Horse Girl Rides Again

by John Larkin

  Rebecca followed the Amazing Beryl’s gaze down to her feet. She was wearing sparkly red shoes. Four of them.

  ‘But, but, but, what?’ said Rebecca. She was practically speechless.

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ said the Amazing Beryl. ‘It was with you all along.’

  ‘What was?’ asked Rebecca.

  The Amazing Beryl gave Rebecca a kindly smile. Rebecca was starting to get annoyed with the Amazing Beryl smiling kindly all the time. It made her look a bit demented.

  ‘The power to get back home,’ continued the Amazing Beryl. ‘I mean, the power to get back to how you were before.’

  Rebecca scratched her head. Or at least she would have if she’d had any fingers.

  Where had the sparkly red shoes come from? How had she managed to climb Mount Everest in those? This was ridiculous. Insane. Horses didn’t wear sparkly red shoes, especially to climb mountains. They wore state-of-the-art cross trainers. Two pairs, in fact.

  ‘Now,’ said the Amazing Beryl, ‘click your heels together three times . . .’

  ‘Which heels?’ interrupted Rebecca. ‘Front or back?’ And where had her state-of-the-art cross trainers gone?

  ‘Both, I guess,’ said the Amazing Beryl. ‘Let’s call it backup.’

  Rebecca looked down at her sparkly red shoes again. She wouldn’t have been seen dead in shoes like these normally. They were lame beyond belief. She just hoped that when she clicked her heels together, she would end up back home and not at the mall or something. That would be, like, so totally embarrassing. Especially in these shoes.

  ‘Now, while clicking your heels together,’ said the Amazing Beryl, ‘repeat after me: “I want to go back, I want to go back.”’

  Rebecca clicked her heels together once, twice, three times. Six times in all if you counted both pairs of shoes.

  ‘I want to go back,’ she chanted while clicking her heels together. ‘I want to go back. I want to lose the shoes. I want to go back.’

  Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light followed by an ear-splitting explosion. The explosion was so loud that it dislodged a significant portion of snow from the west face of Mount Everest. The snow went rumbling off down the mountainside, picking up speed and bulk as it did. A short while later the resulting avalanche crashed down with a tremendous whump on top of the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa’s traditional thatched shed. About five hours later, when the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa had finally managed to dig himself free, he gazed up at the distant summit of Chomolungma, shook his fist at the sky and hissed, ‘Beryl!’ Shortly afterwards the chief mystical one-legged Sherpa unplugged the Amazing Beryl’s heater and sent her a nasty text message.

  When most of the smoke from the explosion had finally cleared from the Amazing Beryl’s tent, Kevin was startled to discover that Rebecca was gone.

  ‘What happened?’ said Kevin. ‘Where’s my sister?’

  ‘I’m right here,’ said Rebecca, but she held up one of her fetlocks and realised that she wasn’t. Well, not completely anyway. She was disappearing bit by bit until she was nothing more than an essence. She didn’t realise it of course, but her molecules were being stripped down to the subatomic level.

  ‘Well!’ said Kevin. ‘Where’s Rebecca? What have you done with her?’

  ‘Oh nothing much really,’ replied the Amazing Beryl. She was waving her arms about to try to get rid of the last of the smoke. ‘I’m merely stripping down her molecules to the subatomic level and then when that’s done I’ll blast them halfway around the world at near light speed, and have them reassembled at your house.’

  Kevin looked stunned and what was left of Rebecca couldn’t blame him. If Rebecca had to choose someone to strip her molecules down to the subatomic level, then she was pretty sure that the Amazing Beryl would come pretty close to the bottom of the list. She stuck cardboard cylinders on a seagull’s beak and called it a toucan, for crying out loud. What did she use to reassemble your molecules from the subatomic level? A glue stick?

  ‘But,’ said Kevin, ‘how am I supposed to get home?’

  ‘That’s simple, my dear,’ replied the Amazing Beryl.

  ‘Please don’t strip my molecules down to the subatomic level,’ pleaded Kevin. ‘I’m not allowed. I didn’t get the permission slip signed.’

  ‘That’s okay, my pretty,’ said the Amazing Beryl.

