by Jean Ure
‘Well, it is upsetting,’ I said. I said it quite fiercely. She’d better not start on again about how Rosie wasn’t earning her keep!
The Mouth said, ‘Yeah, but she’s just heard what’s going to happen.’
‘What?’ said Katy. ‘What’s going to happen?’
‘She’s going to the knacker’s,’ said Motormouth. ‘Going to be turned into horsemeat.’
Katy and me couldn’t believe it! We thought it was a joke. A sick, horrible kind of joke. Certainly not the sort that any normal human being would make, but Motormouth is a sick, horrible kind of person. She goes fox hunting and thinks it’s all right for people to wear fur and club baby seals to death. She is truly disgusting!
‘Ask Mrs Foster if you don’t believe me,’ she said. ‘She’ll tell you. She’s sending her for horsemeat.’
The way she said it made me go cold. That big, soft, gentle girl was going to have her life taken from her, and Motormouth couldn’t have cared less.
Horsey people can sometimes be very hard. I have noticed this.
‘It’s no use crying over what can’t be helped,’ said Motormouth. ‘It’s how they’ll all end up, probably.’
‘What?’ We stared at her, horrified.
‘All of them.’ She flapped a hand towards the stables. ‘When they can’t be used any more. What else do you do with them?’
‘You keep them!’ I said.
Katy didn’t say anything. I think for once she was truly at a loss for words.
The Mouth was looking at me disdainfully. She said, ‘Keep them where, exactly?’
I said, ‘In a field!’
‘Doing what? Eating their heads off?’
‘Not doing anything! Just enjoying their retirement.’
Katy suddenly found her tongue. ‘Old people retire! Why can’t horses?’
‘Some do,’ said Motormouth. ‘If their owners can afford it. But obviously you can’t if you’re running a business.’
Motormouth’s dad is a farmer and so she is used to innocent animals being dragged off to the slaughterhouse. She doesn’t see anything wrong in it. She thinks people like me and Katy are just stupid and sentimental.
‘You have to be realistic,’ she said. ‘That’s your trouble! You’re just so sentimental. At the end of the day animals are only animals.’
What was that supposed to mean, at the end of the day?
‘They still have feelings,’ I said.
‘Not like we do. Anyway, we’re the top species.’
It was what she’d said to us when we’d announced that we had become vegetarians: we’re the top species. Meaning it was okay to stuff yourself with chunks of dead animal.
Angrily Katy said, ‘Being top species doesn’t mean we have to go around killing everything!’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It means we have a duty to look after them.’
‘We do look after them, while they’re alive,’ said Motormouth.
‘Well, you couldn’t very well look after them when they’re dead!’ I retorted.
‘I didn’t mean that!’ Old Motormouth had gone all red and blotchy. She always goes red when she tries arguing with me and Katy. It’s because she can’t ever get the better of us. Cruelty is cruelty, and that’s all there is to it.
‘What I meant,’ she said, ‘is that the horse is a working animal. You can’t afford to go on feeding them if they’re not earning any money. It’s just not practical.’
Which was something, I bet, she’d got from her dad.
In heated tones Katy said, ‘Horses weren’t put on this earth to earn money for human beings!’
‘How do you know?’ said Motormouth. It’s the sort of childish argument she always resorts to. ‘How does anyone know what any of us were put here for? All we can say for sure is that we’re at the top of the chain!’
‘If we’re that superior,’ said Katy, ‘it seems to me we ought to be taking care of other species, not just using them to make money and then murdering them when they’re too old.’
‘Or too sick,’ I added. I always do my best to support Katy whenever I can, though I am not as clever at arguing as she is.
‘There ought to be a law against it,’ I said. ‘Everybody that owns a horse should be made to sign something saying they’ll let it retire when it can’t work any more.’
‘Yesss!’ Katy, triumphant, punched the air with her clenched fist. ‘A pension fund for horses!’
‘Like for human beings.’
‘And rest homes—’
‘Rest fields—’
‘Where they could all live together and be happy and just amble about doing their own thing.’
