Beginner's Luck, page 6
If she kept going now, Lindsey would know for sure that Shelby was trying to shake off her friends deliberately. She might forgive her for it, but she wouldn't forget. From this moment on, forever and ever, Lindsey would remember it whenever there was a question of trust between them. Shelby knew this was true. She knew something else too. If she didn't get this day right, it was Blue's last day of freedom.
Shelby squeezed his sides and he bounded into a canter. 'Come on!'
12 The Race
Cracker was faster than Blue, and Shelby didn't want to gallop because, with so many horses in the Gully, she could come across one unexpectedly, and somebody could get hurt. She had to find a place where she was at an advantage – a place where Cracker would slow down and Blue wouldn't. I know, she thought. The Cross-Country Course.
Shelby turned Blue along a narrow looping path that was a shortcut to that trail. It was sandy and straight. She didn't see any other riders and she urged Blue along, tucking her head low and leaning forward. Blue sprang onward with his ears flat and his tail swishing. A cloud of dust billowed out behind her.
They drew up behind a group of riders and slowed to trot past them. 'Hello, are you having a good day?' Shelby asked, grinning, and then she pushed Blue into a canter again, without waiting for an answer.
Over the little hill was the first abandoned car. It was tilted on its side so all she could see was its rusty undercarriage. Blue didn't even blink. His hooves drummed a beat along the dirt path.
Next there were four fallen branches. The first three were only small, each about forty centimetres off the ground, but the last one was twice that height. She popped over the first and second, but at the third, Blue had misjudged his stride. He slowed down, off balance, hesitating. His front hoof grazed the top of the branch. He stumbled. Shelby was thrown forward. She squeezed with her knees. He needed to get himself together or they would crash through the fourth. It was stuck between other branches and stumps on both ends and Shelby wasn't sure how much it would give. Blue took two enormous strides and leapt over the final branch. Shelby was thrust back in the saddle. They were over it, heading downhill and around a turn.
Shelby risked a glimpse over her shoulder. Lindsey was still behind them. Cracker shied at the old car, and Lindsey tipped slightly to the side. She was frowning, her face steely with purpose.
Up ahead were the forty-four-gallon drums. There were five of them scattered over the trail. Two of them were upright, but the other three lay on their sides. Some days Blue snorted at them with suspicion, not wanting to pass close to them, but today he skipped between them, like when they played Flags at pony club, changing his leading leg as he wove through them. She leaned forward and patted him on the shoulder. 'Good boy!'
Next there was the whistling tree stump, but the wind was low today. Blue cantered on without a glance. One more obstacle to go – the knocking cable spool. It was at the top of a steep incline and around a bend. Blue's hooves scattered the gravel as he bounded up the slope. Shelby looked back again. Lindsey was nowhere in sight.
She turned back to the trail. Suddenly Blue planted his feet. Shelby was thrown forward. She sailed over the side, legs akimbo. She had enough time to think, Hmm, big orange bulldozer. That's new, before she hit the dirt.
Shelby lay on the trail on her back, looking up at the sky. Sometimes when she fell it felt like no time had passed at all – one minute she was in the saddle and the next she was lying on the ground – but other times it seemed to take forever. This had been a fall of the second type. Her whole body felt shaky and numb, but nothing seemed to hurt. I might just lie here for a second. Sometimes big pain took a little while to happen.
Blue's face loomed over hers and he snorted, blowing her fringe up from her forehead. Shelby could feel his whiskers on her cheek. She had to get up. Lindsey would come around the corner any second. She scrambled to her feet. Blue backed up, eyes wide.
'It's OK. You didn't mean it. It's my fault. I wasn't paying attention,' she told him.
She could hear hoof beats coming down the trail. She grabbed Blue's reins. 'C'mon.' She dragged him off the trail and behind the gigantic spool and the boulders that held it in place.
Shelby cupped her hand over Blue's bottom lip. 'Stay quiet,' she whispered to him. He nibbled at her fingers. She twisted her wrists experimentally and leaned from side-to-side, feeling for pulled muscles in her back and shoulders. She had been lucky this time.
