Pony Club Challenge (Woodbury Pony Club Book 2)

by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

“Never mind, it’s marvellous that nothing really awful happened,” Lizzie told them. “It could have been a real disaster.”

  Everyone was beginning to feel better, and Sarah, muttering that there was no point in them both walking, had mounted Chess, when suddenly James shouted out, “The pistols! What did we do with the pistols?”

  “We left them on the bench.” Seb put a hand to his forehead. “Oh hell … I was loading for Oliver. I just put the blessed thing down and ran.”

  “So did I,” admitted Hanif guiltily, “and so did Tina. Won’t your father have heard the commotion, realized something was wrong, and collected the pistols?”

  “Not a chance. He went out before we started. He took the car. Oh hell,” said Seb again, his conscience stricken.

  “But Seb, you did say…” began James and then stopped. “Will you be O.K. if some of us trot on?” he asked Lesley.

  “Yes, we’ll just walk him home,” she answered drearily.

  “We could go on to Garland Farm and see if Dad’s busy. He might be able to take you home in the cattle truck,” suggested Lynne.

  “We’d better make sure the pistols are all right first,” Paul told her. “It’ll be the last straw if something’s happened to them.”

  “Yes, if they’ve gone we’ll be in real trouble,” agreed Rupert, urging Rosie into her fastest trot.

  They were all worried, all reproaching themselves for their carelessness as they clattered back down the road to Kiddleworth, but they were still hoping to find the pistols lying where they had left them and promised themselves that, if they did, they would be much more careful in future. Then, as they came round the last bend they could see three motorbikes waiting in the road between The Packhorse and the Old Forge. Hearing the hoofs, the three helmeted riders looked round and then began to shout to invisible companions. A moment later three more helmeted figures came rushing out of the cottage gate and flung themselves on to the motorbike pillions. The engines roared and, as the bikes raced away, each of the pillion riders brandished something triumphantly, something which looked horribly like a pistol.

  “Oh no!” cried Seb desperately as he jumped off Jigsaw, threw his reins to James, and ran into the garden. A quick look told him that the pistols had gone. The other riders had pursued the motorbikes as far as the crossroads.

  “This way!” they shouted to James and Seb, pointing straight ahead to the road that led on over the downs. The grass verge was wide and they galloped recklessly along it, trying not to think of anything but overtaking the motorbikes. Hanif, in the lead, came to where a chalk track led up into the very heart of the downs. He pulled up and called to the middle-aged couple who were walking down it towards the road.

  “Excuse me, did you see some men on motorbikes?” he asked, polite but breathless.

  “Yes, we did. Young hooligans,” answered the man angrily. “We’re going straight home to phone the police, and I’ll write to the Council tonight.”

  “They were waving guns,” added the woman. “Pistol things. They looked real to me. You’re not safe anywhere nowadays.”

  “Thank you,” said Hanif, looking round to see if the other riders were following. As soon as they were all past the couple he gave Jupiter his head and led the long line of ponies up the grassy centre of the rutted chalk track at a brisk canter. When the track widened out they found themselves on top of the downs, which billowed wide and windswept in every direction, and with only a wire fence dividing their track from the carefully tended gallops where the local racing stables trained.

  Hanif let Jupiter slide into a gallop, James and Seb passed Alice, Rupert hurtled after them, Netti followed him. Alice, determined not to ask too much of her unfit pony, found herself riding stride for stride with Rajah.

  “I can’t see any sign of them, can you?” she shouted to Lizzie.

  “No, they seem to have vanished.” Lizzie looked very depressed.

  “It’s no use galloping about without a purpose,” shouted Alice, suddenly feeling angry with the leaders.

  They came to one of the downland crossroads and pulled up the sweating, puffing ponies. Four tracks wheeled away, north, south, east and west. Shading their eyes with their hands the riders gazed into the glaring distance. They could see walkers and horsemen, but no motorbikes. They felt hot and tired and desperately worried; it was long past lunchtime and hunger was adding to their depression.

  “There’s no sign of them,” Hanif admitted reluctantly.

  “Perhaps they’re down in some hollow,” suggested James.

