
Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1 A Bargain
Chapter 2 Back to the Stables
Chapter 3 A Distraction
Chapter 4 Arabetha Bella or Bess
Chapter 5 Experts
Chapter 6 Bareback
Chapter 7 A Levy
Chapter 8 Sensible
Chapter 9 Gwen's Pony
Chapter 10 Talking Too Much
Chapter 11 Broken Tree
Chapter 12 Saddle Sores
Chapter 13 The Worst Part
Chapter 14 Candour
Chapter 15 Investing
Chapter 16 Erin's Longest Friend
Chapter 17 Bad Accent
Chapter 18 Saved and Indebted
Chapter 19 The Chiropractor
Chapter 20 Another Try
Chapter 21 Hotty's Personal Best
Chapter 22 Cheek
Chapter 23 Self-pity
Chapter 24 Night Ride
Chapter 25 Cornered
Chapter 26 Busted like Custard
Chapter 27 Annual Barbecue
Chapter 28 Hanging Out with Hayley
Chapter 29 A Confession
Chapter 30 A Perfect Match
About the Author

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Hot PotatoePub ISBN 9781864715545Kindle ISBN 9781864717198
Random House Australia Pty Ltd20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point NSW 2061http://www.randomhouse.com.au
Sydney New York TorontoLondon Auckland Johannesburg
First published by Random House Australia 2006
Copyright © Alyssa Brugman 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
National Library of AustraliaCataloguing-in-Publication Entry
Brugman, Alyssa, 1974--.Hot Potato.
For children aged 8--12 years.ISBN 1 74166 035 1.
1. Horses -- Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
A823.4
Cover photograph copyright © Trudy Nicholson Equine Photography, www.nicholsonphotography.co.nz
Cover and internal design by Sandra NobesTypeset in Sabon 11/15.5 pt by Midland Typesetters, AustraliaPrinted and bound by Griffin Press, Netley, South Australia
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I saw a horse for sale in a magazine once. I liked the look of her, so I sent a cheque and told the seller to put her on a truck. When she turned up she had a 'big personality'. She's too small and she needs constant work, or she bucks like a bronco. Nobody likes her except me, and I love her to pieces. Her name is Greenbrook Elizabeth. I call her ILU (Independent Little Unit). This book is for her.
Many thanks to a real 'Miss Anita', Nicole Chipperfield, who rides her horses like she stole them.
1 A Bargain
'Do I hear two three?' asked the auctioneer from his perch high on the metal bridge spanning the horse yards.
'There's Clint,' whispered Lindsey, standing very still with her hands in her pockets. 'Down the front, near the fence.'
Shelby leaned forward scanning the crowd. There were so many leather-skinned men in jeans, boots and Akubras that she found it hard to pick out Clint amongst them.
They were even sucking their teeth and chewing paspalum. Shelby hadn't believed anyone really did that outside of ads for Woolworths fresh produce or Holden utes.
Clint was standing with his arms crossed at the yard of the horse being sold. It wasn't until he turned his face towards the girls that she recognised him. He's checking up on us, she thought.
The farrier had been at the stables every day the previous week to trim the riding school ponies. Shelby and Erin had their horses' hooves done too. Clint told them that he was going to the horse auctions and the girls had begged to come along. He had been trepidacious about bringing them, but finally he had relented.
'Oh yeah, I see him now.' Erin held her hand up next to her chin and waggled her fingers.
Shelby gasped. Clint had instructed them not to move. His exact words were, 'Don't move, don't sneeze, don't lean forward, and don't scratch. Especially you, Erin.'
'Two three it is,' said the auctioneer. 'Do I hear two four?'
'I think you just bid on a horse,' murmured Lindsey through scarcely parted lips.
'Really? For how much?' asked Erin.
'Two thousand three hundred dollars,' Lindsey replied.
'Omigod!' Erin slapped her hands across her mouth.
'Two four to the young lady,' called the auctioneer, pointing to her. 'She thinks the horse is so great she's bidding against herself.'
Muffled laughter rippled through the crowd. Shelby saw Clint close his eyes and shake his head.
'I didn't mean to!' Erin cried in a shrill voice. Shelby blushed.
'Very good. Do I hear a real two three? Yes, madam in the green shirt.' The auctioneer turned his attention to an older woman standing at the edge of the yard.
'Phew, that was close!' Erin put her hand on her chest.
'Erin! Stop moving!' Lindsey hissed through the side of her mouth.
'Oops!' Erin giggled.
'You're so hopeless,' Shelby sighed.
The horse on which Erin had bid was sold and then the whole crowd shuffled sidewards to the next yard and the next horse being sold.
Shelby looked along the line of yards with their metal fences and cement floors. She thought it was clever how the gates to each of the yards were the same width as the aisles, so that when the gate was open, it blocked off the aisle perfectly.
At the end of each of the lanes there were loading ramps. Earlier in the day she had watched the trucks pull up to unload. The handlers coordinated the gates so that each of the horses would run down the loading ramps and then, by having some gates open and some closed, move straight into their individual yards.
Most of the horses looked so thin and frightened that she wanted to take them home and give them a good feed. Many of them had bites, bumps and scratches all over from the rough trip to the sale yards. The younger ones in particular had such fragile, twig-like legs they looked as though they could snap in a strong breeze. She had overheard two of the older stockmen saying that most of the horses came from studs out west that couldn't afford to feed them in the drought.
Shelby was amazed how cheaply they were selling. The one on which Erin had bid was the most expensive so far. Some of them had been sold for less than a hundred dollars. Shelby wished she had ten thousand dollars in her pocket. She would buy them all.
Clint wended his way through the crowd until he reached them.
'The next ones are the Dog Man's horses. I'm going to get a coffee from the canteen. I won't be long. Are you happy to stay here?'
The girls nodded. 'We'll be OK here,' said Lindsey. 'Thanks, Clint.'
'Don't bid on any horses while I'm away, Erin.'
Erin giggled. 'I won't.'
After he had gone Shelby turned to Lindsey. 'What does he mean the "Dog Man"?'
'The Dog Man buys horses by the kilo,' she explained.
Erin put her hand over her mouth. 'That's awful!'
Lindsey shrugged. 'If a horse has a broken leg, or an incurable illness, then he will take it away. We dogged a horse last year. Do you remember Swift? He went blind. He kept hurting himself and he was frightened all the time.' She shook her head. 'That's not a good life. We could have paid the vet to put him down, but then you need to hire a backhoe to bury him. You have to bury them deep otherwise it's unhygienic. The Dog Man will pay you and take it away. I know it sounds mean, but it works out for everyone.'
Lindsey was a farm girl, used to the practicalities of death.
'So why are they here?' Shelby asked.
'Sometimes when the Dog Man gets the horse back to his yards he'll find that its illness isn't incurable after all, or that, with a bit of retraining, a mad horse is useful again. For whatever reason, if he thinks he can get more money for it alive than he can as meat then he will bring it here.'
'Why isn't Clint interested?' asked Erin.
'Maybe he thinks it's too risky?' Lindsey suggested. 'Someone thought that these horses were too crazy or too sick to bother with.'
'Not everyone knows what they're doing, though,' Shelby observed.
'Yes, and that's why all these other people are bidding on them,' Lindsey added.
At the end of the row there was a chestnut pony with four white stockings and a blaze. Despite the mud that matted its coat, it was the prettiest pony in the whole place. Shelby tugged at her friends' sleeves and they followed her to the edge of the yard.
'This can't be one of the Dog Man's horses. It must be the beginning of the next lot.'
'Cute!' squealed Erin. The pony turned its head at the sound of her voice. She reached out a hand and the pony sniffed it cautiously.
'Tiny,' observed Lindsey. 'It's not even thirteen hands. And look at all those white hooves! You never buy a horse with four socks.'
'I think it's beautiful. If it is a Dog Man's horse then whoever sold it to him was an idiot,' said Shelby.
She wondered if the owner had thought the pony was sick when it just needed worming. Maybe it had been bought for a beginner who didn't know how to handle it, or lost interest?
Shelby could picture it in a show ring with its mane in rosettes, doing what the magazines called 'an extravagant extension', which meant it flicked its toes out when it trotted.
She imagined that she was riding it, wearing a dark grey, pinstriped hacking jacket and top-boots. She would be so proud and confident, and not even a little bit nervous, because they would have practised together. They would win Supreme Champion. The judge wouldn't even look at the other horses. He would wave them away before they got into the ring.
Adults at the shows would offer her ten thousand dollars for the horse, and she would shake her head, smiling to herself, knowing that, not so long ago, everyone thought the horse was worthless. It happened to Phar Lap and Seabiscuit. It probably happened all the time.
The pony's forelock was so long that it had to peek out at Shelby from under the weight of it. It had long eyelashes and large brown eyes. It nibbled at her fingers, and Shelby knew she couldn't go home without it.
She'd never been to the sales before -- she'd never even thought about it until Clint mentioned it that week. This horse was obviously of a higher quality than any other pony here. What were the chances of them being at the same place at the same time? It couldn't be a coincidence.
The auctioneer had reached the yard and the little pony snorted suspiciously as the crowd closed around them.
'It's OK, little one,' Shelby crooned to it.
'What do we know about this one, Phil?' the auctioneer asked one of the fellows in the crowd.
The man shrugged. 'I dunno, mate. I only picked her up yes'dee.'
'It's a mare, isn't it?' He waited for a nod of confirmation from the man in the crowd. 'We'll start the bids at two hundred dollars. Anyone? One eighty dollars. She's a steal at one eighty.'
The auctioneer looked at the spectators with his eyebrows raised. 'One hundred and eighty dollars. She's a pretty little filly.'
People scuffed their feet and looked at the ground, or chatted amongst themselves.
'Why isn't anyone bidding?' Shelby asked her friend.
'Haven't you been watching?' replied Lindsey. 'This is a toy horse. All these blokes are looking for stock horses or quarter horses -- working horses.'
'One seventy-five,' said the auctioneer. 'A nice pony, gents. Buy it for your granddaughters.'
'We should buy it,' whispered Erin. Her eyes were bright. 'Shelby, you got fifty dollars for your birthday and I've been saving.'
Shelby had received a lovely crisp fifty-dollar note from her Aunt Jenny for her birthday, but she had spent it already. She was sure she could get some more money, though. She would do extra chores, offer to mow the neighbours' lawns, or wash their cars. Fifty dollars was a cinch.
'How much do you have, Lindsey?' Shelby asked.
She had an idea that Lindsey would have money squirrelled away. Lindsey was sensible and frugal, with no interest in make-up, clothes, ring-tones and magazines, which was where most of Erin's money went.
'I'm not buying a horse! Why would I want another one?'
Lindsey's mother owned the stables where Erin and Shelby kept their horses. When Lindsey felt like riding she had all the riding school ponies to choose from.
'Look at it, Lin, it's gorgeous,' said Shelby. 'Even if we had to pay five hundred, we could sell it tomorrow for twice that much.'
'Five hundred! We don't have five hundred. Where are you going to keep it, anyway?' Lindsey whispered.
'One fifty?' said the auctioneer overhead. 'She has to be sold.'
Shelby looked around. Still nobody was bidding. She raised her hand, catching the auctioneer's eye. It was impulsive, but she couldn't help it. It didn't feel real, but at the same time it was exhilarating. Her skin pricked all over with goose flesh.
'We have one fifty. One sixty? Anyone?'
'Shel!' Lindsey tugged on her sleeve. 'How are we going to get it home?'
'Clint will put her on his truck,' Erin said. 'This is so exciting!' She wriggled. 'I hope someone else bids!'
'One fifty-five?' The auctioneer searched the crowd.
'You're a fruit-loop, Erin, you know that?' Lindsey said, shaking her head.
'One hundred and fifty it is. Last chance, folks,' said the auctioneer.
Erin grabbed Shelby's hand.
'I can't believe you bid on a horse, Shelby. Your parents are going to go bananas!' Lindsey said.
Shelby couldn't believe it either. Her heart was beating fast, but she shrugged. 'I'll tell them it's your horse.'
'And what do I tell my mum?' said Lindsey.
'Tell her it's my horse,' suggested Erin.
Lindsey said, 'And you're going to tell your mum that it's Shelby's, just like a hot potato.'
'No more bids,' said the auctioneer.
Erin grinned. 'My mum won't believe that Shelby's parents let her have another horse. I'm going to tell them it's yours too.'
'Fantastic,' groaned Lindsey.
'Sold to the young girl in the orange shirt!' The auctioneer clapped his hands together, indicating that the deal was done.
Lindsey shook her head. 'I can't believe it. I don't have any money on me. Do you? And we haven't asked Clint if he will truck it. We don't know anything about it. I suppose you want to keep it at my place too. My mum is going to go nuts. I can't believe you just bought a horse!'
'No, Lin,' corrected Erin, her eyes shining. 'We bought a horse.'
Shelby still felt the flutter of butterflies in her stomach. The little mare stretched out her neck and softly lipped Shelby's fingers. 'We bought a horse,' she repeated.
2 Back to the Stables
The petite chestnut horse reared for the third time and Clint moved to the side, out of range of her hooves.
'Explain to me again why I'm trying to put this . . .' He searched for a description. 'This animal on my truck?'
'Mum said if I saw something I liked I should buy it,' Lindsey lied.
'Yes, I heard that part. I just don't get the part where I'm paying for it.' The horse snorted and skipped around at the end of the lead.
Shelby stood back, biting her nails. Whoever sold the pony must have transported her to the auction in the first place, so there had to be some way of getting her on a truck.
'Mum gave me money but I forgot to bring it,' Lindsey explained. 'If we stop at an ATM on the way home I'll get some out for you.'
It turned out that Lindsey did have savings. Shelby and Erin had agreed to repay her for their portions the next day. Shelby didn't know exactly where she was going to find fifty dollars overnight, but she would work it out later.
Clint had bought three horses at the auctions -- all leggy bay stock horses. They peered at the little chestnut over their shoulders as if to say, 'What's your problem? Hurry up! We don't want to stand here all day.'
Clint's truck was parked alongside several others in the dirt area that served as a car park at the front of the saleyards. Most of the other people had left already, but a few remained. It was obvious that Clint knew many of the men and women here, and it was also clear that he was embarrassed. Shelby wasn't sure if he was ashamed of the tiny horse, or his inability to load it.
Clint led the mare in a circle again and then headed for the ramp. She put one hoof on the tailgate and then spun backwards, pulling the lead rope from his hands. He lunged for it and caught it.
One of the men lounging against a truck nearby cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, 'Why don't just pick it up, mate? Take it home on your lap.'
'You could fold her up and put her in your pocket,' suggested another man leaning out of his cab window.
The group in earshot laughed. Clint scowled.
'I'm surprised that Brenda didn't talk to me about this,' he remarked, bringing the horse around for another try. Clint had been tending to the riding school ponies for many years, so he and Lindsey's mother were old friends.
This time the pony dug her hooves into the ground, thrusting her head in the air. Shelby could see the whites of her eyes.
'Maybe you should try that natural horsemanship stuff that you always talk about,' suggested Erin.
Clint gave her a dark look. 'We're going to be here all night,' he muttered.
'Hey, Clint,' shouted the man in his cab, 'if you put her in water does she swell to a proper size?'
'No, no,' said the man next to the truck. 'You pump her up like an air mattress.'
By this time all of the rest of the horses had been loaded. It seemed to Shelby that the people were only hanging around to poke fun at Clint.
Shelby and Lindsey exchanged a glance. 'What should we do?' Shelby mouthed.
'There's nothing we can do,' Lindsey whispered. She was right. None of the girls were more qualified than Clint for this task.
Erin huffed and sat down cross-legged.
'Get up,' hissed Shelby. 'He's doing this for you, Erin.'
'Me? You bought the horse,' she retorted.
'Shut up.' Lindsey frowned at both of them.
Just when it was beginning to look hopeless, the little horse bounded up the ramp and into the truck.
The spectators cheered and clapped. Clint shook his hat at them, shooing them. 'Show's over. Move along. Nothing to see here.' The crowd reluctantly dispersed into their various trucks and four-wheel drives, waving goodbye as they went.
'See you when you bring that filly back again,' said one of them.
'Maybe I'll have a go with her next month,' chuckled another. 'I tried miniature trains once.'
Clint stood with his hands on his hips waiting for them to go and then he sighed.
'That filly has done this a hundred times before,' he told the girls as he closed the tailgate. 'She's not afraid, she's just plain naughty.'
'Yes, but she's so pretty!' Erin grinned.
Clint double-checked the bolts and then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. 'Pretty only goes so far.'
On the way back to the stables Clint seemed to lighten up. He even laughed when the girls sang along with Gwen Stefani on the radio.
Shelby and Erin knew the words but Lindsey just sang, 'La, la, la,' along with the tune until she got the hang of it, and then she turned to the other two girls and sang, 'Tick, tock, tick, tock,' waving her hands like robot arms on a clock face. Erin and Shelby cracked up.
Clint chimed in. 'I'm still a super-hot female!' Which made Erin and Shelby laugh even more.
When they pulled over for Lindsey to go to the ATM they could hear thumping and bumping in the back. The truck swayed. One of the horses let out a shrill whinny.
'Let's guess who's making that racket?' Clint said.
The mood changed quickly. Lindsey climbed back into the cab and handed Clint the cash. He slipped the notes into his wallet and shifted the truck into gear. 'I'm looking forward to hearing what Brenda thinks of this mare you've bought for her. I think I'll stay for a coffee and see what she has to say,' he said, heading out into the traffic.
Lindsey's face turned bright red. She tried to hide it by looking out the window. 'Mum said she was going shopping this afternoon.'
'I can wait,' he replied.
'What about your new horses?' Shelby asked. 'You can't leave them on the truck.'
'I'll put them in one of the yards.'
Shelby tried to think of a reason why Clint couldn't stay for coffee. She glanced at the other girls. Erin shrugged.
The truck rumbled on. Occasionally the pony whinnied and kicked the wall of the truck. They weren't far from the stables now.
Since Shelby couldn't think of a reason why Clint shouldn't stay, she concentrated on coming up with an excuse as to why they bought the horse in the first place. Perhaps Lindsey's mum wouldn't be angry. She might even like the horse and congratulate the girls on making such an excellent choice.
Shelby sighed. No matter how good the mare was, Mrs Edel would still think it was irresponsible of them to buy a horse without first discussing it with an adult. At the very least they should have consulted the adult who was actually there.
But we couldn't ask Clint, Shelby thought. He would have said no.
She recalled the times she had seen Mrs Edel cross. Lindsey's mum wasn't one of those adults who dished out big punishments, or yelled a lot. She was scary because her trust and respect was hard to earn, and therefore more valuable once you had it.
When Lindsey broke her collarbone Shelby had started working at the stables every afternoon, and mornings too, when one of her parents could drive her. In return Blue's agistment was free. Now that Lindsey was better the two girls worked together. At first Shelby had been nervous because Lindsey's mum could be abrupt. When Mrs Edel was cranky Shelby felt ashamed, as though she had let herself down even more than she had disappointed Mrs Edel. That was much worse than yelling.
What would she say when she found out about the pony?
Shelby glanced over at Clint and he winked at her. What did that mean? Did he know they were lying, or was that just a random wink? She tried to remember if he had ever winked at her before. Did he have something in his eye? Should she confess?
Clint was very easygoing. He might not be cranky about it. He could find a way to break it to Lindsey's mum so that she wouldn't be angry.
Nobody said anything. Shelby wondered if she was the only one feeling the weight of the silence in the truck. She squirmed in her seat.
Clint put on the blinker and turned onto Lindsey's street.
Owning up was probably the best option, before things became any more complicated. Shelby opened her mouth and shut it again. She should really talk it through with the others first. She tried to think if there was something cryptic she could say that only the girls would understand.
Ouldshay eway onfesscay?
Clint had been a teenager once. He might know pig Latin. What to do?
