Secret Pony Society, page 9
“Oh, well, that’s another thing…” said Bean.
“What?” I screamed, jumping to my feet. “What’s the matter? Tell me NOW!”
“Oh, Pia, lighten up!” Bean laughed. “Drummer’s fine—and he’s loving being on vacation with his Auntie Bean!”
I heard Skinny yelling up the stairs that she and Dad were ready to go. “Gotta go!” I told Bean. “See you tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, wait a minute, I’ve remembered the other thing,” said Bean. Gossip, I thought, relaxing. That might be some relief. “James broke up with Cat today.”
How wrong could I be?
Chapter 14
I pedaled to the yard so fast on Wednesday morning, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I could feel my heart thumping inside my chest, and my legs felt like jelly. That’s the trouble with the yard being on top of a hill.
Drummer actually seemed pleased to see me.
“You’re back!” he said, nuzzling my pockets for the treats he knew would be there. I offered him the fancy sugar lumps I’d swiped, and he crunched them down in seconds. “Is that all?” he asked, frisking me some more.
“You should have made them last longer,” I told him, pulling his ears gently. I was so pleased to see him—it seemed like we’d been apart for weeks. “Sugar dissolves, you know,” he said.
“Did you miss me?” I asked him. “I missed you!”
“Of course you did,” Drummer said smugly.
“I, on the other hand, had a lovely rest. Are we going riding today?”
“You bet!” I told him. “Just as soon as Bean gets here.”
Dee-Dee was already schooling Dolly, and Leanne had gone to a dressage show so Mr. Higgins’s stable door was wide open, his new bed already laid for him for when they got back. I desperately didn’t want to see James or Cat—that would be too awkward. From the stalls on either side of Drummer, I could hear Moth munching on her hay, and I could see Bambi dozing with her head over her half door. She was deliberately ignoring Drum as usual.
I had Drum groomed and tacked up by the time Bean arrived on her bike.
“I’ll be right there—I’ll just brush the bits where the tack goes,” she cried, disappearing into Tiffany’s stable with her tack. I didn’t like to point out that’s what she always does.
Getting Tiffany ready in a rush is not recommended. Bean’s palomino is such a nervous wreck, she hates to be hassled. When Bean led her out and mounted, Tiffany was in just the right mood to see ghosts and gremlins everywhere. It drives Drummer mad.
“Ahhh, what’s that glistening thing?” I heard Tiffany exclaim, her head high, every muscle ready to flee as Bean threw her leg over the back of the saddle and fished about for her stirrup.
“It’s a puddle of water.” Drummer sighed, shaking his head.
“Oh, yes. I see that now,” Tiffany said. “Hold on! Something’s moving by the tree!”
“Yes, a wisp of hay,” Drummer said slowly. “Now get a grip and let’s go!”
We were going to see Jazz, of course.
I’d smuggled out some apples, oranges, a banana, half a loaf of bread, some cheese, some chips, a whole load of granola bars, and some chocolate. I’d also liberated some canned ham we’d had in the cupboard for years, with one of those keys on the side you use to break into it. It was part of Mom’s just-in-case supplies, whatever that meant.
I had all the provisions in my bulging backpack, and as we rode off down the drive, Cat’s dad drove past, his daughter sitting in his passenger seat beside him. Bean rode up beside me to hide the backpack from view. Close!
“I bet Cat’s upset about James,” Bean said. “She’s liked him forever, and he was quite a catch. Everyone at school was talking about them going out together.”
“She doesn’t look upset,” I replied. Cat had looked out of the window and smirked at me as her father drove past. Usually she ignored me. I wondered what was going on. “What happened?” I asked Bean.
“James dumped her,” she said bluntly.
“But do you know why?”
“Nope! But I bet the story varies, depending on who you ask.”
I couldn’t get too elated about James and Cat no longer being an item right now. I had other bigger and scarier issues. Namely, Jazz’s dad! I’d save the celebrations until later. The image of Cat smirking at me was puzzling.