  “Or they’ve dumped the bikes and are lying in the grass blazing away with our pistols.” Rupert sounded aggrieved.

  “If only we had some binoculars,” sighed Seb.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Lizzie.

  “We’ll have to tell David,” said Alice sadly. “We really have messed things up.”

  Paul and Lynne, who had been very quiet since the theft of the pistols, were looking at each other with despairing expressions.

  “We’d better own up,” said Paul.

  Lynne looked at James. “David wasn’t about when we went to borrow the pistols, so we took them without asking. They were only locked in his tack room and we know where he keeps the key.”

  “Oh no, not on top of everything else.”

  “Hell, we are in trouble.” The pony club members looked at Lynne and then at each other. “This makes it a thousand times worse.”

  “I can’t see that it makes all that difference,” argued Paul. “What really matters is losing the pistols, and Mr Fuller not being there.”

  “No it’s not,” Alice disagreed. “O.K., we all forgot to check that Mr Fuller was around, and though we were total idiots to leave the pistols lying on the bench in full view of the road, it was an emergency. But if the whole thing was taking place without David knowing, if the pistols were borrowed without his permission, then he’s going to be really angry.”

  “Yes, there is going to be the most fearful row,” agreed Rupert.

  “And on top of that my father’s going to go raving mad,” said Seb gloomily. “I promised that I’d be sensible if he bought me a pistol and now I’ve lost it—the very first day.”

  “It’s no use standing here, we’d better go to Garland Farm and get it over,” said Hanif wearily.

  “Oh, let’s wait a bit,” protested Lynne. “Those boys probably took the pistols for fun; they may bring them back when they’ve finished larking about.”

  “Do you really believe that?” asked Netti.

  “They could do.” Paul supported his sister. “It’s worth hanging on a bit to see.”

  “We’d better go back to my place and eat our lunches then,” Seb decided dismally. “And hope for a miracle.”

  “I don’t think you’ll get one,” James told him. “I think they’ve nicked them. You should have asked David,” he told the Robertses, “I thought you had.”

  “That’s right, blame us.” Lynne’s usually laughing face looked frightened and puffy, as though she was near to tears.

  “There’s no point in blaming anyone,” said Alice. “It’s just a terrible disaster.”

  “A real Woodbury-shaker,” agreed Rupert gloomily, “and we’re all in it, right up to our necks.”

  They rode slowly and sadly back to the Old Forge. They decided not to tie the ponies up, but to hold them as they ate their lunches. Seb hurried hopefully to the garden to see if the pistols had been returned to their bench, but he returned shaking his head dolefully.

  “You start eating,” he told the others. “I’m going across to the pub to ask if they know those blokes.” He soon came back. “No luck, they don’t belong round here,” he told the other pony club members. “The guy at the pub says they’re complete strangers and too noisy for Kiddleworth; he hopes he won’t see them again.”

  “Now what?” asked Hanif, breaking a gloomy silence. “We’d better ride to Garland Farm in a body and confess,” said Alice. “I can’t t
hink of any other way out.”

  “What about the Rookes and Tina?” asked Oliver. “It was their fault too.”

  “Well they had to take Bowie home and they’ve got to face the Old Rooke,” Netti told him.

  “Can we talk to Mum and Dad first?” asked Lynne. “They know how to handle David.”

  “Yes, if they break it to him we mightn’t get quite such a rollicking,” agreed Paul. “And there’s still a chance those blokes will bring the pistols back.”

  “I think David would much rather we told him ourselves,” argued Alice. “And shouldn’t we tell the police too?”

  “The trouble is that time is running out,” said Hanif. “I’ve promised to be home for tea as we’re going to visit relations this evening. So if it’s not now, it’ll have to be tomorrow morning as far as I’m concerned. And we ought to tell David before the police.”

  “I’m for putting the confession scene off, in case there is a miracle and the pistols reappear. We could put it to the vote,” suggested Rupert.

  “I agree,” said Netti. “Those guys looked silly, but not mean. We don’t want to get them into trouble if it is just a joke.”