  Kevin looked stunned. Obviously no one had ever called him their pretty before. Not even Mum.

  ‘Yes, that’s okay, my pretty,’ continued the Amazing Beryl. ‘I’ve already arranged your transportation.’ The Amazing Beryl’s kindly smile froze on her face.

  And then the Amazing Beryl started laughing like an evil and demented hyena. She flung open the tent flap and a bunch of flying monkeys came screeching into the tent, scooped Kevin up and dragged him kicking and screaming up into the sky.

  Right at that moment, the Amazing Beryl’s three-bar electric heater flickered and died. Her pet toucan squawked its disapproval and her mobile phone beeped to tell her that she had a text message.

  The Amazing Beryl stepped outside the tent and yelled down into the Upper Langtang Valley. ‘Turn it back on, chief of the mystical one-legged Sherpas, or there’ll be trouble! I’ve already banished Miyo Lungsungama, it’ll be twice as easy to get rid of you, Mr Hoppy.’

  Then the Amazing Beryl turned her attention towards the sky where Kevin and his flying-monkey entourage were just a distant speck. ‘If he gives you any trouble,’ she yelled. ‘Strip his molecules back to the subatomic level. That’ll show him.’ With that, the Amazing Beryl disappeared back inside her tent to tend to her trembling toucan.

  Rebecca could feel what was left of her spirit starting to disperse on the breeze. Then the wind picked up and with a silent scream she was gone.

  28

  ‘I want to go back,’ chanted Rebecca while clicking her heels together. ‘I want to go back. I want to lose the shoes. I want to go back.’

  Kevin popped his head over from the top of Rebecca’s bunk bed and gazed down at his sister. He’d been sleeping up there since his bed had collapsed. Their dad had made the bed himself out in his shed, using some bits of wood that he’d found lying around and some masking tape.

  ‘Wake up, horse girl!’ said Kevin.

  Rebecca opened her eyes and propped herself on her elbow. She shook her head, trying to get her mind back online.

  ‘You were having a nightmare,’ said Kevin. ‘Or a daymare,’ he said, because it was light outside.

  ‘Was I?’ said Rebecca. She screwed up her eyes and tried to reassemble the dream in her head, but it was far too weird to contemplate.

  ‘Yeah,’ continued Kevin. ‘You were yelling something about sparkly red shoes and flying monkeys.’

  That’d teach her to watch The Wizard of Oz before going to bed.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Rebecca when she suddenly realised what had happened – or rather what hadn’t happened. She looked down to the bottom of her bed where her enormous horse legs were sticking out over the end. It had all been just a dream. Like one of those stories you write in English, only you don’t know how to end it so you have the character wake up and say, ‘And then I woke up and realised that it was all just a dream.’

  ‘That’s insane,’ said Kevin after Rebecca had finished recounting her dream. ‘The Amazing Beryl would never get mobile coverage on top of Mount Everest. So the chief of the mystical one-legged Sherpas wouldn’t have been able to send her any text messages.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Unless,’ said Kevin, ‘she was on the ultimate mobile plan.’

  Rebecca rolled her eyes and put her hooves behind her head. She was actually quite excited. Now that the whole Saddle Soar, Big Bother stuff was over, today was the day that Rebecca had promised that they would get down to the business of tracking down the Amazing Beryl and the mystical one-legged Sherpas . . . oh, you know the rest. School holidays would be starting soon and that might give them the chance to
get over to Nepal and make the Amazing Beryl put her back to being a twelve-year-old girl again.

  ‘Have you been awake long?’ asked Rebecca.

  ‘Yonks,’ said Kevin. ‘Been reading this book.’ Kevin popped his head back over the bunk bed and showed his sister the book that he’d been devouring.

  ‘Any good?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kevin. ‘It’s about these two kids who go on this amazing adventure, but the stuff that’s happening to them starts getting weirder and weirder and weirder. And then you find out that the first three chapters are just part of a dream that the main character is having.’

