The Silver Pony
Page 7
As she came closer, Daisy slowed to a walk, watching out for a flash of white coat, but it was Bracken she saw first, standing guard with Acorn at the edge of the heath. The two chestnuts turned to gaze at Daisy and she stopped, wondering if they didn’t want her to come any closer. She couldn’t see Em – then there was a little movement behind the clump of gorse bushes.
Daisy stood on tiptoe, trying to peer over the bright gorse flowers, but she still couldn’t really see. Bracken moved, swishing her tail, and Daisy wondered whether the chestnut pony was trying to shoo her away. But instead Bracken wandered out on to the open grassland and Acorn followed her. The two of them began to graze. They weren’t worried about her, Daisy realized, with a little glow of pleasure. They didn’t mind her going to look at the foal.
Slowly, she crept round the bushes – the flaring yellow flowers smelled of coconut and the scent always made her happy. Em was standing on the other side of the gorse, head down, nosing at something on the ground. She swung her head round at Daisy, ears pricking right forward, and her nostrils flared. Then she seemed to realize who it was, and relaxed.
“Hey,” Daisy whispered. “I can go, if you like…” She wanted to see the foal, of course, but not if Em was scared – or if she just wanted some time on her own with her baby.
Em made a noise Daisy hadn’t heard before, a soft, throaty sort of noise, and stepped a little sideways. Behind her, tucked safely up against the gorse bushes, was a white foal. It was lying on the ground and it seemed to have legs everywhere, much too long for its body.
Daisy heard running footsteps behind her and she hurried out to wave at Jack. “She’s here!” she whispered. “And the foal. It’s not standing up, though. I hope it’s OK.”
“She’s had it? That was quick! She was just starting when I saw her. Let’s see.” He craned round the edge of the bushes, just as Daisy had. “Another grey!”
“Does it matter that the foal’s not standing up?” Daisy asked anxiously, but Jack shook his head.
“I don’t think so. I’ve only seen one other really new foal like this and it took him a while to stand up too. We should just stay back and watch.”
They stood at the edge of the gorse bushes, watching Em nudge gently at her baby. At last the foal decided to try standing up but its legs were so long and gangly that it didn’t seem to know quite what to do with them. They stuck out all over the place. At one point the foal was sitting on its back legs like a dog, staring down at its front legs in pure confusion. Then, at last, it managed to wobble on to all four hooves – more by accident than anything else. It stood there looking dopey for a moment, while Em licked at it, cleaning up its sticky coat.
“Em looks really pleased with herself,” Daisy whispered to Jack. “I wish Mara was here to see the foal too. She’d be so excited.”
“I know,” Jack breathed. “Hang on, I’ll take a photo for her. Ah, look, it’s trying to feed.”
The foal staggered round to Em’s side, still wobbly, and nosed at her stomach with a strange little squeaky neigh. It was clearly trying to find her teats. It took a while but at last the foal worked it out, and sucked gratefully for a minute or two. Then it decided it needed a rest and tried to lie down, bending its knees. But its legs seemed to wobble in different directions, so it straightened them out again, peering at the ground as if it wasn’t sure why that hadn’t worked.
It tried again, and then gave up and just slumped, squashing the gawky legs up underneath its body. Then it lay there, dozing, folded up into a leggy, magical little parcel.
Em stood watching, ever so often lowering her head to look more closely. She glanced round again to check on Jack and Daisy, and then went back to admiring her baby. Daisy thought she’d never seen a pony look so proud of herself.
“You will be careful, won’t you?” Daisy’s mum whispered to her as the two girls pulled on their coats.
“Yes! Mum, shh! She’ll hear you.”
“OK, OK. But Mara’s only just out of hospital, Daisy. You have to be so careful.”
Daisy rolled her eyes and followed Mara out to the garden gate.
“Was that your mum telling you not to let anything happen to me?” Mara asked, pulling her bandana tighter. Her hair was starting to grow back but it was still only wispy.
“Sorry.” Daisy gave her an apologetic look. “Is it driving you mad?”
“A bit. I had to promise my mum I’d go home and not move for the rest of the day if she let me come with you.”
