Team Challenge

by Janet Rising

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?” Drum had grumbled.

  We hadn’t had many days to practice. We agreed that we’d keep it simple—that I’d stand in the middle, and Drum would circle around me and turn and dance a bit, looking like he was making me laugh. Then, together we’d do a circuit in step together like we were dancing, throw in a few sideways moves and some back steps, then end in front of the judges and bow—with Drum putting his front hooves out in front and bending down all cute for the ah factor. It seemed to work pretty well once Drummer had mastered the bow, and I was secretly confident that we’d be fine with me telling Drum what to do and where to go. But now we were here at the showground, and the tiny bit of cooperation I’d had from Drum seemed to be evaporating. I hoped he would see it through OK.

  The field was buzzing with activity. In one corner was the dressage arena set out with white markers and the judge’s car at one end. Flags announced the start of the cross-country course on the other side, and show jumping fences gleamed in yet another part. Horse trailers lined up in the adjacent field, and a big tent was surrounded by promotional banners for Sublime Equine, all in their familiar orange and lime colors. Glamorous girls in Sublime Equine outfits handed out Sublime Equine catalogs. We found a shady tree to claim as our own, and Katy and Bean went off to confirm our entry.

  “Everyone looks alarmingly competent,” said James, eyeing up one of the Sublime Equine promotional girls wearing a very tight polo shirt and jodhpurs. She had sparkly false eyelashes on, too. It was strange seeing James in his best riding clothes—tweed jacket, shirt and tie, and jodhpurs—instead of his more familiar torn jeans and scruffy boots. Moth’s mane and tail were braided, and we’d all bullied James into trimming the feather off her four white stockings, which were whitened and encased in brushing boots. Her usual striped Indian blanket had been replaced by a neat white saddle blanket. She’d had a makeover, like my mom.

  Bean, too, was dressed up in her show gear—blue jacket and hat with cream jodhpurs. Katy had her extra-purple cross-country colors on, and I, well, I had my usual jodhs and a T-shirt. My outfit was in my backpack.

  “Mmmm. That team of chestnuts is a bit scary,” I said.

  “That group doesn’t look so hot,” James whispered, pointing. A team of assorted scary-looking ponies sauntered past. They weren’t even very clean, and the riders all looked half asleep. “If we don’t beat them, I’ll eat my hat.”

  Suddenly, a streak of chestnut and white cantered past. It was Catriona on Bambi. Seeing us, Cat turned and rode over to chat. Well, she chatted to Bean, Katy, and James. Her friends.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with James?” She laughed, referring to James’s transformation. Then she turned to me and her face and tone dropped. “I see you’re here to make up the numbers.”

  “You won’t say that when we’re riding around with our blue ribbons,” I snapped back. Then I wondered why on earth I’d said such a stupid thing.

  “Fat chance!” sneared Cat. “We’ve got Scott Purnell on Warrior doing the cross-country, and India Hammond on the Dweeb as our show jumping entry—they’re both the best.” My heart sank. I’d met Scott briefly at school, and he had been interested in me talking to Warrior. But then he’d forgotten, or not bothered, which is hardly surprising as he’s a couple of years older than me. Then I realized that it only left Cat to do the wild card event. She was in my group. Oh, pooh!

  “Phew, I’m here!” a voice shouted. As Dee pushed her bike across to us, Cat turned Bambi and rode off. Even from the back she looked disdainful. How come she’s so good at that?

  “Oh, good, the groom’s arrived,” James said gleefully, throwing his reins at her. “Look after Moth, can you, Dee? I need to walk the jumping course.”

  “Oh, give me a second,” pleaded Dee. “I’m in need of a drink after pedaling all that way.”

  Bluey was the first in our team to do his event, and we watched him quivering with excitement at the start of the cross-country, ready to get going, Katy a vision in purple.

  “Good luck, Katy!” we all shouted. This was the start of our challenge attempt—how would it go? Katy grinned at us and I could hear Bluey psyching himself up.

  “Come on, let me at ’em!” he hissed to himself. And when the starter shouted “Go! ” Bluey bounded off in a canter, almost unseating Katy. We watched them leap over the first, bounce over the second, and then they were gone—disappearing with a purple flash into the woods to tackle the rest of the course.

