I boiled up potato peelings for Prince and begged carrot peelings and cabbage leaves from my friends. I spent ages just talking to him, telling him that next year he would have a shelter and a brand-new waterproof rug. For my birthday I asked for money, nothing else. There wasn’t much babysitting available now and I needed every penny I could earn for hay.
I stopped seeing Richard when he told me I was beginning to look like a horse. I didn’t miss him because Prince was taking up my spare time.
Soon Prince grew a thick coat. Frosts arrived and ice formed on the two water buckets I had bought. Prince was always hungry. There was almost nothing left for him to eat in the field now, not a nettle and hardly a blade of grass. As the days grew shorter I had less and less time to spend with Prince. On weekdays it was still dark in the mornings when I fed him, and dark when I returned from school in the evenings. In the end my torch battery ran out and I hadn’t the money to buy another one. Then Richard dropped in one evening.
“Diane’s having a disco at her place on Saturday night. How about coming? It doesn’t start till seven, so it won’t affect your pony watching,” he said with a laugh.
“Go on, go. You haven’t been anywhere for ages,” Mum said.
“But I haven’t anything to wear and look at my hair!” I wailed.
“It doesn’t matter. Jeans will do,” Richard said. “You must go out sometimes.”
I fed Prince quickly that evening. Then I washed my hair and had a bath. Mum lent me a blouse and I put on my best jeans and some high-heeled boots which were too small and pinched my toes. Dad took me to the disco in the car. “Don’t be late, do you hear, Sharon. Be back by ten, love. Ring up when you’re ready to leave.”
“Ten! Don’t be daft, Dad. Midnight’s more likely,” I cried.
It was lovely to be with my friends again. The music was deafening. And straight away Richard seized me by the arm crying, “Come on, you pony girl, have a drink.”
Everybody seemed pleased to see me. I felt as though I had been away for a long time. Diane had changed her hairstyle. Bobby was laughing. They were all there, all my friends. There were wonderful eats, and drinks which were different colours – blue lagoons and green lagoons, Diane called them.
“They’re cocktails, but nearly all lemonade. So don’t worry, Sharon, they won’t make you drunk,” she cried, handing me another and another.
“I must be home by midnight. Dad will kill me if I’m not,” I said.
“You will be. Don’t look so worried, Sharon,” said Richard, laughing.
After a time everyone seemed to be a long way off, rather as though I was looking through binoculars the wrong way round. Then I started to feel giddy.
“She had better lie down for a bit,” Diane said, and she sounded hazy and miles away, and everything was going round and round. I lay on a divan and someone put a blanket over me. I kept thinking of Prince, waiting for me. Several times Diane leaned over me to ask, “Are you all right? Are you sure?” And all I could do was smile in return. Then everyone was gone. Someone had left a side light on, and there was a faint glow from the streetlamp outside.
Diane appeared again. “Are you all right? We’ve spoken to your dad. My mum will run you home first thing, all right?”
I nodded. My head was still spinning and I felt very tired. When I woke again it was morning. My mouth was dry and my head felt on fire. I sat up and started shouting straight away, “What about Prince? I haven’t fed Prince. He’ll be starving.”
“Stop yelling, you’ll wake everyone up,” said Diane, appearing in a dressing-gown. “Calm down. Why did you buy him anyway?”
“Because he needed a home. I’ve got to go home at once,” I cried, looking for my boots. “What’s the time anyway?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
Eleven o’clock! And outside the rain was cascading down.
“Mum will take you,” Diane said. “Mum, where are you, Mum?” Her mother was young and beautiful.
“Don’t you want any breakfast?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I’ve got to feed Prince,” I said.
“Prince is her pony,” explained Diane, sounding exasperated.
A few minutes later I was on my way home, the windscreen wipers working full-speed. “Why can’t your parents feed the pony?” Diane’s mother asked.
“They don’t know anything about ponies,” I said. “Anyway, Mum and Dad are not like that, they’re not that sort of parents; if you know what I mean. They’re always working. And anyway, I didn’t ask them. I told Dad I would be home by midnight.”
