The Pullein-Thompson Treasury of Horse and Pony Stories

by Christine Pullein-Thompson

  After an hour Smoky, driven by hunger, moved closer to the haynet which hung quite close to where the children were sitting.

  “You see…” began Jane, and then stopped as the sound of her voice sent the pony back to the far end of the stable again.

  “Idiot, ” said Jason.

  “Shut up,” said Jane. “I’m getting tired of sitting here.”

  “Why don’t you go home and get a book?” suggested Jason. “Then, while you sit and read, I’ll get one for myself.”

  At six o’clock Mrs Wright arrived. “You’ve got to come back for tea,” she said.

  “All right,” agreed Jane. “Jason?”

  “I’ll stay,” he said. “And then you do the same for me.

  So Smoky had someone sitting with him from three in the afternoon until nine at night, when the children had to go to bed. And in that time he came near enough to them to pull a few mouthfuls from the net.

  The next day Jason and Jane refilled his haynet, gave him fresh water and sat down again in the straw and played dominoes. And Smoky watched them with wide dark eyes in a blue roan face which sported a middling-sized blaze, and they ignored him. After a bit he edged nearer to the haynet, but leapt back when they started an argument about the game.

  “We shouldn’t have shouted,” Jane said.

  “He’s got to get used to our voices,” insisted Jason.

  “Yesterday you called me an idiot,” Jane said.

  “Yesterday was yesterday and today is today,” Jason countered.

  “That’s gobbledygook,” said Jane, stretching out in the straw. “I suppose we’ll have to try and muck him out tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know,” mused Jason. “Didn’t Pete say one of those scars was caused by a pitchfork?”

  “Look,” whispered Jane, “he’s surprised to see me lying down. Why don’t you lie down, too?”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “See,” hissed Jane, raising her head. “He’s not trembling any more.”

  “We’re less threatening flat out,” Jason said. “He’s got a very delicate head.”

  “Sensitive,” murmured Jane. “When he gets fatter he’ll be brilliant.”

  Now Smoky moved from his corner and very cautiously approached the haynet. As the Jays froze, he started to eat within touching distance, but when Jane said “Brilliant”, he bolted back to the rear of the stable. Then they kept talking and after a bit, accustomed to their voices, he returned and started to eat again. They went to lunch at different times, so he was not alone, and in the afternoon they sat very still in the straw, holding out hands full of pony nuts, and by four o’clock he had fed from both their hands.

  “We’re winning,” said Jason and almost threw his arms in the air in triumph.

  “Why was he beaten?”

  Jason shook his head. “Who knows?”

  Jane repeated the question when Debbie turned up to see how the Jays were managing, and Debbie said Smoky had been bought by a violent man for his daughter. “A beastly spoiled brat called Tracey. A rotten rider, who thought she knew everything. I don’t know the whole story, but I’m told she held Smoky on such a tight rein that he couldn’t jump properly and when he knocked the jumps down she hit him. Then, because he was so frightened of his mouth being hurt, his head went up; he started star-gazing and Tracey put him in a tight running martingale and a long-cheeked pelham and he felt trapped. Then Tracey’s father bought an old stockman’s whip, so that he could hit Smoky on take-off to make him jump higher, but the bit and the running martingale coupled with Tracey’s tight rein were too much, Smoky panicked, refused to approach the jumps at all, and finally plunged in all directions, and reared until he chucked Tracey off and she broke an arm. After that Smoky wouldn’t leave the stable at all, unless Tracey’s father got behind him with the whip or hit him with a pitchfork. When Tracey’s arm mended she announced she wasn’t going to ride any more, and then her parents’ marriage broke up, and after that Smoky was simply left in the stable with next to no food and water.”

  “What a horrid man. Why did he buy a pony?” asked Jane.

  “He wanted to please Tracey and he wanted to keep up with one of his mates, whose little girl was winning all the prizes for miles around.”

  “And how did you hear about him?” asked Jason.