“Come on,” said Bean, shortening her reins and sitting a nasty side step from Tiffany as she swerved around a discarded stroller. “Let’s get going.”
We rode to the icehouse by an indirect route, approaching from the other side of the lake, just in case we bumped into anyone. Drummer was on his toes and took all my attention, as I so didn’t want to get bucked off in the mud. We found Jazz running her fingers through Falling Snow’s mane, removing burrs clinging to the black and silver rainfall of horsehair cascading down her neck. Three pairs of eyes greeted us—the striking violet ones of Jazz, the suspicious amber eyes of her dog, and the dark, melting chocolate brown of Falling Snow’s.
“Hello, Jazz,” I said, sliding off Drummer and unfastening my backpack, letting it fall to the ground.
“You’re back,” Jazz replied, giving a meaningful glance toward Bean.
“I couldn’t get here,” I explained, shrugging my shoulders. “I had to think of something. You can trust Bean, you know that now.”
Jazz nodded reluctantly.
Falling Snow had eaten most of the grass in the clearing, and now she stood in mud. I could see the door to the icehouse was open, nothing inside but uninviting darkness. How could Jazz spend the night here, I wondered. On the plus side, Jazz’s dog seemed to have given up growling at me. He lay with his front paws stretched out in front of him, his eyes never straying from us and the ponies.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
Jazz nodded. “Perfectly. Has my dad gone yet?”
“No, he’s been threatening everyone instead,” Bean told her.
“Apparently, your father has been searching for you,” I told Jazz, “and not in a very friendly way. I don’t think he’s just going to up and leave. He must be worried about you.”
“Worried he’s lost Falling Snow, you mean!” retorted Jazz. Her change of mood prompted the dog to rise to his feet, a growl growing in the back of his throat. Tiffany took a step backward and rolled her eyes. Drummer stood his ground and stared back at the dog.
“Well, whatever, but he’s been to our yard making threats and scaring people. I’m not surprised you ran away from him. He’s really scary!” retorted Bean.
“That is the Armaya working,” said Jazz matter-of-factly. “I’m never going back,” she insisted, her violet eyes sparkling. “He won’t stay forever. He’ll think I’ve gone, and he’ll leave eventually.”
“How long do you think you can stay here?” I asked, looking at the muddy ground under the ponies’ hooves. “There isn’t enough grass here for Falling Snow.”
“I know that,” Jazz said. “She’s already lost weight.”
I turned to the dark gray pony and could see she looked a little thinner. The nights had been cold recently, and she needed hay to keep warm.
“I’m all right,” Falling Snow told me. “I feel fine. Tell her I’m all right.”
“You need more food than there is here,” Drummer said.
“Have you got nothing else to eat but the grass?” Tiffany asked, aghast. “But there’s nothing here!”
“Falling Snow says she’s all right,” I told Jazz.
“Well, we both know that she isn’t,” Jazz replied.
“I know. I’ll bring you some pony cubes this afternoon. She really needs hay, but I can’t very well bring a bale of that.”
“We can bring a hay net each,” suggested Bean. “We can carry them on our backs. I’m sure the ponies won’t mind.”
Mmmm, I thought. Drummer won’t, but Tiffany will probably think a tiger was hitching a ride. Perhaps Drummer could talk her into it, if I couldn’t.
“You’re good friends,” Jazz said. “I didn’t think I could be friends with anyone gadjikane, but you’ve proved me wrong.”
“Well, actually,” began Bean, wading in, all tact abandoned, “everyone at the yard thinks your group is hard on their horses, and some are convinced you’ll steal stuff. It was only Pia who thought differently.”
I winced, but Jazz didn’t seem to be offended. “I think my father and his friends are hard on their horses, too. But we treasure them. Horses are our history, our lives, and our currency. House dwellers will never understand that.”
“One of the horses at the yard used to belong to travelers,” continued Bean, unable to stop herself now she had started. “She was badly treated, and James rescued her.”
“But she was badly treated by the boys from the factory—Moth couldn’t get away because she was tethered. We don’t like to see horses tethered,” I explained.