  “And I agree with Alice,” announced Lizzie. “Tell David now.”

  “Yes, let’s get it over and let him tell the police,” decided Hanif.

  “Four against, three for telling him,” said Rupert. “James, Seb?”

  “Put it off,” answered Seb. “I don’t think I’d survive facing David and my father on the same day; let’s spread it.”

  “Five for putting it off, three for immediate execution. Your vote doesn’t matter, James, you can stop trying to make up your mind.”

  Hanif mounted. “O.K., so we telephone each other about developments?” he asked.

  “Yes, if Seb can ring me and the Wheelers, I’ll ring you, and you can pass the news on to Alice. And the Wheelers can tell the Robertses and the Rookes,” said James, glad to have something practical to settle. “I hope this doesn’t ruin the whole holidays,” he added gloomily.

  “I’m afraid it’s bound to,” answered Alice sadly.

  “Well, you can’t shoot without pistols,” said Netti, “so it looks like the end of the Tetrathlon. It’s a shame, I was looking forward to it.”

  “You told me you were going up to see the Fullers’ cottage and ride on the downs.” Mrs Rooke glared at her daughters with angry, magnified eyes. “You said nothing about shooting, or tying the ponies to a fence for hours—of course I wouldn’t have allowed that. What were you thinking of, Lesley? Surely you’re old enough to know better?”

  They stood at the open door of the loosebox looking at Bowie, who felt worse now that his battered legs were stiffening, and trembled pitifully at the pain as, with hanging head and dull eye, he tried to rest them in turn. Lesley shrugged her shoulders. “You can’t blame me; you know Sarah doesn’t listen to anything I say. She’s supposed to be the clever one.”

  “Well, you tied Stardust to the fence too. It’s not my fault if that beastly Berry picked on Bowie to kick,” Sarah screamed at her sister. “It was Lynne’s fault for not tying Berry up properly or David’s, he allowed it, he let us have the pistols.”

  “You mean David gave permission for this shooting practice, knowing that there was no adult there to supervise?” demanded Mrs Rooke incredulously.

  “We all thought Mr Fuller was going to be in charge,” Lesley explained, “but he’d gone off somewhere. But the Robertses asked David for the pony club pistols so he must have known.”

  “It’s disgraceful. I’ve never heard of such a thing. A pony club fixture without a single official present. In those circumstances our insurance would be invalid, and there could easily have been an accident to a child as well as a pony. I shall telephone David and have it out with him the moment we get home. Now the immediate question is—do we send for the vet? You’ve ruined an expensive pony and I can’t see any hope of sending him back now, he’s probably permanently blemished—and on top of that there’ll be vet’s bills to pay.”

  “He’ll be all right, he’s not very lame,” Lesley told her mother. “Sarah had better hose his legs, that’s what the vet told us to do when Stardust was caught up in the wire netting.”

  Paul and Lynne put off telling their parents what had happened until after tea, and then, when tea was over, they postponed it again until after supper. So when David came limping over to the farm cottage his face white and taut, his blue eyes hard and cold with suppressed anger, Mr and Mrs Roberts were taken completely by surprise.

  “Lynne, Paul, Mrs Rooke tells me that you had a shooting practice up at Kiddleworth this morning, is that true?” he asked in a frigid voice.

  “Yes,” they answered, hastily averting their eyes from his furious face.

  “She also tells me that the pony club pistols were used. I didn’t believe her, but when I went to the tack room just now to check, I found they had gone. Did you take them?”

  “Yes.” Lynne and Paul nodded miserably.

  “Without my permission and when you had been told that people of your age were only allowed to shoot with an adult present?”

  “We thought Mr Fuller would be there, Seb said he would be.”

  “I see, but you thought it was all right to take the pistols? To unlock the tack room door and take the pistols without asking? I trusted you,” he went on, when Lynne and Paul stayed silent. “It never occurred to me to hide the key in a place you didn’t know about. I suppose I should have had more sense,” he added bitterly.

  “Here, David, hang on. It can’t just have been these two, there must have been other kids involved,” Mr Roberts protested.