  ‘Mmmmmm,’ said Rebecca. ‘Interesting.’ She wasn’t really listening. Instead she was trying to think about how they could track down the Amazing Beryl. She knew from looking at the atlas that Nepal was in Asia, but that was about it. How were they going to get there? You probably wouldn’t be able to catch a train, especially from where they lived in the ’burbs, so they’d probably have to fly. Flying threw up all sorts of different problems, especially for horses. Would she have to fly in the cargo section? Or would they cram her into economy class like a bun into a toaster? Then there were the airfares. She didn’t know how much it cost to fly to Nepal, but she reckoned that it was probably more than she had in her piggybank.

  While Kevin made his way out to the kitchen to make himself breakfast – Froot Loops with tomato sauce – Rebecca crawled out of bed and somehow managed to open up her piggybank. She counted the coins and notes that were now scattered about her on the floor. Thirty-five dollars and eighty-five cents. Probably not even enough to get them a taxi to the airport. Unfortunately all of her Saddle Soar money was sitting in a trust fund earning interest and would stay there until she turned eighteen.

  Rebecca stuffed the money back into her piggybank with her huge snout. The funny thing was she was saving up to buy herself a horse.

  She closed the lid on her piggybank. The Amazing Beryl seemed as far away as ever.

  29

  Rebecca clip-clopped out to the kitchen and plonked herself down in front of the breakfast bar.

  Kevin poured her a huge bucket of muesli. As she was chowing down on her breakfast, Rebecca noticed that Kevin was flicking through the local paper while he devoured his Froot Loops with tomato sauce.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ asked Rebecca, as she desperately tried to peel her eyes away from Kevin’s road-kill breakfast.

  Kevin flipped over Suburban Snippets so that Rebecca could see the headlines:

  Cat Stuck up Tree! Again

  ‘What are you doing, anyway?’ asked Rebecca. Kevin never read Suburban Snippets. He reckoned that it was beyond dullsville.

  ‘I’m trying to find a competition that we can enter to win a couple of tickets to Nepal.’

  Rebecca was stunned. ‘In Suburban Snippets?’

  Kevin kept on flicking through the paper. Suddenly his eyes lit up. ‘Here’s one,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ said Rebecca, spraying out a mouthful of muesli over the breakfast bar.

  ‘Gross!’ said Kevin.

  ‘A competition to win two tickets to Nepal?’ Rebecca could hardly believe it. She could hardly believe how much muesli she just sprayed across the kitchen either. Then again, horses could cram more muesli into their mouths than people. Or at least horses that had learnt how to use spoons that is.

  ‘No,’ replied Kevin. ‘It’s a spot-the-cat competition.’ Kevin showed Rebecca a photograph of an enormous tree. ‘They’ve digitally removed the cat,’ he said. ‘So now you’ve got to put a cross where you think the cat might be.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rebecca, a little deflated. ‘What do you win?’

  ‘The cat,’ said Kevin, as he scratched his head. ‘Only you’ve got to get it down from the tree yourself.’

  ‘Great,’ said Rebecca with approximately zero enthusiasm.

  ‘And there’s a competition on the next page to win a ladder.’

  ‘So we’re not going to Nepal courtesy of Suburban Snippets?’ said Rebecca.

  Kevin shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Nice try, bro.’ Rebecca shook her head. Suburban Snippets! It had to be the worst newspaper on the planet. As lame as they were, the headlines were always sensationalised. The cat probably didn’t even climb up the tree. It probably just looked at it. Or else the editor had stuck it up there himself, just to get a headline.

  ‘At least I’m trying,’ said Kevin. ‘It was better than your effort last night.’

  Rebecca cringed at the memory. ‘Don’t remind me.’ Five dollars and thirty cents!

  The previous night Rebecca had tried to get her mum to sign her fake school excursion permission slip. She’d waited until there was an ad break in the forenzic ferenzic sciency-type show that her fossils were watching and had then shown the note to her mum. Rebecca figured that she might just have a chance because the fossils always got completely caught up in these . . . sciency-type shows.

  ‘Oh, Mum, I almost forgot,’ she’d said casually, as if asking for $10,000 for a school excursion was something that she did every other day. ‘I need you to sign this for me and Kevin.’

  Mum looked at the permission slip, but its contents didn’t seem to penetrate her corneas as far as her brain’s frontal lobes. Or that’s how they might put it on a sciency-type show.

