'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!'
Hot Potato Page 9