  “From Mrs Gutteridge, who runs the local branch of the RSPCA,” replied Debbie. “She asked me to help, as she’s looking after nineteen abandoned dogs single-handed and hasn’t space for a pony. There isn’t much chance of bringing a case for cruelty, because Tracey’s father’s gone abroad. However, she threatened his ex-wife with a charge, and the horrid woman, who didn’t care a button, said, ‘Take the pony. We don’t want it.’ End of story so far.”

  “How could they have been so foul?” asked Jason.

  “When violent men are unhappy they take it out on someone. His wife got the better of him, so he beat the pony. Simple,” said Debbie.

  After Debbie left, the Jays took Olivio and the Wrights’ Border terrier, Biscuit, for a walk, and when they returned Smoky whinnied a welcome so they rushed and put their hands through the bars and fed him handfuls of pony nuts. Then, after refilling his net and bucket, they sat in the stable and after a bit he sniffed Jane’s back, touching her spine with his grey lips.

  “He knows we’re his friends,” Jane said.

  “He has no one else,” observed Jason. “Ponies are herd animals, aren’t they? Which means they are lonely without company. He needs us.”

  “And we need him. Think how bored we might have been,” reflected Jane. “Mum would have dragged me out shopping, and you…?”

  “Dad was thinking I might join a junior sports club.”

  “Mum says riding lessons are too expensive – ten pounds an hour.”

  “Wouldn’t it be great if we could go on another pony-trekking holiday?” said Jason, harking back to two idyllic weeks on a Welsh farm, where they had looked after the ponies as well as riding them.

  “Not enough money,” said Jane.

  “Same here,” agreed Jason.

  When Pete called that evening, he handed the Jays a canvas head collar. “Try to get it on him, then you’ll have some control,” he said. And to their surprise Smoky stood quietly while they did just that.

  “Well done, you’re winning,” said Pete. And Jane put her face against the pony’s neck and rubbed her cheek along his coat.

  “He knows we love him,” she said.

  “Yes, but see…” Pete put out an arm and Smoky jumped back, “…he doesn’t trust me yet.”

  “You’ve done wonders,” Mrs Wright said, looking over the bars later that evening. “But he won’t be able to stay in this garage for ever.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll give him his worm dose,” Jane told her, “and then he may get fatter. Look at his ribs, terrible – and the next day, and the day after,” she giggled, “perhaps we can ride him.”

  “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” warned Mrs Wright. And she was right, for next morning when the Jays went to the stable before breakfast, the top bar was down and there was no sign of Smoky.

  “Stolen!” shrieked Jane.

  “Why?”

  “For meat. I want to kill them.”

  “He might have got out,” Jason said. “Come on.” They fetched their bikes and searched all the lanes and looked in all the nearby fields and returned weak with hunger to find Mrs Cook in her gateway, furiously waving her arms.

  “My herbaceous border!” she wailed. “And you promised – hoofmarks everywhere and two peonies broken and the golden rod…!”

  “Sorry,” cried Jason. “He must have nudged the bar out of its bracket. Listen, Mum, we’ll clean out his stable and give you all the manure for your roses.”

  “Big deal!” cried Mrs Cook, “Manure won’t replace the peonies. It’s odd,” she continued, calming down a little, “Olivio didn’t bark.”

  “I think a thief tried to steal Smoky
and he escaped,” said Jane, “which means he’s still loose somewhere. I am terribly sorry about your flowers.”

  “Of course he’s loose,” said Mrs Cook. “I saw him with my own eyes, didn’t I?”

  “But where?” shrieked Jane. “You didn’t tell us and we’ve been looking everywhere.”

  “You’ve only just got back,” pointed out Mrs Cook. “He’s behind the garage, stripping the leaves off my beech hedge.”

  “Behind the stable?”

  “Steady,” said Jane, as Jason rushed down the path. “We mustn’t frighten him. Let’s get some pony nuts first.” But to their amazement Smoky walked up to the children as if they were old friends.

  “He knows we’re not like Tracey,” Jason said, with a thread of triumph in his voice.

  “I expect ponies can smell aggression, like dogs,” remarked Jane, stroking the pony’s neck. “Let’s tie him to that post and muck out the stable and give your mum the manure you promised, and then spray him. And tie the rails to the brackets.”

