Team Challenge

by Janet Rising

  Everybody knew it.

  Nobody thought we stood a chance.

  Chapter 19

  Katy was doing the math—the trouble was, she was running out of fingers.

  “We’re not even in the running, now,” she said, her eyes darting around the master scoreboard. “Because of me.” She gulped.

  “It was just one of those things, Katy. Don’t dwell on it,” said James.

  “If India gets a fast clear with no time penalties, Team SLIC will beat us—we can’t catch their score, even if Bean does remember her test,” said Katy grimly.

  “See, even you know I’m going to forget it!” wailed Bean. There was a long time to go before her event. Plenty of time for her nerves to turn to quaking terror.

  “No, I don’t, honest,” mumbled Katy, fooling no one. So much for her confidence-boosting talk.

  “But if India gets a fence down, or goes too slow,” continued James, studying the scoreboard intently, “and if Bean gets a fabulous dressage score”—he winked at Bean, who stuck her tongue out at him—“the Great Eight could still finish high up in the placings, beating Team SLIC.”

  Beating Leanne’s team mattered to me—simply because I had an old score to settle. The Dweeb shouldn’t have been competing at all. It wasn’t a level playing field. India—whether intentionally or not—wasn’t eligible to even compete. Somehow, beating Team SLIC was what mattered most.

  “OK, let’s go and watch India’s round,” said James. “However painful it is, I need to see it with my own eyes.”

  “We’ll have to be sporting and congratulate them.” Katy sighed. “If they do beat us,” she added, glancing at Bean. We all knew the chances of Bean getting a good dressage score were about a million to one. With Bluey’s score discounted, our campaign was as good as over.

  Why do we have to congratulate them? I thought. After all, they tried to get me disqualified. I didn’t say anything out loud and remembered what my mom said about karma. But it was so hard, this karma thing! Katy was right, but knowing it didn’t make it any easier. If we’d wanted to say something, we ought to have done so at the beginning, not now. We’d accepted the problem and run with it. It was too late to change our minds—that would just be spiteful. Bad karma.

  We got to the show jumping ring just in time; India and the Dweeb were already halfway around the course, the Dweeb’s careful hooves clearing the poles and planks with ease, concentration showing on her rider’s face as India steered her talented pony over the beautiful jumps. The rest of her teammates stood in a huddle, willing her to a fast and clear round. I couldn’t believe India knew about her pony’s history. I just couldn’t.

  The Dweeb turned to the challenge of the final three jumps. They were nothing for an experienced pony, and India galloped through the finish with a neat, fast, clear round, to the joy of her team, who went wild. India’s delight shone on her face as she pulled up outside the ring, surrounded by Cat, Scott, and Leanne, and her own mother, who had tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, India, you were wonderful!” gushed her mother, dabbing her face with a tissue.

  “No surprises there!” said James grimly.

  But he was wrong.

  Suddenly, the party was interrupted by a blond woman running up to the Dweeb. She patted her damp neck as she drew breath.

  “Platinum Bell!” she shrieked so loudly, everyone around the ring could hear. “I won everything on this wonderful pony—at the Horse of the Year Show and here at Brookdale. It’s wonderful to see her again!”

  India smiled and shook her head, “I’m sorry, but this isn’t…” she began.

  India’s mother froze. Then she grabbed the woman’s arm and tried to pull her away.

  “You’re mistaken. This pony’s not called Platinum Bell,” she said almost too loudly, too quickly.

  “Oh, I’d know her anywhere!” The blond woman laughed. “She’s Bella all right—a bit older and her dapples have faded, but still the same. She was one of the most successful jumping ponies on the circuit!”

  “What?” A woman with a formidable chest and a Jack Russell on a lead rope, whose son was on another team, joined in. “This pony’s an experienced jumper, did you say?”

  “Only one of the most successful ever!” The blond woman laughed.

  “You don’t know for sure,” butted in India’s mom. “You can’t prove it.”

  “Well, she’s still got the scar on her chest where she got caught up in the trailer one day,” the woman said, pointing to a jagged black mark under the Dweeb’s martingale strap.

