by Amanda Wills
‘Jo blamed me for Cait’s death and I don’t blame her. She’s not spoken to me since. I would do anything to turn back the clock, Poppy. I lost a daughter and a granddaughter that day.’
‘What happened to Cloud?’ Poppy asked quietly.
‘One of the course officials took him back to the lorry and by the time I got back he was shivering with cold or exhaustion - or both. You probably think I’m being sentimental when I tell you that his heart was broken that day. I think he knew what had happened. We both felt responsible for Caitlyn’s death.’
Tory explained how she had taken Cloud back to Riverdale but that the pony’s spirit had been destroyed. She recalled how, in a fug of misery, she had sold him to a pugnacious man called George Blackstone in the hope that it would appease Jo.
Blackstone, who farmed the far side of the valley, was a member of the local hunt and prided himself on his horsemanship skills. But he wasn’t a kind man and Tory told Poppy how she had watched, powerless, as Cloud sank into deeper despair. The pony didn’t even have the energy to fight back as Blackstone, realising he’d been sold a dud, took his frustration out on him.
‘Selling Cloud to Blackstone was a terrible mistake, I quickly realised that,’ said Tory. ‘I knew I had to do something - I owed it to Cloud. I tried to buy him back several times but Blackstone flatly refused - he was convinced he could, as he put it, ‘knock some sense into the pony’.’
Poppy suspected that Cloud must have been the colt the two old farmhands had been talking about in the post office the day Caroline had popped in for stamps. ‘How did Cloud end up living wild?’ she asked Tory, not imagining that Blackstone would have ever set him free.
For the first time since she’d begun her story the old woman looked at Poppy with something resembling a glint in her eye. ‘Let’s just say he was liberated one night.’
The loud chimes of the antique clock on Tory’s mantlepiece made Poppy jump and she realised with surprise that it was three o’clock.
‘Oh no! I’m supposed to be meeting Caroline and Charlie at three. I’d better go or I’ll be really late.’ She looked at Tory. ‘Thank-you for telling me about Caitlyn and Cloud. I’m sure Charlie and I have seen Cloud drinking from the stream in the wood next to Riverdale although he galloped off as soon as he saw us.’
‘I’m glad. I worry about him. And there’s nothing I can do to help him stuck here.’
Poppy thought again of the conversation Caroline had overheard in the post office. Something about the annual drift. But she didn’t have time to think about it now. ‘I’m going to have to go, Tory. But please come and see me and Chester soon. I need to know if there’s anything I can do to help Cloud.’
Poppy felt a rush of affection for the old woman and she reached over and gave her a hug. Tory beamed, although her eyes had grown misty again. ‘You’re a lovely girl, Poppy, and you remind me so much of Caitlyn. Now, off you go before Caroline starts worrying you’ve been kidnapped by aliens, and watch out for Nosy Parker in the hallway - the interfering old bat’s probably listening at the door.’
Chapter Twelve
The next morning it was still raining and Caroline suggested that Poppy invite Scarlett over for lunch. Poppy was upstairs daydreaming about Cloud when she heard her friend at the back door and by the time she had jumped down the stairs, two at a time, Scarlett was deep in conversation with Caroline in the kitchen. They were talking about the girls’ new school and Scarlett was regaling Caroline with outrageous stories about the children from her primary school who would be in their year. Caroline had seemed down in the dumps recently but her face was animated as she listened to Scarlett’s colourful descriptions of her former classmates and she laughed out loud as Scarlett told a story about a particularly obnoxious boy called Darren who had once fed chalk dust to the class goldfish. I never make her laugh like that, thought Poppy despondently, as she pasted a smile to her face and walked in to join them.
‘Do you two want to give me a hand with the vegetables?’ Caroline asked. The three of them spent the next half an hour at the kitchen table shelling peas, slicing runner beans and discussing the pros and cons of their new burgundy and navy school uniform. Poppy’s was hanging up in her wardrobe, a glaring reminder that the summer holiday was almost over.
After lunch Poppy finally managed to get Scarlett on her own when the two of them went to muck out Chester’s stable. She was bursting to recount the previous day’s conversation with Tory.