‘That is what ought to happen,’ I said.
‘Oh, get real!’ snapped the Mouth. ‘Stupid townies!’
She calls us that because she has always lived in the country and thinks herself superior. She will probably still be saying it when we are old and wizened and haven’t set foot in a town for nigh on fifty years. If we’re still on speaking terms, which most probably we won’t be. With any luck a herd of maddened cows will have run her over and crushed her long before that.
A big flash car had pulled up in the yard. The Mouth went stalking over to it.
‘Good riddance,’ muttered Katy.
‘Do you think –’ I stood, undecided, astride my bike – ‘do you think it’s true what she said? About Rosie?’
There was a silence. I thought for a moment that Katy wasn’t going to say anything, but then she burst out, ‘It’s so unfair! It’s not her fault she can’t earn money. She can’t help being sick!’
I said, ‘No, it was human beings that did it to her.’
‘And now they’re going to kill her!’
I drew a long, quivering breath. ‘I suppose, really, we ought to go and ask Mrs Foster.’
We most desperately didn’t want to. I mean, for one thing we were a bit scared of her. We’d once heard her being really nasty to a woman who had fallen off her horse while out on a ride and hadn’t managed to hang on to the reins, so that her horse had gone galloping off. She had reduced that poor woman to tears. But then, also, there was the other thing: as long as we didn’t hear it officially we could go on pretending that the Mouth had just been making up stories to alarm us.
‘You know what she’s like,’ I said.
Katy agreed that we did. She said that Motormouth was vile and evil and you couldn’t necessarily believe a word she said. But she still thought we ought to do it.
I sighed deeply. I knew she was right. If you have sworn to be an Animal Samaritan, you can’t just close your eyes and make like something isn’t happening.
We propped our bikes against the side of the tack room and trailed back into the stables. Mrs Foster was in her office caravan. She was adding things up on a calculator. Probably working out how much all her horses were earning before she sent them off to be murdered.
I suddenly came over all bold and defiant and rapped quite smartly at the door. We were Animal Samaritans! Nobody scared us!
Mrs Foster looked up and scowled. She was always scowling. It just seemed like it was her natural expression.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Katy and Hannah … What can I do for you?’
The words came blurting out of me: ‘We want to know if it’s true about Rosie!’
It probably didn’t sound very polite, but I wasn’t feeling polite. We had sworn to defend animals!
Mrs Foster, all icy, said, ‘Is what true?’
‘That she’s –’ I lowered my voice to a whisper – ‘that she’s going to be turned into horsemeat?’
It seemed truly terrible to be saying such a thing in a stable full of horses. They are such intelligent creatures! They might not be able to understand everything that is said, but they can certainly pick up on feelings. Suppose Rosie had heard her name and pricked her ears forward to listen?
I could see that Mrs Foster didn’t like being questioned. She probably considered it an impertinence,
because who were me and Katy? Just two stupid townies who’d lived most of their lives in London and didn’t understand the ways of the countryside.
‘I accept that it’s not pleasant,’ she said. ‘None of us enjoy it, but we do not live in a perfect world and I am not a charity. I have a business to run. She’s not my horse, I didn’t want her, I’m just the poor fool who’s left to pick up the tab.’
Whatever a tab was. The bill, I think she meant.
Katy, very fiercely, said, ‘It’s not Rosie’s fault!’
Surely even a hatchet-faced woman like Mrs Foster had to have some feelings?
Hatchet Face twitched angrily.
‘For your information,’ she said, ‘I have been paying for that horse’s food and keep for the past three months. I cannot go on indefinitely. If the person who bought her had had the elementary common sense to get her checked out by a vet before parting with his money …’ She paused. ‘Well! The horse would no doubt have gone to the knacker’s there and then, or worse still been sent abroad to be slaughtered, so at least it’s had a few more months of life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy.’
With that, she wrenched open her desk drawer, tossed the calculator in and slammed the drawer shut so hard I was surprised it didn’t shatter. She was in a really bad mood.