  We all looked at one another. The game was up. The color drained from India’s face as the full force of the woman’s words hit home.

  “That pony shouldn’t be here!” the chesty woman exclaimed, turning red with fury. Her son, on his dark bay cob, started whining that it wasn’t fair, and the Jack Russell, sensing an upset, bounced about on the end of the leash, barking.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” replied India’s mom, jutting her chin upward in defiance. But the large woman was having none of it.

  “If that pony is who this woman says, she’s too experienced for this competition. You’re cheating, and I’m going to lodge an objection and get you disqualified.”

  India’s mom went scarlet. It was clear that she’d known all along about the real identity of the Dweeb. I glanced at Team SLIC. They all stood with their mouths open, amazed. No one could doubt that it was a complete surprise to Scott, Cat, and poor India—although James had told Leanne, she was still horrified at the scene in front of her.

  The crowd started whispering in excitement as the woman marched off on her mission to get India disqualified.

  “Is this true, Mom?” India whispered.

  “Well, India, I, er, I didn’t know anything about this, honestly,” her mom stammered. It was obvious she was lying.

  “Oh, Mom, how could you?” cried India, bursting into tears.

  “Look, sweetie, I just wanted you to do well. I just wanted success for you, for you to be happy. I wanted you to win. I did it for you…”

  “God, this is just awful,” I heard Bean whisper. “Poor India.”

  I felt sorry for her, too. It wasn’t her fault. It didn’t seem fair somehow.

  “So you cheated!” yelled India. “And you made me cheat, too.”

  India’s mom flinched like she’d been hit.

  “And you made me let all my teammates down!” India continued, turning toward Team SLIC, who stood there silent and shocked, seeing all their hard work and dreams sliding away.

  “But I did it because I love you, India, don’t you understand?” her mom pleaded.

  “That’s too bad, because I hate you for it!” sobbed India, turning the Dweeb and cantering off across the showground.

  For the second time that day I was grateful for my own parents. They’re weird, but they’d never do anything like India’s mom. She must have totally blown it with the karma thing. I thought I’d feel glad if India was found out, but instead, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the disappointment the whole team was experiencing. In her effort to see her daughter succeed, India’s mother had ruined any chance of success for the whole team. It was totally unfair, and our rivals didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t imagine how poor India must have been feeling right now. I didn’t feel any better when Team SLIC’s marks got wiped from the scoreboard. We’d been upset about them cheating, but when they were actually eliminated, we didn’t feel victorious at all.

  And then another, heart-stopping thought hit me: Now that Cat was out of the competition, would she resurrect her campaign to get the Great Eight disqualified, too? Would she come gunning for me?

  Chapter 20

  Are you ok, Bean?” asked Katy, as we all walked back to base. Bean nodded, robot-like. She looked ashen and anything but OK. We helped her get Tiffany ready. Actually, we got Tiffany ready—Bean couldn’t do anything, she was in such a state. If Bean didn’t compete, we’d be disqu
alified, and nobody wanted that. We’d come this far, we wanted desperately to finish. All the teams would parade in the main ring, and we didn’t want to go home robbed of that chance. Like Team SLIC had been, I couldn’t help thinking.

  Dee braided Bean’s hair and Sophie—all smiles now that Dolly and Dee had qualified for HOYS—sprayed Tiffany with Dolly’s very expensive show sheen, making her golden coat glimmer.

  “With any luck, the judges will be so dazzled by Tiff’s gleaming coat, they won’t notice they’re not actually doing the test,” Sophie whispered.

  As we walked over to the dressage arena, Bean’s face turned even paler. Anxiously, I glanced at James and Katy who were keeping uncharacteristically quiet. They had to be sharing my negative feelings—and the India incident had left everyone feeling a bit wobbly. Swinging from Katy’s hand like an instrument of torture was the noseband, ready to encase Tiff at the last moment. It seemed like the final insult—wearing a noseband for ritual humiliation in a test Bean couldn’t remember.

  “I’m going to let you all down,” Bean whispered shakily.

  “No, you’re not, Bean,” I said, my heart pounding. I hoped my face didn’t show my fears. “Just do your best. No one’s expecting any more than that.”