Even now that she'd had time to think about it Shelby still thought buying the pony had been a good idea. She was exactly the sort of pony that Shelby would like to own if she was allowed to have more than one. Now she had one and a third horses -- even if it was only for a little while. Shelby was looking forward to calling the pony 'my other horse'. She grinned.
If only the adults would give them enough time to explain before they went bananas. When the girls sold her they were sure to get twice the price they'd paid -- at least!
They could start their own business buying cheap horses from the sales, doing them up and selling them for four times as much. They could make a tonne of money! Lindsey could teach them how to cut cattle, and walk out properly, and Shelby could handle them on the ground so they had nice manners, and take them out on trails, and Erin could show them how to do flat work in the arena, or jumping. People would line up for all-rounders that were quiet and good for kids.
They could open the 'Shelinderin Pony Training Stud'. They would have hundreds of acres, and post and rail fencing everywhere. They would have five different arenas and long rows of stables. They would wear joddies and matching chappettes all day. They could have stickers made up for people to stick on the back of their floats that said 'I'm a Shelinderin Pony'.
People would beg them to hold workshops to show how they do what they do. Shelby would hold talks to a crowd sitting on scaffold seating set up around the edges of the arena -- so many people that she had to use a microphone pinned to her collar.
When she was at shows she would overhear mothers talking to each other. 'There's Shelby Shaw. Did you know she started that horse training business when she was only thirteen years old? The other two girls are very good too, but it's Shelby who masterminded the whole thing.'
The truck pulled into the driveway and she remembered just how much trouble they would be in if their parents found out what they had done. Lindsey was frowning. It was possible she was thinking exactly the same thing.
Never mind what Lindsey's mum would think, Shelby's own parents were going to go completely berserk! They didn't have very good imaginations. She could try to explain to them about the Shelinderin Pony Training Stud, but she knew they wouldn't understand.
They needed to keep the pony a secret or all three of them were going to be in big, big trouble.
3 A Distraction
As the truck rumbled up the driveway Shelby could see a silhouetted shape in the office window. That was bad luck. If Lindsey's mum had been out in the paddocks somewhere they might have been able to unload the pony unseen.
There was still enough time to confess, and to enlist Clint's help.
'Lindsey's mum didn't exactly . . .' Shelby began.
Lindsey pinched her hard on the back of the arm, but then Clint spoke at the same moment.
'I've just remembered . . .'
It was fate. Obviously she wasn't supposed to tell. 'Remembered what?' she asked.
'No, you first,' he pressed.
'It wasn't important,' she said.
Clint pulled on the handbrake. The truck rocked slightly as the horses shifted about in the back. 'I've just remembered I have something to do at home,' he finished. 'So I can't stay for coffee.'
'That's a real shame,' said Erin, her grin betraying her words.
The chestnut mare came off the truck easily and started whinnying the minute her hooves hit the ground. Her neck and flanks were dark with sweat and her eyes were wide. She wheeled about, snorted and pawed at the ground.
'Shh,' Lindsey said, quickly moving the horse around to the side of the truck out of view of the office window.
'I'll see you girls later in the week then,' Clint said, climbing back into the cab. 'I've got a few trims to do, and some horses to shift on the weekend. I'm sure to catch up with Brenda at some stage. Good luck with your new pony, Lindsey Lu. She's a little ripper, that's for sure!'
Lindsey looked at Shelby with panic in her eyes. Once he backed the truck down the driveway, the chestnut mare would be in plain view of the window. Shelby looked around. There was nothing in the driveway to disguise the horse, not even a tree, and the stables were at least thirty metres away.
'You could run,' Shelby whispered.
Lindsey shook her head. The mare was worked up already. She might go silly and draw more attention to herself.
'I'll go and see what I can do,' Shelby said. It was possible that she could distract Lindsey's mother's attention away from the window.
She sprinted across the driveway and bounded up the steps into the office. 'Hi, Mrs E.'
'So, did you girls buy any horses?' Lindsey's mum asked, shuffling through papers on her desk.
Shelby felt her face redden and her pulse race. Was she joking? Had she seen out the window already? What was the right answer?
'Yep. Sure did,' Shelby improvised. 'Seven truckloads. They should be here any minute.'
'Good-o,' Mrs Edel said, and she looked back down at her paperwork.
Shelby waited for some further comment, but when Mrs Edel didn't say anything more Shelby assumed that it had been a joke.
Through the window Shelby could see Lindsey hauling at the lead rope and Erin waving her hands behind the little pony trying to make her move forward, but she was reluctant, taking dolly steps and shying at each rock and fencepost.
'Is there something else?' Lindsey's mum asked.
'Nope. I'm . . .' She searched for an excuse. 'Just enjoying the vibes.' She knew it was cheeky, but at least she was being distracting.
Against the wall there was a bookshelf full of folders with handwritten spines -- Accounts payable, Insurance forms, Agisters 001--049, Agisters 050--099. Shelby inspected them with her hands neatly crossed behind her back.
There were more folders on the desk. Shelby wondered exactly how many horses lived on the property. If there were more than one hundred agisters, and some people, like Hayley Crook, had more than one horse, then surely Ms Edel couldn't remember them all? What was one little chestnut pony amongst the rest?
Mrs Edel put down her pen and raised an eyebrow. 'Are you girls up to something?'
'No! I'd better go now.' Shelby walked out and stood on the veranda. She saw a swish of tail as her friends led the chestnut behind the feed shed.
'I'll figure it out, you know,' came Mrs Edel's voice from inside the office.
Shelby ran through some possible responses in her head. Good for you? Too cheeky. There's nothing to figure out? A lie. I know you will? Too close to the truth. Instead Shelby said nothing at all.
4 Arabetha Bella or Bess
The three girls perched on the top rail of the fence and watched the pony. The wind had picked up, making the tree boughs creak and lifting Shelby's hair from her forehead.
They had decided that the back spelling paddock was the best place to keep the pony for now, even though most of the horses were racehorses, or broodmares -- big thoroughbreds or standardbreds -- so the tiny mare with her fancy white legs stood out.
It had taken them a while to coax her along the laneway between the paddocks. She shied at everything, but Shelby accepted that this was a new place and she'd had a very scary day so far. Who knew where she had been before, or what had happened to her?
At the sales, with all of those people crowded around, she must have felt like a pack of wolves were surrounding her, ready for the kill. She had no way of understanding that they weren't going to hurt her.
Now the mare was cantering up and down the fence line and whinnying. The girls weren't so worried about her making a fuss and drawing attention to herself way out here. This paddock was seventy-five acres with lots of trees and two huge dams. It was criss-crossed with paths where Lindsey or Shelby led the beginners on trail rides on the weekends.
There was a ridge running along the middle, and you couldn't see the far side of it from the house. Lindsey's mum didn't come out the back very often, anyway -- only to check on the fences and the broodmares when they were close to foaling.
'I think we should call her Princess Arabetha Bella,' said Erin.
'Just off the top of your head?' asked Shelby.
Erin giggled. 'No, silly! I was thinking about it on the way back in the truck.'
'What about Bess?' Lindsey suggested. 'Bess is a good name.'
'For a Clydesdale,' said Shelby. 'She's too small to be a Bess. I think it should be something pretty.'
'OK, what do you think of Minuetta Farfalla Flora?' asked Erin.
The pony galloped along the fence, ears back, shaking her head and swishing her tail. She skidded to a stop and whinnied again -- her belly shaking with the strain. She was working herself up into a nice frenzy. Shelby wondered if the little mare had a best friend where she'd come from and she was only just now realising that it wasn't there.
'Tess,' added Lindsey, shrugging. 'Or Ness.'
'How about Countess Simonetta Cecilia Songbird?' offered Erin.
'Then she could be Tess,' said Lindsey.
Shelby laughed and rolled her eyes.
'Only for short,' Lindsey added.
Shelby groaned. 'No more "ess" names!'
'Well, you haven't come up with anything, Shel,' Erin retorted.
'We should call her Hot Potato. That's what Lindsey called her at the sales, and that's what she is. We can call her Hotty for short.'
The two girls stared at her. Erin curled her lip. 'And you thought Arabetha Bella was bad?'
'Don't forget she called her horse Blue,' observed Lindsey.
'He was already called Blue when he arrived! I couldn't change it, because he answered to it.' Shelby frowned. There was nothing wrong with the name Blue. It was a good name -- true blue, blue blood, blue ribbon. There was also the fact that her little paint gelding had blue eyes. It wasn't completely random! 'We have to agree on a name.'
'Why?' asked Erin. 'You can call her what you like, but I'm going to call her Cecilia Songbird. Maybe I will call her CC for short?'
Shelby tilted her head to the side. 'Wouldn't that be CS?'
'Bess,' said Lindsey.
'CC!' Erin retorted.
'Bess!'
'CC!'
'What's wrong with Hotty?' whined Shelby. Hotty was a good name. It had a meaning -- it was a joke between the girls that no one else would know. Why couldn't the other girls see that?
'What's wrong with Cecilia Songbird?' argued Erin.
'Nothing,' said Shelby. 'It'll be good for when we show her, but we need something to call her at home.'
'Show her? You said we were going to sell her!' Lindsey rocked her head from side to side, mimicking Shelby. '"Get your money out, Lindsey, we can get a thousand dollars for her tomorrow." Remember?'
'We need to find out what she can do first. She might be worth even more than that,' Shelby began. 'She could be . . .'
Just then the pony trotted across the paddock in front of them. Her hooves flicked out, hanging in the air for a second before they hit the ground. Her neck arched over, and her hindquarters were tucked underneath her, propelling her forward. She looked as though she was floating.
'Oh my Lord!' gasped Erin.
'Wow!' said Lindsey, shading her eyes with her hands.
'. . . Something really special,' Shelby finished.
5 Experts
'So?' inquired Shelby's father when his daughter walked out the back door. He was crouched down, weeding the vegetable garden. Shelby noticed he was wearing the gardening apron that he'd bought for her to give to him last Christmas.
'It was good fun,' she said. 'Nice apron. Someone really good-looking must have given that to you.'
'Someone really good-looking bought it,' he retorted. He frowned at her for a moment longer. 'Your mother and I were sure we were going to have to console you tonight. We thought you'd see all these sad, old, broken ponies off to the knackers, and you'd be beside yourself -- crying and throwing yourself around. We even bought you blackberry pie for dessert to distract you.' He thrust his trowel into the dirt and brushed his hands together.
'Mmm, pie,' Shelby grinned.
At dinner Shelby really wanted to talk about the chestnut pony. It was the most exciting thing that had happened for ages and she was bursting to tell, but every time she opened her mouth she remembered that it was a secret.
She also wanted to complain about how dumb Erin and Lindsey had been about the name, but she couldn't think how to bring it up without revealing the truth.
Her family wouldn't be listening anyway. For years now she'd been prattling away about ponies at the dinner table, and none of them knew one end from the other.
'Lindsey bought a horse today and we were trying to decide what to name it. Erin wanted to call it Arabetha Songflower or something, and Lindsey wants to call it Bess. How dumb is that? I said they should call it Hotty. They said I pick dumb names, but I've never had a horse that wasn't already named, so how would they know?'
'What sort of horse?' asked her little brother, Blake. He had skewered a rissole and was waving it casually on the end of his fork. Connor, Shelby's other brother, concentrated on stabbing his vegetables.
'A chestnut one,' she answered. 'Four white socks.'
'How many hands is it?' Blake asked.
'Could be twelve-something.' She shrugged. 'Small, anyway.'
Blake nodded and then tore a chunk from his rissole with his teeth.
Connor frowned. 'I thought four socks was bad because white hooves are softer than black ones, and so they get lame easier.'
'Sometimes,' Shelby replied. 'It doesn't really matter on the surfaces we take them over. It's pretty sandy in the Gully.'
Shelby's father spooned some extra carrots onto his plate. 'What about Blossom? If it was a gelding I would suggest Hamish. Hamish is a fine name. But if I had a little mare I would call her Blossom. What do you think?'
Shelby didn't answer. Instead she took a long drink of her milk.
'It must be just for herself.' Her mother pressed some mashed potato onto the back of her fork. 'The Edels usually buy bigger horses for the riding school because they have a longer stride and are more flexible in terms of the size of the riders they can put on them.'
Shelby put down her glass and stared at her mother. Typical! she thought. As soon as she needed them to be ignorant, everyone's an expert!
6 Bareback
The next day after school Erin's mum drove the two girls to the stables, as usual. Shelby could hardly sit still in the car. She and Erin had talked about the pony all day and Shelby had been dreaming about her so much that she couldn't remember what she really looked like.
They stopped briefly to pull on jodhpurs and grab their helmets, and then they headed to the riding school ponies' paddock to catch Blue.
He was standing in the very far corner, resting. A round, shaggy pony called Hiccup grazed nearby. Since she'd moved Blue from the paddock near her house to the riding school, he and Hiccup had become firm friends. She'd noticed recently that when she let Blue loose in the paddock after a ride Hiccup would whinny to him, and they would canter towards each other and have a dramatic reunion, as though they had been separated for years instead of a few hours.
At the gate Shelby called out, 'Come on, little man!' Blue pricked his ears for a moment and then closed his eyes again. He wasn't as easy to catch as he used to be. In the old days, when he was by himself, Blue used to wait for her at the sliprail, but these days he was more likely to be standing with Hiccup near the dam, or under the trees at the very back of the paddock.
It made her sad that he wasn't so keen to see her any more, but at the same time she was also glad that he was in a herd, the way horses were supposed to be. She knew that he was much happier than before.
Shelby slid the bridle over his ears, and then she and Erin doubled bareback along the laneway to the back paddock, leaving a bereft Hiccup neighing behind them. Shelby drummed her heels on Blue's sides and Erin laughed at his rumbling, bumbling, teeth-chattering canter.
Along the way Shelby looked around for Lindsey but she couldn't see her anywhere. On Mondays Lindsey's school finished earlier than hers and Erin's. Normally Lindsey went straight to work making up the feed buckets, or lunging horses, but today Shelby thought she might be down at the back paddock already. That's where Shelby would be, if she had arrived early.
She and Erin had talked about the pony all day, and had got in trouble in almost every class for not paying attention. Like Shelby, Erin had dreams about great show-ring victories and champion ribbons, but they had been careful to avoid two topics -- the pony's name, and who was going to ride her first.
Shelby wasn't sure if it was because Erin was scared to ride her first and embarrassed to admit it, or whether she wanted to be the one and didn't want to argue with Shelby about it.
Lindsey was the most experienced rider of the three. Erin was probably the most technically correct, even though she had started riding later than the other two girls, but that was because she had lessons with Miss Anita every weekend. Neither Shelby nor Lindsey had instruction.
Shelby thought she should be the one to ride the mare because she saw her first. She was the one who felt the special connection when they were at the sales. She was the one who had bid.
Hopefully they wouldn't have to argue about it. Shelby had been optimistic that the other two might nominate her to go first -- Erin because she was scared, and Lindsey because she was wise -- but now that she couldn't see Lindsey around the stables, Shelby thought it was unlikely that she had waited. Lindsey didn't think there was anything special about riding a new horse. She had no sense of ceremony.
When they reached the gate Erin swung off Blue's back to unlatch it, and then she walked beside Blue along the wheel ruts that headed up to the ridge. They reached the top and Shelby stopped, surveying the flat, cleared part of the paddock below.
Fat broodmares and spelled horses grazed in a herd. Shelby noticed that they were all facing the same direction and wondered if that was always the case. She couldn't see the small pony amongst them.
Beyond the herd was the gate that led out to the Gully where the girls rode. Fire trails stretched away left, right and straight ahead into the bush. She wondered if Lindsey had headed out for the afternoon, and felt a flare of anger in her belly at the thought of it.
Blue strained at the reins, keen to munch at the grass in front of him, but Shelby held them firm. She took a deep breath. She was already cross, and there was no proof that Lindsey had even done anything yet.
'There,' said Erin, pointing.
Through the trees further along the track that ran along the ridge, Shelby could make out a chestnut hide moving at speed.
'Is she riding her?'
'Yep,' said Erin with her hands on her hips.
Lindsey rode up to meet them at a canter. She hadn't bothered with a saddle either. Her face was flushed and she beamed. The pony tossed her head and crunched on the bit.
'There you are! Well, she's definitely broken. I don't think she's done much, but she's got a nice soft mouth and she responds to leg aids. Watch.'
Lindsey put her calf to the pony's side and the pony moved her back end away from Lindsey's leg. 'See?'
'Nice of you to wait,' snapped Erin.
'I get off early on Mondays so I came straight out here. I was going to wait, but I knew you guys would take ages. I couldn't help myself! She's pretty good. You should have a ride.' Lindsey slid off the horse's back and held the reins out.
'Erin and I have been looking forward to this all day,' said Shelby. 'Don't you think it's a bit selfish? She's our horse too.'
Lindsey tilted her head to the side. 'Well, technically speaking she's my horse at the moment. Remember?'
Shelby and Erin exchanged a glance.
'You would have made me get on her first anyway,' Lindsey said. 'Why don't you have a ride now? What's fifteen minutes?'
Erin's face broke into a smile and she took the reins. 'Give me a boost, will you? Is she fiery? Has she shied or anything?'
Lindsey cupped her hands together and Erin stepped into them, flipping her other leg over the pony's back.
'OK, Bess, be a good girl now,' Lindsey murmured, patting her neck.
'Her name is Hotty!' Shelby said. She could feel her chest tightening and her face going red. 'You can't have every part of it all to yourself. It's not fair!'
'Jeez, Shel, chill, peppermill,' said Erin, adjusting the reins. 'Wow, she feels really narrow after Bandit.'
Shelby glared at Erin. She shook her head, and then squeezed Blue's sides, pushing him around towards the gate.
'I'll leave you to it then,' she said.
'Shelby,' Lindsey called after her. 'What's the big deal? I'm sorry, OK?'
It's too late, Shelby thought. It wasn't as though Lindsey could unride her. 'I have work to do,' she said without looking back.
7 A Levy
The afternoon sunlight slipped through the cracks between the wall palings, leaving bands of light and shade on the floor. One of the muscular feed-shed rat-cats lay on a stack of hay bales licking its paws. The striped shadows on its fur made it look like a tiger.
Shelby looked up at the blackboard, muttered, 'Two green chaff, one pellets, two stud mix,' and then slid the dipper into the chaff bin.
Some of the agisters at the stables kept their own feed in their tack rooms, while others paid extra to have their horses fed by the staff.
The feed buckets for these clients had the horses' names on them. It was simply a matter of filling it with the ingredients listed on the board next to the horse's name and then placing the bucket in the trolley ready to take out to the stables.
All around were the sounds of horses -- snorting into their bins, cantering in the arena, clip-clopping down the laneway. Shelby could hear the puff-squeak of electric brakes from a truck backing in. She could hear the crackly thumping and scraping of someone moving bags of feed around in their tack room. In the arena Miss Anita's voice was calling out military-style, 'Left, right, left, right.' Somewhere in the next stable block a group of girls laughed.
Shelby was starting to feel silly for the way she had behaved with her friends. Lindsey should have waited, but Shelby doubted that she herself would have, if she'd been the one to arrive first. Was it a big enough deal to go off in a huff and miss out on a whole afternoon of playing with the new pony?
'No,' she muttered out loud, wishing she'd let it go, like Erin had.
Picking up the next bucket, Shelby glanced up at the blackboard and thrust the dipper into the bin of pony pellets.
Lindsey was right too. She had paid for the horse, and they probably would have decided that she should ride first. Now Shelby would have to make up with her, and there would be that little while afterwards that was strained and awkward.
Shelby sighed. 'I'm a duffer.'
The best way to make amends would be to give Lindsey the fifty dollars. Then they would be square. It was just a matter of finding it.
Shelby didn't get pocket money from her parents. She had asked to have it weeks in advance so many times that her parents had lost count and given up. Now they had agreed on the things they would buy for her -- like money for the canteen at school, Blue's food and worming paste, getting his feet trimmed, and her pony club fees. For anything above that she had to do extra chores around the house.
