Pony Club Challenge (Woodbury Pony Club Book 2)

by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  6

  We’re in Real Trouble

  “Seb’s got his pistol and the Robertses are going to bring the pony club ones,” Hanif told Alice, telephoning her on Saturday evening. “We’re all to go to Kiddleworth tomorrow morning, but not before eleven; the Wheelers have just been on the phone to me.”

  “Terrific,” said Alice. “What time do we start?”

  “A quarter to ten?” suggested Hanif. “We’re to take our lunches, and the Wheelers say they’ll take us for a ride, either over the downs or round Beacon Hill, after the shooting.”

  “That sounds really great,” said Alice. “It’ll get the ponies fit, but what about swimming?”

  “We could give the ponies a rest on Monday and spend most of the day at the pool. Let’s try to persuade all the others to come too,” suggested Hanif.

  The ponies were very surprised on Sunday morning when they were not allowed to turn down Garland Farm lane, but were ridden on along the narrow, winding uphill road and through the village of Kidlake. Alice and Hanif looked into the Old Rectory’s stableyard, but, though the weed-ridden cobbles were scattered with abandoned grooming tools, cans of hoof oil and plastic buckets, the blue stable doors stood open and there was no sign of people or ponies.

  “They’ve gone on then,” said Hanif with a worried look at his watch. “I hope we’ve allowed enough time.”

  “It won’t matter if we’re late,” Alice told him. “There are no official characters like David or Mrs Blazeaway to make speeches and, if everyone’s coming, the turns will take ages, even with three pistols.”

  But Hanif still fussed, so they trotted briskly along the grass verge, climbing all the time towards the muted green, and billowing bulk of the downs.

  Kiddleworth was a hamlet, a small cluster of cottages, with an inn and a shop but no church, built round a crossroads in a sheltered hollow on the height of a windswept down. They found the Old Forge on the edge of the hamlet opposite the inn, which was called The Packhorse and had a very over-burdened and dispirited pony struggling across its weather-beaten sign. The Old Forge was a white-painted cottage, thatched, with dormer windows and a small front garden. It was the last cottage in the row and from the paddock on the far side of it came a series of welcoming neighs. Lizzie appeared at the open five-barred gate.

  “Seb’s still getting the shooting range ready,” she explained. “Jigsaw and Ferdie are in the shelter, but we’ve tied our ponies to the paddock fence. So have the Robertses. The Rookes and Tina haven’t arrived yet.”

  When the two new arrivals had been unbridled and tied up in their headcollars, Hanif and Alice followed Lizzie through a small wrought-iron gate into the garden.

  “What a lovely cottage; it’s a real picture-postcard one,” said Alice, looking from the hollyhocks along the wall to the roses round the porch.

  “It’s too small and upstairs the windows are only knee high, you can’t look out properly,” grumbled Seb, “The only decent room is the one which used to be the forge. I liked our old house much better. And it’s boring here, I’ve no friends.”

  “Living on the downs must be terrific in some ways though,” objected Hanif. “It’s lovely riding country.”

  “Except in the winter. You try riding up here in a hailstorm, or in an icy east wind; it’s bitter,” Rupert told him.

  “I won’t be here in the winter. My father’s only rented the cottage until we’ve sorted ourselves out and found somewhere else to live,” Seb explained. “I want to go back to the Frogmorton country, that’s where all my friends are, but my father’s not so keen, he seems to have a girlfriend who lives somewhere round here.”

  James was setting up the targets, pinning them to the large cardboard boxes which stood on three tables ranged along the hollyhock wall.

  “We’ll have to mind out for the shiny table on the end,” said Seb. “The other two don’t matter, but I took that one out of the sitting room and it looks a bit posh. I don’t want it embedded with pellets and the owner after us.”

  “You’d better put the best shots at that end then,” Netti told him.

  “Not me,” giggled Lynne. “I even managed to put shot on the next-door target, or so Mrs Halford said.”

  “Have you any straw bales handy, Seb?” asked James. “We ought to put one behind each target to stop the pellets ricocheting off the brick wall.”

  “Yes, in the shelter. Everyone come and help carry straw bales,” commanded Seb.