  Bean bit her lip and stayed silent in terror.

  “You just have to do as much as you can remember, we don’t want to be disqualified,” said James, aiming a plastic smile at Bean.

  If Bean was despondent, Tiffany was in a determined mood. I could hear her muttering to herself under her breath. “You can do this, Tiff, noseband or no noseband. Come on, girl! This is the final time, and you can do it, you can, you can—”

  “It’s time,” James declared. Bean looked at him like a condemned prisoner about to have her head cut off.

  Katy fumbled with the noseband, but this time, Tiffany didn’t close her eyes. She took a deep breath, and as their names were announced, the palomino trotted into the ring and around the outside of the dressage markers, waiting for the bell. I sidled up to James.

  “Do you think Cat will try to get me disqualified again, too?” I asked him.

  James’s grinned. “There wouldn’t be much point now,” he said grimly. “It’s not like we’ve got a chance, is there?”

  “But she still might,” I said, chewing my nails. I didn’t think Cat was the charitable sort.

  The bell sounded and, miserably, we all leaned on the rails. Would Bean remember the test? Even if she did, she couldn’t possibly get a good enough score to make up for Katy and Bluey’s shock elimination. Bean and Tiffany entered at C and rode straight up the centerline—but something was already wrong. Bean started to look wildly about her, as though she’d just woken up and hadn’t a clue where she was.

  “Oh, no,” wailed Katy, “she doesn’t know where to go next.”

  “It’s going to be a disaster,” Dee said, her fist in her mouth.

  “Come on, Bean,” whispered James, gripping the rails. “Come on.”

  But Bean sat like a dummy giving no signals to Tiffany, offering no suggestions of where to go.

  Even though I had known, deep in my heart, that any chance the Great Eight had of doing well disappeared when Katy and Bluey jumped to the wrong side of the flag, I had still allowed myself to believe that Bean might, against all the odds, remember this all-important, rehearsed-a-million-times test.

  Just this one test.

  Just this once.

  But now I knew I’d been kidding myself.

  “She’s forgotten the test!” I breathed. “She said she would, and we didn’t believe her. It’s the end of the Great Eight’s bid for glory!”

  Chapter 21

  The whole world seemed to slow down. Bean looked around frantically, obviously unable to remember where to go and what to do. Disqualification stared the Great Eight squarely in the face.

  “Oh, I can’t look!” breathed Katy, her head in her hands.

  “We should never have made her do the dressage.” James sighed—conveniently forgetting that he had been the one who’d had insisted on it.

  “She told us she’d forget!” I muttered. “She told us all along!”

  “Hold on…” Dee said, grabbing my sleeve. “Look!”

  We all watched, breathless and openmouthed as something amazing happened. Instead of disaster, Bean and Tiffany began their test. Tiffany pranced around the corner in perfect rhythm, and Bean suddenly sat up, quiet and still, looking more like a dressage rider with every step. They progressed with Tiffany on the bit, her paces even and with no sign of resistance, looking as though they competed in dressage every day of their lives.

  “I told her she could do it!” said James, letting his breath out with a whoosh.

  “She’s fantastic!” whispered Katy, scared to say it any louder.

  Even wearing the hateful noseband, Tiffany was doing a great job, and Bean was like a rider possessed. It looked wonderful—Bean’s blond braid matching her pony’s golden coat exactly, bouncing gently on the back of her navy jacket. Their transitions were right on the letters, their turns and circles flowing and balanced, and their paces regular. Tiffany didn’t shake her head once. As they finished, we all let out a whoop of delight. It had been a fantastic test. In fact, I thought, it was as though Bean had been replaced by a Bean look-alike who was fabulous at dressage. It was uncanny!

  By the time we got to her outside the ring, the noseband lay in the grass, and Bean was hugging her pony, tears streaming down her face.

  “Tiffany, you’re amazing!” she kept saying, hugging Tiffany again and again.

  “You were amazing!” shouted Dee.

  “Bean, that was fantastic!” I said.

  “Wow, Bean, you’ve been holding out on us. That was the best test ever!” cried James, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Way to go, Bean!” shouted Katy. “We told you you’d remember the test!”