The hoof beats faltered and skidded. 'Whoa! Bulldozer!' It was Lindsey's voice. Shelby waited for the thump, but it didn't come. The hoof falls were irregular for a moment. Cracker must have been dancing around on the spot. He didn't want to pass the bulldozer.
'Get moving!' Lindsey ordered.
Shelby heard more horses coming along the track. It must have been the group she had passed earlier.
'Have you seen a girl on a little paint horse come past here?' asked Lindsey.
'Yeah, she was in a hurry,' a voice answered.
'Did she come back this way?'
'No, I don't think so.'
'Thanks. Have a nice day.'
The hoof beats continued on down the trail, slower now. One two, one two. Cracker was trotting.
Shelby counted to three and then stepped out from behind the spool.
There was Cracker standing in the middle of the trail. Lindsey was leaning over, buttoning up the pocket on her saddle blanket. She looked up at Shelby and smiled.
'Did you get caught short?' Lindsey asked.
The two girls stared at each other. Shelby was embarrassed, but she was also irritated. Yes, she had run away, but why did Lindsey have to chase her? If she'd just let it be then they wouldn't be having this stupid, awkward moment.
Lindsey had a half smile on her face. There was no point hiding anymore.
Shelby bit her lip. 'I know where the Matchstick Town is.'
'I know you do,' Lindsey replied.
Shelby ran Blue's reins through her fingers. 'I need the money, Lindsey. I'm going to use it to pay for Blue's agistment. I can't let him be a riding school horse.'
Lindsey brushed her hair away from her eyes. 'It's not that bad. I'll take good care of him, I promise.'
That's not good enough, Shelby thought.
They stood still, not speaking.
Eventually Lindsey asked, 'Does Erin know?'
Shelby shook her head.
Lindsey sighed as she turned Cracker around. 'I'm going to go and find her. Good luck.'
'You'll end up with the money anyway,' Shelby called after her.
Her friend looked over her shoulder, but she kept the horse moving forward. 'Don't fret. I understand.'
Shelby watched her back as she rode away and felt regret. Lindsey wasn't cool like Hayley. She didn't have all the latest gear and the glamorous horses. She wasn't fun and silly like Erin was either, but Shelby thought Lindsey could have been an important friend – the sort of person you could rely on when you were in trouble.
She tried to imagine how she would feel if the tables were turned. Shelby ran her hand down Blue's face. 'I wouldn't care about the money,' she whispered to him. 'I'd be disappointed that Lindsey didn't trust me.'
Shelby wished that she had trusted Lindsey with her secret. She could have told her on the rainy day they met on the trail. Lindsey might have even agreed to help.
'I guess it doesn't matter now,' she told Blue, as she put her foot in the stirrup. 'Come on, let's hurry up and win this thing. I'm getting hungry.'
She thought about having a sausage sandwich with onions and barbecue sauce back at the starting point and her stomach grumbled.
13 Into the Pocket
The mouth of the tunnel was obstructed with long branches, ragged with leaves, silt and other debris. At first Shelby thought they must have washed in there during the heavy rain, but as she started to move some of the branches away she could see that they were embedded in chicken wire at the bottom. It was almost as though someone had done it on purpose, like a giant version of a flower arrangement held in place with florist's sponge.
She had to keep stopping as people rode past, because she thought they would wonder what she was up to. It was heavy work. The branches were tightly wedged and she was grateful for the frequent rests.
The first time, Shelby stood there like a chump, but she decided that looked suspicious, so after that, every time somebody rode past she would lift up one of Blue's hooves and pretend to be inspecting it for stones.
Eventually she made a space big enough for Blue to step through and, having checked that nobody was looking, she led him inside.
There were still pools of water along the floor of the tunnel, giving off a dank, nasty smell, but they were shallow – not even halfway up her boots.
At the end of the tunnel she looked down into The Pocket. It was much steeper than she remembered. The water had worn the ground away so that there was only about a metre now between the concrete edge of the tunnel and the steep drop into the pool below. She put out one foot, gingerly testing the surface. It held firm.