  “At least they’ll be fine,” said Bean. We all agreed with her. Bluey was our trump card, our one sure thing. It was the rest of us who needed help.

  Sure enough, Bluey got a splendid clear with no time faults. Katy’s face was one delighted grin—a good impression of a split melon.

  “Oh, he was so wonderful,” she gushed, sliding out of the saddle and throwing her arms around her pony’s sweaty neck. Bluey looked all smug and breathless. “He just ate up all the jumps. He just so loves it!”

  We all patted Bluey and told them both how great they were. Our Sublime Equine Challenge had got off to a flying start, and we all felt totally confident. This was going to be a piece of cake, I thought. Brookdale here we come! A big fat zero and Bluey’s fast time was chalked up onto the scoreboard in the column next to Katy Harris and Blue Haze, Bluey’s show name.

  We all helped Bean get ready for the dressage and then stood in a supportive huddle as she rode Tiffany around to warm up. I didn’t know what Bean was so worried about—she and Tiffany looked every inch a dressage pair, if you didn’t count Tiff muttering about something spooky over there and a balloon behind her and what was that woman with the dog doing. Bean rides so well, and I could see them impressing the judges, much more than Drum and me anyway. Once she was in the arena, I was sure she’d be OK.

  Leanne and Mr. Higgins had just done their test, and as they rode out and the next rider rode in, Leanne steered her dun gelding over to Bean, and we could see them talking, with Leanne pointing at Tiffany. As Leanne rode off we could tell something was wrong. Very wrong. Bean was close to tears. Stopping in front of us, she threw the reins onto her pony’s golden neck, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “We can’t do this!” she said.

  “Of course you can,” said Katy, soothingly.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said. “You were really great in practice.”

  “No, you don’t get it, we can’t do this!” Bean repeated, through clenched teeth.

  “Why?” we all said.

  “What did Leanne say?” asked James.

  “Leanne knows the rules. She’s just told me that all dressage entrants have to wear the right tack as stated in the rules, or they’ll be disqualified—and that means the team will be disqualified, too.”

  “So what do you need?” I asked, running my eyes over Tiffany. “Is your bit wrong? It’s just an eggbutt snaffle. You haven’t got a martingale, which isn’t allowed…what’s the problem?”

  “It’s the noseband,” said Bean, her bottom lip trembling. “Tiffany has to wear a noseband—and you know what happens when she does. The whole team’s out of the competition!”

  Chapter 5

  I stared at Tiffany’s naked nose. Tiffany hadn’t worn a noseband since I’d overheard her telling Bambi about her noseband phobia, something to do with an injury in her youth. Ever since the day I’d told Bean it was the noseband that made Tiffany shake her head uncontrollably, the offending piece of tack had been dumped. We were all so used to seeing Tiffany’s naked face, we hadn’t given it a second thought.

  Until now.

  “Why didn’t Leanne say something at the yard?” asked James.

  “She thought I was still doing the show jumping!” replied Bean. “We never do dressage! Not since the last time when I lost my way—that was way before you told me about Tiffany’s noseband phobia, Pia.”

  “I’ll get you Bluey’s,” Katy said, already running toward the ponies. />
  “That won’t do any good!” grumbled Bean. “Tiff will just shake her head all the way around her test. At least it won’t matter if I forget it!”

  Sliding off her pony, she burst into tears. Horrified, I looked at James, who put his arm around her and said quietly, “Oh, come on, Bean, it’ll be OK…”

  “Don’t, James!” Bean sniffed, pulling away. “I never wanted to do the dressage—no one cared how I felt, and now it’s my fault we’ll be disqualified.”

  Bean was right, we had pushed her into it and ignored her protests—we’d been so sure she’d been exaggerating and had focused only on how well she usually rode. How well she rode was immaterial if she couldn’t remember the test, or Tiffany’s headshaking returned.

  Pushing James out of the way, I put my arm on Bean’s shoulder, hoping she wouldn’t turn on me. She didn’t. “Bean, don’t cry, please. I’ll talk to Tiffany—she’ll try her best for a few minutes, I’m sure.”

