I held the bit up again, and this time he lowered his head. Once the headband was in place, I tugged at the buckles and straps. It took three goes to get everything done up right, but eventually the bridle was on.
Next, I grabbed Spud’s saddle. It was big and heavy, and I staggered under its weight. ‘One, two, three,’ I said, swinging it up towards his back. It hit him in the ribs, and he turned to me, his eyes shining.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered.
He blew out softly through his nose.
One more time. I tossed the saddle upwards and … it landed on his back! I quickly tightened the girth. Once it was done, I tugged Spud over to a tree stump near the driveway, reached my right leg over his big belly, and jumped.
I was on!
But Spud wasn’t in a hurry. He turned his head and nudged my foot with his nose.
‘Please, Spud. Please,’ I begged, adjusting the reins and kicking him up. ‘We haven’t got time for licorice!’
Maybe he misunderstood. He swung his head around and trotted down the driveway, as if there were a truckload of licorice waiting at the end. His metal shoes clunked against the gravel. Dust whipped in my eyes. My stomach swished like a bucket of seawater.
‘No-one’s going to shoot you, Spud. I promise.’
I didn’t know where I’d take him, but right now, anywhere was safer than here. We turned left off the driveway and down a narrow dirt path, winding in and out of the gum trees while the wind rustled in the canopy above us. I pulled my knees in tight and ducked to avoid the branches until the trees cleared and we came to a paddock of tussocky grass. A large farm gate blocked us from travelling any further.
What were we going to do now?
Spud answered by planting his head into the grass, ignoring my tugs and kicks and eating like there was no tomorrow.
I kicked him hard with my heels. ‘Spud!’ I pleaded. ‘We can’t stop here.’ One more thump and he snatched a last mouthful and reluctantly picked up his head. He pushed at the gate with his nose and, to my surprise, it swung open. We walked through the first paddock and then the second, the long grass rippling like waves on an ocean.
We were halfway through a third paddock when a herd of cream-coloured cows began sprinting towards us. They bellowed loudly, their mouths wide, their tails in the air. My heart thumped as I urged Spud past them, only slowing when we came to a rough, scrubby hill.
Maybe we could hide somewhere up there?
Spud snorted and huffed up the steep track. Rocks tumbled from under his hooves. A wallaby bounded for cover. At the top, I pushed away my hair and scanned for places to hide. Below us, a road, possibly the one we’d arrived on, snaked through the trees. Roofs lay dotted here and there, with an occasional shed or yard nearby.
My eyes fell to the bushland near the base of the hill, where treetops waved in the wind.
‘That’s it!’ I told Spud, steering him down the hillside. The narrow path was almost vertical in places and was slippery with loose, rolling stones.
We edged our way forward, slowly.
Each second felt like an hour.
At the bottom of the hill, I looked through the bush. The pale crooked trees were dense and ferns and creepers crowded the undergrowth, with patches of mud and murky water lying between them. I screwed up my nose. It stank like an overcrowded duck pond.
Suddenly Spud held his head high and whinnied – a loud, shrill whinny. Goosebumps prickled my arms.
Had they found us already?
Spud whinnied again. He pricked his ears and turned back to look at the hill. Someone was definitely coming. If we didn’t hide, they’d spot us at once.
I glanced around. There was nowhere else. We’d have to hide among the trees.
I slid from Spud’s back and led him in, winding quietly between the closely packed paperbarks, flinching as the saddle caught on trunks and branches. Spud had to duck his head, and I had to duck mine, too. Deeper and deeper into the undergrowth we went.
Sweat trickled down my back.
We pushed on. Even when our legs got tangled in the vines. Even when the shadows began to grow long.
No-one was going to shoot Spud.
When we reached what I hoped would be a safe enough spot, I stopped and looked around.
So far so good.
But when I looked up, my breath caught in my throat. Two bats hung from their spindly feet only a metre above us. Their big eyes were watching, as if they were deciding which part of us to bite.
Spud pawed and stamped at the ground. Beads of sweat popped up on my forehead as I looked around.
They were everywhere. Bats! Hanging like cocoons wrapped in black rubbery wings. Cocoons with pointed ears and eyes that shone like polished beads. And sharp yellow teeth.