There was a horse box parked by the field gate and a small crowd of people. My stomach knotted as I leapt out of the car shouting, “Thanks awfully.” Then I was running towards the field, my heart hammering. Next I saw a police car and slowed to a walk. Mum and Dad were there too.
“There she is, there’s Sharon,” Mum shouted.
“We’re taking your foal to the horse sanctuary,” said a tall, thin woman with a worn face. “He needs a vet and a warm stable and nursing.”
“He got caught in the wire. Some girls on horses went by and he got caught up,” Mum explained. “The girls rang the police.”
But I knew what had happened. Prince had waited and waited for me to feed him and I hadn’t shown up. I had let him down and now he was hurt, and it was my fault.
“It’s the best thing, love,” the policeman said. “We were going to call the RSPCA, but it’s better if he goes to the sanctuary.”
“They would have sent him to us anyway,” the thin lady said.
“But he’s mine,” I said in a small voice.
Prince was in the horse box, one foreleg scarlet with blood. He looked very small and alone.
“It’s for the best, Sharon,” insisted Mum.
“I want him back, when can I have him back?” I asked, shivering in the rain.
“You can come and visit him whenever you like. He’s still yours. You can come and help us. We’re only a bus ride away. We always need people like you,” said the lady from the sanctuary, who told me she was called Melanie Jones. She lifted up the horse box ramp. “It was no life for him here, was it? All alone. He’s only a baby. He needs friends and he needs his hoofs trimmed and he needs worming. But he’s still yours,” she insisted, handing me a tissue. “We aren’t stealing him.”
“Can I see him tomorrow?” I asked.
“Of course, whenever you like. I saw you at the sale. We were bidding against each other for a time. I’ll buy him from you if you like,” she continued. “You saved him from the meat-man, Sharon, and that’s something important.”
I watched the horse box leave. “You could have fed Prince,” I said, turning to my parents. “Just once.”
“Once, twice, all the time, that’s the way it goes. You couldn’t cope, you know you couldn’t. And the Lamberts are selling up; they’re selling the field for building. I didn’t tell you, because I knew you’d be upset, but now I can.” Mum had her arm round my shoulder now, we were both wet to the skin. The police and the horse box had gone. I looked at the field and saw it as a muddy little prison where a small foal had stood all alone waiting for me, because there was no one else. I saw heaps of dung which had grown and grown. The two plastic buckets which never seemed to hold enough water. Prince would have friends now. His hoofs would be trimmed. He wouldn’t stand alone in the rain ever again, waiting by the gate for me to return from school. And soon the field wouldn’t be there either, because dozens of new houses would rise up where Prince had once stood.
“It’s all for the best, love,” Mum said, opening our back door. “You just sit down and have a cuppa. You look terrible. Did you drink alcohol at the party?”
“I don’t know. I passed out and when I woke up it was morning,” I said. “I shouldn’t have gone. I should have stayed and looked after Prince. I thought I would be home by midnight, I thought…” but really I didn’t know what I thought any more. “But I want him to stay mi
ne,” I said slowly, blowing my nose.
“You heard what the lady said. We’ll all go there tomorrow. Dad will take us to the sanctuary, won’t you, Dad?” asked Mum.
Dad was checking the football results. He looked up and nodded. “It’s all right with me,” he said.
So next day the three of us went. Prince was with another foal in a loose box bedded deep in straw. His leg was bandaged. He looked at me and nickered softly and that seemed the nicest thing that had happened to me for a long time. Soon Melanie Jones appeared. “He’s fine. I’m so glad you saved him, Sharon. I was desperate when we couldn’t have him. Sadly, we have limited funds,” she said.
I knelt in the straw and Prince put his head on my shoulder and blew down my neck. And I knew that now he had all the things I could never have given him, which I had wanted him to have so much. “I’ll come every weekend and help, if that’s all right,” I offered.
“That’ll be lovely,” replied Melanie Jones, smiling.
“And I’ll have one of your collecting-boxes too,” I added.