What could she tell them she was buying? It seemed as though her parents were paying attention to what she said these days, so she would have to be careful.
With all the feeds made up, Shelby hefted a bale of hay onto the front of the trolley and dragged it out of the shed. She stopped at the first stable, tipped the feed into the bin and dropped a biscuit of hay into the bag hooked on the wall.
For safety, they always put the feeds in the stables before bringing the horses in from the day-paddocks one at a time, and then once they were eating calmly, the two girls put the horses' rugs on. All the horses knew the routine, and that made their behaviour more predictable.
One by one Shelby emptied the buckets into the waiting bins, until she reached the last stable in the row. A woman named Tammy rented this one. She had a stock horse gelding called Ajax that Shelby didn't like very much.
Shelby loved most horses, but she was wary around Ajax. He was kept in a day-paddock on his own because when he was left with other horses he would herd them into the corner and kick them. He also smelt funny -- more like a dog than a horse. You could see the whites of his eyes, even when he was resting, and his rump was short and sloping -- not round, like an apple -- so he always looked tucked up at the back.
Shelby wasn't such a big fan of Tammy either. If she had been a Disney cartoon she would have been drawn all angles and dark shadows.
Tammy only came to the stables once a fortnight. She didn't always ride. She often brought friends with her and she always had some complaint to make. She wanted extra rice hulls for her stable floor. She didn't think the girls were cleaning it properly. She wanted to know exactly what time Ajax's rugs came off in the mornings, and insisted that they took his off last when the weather was cooler.
One time Tammy had written a letter of complaint about Lindsey and Shelby because she overheard them laughing in the feed shed. She had said that the whole place would run more efficiently if the two girls were made to work separately.
'What a witch!' Lindsey had said. 'You know she pulled me up the other day for not hanging her rugs straight? She said they were getting damaged from being scrunched!'
'She's a witch who pays two months in advance,' Mrs Edel had remarked. 'She's not asking for anything we can't do with a little bit of effort.'
'She's only got a horse so she can say that she has one,' Lindsey added under her breath.
Shelby opened the gate and walked though Ajax's yard into the stable, wrinkling her nose. She could smell his faintly doggy aroma. The tack room door at the back of the stable was open a fraction. Shelby moved to close it.
Lying on the tack room floor, in the gloom, crumpled like an autumn leaf, was a fifty-dollar note.
Shelby looked over her shoulder. There was no one around. She stared at the note for a second and then slipped it into her pocket.
I will give it to Mrs Edel, she told herself.
Shelby tipped Ajax's feed into the bin and then, while she pushed the trolley around the corner to the next row, she thought about Tammy's nasty letter. As long as everything was done safely, did it really matter if they laughed while they worked?
She also remembered seeing Ajax kick an appaloosa filly half his size while the filly squealed with fear and pain. It had been awful.
Tammy received special treatment all the time. Shelby didn't know if she paid extra. She doubted it, but even if she did, Shelby and Lindsey were the ones who actually had to do the extra work, and they didn't get anything more for it.
Besides that, who leaves fifty dollars lying around? Tammy must be pretty rich not to have noticed that it was missing.
Maybe I should consider it payment? she thought. A one-off tax -- a 'levy', as they'd learned in Commerce at school.
Shelby prised another biscuit from the bale. No, she couldn't do that, but she could borrow it for a while, just until she had figured out another way of getting the money.
She was pretty sure she could remember seeing Tammy at the stables on the weekend just past, so she had two weeks to put it back. Two weeks was ages!
8 Sensible
'How's Lindsey's new horse?' Shelby's mother asked as she climbed into the car. Shelby had finished work for the day. Lindsey and Erin hadn't returned from the back paddock before it was time for Shelby to go. Shelby was glad, because she wasn't sure how they would behave.
'It's OK.'
'Did you have a ride?'
'No.' Shelby wound down the window and rested her feet on the dashboard.
At the bottom of the driveway her mother waited for a break in the traffic. She steered the car onto the road. 'Are you going off horses?'
'No way! I'm still going to be riding horses when I'm eighty.'
'It's just that normally I wouldn't be able to shut you up about a new horse. You went on for a week about that riding pony.'
It was true. The previous month Miss Anita had schooled a beautiful black show pony for a few weeks. While he was there Shelby tried to get through her work quickly so that she could sit on the fence at the edge of the arena and watch Miss Anita work. Afterwards she would offer to hose him off in the wash bay and take him back to his yard. He loved a bath and would poke his nose into the stream of water with his eyes closed.
Shelby had decided that pony was her second favourite horse in the world, after Blue, of course, but now the black pony had shuffled down to third place.
Shelby shrugged. 'There's just nothing to say.'
'Did something happen at the sales that you haven't talked about?'
'What makes you say that?'
'We were so sure that you were going to be upset, and since then you've been quiet. I want you to tell me if you're upset about something. It's bad for you to keep things locked up inside.'
'I'm not upset,' Shelby reassured her.
Her mother glanced at her. There was a long silence while she waited.
Shelby shrugged again. 'You can't tell where they've come from. You have no idea if they've come from a bad home and are going to a good one, or the other way around,' she explained. 'Besides that, it's a completely unnatural place, so of course they're going to be a bit frightened. Also, you only see them for about half an hour. You don't know anything about them. Some of them had cuts and scratches, but you don't know how they got them. They could be mean, like Ajax, and just picked the wrong horse to bully.' Shelby paused, frowning while she thought about it. 'I'm sure I could get upset if I had more information.'
'That's a sensible way to think about it. It's wise to delay distress until you know all the facts.' Her mother smiled.
They stopped at the supermarket on the way home. Shelby helped her mother select the week's groceries. She persuaded her mum to buy tacos. The whole family loved them, although Shelby's brothers generally wore more than they ate.
They played a game where Shelby had to add up each item as they went around, and if she got the total right at the end she was allowed to have a Chupa Chups. She was out by four dollars, but her mum let her have the lollipop anyway.
As she helped her mother load the bags into the boot she noticed that her mother was smiling.
'What?' Shelby asked.
'I was a bit worried when Brenda first offered you the job at the stables. I didn't think you were mature enough. There have been times in the past when you've been impulsive and not thought your actions through, but you seem to have settled down and started making sensible decisions recently. I was wrong. This job has been really good for you.'
'Mm, yeah,' Shelby replied. 'I'm looking forward to those tacos!'
9 Gwen's Pony
The next day at school before the lessons began, Erin ran towards Shelby in the quadrangle, her bag bouncing on her back. Even from a distance Shelby could see her grinning. It seemed as though Shelby's tantrum had been forgotten.
'We're going to give CC to Gwen Stefani,' Erin puffed when she reached her friend.
'What?' Shelby scooted along the bench to give Erin some room.
'If Lindsey's mum sees this horse that doesn't belong to anyone, then we're in all sorts of trouble, so we've decided that we are going to give her to Gwen Stefani. Lindsey came up with the idea. The girl's a genius.'
'What are you talking about?'
Erin sighed, as though she was explaining something obvious to a small child. 'If Lindsey's mum sees CC, she'll want to know who owns it. We can't just say it's yours or mine, because Mrs Edel needs to charge someone for the agistment. When the money is due she'll ring our parents. But if Lindsey goes into the computer files and makes up an account then Mrs Edel can bill any expenses to it. We can pay it off between ourselves. Lindsey can say that the client gave the cash to her, and Mrs Edel won't know the difference.'
Shelby nodded. It was an ingenious plan.
The bell rang for first class and the two girls followed the jostling crowd into the corridors. Shelby had to raise her voice to be heard.
'Won't her mum be suspicious? She knows all the horses.'
'Remember when Lindsey broke her collarbone? She and her mum swapped jobs and Lindsey did all the paperwork for the business. Lindsey said that at the beginning she made heaps of mistakes and it got a bit messy until she figured out how to work the computer program properly. If she backdates the entry to somewhere around then, her mum will think it slipped through in all the confusion.'
'That's a great idea!'
They reached the science lab and filed in behind a group of boys. Shelby picked a desk in the middle of the room and perched on the wooden stool. She took out her books and pencil case from her bag. 'But why Gwen Stefani? Shouldn't we use a plain name?'
Erin giggled. She placed her pens in a row on the desk, selected a bright pink one, and drew a neat margin on the next blank page in her exercise book. 'You know how hopeless I am! If we pick an ordinary name and Mrs Edel asks me about it, I'm sure to forget, and I'll say, "Who's that? I've never heard of them!" and then a few seconds later I'll go, "Oh! I remember," and we'll be busted like custard. But if she says, "Gwen Stefani's horse," we'll all know straight away who she's talking about.'
Mrs Singh hurried into the room with a pile of folders under her arm. All the students hushed.
'That's a good idea.' Shelby whispered. She kept her eyes to the front of the room and murmured to Erin from the side of her mouth. 'Are you sure Mrs Edel doesn't know who Gwen Stefani is?'
'No chance! I had to explain who she was to Lindsey!'
Shelby turned to a new page, creasing it in place with the heel of her hand. 'That sounds about right!'
She remembered the ride home in the truck, and Lindsey singing 'la, la', because she didn't know the words. She could imagine Erin singing Gwen Stefani songs to her and Lindsey shaking her head, mystified. Then Erin probably said, 'You know, super hot female?' and finally Lindsey would have understood.
Erin and Lindsey were so different. If they didn't have horses in common they would never be friends. Thanks heavens for horses! Shelby thought, smiling.
10 Talking Too Much
In the afternoon Erin and Shelby met Lindsey in the feed shed at the stables. 'My mum's got a hair appointment in a little while,' Lindsey told them. 'We can work Bess in the arena.'
Lindsey and Shelby made up the evening meals while they waited for Mrs Edel to leave. Erin sat on an upturned feed bucket. One of the feed-shed cats -- a cinnamon-coloured Burmese -- sprawled across her lap, belly-up, with its tongue poking out. She stroked its tummy and it purred so loudly Shelby could hear it from the other side of the shed.
'Did you make the file?' Erin asked.
Lindsey nodded. 'This morning when Mum was riding Diablo.'
Mrs Edel had a warmblood stallion. Shelby had been scared of him at first because he was so grand and powerful, but she was getting used to handling him now. She changed his rugs when she worked in the mornings. He was so tall that she had to stand on a crate.
Mrs Edel had asked her to hold Diablo the last time Clint trimmed his feet. Being a barefoot specialist, Clint always took a long time with his measuring tools making sure the angles and proportions were right. Diablo was restless and Shelby had been worried that he might charge straight over the top of her, but Clint taught her how to shake the lead rope to get the big stallion's attention. After that she felt much more confident.
She still didn't know how Lindsey's mum had the courage to actually ride him.
'I was so worried that she would come in and see, but it's all done now. I made up a fake address. Mum usually sends me to the post box with the monthly invoices, so I can always fish out the bills that are for Gwen. And if I miss one then it will be returned to sender anyway. I also put in Erin's mobile number. Her voice mail is an automatic one.'
'Good thinking,' said Shelby. She put her hand in her pocket and felt a small piece of paper there. She drew it out to see what it was. The fifty-dollar note -- she had forgotten about it.
Lindsey had seen it, so Shelby handed it across as though that was what she had meant to do all along. 'This is for you.'
'I'll bring mine tomorrow,' Erin promised.
When they combined their efforts they made the feeds up much more quickly -- even when they were laughing -- and before long they were tipping the buckets into the bins in the stables.
Mrs Edel emerged from her office and crossed the driveway to where the girls were working. 'Going now, love. Here's the phone.'
Lindsey put the cordless phone in the pocket of her sleeveless riding vest.
'Have fun. Don't forget to buy me a treat,' said Erin, waving as Lindsey's mum climbed into her ute. Mrs Edel shook her head as she slammed the door.
Once she was out of sight the girls grinned at each other. Erin agreed to finish putting the dinners in the stables while Lindsey and Shelby rode out to the back paddock to collect the pony.
The two girls doubled on one of the riding school horses -- a big, old, grey Percheron gelding. His real name was Beaumont, but Lindsey always called him Blockhead because his head was so huge.
Shelby had to climb up on the fence to reach his back. Once aboard she wriggled backwards so that Lindsey would have room. He was so much broader than Blue. She felt like she was sitting on a barrel.
When she was settled Lindsey handed her the bridle that she and Erin had used on the pony the day before, and they set off.
There were two sand arenas at the stables. The larger one was set up with jumps, while the small one closer to the stables was used for flatwork, or dressage training. That was where Miss Anita usually held her classes and trained horses, although she wasn't there today.
On the way to the back paddock they saw that both arenas were occupied. Some of the older girls that Shelby didn't know well were in the jumping arena. Hayley Crook was riding one of her show horses in the dressage arena, while her mum sat in a plastic chair in the middle and yelled at her.
'Tighten up those reins. Sloppy! Push him out. He looks like a plough horse. Elbows, Hales! You're not skiing!'
The horse Hayley was riding was called Scamp. He had been away at a trainer's further up the Gully, and Shelby hadn't seen him working since he came back. She asked Lindsey to stop at the fence so she could watch.
Scamp was a small, dark, bay thoroughbred with a zigzag stripe running down his face. Shelby admired the way that he picked up all his hooves neatly, the athletic way he used his whole body, and yet Hayley sat so still on him you would think she was sitting on a rocking horse.
With his white saddle blanket and white boots he looked like a proper dressage horse on television. Hayley cantered in a smooth arc and then, as she crossed the middle of the arena, she asked him to yield to her leg -- trotting on an angle. His legs criss-crossed over each other. The skin on Shelby's arm raised in goose flesh as she watched him dance across the sand.
She had thought Hayley's other horses were special, but Scamp was a class above.
Shelby wondered if she would ever have a horse as magic as that. Probably not, she decided. For the same money the Crooks had spent on Scamp she could have five halfway good horses that she could train herself. Hayley Crook lived in a different world altogether.
Hotty may not be as fancy as Scamp, but she could almost be as good as Hayley's show pony, Echo -- once they had taught her some things and rugged her so that her coat was short and shiny.
When Hayley saw Lindsey and Shelby she halted at the fence. Scamp stood square with his neck arched and crunched on his bit. Flecks of foam dropped out of his mouth.
'How long are you going to be?' Lindsey asked.
Hayley rolled her eyes. 'Forever! Mum's on a rampage. Where's Blue? Are you guys going out on a trail?'
'Not this afternoon,' said Shelby. 'One of the agisters has asked us to ride her horse. It's going to be a show pony. You should see it. It's beautiful. We're schooling it.'
'You are?' Hayley asked.
Shelby nodded, and then she blushed. Now that the words were out they sounded ridiculous. Especially when Hayley knew Shelby didn't even have riding lessons. She hadn't trained Blue to do anything special either.
'We're just getting it started,' she amended.
Mrs Crook interrupted. 'There'll be plenty of time for talking later. Chop, chop, missy!'
Hayley grimaced and then said, 'Catch you after,' as she pushed Scamp into a loping canter.
Lindsey waited until she got further down the laneway before she spoke. Shelby could tell she was cranky because her shoulders were stiff. 'Why did you say that?'
'She asked. I had to tell her something.'
'You could have said that we're going down to the back paddock. You didn't have to be specific.'
'I'm sorry, OK? You don't need to get grouchy.'
Lindsey shook her head. 'You can't just say whatever comes into your head, Shelby.'
'Why does it matter?'
'Because, you nitwit, everyone talks around here. If Hayley tells her mum, and Mrs Crook tells other people that you and I are doing schooling then it will get back to Miss Anita. She'll be angry, thinking we're trying to steal business away from her, and she'll go somewhere else. Half our clients only agist here because they want Miss Anita's training.'
'Oh,' said Shelby. She didn't think Miss Anita would take them any more seriously than Hayley Crook, but Lindsey seemed genuinely worried. 'Hayley won't say anything if we ask her not to. Let's go back now and tell her it's a secret.'
'That's even worse!'
Shelby huffed. 'What do you want me to do?'
'Don't do anything. If anyone asks we'll just say Hayley got her wires crossed. It won't matter because Bess will be gone soon anyway.'
They rode along in silence to the end of the lane. Shelby looked across the paddocks where horses grazed, or dozed under stands of trees -- nose to tail, flicking away flies for each other. Two buckskin ponies stood shoulder-to-shoulder on either side of a fence and scratched each other's backs with their teeth.
Blockhead took long swaggering strides. Shelby leaned back, resting her weight on her hands on the top of his rump. She knew his flank was behind her foot and she was careful not to touch it with her heel.
'We'll ride in the round yard,' Lindsey said as Shelby slid down to open the gate.
The round yard was at the very back of the riding school ponies' paddock. It was part of the original setup on the property, before Mrs Edel had the new stables and arenas built. Nobody went down there. It was fenced off, because the structures were rickety and unsafe.
Shelby was disappointed. What was the point of having a fancy new show pony if no one could see it? Especially since she wouldn't have her for long, if Lindsey got her way.
Then again, maybe Lindsey was right. It was turning out to be much harder keeping Hotty a secret than she had imagined. She had assumed Erin would be the blabbermouth, but Shelby had already talked too much. She'd told her mum and dad one thing, and Hayley another. They'd told Clint something different altogether.
Shelby decided that from now on she wouldn't say anything to anyone before she remembered what she'd said to whom.
11 Broken Tree
Shelby watched Lindsey canter away along the laneway on the big Percheron. The new pony was standing next to her and they were alone at last. She slipped the bridle on.
'Hello, little one,' she said, brushing the pony's forelock back from her eyes. 'You and I are going to be best friends. How about that?'
The pony sniffed at Shelby's hand, her nostrils dilating. Shelby thought she was the prettiest pony she had ever seen. She should be in one of those horse calendars you get for Christmas.
She ran her hand down the pony's nose and tried out her name. 'Hotty. What do you think? Hotty is your favourite name, isn't it? Much better than Bess.'
Normally when she hopped on Blue without a saddle she jumped up so that her tummy was across his back, and then she would swing her right leg over his rump, but she didn't know Hotty enough to predict how she would behave, so she led her to a nearby stump and used that as a mounting block. The pony didn't move and, once she was settled, Shelby patted her on the shoulder. She gathered up the reins and squeezed gently with her legs. 'Come on then, little one.'
As they made their way up the laneway the pony nodded her head and picked up each of her hooves deliberately, covering the ground like a much bigger horse.
'Maybe you would make a nice harness horse?' Shelby said. She recalled how her father always teased her about putting Blue in front of a sulky. She made a mental note to joke with him when she got home, but then she remembered Hotty was a secret.
It was a shame because things had been strained with her dad ever since Blue had squashed his vegetable garden, and it would have been good to find some common ground to ease the tension.
Shelby relaxed into the rhythm, enjoying the scenery and allowing her mind to wander. Since she had started helping with the trail rides, she had ridden lots of different horses, including Blockhead and Cracker -- a little fiery barrel of a pony. There was a flea-bitten grey mare called Penelope who was Shelby's current favourite of the riding school horses. She had a very elongated back, which made her oddlooking, but Shelby liked her gentleness. Clint called her his 'long friend'.
Lindsey's mum said that her riding was getting better. Shelby had hoped to start lessons with Miss Anita, but she had to fit around Miss Anita's regular clients, and as the days grew shorter it was looking less and less likely, at least until the next school holidays.
Shelby imagined what it must be like for Miss Anita. In the afternoons and on weekends she held lessons, and during the weekdays she trained horses. Shelby wondered what it would be like to actually be paid to ride other people's horses. What a dream job! She hoped she could do that when she left school.
Along the way she rode past a car with a family inside. Shelby didn't know who they were, and assumed that they either owned one of the horses in the spelling paddock, or they were having a look around with a view to agisting here in the future.
There were two little girls in the back seat, both about four or five years old. They leaned over the windowsill and stared at Hotty. She heard one of them, eyes wide, say, 'Did you see that lady on the horse, Mummy? She looked like a princess!'
Shelby waved to the girls and felt her face flush with pride.