‘Let’s go, Spud,’ I croaked, trying to walk with legs that had turned to jelly. ‘We’re not staying here.’
Spud seemed just as keen to get going as I was, but we hadn’t gone far when a shot rang out.
Beating wings drowned my screams, like three hundred wet bed sheets flapping all at once.
I screamed again and buried my head against Spud as the army of bats flew overhead, screeching and calling, crying out in alarm.
Spud’s body tensed. He tossed his head and tugged at the reins.
‘It’s okay,’ I whimpered, pulling him closer.
My hands shook.
Shoot them. Kill them.
‘You’re okay, boy,’ I said, my voice shaking and my blood hammering in my ears. But Spud wasn’t listening. He was trying to push past me, his shoulder barging into my side. He jammed my arm against the rough bark of a tree, blotting my skin with fresh blood.
I pulled at the reins. Spud pulled back. He held his head high, every muscle in his body twitching.
‘Spud!’ I shouted. ‘Stop!’
But Spud wouldn’t stop. He pranced on his hooves like a deer.
‘Spud!’
My T-shirt snagged on a branch. I hardly noticed it rip.
Above us, the bats were returning to roost. The branches crashed and snapped under their weight.
Spud lunged forwards.
The reins ripped from my hands. I fell hard to the ground. Leather scraped against bark. Hooves pounded on damp soil.
‘Spud! Spud, come back!’
I ran after him, my feet catching on the undergrowth, my shoulders banging against trunks.
‘Spud!’
The bats chattered above me, as if they were sharing the news.
Spud’s grey tail disappeared into the paperbark trees.
I stopped and doubled over, my breath rasping in my ears. I was never going to catch him. He hadn’t been a racehorse for nothing.
I squeezed my hands into fists. Why had I run off with him in the first place? Spud wasn’t dying of Hendra. He couldn’t be – not with the way he’d just bolted.
But I could die out here.
I dropped my fists and took a deep breath. There was probably a simple explanation for his weird behaviour this afternoon. Maybe Spud didn’t like wind. Maybe the dead bat in the water trough got him all freaked out. Either way, Mrs Bacton would have taken a look at him, and if he was sick, she would have called the vet.
I zigzagged my way between the trees, trying to avoid the bats above me. Mud squelched under my feet. When I thought I saw a grey tail up ahead, I walked even faster, but it was nothing, just a branch swishing in the wind. I searched for hoof prints in the mud, and scrapes against the bark.
Still nothing.
It was like Spud didn’t even exist.
I kept walking. It wouldn’t be long now until the afternoon turned to night. Then the bats would wheel into the sky, looking for something to eat. The mosquitoes would become fierce and fight to suck my blood.
And any chance of finding Spud
would be close to nil.
10. Tricked
‘Charli? Charli, is that you?’
At first, I thought I was imagining things. Was it the cows? The creamy ones Spud and I had seen bellowing near the hill?
Or was it a sunset kookaburra, laughing at me lost in the bush?
‘Ch-aaaar-li! Ch-aaaaaaaaaaarrrrr-li!’
I swung around. It definitely wasn’t cows.
‘Hello?’ I called. ‘Hello!’
‘Charli?’
‘Over here!’
Scraping and rustling in the bushes soon turned into four familiar faces: Alice on Joey, and Mikaela on Razz.
Alice broke into a wide grin when she saw me.
‘Charli! You’re alive!’ she shouted, leaping off Joey and strangling me with a hug.
I hugged her back, grinning just as wide. It seemed I wasn’t going to die after all.
‘How did you …? I mean, what …? Did you see Spud?’
‘No. Are you okay? Did he throw you? Is anything broken?’
I shook my head. My words were stuck in my throat.
‘She’s sorry,’ said Alice, glancing sidelong at Mikaela. ‘That’s why she came. I didn’t want to look for you on my own, so I told Mikaela, you know, how you took Spud to hide him, and she said—’
‘I said you were crazy,’ interrupted Mikaela. ‘As if Mr Shearer would shoot your ugly racehorse. People don’t just go around shooting horses, you know. I didn’t think you’d believe me, let alone pull a stupid stunt like this. I only said it to see your face. Mr Shearer wasn’t even up at Mrs Bacton’s this afternoon. She went next door to help him, remember?’
