ arena, and I knew they wouldn’t mind if I did, but I also knew how I’d feel if someone rode on my arena after I’d just groomed it. And I’d been planning to jump, so was there any point riding in there if the jumps weren’t even up?
I glanced up towards the house. I knew they weren’t home, because I’d seen their truck heading out that morning when I’d been walking Lucas out bareback down the road. One of the local Pony Clubs was running a training day, but Mum was working so I couldn’t go. Not that I was too bothered by that. I wasn’t really in the mood to ride in front of a load of people again, and Mum would probably have tried to talk me into taking Tori along for an outing. Not exactly appealing.
Puppet sidled and tossed his head impatiently. In or out? he seemed to be asking. I wanted to take him for a hack over the hills, give him a gallop and let all my troubles fall behind his pounding hooves, but I knew he needed the schooling, so resolutely closed my legs around his slender sides and rode him onto the graded surface. Five minutes, I decided. Just a short session…
But five minutes turned into ten, and then into twenty, as Puppet decided to first impersonate a llama, and then a donkey, then some kind of mythical creature that could only travel sideways with its nose poking in the air.
“What is wrong with you?” I grumbled at the pony, struggling to hold him together as I pushed him forward into a canter. He sucked back behind my leg and just trotted faster, and in my frustration I gave him a kick in the guts. Startled, Puppet leapt forward, pulling the reins through my hands as he leapt around like a lunatic. I leaned my weight back and dragged him to a halt, vindictively holding the pressure on the reins for a couple of seconds after he’d stopped and making him back up nervously. His eyes went wide, rimmed with white and his mouth opened as he fought against my unrelenting hands. I dropped the contact guiltily, then kicked him in the ribs, hard. Puppet leapt forward and yanked even harder at the reins, making my head snap back on my neck, and I yanked him in the mouth again in retaliation.
Stop!
I dropped the reins, kicked my feet out of the stirrups and flung myself from the saddle. With shaking hands, I ran up Puppet’s nearside stirrup, looped the reins behind it, and walked away from him. I could hear the young gelding snorting nervously as I crossed the arena, but I kept moving until I’d reached the far corner. When I couldn’t put any more distance between us, I sat down on the ground and put my head on my knees, struggling to control myself.
I’d been frustrated before. I’d been annoyed with ponies when they’d misbehaved, and irritated with myself when I’d failed to react quickly enough to correct their behaviour. I’d lost my temper with my mother countless times, but I’d never lost my temper with a pony before. Not really. Not like that. The look in Puppet’s eye as he’d struggled against my harsh hands was still fixed in my mind’s eye, and I couldn’t unsee it, couldn’t unfeel the sense of his panic underneath me as he tried to figure out what I wanted him to do. Couldn’t undo what I’d just done.
People have done worse. I shook my head and buried my face into my knees. That was hardly the point. I didn’t treat my ponies like that. I didn’t ride like that, and I despised people who did. But I couldn’t get Puppet to do what I wanted. I couldn’t get him to listen, to soften, to bend. And that was the scariest part of all, because I’d always been able to get the response I needed. Sometimes it took a while, but for as long as I could remember, I’d known how to do it; had known almost instinctively how to adjust my body position and feel to teach the pony under me to use his body correctly. But it was like I’d suddenly unlearned it all, and I was scrabbling for answers. I kept trying different things but nothing worked. Nothing connected. It was like yelling at someone in a foreign language, unable to make myself understood so just yelling louder, because I couldn’t think of any other way to explain what I wanted.
It was like riding Tori, I realised with a jolt. Except if I ever treated her the way I’d just treated poor Puppet, I’d probably find myself trampled into dust under her vengeful hooves. Tori didn’t suffer fools; I was well and truly aware of that now.
“Hey! Are you okay?”
I heard footsteps crunching on the arena surface and looked up to see Phil coming towards me in a hurry, wearing a concerned expression.
I stood up, feeling stupid. “I’m fine. Just having a time out, that’s all
.”
Phil stopped, looked over his shoulder at Puppet, who was still standing warily in the opposite corner of the arena, then back at me. “You or him?”