Halfway along the laneway Shelby turned left, through one of the paddocks -- empty at the moment -- and headed towards the round yard. She couldn't see it yet, because it was hidden by a row of conifers.
Across the paddocks Shelby could see Erin and Lindsey walking side by side from the stables. Lindsey had a stock saddle over one arm. It must have been heavy, because every now and then she would swap arms.
Before long Shelby had reached the round yard. She slid off and stood at the railing, stroking the pony's neck while she waited for her friends.
'How did you go?' Erin asked.
Shelby shrugged. 'We just walked up from the back paddock. Nothing special.'
While Lindsey saddled the pony Erin and Shelby exchanged a smile, each knowing that they both thought everything to do with this pony was pretty special.
'You want to go first?' asked Lindsey.
Feeling quite confident now, Shelby shoved her foot in the stirrup and swung her leg over the pony's back.
At first the pony moved sideways. Shelby thought she had swung too far, because she seemed to be leaning on the far side. Then the pony hitched up at the front, lifting her forelegs off the ground. Shelby tried to slip her foot into the stirrup on the off-side, but she couldn't find it, and she was still leaning alarmingly to one side. She kicked for the stirrup, but missed.
The pony tucked her head between her legs and flicked her heels up at the back. Shelby was thrust forward. It was all happening too quickly for Shelby to register. She grabbed a handful of mane, crouching, trying to find her balance.
The pony arched over and bucked, once, twice, three times, with an impressive twist, and Shelby found herself flat on her back on the dirt several metres away.
It didn't hurt, she was only winded -- a sensation she had experienced many times before, and yet every time the numbness across her shoulder blades and the dull, aching, hollow feeling in her chest made her panic just for a moment. She waited for the first deep breath and the stinging air rushing back into her empty lungs. Then she waited for a sharper pain that might indicate a break or a graze, and was relieved none came.
Hotty raced around the yard kicking, pigrooting and bucking with such ferocity that Shelby was worried she was going to flip right over.
Shelby sat up and the pony headed straight for her, ears flat to her head, teeth bared. Shelby put her hand over her face, turning away. She could feel the whoosh of air as Hotty sailed over the top of her, grazing Shelby's elbow slightly with her hind hoof.
'Get out of there, Shel!' Lindsey bellowed.
Shelby scrabbled backwards to the fence on the heels of her hands.
The pony ran straight towards the fence, skidded, and at the last second spun sideways. Her hind legs slipped and she slid on her side along the dirt, sending clouds of dust rising.
As Shelby watched the pony rolled over. She heard a loud crack! and when the pony scrambled up again, the saddle slid off her back. The girth had snapped, and guessing by the curious bent shape of it, the tree of the saddle was broken as well.
Hotty trotted to the opposite edge of the yard from Shelby, snorted and stood still with her reins hanging down from either side of her mouth.
All of the girls stared at each other through the dust still floating in the air.
'What on earth was that?' Erin said.
12 Saddle Sores
'I think it's chiropractic,' Lindsey said. 'The chiropractor is coming this week to look at Diablo anyway, so we can ask her then.'
The three girls were in the riding school tack room. Lindsey was sitting with the broken stock saddle across her lap. Every now and then she ran her hands across the cantle, as if stroking it would make it magically mend.
The back wall was lined with saddle racks affixed in rows. There must have been twenty-five saddles -- mostly stock saddles in a range of styles and sizes, but there were also a few all-purpose saddles and ancient dressage saddles. The side wall was studded with ushaped metal bridle holders, labelled with a sticker for each of the riding school horses. The whole room was filled with the spicy sour smell of old sweat, leather and oil.
'It's more than that,' Erin said. 'She went nuts! Did you see her face, Shel? It's as if she hates you.'
'She doesn't hate me.' Shelby scowled. 'Maybe it was just because that saddle didn't fit? It might have been pinching her wither, or pressing. If she was sore then she would have done that with anyone.'
Shelby was sitting on the doorsill with her feet on the steps, making sure no one nearby could overhear them. She could see the car park. Hayley Crook and her mother climbed into their four-wheel drive and headed down the driveway. Hayley waved and Shelby raised her hand in return.
'You didn't see because you were on your bum,' Erin continued. 'Lindsey and I saw the whole thing. She charged at you! It looked like she wanted to kill you! The minute you got on her she just wanted you off.'
Shelby sulked. 'I rode her all the way up from the back paddock, remember? Besides, she's fine with me on the ground. It's not about me. She was the same with all of us bareback. It was that saddle.'
After Shelby's fall the girls had agreed to stop for the day. It would have been too tricky to get another saddle, especially since Lindsey wasn't sure how long her mother was going to be away. They'd put the pony in the paddock and walked sombrely back to the stables along the laneway together.
'What am I going to tell my mum?' Lindsey groaned.
Shelby looked around at the racks on the walls. 'Are you sure she'll notice?'
'This is Hiccup's saddle.'
'Oh,' said Shelby.
Hiccup -- Blue's friend -- was a shaggy, round pony with a sweet face. His stock saddle had been fitted with an extra wide gullet to accommodate his broad frame. Hiccup was a great favourite amongst the regular customers. He was requested for almost all trail rides.
'We have to get it to the saddler before the weekend,' Lindsey said. 'He'll need a few days to fix it.'
'But you can't,' interrupted Shelby. 'He knows your mum. What if he says something?'
'I'll take it,' said Erin. 'I'll pay for it, and that will make me square for my share, OK?'
Lindsey nodded. 'Deal.'
'What are you going to say to your mum?' Shelby asked.
Erin shrugged. 'Maybe I'll tell her the saddle was Hayley's and Mrs Crook said I could have it, if I got it fixed.'
'But your mum knows Mrs Crook. What if she rings her to thank her for it? And won't she see that saddle is too short for Bandit?'
Erin rubbed her eyes. 'I don't know! I'll make something up.'
'What about later when you don't have it any more? What will she say when it's missing?'
Erin sighed. 'I'll say it was stolen! Can you think of a better idea, Shel?'
Shelby opened her mouth and closed it again.
'I didn't think so!'
The three girls sat quietly for a long time. The only sound in the room was a blowfly buzzing around the window frame and crashing into the glass.
Eventually Lindsey spoke. 'I don't even want to think about what would happen if we got busted. We're making up stuff all the time, and it's only going to get worse, so it's important that we all tell each other what we've said and stick to the same story. I think it's time for us to decide what we're going to do with her.'
Erin sat forward, lacing her fingers together. 'This isn't as much fun as I thought it would be. I think we should sell her.'
'Shelby?' Lindsey asked.
She folded her arms. It was obvious that Lindsey was in favour of getting rid of Hotty too. She had been from the very beginning. Shelby was sure that with a little bit of effort Hotty would be a great pony that they could all be proud of. There had to be some way to talk their parents into letting them keep her. They just needed some time to come up with a plan. Her only hope was to prolong the sale for as long as possible.
'Whoever is going to buy her is going to want to ride her when they come to look at her,' she answered. 'I think we should try a different saddle. If we're going to make our money back, we can't have her bucking like that.'
'Are you volunteering yours?' Lindsey asked.
Shelby considered for a moment. Her saddle was ugly and old, and had suffered through all of her adventures. It had been dragged along the ground, rained on, stepped on -- not to mention the normal wear and tear from riding almost every day. She had needed a new one for a long time, but she didn't have a whole rack to choose from like Lindsey, or a sympathetic mother like Erin. It was the only saddle she had.
Still, if she was going to talk the other girls into keeping Hotty for just a little while longer, she was going to have to show commitment.
She nodded. 'We'll try it tomorrow.'
'And what if she does that crazy thing again?' Erin asked.
'The chiropractor will be able to tell us if she has a sore back,' Shelby replied.
'Yeah, and who's going to pay for that?' Lindsey asked.
Erin's face split into a grin. 'Gwen Stefani, of course!'
13 The Worst Part
Erin was late for class the next day. She scurried into Maths with her head bowed and flopped into the chair next to Shelby. She flipped to the back of her exercise book and wrote a message.
I can't take this any more!!!!
'What?' Shelby murmured.
The stupid saddle!!!! Erin wrote.
'Tell me!' Shelby whispered.
At the front of the room their teacher, Mrs Tapley-Hook, spoke. 'If X in this equation equals two-thirds and Y equals fifteen, can you calculate Z?'
Erin cupped her hand over her mouth and kept her eyes fixed on the whiteboard at the front of the room, hoping that their teacher wouldn't notice.
'We dropped Hiccup's saddle at the saddler's this morning, but he remembered it. I said that it had been Mrs Edel's, but she sold it to the Crooks and the Crooks were giving it to me. Then he said that the Crooks had never owned a stock saddle. They'd only ever had dressage saddles, so he didn't understand why they would buy one -- especially a second-hand one, and then he said that it wouldn't fit any of their horses anyway.'
Shelby shook her head. They should have anticipated that this might happen. Even in a city horse people always know other horse people.
Mrs Tapley-Hook pointed her whiteboard marker at the boy sitting in front of the two girls. 'Jasper? Can you tell me the answer?'
'Z equals twenty-seven,' he answered.
'Very good.' The teacher turned around to write some new problems on the board.
'Then what?' whispered Shelby.
Erin's eyes widened. 'Then mum stared at me like I'd stolen it or something, and I said that . . .'
'What does Z equal in this equation, Shelby?' Mrs Tapley-Hook asked.
Shelby froze. She looked for cues from her classmates, but her eyes met only vacant faces.
'Thirty-two?' she guessed.
'You haven't been paying attention. You need to concentrate now or you won't understand the rest of the lesson. I won't ask you again.' Her teacher stalked past the girls' desk to the back of the room.
Erin wrote another note in the back of her book and underlined it.
And that's not even the worst part!
Erin's face was pale and pinched, as though she was sick. Shelby was bursting to hear the worst part, but now she would have to wait until the end of class. She frowned into her equations. Who cares what Z equals? she thought. There were so many more important things to talk about.
Finally the bell rang and all around Shelby could hear the rumble of students talking at once, teachers raising their voices with last-minute instructions, and the scrape of chairs being pushed across vinyl floors, or clanging against metal table legs.
'So then what?' Shelby prompted.
'I confessed.'
Shelby gaped. 'Really?'
Erin shoved her book into her bag and the two girls shuffled behind the other students towards the door. 'I didn't tell her about CC. I said that we'd broken the saddle and that we had to get it fixed before Lindsey's mum found out.'
'Was she cranky?'
A frown crossed Erin's brow. 'Of course she was cranky!' she huffed. 'I knew it would be more than fifty. I just never thought it would be three hundred!'
'Dollars?' Shelby gasped.
'No, broad-beans, you ninny. Mum was mad because she didn't see why our family should pay to fix the saddle when you broke it.'
'You told her I broke it?'
Erin continued. 'I just keep thinking of all the other ways I could spend three hundred dollars.'
Shelby knew Erin would be thinking of shoes, or mobile phone covers -- something dumb like that.
'I don't want to do this any more, Shel,' Erin continued. 'I've decided. It would be different if we could ask for help, but doing it in secret is driving me mental.'
The two girls joined the flow of students in the corridor.
'We can do this by ourselves,' Shelby assured her. 'We just need some more time.'
Erin jutted her chin out and folded her arms. 'Don't you get it? More time means more money. How much is this chiropractor going to be?'
Shelby shrugged and looked at her shoes.
Erin tossed her head. 'You don't even really want to share CC with us, do you? You want to keep her for yourself. You're just using Lindsey and me for things you need.'
Shelby stopped still in the corridor and the other students streamed around her. Somebody shoved her in the back. 'Hurry up, will ya?'
Shelby didn't notice. She was stinging from Erin's words. 'You take that back, Erin!'
'Anyway, I already have a good horse. You're the only one who needs a proper horse. If you want to do this then do it by yourself.'
Shelby followed Erin down the corridor, fuming. When they reached the Computer Studies room she waited until Erin picked a seat and then she sat on the opposite side of the room.
She stared at the blank computer screen with a lump in her throat, as though she'd swallowed a whole walnut. She was afraid she was going to cry, not because she was sad, but because she was shocked -- and also because what Erin had said was a little bit true.
Shelby thought back to all the things she'd thought and said since she'd seen the pony at the sales. Erin was right. She had never really wanted to share Hotty at all.
14 Candour
At the end of the school day Shelby walked over to the place where Erin's mum usually picked them up to take them to the stables. Erin was already waiting. She had her bag over one shoulder and looked the other way when Shelby approached.
'Are you sorry for what you said?' Shelby asked.
'No.'
Shelby bit her lip. 'Can I still have a lift?'
Erin shrugged.
Shelby looked over at the turning bay but the doors of the school bus she used to catch home were already closing. The engine rumbled as the bus pulled away from the kerb.
Shelby scuffed her heel across the edge of the gutter. She didn't know what to do. Her parents wouldn't worry until five, when they went to pick her up from the stables. Would they think to look for her here? She wondered how long it would take to walk home.
'You can be mad at me, but I need a lift,' she mumbled. 'I don't have any other way of getting there. I don't have a mobile. I haven't even got any money to ring my mum at a public phone.'
Erin narrowed her eyes. 'It's always the same with you, Shelby.'
'What do you want me to do, Erin?' She held her hands out, palms up. 'This is how it is for me.'
'You could be more grateful.'
Shelby looked away for a moment, swallowing her anger. 'So far I have paid my share. You offered to fix the saddle. Nobody made you.'
At that moment Erin's mum drove up in front of them. The two girls climbed into the car. Erin slammed the passenger-side door.
'Steady on there!' Erin's mum said. Her eyes met Shelby's in the rear vision mirror and Shelby blushed.
Erin's mother tried to make conversation but Erin grumbled monosyllabic answers under her breath.
'I can see you're in a mood,' her mother commented, and they drove on in silence.
In the back seat Shelby squirmed. She hoped one day she could talk her own mother into driving them to the stables. Then she wouldn't feel like such a scab.
Lindsey was waiting for them at the edge of the arena. Miss Anita had a young roan cutting horse on a lunge rein.
'Are you guys ready?' Lindsey asked.
'I'm going to ride my own horse today.' Erin stalked past Lindsey towards Bandit's paddock.
'What's up with you, grumpy-trousers?' Lindsey called after her.
'Ask Shelby,' she shouted over her shoulder.
Lindsey turned to Shelby with an eyebrow raised.
'We should probably ride Hot . . . the pony tomorrow,' Shelby said. 'We'll just check on her today.'
The two girls saddled up Blue and Cracker. On the way to the back paddock they saw Erin in the jumping arena. She was taking Bandit around the course. She didn't stop when her friends rode past. Shelby wasn't even sure if she saw them.
'Bandit's jumping well,' Lindsey commented.
Shelby only nodded in reply.
At the back paddock Lindsey opened the gate for Shelby and they cantered up to the ridge, halting at the top. All of the spelled horses were standing around the dam. Three horses stood shoulder-deep eating the weeds from the water's surface. Shelby shivered, thinking how cold the water must be and wondering what might be lurking on the silty bottom or swimming around their legs -- yabbies possibly, ugly catfish or slimy black eels. She had fallen into a billabong similar to this last summer, and the memory of unseen slippery things brushing against her flesh made her skin crawl.
The little chestnut pony was grazing happily between two fat broodmares. Shelby and Lindsey watched her for a little while longer.
'Do you think I'm a scab, Lindsey?'
'Is that what this is all about?' Lindsey laughed. She gathered up her reins. 'Race you back!' Then she was gone, scattering pebbles behind her.
Shelby wheeled Blue around and he lunged forward, keen for the chase. She crouched over his neck as he gathered speed. Her eyes watered and the wind whistled as it rushed past her ears.
Lindsey was streaking ahead. Cracker was stretched out low. Shelby could hear Lindsey's laughter as she urged him forward.
At the gate Cracker skidded to a stop. Lindsey brought him up close to the latch and flung the gate open.
'Close that, will you?' she called over her shoulder and then Cracker was off again, his pounding hooves creating a cloud of dust that made Shelby cough.
'No fair!' Shelby shouted, grinning. Lindsey didn't answer. Shelby could hear her yelling, 'Yar! Yar!' like a stockrider.
Blue skipped through the gate, backed up, and stood quietly so that she could fasten the chain. When she'd finished Blue needed no encouraging -- he spun around on his hind legs and sprang forward, flicking his tail.
Closer to the stables Shelby slowed Blue to a trot, and then a walk, letting him cool down and catch his breath. She unsaddled him and let him loose in the paddock.
Lindsey was already in the feed shed.
'What took you so long?' she asked.
'You had a head start! If it wasn't for the gate, I would have beaten you easily,' Shelby joked. Gate or no gate, Shelby knew Lindsey was a bolder rider.
Lindsey climbed up the bales of hay that were stacked to the ceiling as though they were a set of giant stairs and rolled a new bale down to the floor. Dust and loose strands of lucerne flew up into the air. One of the rat-cats sneezed.
'You didn't answer my question,' Shelby said.
Lindsey sighed. 'I think you want a horse that's as good as you think your horse should be, but I don't think Bess is that horse.'
She frowned at Shelby, concentrating. Shelby guessed Lindsey was trying out different ways to say something Shelby didn't want to hear. Eventually she shook her head. 'She's pretty, but she's not a nice person.'
'But she could have had a bad life so far. We don't know.'
Lindsey shrugged. 'Why have you decided that it's your problem? There are so many nicer horses out there.' She paused. 'Like Blue, for example.'
Shelby picked the lucerne off her shirt. 'I just think that if you always give up on things as soon as they get a bit difficult then you'd never achieve anything. Even really fun stuff has hard parts -- like when you go to the zoo and at the end of the day your feet are sore and you're hungry.'
'Then it's time to go home!' Lindsey smiled.
Shelby chewed her lip. 'Anyway, that's not really what I asked.'
Lindsey raised an eyebrow. 'You want to know if I think you're a scab?'
Shelby nodded.
'It would be easier for everyone if we all had the Crooks' budget. None of us do. If you really want this horse you should try asking your mum.'
Shelby groaned.
'You think she'll say no,' Lindsey added before Shelby could interrupt. 'But it's at least worth asking, so you can cross that off the list.'
Shelby lifted the bale onto the trolley. Lindsey clambered down the stack of hay. At the bottom she brushed the dust from her jodhpurs.
'You're always trying to prove that you're as good as anyone else -- talking yourself up. I don't know why you think you need to do that. Most people think you're fine already.'
Shelby took a deep breath. It had been a day of candour from both of her friends.
'Blue is a sturdy little horse. I would be proud to own him,' Lindsey added.
'Really?'
'Really.'
Shelby helped her friend load the rest of the feed buckets onto the trolley. She wondered if Lindsey was telling the truth, and, if she was making it up, was she doing it to be nice, or because she wanted Hotty out of her hair?
15 Investing
Shelby sat at the dining room table with her History book spread in front of her. She flicked the end of her pen between her upper and lower teeth. She was supposed to be choosing between Vikings, Medieval Japanese or Aztecs for her assignment, but instead she had been thinking about what her friends had said. Normally she and Erin would decide on the assignment topic together, either in class or on the phone afterwards, but they hadn't spoken all afternoon.
She wondered if she could come up with another hundred dollars to buy Lindsey and Erin out of the agreement and, if she did, whether things would go back to normal. There was more to the whole business than money.
In the lounge room Connor sat on the floor eating a bowl filled with tinned peaches and ice cream, and watching The Simpsons. Blake stood in the middle of the room, wrapped in a towel, fresh from his bath. He stared at the television screen, transfixed -- rigid and unwieldy, like a department store mannequin, while his father tried to dress him in pyjamas.
Shelby's mother sat next to her at the table with her own textbooks spread out, having recently started a course in surveillance and investigation.
Shelby thought it was cool that her mum was training to be a private detective, but her mum assured her that her new part-time job as a detective at a department store was far less exciting than Shelby imagined. She told Shelby that she probably got the job because she was the most ordinary-looking person who had applied.