I bristled. ‘You … you tricked me?’
‘Thought it would be funny.’
‘Funny? I could have died.’
‘Well, like, duh, you didn’t.’
‘It’s okay,’ soothed Alice. ‘We’re here now. We’ll take you back, and everything will be fine.’
‘No! It’s not fine! Spud’s run off. He could be hurt. I thought I heard a gunshot.’
Alice bit her lip. Mikaela scowled.
‘You have to help me find him.’
Mikaela stared at nothing. Alice looked set to cry.
‘I’m not going back without Spud!’
Mikaela shrugged. ‘Okay,’ she said eventually. ‘We’ll look for one hour. By then it’ll be nearly dark, so if we can’t find him, we’re going back. It’s not like he’s even that good a horse. Ugly aardvark.’
One hour? What if we couldn’t find him?
‘Take it or leave it.’
‘I think he might have gone that way,’ I said, ignoring the aardvark comment, and pointing between the trees. ‘I’m not sure, but—’
‘Okay, whatever. One hour.’
Alice helped me jump up behind her on Joey, and we followed Mikaela and Razz through the trees.
‘Does Mrs Bacton know?’ I whispered to Alice when Mikaela and Razz moved on ahead. ‘Did you tell her?’
‘No, we didn’t see her. She’s probably still at Mr Shearer’s.’
I breathed out a sigh. ‘Okay, good. Now we just have to find him. How did you ever find me?’
‘Easy. Apparently Razz was bred on this property. Mikaela just let him lead the way. It wasn’t actually that far.’
‘Not far? But I’ve been out here for hours!’
‘Not hours. You probably went around in circles, that’s all.’
I frowned. Surely we were miles from anywhere? The bush went on forever. As if to prove me wrong, a smart, manicured laneway appeared up ahead.
‘Maybe Spud went down there?’ said Alice, kicking Joey up.
I hoped she was right. We searched the paddocks either side of the laneway. No sign of Spud. Then, halfway along, Mikaela pulled Razz to a halt. A white sandy arena with lights and markers sat to our left, a whole course of jumps to our right.
‘Cool!’ said Mikaela. The jumps were like the ones in real competitions, with flags and brush hedges and poles of all colours and stripes. ‘Why doesn’t Mrs Bacton have jumps like that?’
At the end of the laneway was a long row of buildings with brightly painted doors. They looked like fancy stables
‘There’s no-one here,’ said Mikaela before we’d even reached the buildings.
‘A little bit further,’ I begged. ‘You never know.’
‘Hello! Hello?’ I called as we grew closer. ‘Is anybody there?’
‘Well, well! Who’ve we (wheeze) got here, then?’ said a voice. A raspy, asthmatic voice.
Mr Shearer wheeled himself out from one of the stables. His gas bottle rattled, the ring on his pinkie shone in the late afternoon sun.
Something else glinted in his lap.
My feet froze in my boots.
‘Is that a rifle?’ murmured Alice.
‘Let’s go!’ hissed Mikaela, yanking Razz away.
‘But what about Mrs Bacton?’ said Alice. ‘She might still be here.’
‘Mr Shearer, sir,’ I stammered. ‘If you could just get Mrs Bacton? She’ll help us explain—’
‘Who? Mrs Bacton? Long gone (wheeze). Left over an hour ago. Why? What’s going on?’ He squinted up at us and our horses, one of his hands resting on the wooden handle of his rifle.
‘I’m sorry, I can explain. It’s just that we, I, got lost. We’re looking for Spud, my horse. He ran off. Please don’t kill us. We won’t tell anyone you were shooting your horses, we promise. Please let us go.’
I waited. I don’t think my heart had ever worked so hard to pump blood around my body. It was like my brain was craving oxygen like never before.
Mr Shearer’s watery eyes bored into mine. One hand gripped the rifle; the other gripped the arm of the wheelchair. His chest rose and fell with each noisy breath. This was it. He was going to shoot us, just like he’d said at Mrs Bacton’s this morning. Shoot them. Kill them.