  At the same moment as the range was ready, the straw bales arranged, and the pistols and round tins of pellets placed on a long bench the correct distance from the targets, a clatter of hoofs was heard in the road and the heads of Lesley, Sarah and Tina appeared above the wall.

  “We don’t want to waste time,” said Seb in a business-like manner, “so let’s start the first detail; that’s James, Rupert and Harry. I thought I’d do the commanding. Can the rest of you show the Rookes where to tie their ponies?”

  “Hallo, have you gone back to Chess then?” Oliver asked Sarah as he opened the five-barred gate to let the riders into the paddock.

  “I suppose I can let Tina ride Bowie if I want to. I don’t have to ask your permission,” snapped Sarah.

  “Poor old Sarah’s afraid he’ll shy at traffic,” Lesley taunted her sister. “She gets worked up whenever anything bigger than a car appears; she’s making him nervous.”

  “I hate stupid, boring, nervous ponies,” said Sarah, dismounting. “I can’t be bothered with calming and soothing them, but I’m good at getting the best out of sensible ones like Chess and Vulcan.”

  The shooting went well, though, to everyone’s surprise, Hanif still beat James who was using Seb’s impressive­-looking, brand-new pistol. Seb loaned it to Alice in the second detail, but her score was still much lower than Lesley’s, and Lizzie, conscientiously taking deep breaths and remembering to squeeze the trigger, was worse still. Netti, with Seb’s pistol, was better than Sarah and Lynne, and then Seb himself shot against Paul and Tina and was the best, though he was still very dissatisfied with his score.

  “I’m afraid it is people, not pistols, who clock up the scores,” observed Rupert sadly.

  “Can I just have a couple of shots with it, Seb?” asked Hanif.

  “O.K., and Oliver wants a go,” agreed Seb amiably. “He can have one of the pony club ones.”

  “Can I have a second turn?” asked Tina. “I’m not being greedy, it’s just that Lynne and I have much the lowest scores so we must need the most practice.”

  Seb let James command while he loaded for Oliver, and everyone else collapsed on the daisy-dotted lawn and began to argue about the best time for a swimming session on Monday. The shooters had fired their first five shots and were changing their targets when a sudden commotion broke out in the paddock: angry squeals, anxious neighs, the nerve-racking thud of kicks landing on another pony and then the crack of splintering, breaking wood.

  They ran, propelling each other through the narrow gateway, all fearing that they would find their pony injured. Berry was loose—she was trotting up to Jupiter, squealing loudly, spoiling for trouble.

  “Stop that!” shouted Hanif, racing to drive her away. Lynne ran too as the others looked round, checking their own ponies.

  “Bowie’s loose, he’s broken the fence!” The panic-stricken note in Sarah’s voice made them all turn. The bay pony was retreating across the paddock snorting in terror at the fencing rail tied to the headcollar rope which pursued him as he fled.

  “You fool, Tina! Why did you tie him to that rail? It must have been loose!” Sarah screamed. “He’ll be killed and it’s all your fault.”

  “Whoa, boy. Whoa.”

  “Stand Bowie, stand.” Alice and Lizzie, talking soothingly, were trying to approach the terrified pony. “If we could both grab the rail at once we might be able to hold him,” suggested Lizzie.

  Alice was proffering the few pony nuts she had scraped from her pockets. Sarah was still screaming a
t Tina, who stood pale and horror-struck.

  “Shut up, Sarah!” Netti turned upon her. “You’re frightening Bowie, making things worse.”

  “Have you got a bucket of feed handy?” James asked Seb.

  “I’ll get one.” Seb ran back towards the shelter.

  “Make a half circle and trap him in the corner,” suggested Rupert, as Bowie’s snorting retreat took him to the far end of the paddock.

  “Mummy’ll kill me if he gets hurt,” moaned Sarah. “She won’t be able to get her money back and it wasn’t my fault.”

  Alice and Lizzie were still whoaing soothingly when Berry, whom Lynne, Paul and Hanif were trying to catch, evaded her pursuers and galloped down to Bowie’s corner of the field. The bay pony tried to dodge his tormentor and, as he swung away, the rail swung too, one end of it cracking against his forelegs. With a look of wild fear he fled, full gallop, across the paddock, the trailing rail beside him whacking and cracking against his legs, increasing his terror with every stride.