She still had a tea towel over her shoulder from handling hot pans at dinner time. Shelby had to admit that her mum was pretty ordinary. She was average height, average weight, with shoulder length hair that wasn't curly or straight. She had a pleasant face, but plain. Shelby thought she was perfect for a detective. It made much more sense to have the sort of person the eye slides over than all those tall, gorgeous women in designer suits that were on the TV shows.
Shelby wondered if one day, once Blake was at school, her mother might open her own business finding kidnapped heiresses, tracking stolen treasures, or exposing wildlife smugglers.
'You look lost. Need some help?' her mum asked. Shelby sighed and flipped through the pages in front of her. History was really the only subject at school that she found relevant. She hadn't quite decided if she wanted to run a big agistment centre like Lindsey's mum, or be an instructor like Miss Anita, or both.
It was also possible that her career in professional competition could take off, once it got started. Either way she was sure that she would be working with horses. She didn't need English, or Science, or PE to do that. She would need some Maths, but she was pretty sure she already had enough to get by.
At least with History she could find out things that were interesting, if not exactly useful. Horses had played a big part in history, right up until the last century, which was why she found modern history (with the exception of the part about Phar Lap) a big bore.
When they studied the Anzacs Shelby focused on Simpson's donkey -- not a horse, but equine nonetheless. This year she'd already done an assignment on Genghis Khan, with a big section dedicated to Mongolian horses.
Shelby was pretty sure that the Vikings travelled by boat, so they weren't likely to take horses. She didn't think the Aztecs had them either, otherwise the Spanish might have had a bit more trouble with them.
'Did the Medieval Japanese have horses?' Shelby asked her mother.
'I think the Samurais did.'
Shelby rested her chin on her hand. 'Hey, Mum, do you remember how you said the other day that I was being more mature?'
'Mmmm,' her mother murmured.
'Well, I was thinking that, now I'm making good decisions, and working . . .' She pointed her pen at her mother. 'I haven't missed a single day -- did you know that? And I'm doing all my schoolwork, plus Blue's agistment is free at the stables, so . . .'
Her mother picked up one of the textbooks, tilting it forward so that it caught the overhead light. 'No, Shelby.'
Shelby continued. 'Maybe it's time to talk about perhaps getting another pony?'
Shelby's mum snapped the book shut. Her mouth was pursed and she frowned.
'Aren't you even going to think about it? Even if I got a little cheap one? Only one hundred dollars, and then we could sell her for three times as much later.'
'Shelby!' her mother warned.
'But you haven't listened to the whole plan! See, at the sales they're really cheap and you can train them and then sell them for more. You can't possibly lose. It's not even like a hobby, it's an investment. I could do a spreadsheet and show you.'
'Investment my eye, Shelby Shaw. I knew going to the sales was a bad idea. I knew it!' Her mother grabbed the tea towel from her shoulder and flicked it at Shelby's arm. Shelby caught it in midair.
'If you're not going to do your homework then you can get up there and dry the dishes!'
'I'm doing it already,' Shelby said. She picked up the textbook and held it close to her face, then put it down on the table again. 'See? Nose-in-book! Jeez Louise!'
Shelby sighed, pushed the tea towel aside and leaned over her books again. It was worth crossing off the list of possibilities, anyway.
16 Erin's Longest Friend
Shelby tossed her school bag down on the asphalt next to Erin's and sat on the seat. There was a chill on the morning breeze and she was glad she had brought her jumper. She tucked her hands inside the sleeves. It wouldn't be long before she would need to start wearing long pants to school, instead of her summer shorts.
She kept her eyes fixed on the girls playing netball on the other side of the quadrangle. Up at the other end of the quad a group of older boys played handball.
'I'm sorry your mum had to pay three hundred dollars for the broken saddle. I can't pay you eightythree dollars thirty-three, which is a third of that minus the fifty dollars that was your share to start with, because I don't have it. I admit that I have been a bad sharer, and I agree that we should sell Hot . . . I mean, CC.'
She paused. Erin didn't say anything.
'I think we should try to get four fifty when we sell her. That way you can get your three hundred back, and Lin can have her hundred and I can have my fifty, and then we'll all go back to our ordinary lives. But to make up for now, I bought you a Redskin.' Shelby thrust the lolly at her friend.
Erin took it from her and twisted off the wrapper. She snapped it in two and passed half to Shelby, then popped her half into her mouth. She chewed on it for a moment.
'I was thinking this morning, and do you know what? You are the longest best friend I have had so far.'
Shelby stretched out her arms and legs.
Erin started to laugh, and choked on her Redskin. She coughed and patted her chest. 'No, silly! There are other girls who I have known for longer but --'
'I knew what you meant,' Shelby interrupted. Erin watched Neighbours and Home and Away. Shelby was afraid that some dramatic speech might follow.
Erin's eyes widened and she grabbed Shelby's sleeve. 'What if our friendship doesn't survive this crisis?'
Shelby cut her off again. 'What about Penelope?'
'What?' Erin looked confused.
'Penelope -- that grey mare. She's pretty long,' Shelby said, smiling.
Erin groaned. 'That is the lamest joke ever. I am trying to tell you something important.'
'Let's not talk about it for one whole day, OK? We'll just do what we normally do,' suggested Shelby.
Erin nodded. She looked pensive as she stared out into the quad. Shelby smiled, guessing that Erin was imagining a few fretful piano chords punctuating the end of the conversation.
17 Bad Accent
The three girls sat in front of the computer in Mrs Edel's office at the stables. They had told Lindsey's mother that they were 'just looking' at Horse Deals online, but they were actually trying to place an advertisement. So far they had agreed to place Hotty in the '$1000 and under' section, because it was free, but they couldn't agree on the text.
'What about "stunning chestnut mare"?' suggested Erin.
'Not "stunning",' complained Shelby.
'Why not?'
'Because if you were truly stunned by all the horses in here that people say are stunning you'd be in a coma!' Lindsey responded. 'I reckon it should be "pretty chestnut filly, make great lawn mower".'
'But that makes her sound injured and dangerous,' said Erin.
'She is injured and dangerous!' Lindsey retorted.
Shelby said, 'We don't know that for sure. We haven't tested the other saddle yet.'
They stared at the screen, thinking.
'How about, "lovely chestnut mare, extravagant movement"?' said Shelby. 'That's even true!'
'Extravagantly bucking till she falls over,' Erin added.
'"Extravagant movement" is right up there with "stunning",' Lindsey grumbled. 'We could say "personality plus". Everyone knows that means "complete fruit loop".'
'Does it really?' asked Erin.
'Yeah, it's like if it says "forward moving", that means it bolts,' added Shelby.
'Or "good doer" means that it has laminitis,' added Lindsey.
'G'day, g'day,' came a voice from the veranda.
The three girls looked up. Hayley Crook was standing in the doorway smiling. 'What are you doing?'
'We were just looking at horses for sale,' explained Shelby, while Lindsey hurriedly changed pages.
'Oh yeah? Are you going to buy something new? What have you found?' she asked, coming around the edge of the desk.
Lindsey shrugged. 'Nothing yet. I might if I see something I like.'
'Can I have a look?'
'Go for it.' Lindsey backed away from the desk and Hayley sat down. She rolled the chair under the desk and scrolled down the page.
'What about this one? Triple registered, half brother to champions. Only eight hundred. I wonder what's wrong with it? Oh, here we go -- "big personality". It must be a nutcase.'
Shelby, Erin and Lindsey exchanged looks.
They were hoping to have placed the advertisement by the time Lindsey's mother came back in from the stables, but if Hayley hung around they would have to wait until the next afternoon.
Lindsey sighed. 'Oh well, I suppose we'd better get back to it. Come on, Shel.'
Hayley scrolled down the page. 'Here's a good one -- "brown, six years old, fifteen hands, suit hacking, pony club, etc".'
'Maybe we'll look later,' Erin said. Lindsey had hold of her wrist and was dragging her towards the door.
Shelby thought they were being rude just leaving Hayley there. She opened her mouth to ask Hayley if she wanted to come with them, and then she shut it again.
What exactly was she offering for Hayley to do? Fill water troughs? Muck out stables? That's what her family paid to have done for them. Instead she smiled. 'See you later, OK?'
Hayley nodded.
'Hey, you want to maybe come out on a trail with us this weekend?' Shelby suggested.
Hayley's lip curled up on one side. 'Umm, I don't think so. You know how it is. Thanks for the offer, though.'
Shelby felt dumb for asking. She backed out of the room and onto the veranda.
'What are you doing?' Lindsey whispered.
Shelby shrugged. 'I just didn't think it was polite to get up and leave as soon as she walked in.'
'Jill Crook is the biggest busybody in this whole place,' said Lindsey in a low voice. 'You know that she runs Hayley's life. We can't risk it.'
'OK. I was just being nice.'
Lindsey looked across the driveway. Her mother was striding purposefully down the laneway between the stable blocks. 'Mum's coming back now anyway. We'll have to do the ad tomorrow.'
'Oh no!' said Shelby. Parked nose-in to the side of the stables was the farrier's big red ute. 'Clint! What if he's talked to your mum?'
Mrs Edel wasn't looking at the girls, instead swivelling her head back and forth, looking into each of the yards as she marched past them. Shelby couldn't tell what sort of temper she was in.
'Hi, Mrs E.' Erin waved cheerily. Shelby wondered if she was hoping to gauge Brenda Edel's mood while she still had time to run.
Lindsey's mum climbed the steps, frowning. 'I was looking at our accounts today. Did you know there's a client who hasn't paid for months? For the life of me I can't remember what she looks like. I'm usually good with faces.'
The three girls followed her into the office warily. Did she know? Was she telling them this story as some kind of build-up?
She acknowledged Hayley with a nod and then shuffled through some papers on the desk.
'Did you see Clint out there?' asked Lindsey.
'Yes.'
Shelby held her breath.
'I didn't stop though. He told me as I was passing that he'd pop in for coffee when he was finished. He said he had something he wanted to ask me about.'
Shelby didn't dare to look at her friends.
'I think I might ring this Gwen Stefani woman right now,' Mrs Edel continued. She leaned over the desk for the phone. 'I can't believe we've let her get so far behind.'
'Gwen Stefani!' said Hayley.
'Do you know her?' asked Lindsey's mum.
Hayley looked over Mrs Edel's shoulder at the other girls. Shelby opened her eyes wide. Erin ran her hand across her throat in a cutting motion. Lindsey stood still, frozen -- the colour draining from her face.
Shelby was dismayed. They hadn't considered the consequences of backdating the computer entry. It made the account months overdue. "Gwen Stefani" probably owed hundreds of dollars.
'Ah, not personally,' Hayley answered.
'What does she look like?'
Hayley tilted her head. 'Well, she's got blonde hair. Pretty. She wears a lot of make-up.'
Erin put both of her hands over her mouth, stifling a giggle.
Mrs Edel looked down at the number jotted on her desk pad and then dialled.
The four girls stared at each other. Lindsey was so pale that Shelby was worried she might pass out. It was all happening so fast. Shelby's heart started thumping in her chest.
A few seconds later Erin's mobile phone began to ring. She dug it out of her pocket. 'It's probably my mum,' she said, quickly stepping outside onto the veranda.
Erin wouldn't remember that Lindsey had used Erin's mobile number for Gwen. Shelby wanted to follow her and grab the phone out of her hand, but it was too late.
'Hello?' said Erin quietly.
Shelby could hear Erin's voice both through the doorway and through the phone in Mrs Edel's hand.
'Yes, errr, I'm looking for a Ms Gwen Stefani?'
Erin paused. Shelby could feel her face reddening. She wished they hadn't left a phone number at all. After a long silence Erin said in a very bad American accent, 'Oh, yar! How are ya?'
Mrs Edel frowned. She moved the phone away from her ear and stared at it, then she held it against her ear again. 'Erin? Is that you?'
'Like, who's Erin?' came the dual voices.
Shelby closed her eyes.
Mrs Edel walked to the doorway. 'Erin,' she said again.
Erin turned around slowly, a guilty grin on her face. She pointed to the mobile and mouthed, I'm on the phone.
'Erin, put the phone down.'
Erin closed her phone with a snap and tucked it in her pocket.
'OK, girls,' said Mrs Edel. 'What's going on here?'
18 Saved and Indebted
'I remember now,' Lindsey blurted. 'I entered that Gwen woman's details in the day after I came back from hospital. I was still pretty groggy. I must have put in Erin's mobile by mistake.'
Good save, thought Shelby.
Mrs Edel narrowed her eyes. 'I double-checked all your entries. I don't remember this.'
'I made so many mistakes, remember? You almost gave up on me.' Lindsey pulled a silly face.
Lindsey's mother turned her attention to Erin. 'What was that business on the phone all about?'
'A joke?' she offered meekly.
'Excuse me, Mrs Edel,' Hayley interrupted. 'I'm here to give you a cheque, and Mum was wondering if the annual barbecue was still this weekend. You haven't put it on the noticeboard.'
Mrs Edel glared at the girls as she flipped open her receipt book. 'I haven't got to the bottom of this yet, but I will!'
She took the cheque from Hayley and scribbled out a receipt. 'The annual barbecue. I haven't even thought about it! Too busy.'
Every year, just before it became too cold, Mrs Edel held a barbecue at the stables. There was also a Christmas party at the end of the year, but the barbecue was more like an annual general meeting for all the people who kept horses at the stables. It was an opportunity for the agisters to mingle, but also to put forward ideas and vote on future plans for the stables -- what types of new equipment, upgrades or construction they would like to see.
'OK, let's look in the diary here,' Mrs Edel mumbled to herself as she flicked through the pages and ran her fingers down the rows of dates.
Hayley smiled slyly. Shelby couldn't tell if Hayley's mum had really asked about the barbecue, or whether Hayley had made it up to distract Mrs Edel and save the girls from getting in trouble.
'You're absolutely right. Goodness! We'd better get organised, girls!' She looked up at Lindsey, her crankiness forgotten. 'Go and put this on the noticeboard will you, my love? I'll do a broadcast email.'
Mrs Edel sat, scooted her chair under the desk, and placed her hands on the keyboard, dictating as she typed. 'Annual barbecue this Sunday in the jumping arena. All welcome. Bring a plate.'
Lindsey nodded.
'Oh, and no dogs,' she added.
All the girls left the office together. The afternoon sun shone fiercely and Shelby shaded her eyes with her hand. At the bottom of the stairs she thanked Hayley.
'No problem,' she said. 'So what's the story?'
'Umm,' Erin began.
'It's kind of an in-joke,' Lindsey interrupted.
'Yeah?' Hayley's eyes twinkled with anticipation.
'Yeah. Anyway, we've got to get to work now. See ya!' Lindsey dragged Erin away.
Shelby hung back for a moment. 'It would be really great if you didn't mention this to anyone just for now.'
'Why? What is it? You have to tell me now. I saved you guys, remember? You owe me!'
Shelby looked over to where Erin and Lindsey were waiting. They had to get to Clint before Lindsey's mother did. 'I can't now, but I will another day, OK? I promise. Especially don't tell your mum.'
Hayley nodded slowly, but Shelby could tell she was disappointed. Disappointed and annoyed.
The girls found Clint in the yard at the end of the row. Ajax was loosely tied to a strand of baling twine looped over the fence. The big horse had his ears back and his eyes half closed. Shelby noticed the way Clint behaved with him -- always keeping a hand firmly on his shoulder or rump, talking to him in a low voice and watching closely for any change in expression. Clint didn't trust him either.
Clint was wearing his leather apron. He selected a knife from his tub of tools and, tucking Ajax's fetlock between his knees, whittled at the underside of his hoof.
It occurred to Shelby for the first time why Tammy might have left fifty dollars just inside her tack room doorway. It wouldn't be there when Clint looked for it, and there was no way to do anything about it now. She couldn't even confide in her friends. What would they think if she told them she'd stolen to pay her share?
'Shelly Shoes, Lindsey Lu and Erin Banana -- the three amigas.' A grin split across Clint's face. He tossed the knife into the tub and drew out a long rasp. 'How's that crazy little filly going?'
'That's what we're here about,' Erin said, crossing her arms.
'Yeah, we don't want you to tell Mum about her just yet,' Lindsey added.
Clint slid his hand down Ajax's hind leg and lifted his hoof. 'Oh? Why's that then?'
Erin and Lindsey darted a look at each other.
'It's her birthday present!' Shelby blurted.
Lindsey's eyes widened. 'Yeah!' Erin and Lindsey chorused.
'Birthday present, eh?' Clint ran his rasp around Ajax's hoof. 'That is a good reason for me not to mention it.' He looked up at Shelby and winked -- a definite wink, not a tick or blink, or something in his eye.
Does he know? she wondered. Would he guess about the money too?
Shelby turned away, blushing furiously -- just in time to see Hayley ducking into the doorway of the stable opposite. Is she spying on us? Shelby wondered. Great. Now she knows too.
'The annual barbecue is on this weekend,' said Erin, changing the subject. 'Are you coming?'
'Wouldn't miss it,' Clint replied.
Oh no! thought Shelby. Tammy and Clint would be at the same place at the same time. She had to return that fifty-dollar note as soon as possible.
19 The Chiropractor
It was early Friday morning. Shelby was out of breath. She had just led Hotty from the back paddock, running all the way. She took her to a yard on the far side of the feed shed that couldn't be seen from the office window. Lindsey was waiting there with the equine chiropractor. She had been looking at other horses and agreed to examine the pony before the two girls went to school.
The chiropractor's name was Julie. She had short blonde hair like Shelby, except Julie's was funkier. She'd put some sort of product in it to make it messy in a very styled way. Julie wore little rectangle spectacles with a tortoiseshell frame. Shelby thought she looked smart and efficient.
'Do you have a horse?' Shelby asked.
Julie nodded.
'Do you compete?'
'Eventing when I have time.'
Shelby nodded slowly. Julie was funky in every way.
'I'd like to do that one day.'
'Oh yeah? Is this your horse?' Julie indicated that she was asking about Hotty.
Shelby shook her head.
'You can see Shelby's horse from here, Jules,' Lindsey said, pointing to where Blue stood with Hiccup in the paddock.
Shelby wanted to yell out, 'No, don't look!' She was sure Julie would think she was silly for having dreams of eventing with a strange-looking old nag like Blue.
'That little paint horse? He looks like a pony I had once. My very bravest jumping horse. He was such a great little guy. He'd jump anything.'
Shelby smiled, relieved. 'Yeah, Blue's like that too.'
Julie had a plastic crate full of the strangest things -- wooden sticks in various lengths, a few tennis balls, an assortment of spray bottles and other weird tools that Shelby hadn't seen before. It looked more like a toy box than the toolbox of a serious medical professional.
First Julie ran her hands all along the pony's body from nose to tail, tapping and pressing. Next she tested Hotty's flexibility -- moving her head from side to side, twisting her neck so that her nose was touching her back, then stretching all of her legs, and bending her fetlock joints.
'Hmm,' Julie mumbled.
'What do you think?' asked Lindsey.
'She's a wee bit stiff in the shoulders,' she replied, running her hand over the offending area. Hotty's flesh twitched under her palm. 'But my guess would be that it was the result of this bucking you were talking about rather than the cause. I'll give her a bit of a massage, but she doesn't need any adjusting. She's been pulling your leg, I think. You know how ponies are.' Julie smiled at the girls.
Shelby saw the glower cross Lindsey's face. She had been willing to give Hotty the benefit of the doubt, but there would be no more compassion now that Lindsey knew that she was just plain naughty.
Julie took out one of the tennis balls and used it to massage Hotty all around her shoulders. After that she sprayed on some liniment and rubbed it in.
It crossed Shelby's mind that she might want to be an equine chiropractor when she grew up. She could save money if she adjusted her own horses -- especially when she had four or five in full competition condition all the time.
'Did you have to do a long course to do this job?' she asked.
'I did vet science at uni,' Julie replied. 'And a threeyear masters degree.'