  “The others didn’t know where I kept the tack room key.” David’s voice was sharp and unforgiving.

  “Did they ask you to take the pistols up to Kiddleworth, Lynne?” enquired Mr Roberts.

  “Yes.” Lynne’s voice came out as a whisper. “They all wanted to shoot so Seb’s pistol wasn’t much good on its own. We did mean to ask David.”

  “We did look for him.” Paul, still staring at the floor, supported his sister. “But he’d taken the tractor somewhere and we didn’t have much time.”

  David turned to the Roberts parents. “According to Mrs Rooke they tied the ponies to a fence while they shot. Berry broke loose and kicked Bowie who jumped back and then went off up the road with half the fence tied to him. They left the pistols on a bench in the garden while they chased and caught the pony. When they came back they saw six lads on three motorbikes making off with them. At that point the Rookes and Tina took Bowie home and the rest of you followed the motorbikes. Is that correct?” asked David, turning back to Lynne and Paul. Paul nodded.

  “Yes, they went up on the downs and then we lost them,” whispered Lynne.

  “And you don’t think you should have come straight back here and told me what you had done?” asked David.

  “We thought the blokes might have taken the pistols for a laugh, that they might bring them back,” explained Paul.

  David gave an angry snort. “Well, that’s the end of the Tetrathlon so far as I’m concerned,” he said, in a voice that was still full of suppressed fury. “And now I suppose I had better ring the police,” he added as he limped out of the cottage.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” lamented Mrs Roberts. “Whatever on earth made you do such a thing, generally you’re such sensible children.”

  Hanif didn’t tell his mother and stepfather until late that night when they were driving home from Mr Franklin senior’s seventieth birthday party.

  “Your instincts were right, Harry,” his stepfather said in the voice of certainty. “You all ought to have gone straight to David. Ten to one he’ll now hear about it from someone else and, even if it’s Mr Roberts speaking on your behalf, well, he’d have respected you more if you’d done your own owning up.”

  “It was difficult, Rupert was being democratic and my lot were outvoted,” Hanif explained. “Now I don’t know wha
t to do.”

  “Sleep on it,” advised Mr Franklin. “We’ll talk about it in the morning. But I think someone must tell the police.”

  “I think you and Alice should ride over in the morning and tell David how very sorry you are. And how you did not know that the guns had been taken without permission,” said Mrs Franklin. “You must never be too proud to say you are sorry when you know that you are in the wrong.”

  “Yes, I know that, Mum, but it’s awkward; we oughtn’t to put all the blame on Paul and Lynne.”

  “Sleep on it,” advised Mr Franklin again.

  Alice didn’t tell her uncle and aunt what had happened but she went to bed that night feeling very sad. She had been enjoying the pony club so much and now it all seemed to be collapsing about her. Not only would all the Tetrathlon training be cancelled, but she had a feeling that David would never forgive them, never trust them again.

  James told his mother and his older sister Nina the whole story. His father, a workaholic, was still out in the packing shed weighing plums, so he didn’t hear.

  “I’m the eldest,” said James when he’d finished his story, “so I ought to give the others good advice, but I honestly don’t know what we’d better do now.” He looked hopefully at his mother, an anxious expression on his solemn face.

  “A deputation to apologize to David and a collection to buy a new pistol for the pony club,” suggested Mrs Morgan promptly. “I’m sure that Dad will pay you for some fruit picking and he might take on some of the others as well.”

  Tina’s mother was working. Fanny’s Food and Wine Bar was shut in the day on Sundays and then opened at night, so Tina was alone in the flat. She felt very lonely, shut up with her worries and the horrible thought that it was all her fault. If only she had tied Bowie somewhere else, none of the other disasters would have happened. She had been having such a good time, and now she had ruined everything by one silly little mistake.

  The Wheelers didn’t tell their parents, who both seemed very busy and preoccupied with their work, but they discussed the whole disaster endlessly among themselves. Going over and over the same ground didn’t make them feel any better and, by bedtime, Rupert and Netti, their hopes of the pistols returning miraculously, dashed, both wished that they had voted with Lizzie for telling David at once and getting it over.