I sucked in a deep breath, blew it out. “Both.” Unclipping my chinstrap, I pulled my helmet off and pushed my damp hair back off my forehead. I could feel sand and dust sticking to my skin, and I lifted my shirt to try and wipe some of the grime from my face. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“I didn’t know you were coming over,” he replied. “Not that it matters. You can ride here any time.”
“I know.” I looked at Puppet, who had turned to face us both. His long tail swished constantly, brushing flies from his flanks and hindquarters, and he stamped each foreleg in turn as the flies pestered him. “Were you watching me from the kitchen window, or something?” I asked Phil, suddenly wondering what had dragged him down to the arena. He usually avoided the entire equine area of his family’s farm like the plague.
“Lounge,” he said, without answering my question. “Kitchen looks out towards the hills, you know that.”
I shrugged. “It’s been a while.” I tried to remember when I’d last sat in their kitchen. It seemed such a long time since I’d last perched on one of the hard wooden bar stools in front of the counter, eating fruit out of the bowl that was always well-stocked, waiting for Miriam to turn her back so we could steal the chocolate biscuits out of the pantry and sneak into the hay barn to scoff the lot. It felt like forever ago. “So you were spying on me from the lounge, then?”
“I was walking through the lounge to go make a sandwich when I saw a riderless horse in the arena, and came down to investigate,” Phil corrected me. “Thought maybe you were trying to ride that big black monster you’ve got, and had been thrown off and trampled into the dirt.”
We both looked at Puppet, who was itching his ear on his foreleg, and coming precariously close to getting his foot caught through his reins. Phil’s words rang in my ears, an unwitting echo of my own earlier thoughts.
“But it was only little Puppet,” I said as I walked towards the pony, who lifted his head and watched me approach with wide eyes. “And I didn’t fall off. I got off.”
Phil fell into step beside me. “Because…?”
I stopped. “Because I chose to. Because I was riding like crap and Puppet didn’t deserve it.” The words flowed out of me before I could stop them. I was too tired to make up excuses, and Phil had always been able to tell when I was lying.
“Having a bad day?”
“Bad week. Bad month. Bad year.”
“Can’t be a bad year,” Phil corrected me gently. “It’s only just started.”
“Two weeks in and it already sucks,” I said. “It’s just been one disaster after another. If it keeps going like this, I’m not sure I’ll make it to the end.”
“It’ll get better.” Phil put his arm around my shoulders and gave them a squeeze. “Give it a chance. And there must be some good things that’ve happened. You got a new horse,” he suggested, and I cringed.
“Yeah, a horse that I can’t ride. I fell off her on the weekend, look,” I told him, lifting the corner of my shirt to show him the large bruise discolouring my hip. “Landed right on the jump, in front of everyone, got carted off to the ambulance, whole nine yards.” I let my shirt drop down and shook my head in disgust. “And you wanna know what the worst part is?”
He didn’t say anything, just waited for me to continue. A fly landed on his cheek, and he brushed it off with the back of his hand.
“I haven’t got back on her yet,” I admitted. “I couldn’t, right afterwards, being in the ambo and all. Then I said I wasn’t feeling up to it, and wanted to get her sorted at home first. But it’s been three days and I haven’t ridden her yet.” I felt my stomach twisting itself in knots at the thought of sitting on that powerful back, not knowing when it was going to explode underneath me. “If I’m being honest, she scares me.” I swallowed hard. “It’s stupid, but she scares the crap out of me.”
“That’s not stupid,” Phil countered. “Why d’you think I don’t ride?”
That got my attention. He’d always sworn he just wasn’t interested. Wasn’t keen, didn’t like horses, wasn’t competitive. Fear had never seemed to be a factor, and on those rare occasions that I had seen him on horseback, he’d always seemed calm and self-assured – just a little bored.
“You’re scared of horses?”
“Nah. I just…” He looked away from me then, his eyes dropping to the ground as he scuffed the arena with the toe of his beat-up shoe. “I don’t freak out when I’m on a horse, at least, I never did. But thinking about it now, there’s so much that could happen, so much that could go wrong. You could get chucked into a fence, knocked off on a tree, could just fall off when your horse stumbles and that’s it. You could be killed or crippled for life.” He shook his head. “Not worth it.”