But he didn’t shoot. He did something else. He started laughing. LAUGHING! A huge guffaw like I’d never heard before. His whole body racked with laughter, so much so, that he started coughing and had to gasp for breath. I thought he would tip from his wheelchair.
‘Kill you?’ he spluttered. ‘Why on earth would I want to kill you?’
I didn’t have a chance to answer. I couldn’t. He was laughing and coughing so hard that tears streamed down his face. Meanwhile, who knew where Spud was? He could be lying in a ditch, his reins caught up around his legs.
One hour was nearly up.
Anger rose in my throat like a wave of hot lava. Too bad if he had a gun. Too bad if he said all those things up at Mrs Bacton’s. We had to find Spud.
‘Stop it! Just stop it!’ I shouted. ‘You wouldn’t laugh so hard if your favourite horse was lost.’ I glared down at his wheelchair, my face hot. How dare he treat us like this? It was all I could do to stop myself from leaping off Joey, grabbing his gun, and throwing it to the ground.
Mr Shearer froze. He’d been wiping his eyes with one fat, blotchy hand, the one with the shiny horseshoe ring on it, and now he stopped, mid-wipe. He turned and looked up at Alice, Mikaela, and me.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ he said, wriggling in his chair and adjusting the oxygen tube under his nose. ‘Oh boy, you’re a feisty one. I bet you’re the type who’d organise a whole army to look for a little (wheeze) lost kitten. Or call an ambulance if your toast went down the wrong way. Does your imagination always run this wild?’
I shrugged. Mum and Dad had always said my imagination would get me into trouble one day, and now it looked like they were right. ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘It does. And everyone always goes mad. But today’s for real. We thought … I thought …’
‘She thought you’d come to shoot her horse,’ explained Mikaela with a smirk, ‘so she panicked and ran off. And it serves her right for be
ing an idiot, because now he’s bolted.’
‘And it’ll be dark soon,’ added Alice, her voice wobbly.
Mr Shearer nodded and fumbled in his pocket for his phone. ‘Yes, yes, of course. Hang on two secs. I’ll let Mrs Bacton know you’re here.’ He wheezed some more and then said, ‘I take it you are her riding students?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m Charli. This is Alice, and that’s Mikaela.’
‘Those two are beginners,’ said Mikaela, as if it were important.
Mr Shearer held his phone at the ready. ‘Beginners?’
‘Not me. Her and her,’ said Mikaela, pointing to Alice and me.
‘Wow! Well, my guess is you two just got promoted.’
Mikaela pulled a face as he turned to make the call.
‘Lost anyone?’ he wheezed when the phone picked up. ‘Yeah, three of them. Just came in out of the bush. Yep. Yep. Okay, will do. Yep, catch ya.’
Mr Shearer cleared his throat after he’d hung up. ‘She’s on her way,’ he said. ‘But tell me, (wheeze) I thought Mrs Bacton was going to keep you lot close to the riding stables today? What happened?’
How could I explain? I knew it didn’t make sense. Why would anyone do something so stupid – racing off into the bush when they’d only just learnt to ride? But I couldn’t let Spud die.
‘Are you really shooting horses?’ I asked instead.
Mr Shearer made a funny snuffling noise. I thought maybe he’d started laughing again, and I looked at him sharply. But he hadn’t. He was going red in the face. The oxygen tube had come loose from his bottle and was sucking and spitting. He nearly pitched out of his wheelchair as he grabbed behind himself, trying to push the tube back in.
Alice gasped.
Mikaela looked confused.
‘Can someone (wheeze) push (wheeze) it (wheeze) back (wheeze) in?’ He waved wildly at the bottle strapped to the back of his chair with his fat, blotchy hand. I slid off Joey and grabbed the tube, pushing it into the nozzle that stuck out from the side of the bottle. The hissing stopped, and I stood back.
Funny, Mr Shearer didn’t look so scary now. He clutched the arms of his chair, taking shaky, gassy breaths, his face horribly red and splotchy. Even the hole where his ear was missing looked forlorn. It was a few seconds before he breathed steadily again.
Spud & Charli Page 5
