Pony Rebellion, page 8
“I’m not sure Drummer has a better nature,” I mumbled.
“What do you mean?” asked Dee.
“Er, well, you know. Um, I’m not quite sure, but it could work.”
“But how, exactly?” asked James.
“Just appeal to their better nature,” said Bean. “You know, say it’s for a good cause and all that.”
“They know that,” said Cat.
“Well, it might work,” said Katy brightly.
“Let’s hear your idea, Katy,” said Dee, still miffed about the séance being such a nonstarter.
Katy’s idea was put on hold as there was an almighty crack as the trash can lid James was sitting on caved inward under his weight.
“Ouch!” said James, his backside wedged into the trash can, his legs hanging over the side.
Everyone collapsed laughing.
“Yeah, yeah, very funny,” said James. “Pull me out Dec, will you?” Declan took his arm and yanked until James was upright again and brushing coarse mix off his riding pants.
“You fatty, James, you’ve broken Bluey’s feed bin!” moaned Katy, inspecting the damage. The lid had broken completely in half.
“That’ll be all right,” said James. “Some duct tape will fix it.”
“Where were we before James’s weapon of mass destruction went to work?” asked Dee-Dee.
“My idea,” said Katy, looking miffed at James. “I just thought we could ask the ponies what would motivate them to do this activity ride. We haven’t thought of asking them what they would like in return. It could be something simple like a week off after it all or a special treat. I thought it would be worth trying, anyway.”
“That’s the best idea!” said Cat.
“Yes, good one, Katy,” said Bean.
“Might work,” agreed James.
“And if it doesn’t, we could still try the others, one by one,” said Dee hopefully.
“Give it up, Dee,” sighed James. “The séance is just so not going to happen.”
I hoped not. It was one thing crouching over a Ouija board in broad daylight in the middle of summer, but quite another when it was dark and I had to ride my bike home alone.
“OK, we’ve got a half hour before our practice is going to start,” said James, looking at his watch. “I vote we meet the ponies in the school in ten minutes and give Katy’s idea a whirl. If it’s a no-go, we’ll have time to try the other contenders out before Sophie and the others arrive.”
“Yeah,” agreed Katy, “it’s make-or-break time. Let’s go!”
We all stood in a circle in the school, the ponies’ heads pointing toward the middle, like the spokes in a wheel.
“Go ahead, Pia,” said Katy. “You put it to the ponies. Ask them what they want in return for doing the ride.”
I asked them. I explained about how we wanted them to be on board with the whole ride idea. How we didn’t expect them to do all the work for nothing and how we would be happy for them to have a week off after the ride or whatever they wanted. They only had to name it, I said.
After a moment or two, Bambi replied.
“No, thanks. We thought you might come up with an incentive scheme, but we, all of us, feel that if we give in this time, who knows where it will end. So sorry, the answer is no. Thanks.” I told the others.
“Try James’s scheme—I mean, idea,” whispered Katy.
So I did. Told the ponies how, if they lived in some countries abroad, they’d have to work all day, without enough food or water, be beaten and overworked. Wouldn’t they do this activity ride for us and be grateful that their lives were so much better than those poor abused animals?
Apparently not. The answer was still no. They sympathized, they said, but no. Sorry.
“Try Bean’s idea,” Katy hissed. Everyone nodded.
“What was Bean’s idea?” I hissed back.
“Er, oh yes, appealing to their better nature,” explained Katy.
“Don’t you think we’re barking up the wrong tree with that one?” I asked everyone. “Bearing in mind that the ponies didn’t buy the abused equines abroad tactic?”
“Try it anyway,” said James.
So I did. Told them we thought they were wonderful to have been so good during the first few practices and were sure they could do the same for the remaining ones. Said that we were all dying to do the extravaganza, and that all the ponies would be stars on the night and greatly admired by all, not to mention being thoroughly thanked by us. Same story. No. I didn’t even get a sorry out of them this time. Better nature? Some chance!
“That’s it, then,” sighed Katy. “That’s all the best ones used up.”
“We could…” began Dee.
“Don’t go there, Dee!” threatened James.
“Won’t the ponies even consider any of our suggestions?” Katy asked, unable to quite believe it. Her bewilderment was understandable—Bluey was such a genuine pony and not on the others’ side at all. She couldn’t understand how they could feel so strongly about it.
“They just refuse to consider anything I’ve put to them,” I explained. “It’s like pushing a boulder up a hill.”
“But they’re being so, so unreasonable!” Katy said, her voice rising.
“Yes, I know, I keep telling you!” I said, my voice doing the same.
Katy went into one. “Honestly,” she ranted at the ponies, “I’m so disappointed in you all. I’d have thought you’d all want to help a worthy cause like Riding for the Disabled, but instead you’re all behaving in a petty manner and rebelling and being so mean you could all take joint first prize in a Who’s-the-meanest-pony-ever? competition. Except for Bluey, of course.” She threw her arms around her blue roan pony’s neck. “I love you, Bluey!” she gulped. Bluey nuzzled her shoulder. There was a silence. A really thick, heavy silence that hung on the air like fog.