“Jack knows exactly where they are – he called me just before you got here. It won’t take us five minutes to find them,” Daisy promised. “He said he was sure they wouldn’t go far.”
“I can’t wait.” Mara did look as though she was desperate to race away into the woods, Daisy thought. She was bouncing on her toes.
They’d been planning this together ever since Mara had rung her up a few days earlier, so excited she could hardly speak. It had taken her ages to make Daisy understand what she was saying – that she was allowed out of hospital. She wasn’t completely better – the doctors wouldn’t be able to say that definitely for a long time – but she was in remission. She could even go back to school if things went well. She’d be there for the summer term, their last term. She’d be able to start at the secondary school with everyone else in September.
The path looked almost like something from a fairy tale today, Daisy thought. The trees were just opening out into full leaf now, the greens acid-bright, and there was a little patch of white wood anemones that the ponies and deer hadn’t found yet. They were like stars, shining in their dark leaves.
It was pure good luck that Em and Snowdrop and the others were so close today. For the past week they’d been further over by the mire and there was no way Mara could walk that far yet. Anyway, Daisy had avoided that part of the forest ever since last summer. Even on the brightest, sunniest days, it still felt strange and chilly.
“Oh, I can see them!” Mara whispered. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
Daisy nodded. “Yes.” She gazed proudly at the four ponies – posed so beautifully under a huge tree with a clump of bluebells nearby. The flowers made Em and Snowdrop look even whiter than usual. It was as if they’d found the perfect spot to show themselves off to Mara for the first time.
“She’s so pretty – they both are,” Mara murmured. “Snowdrop looks so big – I can’t believe she’s only a week old.”
Daisy nodded. “She’s doing really well, Jack’s dad says. She’s strong.” She glanced sideways at Mara. She’d never actually spoken to her about how important the pony had been for her during that worst part of the year, when she’d been so unhappy about school. She’d been frightened of talking to Mara about anything back then.
“It’s strange, her arriving just now, isn’t it?” Daisy said quietly, looking back at the white foal. Snowdrop kept setting off on wild little runs, kicking up her legs and darting about. She circled back to Em every couple of minutes, though, making sure that her mum was just where she’d left her.
Mara was silent but Daisy could feel her listening, thinking.
“You mean, now I’m out of hospital?” she said at last.
“Yeah…” Daisy said, uncomfortably. “Does that sound funny? It’s like – new things are happening. Back in the summer, when you hadn’t been in hospital that long, I used to come out here and watch Em. That was before I knew she belonged to Jack’s family.”
“I know you did! You sent me all those photos of her. And the drawing. It was such a good picture – I can see how much it’s like her!”
“Yeah. I didn’t tell you everything, though. She was – I was almost sure that seeing her helped. Because you loved seeing her photos and talking about her, I started feeling as if Em was helping you get well.” Daisy shrugged. “It sounds weird.”
“It isn’t weird.” Mara smiled. She looked tired, Daisy thought, wondering if they ought to go back. Tired, but happy. “You sending me stuff made me f
eel as if I was still there. And you kept calling and telling me about her, even when I was so tired all I did was sigh at you… You hadn’t forgotten about me. Em’s our pony angel.”
“Yes!” Daisy looked at Em, cropping grass and keeping one eye on her bouncy foal. Her long white fringe was in her eyes again but the sun was on her coat and she almost glowed against the bluebells. “That’s it. She was exactly what you needed.”
“And you were the one who found her for me,” Mara pointed out.
“Yeah.” Daisy came to stand by the tree next to her best friend, and they watched the white foal dancing around her mum. Em lifted her head to look back at them, her ears flicking back and forth in the sunlight. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
STRIPES PUBLISHING LIMITED
An imprint of the Little Tiger Group
1 Coda Studios, 189 Munster Road,
London SW6 6AW
First published in Great Britain in 2020
Text copyright © Holly Webb, 2020
Cover illustrations copyright © Joy Laforme, 2020
Inside illustrations copyright © James Brown, 2020
Author photograph copyright © Charlotte Knee Photography
eISBN: 978–1–78895–278–1
The right of Holly Webb to be identified as the author, and Joy Laforme and James Brown as the illustrators of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.