  “Breakfast first,” said Jason.

  The children were busy all morning mucking out the stable and grooming Smoky with their dogs’ brushes. They saw lice at the roots of his mane, but, finding he was terrified of the spray, they left them there.

  “He’s so good, I think he’s reverting to an earlier self, in the days before Tracey,” Jane said.

  “Just in time,” said Jason. “I don’t think I could have spent another day sitting in the straw.”

  “Nor me,” agreed Jane.

  When Pete came to see how they were getting on he said, “Great stuff. Keep it up.” When they told him they couldn’t use the spray, he showed them how to pick out the lice and crush them.

  “Ugh!” cried Jane.

  “You can’t be squeamish if you’re looking after abandoned animals,” Pete said. “It can be horrific cleaning them up. Think of yourself as a nurse, Jane.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Jason.

  “Can we try riding him?” asked Jane.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. We don’t want any broken bones, do we? I think we must leave that to the experts.” Pete laughed kindly as though trying to lessen the blow, before driving off in the sanctuary’s van.

  Fixing Smoky’s hay net later that evening, Jane said, “We are his friends, look how he nuzzles my pockets. Why should a pony mind his friends on his back?”

  “I suppose Pete knows,” said Jason.

  “He’s not a riding expert,” replied Jane. “We must try where there’s long grass, so we won’t break anything if Smoky bucks us off.”

  “There’s no long grass here,” said Jason, filling the water bucket.

  “In our garden, then,” Jane said, “You know my mum calls weeds wild flowers. And Dad’s too engrossed in his computers to care.”

  The next morning, which was Monday, the Jays were relieved to find the rails in place. They gave Smoky his worm dose in a feed and took him for a long walk after breakfast, with the dogs, letting him stop here and there in the lanes to graze on the banks. Their parents were at work, but Mrs Wright had arranged to pop back from the shop she ran, selling second-hand clothes for children, to see how they were getting on. Last holidays she had known they were both safe helping at the sanctuary.

  Jason’s mother had told him to phone her at lunchtime at the building society where she worked, to confirm that they were all right.

  “Anyone would think we were nine-year-olds,” complained Jason, who – like Jane – was thirteen.

  The children put Smoky back in the stable while they raided the Cooks’ refrigerator for food, before leading him to a neglected patch in the Wrights’ garden, where willow herb, ragged robin and grass all fought for space and trumpets of convolvulus ran riot on a broken-down fence.

  “It’s a pity we haven’t got any tack,” said Jason.

  “And lucky that we learned to ride bareback taking the ponies back to their fields last summer.”

  “They weren’t like Smoky,” Jason reminded her. “They were quiet because they were trekking on the hills all day.” Jane picked two strands of grass so that they could draw lots, and Jason drew the shortest so she had first go. Jason held Smoky with one hand and gave Jane a leg-up with the other, and then he led Smoky round and round the disused patch of garden.

  “He feels lovely, but his back bone – it digs in a bit,” said Jane.

  “He’s clever enough to know that we would tack him up if we were going to try driving him over jumps,” said Jason. “My turn.”

  The Jays rode Smoky at the walk, making him stop when they pulled at the head collar and said “Whoa!” and continue walking when they squeezed with their calves and said “Walk on”. Now and then they gave him a handful of cake from their pockets. And because he had no bit he wasn’t frightened for his mouth. After an hour they took him back to his stable. And later in the afternoon they were upset to find him lying down in the straw.

  “We’ve worked him too hard,” cried Jane. “He’s still weak.”

  “He feels safe,” said Jason. “We’ve won the first battle.”

  Then Smoky got up and stretched and they felt a rush of pride coupled with the inner warmth people experience when they achieve something they care about very much.

  When Pete came in the evening with more hay and straw, Jason could not contain his enthusiasm.

  “We rode him bareback and he was wonderful,” he cried.

  “I told you not to!” exploded Pete. “Supposing he bucked you off and broke your arms. Your parents could sue me.”

  “We’ll get their permission,” Jane promised. And that evening she badgered her parents until they said:

  “All right, if you’re very, very careful and wear your crash-helmets.”