“The chestnut mare with the white face—that’s who you mean, isn’t it?” said Jazz.
I nodded. “How did you know?”
“I felt it.”
A shiver ran up and down my spine as I remembered how Jazz had stroked Moth and how the chestnut pony had reacted. I had never seen her act in such a positive way with anyone, not even James.
“We have no choice but to tether our horses,” Jazz continued.
“Yes, but Moth was tied up quite a distance from the travelers’ camp,” said Bean, determined to tell Jazz the full story. “So no one knew when the boys were treating Moth badly. That’s the problem—you just tie them up and leave them—anyone could steal them, ill-treat them, or anything!”
“Finding grazing is sometimes difficult,” Jazz said sullenly. “You’d be just as upset if we left our horses tethered on mud. According to you, we can’t do anything right.”
The atmosphere in the clearing was suddenly tense. It was time to go.
“We’ll be back later with food for Falling Snow,” I said, emptying my backpack and mounting Drummer. “She’s the one on mud at the moment.”
As Jazz stepped back, Drum took a step toward her as though attached by a thread. Only my hand on the rein restrained him.
I felt a clutch at my heart, and in an instant, something I had always failed to grasp clicked into place. I had struggled to understand how I had made such an easy enemy when I had first arrived at Laurel Farm, but as Jazz held my pony’s attention in a way I never could, everything became startlingly clear. As my jealousy of Jazz’s unique affinity with horses and ponies hit me, I imagined how things would be if Jazz kept Falling Snow at Laurel Farm; how it would be if she had an unexplained empathy with the ponies. The way I would feel if that was to happen hit me like a thunderbolt and with absolute certainty.
I wouldn’t like it. I wouldn’t like it at all.
Cat had been the one everyone had turned to for advice before I’d arrived, and Epona had given me the ability to hear and talk to the ponies. For the first time I fully appreciated how Cat felt about me.
No wonder she hated me.
Chapter 15
My archrival was picking out Bambi’s hooves in the yard when Bean and I rode back along the drive. Bambi was wearing her saddle, and her legs were muddy. It appeared that Cat had been out for a ride, too.
“Uh-oh,” I hissed to Bean. “Cat alert!”
Wriggling out of my backpack, I steered Drum over to one side of the drive and threw it in to the bushes. No need to arouse suspicion.
Cat scowled at me, and Bambi put her ears back at Drummer as we halted outside Drum’s stable. Drummer couldn’t help himself…
“You’re looking good today, Bambi, ” he murmured.
“Go pull a cart!” Bambi replied, swishing her tail.
“I’d rather pull you!” said Drummer, sighing. Talk about corny. If that was my pony’s best pickup line, then no wonder Bambi wasn’t interested.
Cat leaned on her pony’s skewbald back, body brush in one hand, currycomb in the other. “Will you ever stop annoying my pony, Mia?” she asked, a sour look that matched Bambi’s crossing her face.
“Bambi’s always making faces at Drummer,” I replied, “you know that. She likes doing it. Just like you do.”
“I know about you and that traveler girl,” Cat said, her green eyes shining.
“You’re delusional,” I said, trying to be aloof.
“I can’t believe you’d put all our ponies in danger for the sake of that lowlife.”
She knew nothing about Jazz, and yet she was calling her names.
“There’s no need to take it out on everyone else, you know,” I said sweetly. “It isn’t Jazz’s fault you’re not going out with James anymore.” I knew it was nasty, but she had totally asked for it.
Surprisingly, the smirk returned. It wasn’t what I’d expected.
“You think you’re so clever,” Cat said. “You won’t be soon.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said in what I hoped was a casual and innocent manner. My heart was beating faster. There was no way Cat could know anything, but I still felt guilty. I prayed it didn’t show on my face.
“You won’t feel so smart when they’re gone,” Cat went on. “I bet you anything you want that they won’t leave empty-handed.”
“Oh, are the travelers going?” I said, running up Drummer’s stirrups. “It sounds like you know more about them than I do. Perhaps you’re the one who’s helping Jazz.”
“We both know who’s helping her,” snapped Cat.