  Rupert swore.

  “Shut the gate!” shouted Alice, suddenly noticing that the five-barred gate into the road stood wide open. Lizzie took up the cry, “Ollie, shut the gate.”

  Oliver heard her, turned and ran, but he was too late. Bowie, galloping faster and faster in an attempt to leave the rail behind, had seen the open gate too and decided to escape. As he raced through, the rail caught between the spars and the sudden check caused him to skid and fall. As he lay struggling in the road the pony club members ran forward, but he scrambled to his feet and there was a sharp crack as the rail snapped in two. Then the terror-crazed pony was off along the road, the half rail still firmly tied to his headcollar rope, still cracking against his legs.

  “Oh no!” said Rupert, watching helplessly. A sobbing Sarah and a white-faced Tina ran in pursuit.

  “We’d better take the ponies,” Hanif called to them. “Would your father take some of us in the car?” Lesley asked Seb.

  “No, sorry, he’s gone to see someone.”

  Hanif and Alice were saddling and bridling hastily. “We’d better stay in groups,” suggested Hanif. “We don’t want the ponies going mad.”

  “Come on, Ollie, tack up quickly,” called Lizzie as she grabbed Rajah’s bridle. “Where’s your crash cap?”

  “Wait for me,” Lynne was shouting. She’d caught Berry at last.

  “I’d better lead Chess,” decided Lesley, “or he’ll break loose too.”

  “Could you hold Jupe?” asked Hanif, breathlessly. “He’s determined to twirl.” Alice, already mounted, held Jupiter.

  “You two go on,” Lizzie told them, “I’ll wait for the others.”

  They galloped across the paddock, Paul on their heels. James was waiting for Seb who had had to fetch his tack. They trotted into the road, down which Bowie had turned towards Coombe Lentworth. A crowd of people in the Packhorse garden were waving and pointing. Taking the ponies on to the grass verge, they cantered and soon overtook Sarah and Tina who had slowed to a painful, breathless jog.

  “Can’t you catch him? If he isn’t killed by a car he’ll break his knees!” Sarah screamed at them hysterically, “and it’s not my fault.”

  They cantered on without answering, there was no point in wasting breath. The driver of the first car they met shouted rudely at them; something about not being fit to be in charge of animals. At least Bowie had survived one car, thought Alice.

  They rode on, frightening themselves with images of the mangled body which could await them round each twist or turn in the road. They all knew that Bowie’s flimsy form, fine-coated and spindly-legged, would stand no chance at all in collision with a lorry. The next car came slowly, the driver, expecting more loose ponies, looked relieved and waved them on, shouting that “he” wasn’t far ahead.

  Then, above the clatter and thud of their hoofs, they heard the roar of an engine; the road straightened and a large, red tractor towing a dray piled high with straw bales came into view. There was no sign of Bowie. They looked beyond the tractor, up the long straight road between hedges powdered with white chalk dust, but it was empty. The driver switched off his engine.

  “You lost a pony?” he asked, shouting though the roar had stopped, and went on without waiting for an answer. “He didn’t like the look of my tractor, it slowed him up a bit, so I turned him off the road, up the drive to the stud. I thought he’d come to less harm up there.”

  “Oh, thank you!” said Alice gratefully. “That’s terrific, we ought to be able to catch him now.”

  “Yes, thank you very much indeed,” added Hanif.

  “He was in a fair old state, blood all over his legs,” called the tractor driver as they cantered on. Ahead, a white-painted sign pointed to the right. “Coombe Manor Stud,” read Alice. “That’s it.”

  They turned up the weedless gravel drive, between white-painted posts and rails which fenced the well-kept paddocks on either side. Flat, symmetrical and evenly grazed they held large numbers of well-bred-looking horses, which, standing under trees or in shelters, dozed peacefully, shaded from the midday sun. Alice pulled up. “One of us ought to wait on the road and tell the others where he’s gone,” she said. “We don’t want them going on to Coombe Lentworth.”

  “I’ll stop,” offered Paul quickly.

  “O.K.,” they agreed and trotted on.

  “I hope he’s gone into the stableyard and not in there,” shouted Hanif nervously as a long, low, old, but perfectly kept house, surrounded by a beautiful garden, came in sight.