  I give permission for my son/daughter to attend this year’s school-holiday excursion to visit the mystical one-legged Sherpas of the Upper Langtang Valley in Nepal. I enclose $10,000 to go towards airfares, accomerdation urcomidatshun hotels and stuff.

  Signed Parent/Guardian____________________

  Rebecca’s mum signed the note and handed it back to her.

  ‘We need some money, too,’ said Rebecca cautiously. ‘For the excursion.’ Rebecca didn’t like lying to her parents, but she was desperate. Getting turned into a horse by a halfwit can do that to you.

  ‘How much?’ asked Mum.

  Rebecca gulped. ‘Ten thousand dollars,’ she said.

  The show had started again so Rebecca’s mum was probably only using about one-tenth of her available brain power.

  Rebecca’s mum half-turned to Rebecca’s dad. ‘Have you got a spare ten thousand dollars in your wallet, dear?’

  Rebecca’s dad fished around inside his wallet. ‘Five dollars and thirty cents,’ he said, without taking his eyes off the TV screen.

  Rebecca’s mum took the $5.30 from Dad and handed it to Rebecca. ‘Is that enough, darling?’

  ‘Almost,’ said Rebecca as she took the money from Mum in her mouth. ‘Thanks.’

  In the end, Rebecca was glad that Dad didn’t have a spare $10,000 floating around inside his wallet. She would have paid them back of course, but then again she didn’t really want to add any more to her debt, which seemed to be increasing by the minute:

  Amount Owed to Fossils Since Being Turned into Horse

  Total destruction of kitchen during chasings game with Kevin

  $40,000.00

  Total destruction of Mr Theodore’s fruit store during chasings game with Kevin at the shopping mall

  $90,000.00

  Mr Theodore’s fruit

  $845.68

  Total destruction of the Nut Hut (also during mall chasings game)

  $1,000.00

  Assorted nuts

  $468.23

  Counselling sessions plus day-trip to the beach for all the old ladies sent flying (also during mall chasings game)

  $5,000.00

  Service and repair of Mrs Finnegan’s wheelchair, which was damaged when Mrs Finnegan was sent flying (also during mall chasings game)

  $845.68

  Cost of sniffer-dog hired to locate Mrs Finnegan

  $786.43

  Look on Mum and Dad’s face following visit to the mall

  Priceless

  TOTAL

  $138, 946. 02

  Rebecca shook her head and whickered. One hundred and thirty-eight thousand, nine hundred and
forty-six dollars and two cents. Two cents! And that wasn’t including GST.

  ‘Shopping malls!’ neighed Rebecca to herself. She was better off staying clear of them.

  ‘So what are you going to do with your $5.30?’ asked Kevin. He’d finished his Froot Loops and tomato sauce, and was now spreading lashings of peanut butter and Vegemite over some hot buttered toast. Rebecca covered her eyes with her hooves.

  ‘Well?’ said Kevin.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied Rebecca.

  ‘Why don’t we go for a walk up to the mall and get a banana milkshake and dinosaur donut and try and work out what to do while we’re there?’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ replied Rebecca. So much for staying clear of shopping malls.

  As Rebecca got herself ready for her canter up to the mall, what she didn’t realise (because she wasn’t a fortune teller) was that a nineteen-year-old parrot called Nigel was about to change her world forever.

  30

  Rebecca and Kevin plonked themselves down in Dani’s Delicious Donuts & Café with a dinosaur donut and banana milkshake. An old lady was wandering around the café trying to sell raffle tickets, but everyone was ignoring her.

  ‘So how are we supposed to get to Nepal?’ said Rebecca.

  Kevin finished slurping his milkshake. ‘Can’t you gallop there, or something?’

  ‘It’s too far,’ said Rebecca. ‘I checked in the atlas. We’ll never make it back before the end of the school holidays.’

  ‘Where is it anyway?’ asked Kevin.

  ‘It’s in Asia,’ said Rebecca. ‘It’s in between China and India.’

  ‘No wonder I couldn’t find it in the street directory,’ said Kevin.

  ‘C’mon!’ encouraged Rebecca. ‘I need you for this. Every time I start thinking about Nepal, or anything really, I end up with images of carrots and hay and big green fields in my mind.’