Then Drummer spoke. “What did you say?” he asked, very deliberately. Katy, still buried in Bluey’s neck, couldn’t hear him, so I repeated extracts for him.
“She said you’d all take joint first prize in a…”
“Not that part!” said Drummer, shaking his head, his bit jangling.
“And that you’re all being petty and rebelling…”
“No, no, before that,” snorted Drummer impatiently. I was aware of the other ponies leaning toward me as though whatever I said next was going to be the most important thing to be said in the world. Ever. Gulping, I thought back.
“That, um, you would want to help a worthy cause like Riding for the Disabled?” I mumbled, aware suddenly of the significance.
The ponies all looked at one another. Bluey slowly shook his head and sighed. Dolly suddenly found something on the ground so riveting, she couldn’t take her eyes off it. Bambi swished her tail the same way a person would tap their fingers on a table, and Tiffany opened and closed her mouth several times. Moth, as usual, just looked all wide-eyed and worried. Drummer glared at me and screwed up his lips like he was sucking a lemon.
“Did we, er, not mention that’s what the ride is for?” I whispered, my heart sinking.
My pony cast a beady eye at me in a way that made me feel I was the one who needed to be yelled at. “No,” he said, “you did not mention that. This is the first we’ve heard that this whole thing is for Riding for the Disabled.”
“What are they saying?” asked Katy. The others all leaned forward in much the same way the ponies had a moment or two earlier. I ignored them and turned back to Drummer.
“Didn’t we?” I asked innocently. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, we’re absolutely, one hundred percent sure that you did not, not, not, not mention this ride being in aid of the RDA,” butted in Bambi. “We would have remembered.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, er, does it make a difference?”
“Of course!” Bambi snapped. “What kind of ponies do you take us for?”
“You could have said,” Tiffany muttered.
“Such an important fact to leave out!” said Bluey.
“Honestly!” Dolly snorted. “People!”
Moth sighed in a disapproving way.
“This is precisely why we should have been involved at the critical planning stage, right from the beginning,” Drummer lectured me. “Failure to properly explain things from the start results in a breakdown in communication, leading to exactly this type of misunderstanding.”
“Have you been on some kind of equine management course?” I asked him. “Or been reading a self-help book, because you’re drifting into a totally different language.”
“The point is,” interrupted Bambi, “we should have been consulted, instead of just taken for granted—as usual. If we had been given all the facts from the beginning, this activity ride would be close to perfect by now. As it is, we now have to make up for lost time.”
“Do you mean…?” I asked, my spirits soaring.
“We need to get practicing because frankly, you’re all pretty useless,” chimed in Tiffany.
“Come on. No time to lose,” added Dolly, giving herself a shake.
“Pia,” interrupted James, “if you’re not too busy and you haven’t anything better to do, would you mind terribly telling us what’s happening!”
“It’s back on!” I yelled back, beaming at him.
“What’s back on?” asked Bean.
“Slices of bacon!” I said, trying out a joke. Nobody laughed, but then it was a pretty terrible joke.
“She’s lost it!” said Cat, shaking her head—just like Bambi had done.
“No, the ride’s back on. The ponies are totally up for it,” I told them.
“Hold on, hold on!” cried James, holding up his hand like a crossing guard at a school crossing. “Hearing some of the conversation from your end, do we take it that the ponies didn’t realize the whole ride was for the RDA?”
“That’s right!” I said. “But now that they do, they’re totally enthusiastic.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?” asked Cat.
“Me?” I asked, confused. Since when had that job been assigned to me?
“Of course you!” said Cat. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be able to talk to them. Why didn’t you explain? All this trouble, all this holdup, could have been avoided if you’d got your act together—particularly when appealing to their better natures and all that.”
“Yes, Pia, why didn’t you tell them?” Dee said. I didn’t need her to join in.
“They can hear all of you,” I said. “You just can’t hear them. Why didn’t you tell them?”
“I think you could have mentioned it,” murmured James. “You’re the one with inside knowledge.” I felt like mentioning a few choice words there and then—James is in on the whole Epona secret, so I expected a bit more loyalty from my accomplice.
“Yeah, it might have been a good idea,” chipped in Katy. “I mean, we don’t know what the ponies are saying, but you might have had an idea.”
How come I was taking the grief for the ponies’ mutiny? How did that happen?
I was going to stand up for myself some more, but everyone started tightening their saddle bands and pulling down their stirrups so I shrugged my shoulders and did the same.
“I can’t believe you didn’t think it worth mentioning,” Drummer murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. I felt like tightening his saddle band a notch or two tighter just to be vindictive, only he was so tubby I would probably have strained something in the attempt. With the way my luck was running, dear old karma was bound to be ready to pounce, only the way I saw it, she owed me. I didn’t understand how I had come out of it so badly when I’d been the one who’d latched on to the ponies’ little scheme and got them back on track. Cat had been the first to point the finger at me, I remembered. Typical! Just when I thought I was getting somewhere with her, she reverted to type.