  Bean wiped her nose on her black jacket, leaving a nasty, snotty trail.

  I got close to Tiffany and whispered in her ear. “Tiffany, don’t freak, but you need to wear a noseband for the dressage test—it’s just for a few minutes. Please, please, don’t headshake! Poor Bean’s really upset and it would mean a lot to her.”

  Tiffany turned and looked at me, the fear obvious in her eyes. “Please don’t make me wear one. Please! I get flashbacks to when I had one on too tightly, before I was with Bean. It hurt so much. It just freaks me out.”

  “I know, but we really need you to do this. You can do it, I know you can. We’ll put it on loosely—it’s just a cavesson. Please try.” A cavesson noseband doesn’t actually do anything, it just hangs there. I didn’t know why dressage rules state that horses and ponies have to wear something that does nothing, but it was too late to be challenging it now.

  “What’s she saying?” sniffed Bean, wrapping a supportive arm around her pony’s neck.

  I told her.

  “Please, Tiffany—I don’t want to do this either, but it’s for the team,” Bean whispered to her.

  A breathless Katy arrived with Bluey’s cavesson noseband, and we threaded it onto Tiffany’s bridle. The palomino stiffened and held her breath as we did it up as loosely as we could.

  “Promise me you’ll get this off as soon as I come out!” Tiffany said.

  “Of course, the very second you’re finished,” I promised.

  “Poor Tiffany, I’m so, so sorry,” sniffed Bean, mounting and heading for the arena just as the announcer called for Charlotte Beanie and Tiffany’s Golden Trinket to the dressage arena.

  We all held our breath.

  The best parts of Bean and Tiffany’s test were the start and finish. The stuff in between was worse than we could have imagined. Tiffany broke pace at canter and, unable to help herself, she shook her head violently several times. Bean, upset and trembling, forgot the test three times—just as she promised she would—and left a whole chunk out altogether.

  “Well done!” we all chimed loyally, trying to be supportive as they came out. I rushed to strip the noseband off Tiffany’s bridle.

  “Oh, that was awful.” Tiffany shuddered. She had obviously been very brave about it, considering.

  Dressage is scored as a percentage—anything over 60 percent is considered pretty darn good. Each movement is marked out of ten, with the percentage worked out later, and Bean obviously lost quite a number of points for not completing several of the required movements.

  “Thirty-two percent!” wailed Bean when she read her score on the board. “It must have looked even worse than it felt.”

  “Don’t worry, we can drop your score,” said James tactlessly.

  “I think you did great, under the circumstances,” Katy said firmly, and we all agreed. Secretly, I could see our chances of qualifying for the final at this event racing downhill. Fast.

  I couldn’t help noticing that Leanne had scored 79 percent, a fantastic score and in the lead so far. We went back to the ponies to nurse our hurts. Bean’s dressage score was a blow, but we couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t like she hadn’t warned us. We had insisted she’d be all right. We’d been wrong. OK, we could drop her score, but it put a lot of pressure on the rest of the team to do well.

  “You and Moth had better leave all the jumps up after taking the event from Bean,” I warned James.

  “Thank goodness you’re all back!” said Dee, tangled up in reins. “Perhaps now I can go to the bathroom. Can you not leave me three ponies all at once? How did Tiffany and Bean do? Was the noseband all right?”

  “No!” said Bean, telling Dee all about it. It was strange hearing someone whining to Dee for a change.

  When it was James’s turn to jump, Bean and I followed him over to the arena, leaving Katy and Dee with the ponies. India Hammond from Team SLIC was flying around the course on the Dweeb, her careful, flea-bitten gray pony. Blond and very pretty, India looked every inch the part in her navy jacket and pink tie.

  “She’s really good,” hissed Bean. “She’s been show jumping since she was tiny.”