Katy and I walked miserably away. Our footsteps carried us round to the other side of the indoor ring, to Rosie’s box. Her big horsey head was hanging over the door. I put my finger in her lower lip and wobbled it, the way she liked.
Katy was struggling with tears. ‘She has no idea!’
That set me off as well. I felt the tears come welling up. It is terrible the way that animals place their trust in human beings, only to be let down. To be herded into wagons and driven to their deaths. To be locked in cages and tortured. To be clubbed and shot and brutally butchered. I think wild creatures are sensible to keep away from us. I know I would!
Bethany could obviously see that we were upset. She came over to us and said, ‘I suppose you’ve heard the bad news about Rosie?’
I nodded. I couldn’t trust myself to actually speak.
‘It’s horrid, I know,’ said Bethany, ‘but it’s not Pippa’s fault.’ Pippa was Mrs Foster. Honestly! She didn’t look in the least like a Pippa. More like a … a Gertrude or a Helga. Something mean and pinched and hard.
‘It’s the owner,’ said Bethany. ‘Just walking off and dumping her on us! He’s the one to blame. You don’t think Pippa likes having to send a horse to the knacker’s yard?’
‘Then why do it?’ sobbed Katy.
‘She’s been trying not to. She’s kept putting it off. But sooner or later she has to call it a day. She’s running a stables, not a sanctuary.’
‘But it’s so cruel!’ I said.
‘It’s life,’ said Bethany sadly.
‘You mean death!’ shouted Katy.
We just couldn’t accept it. We had become Animal Samaritans to fight for all those poor defenceless creatures who weren’t able to fight for themselves. We couldn’t let poor Rosie go for horsemeat!
On the way home we met one of our neighbours, old Mrs B. We always called her old Mrs B. It may sound a bit rude – even a bit ageist – but she is forever telling us how ancient she is and that that is why she can’t understand computers or even cope with a smartphone.
‘Too newfangled for the likes of me!’
Maybe when I get to be her age – she is eighty-seven! – I will be doing the same thing.
‘Too newfangled for the likes of me,’ I will say, as all the young people go round plugged directly into the internet, half human and half cyborg. I’m not sure I like the sound of it even now! I don’t think you could have the same feelings for animals if you were only half human.
Mrs B is always incredibly cheerful in spite of being eighty-seven and having to walk with a stick. She has this very sweet old Staffie called Sidney. Some people are scared of Staffies (otherwise known as Staffordshire bull terriers). They think they are vicious and should all be muzzled. It’s just not true! They are one of the very best breeds to have around children. Sidney, in particular, is one big softie. He came wobbling up to us, his old tail slowly wagging from side to side, looking for his usual cuddle.
‘Dear me,’ said Mrs B. ‘You two are looking a bit plum duff!’
I did my best to smile, but I could feel my mouth starting to wobble. Katy, bravely, said, ‘What’s plum duff?’
‘Plum duff, rough?’ Mrs B was born in London, within the sound of Bow Bells, which meant she was a true Cockney and knew lots of Cockney rhyming slang. Katy and I had managed to learn a little bit. Tea leaf, for example, meaning thief, and apples and pears for stairs. Plum duff was a new one!
‘So, come on,’ said Mrs B. ‘You can tell an old lady … What’s happened to upset you? Trouble at school?’
I sighed. Katy plucked at her handkerchief.
‘Trouble at school,’ she said, ‘would be nothing.’
‘Oh.’ Mrs B slowly nodded. ‘It’ll be to do with animals, then?’
She knew all about us and our feelings for animals. She’d already helped us rescue a pigeon that we’d found with a damaged wing, and just last week had let us go into her back garden to make a little tunnel under the fence for the hedgehogs to use. She was such a lovely old lady! Our mums both have this tendency to groan when we do what they call starting on.
‘Oh,’ they go, ‘not that again?’
They are glad we are not obsessed with boys or clothes or make-up, but they do sometimes get a bit tired of our great passion for animals. Mrs B is always sympathetic.
‘So, come on,’ she said. ‘Out with it!’