“Because a dirt bike is a whole lot safer,” I pointed out sarcastically. “You could crash and kill yourself coming off that just as easy.”
“That’s all down to me, though,” Phil replied, looking me in the eye again. “The bike doesn’t have a mind of its own.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, but…that’s kind of the best part. When you have that connection of minds, when you and your horse work as a team towards the same goal, it’s the best feeling in the world. When you know they’d do anything for you, and you’d do anything for them.”
“If you want an animal to do anything for you,” Phil interjected. “Get a dog.”
“Yeah right. I have a dog, and he doesn’t do anything I tell him to.”
“That’s because what you have isn’t a dog, it’s a glorified feather duster,” he replied, and that cheeky grin was back.
“Shut up,” I told him, elbowing him in the side and struggling to repress my own smile. “Nobody asked for your opinion.”
“At least you’re smiling now,” he pointed out smugly. “So life’s not all that bad.”
“Mmm.” I reached Puppet’s side and ran a hand down his sweaty neck with a sigh. “Sorry Puppet. I haven’t done too well by you today. Good thing your mum wasn’t here to see it,” I told Phil over my shoulder. “She’d probably have taken Puppet off me straight away and made me walk home without him.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he scoffed. “You’re ten times the rider Lacey is, so leaving Puppet here for her to ride wouldn’t be doing him any favours. Even Mum knows that.”
“Here’s hoping.” I gathered up Puppet’s reins and slid my foot into his stirrup, then swung onto his back. “Thanks for coming to check on me.”
“Yeah, no worries. Want me to stick around while you ride?”
Phil seemed sincere, but I shook my head, knowing how bored he’d get, and not quite trusting myself not to lose my temper again. “I think we’ve had enough schooling for today, huh Puppet? If you can call it that. We’re gonna go over the hils, like we should’ve done in the first place.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah.” I rode Puppet back to the gate, and Phil stood in the middle of the arena and watched me go.
* * *
I was almost asleep when I heard it. Snuggled up in bed, sweating slightly because it was a warm night but I could never get to sleep without the weight of a blanket over me, Critter curled up and snoring softly against my legs. Everything was still, and silent, and then came the unmistakeable sound of footsteps walking across gravel, right outside my bedroom.
Critter snorfled in his sleep as I half-opened my eyes, wondering if I’d imagined it. It was too quiet to be one of the ponies – they occasionally got out at night and wandered around, but were spectacularly unsubtle about it. I propped myself up on my elbows and listened intently, but heard nothing more. Just as I lay back down, deciding that I’d dreamed it, someone knocked on my window.
I leapt in fright and Critter woke up yapping. He stoo
d on the bed with his tiny hackles raised, staring at the closed curtains and doing his best to warn off the intruder. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, then pulled the curtain back.
“I thought it might be you. Critter, shut up!” I snapped at the dog as I opened the window and looked at Phil, standing in the moonlight outside my room. “What’s up?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you came to wake me up? Crit, that’s enough,” I warned the dog, and he finally quietened.
Phil scratched the back of his neck, looking a bit sheepish. “I went for a walk, and my feet took me here, so I decided to see if you were awake.”
“Barely.” I half-sat on the windowsill and leaned back against the cool glass, enjoying the slight breeze on my skin. “But I am now.”
“Sorry if I scared you. I was going to throw stones at your window, but knowing my luck I’d have shattered it and then you’d just be pissed off.”
“As opposed to how thrilled I am that you’ve interfered with my beauty sleep?” I teased, but he didn’t laugh.
“Sorry. It’s late, I know. I’ll go.”
“Don’t be stupid. I was joking.” I glanced at Critter, who was lying down again on my bed and trying to resume his slumber. “Stay if you want, but we’ll have to whisper because the walls in this house are paper thin.”
“Come out here then,” Phil encouraged me. “I was going to go down to the river for a swim.”
“It’s almost midnight,” I objected.
“So? Since when did you get so boring?” he asked. And there it was again, that gleam in his eye that had been such a familiar part of his boyhood self. So different from that quiet, surly young man that he’d turned into. I missed that boy, and I couldn’t turn him away.
“Fine. I’ll meet you at the back door.” I pulled the curtains closed again, tiptoed across the room, and opened the door to come face-to-face with my mother.