We had arrived late and now it was time to leave. “See you next Saturday then,” I said, getting into the car. “Goodbye.”
A great weight seemed lifted from my shoulders. The struggle for money and spare time for Prince had gone. He wouldn’t be waiting in the muddy field for me any more but I could still see him every weekend and in the holidays. And he would be all right now, whatever happened to me.
“Thank goodness that’s over,” Mum said. “What you would have done without a field I don’t know. Don’t go buying another pony till you’ve got a good job and somewhere decent for him, please, Sharon.”
“I shall make my fortune or marry a farmer,” I answered, and imagined an old farmhouse, acres and acres of land and Prince grazing in the midst of friends, mine again, and safe for ever.
Isobel’s Pony
Christine Pullein-Thompson
“You do remember the children, don’t you?” asked Mum on our way out to the station. “We all met at the British Museum when you were quite small. Clara bought you a packet of fudge.”
I nodded. Clara was Mum’s cousin.
“Shall I call her Aunt Clara?” I asked. There was a knot in my stomach. I hated leaving home, but most of all I hated leaving my dun pony, Crispin.
“Yes, and call George Uncle George. It sounds more polite. I expect Clara will meet you at Meadowhill and – remember – don’t talk to strange men on the train.”
We had reached the station. Mum had made me wear a skirt which I had topped with my favourite sweater: orange with a polo neck.
My train was waiting. “Have a good time,” said Mum, kissing me goodbye. “And don’t worry. Uncle George and Aunt Clara are very kind.”
“Say goodbye to Crispin for me,” I answered, though I had said goodbye to him three times already. “I hope he will be all right. I hope Mr Chambers will remember to check his water. I hope he doesn’t get laminitis. I hope…”
But the train was pulling out of the station and Mum was getting smaller and smaller, until at last I could see her no longer.
I shut the window and tried to read a book, but I couldn’t concentrate. I had never been away on my own before, and I kept wondering what would happen if Aunt Clara and I failed to recognise each other. Or if I alighted at the wrong station. Or if I hated her children. Or, worse still, they hated me.
Meadowhill station was small, and bathed in evening sunlight when I reached it. I could not see Aunt Clara anywhere. I stood on the platform, trying to keep calm, holding my small suitcase. The ticket collector eyed me anxiously. A puppy in a wicker transport basket whined. Outside, birds sang.
“There she is!” shouted a voice, and two boys dashed into the station, while behind them a girl called, “Wait, don’t we need tickets?”
They had long hair and wore jeans and tee shirts. “Isobel Browne?” said the eldest. “Here, let me take your case.”
The girl was dressed in the same way, but her hair was longer still and she wore no shoes.
“I was looking for Aunt Clara,” I said.
“Well, we’d better introduce ourselves,” said the largest boy. “I’m Larry. This is Paul, and this odd-looking female is called Patricia.”
“Shut up, beast,” replied Patricia, aiming a kick at him.
I remembered them as small in neat coats, and with short, brushed hair. In those days they had a nanny. They had been meek and polite, wearing shiny leather shoes and ankle socks.
“Sorry about the old bus,” said Larry, opening the door of a battered car. “The old man won’t subscribe to anything better.”
“Larry gets through a car a month,” said Paul.
“Did you have a good journey?” asked Patricia.
“Yes, thank you.” I felt small and out of place and idiotic in my skirt.
Their house looked across a small, tumbling river to wooded hills. Beside it stood the remains of a castle.
I looked hopefully in the fields for ponies, but there were none. Larry parked the car in front of the house and kicked off his shoes.
“Patricia will show you your room,” he said, thrusting my case at his sister.
She took it and, saying “Beast!” again, led me barefoot up a wide flight of stairs. “He’s mad,” she said. “It’s very sad. Where have your parents gone?”
“Romania and Hungary. Dad’s selling agricultural machinery. It’s the first time Mum’s gone with him,” I replied.
“Lucky them.”
My bedroom window looked across the remains of the castle to the tree-shadowed river. Once the castle must have dominated that particular stretch of the river completely; now only some of its outer walls remained, while inside, thistles grew. I imagined knights stepping out of boats, the peaceful splash of oars. Patricia put my case on a chair.