'Either this is much more dangerous than it used to be, or I've got more wussy. Which do you think?' Blue twitched his ears. 'Shall we give it a go?' He chomped on his bit, as though he was considering his options. 'I don't really want to either,' she told him.
Shelby stepped out onto the narrow shelf and then turned left, holding out her hands in front of her to keep steady on the slippery slope. Blue placed one hoof on the ledge, his ears pricked forward and his nostrils blowing nervously. He put the other front hoof out. So far so good.
Blue swung his body around so that he was sideways on the ledge, and suddenly it started to collapse beneath his weight. He bounded forward. Shelby let go of the reins as he scrambled across the slope beside her. With each step his hooves plunged deep into the crumbling soil and then it slid away beneath him. He was in front of her, and his churning legs kicked sods into her face. She closed her eyes and dug her hands into the ground, trying to hold onto the clumps of clay for balance. She opened her eyes and watched as Blue lurched and staggered across the steep slope. The reins were flinging sideways and with each stride the ground fell away, down into the pool below. She could hear the fragments splashing as they hit the water.
Shelby scrambled upwards like a rock-climber. She reached the top, where there was a small lip before the fence on the shoulder of Gully Way. Car tyres rushed past her face. She looked down over her shoulder. Blue had reached the flatter ground to the side and was standing still between a few blackberry bushes. Even from here she could see his sides expand and contract as he breathed heavily. She crawled sideways along the ledge for a few metres and then headed back down again where it was flatter.
When she reached Blue she put her arms around his neck. 'See? I told you it was more dangerous than before.' Shelby looked back towards the mouth of the tunnel. It seemed to jut out now. She wasn't sure if she would be able to climb up there, and she had hands. How was Blue supposed to do it?
The only way available to them was down into The Pocket.
'We'll take the photo and worry about getting out after that,' she told Blue.
The camera. She hadn't felt it digging for ages. She patted all around her waistband. It wasn't there. She must have lost it when she fell.
She remembered stepping out from behind the cable spool. Lindsey had been putting something in her saddle rug's pocket – something small and rectangular. The pocket had been empty when they set out together. Shelby remembered looking at it.
Her mouth opened. Shelby had been worrying about being deceitful to Lindsey, and all the time Lindsey was the one being sneaky. It was mean and spiteful – not at all like the friend that she knew.
'She took my camera, Blue. Why would she do that?'
14 Waltzing Matilda
Shelby led Blue between the vigorous blackberry bushes, down the slope, through the shaded glade and into the clearing. It seemed pretty much the same as it had been before. There were no kangaroos this time, but she could see their droppings on the grass.
She took off her helmet and tied it to one of the stirrups. Having tucked Blue's reins into his bridle and loosened his girth, she stepped up into the doll's house to have a look.
It should have been dirtier. Shelby knew because her own shed in Blue's paddock needed regular sweeping, especially when it was windy and the dead leaves, dust and debris drifted in and collected in the corners. Shelby's shed had a door that was closed most of the time. The doll's house was open at the front, so as well as the normal dirt and dust, it should have had dead branches, birds' nests and animal droppings – but it didn't have any of those things. Somebody had been sweeping again.
The mug, lighter and tin-opener were still in the cupboard above the sink, but now there were lots of cans – chunky beef soup, tuna, and baked beans. There were also a few forks and spoons, and a dishcloth that hadn't been there before. She twisted the cans around to look at the labels, but as she was about to close the cupboard door, she turned them back again so they were stacked exactly as she had found them.
There was a tap over the sink. She had assumed it was a dummy, but when she turned the handle, there was a loud cranking, knocking sound and then a dribble of water ran into the sink and down the drain. She could hear it hitting the ground somewhere underneath the structure.
At the back of the doll's house was a water tank. It had been painted a pale blue colour, but the paint was flaky. There was a tap jammed into the bottom, with a bucket underneath it to catch the drips.