  But the stableyard looked perfect too, thought Alice, with its clock tower and centrepiece of mown turf; it was far too orderly to welcome runaway ponies.

  “Oh, he has, that does it,” groaned Hanif. “Prepare for fireworks,” he added, slowing Jupiter to a collected trot.

  They passed through the open white gate and saw Bowie standing in the middle of a velvet-smooth lawn, head down, sides heaving, his coat dark with sweat and flecked with blood. A group of very smartly dressed and rather elderly people had gathered round him and they watched a tall silver-haired man, who, having unclipped the rope from the headcollar, was trying to loosen the knot which held the remains of the rail.

  “Poor little wretch,” said one woman loudly. “How could his owner have been so utterly stupid?” “Criminal.”

  “Some people shouldn’t be allowed near animals,” the group agreed. Then, hearing the crunch of hoofs on gravel, they all turned accusingly on Alice and Hanif.

  “Is this your pony?” shouted the silver-haired man aggressively. “Are you crazy? You look old enough to know how to tie a pony up or haven’t your tiny minds grasped the fact that ponies can jump back? Hasn’t anyone told you that if you don’t have a ring in a wall you tie them to a loop of string, which breaks before the fence? No one ties a pony to a fencing rail unless he’s plain stupid.”

  Alice and Hanif looked at his angry red face in silence, not sure whether he expected an answer or a defence. “Thank you for catching him,” said Alice politely.

  “He belongs to a friend of ours,” added Hanif.

  “Well, give your friend my compliments and tell him or her that such a stupid clot doesn’t deserve a pony. This nice little animal could well have been killed.”

  “We’ll do that,” agreed Hanif, who was desperately trying to prevent the impatient Jupiter from twirling on the velvet lawn. Alice had dismounted and was inspecting Bowie’s legs. They looked awful, scraped and battered, scratched and bloody, but there didn’t seem to be any deep gash or serious injury.

  “Thank you very much,” she said, taking the headcollar rope. “I’ll walk him back. Can you lead Saffy, Harry?”

  “Rotten, stupid children, not fit to have ponies,” the silver-haired man stormed at their departing backs. He turned towards his guests. “Come on, everyone; back to lunch.”

  Hanif and Alice were halfway down the drive when Tina and Sarah came running to meet them.

  “Is he hurt?”

&nb
sp; “Is he lame?” they called breathlessly.

  “He’s a bit hurt and a bit lame, but he’ll survive,” answered Hanif who was in the lead.

  Sarah set up a terrible wail.

  “Look at those legs, Mummy’ll kill me. He’s all smashed up and he’s limping—we’re never going to be able to send him back like that.”

  “I don’t think he’s done any permanent damage,” Alice tried to be comforting.

  “You only say that because he’s not your pony,” Sarah shrieked at her angrily. “Anyone can see he’s ruined his legs; it’ll be months and months before they’re properly better.”

  Tina seemed to want to lead Bowie, and Alice, glad to escape from Sarah’s hysterical moanings, handed him over and mounted Saffron. The other riders were all waiting by the gate into the road.

  “Seb went up some of the way and saw you’d caught him, but seeing what Mr Collingwood’s temper is like I thought the rest of us had best wait down here,” explained Paul.

  “You mean you knew what we were letting ourselves in for,” asked Hanif indignantly, “and you didn’t warn us?”

  “He’s cunning, that’s why he offered to wait for the others,” observed Alice.

  Paul smiled sheepishly. “Did he bawl you out? He’s got a name for it round here. He’s really hot-tempered; lots of the local people won’t work for him.”

  “Dad says he can be really nasty,” added Lynne.

  “He was very rude to us and sent even ruder messages to Bowie’s owner,” Hanif told them. “We didn’t answer back.”

  “He didn’t complain about having his lawn trampled on, he gave us a lecture on how to tie ponies up and called us stupid clots. I think he was upset about the mess Bowie was in,” added Alice, trying to be fair. “He said if you tie ponies to fences you must use loops of string which will break.”

  “He’s got something there,” said James.

  “Yes, I suppose he has,” agreed Hanif. “But he could have put it more politely.”