“Did anyone tell you anything about this place?” she asked, looking at me anxiously. “I mean, are you nervous? Do you get upset easily?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It depends. I would be upset if Crispin died, or Mum or Dad.”
“Of course,” replied Patricia impatiently. “Well, I suppose there’s no point in beating about the bush, but I wish Daddy had told you before you came.”
“What?” I was beginning to feel alarmed. “About what?”
“About our ghost.”
“What sort of ghost?”
I could feel the hair standing up on my neck, but when Patricia said, “It’s a pony,” all my alarm vanished. “Or it may be a horse. I don’t know. It’s grey, anyway,” she continued.
“Well, I don’t mind a horse. I love them. I’ve got a pony of my own.”
“That’s all right then,” said Patricia, sounding relieved. “The poor animal is looking for something. It only comes at this time of the year, and is utterly harmless. See you at dinner – it’s in ten minutes. Owly still beats a gong.” She ran out of the room, slamming the door after her.
I sat on my bed, suddenly homesick. Patricia and her brothers have dreamed up this ghost to frighten me, I thought. What wonderful hospitality! But I’m not going to be frightened, I decided, washing my hands. I’m going to sleep like a top. Wishing that I was as tall and arrogant as my cousins, I put on my oldest pair of jeans. Then a gong boomed and someone called, “Isobel, it’s dinner.”
Aunt Clara and Uncle George were sitting at each end of the large dining-room table. They stood up to shake hands with me. It was all horribly formal. I was made to sit on Uncle George’s right, because I was a guest. Owly waited at table, as she apparently had for the last forty years. She wore large spectacles – which only partially hid large owl-like eyes – a black dress and a plain white apron. She called me “Miss Isobel”. I used my dessert spoon for my soup and mixed up my knives. Aunt Clara and Uncle George talked to me about agricultural machinery – of which I knew nothing. If they had talked about Crispin and the Pony Club, everything would have been all right; as it was, dinner for me was a comp
lete disaster.
Afterwards Patricia suggested a game of Monopoly, and we played until bedtime, sitting at a table in the hall, while Paul sat on the stairs, playing his radio at full volume.
When I went to bed, I found the curtains drawn and my pyjamas waiting for me on my pillow. The rest of my clothes had been unpacked and put away. I was suddenly tired. The morning seemed to belong to another life.
Patricia came in to say goodnight. “Don’t worry about footsteps in the night,” she said. “The boys stay up for hours.”
“I won’t,” I answered, getting into bed.
“Is everything all right?” she asked next, glancing round the room. “Has Owly given you enough towels, soap, everything?”
I nodded. I felt very far from home, and much preferred my own, more humble bedroom with pictures of horses pinned to the walls, and my few rosettes above my bed.
“And remember, if you hear a neigh or two in the night, it’s just our ghost. Nothing to worry about. A few more weeks and he will be gone until next summer.”
“I shall certainly look out if I hear a neigh,” I answered. “I’ve always wanted to see a ghost. But if it’s one of your awful brothers pretending, I shall be absolutely furious. In fact, I shall probably throw something at him.”
“They’re not that mad,” replied Patricia, laughing, before she left the room.
I lay in my luxurious bed and, being too tired to read, switched off my elegant bedside light. Moonlight filtered in through the curtains, a light wind stirred the trees outside. I could hear Paul’s radio still playing in the distance, otherwise everything was quiet. I wondered whether Crispin had missed my usual evening visit, and whether my parents had landed in Bucharest yet. Somewhere in the house a clock chimed ten times. I thought I heard Uncle George saying goodnight to someone. Then a door slammed and there was silence. After that I must have slept, though I cannot remember falling asleep. I know I dreamed that Crispin had escaped from the orchard and that he was neighing. He walked up and down below my window, and then he neighed again, and this time it was like a call for help. He seemed to be crying “Come, please come”.
The Pullein-Thompson Treasury of Horse and Pony Stories Page 4