That sounded like a lot of work! Shelby was pretty sure you had to be good at Maths if you wanted to do veterinary science. She would have to start paying attention in class. She wasn't sure if it was worth it. 'Is it good money?' she asked.
Julie shrugged. 'Ask me again after I've paid off my university degree. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with this mare that a bit of hard work wouldn't fix. That's my advice.'
Shelby nodded. That's what she'd hoped. Hotty was just green. In time, with regular work, she would be amazing.
'Who do I bill this to?' Julie asked.
'Gwen Stefani,' Shelby answered.
'Really? Like the singer?' She laughed. 'That's a coincidence.'
'Yeah, funny hey?' Shelby said.
20 Another Try
In the afternoon the girls decided to try Shelby's old all-purpose saddle on Hotty in the round yard. Mrs Edel was working Diablo in the dressage arena, so the girls knew they had at least forty-five minutes.
Shelby cinched up the girth another notch. She flinched when the mare shifted her weight from one leg to another. Shelby was nervous. She hadn't realised how much until now. 'I think that's as far as it will go. Who wants to hop on first?'
'It's your saddle,' said Erin.
'You're the one who has lessons,' Shelby responded.
'I only ever ride Bandit. You two ride different horses all the time. Why don't you ride her, Shelby?'
'But I've already fallen off! It's somebody else's turn.'
Erin turned to Lindsey. 'What about you?'
Lindsey shook her head. 'I've broken enough bones. You should do it, Erin. You haven't come off in ages.'
'She mightn't even go nuts,' Shelby offered, smiling hopefully.
'Fine,' growled Erin, gripping the cantle. 'But when I break my legs you two have to carry me back.'
'You won't break your legs!' Shelby told her. 'Not both at once, anyway.'
Shelby stood on one side of the pony, holding a rein. Lindsey stood on the other while Erin put her foot in the stirrup, ready to swing into the saddle. Hotty swished her tail. She had her ears back and Shelby could see the whites of her eyes.
'I told you she's not a nice person,' Lindsey said.
Shelby hoped Hotty would be good and prove Lindsey wrong. She smiled up at Erin. 'Are you ready?'
Erin's knees were squeezed tight against the saddle and her knuckles were white where she held the reins.
'Remember, we're just trying to teach her that it's OK to have a saddle on, and not to be scared,' Lindsey said. 'The best thing would be if she just stands still. Then you can reward her by getting off.'
'Wouldn't the best reward be not getting on in the first place?' Erin muttered. Her face looked drawn and her shoulders were hunched. She was scared. 'How do the rodeo riders do it?' she asked.
Lindsey shrugged. 'I've never done it. They just hang on, I guess. Try to stay loose when you fall. I've heard that you break less bones if your muscles are relaxed.'
Shelby thought they were being prematurely pessimistic, but she didn't mention it. She was sure that Erin would jump at the chance to switch places.
Shelby and Lindsey let go of the reins and moved slowly away from the horse. Erin sat still, clinging to the saddle. 'Be a good girl now, CC,' she said.
The pony snorted and shook her head. She stood still with her eyes half closed, as though she was sleepy. For a moment Shelby thought it was going to be all right.
'She's not doing anything!' said Erin. 'Can I get off now?'
Then Hotty's eyes flashed open and she reared straight up. Erin leaned forward and wrapped her hands around the horse's neck. Next the pony kicked out with her back legs -- leaping forward at the same time.
'Did you see that?' Lindsey shouted. 'Airs above the ground!'
'Hold on, Erin!' Shelby called out.
Hotty surged forward, tucking her head between her front legs, pigrooting and bucking as she bounded around the yard.
'That's so hard to do!' Lindsey said.
'Yeah! She's hanging on way longer than I would have!' Shelby said, backing towards the fence.
'No, I mean airs above the ground. Horses take years to learn that kind of balance.'
'I don't think she's going to stop!' Erin yelled.
Hotty jumped in the air, her head down and all four hooves off the ground. She twisted and landed hard. Erin's leg started to swing. She was beginning to lose her grip, flopping like a rag doll.
Shelby rushed forward. Hotty bared her teeth, ears flat to her head. She reared up again, striking out with her front hooves.
'Let go, Erin,' Lindsey shouted. 'Jump off now -- before she goes crazy again.'
Erin started to slide off to one side. When she flicked her right leg over, the stirrup came with her. Her boot looked as though it was stuck inside the metal arch.
Shelby reached forward, trying to grab the rein. She had to catch Hotty now, and hold her still. If Erin's foot was stuck the pony could drag her around the arena, which could cause all sorts of serious injuries.
Hotty came down on all fours, and then reared up again, staggering backwards on her hind legs.
With her hands raised, Shelby stood in front of the little horse. 'Whoa!' she said, trying to sound as soothing as possible.
As she reached for the rein again she could see the pony's hoof stretching towards her face, as though it was in slow motion. There was dirt and grit stuck to the bottom of it. For a millisecond she thought about what a different shape it was on the underside compared to Blue's, and then she felt the horn-like texture as it glanced off her cheek.
It feels like a brick inside a rubber boot, she thought.
Her neck jerked back and her face went numb. She was falling backwards, arms outstretched. This is going to hurt, she decided.
Shelby could see the clouds, blurred, wheeling, as if she was on sideshow ride, and then everything went black.
21 Hotty's Personal Best
Shelby heard the voice first. It sounded urgent and wavering on the edge of tears.
'Is she dead? Is she? She's dead, isn't she?'
Then the faces swam into view -- Erin and Lindsey, afraid and concerned. She could see bright white spots in front of her eyes, like midges over a bowl of ripe fruit.
She heard another voice and realised it was her own -- groaning. Shelby sat up. Her head felt heavy, and too big. She put her hand to her cheek and could feel that it was hot. The skin was welted in the arc of a hoof. She hoped it didn't look as bad as it felt.
'What happened?'
'Bess knocked you out,' Lindsey answered.
'You toppled down like a bag of spuds!' Erin added.
'How long was I out for?' Shelby asked.
'What do you reckon? Maybe thirty or forty?' Lindsey asked Erin.
Erin nodded.
'Minutes?' gasped Shelby.
'Seconds,' Lindsey corrected. 'If you'd been out for longer we would have called an ambulance.'
'I think we should anyway,' said Erin.
Shelby shook her head. Her neck hurt and she put her hand to it. 'No ambulance. I'll be fine. We're going to have enough trouble trying to explain this.' She pointed to her cheek. 'Does it look bad?'
When they didn't say anything for a moment Shelby wondered if she was being a wuss. Maybe there was no mark at all?
'You know those Bratz dolls? Kind of crossed with a . . .' Erin tilted her head to the side as she searched for a comparison. 'No, that's not it. I know! You look like that old detective man! Columbo!'
'Who?' Lindsey asked.
Erin rolled her eyes. 'You don't watch nearly enough television.'
'I don't have time to watch television!'
Shelby frowned, confused. 'So is it noticeable?'
'She's trying to say you have a massively swollen head,' Lindsey told her.
'And your eye has gone all squinty, and red, and a bit purple,' Erin added.
'Oh great!' Shelby groaned. 'So did you fall off?'
Erin shook her head. 'I pulled my foot out of the stirrup and slid off while she was smashing your face in. I told you she hates you.'
'She doesn't hate me! She hates the saddle. Where is my saddle?' Shelby propped herself up on her elbows. 'Did it survive?'
Lindsey and Erin looked over Shelby's shoulder. Shelby turned to where they were looking. Her saddle lay upside down, splayed and oddly dislocated.
'Broken?'
Lindsey nodded. 'Looks like it.'
'Did she roll again?'
'As soon as I was off, she dropped and rolled. It's like she was trying to beat a personal best time or something.'
Lindsey sniffed. 'Anyway, it's clear that the first time was no accident. This must be her little trick. It's probably why she was dogged.'
'But she's fine bareback. It doesn't make her completely useless,' Shelby argued.
'You can't seriously still be defending her!' said Erin. 'She tried to kill you!'
'It was an accident. She might need another massage.'
'A heavy massage with a blunt object!' said Lindsey.
'You're all talk, Lindsey. I've never even heard you raise your voice. Anyway, we'd better get moving. We've got to do the dinners, and we didn't muck out the stables this morning,' Shelby said.
'I don't think you will be mucking out today, Shel,' said Erin. 'Honestly, you have a head like a melon -- a deformed melon. You'll give the horses bad dreams. They'll run screaming and crash through a fence or something.'
'I'll be fine.' Shelby tried to stand up and immediately rocked back again as her head whirled. She reached out to grab something for balance, and found Lindsey's hand. When she blinked she saw blotches of coloured light in front of her eyes.
'OK, maybe not.'
22 Cheek
Lindsey took Hotty back to the paddock while Erin staggered back to the stables with Shelby leaning on one arm and the broken saddle over the other.
Mrs Edel had finished with Diablo and was heading back from his yard when she saw the two girls in the laneway. Shelby was resting against a post, because her head had started to swim again.
Lindsey's mum rushed towards them. She put one hand on either side of Shelby's face, examining the swelling on her cheek.
'Who kicked you?'
'Kicked? Nobody kicked . . .' Erin began, but Mrs Edel cut her off.
'This is no time for mucking about, Erin. I can see the hoof print. Who was it?'
'It was Bandit,' Erin blurted. 'I asked Shelby to pick out his hooves for me. Then I was talking about this show I watched on telly, and I forgot where I was, and started waving my arms and whooping. Shelby was really engrossed because she was leaning over, like this, watching me through her legs, holding his hoof.' Erin demonstrated. 'Then Bandit got spooked by the waving and the whooping and kicked out. It was my fault.'
'Does your neck hurt?' Mrs Edel asked.
'A little bit,' Shelby admitted. Her whole face was throbbing, and her skin felt tight over her cheek. She could feel it bulging.
'Stay right there. I'm calling an ambulance.' Lindsey's mum turned on her heel and jogged towards the office. 'Try not to move at all. You can have damage to your spine without feeling pain.'
'No, I'm fine really!' Shelby protested. 'I just need a breather.'
'This is not open for discussion,' Mrs Edel called over her shoulder.
'I don't want all this fuss!' Shelby told Erin.
Erin patted her shoulder. 'You did bang your head pretty hard. It's probably best to go along with it -- just in case.'
'It's nothing, just a bump,' Shelby grumbled, but she was worried that something might be wrong. She could feel it. She was more than worried, because if it was as bad as she suspected, she might not be able to ride for weeks.
Shortly afterwards Lindsey's mum came out of the office. Erin offered to help Lindsey make up the feeds. 'Where is Lin, anyway?' Mrs Edel asked.
'She's in the feed shed. She's already started work,' Erin lied, and then ran away.
'Your mother is on her way,' Mrs Edel told Shelby. 'So what happened to your saddle?'
Shelby thought for a moment. If she was whisked away in an ambulance then she wouldn't have an opportunity to tell Erin or Lindsey what she'd said. Lindsey's mum was suspicious enough and they already had the problem of Erin saying something other than the story they had agreed upon.
'It's all a bit of a blur,' she replied. 'For Erin too. I think she's in shock -- post-traumatic stress, or something. She was obviously babbling. Even more than normal!'
'Tell me what you remember.'
'I would, but it hurts to talk,' Shelby said, holding her cheek.
Lindsey's mum narrowed her eyes, but she didn't ask any more questions.
The ambulance pulled into the driveway with its lights turning on the top. They knew to pull into the float bay near the arena, which indicated that this wasn't the first time they had been here.
The two ambulance officers were cheery, telling jokes and making Shelby smile, and all the while pressing in different places -- asking whether she could feel this or that, and when it hurt, telling her to rate the pain from one to ten.
Some of the other girls gathered around to sticky-beak. Shelby was embarrassed and hoped Mrs Edel would shoo them away, but she didn't.
Shelby had quite a crowd of spectators by the time her mother had arrived -- with Blake in tow, since Connor was at soccer practice with her dad. The ambulance officers had put a foam brace around her neck and she was perched in the back of the ambulance keeping her spine still, as instructed.
'She looks OK, but we'd like to take some pictures of her noggin,' said one jolly officer.
'I feel fine, Mum,' Shelby assured her mother. 'I'm sure I can go to school tomorrow.'
Her mother gave Shelby a thin smile, but her face was white and her hand worried at the fine silver chain she wore around her neck.
'Tomorrow is Saturday, love! Maybe you do have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock!' joked the other ambulance officer. He was trying to distract Shelby while the white-clad officer drew her mother away, but they didn't move far enough.
'Horses!' Shelby heard him say as he shook his head. 'Why would you have 'em? I see so many riding injuries. They're often quite serious too. It's a very dangerous sport. Kids have no idea how risky it is.'
Shelby felt terrible. She knew that her parents had always been apprehensive about her riding because they feared something would happen to her.
The ambulance officers lowered her down carefully so that she was lying flat. All the way to the hospital she closed her eyes, willing her face and neck to get better before they arrived.
At the hospital they waited for the radiologist. Shelby reclined on a trolley and her mother sat on an orange plastic chair by her side. They both held tattered magazines with missing covers and torn pages, while Blake squatted on the floor mining a deep basket of toys.
Shelby wasn't reading her magazine. Between bouts of feeling sorry for herself and being annoyed that it was taking so long, she was finding it hard to concentrate.
After half an hour Blake was fractious and Shelby was hungry. She flipped through the celebrity cellulite and middle-aged miracle pregnancies and huffed.
Fifteen minutes later a nurse scooted across the waiting room in her quiet shoes and switched on a television that was suspended from the ceiling by a metal bracket.
Shelby put down her magazine and wriggled so that she could get a better view. Blake put down the plastic truck he was holding and sat cross-legged, eyes on the screen. After the image flickered to life Blake turned to his mother, wrinkling his nose. 'News!' he whined.
'Shh!' Shelby's mum blushed, glancing around to see if anyone had taken offence. Shelby was with Blake on this one. She'd been hoping for a cartoon -- even an educational one would have been acceptable under these circumstances.
Soon afterwards, an orderly came to collect Shelby. He wheeled the bed out of the waiting room, down a corridor and into the lift. Shelby waved to her mum as the lift doors closed. The orderly stared at her. Shelby felt awkward in the silence and so she tried to think of something to talk about.
'Are all orderlies men?' she asked.
The young man sighed as the doors opened. 'You're never too young for feminist sensibilities,' he said, and then he abandoned her in front of a door marked 'X-Ray'.
The radiologist didn't speak. He slid Shelby under a heavy grey machine and indicated what he wanted her to do by manipulating her limbs. Once she was in position he would leave the room. She was expecting to hear a click, or a whiz, or something from the machine, but she couldn't hear anything at all -- not until the door squeaked open and he returned. After he had done this a few times he pushed her back out into the corridor.
This time she didn't have news or even a scruffy magazine. Every now and then a member of the hospital staff would stride past, either giving her a brisk smile or ignoring her altogether.
Eventually her orderly returned. He placed a big yellow envelope across her knees. She could see her name printed on a sticker in the corner.
'OK, Germaine, time to take you back to your mum.'
'Can I look at these?' she asked.
The orderly shrugged. 'It's not sealed.'
As they trundled back into the lift Shelby slid out the sheets of thick film. It was a picture of her skull and the top portion of her spine from the front and both sides. She'd never seen her head from the inside before. On two of the images she could see a number of arrows and crosses had been drawn on.
'What's this?' she asked, frowning. She was pretty sure the radiologist didn't put arrows to mark all the places where everything was fine.
'He's started a game of noughts and crosses and hoped that you'd join in.'
Shelby raised an eyebrow.
'Do I look like a doctor to you?' he grumbled.
She looked him up and down. 'Kind of. You're wearing those overalls and a hairnet like they do on telly.' The doors to the lift opened.
He grunted and then stopped the cot, flicking on the brakes with his toes. 'Your mum's coming over now.'
Shelby's mum appeared and squeezed her daughter's hand. 'Not long now, honey.'
In her other hand was a cup of chips. Shelby's mouth started watering at the idea of them, but when she tried one it was cold and tasted of old oil. 'Is there anything else?'
'Only sandwiches.' Blake rolled his eyes. Shelby's mum lifted him up so he could sit on the end of Shelby's bed, and then handed Shelby a corned beef and pickle sandwich in a triangular plastic container.
'Pickles!' she complained.
Blake took a bite out of his and started to cry. 'I want that one!' he demanded, pointing to Shelby's.
'Yours is exactly the same,' his mother said.
'That one! That one!' His face was turning redder.
'Swap sandwiches, Shelby.'
'But Blake's is all spitty!'
Shelby's mother rubbed her temples. 'This is not how I intended to spend my afternoon.'
'You think I got kicked in the head on purpose?'
'Give him the sandwich now!' her mum said through gritted teeth.
Shelby handed the plastic container over and Blake stopped crying.
'How much longer are you going to be sick for, Shel?' he asked, blinking away his tears.
'Not long,' she promised, closing her eyes.
It was another forty-five minutes before a doctor saw them. The doctor bundled them into a ward and whipped the curtain around. Shelby wondered why she'd bothered. It wasn't as though it stopped the rest of the people in the room from hearing.
'You've fractured your zygomatic ridge,' she said, holding up the X-rays to the light.
Shelby and her mother both spoke at once.
'So when can I start riding again?'
'What does that mean exactly?'
'It means you've broken your cheekbone. You've got a mild concussion too. I would recommend that you don't ride again for at least six weeks, and keep away from horses for at least four to five weeks. I know horses, and I know how often they can clock you in the head with their jaws. This is not the kind of fracture that we can set with a cast. You will have to stay at home for the next week at least.'
Shelby wriggled on her trolley. 'Handling horses is my job, and I've never missed a day, so that won't be possible,' she said. 'What sort of horse did you have?'
The doctor smiled. 'Shelby, I know it sounds boring, but it will be much more boring if you don't give the bone a chance to knit. It could end up taking twice as long. You could also end up with a permanent lump there.'
Shelby opened her mouth, but her mother interrupted with a warning. 'No more cheek from you!'
They picked up a small vial of painkillers at the chemist on the way out and Shelby soon found herself at home on the lounge with a half-eaten spaghetti jaffle on the arm of the lounge next to her and six whole weeks of convalescing to contemplate.
She tried to remember the longest time that she'd gone without riding since she'd owned Blue. There'd been heavy rain for four days in a row last winter, and that had been unbearable.
Blake had eaten most of his jaffle, except the crusts, and now he squatted in front of the TV cupboard perusing the animated movie collection.
'Nemo or Milo?' he asked, displaying the two cases as if he were a game show hostess. 'I'm thinking Nemo.'
Shelby huffed. 'I don't have time for this!'
Blake examined the titles, frowning with concentration. 'I don't think Milo and Otis is any shorter,' he said apologetically.
23 Self-pity
Shelby rested the novel she was reading for English against the pillow. She had been reading the same line over and over -- unable to concentrate.
Everyone else was probably getting ready for Pony Club right now. There was an interclub gymkhana in a few weeks. She'd probably miss that too. Maybe her mum would drive her over to watch? Shelby doubted it, now that her mum had assignments to do as well as a part-time job and full-time family duties.
She imagined what Erin and Lindsey might do without her supervision. They might sell Hotty to a brutal cowboy for the rodeo circuit. She would be called 'The Pocket Rocket' -- a humorous curiosity slotted in between other displays of cruelty and abuse. Or they might give her away to some ignorant family -- tied in a back yard on the fringes of suburbia, between the chicken pen and the Hills Hoist.
They might even send Hotty back to the Dog Man. Shelby narrowed her eyes. Yes, Lindsey and the Dog Man were old friends, weren't they?
Shelby could imagine the scene -- poor little Hotty trudging up the ramp of the rusty old cattle truck on the way to her doom. The Dog Man slapping her rump. 'Hurry up, Sausages!'
Erin would be saying, 'Shouldn't we wait? I'm sure Shel would want to say goodbye.'
'Who?' from Lindsey.
'Shelby.'
'Oh, her.' Lindsey would shrug. 'I don't think she knew Bess that well anyway.'