Still, I thought, as Sophie and the others arrived, destined to be impressed by the wondrous spectacle of the activity ride suddenly hitting form, at least Cat had acknowledged that I could hear the ponies. Progress, of sorts, I guess.
With everyone working together at last, the ride progressed quickly. Now that we were all proficient (most of the time) in the movements and jumps, we put together the final routine to the musical track Sophie had organized.
It went like this: we all rode in, single file, lined up in the middle of the school, and gave a salute—taking the reins in our left hands, dropping our heads and our right hands before taking our reins again—and then we immediately rode off again in single file in trot. We did a few movements without jumps—splitting up and making pairs, then going across the school diagonally from the quarter markers, one at a time and narrowly missing each other (most of the time). Then we made two rides of three and rode on different reins, one going clockwise, the other counterclockwise—which was the part where I tended to get confused because I was a leader and had to remember where to go and at what speed, which freaked me out a little—and did some intricate movements with the two rides threading between and around each other. Then the jumps came in! Mrs. B., Leanne, Declan, and Nicky had to sharply manhandle the jump blocks and poles so that we had our line along the middle of the school to jump while we did one more circuit in trot—and that’s when the fun started! We jumped the row simply the first time, splitting up at the top (so I was leading again) and riding down each side to meet at the bottom of the school, turning up the middle again at A to tackle the jumps single file once more. This second time we jumped with our arms outstretched, the third time we took our jackets off (putting them on once more as we rode along the side again), then we jumped over on one stirrup for the last time.
By this time, we were getting a little sweaty and the ponies were working hard. I almost had sympathy for their rebellion at about this point because I found I was puffing—and I was just a passenger. Then Mrs. B. and Co. hurried out with the jumps and reappeared with the broom handles—standing in the middle making a diamond with the handles held at hip height, at an angle so that we could jump them from the quarter markers.
For this part, we had to keep our heads on straight because this was where there was potential for pileups. We jumped in single file, one after the other, narrowly missing one another and doing our best not to take out the human wings. Then the human wings rearranged the handles into an X so that we jumped two abreast, making sure we were level with our partners. Then the human wings did another shuffle, stringing the handles across the whole width of the school, and we all jumped them in a line abreast (which was one of the trickiest parts because the line had to be perfectly straight, and the ponies needed to take off at exactly the same time for it to look good).
At the top we again split up into threes, with each ride circling back around to join the other in single file again, and we then lined up to face the audience to take our final bow. But first we had the big finish—with everyone starting their backward roll just as the one before them flipped their legs over, so that we all went down one after the other, like a row of dominoes, standing at the ponies’ heads to finish.
And that, as they say, was that!
“Short, sharp, and sweet!” Sophie told us. “That’s what we’re aiming for. We don’t want to bore the audience, just give them a crisp display and leave them wanting more. Come on, let’s try it again, and James you need to slow down and use the corners. Katy, you need to cut your corners and keep up. Let’s go!”
It didn’t feel very crisp. It didn’t feel very short or sharp either and as for sweet…well! Not only did we have to learn the routine, but we had to make sure we were level, and in the right place at the right time, going neither too fast nor too slow. Making sure the timings were spot on took concentration.
“Phew,” said Katy, when we were taking a breather, “this is hard work.”
“I still don’t know whether I’m supposed to be in front of you, James, when we’re jumping diagonally across the broom handles, or behind you,” puzzled Bean.
“Behind,” James told her. “Except when we’re jumping in pairs, of course.”
“Yeah, I know that part,” said Bean.
The broom handlers were getting confused too.
“Should we be facing inward or outward?” Mrs. Bradley asked Sophie.
“Outward,” Sophie said firmly. “That way, you won’t scare the ponies, and you won’t flinch if you see someone coming a little too close.”
That didn’t sound very encouraging. I was glad I wasn’t assigned a broom handle to hold. Mrs. Bradley obviously agreed.
“Well, that’s just it, dear,” she said, in a worried voice, her gray curls bobbing as she shook her head, “it’s very disconcerting hearing the ponies thundering up behind one.”
“I think it’s exciting,” drawled Declan. “It makes it much more fun not knowing whether you’re going to be still standing at the end of the routine, or pounded, facedown, into the sand, like a thumbtack!”
“I’m sure there’s some law against it,” muttered Leanne. “Health and safety and that sort of thing. Are you sure we’ll be allowed to do it at the extravaganza? You know how hot those places are on those sort of things.”
“Do you really think it’s dangerous?” Nicky asked. “I have Bethany to worry about, after all.”
“It’s perfectly safe!” exclaimed Sophie. “Everyone is in complete control, aren’t you?” She turned to us. We all nodded, only I didn’t feel totally confident.
“Tell them to stop worrying,” Drummer said to me. “We’ll do our best to avoid them—only you riders are responsible for keeping your toes pointed to the front. We can’t be responsible for anyone taken out by a stray toe.”