In the clearing just beyond the back wall there was a little vegetable garden – corn, eggplant, staked tomatoes, and some herbs too. She recognised them all, because it looked just like her dad's vegie patch at home, except smaller. Some of the corn stalks had ears missing, and she could see the withered green stubs on the tops of the plants where the tomatoes must have been picked. There were no weeds between the rows either. Somebody took care of this garden.
Between the shed and the doll's house, a ring of rocks encircled a blackened patch on the ground – a campfire filled with grey, burned-out logs. A dented black billycan rested on a angle between two of the rocks and a squat camp oven was half-submerged in the ash. She held her hand above it, but the ashes were cold.
Nearby there was a neat stack of wood. There were two thicker blocks. One must have been used for chopping, because it had a small tomahawk suspended above it with its blade buried a few centimetres into the wood. The other, closer to the fire, was probably used as a stool.
Shelby heard a crash and glanced up, startled. It sounded like a limb falling from a tree, and hitting other branches before it reached the ground, but she wasn't certain. She couldn't detect any movement.
She grabbed the handle of the tomahawk and jerked it out of the chopping block. If there had to be a weapon around, she wanted to be the one holding it. The handle was made from rubber and she could feel the ridges of the grip pressed against her palm.
Behind the doll's house there was a thin rope suspended between two trees, and hanging over it was a tattered flannelette shirt with the sleeves ripped off, an old pair of shorts and a faded blue sleeping bag, unzipped all the way around so it spread out like a blanket. She touched the shirt. It was damp. It hadn't been raining for a few days. It must have been washed and strung up that day.
Shelby looked around the clearing again, frowning – the broom, the vegie patch, the fireplace, the washing – it all added up to an alarming idea. This wasn't just a secret place to visit – somebody lived here.
Gripping the tomahawk to her chest, Shelby felt awash with uneasiness. I shouldn't be here, she thought as she made her way back to where Blue was grazing. The thick shrub surrounding the clearing seemed more sinister, as though it concealed watching eyes.
When she reached his side she threw her free arm over his wither, trying to look casual. She hummed the first song that came into her head – Waltzing Matilda, because they'd sung it in choir at school.
Who would choose to live here? Could it be someone friendly? If they were, why would they stay down here, surrounded by bush, and why this part?
It wasn't even the nicest part of the Gully. Shelby knew much prettier places on the other side of the tunnel. She'd thought of camping in the Gully herself, but she didn't think her mum and dad would let her.
Suddenly The Pocket seemed very quiet. She couldn't hear birds singing or insects chirping. Even the steady drone of traffic along Gully Way had disappeared. The whole place was silent.
'Once a jolly swagman . . .' Shelby sang under her breath.
She'd never really thought about the lyrics before. A jolly swagman. Was 'jolly' a nice way of saying drunk? She hadn't seen any empty bottles lying around. Was there such a thing as a tidy alcoholic? She tried to think back to her Health classes at school. She was pretty sure drunk went along with violent. She changed her grip on the tomahawk, holding it by the blade. She ran the tip of her index finger along its narrow edge. It was pretty sharp.
'Camped by a . . .'
A billabong. She'd always called the water underneath the tunnel a pool, but it wasn't artificial, and it didn't flow anywhere either. It was a billabong.
'Under the shade of a coolabah tree.' Her voice cracked as she tried to reach the higher note.
Shelby had no idea what a coolabah tree looked like. Apart from the clearing, the whole place was pretty shady – almost gloomy. She eyed the shadowy scrub.
'I don't think there are any swagmen these days,' she whispered to Blue. With her free hand, she stroked his mane. There were homeless people, but they lived in the city. She'd seen them on television, crouched in doorways – old men and crazy-looking ladies with their beanies and shopping carts.
'You know what really lives by billabongs, Blue?'
She reached down and loosened his reins, a new sense of urgency making her blood rush. It was time to find another way out. She had to try. She couldn't stay here after dark. She knew what lived by billabongs, kilometres away from people, in dark, murky places. She'd seen them in picture books and in the sorts of movies and documentaries that her parents didn't like her watching.