Erin nodding in agreement. 'You're right. That horse always hated Shelby anyway. Remember how she nearly killed her? Twice!'
Shelby threw her book against the wall. 'Stupid zygomatic ridge,' she muttered.
And then there was Tammy's money. That was a little time bomb she hadn't thought about all day. She had to find a solution soon.
How could she be expected to lie here when there was so much going on?
'Mum!' she shouted. 'I need a drink!'
'There's nothing wrong with your legs,' came the reply from the other room.
'Jeez, you'd think the sympathy would last more than a few hours,' Shelby growled under her breath as she hauled herself to her feet.
In the bathroom Shelby looked at her reflection in the mirror again. Her broken cheek had swollen to twice the normal size. Her eye was puffy and black, and her nose was a reddish purple. She could still see the imprint of the hoof in small abrasions.
'You can actually see how much this hurts!' she yelled. 'Don't you even care?'
'Since you're up, there's a full basket of washing in the laundry that needs folding,' her mother called out.
Shelby dragged her feet all the way to the laundry and began to fold the clothes. Although her face wasn't hurting right at that minute she knew that it would be if she hadn't taken a painkiller. And when she really concentrated on how much it should hurt, she did feel a bit dizzy.
'This is so unfair!' she said to no one.
There was Blue, too. She hadn't gone for a day without seeing him for as long as she could remember. She hoped they didn't expect her to give him up as well. She wouldn't -- no matter what the doctors said.
'You'd better drive me over there every day or else!' She was pretty sure her mum wouldn't be able to hear through the brick wall. 'Or else I'm going to be so mad!'
Speaking of tempers, she wondered what had happened with Lindsey and her mum. What would she say when Shelby couldn't come to work for five whole weeks?
Then Shelby had a splendid idea.
\*
'Mrs Edel said that since I can't work for five weeks she'll need money for Blue's agistment. She said fifty dollars would cover it,' Shelby told her mother, as she hung up the phone. 'I can give it to her at the barbecue tomorrow.'
'That sounds reasonable,' her mother replied, gathering her handbag from the back of the dining room chair and rummaging for her wallet.
'So I can go then?'
'We'll see how you feel tomorrow,' her mother replied.
Shelby had, in fact, been talking to Erin and not Mrs Edel, but her mother would never know. During the conversation Erin had offered to stand in for her at the stables until she was better.
'That would be so great. I owe you one,' Shelby had said, with a twinge of guilt for the way she imagined her friends earlier.
'You can be my slave for the rest of the year,' Erin joked. 'Seriously though, you only broke your face because you were trying to stop me from getting hurt, so if you think about it, I'm the one who owes you. When are you coming back?'
'The doctor says that I'm not supposed to go near horses for four to five weeks, but only because they might bump my face accidentally, so I'm sure it would be OK if I just stood out of the way.'
'Yeah,' Erin agreed. 'You could just stay on the other side of the fence. That would be all right.'
'And Blue has nice manners and he would never bump me, so I don't think he counts.'
'Or Bandit,' Erin added. 'You'll have to come to the barbecue tomorrow anyway. Everyone will be there. I'm pretty sure that it's compulsory since you're staff.'
'Definitely. So basically it means that I just can't go in with the bad horses.'
Shelby was glad she had talked to Erin. It made her realise that the dumb fracture was not going to be a problem at all. One thing that Erin said did worry her -- everyone will be there. That meant Tammy too. Tammy would never miss an opportunity to tell everyone how she thought the stables should be run.
Shelby was going to have to find a way to get fifty dollars back in Tammy's tack room before lunchtime Sunday.
24 Night Ride
The only way Shelby could stay awake was to sit at her desk. A few times she heard the squeaky board in the hallway as her parents came to check on her. She would jump into bed and pull up the covers before the door opened.
At first she tried reading her English novel, but then she switched to her dog-eared, chocolate-stained, quarto edition of The Complete Book of the Horse.
The painkillers were making her extra drowsy and so she passed the time writing a list of breeds alphabetically, then by size, then by order in which she intended to buy them when she was a grown-up.
Finally, she heard the television turn off and her parents moving about in the bathroom, brushing their teeth as they prepared for bed.
Shelby waited for ten minutes after her parents' bedroom door closed and then left the house by the laundry door at the back of the house. She collected 'Misty', her old bike, which she had stashed next to the back gate earlier in the evening.
When she hit the colder air her face began to ache. The painkiller was wearing off, but she didn't want to take another one. She was groggy enough already.
Shelby stood on the gutter in front of her house. The front windows were dark and blank. She could vaguely see her own reflection from the streetlight.
For a moment she felt a wave of uncertainty wash over her. She'd gone out in the night without permission before, and she'd been in trouble.
If she asked her parents they would say no. They wouldn't understand why it couldn't wait until tomorrow. She wondered if it was worth going. It would be so much nicer to curl up under the doona.
Then she had a vision of the scene at the barbecue when Tammy realised her money was gone.
The day would be perfect up until that moment. Everyone would be sympathetic about her cheek, and they'd tell her what a great job she had been doing at the stables. They'd say things like, 'My horse has better manners since you've been working here,' or, 'Our pony is so much easier to handle now.'
She'd see a cute boy -- someone's brother or cousin who had been dragged along, and Shelby would find him staring at her, but when she looked at him he'd blush and turn away.
Shelby and Hayley Crook would accidentally wear the same shirt. 'Twins!' Hayley would laugh, bumping her hip against Shelby's.
Then a voice would shriek out across the arena, halting all conversation, like a siren, or a car alarm.
'Thief! Thief!' she could hear Tammy scream, pointing her finger. Everyone would turn to stare at who she was accusing.
'No, it wasn't me!' Shelby would protest, but then Mrs Edel would step forward. 'It's true. We put a hidden camera in the tack room.'
Clint would roll out a big projector like they had in the hall at school. He would point it towards the back wall of the feed shed, and then everyone could see the giant, grainy, black and white image of Shelby taking the money, on repeat.
'I was going to put it back!' she'd announce, but it would be too late. All the grown-ups would shake their heads.
'It's always the quiet ones you've got to watch,' Shelby could imagine Mrs Crook saying in a loud voice. 'I knew she was sneaky. I never took my eye off her for a second.'
Shelby would overhear the cute boy talking to Erin, saying, 'So what happened to her head, anyway? Did she walk into a bus or something? Freaky! I couldn't stop staring at it all afternoon.'
Then when Erin giggled he'd say, 'Can I get you a Coke or something?' and they'd walk off together.
Shelby shivered in the moist night air. She put her hand in her pocket and squeezed the fifty-dollar note. She'd ride over, put the money back where she found it, and ride back again. No one would ever know. Easy squeezy.
She cycled down the street, round the corner, past the little strip of shops. Each bump jolted her face and her bike was much too small for her, so she rode standing suspended above the pedals. After a while her calves ached as well.
It was too early for the baker. Shelby could see the empty glass cabinets at the front of the shop. In the newsagent the lights around the glass-fronted fridges lit the display racks with a faint glow. She rode on the footpath past the red post-box, the yellow telephone booth and the dark blue charity bin, and then over the gutter and onto the street again.
The bike swung from side to side as she pedalled up the hill and around the bend past the sleeping houses. At the intersection she thrust out her hand to indicate she was turning, even though there was no one to see it.
She still hadn't seen any cars, and she was glad. She had visions of an evil stranger dragging her into a van like she'd seen on Law and Order.
There were semitrailers thundering along Gully Way, but none of them looked like they were going to stop and kidnap her. The shoulder of the road was smooth so Shelby sat on the seat.
She wasn't far away now. She wondered if she should ride straight in, as though turning up in the middle of the night was a normal thing to do, or whether she should try to sneak in.
She could say that she was coming to visit Blue. Shelby had often gone to visit him at night when he lived just down the road -- especially when he first arrived. She would creep out and just sit in the paddock with him watching him graze -- not believing he was really all hers.
If Mrs Edel caught her Shelby decided she would act surprised. 'I thought you knew I came here at night.' But Mrs Edel might ring Shelby's mum before she got a chance to get to the stables, and then it would all be for nothing.
At the edge of the Edels' property she stopped and dumped the bike in the long grass on the verge. The fence here was electric as well as post and rail, so she climbed through cautiously.
Shelby strolled across the paddock, with her hands in her pockets, trying to look as casual as possible, glad that she had chosen dark clothes.
There were two Arabians in this paddock and as she approached they began to snort suspiciously.
'It's OK,' she said, holding out her hand.
The mare stretched her neck out as far as it would go.
'That's right. You know me. I bring you hay. I should be one of your favourite people.'
The mare snorted again and then skipped back, spooking the gelding. They took flight -- racing across the paddock with their tails in the air, then spinning around and galloping back. Shelby had never realised how loud the drumming of hooves across the ground could be.
She squatted down, hoping that they would calm down, but she must have looked even more like a predator than before.
One of the Arabs stopped still, nostrils flared, and then let out an ear-splitting whinny. Somewhere further inside the property a pony answered with a shrill neigh, and then another and another, like a Mexican wave.
In the next paddock a bald-faced quarter horse started a high-stepping trot up and down the fence-line, as if he were a sentry on duty.
Beyond him a pair of thoroughbreds thundered around the perimeter of their paddock, bucking and leaping. Somewhere in the stables a pair of hooves kicked a wooden door with a thud. This started a general rumble as horses moved around in their boxes.
'Oh, great,' Shelby groaned.
She sat down cross-legged and waited. They had to stop eventually.
The two Arabs found her even more frightening sitting down. One of them snorted like a bull, and then danced around the other. Shelby stood up again and walked closer holding out her hand.
The veranda light came on and then the flyscreen door squeaked open. Shelby could see the shadow of Mrs Edel pushing her feet into gumboots on the top step. She had a torch and she swung it over the paddock.
Shelby dropped down flat, her heart beating fast. I'm allowed to be here, she told herself, but inside she knew no one would ever believe her made-up story. She felt like a trespasser as well as a thief.
Shelby could see the torchlight move and shake as Mrs Edel came across to the fence. She could hear her boots crunching across the gravel driveway, and then the chink of metal as she opened the gate latch.
If Mrs Edel caught her lying out here Shelby would be so embarrassed. It would be horrifying if Mrs Edel thought she was a bad influence on Lindsey. She could imagine her talking with Mrs Crook: 'Do you remember that terrible Shelby girl who used to come around here? She was such a dreadful influence on our girls.'
'I know! Some children are just born wicked.'
Shelby could hear the whispering sound of Mrs Edel's boots brushing through the long grass towards where she lay.
What should I do? she thought, panicking. I could pretend to be asleep! She lay on her back with her eyes scrunched shut. I'll say I sleepwalked. No, that's dumb. Think, Shelby!
But she couldn't think of anything. The sound of the boots stopped. Shelby held her breath, not daring to open her eyes.
'You silly, silly girl!' Mrs Edel said.
25 Cornered
Shelby waited for the torchlight to shine across her face. She opened her eye a fraction, expecting to see Lindsey's mum looming over her. It took her a moment to realise that Mrs Edel was speaking to the Arabian mare.
Shelby lifted up her head, risking a peek. Only a few metres away the mare rested her chin on Mrs Edel's shoulder. Mrs Edel had her back to Shelby and stroked the horse around the ears. 'What's all this fussing about, you silly girl?' she murmured.
In the next paddock the quarter horse ended his vigil and watched on with interest. The thoroughbreds slowed to a walk and then bent their heads to graze.
Shelby ducked as Mrs Edel swept the paddock once more with the torch before she turned back to the house.
She stayed still in the long grass until the veranda light went out. Her cheek was throbbing now and her head pounded. What she wanted to do most of all was lie still and sleep. She thought about how cosy it would be lying in bed. But first she had something to do, and she'd come this far.
This time as she walked across the paddock the two horses ignored her completely. Typical, she thought.
She crept around the back of the stable block, out of sight of the house. She could hear the horses moving around inside and she hummed softly, so as not to startle them.
Soon she could see Ajax's stable at the end of the row. In the gloom she could just make out the big gelding standing in the stable with his ears laid back. He was leaning his weight on one hind leg, and it made his rump look even more sloping and bony than normal. She slipped through the gate.
'Hey there, big fella. Aren't you just the meanest boy in the whole world?' she said, trying to sound bright. Shelby edged around the front of him, keeping her hand on his chest or shoulder. Once she was past him Ajax swished his tail.
Shelby pulled the fifty-dollar note out of her pocket and crumpled it in her hand.
The tack room door creaked as it swung away from her hand. Shelby could hear Ajax's hooves rustling through the rice hulls as he moved around behind her. She tossed the note underhand. When it landed on the wooden floor it unfurled like flower petals.
All done! Shelby smiled. That was much easier than she had thought. Now she could go home to her wonderful, warm, snuggly bed.
She turned and took a step forward. She didn't know what had happened at first, but she was moving backwards and she couldn't breathe. She felt the second blow full in the stomach. One hoof hit her in the guts -- right over her belly button. The other slid across her hip. She felt like throwing up.
Shelby raised her arms and tried to take a step backwards to regain balance, but the back of her calf caught on the tack room doorsill and she fell into the room.
A brief image appeared in her mind of the appaloosa filly stuck in a corner of the paddock, squealing with fear and panic, then the doctor's face, like a ghost, in front of her eyes, saying, 'Keep away from horses for at least four to five weeks.' Inside her head, she heard her own voice telling Erin on the phone, 'I just can't go in with the bad horses,' and then the back of her head hit the wooden floor.
26 Busted like Custard
'Wake up!'
Shelby swam back into consciousness, and immediately wished for sleep. Her head pounded and her cheekbone felt as though it was so swollen that her skin would burst like an overripe tomato.
Her chest hurt too, and there was a rattling sensation inside when she breathed. That was a new one to add to the list of pains, along with the ache in her stomach, and the sharp stabbing sensation over her hip.
Two strong arms gathered her up -- one around her shoulders and the other under her knees. She could smell a leathery scent, like the smell of the saddlery, but crossed with a musky aroma. She opened her eyes.
'Clint,' she mumbled.
'Don't move. Let's get you inside and then we can have a proper look at you.' He swept her up and carried her across the stable and into the laneway.
It was still quite dark, although Shelby thought the light had a pinkish-grey quality, as though it was not far from dawn. She must have blacked-out for hours! Then she remembered she had awoken at some stage during the night, but her head hurt, so she lay still until sleep washed over her again.
'It looks like you might have broken your cheekbone. You'll be lucky if he hasn't fractured your skull. I'll get Brenda to phone an ambulance. He's a monster, that horse. Maybe this time they'll shoot him. I'll shoot him myself!'
'No! You don't understand.' Shelby struggled. 'I broke my cheek before. Please don't take me inside. I'll be fine. I just need to get home.'
Clint wasn't listening. He was almost running now. 'Lord knows how long you've been lying there! I'm sure your parents are sick with worry.'
'Let me go!' Shelby struggled more vigorously, and Clint's grip toughened. 'No! I broke my face on Friday! It wasn't Ajax, it was Hotty. You know -- the chestnut. I've been to the hospital already. Ajax kicked me in the guts. I must have hit my head when I fell down.'
'Then what are you doing . . .?' Clint slowed. Realisation crossed his face. 'Oh, this is about the money.'
He loosened his hold under her knees. Shelby swung to the ground. She moved away, looking down, straightening her clothing to avoid his eyes.
'Shelly Shoes.' He sighed.
'Are you going to dob on me?'
Clint rubbed his face with his hand.
'What are you doing here anyway?' she asked.
He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. 'I'm trucking some horses up the coast for a mate. I thought I'd get an early start so I can be back for the barbecue. I just dropped in to see if Tammy had left my payment.'
They stared at each other for a moment.
'I don't suppose your parents know where you are.'
Shelby shook her head.
He sighed again, hands on hips, then cast his eyes around, as though he was looking for something.
'Come on then. I'll run you home.'
Shelby climbed into the passenger side of Clint's truck and gingerly secured her seatbelt over her sore hip. She showed him where she had left her bike, waiting in the cab while he placed it in the back.
Clint didn't say anything until they pulled out onto Gully Way.
'I didn't want it to be you, Shelby.'
He was talking about the fifty dollars. She knew she was in trouble, because he wasn't using his nickname for her.
She bit her lip and answered quietly. 'I didn't know it was for you. I thought Tammy had dropped it and so I picked it up when I was doing the feeds. I meant to give it to Mrs Edel when I'd finished, but I forgot about it. When I remembered I wanted to give it back as soon as I could, so I snuck out tonight.'
Clint didn't answer.
'I wanted to put it back straight away, because I didn't want anyone to think I was a stealer.'
He nodded. It was a plausible story. Clint believed it because he wanted it to be the truth. Shelby wished it were.
He sighed again. 'This is very awkward. You can't just go running around in the middle of the night, Shelby. I should be taking you straight to hospital. You've probably got pneumonia already, and internal bleeding. And what if your parents see me dropping you off at this hour? Can't you see that I will get into trouble too? You've put me in a terrible position.'
'I'm sorry,' she said looking at her hands. 'You could just drop me at the shops.'
'No, I'll take you all the way, but if your parents are awake I'm telling them where I found you, and I'll tell them that you need a bit of discipline in your life. I'm serious! You're out of control, Shelby. You used to be such a good girl.'
They drove along for another few minutes in silence.
'Tell me what happened to your face.'
She explained what had happened.
'This gift horse you girls bought is turning out to be quite a handful, isn't she?'
'Mm,' she murmured, watching the road ahead.
'Lucky you girls have got four months to whip her into shape before Brenda's birthday.'
Shelby blinked. They were driving past the bakery, which was open now. The smells wafted through the air vents.
'Brenda is a Virgo. We've joked about it, because Virgos are finicky.' Clint glanced at her. 'Are you sure you don't have anything else you want to tell me while you're already in trouble?'
She didn't say anything. They were only around the corner now. Shelby was staring intently through the windscreen and hoping that the lights in her house would be out. The truck turned onto the street and Shelby's house was in darkness. She sat back in her seat, exhaling with relief.
'Thank you, Clint, and I'm really sorry.'
'You're very lucky,' he repeated, pulling on the handbrake.
Shelby slid out of the cab and waited for him to retrieve her bike. 'It won't happen again,' she said.
Clint shook his head. 'No more midnight adventures!' And then he climbed back into the cab.
Shelby wheeled the bike up the driveway and leaned it against the side of the house. She slipped through the laundry door, changed and hopped into bed. Her body was aching all over and she was relieved to be lying down where it was soft. She rested her hand on her sore stomach, wondering if it would bruise as badly as her face.
It wouldn't happen again. Clint had his money.
Tammy need never know that it was lost. Erin was going to help out at the stables until she was well, and Hotty would be sold before she broke anyone else. Shelby smiled and closed her eyes. She didn't need to worry about anything. Soon everything was going to go back to normal.
27 Annual Barbecue
Shelby walked along the row of tables with her paper plate, surveying the possibilities. Mrs Crook had made the massive container of potato salad. Shelby could tell because she was standing behind it, holding the serving spoon and doling out scoops to the worthy.
There were fluffy bread rolls with little squares of butter in alfoil, slices of beetroot, and pineapple chunks. There was coleslaw, tabbouleh and a platter of marinated chicken wings. Erin's mum had brought those slimy green dolmades again -- much to Erin's horror -- but, judging from the number left in the Tupperware dish, the adults were enjoying them.
One of the mums was flipping sausages and minute steaks on the barbecue. The other parents hovered nearby, offering advice -- ready to take over the tongs and egg-slice at the first opportunity.
Shelby had taken a painkiller before they left home. She felt a little bit bleary and vague, like when you wake up in the middle of a dream. Her face didn't hurt, but she could feel a steady thrum of discomfort on one side of her head. When she woke up that morning there was a hoof-shaped bruise on her stomach and a graze on her hip, but neither was hurting now.
She wasn't sure if eating was still going to be painful so she experimented, tucking a wedge of tomato between her teeth on the undamaged side of her face. It wasn't too bad, but she realised she wasn't hungry. Wow! I don't think I've ever lost my appetite before, she thought.