  But during the night when she was in bed, Jane heard her mother say to her father, “They are getting too attached to that pony, when Debbie finds him a permanent home they’ll be heartbroken.”

  “There’s no way we can keep him here,” Mr Wright said, “and with both of us out at work…”

  Jane felt her blood turn cold.

  “He’d need a field,” her mother said. “I don’t think they understand that a pony is a great responsibility. I mean, they’d give their lives for him now, but in a year or two when they’ve got exams…”

  “…And want a social life,” added Mr Wright.

  “Exactly,” agreed his wife. “And then who’s left holding the baby?”

  At this point, aware that she was eavesdropping by mistake, and not wanting to hear any more, Jane blocked her ears.

  On Tuesday the Jays put on their crash-helmets and led Smoky down the lanes, taking it in turns to ride him. It was a wild day with strong winds and light rain. The scudding leaves, the weekend picnickers’ paper and plastic wrappings rustled and fluttered as though they had a life of their own, but Smoky was too interested in the grass on the banks to bother, and the children let him graze for an hour.

  “I wish we had a bridle, then we might trot him,” Jason said. “As it is, with everyone so afraid we might break our arms, perhaps it’s too risky in a head collar.”

  “Anyway, we shouldn’t ask him to trot when he’s still so thin,” said Jane.

  Then the next weekend they struck lucky when Jason’s father, a builder and decorator, insisted he went with him to a car boot sale.

  “Come on, son, don’t let me down,” he said, for until Smoky’s arrival Jason had gladly gone with him.

  Jason returned triumphant with a bitless bridle in his hand. “Three pounds fifty pence. Dad paid. They call it a hackamore,” he said. And astonishingly, for such coincidences don’t often occur in life, it fitted.

  “God meant you to find it,” Mrs Cook said.

  So that day the Jays trotted Smoky along a track which ran between two lanes. And then they rode him to the sanctuary, very carefully because the road was busy. Pete was trying to clean oil off a white duck and Debbie was in the kennels, sitting with a s
mall brown dog which had been found tied to a post on the edge of a motorway. But they both paused in their work to look briefly at Smoky.

  “You’ve done wonders,” said Debbie.

  “A bit more weight and he’ll be smashing,” said Pete.

  “We got this hackamore, because we thought he would be frightened of a bit,” said Jason.

  “Good for you,” said Pete, returning to his duck.

  “And soon, Mum says, you’ll want to find him a permanent home?” hazarded Jane, with a heart like lead.

  “Afraid so,” said Debbie, “unless your parents want you to have him, but he needs to have a field and other ponies. He can’t spend his life in a converted garage, once he gets fit.”

  “We’ll talk to them,” Jason said, sticking out his jaw. “Make them see sense.”

  “I’m not sure it is sense,” admitted Jane on the way home. “Debbie is right. He should be out in a field with other ponies.”

  “And if he gets another bad home? We understand him, that’s what matters.”

  But the parents, who knew each other well because of the Jays’ friendship, were united in their opposition. Times were bad, they argued. There wasn’t a lot of building work for Mr Cook and Mrs Cook was afraid she might lose her job in the next cutback. Mrs Wright’s shop only made a small profit and Mr Wright was putting money by for their old age.

  “You can have all our pocket-money,” offered Jane, “and we won’t need to be taken on holiday.”

  “And we won’t go on school trips,” added Jason. “And we’ll earn money, too.”

  “Doing what?” asked Mr Wright.

  “Washing cars,” replied Jason.

  “It’s not on,” said Mr Cook. “That’s final.”

  “But,” said Mr Wright kindly, “you can both have a pony-trekking holiday next spring. Right, Geoff?”

  “Agreed,” said Mr Cook, “on condition, Jason, that you join the sports club, so you won’t be too one-sided.”

  That night Jason and Jane slept badly and Biscuit, who shared Jane’s bed, snuggled up against her as though understanding her misery. Jane remembered that although there were a few permanent residents – a wounded owl, a one-eyed cat and a peacock with one leg, for example – it was the sanctuary’s policy to get its patients back into the wild or into homes as soon as they were fit.