  I could hear the Dweeb talking himself around the course: “Hang on, India, this is a tricky one, now this fence, yes! Where to now? Oh, I see, the wall, here we go, toes tucked up…”

  I noticed James gazing at India. Well, she was a bit of a stunner. I couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy, and I wished I looked like India, blond and petite, instead of having a mane of unruly reddish brown hair that matched Drummer’s coat. When India rode past us after her faultless clear round, she smiled at James and waved. We watched her ride back to her teammates, who all clapped her on the back and cheered.

  For the Sublime Equine Challenge, there was to be no jump-off—everyone had to aim for a fast clear round. Every fence down added ten seconds to the round, so accuracy was vital. James and Moth did not copy India’s example. Although fast, Moth clipped a pole, and then she managed to dislodge a brick in the wall, adding twenty seconds to her time and putting her way down the line. We weren’t exactly shining.

  “Never mind,” I said to James, who was all apologetic. “You did your best.”

  “I think I’m still making poor Moth drop her hind legs,” James said, hanging his head.

  It was my turn. Could I make up some lost ground for the team?

  “Go out and knock the judges dead!” whispered James, as I got Drummer dressed up in his red and yellow outfit. Epona was firmly zipped into my jodhpurs pocket. Our whole routine depended on her being with us.

  “I’ll never forgive you for this,” hissed Drummer.

  “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic!” I told him, tying the ear protectors to his halter. “Four minutes, that’s all!”

  I gave James the CD of medieval-sounding lute and pianoforte music for my routine and he went over to give it to the steward. Luckily, with so many events going on, there was hardly anyone around the wild card ring, which was a huge relief. I dragged Drummer over and as we got there, I could see Cat performing her routine with Bambi.

  Cat was long-reining her skewbald mare. She’d threaded two long lines through the stirrups on Bambi’s saddle and was steering Bambi around in circles and figure eights. Then she got Bambi going sideways, and then backward. To finish, Bambi stood up straight in front of the judges and Cat came up beside her and saluted. It looked very precise and impressive, with Cat in her riding clothes and Bambi with her white patches gleaming, her chestnut patches shining in the sun, her mane and tail fiercely braided.

  My heart sank. Why hadn’t I thought of something as classy as that? Why had I thought up something that made me and Drummer look like fools? Our routine suddenly seemed childish, and I wished with all my heart that we didn’t have to go in and perform it. Drum had been right all along. It was a stupid, stupid routine. What had I been thinking of in my amateurish homemade dress and wimple? This challenge thing was turning into a nightmare. Why had we ever thought it was a good idea? How had we expected to do we
ll? What had we been thinking?

  “It’s your turn. Break a leg,” whispered James, giving me a push. We had to pass Cat and Bambi as we jingle-jangled our way to the middle of the ring, and I heard Cat snort with laughter when she caught sight of us.

  Oh, double pooh.

  “Come on.” Drum sighed. “Let’s get it over with.”

  I nodded to the judges and one of them started the CD.

  “OK, Drum, let’s give it our all!” I whispered to him as the music blared out. Boy, it was loud. We’d never had it on that loud at home when we’d been practicing.

  “OK, circle around me,” I said to Drum.

  “What?” Drummer said, planted to the spot.

  “Circle around me!” I said louder.

  “You’ll have to speak up!” shouted Drummer, shaking his head and ringing all the bells.

  “Just do what we did at home!” I yelled.

  “I can’t hear you!” Drummer replied.

  It was hopeless! The combination of the music and Drum’s ear protectors with bells on made it impossible for him to hear my direction. Somehow, we muddled through, but it wasn’t anything like as polished as it had been in practice at home in the paddock. We went wrong, we turned away when we should have turned toward each other, and we finished at different times before the music stopped, bowing out of sync. I couldn’t wait to get out of the arena.

  “Thank you!” shouted one of the judges in a bored voice, obviously relieved that our performance was over.

  We came third from last.

  “Drum couldn’t hear me,” I explained.

  “Maybe you should take those ear things off,” suggested Dee.

  “Good idea!” snorted Drummer.

  “Oh, you heard that all right!” I said crossly.

  “Well, there’s no music thundering out like we’re at Woodstock!” he replied. “With all these bells ringing, maybe you should think of adapting our routine—how about we change it to The Hunchback of Notre Dame? You could stuff a cushion up the back of your dress.”