Despite Mrs Edel's request, several of the families had brought their dogs, and a group of the younger girls had dragged the jumps out from where they had been stacked in the corner and were holding a jumping competition for all the dogs.
Lindsey had volunteered to be the judge so she could make sure that it didn't become too rowdy. Erin, on the other hand, was contributing to the raucousness. She was sitting on one of the brightly coloured forty-four-gallon drums, and when a round was complete she'd bang on it with one of her hands. In her other hand she was using one of the arena's witch's hats to provide a running commentary.
There was a tan border collie who was doing very well, but not all of the dogs caught on so quickly. A furry black cocker spaniel kept ducking under the brightly coloured poles.
'Once again we have Olivia and Spanky approaching the jump at a nice loping canter. Will Spanky make it over this time? Errrr!' called Erin, mimicking a buzzer.
The dog's young owner shouted, 'Spanky! Naughty boy!' Spanky glanced up at her, bounding, tongue lolling, and then at the next jump he slipped under the pole again.
'What a shame. That's another penalty, eliminating this fine combination once again from the competition. Will the judge overlook this obvious disqualification one more time?' A nod from Lindsey. 'Yes, I thought so,' mused Erin.
Shelby smiled and held her sore cheek.
She was especially happy today because one of the conditions her mum set out for her coming to the barbecue was that her dad stayed, instead of dropping her off, like he usually did.
'I think you'll be too tired to stay the whole time,' her mother had said in the morning. 'You do appreciate that your dad will have to hang around the whole time like a soccer parent, don't you?'
Shelby realised that her parents thought she wouldn't want them there. She shook her head. All this time she'd hoped that her mum and dad would become friendly with the other horsey parents and get involved at Pony Club, and meanwhile her parents had been studiously giving her space to pursue her hobby without interference.
When they first arrived at the barbecue Erin's father had handed her dad a light beer and the two of them wandered over to the corner of the arena, where all the eskies were stacked, to talk with Mr Crook.
Erin's dad was waving his hands in the air, explaining something -- his beer sloshing away in the bottle -- and then all three of them burst into laughter. Shelby hoped that her dad would find common ground with the others.
Clint sauntered over to join them. She bit her lip, but then Clint tipped his hat towards her. Clint was no dobber. Shelby's dad shook Clint's hand and they all talked together, relaxed and at ease with each other.
Shelby added a steak sandwich with onions to her uneaten salads and took the plate to her father.
'Thanks, honey!' He seemed genuinely pleased.
'Oy! Where's mine?' asked Clint.
'Hales!' Mr Crook called over to the other side of the arena, where Hayley was standing with Monica and Kim -- two of the girls who rented the stables opposite the Crooks. 'Do you see this?' He pointed to Shelby. 'This is how a dutiful daughter behaves.'
Hayley poked her tongue out and then turned back to her chums.
Shelby blushed. She didn't want people to think she was a suck-up. Her dad ruffled the top of her head. 'Go and get something for yourself, honey.'
Over her father's shoulder she saw Tammy sashaying along the fence and in through the gate, followed by two friends. Shelby quickly turned around, hiding behind Miss Anita, who was talking with a group of parents. Shelby peeked over a tall lady's shoulder.
'Clint! There you are.' Tammy beamed. 'This is my extraordinary farrier. You saw how spirited Ajax was. Not everyone can handle him, but Clint is a genius,' she told her friends, and then she leaned forward and spoke to Clint out of the side of her mouth. 'Did you get the money I left for you?'
Clint crossed his arms. 'Eventually. You might want to put a weight on it next time, or you could pay me in person. A lot of my clients like to be there to talk about the health of their horse's hooves.'
Tammy waved her arm. 'I'm sure if there was a problem you'd ring me.'
Just then Miss Anita and her companions moved away, leaving Shelby face to face with Tammy. Shelby blushed furiously.
'Clint told me that Ajax kicked you. I'm really sorry that happened,' she said.
'That's OK,' Shelby mumbled.
'You know, Ajax is a real horse -- not like those little ponies you're used to,' Tammy continued. 'I might suggest to Brenda that she leaves handling horses to people with more experience.' Tammy turned around and led her friends to the food table.
Shelby shook her head, glad at least that it was over. Clint arched an eyebrow at her, but he didn't say anything.
A few moments later Mrs Edel stood up on a crate and banged a caterer's size tomato sauce bottle with a big plastic spoon.
'If I could have your attention, I would like to begin the formal part of the afternoon.'
Shelby's dad glanced around, embarrassed, looking for a place to dump his plate and then escape, but the other three men insisted that he stay.
'After all, your family keeps a horse here too,' said Mr Crook.
'I suppose.' Shelby's dad shrugged and then helped himself to a second steak sandwich.
Lindsey's mum talked about how the drought had been affecting the pastures. She talked about the weed management plan for the next few months. She explained the new paperwork and procedures for insurance, and went over the rules about the driveway and float parking.
Shelby edged through the crowd to Lindsey and Erin, who were still at the mini jumping circuit. The two girls scooted over so that Shelby could fit on the end of the drum. Erin draped an arm around Lindsey's neck and rested her head on Shelby's shoulder. Shelby looked up to see Hayley staring at them, but Hayley quickly looked away.
'Boring!' Lindsey mumbled, rolling her eyes.
Shelby grimaced, but secretly she was interested in what Mrs Edel was saying, because one day she was going to run a place like this. Lindsey's mum did a pretty good job of it. Shelby could learn a lot from her.
'I've been going through the paperwork and some of the information seems to be incorrect,' said Mrs Edel. 'Next time you are making a payment please attach your contact details so that we can check it against our database.'
The crowd started to murmur, anticipating that Mrs Edel was almost finished.
'Please make sure that your payments are up to date,' she yelled over the top of them. 'Now, does anyone know Gwen Stefani? Is she here today? I haven't been able to find her anywhere.'
At first there was silence, and then there was a general mumbling and rumbling as those assembled talked amongst themselves. Shelby could hear little grabs of conversations.
'Isn't she the president of the Welsh Pony and Cob Society?' asked Olivia's mother. The cocker spaniel at her feet strained against his lead.
'No, you're thinking of Gladys Stephens. She was the treasurer,' replied Mr Crook.
'I know a Gwen Barton who used to have draught horses,' said Erin's mum. 'She volunteers at the school canteen on Wednesdays.'
'Maybe Stefani is her married name?' suggested the mum who had cooked the sausages.
'That name is really familiar to me,' said Mrs Crook, tapping her chin with her index finger. 'Where's Hales? She'll remember.'
'It's quite an unusual name really. How many of them can there be?' asked Miss Anita.
The rumbling got louder and louder as the different groups compared information.
'Did she say Gwen Stefani?' shrieked Hayley's friend Kim. 'No way!'
'She's famous!' yelled Monica.
Erin grabbed Shelby's hand. She was squeezing so hard that it hurt. She must have been crushing Lindsey's hand too.
Hayley Crook manoeuvred through the crowd towards them.
The crowd hit fever pitch. Girls were screaming.
'Has she been here? OMIGOD! Gwen Stefani was here!'
'Which horse is Gwen Stefani's?' one parent roared.
'Yeah! We want to see it!' Mrs Crook demanded.
Mrs Edel was banging away on the tomato sauce bottle trying to call the mob to order.
'What are we going to do?' whispered Lindsey.
'I don't know!' wailed Erin.
'Shh! Don't panic!' said Shelby.
'Are you ready to tell me what's going on yet?' Hayley asked with her hands on her hips.
'It's not Gwen Stefani's. It's our horse,' Erin blurted. 'We made up the name because we didn't want our parents to know.'
'Der,' said Hayley. 'Clint knows though, right?'
They looked at each other. 'Maybe,' admitted Lindsey.
'No way!' said Erin.
'Well, he's headed this way!' said Hayley.
Shelby could see Clint striding across the arena. With each step his boots sent a spray of sand behind him.
The crowd had split into two. The group in the middle were mostly girls shouting hysterically at one another. All the dogs were barking, capering around and wagging their tails. On the other side of the arena a larger group of the parents, including Shelby's dad and Mr Crook, stood in a semicircle, watching on, still eating and sipping their drinks, as though this were some kind of performance.
It was so loud that Shelby could hardly hear Clint when he spoke. 'Not so lucky now, Shelly Shoes.' Clint had a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
'You're enjoying this!'
He shrugged. 'Sometimes it's good to see people getting their just desserts.'
Shelby's mouth dropped open. 'I did get kicked in the head already!' She pointed to her face.
'Yes, but that's not funny. This, though -- this is gold! I can't wait to tell the missus. She asks me about you girls every day when I walk in the door. "What have they done now?" It's like one of those stories on the radio that you hear in instalments.'
'You've known from the beginning?' asked Erin.
Clint chuckled. 'That little pony has been bouncing around the sales for months. Don't you remember all the fellas having a go at me -- talking about whose turn it was? Some silly fool tried to get her in a box-trailer once. That's why they made those jokes about folding her up and putting her in my pocket.'
Shelby thought back. 'Oh, yeah.' It made sense now. At the time it had just seemed like teasing.
'Was Gwen Stefani here?' Kim shouted at Mrs Edel. The hysterical crowd of girls swarmed around Lindsey's mum.
'I don't know!' Mrs Edel shouted back. 'Lindsey took the booking.'
The whole congregation swivelled around looking for Lindsey. They found her and surged forward.
'Well?' asked Mrs Edel.
'Yes, Lindsey, the people are waiting,' Clint said.
Lindsey's face was white and her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish.
28 Hanging Out withHayley
Hayley cupped her hands around her mouth. 'It's a chestnut mare! She's in the back paddock.'
The crowd in the middle of the arena started talking excitedly again. Some of the younger girls bounded out of the arena and ran down the lane, each wanting to be the first to spot Gwen Stefani's horse. Soon the rest of the crowd streamed after them.
Lindsey's mother was in the middle, being pushed along like a twig in a river, still with her tomato sauce bottle in hand. One of the ladies explained to her who Gwen Stefani was.
'A singer?' Mrs Edel looked lost. 'American? You're sure? Then why is she so far behind? I should have been charging double! Lindsey, is this true?'
A group surrounded Lindsey, herding her down the laneway and peppering her with questions. She tried to answer, but then someone else would interrupt with another question.
'No, I didn't see her in person . . . I have no idea why she would keep it here . . . I've never seen her ride . . . I can't remember what sort of float it was.'
The group of spectators watched them head down the laneway and then returned to the food. Some tucked into the potato salad while Mrs Crook was distracted. Shelby heard her father ask, 'So is it always like this?'
Hayley, Erin and Shelby followed the group down the laneway at a discreet distance. 'Are you going to tell?' Shelby asked Hayley.
Hayley frowned. 'Why should I help you? You never include me in any of your things. How do you think it feels? You get to have all the fun and do whatever you want.' Her mouth turned down at the sides and she crossed her arms. 'I hear you laughing, and meanwhile, I just go round and round in circles while Mum yells, "Win! Win! Win!" at me. It's not fair.'
Erin shook her head, confused. 'You want to hang out with us?'
Hayley shrugged. The rims of her eyes were turning red. She wasn't exactly crying, but Shelby didn't think she was far away from it.
The three girls stared at each other for a moment and then Shelby could feel the sides of her mouth twitching. She started to giggle.
'What?' Hayley looked puzzled.
Soon Shelby had tears in her eyes. She was laughing so much that her nose scrunched along the top. Her cheek hurt, and she held it, but she couldn't stop giggling. Erin laughed until she snorted and then got the hiccups, which set the other two off. Soon all three of the girls were laughing together.
'You want to hang out with us!' Erin said again, between breaths.
'Why is that so funny?' Hayley asked, still grinning.
Shelby shook her head. She thought about telling Hayley that being Shelby or Lindsey, or even Erin, wasn't that great most of the time. They bickered between themselves. They didn't always support each other like they should and sometimes achieving the goals they set for themselves was a struggle -- but then, she'd thought being Hayley Crook would be the best thing ever. From the sounds of it, it was a lot of pressure, and lonely too.
She put her hand on Hayley's shoulder. 'Hales, you can hang out with us whenever you want.'
By the time the girls had made it through the gate the crowd had gathered at the ridge. The herd of horses was standing on the edge of the hill warily eyeing the people.
'It must be that one,' said Mrs Edel, pointing to Hotty. 'That's the only one I don't recognise.'
The group looked on, quiet for a moment.
'It's a bit small,' commented Miss Anita.
'Yeah, I was expecting -- I dunno, something a bit more flash!' said Kim.
Monica said, 'I thought it would be tobiano, for some reason -- a mustang or something -- like in Hidalgo.'
'That's not really Gwen Stefani's horse, is it?' asked Olivia, tugging on the sleeve of her mum's shirt.
'I don't think it's true, sweetheart,' her mother answered.
'Well then, whose horse is it?' asked Mrs Edel.
29 A Confession
'Lindsey?' Mrs Edel asked.
Shelby's heart beat fast. She should confess and save her friend -- but what if Mrs Edel was so cranky that she sacked Shelby? Where would she keep Blue?
She wondered if Erin would do it. Erin was in the best position, because she had the least to lose, and people expected this kind of thing from Erin.
Shelby knew she should do it herself. It had been her idea in the first place, and if she hadn't bid then Hotty wouldn't be there. Lindsey's mum might evict her, but she would find a new place. It wasn't fair to let Lindsey take all the blame.
She opened her mouth.
'It's my horse.'
Shelby turned, surprised. Hayley had taken the words out of her mouth.
'Hayley!' Mrs Crook's voice wavered with emotion. She slapped her hands to her cheeks and tears sprang into her eyes.
Shelby was thinking that Hayley was very brave, when she realised that Mrs Crook's tears were of joy.
'I thought you were losing interest! Looking after the horses is our special time together. It's so precious to me, and I was sure that you were ready to move on. Oh, Hales!' She rushed forward and wrapped Hayley in a bear hug. 'And now you've gone and bought a pony all by yourself. I'm so proud of you.' She rubbed her daughter's shoulders so fast that Hayley's head jiggled. Mrs Crook looked at Hotty. 'And such a pretty pony too! Oh, this is the best surprise a mother could ever receive.'
Shelby watched all the other mothers trading glances and guessed that they didn't agree.
30 A Perfect Match
It was the Saturday after the barbecue. The four girls sat on the edge of Lindsey's veranda with their gumboots swinging back and forth. Hayley and Erin had finished their lessons. There were no more trail rides to lead. Shelby and Lindsey had already mucked out the stables, and the afternoon feed was still hours away.
Mrs Crook was about to put Hotty on the float and the girls were staying nearby in case she needed help.
'So what did the vet say?' asked Shelby.
'There's nothing physically wrong with her,' Hayley answered. 'It's behavioural. Basically she's a nutcase. Mum wants to get a shrink, but there's no rush. We're not going to ride her anyway.'
'Like a horse counsellor?' asked Shelby. She didn't know such a job existed. That was a career she hadn't considered before.
'Yeah, I know,' said Hayley, rolling her eyes. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her jodhpurs and handed each of the girls a fifty-dollar note.
'You don't have to do that!' Lindsey protested.
Hayley shrugged. 'I'm buying her from you guys. It's only fair. Besides, it's no big deal. You've all lost more than fifty bucks from the whole thing anyway.'
'Yeah, I'm grounded for a gazillion years for messing with the accounts,' Lindsey groaned.
'But at least all your friends come over every day, anyway. Shelby's lost her saddle,' Erin said. 'And I'm not allowed to vote on Australian Idol for a whole year! My dad even confiscated my phone.'
The girls sat in silence. In the paddock across the driveway the two Arabs stood near the water trough taking it in turns to drink. Beyond them Shelby could make out Blue and Hiccup standing under a tree, dozing nose-to-tail.
Shelby leaned back, slipping off her gumboots and wiggling her toes.
'Hey, I've got those exact same socks!' Hayley said. 'Twins!'
Shelby smiled.
'So, what are you going to do with CC anyway?' Erin asked.
'Mum's getting her registered. She's found some imported Riding Pony stallion she wants to put her to.'
'I knew she was good quality!' said Shelby. 'I'm telling you, I have an eye for it.'
'Sorry, Hales,' Lindsey said, 'she's not my cup of tea. I don't like the little ones.'
'That's OK -- neither do I, really.' Hayley smiled. 'But she is well put together and quite distinctive. We'll have no trouble getting papers for her.'
'Hey, we should start a business where we buy horses from the sales, do them up, and then sell them,' suggested Erin, sitting up straight.
'I'm only buying this one,' Hayley said, quickly.
Erin was getting excited by the idea. 'We all have different skills; we could train some brilliant all-rounders. People would call it The Erinshelindhale Method.'
'Didn't you just hear the part about how we all lost out on this fantastic scheme?' Lindsey asked.
'I think it's a great idea, Erin, but we'll have to wait till we're older and have our own money,' said Shelby.
'OK, you're on. Are you two in?'
'No way!' said Lindsey.
Hayley shrugged.
'Fine! It will have to be The Erinshel Method then. You'll be sad when we're famous, and everyone in the world is wearing an Erinshel tee-shirt except you. Then when you come to one of our clinics and bring all your friends, and we go, "I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?" you will be sooo embarrassed. That's if we speak to you at all. You'll regret this day for the rest of your life. You have five seconds to change your mind. Five, four, three . . .'
'I'm willing to take that risk,' interrupted Lindsey.
'Two, two and a half, two and three-quarters . . .'
'You do realise you're counting upwards now?' added Hayley.
'One, zero! Errrr! You've just missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime.'
Neither of the girls looked particularly distressed.
'So what are you going to call her?' asked Erin. Lindsey and Shelby glanced at each other and then looked quickly away.
'We're been thinking about Quicksmart,' said Hayley. 'She'd be Smarty for short -- unless we find she has a registered name already.'
Shelby liked it.
'So who's this stallion?' Lindsey asked.
Hayley waved her hand. 'Mum is so excited. Apparently he's won everything everywhere. They even take him to the UK to do a season there every year. Hotty will stay agisted at the owner's stud until she's foaled.'
'Oh no!' groaned Lindsey. 'Instead of having one little chestnut horse you don't want . . .'
Hayley put her hands over her face. 'I know! I'll have two.'
Erin giggled. 'Well, at least you have a year -- two, really -- before you can do anything with either of them.'
'And by then you'll be even more too big for her!' added Shelby.
They watched while Hotty refused to get on the float -- kicking and squealing her heart out near the tailgate. Jill Crook stood at the end of the lead rope kicking and squealing right back.
'I know what you're all thinking,' Hayley said. 'It's a match made in heaven!' Shelby couldn't help but laugh. 'Yes, I think you're right. She wasn't the horse for me after all.'
'Not the horse for us, don't you mean?' teased Erin.
Shelby put her arm around Erin's shoulder and smiled. 'Yes, of course! That's what I meant.'
About the author
Alyssa Brugman's first novel, Finding Grace, was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's and Queensland Premier's Literary Awards and the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year (Older Readers). It was a Commended Book in the 2002 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and has been translated into Dutch (for which it was shortlisted for the 'Gouden Zoen' Award), Danish and German.
Walking Naked, Alyssa's second novel, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and awarded Honour Book in the 2003 CBCA Book of the Year (Older Readers). It is distributed in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium. Alyssa's third novel for young adults, Being Bindy, was released in 2004. It was a Notable Book in the CBCA Book of the Year Awards, and shortlisted for the Children's Peace Literature Award.
Hot Potato is the sequel to For Sale or Swap and Beginner's Luck, which were published in 2005.
Alyssa lives in the Hunter Valley, where she writes full-time and keeps four horses. Shadow, her first pony, is a bay mare in her early thirties. Istana Khazra is a chestnut Arab mare. Greenwood Elizabeth is a six-year-old grey Riding Pony mare. Reddy is a bay thoroughbred gelding who belongs to Alyssa's sister.