“You’re talking nonsense,” I replied, leading Drummer into his stable, turning him round, and closing the stable door.
“That told her!” said Drummer, snatching at his hay net and taking a great mouthful of hay, which he couldn’t eat because he was still wearing his bridle.
“What time do you want to go back to Jazz this afternoon?” Bean whispered as I hung Drum’s bridle in the tack room, wiping bits of gunky hay off his bit.
“Er, about two o’clock?” I suggested.
“Fine. I’ll get the pony cubes ready, and as soon as the coast is clear, I’ll hide a couple of hay nets at the end of the drive. I don’t think mounting up in the yard and riding off with a hay net bouncing about on each of our backs would go unnoticed.”
“Mmmm, good plan,” I agreed.
Bean went outside to watch Dee and Katy schooling. Moth was out in the field—James was obviously busy doing other things—and probably avoiding Cat. With a couple of hours to spare, I thought I might as well do something useful, so I got on with a job I’d been meaning to do for a while—clear out Drummer’s tack box. Tipping everything out onto the yard outside the tack room, I sorted through it and divided it into two piles; one pile full of things that I wanted to keep, the other into stuff I didn’t.
How does so much junk accumulate in tack boxes? I hauled out used baby wipes, tissues, old chip bags, a very moldy something that I thought might once have been a carrot, a couple of lids from cans of things long used up, a lead rope clip that I had thought might come in handy and hadn’t, several hair scrunchies, a white ribbon I hadn’t been too impressed with (which didn’t look very white now), a show schedule from a year ago, a broken cell phone charm of a pony that looked like Drum, and two pens. The bottom of the tack box was awash with spilled hoof oil, so I added a soaked sponge to the pile of trash. Then I boiled a kettle, took some of the dish-washing soap that was next to it, and sat on the bench outside the tack room scrubbing the tack box inside and out.
From the bench I caught occasional glimpses of Drum as he walked around his stable and munched on his hay, and then noticed Cat bridling Bambi again. That is weird, I thought. Was she going riding again? It was a strange and strained atmosphere with only us on the yard, but I was determined not to be intimidated by Cat. I didn’t want her to think she had me on the run.
Squish came over and settled down beside me with a grunt, watching the sparrows swooping down from the tree by Moth’s stable, searching for fallen feed from the ponies’ buckets. When the sun came out, it felt warm on my face, despite the autumn chill in the air.
Hearing car wheels on the gravel drive, I turned, expecting to see a familiar car—Mrs. Bradley’s perhaps, or the farrier’s van or the postman for Mrs. Collins. I didn’t recognize the small blue hatchback that rolled past and parked next to Mrs. Collins’s beater.
I glanced across the yard. Cat seemed tense. What was going on?
The car’s inhabitants—a woman with two young girls—clattered into the yard. One girl looked about six, the other was in the woman’s arms, clearly only a toddler. The older one wore pink trousers, a pale blue quilted jacket, and a riding helmet, and she ran up to Cat, squealing with delight.
“Shhhh,” said Cat, her voice kind. Bending down, she swung the young girl up in her arms. “You must always talk quietly and move slowly around horses because although they’re big, they’re nervous. There, you can stroke her now, she won’t hurt you.”
The girl patted Bambi’s forehead, and the mare nuzzled the girl, making her giggle.
The woman looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen her before. Perhaps she just had one of those faces.
I rinsed out the tack box and turned it upside down to drain. Then I fetched Drummer’s bridle and started cleaning that, too. My mind kept working. Where had I seen the woman—and her two children? I was certain all three were locked in my memory banks somewhere.
I watched as Cat untied Bambi and tightened her girth. Then she pulled down the stirrups and lifted the girl up onto her pony’s back.
I had seen them before. And the girl had ridden Bambi then. It was at one of the Sublime Equine Challenge shows. That was it! The woman had lifted the girl onto Bambi’s back, and Cat had looked very unhappy about it but had said nothing. It had been very odd. And now they were all here, and the girl was riding Bambi again. And Cat looked no happier about it this time. What was going on?