I took a deep quivering breath. ‘There’s this girl,’ I said, ‘that’s in our class and goes riding at the same stables, and she said – she said …’
I stopped, unable to go on. Katy took up the story: ‘She said that most horses that are in riding schools end up as horsemeat!’
Gravely Mrs B said that she was probably right. ‘It’s one of the hard facts of life, I’m afraid. With the best will in the world, you can’t rescue them all.’
Katy blotted rather fiercely at her eyes. ‘Just because we can’t rescue them all doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to rescue any!’
‘Do I take it it’s one horse in particular you’re worried about?’
‘Rosie!’ I almost choked as I said it. ‘She’s the sweetest, dearest horse that wouldn’t hurt a fly, but she can’t earn her keep any more and we just don’t know what to do!’
‘Hm.’ Mrs B thought about it for a moment. ‘How about asking your friend Meg? At the sanctuary? See if she can suggest anything.’
Meg Hennessy is one of our favourite people. She runs a sanctuary called End of the Road, where sometimes we help out. But it is mainly for cats and dogs, and smaller animals such as rabbits and hedgehogs. Sadly I said, ‘I don’t think she’d have room for a horse.’
Mrs B said, ‘No, but she might know someone who has. Give her a go! Why not?’
Mrs B and Sidney went on their way, towards the woods. Katy and I looked at each other.
‘We’re always asking Meg,’ I said.
It was Meg we’d gone to with our damaged pigeon. We’d also gone to her with a baby hedgehog that we’d found in the road, and a frog that had dried out and that we had hoped she could bring back to life. Sadly she hadn’t been able to, though she’d taken both the hedgehog and the pigeon. She’d explained that she wasn’t really there for wildlife but she had friends that were.
Some people would have just sent us away, or impatiently given us telephone numbers and told us to go and find out for ourselves. Meg wasn’t like that! She cared too much. It was why she was always rushed off her feet and why the sanctuary was always full to bursting. But Katy and I cared too! It wasn’t like we’d be bothering her for selfish reasons.
‘It is for animals,’ said Katy.
‘For Rosie,’ I said.
That
decided us. ‘Let’s do it!’ said Katy.
We had to race home first to tell our mums, otherwise they would have started to flap and wring their hands and say, ‘Where can they have got to?’ And then they would think we had fallen off our bikes and broken our necks, which is the sort of thing that mums always seem to think you are doing. I suppose mums just can’t help themselves. Their lives are one big worry!
I told Mum that we were going to the sanctuary to see Meg, but I didn’t think it quite necessary to explain why. She would only have started on about not making a nuisance of ourselves. Fortunately she was in the middle of a rush job, which is what she calls a translation that has to be done in a simply stupendous hurry. All she said was, ‘Don’t be too long, I want you to keep an eye on Benjy for me while I get on with this wretched translation. If I don’t finish it by this evening, I shall be in trouble!’
I told her no problem, and went racing back out. (Benjy is my little brother. My annoying little brother. Maybe all six-year-olds are annoying, but anyway it is part of what my pocket money is for, me keeping an eye on Benjy while Mum gets on with her rush jobs. I guess I don’t really mind.)
Katy was waiting impatiently for me at the gate. We whizzed along to End of the Road in record time, only to discover that Meg wasn’t there. Deirdre, who is her assistant, said that she had gone on a sponsored walk all the way to Wales to try and raise some money.
‘Funds are really low. We’re getting desperate.’
Our hearts plummeted when she said that. We both dug into our pockets to see if we had any money on us. Katy proudly produced a 50p piece and held it out. I could only find a twenty, but Deirdre said anything, no matter how small, was gratefully accepted.
‘So what can I do for you?’
‘Nothing, I don’t expect.’ I said it glumly.
‘We wondered if you’d have room for a poor sick horse,’ said Katy.
Deirdre sucked in her breath. ‘Sorry, girls, but not a chance! We can barely feed the ones we’ve got. Unless, maybe, it’s a Shetland pony?’
I heaved a sigh and said no, it was a big, beautiful horse that was going to be turned into horsemeat if we couldn’t find some way of rescuing her.