  “But I didn’t,” said Bean.

  “You so did!” I yelled.

  “No, it wasn’t me. My mind went to mush as soon as I entered the arena,” Bean said, wiping her eyes on her sleeves. “I just sat there, in a trace.”

  “But we saw you…” began Dee.

  “It was Tiffany,” explained Bean, hugging her pony again. “She did it all. She remembered the whole test. Thank goodness we practiced it at home.”

  We all turned to Tiff, speechless.

  “I promised I’d do my best,” I heard Tiffany whisper.

  “But it didn’t look like Tiff was doing it at all,” said Katy, astounded. “I mean, all the transitions were perfect and everything.”

  “I know where to do it. Give me some credit.” Tiffany snorted. I told the others. We just couldn’t believe it.

  “That’s got to be a good score,” said James. He was all excited, looking toward the scoreboard.

  “Oh, here comes the score now! I can’t look!” muttered Katy as one of the Sublime Equine girls wrote Bean and Tiffany’s score on the board.

  “How much?” Bean gasped in disbelief.

  We all stared at the board.

  “Seventy-three!” yelled Katy, jumping up in the air and letting out a whoop of delight. “You’re so the dressage queen, Bean!”

  “Bean, Bean, dressage queen,” chanted Dee, thumping Bean on the back.

  “Look out, Leanne, there’s a new kid on the block!” said Katy.

  “Oh, Tiff, you are clever,” Bean whispered to her pony, swinging off her neck in a bear hug.

  “Careful,” I heard Tiffany say. “I think that’s a life-threatening object over there…and there’s a funny noise around here…and I never ever want to wear that awful noseband again!”

  And then I heard another voice I’d been dreading. It was anything but happy.

  “You are so a cheat, Pia. I’m going to see that your team is disqualified.”

  Catriona!

  “Oh, Cat, don’t be like that,” said James in a soothing voice. “Getting us disqualified won
’t help your team.”

  “Please, Cat,” said Bean, aghast. “How could you? We’ve always been friends, haven’t we?”

  “You wouldn’t be so mean, surely?” added Katy.

  “I don’t see why you should be in this competition when we’ve been disqualified. You’re cheating worse than us, with Pia here being able to communicate with her pony in the wild card event,” Cat said nastily.

  “But you never believed I could talk to ponies!” I said.

  “Yeah, well, it’s not what I believe, is it? It’s what the organizers believe!”

  “Even if Pia can talk to the ponies,” said Katy carefully, “she can’t make them perform any better, can she? You’re being unreasonable, Cat.”

  “Come on, Cat,” added James, winking at her. “Be a sport!” Cat’s green eyes looked at James. “It isn’t fair,” she said. “You know it isn’t. Why should she get away with it? Maybe you shouldn’t have had her on your team!” With that, Cat turned around and marched off in the direction of the secretary’s tent.

  “How can she be so vindictive?” asked Katy. Our euphoria had been short-lived. Now we were all plunged back into despair.

  “She’s not just hurting Pia, she’s hurting all of us,” said Bean. “We all used to be such good friends. I don’t know why she’s being so nasty.”

  Katy gave Bean a bit of a look. “It’s not just because of India,” she said. “She’s upset because…oh, you know.”

  Bean nodded. “That’s not our fault.” She sighed. “She’s taking it out on us.”

  “What are you not telling me?” I said, desperate to know the secret everyone but me seemed to know about Catriona. No one answered.

  “I’m going to talk to her…” said James, turning around and heading off after Cat. “See you back at the trailer.”

  “What do you think he’s going to do?” asked Dee.

  “Kill her?” suggested Bean.

  “If anyone can persuade Cat, James can,” Katy said thoughtfully.

  I wondered what she could possibly mean. Could James save the Great Eight a second time? I felt terrible. Everyone at the yard had been friends before I arrived. My pony whispering had altered things. It was because of me Bean was saying she would never see Cat in the same light again. Because of me Katy said she would never have thought Cat capable of being so mean. Because of me James was going…to do what? Was Cat right? Was I cheating? I decided karma sucked.