‘That explains everything. No wonder Tory and her daughter fell out. Poor Tory, she must have been heart-broken. I suppose I would only have been about five at the time, otherwise I would have remembered it,’ said Scarlett. ‘One thing that puzzles me though,’ she continued. ‘How did Cloud avoid being rounded up with all the Dartmoor ponies in the drift every year?’
‘I’m pretty sure Tory used to hide him in Chester’s stable while the drift was on,’ said Poppy, who’d thought of little else all night. ‘Which means Cloud must still trust her, despite everything.’
‘But why hide him? Why didn’t she just come clean and give him a permanent home where he’d be safe and cared for?’ asked Scarlett, puzzled.
‘Because George Blackstone still owns him, I suppose. According to Tory he wouldn’t sell Cloud back to her after Caitlyn died, even though she pleaded with him to. Perhaps he still thinks he can make a competition pony out of Cloud.’
Scarlett knew the belligerent farmer of old, and suspected that he’d refused to sell the pony back to Tory out of sheer pig-headedness, but she kept the thought to herself.
‘What about this year though, Scarlett?’ wailed Poppy. ‘What’s going to happen to Cloud now Tory’s in Tavistock? He’ll be rounded up and sent back to George Blackstone who’ll pick up where he left off five years ago, trying to ‘beat some sense into him’. I can’t let that happen.’
‘Don’t panic. We just need to come up with a plan. I’ll find out when the drift is - my dad’ll know - and you need to speak to Tory again and tell her we need to know how she managed to catch Cloud.’
‘Who’s Cloud?’ piped up a voice from the stable door and Poppy’s heart sank right to the bottom of her borrowed jodhpur boots. Who knew how much of the conversation Charlie had heard.
‘No-one for you to worry about, little brother. Come on Scarlett, we’re done here. Why don’t you go inside and dry off while I go and catch Chester.’ She grabbed the donkey’s headcollar from its peg and headed for Chester’s paddock, irritated to see that Charlie was following her.
‘Is Cloud the white pony we saw by the stream?’ he asked, running to keep up with her as she strode across the field, her head bent against the driving rain.
‘None of your business. And anyway, you never call a horse white, it’s always grey,’ she said, knowing she was splitting hairs but hoping it would put him off the scent. No such luck.
‘It is my business. And if you don’t tell me I’ll tell Mum about the pony and it’ll be her business too,’ he replied, smiling evilly at his sister.
Poppy knew she had lost. Charlie was as tenacious as a fox terrier. She stopped and turned to face her brother, sighing loudly. ‘Alright, I will tell you but not now. Tonight, I promise. But you’ve got to give me your word that you won’t breathe a whisper of it to anyone, especially Caroline. And I mean that, OK?’
She tried to look as menacing as she could but Charlie wasn’t exactly quaking in his wellies. Instead, while nodding vigorously, he was trying hard to suppress a jubilant smile. Typical, she thought, as she caught Chester and led him to the shelter of his newly mucked-out stable. She would now need to baby-sit Charlie as they tried to rescue Cloud from the drift. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about.
Satisfied he wouldn’t be missing out on any excitement, Charlie disappeared back indoors. Poppy tied Chester up inside the stable and began rubbing him down with an old towel.
‘Did you help Tory look after Cloud?’ she murmured to the old donkey. He turn
ed and looked at her with his clear brown eyes and Poppy got the sense that he had been very much involved in the annual rescue operation. She remembered back to their first night at Riverdale when she’d heard a horse’s lonely whinny and Chester had returned the call. The two had been stablemates for almost a year before Caitlyn’s death. As she scratched the donkey’s ears absentmindedly she realised he probably held the key to saving Cloud from the drift and a life of certain misery with George Blackstone.
The rain was still beating its relentless tattoo against the windows of Riverdale that evening as Poppy, Charlie and Caroline settled down after dinner to watch the six o’clock news. Her dad was giving a live broadcast from the Middle East.
‘When is Dad coming home?’ asked Poppy, who was cheered to see her leather friendship bracelet peeking out from his right cuff.
‘We were hoping he’d be back before you both started school but he texted this afternoon to say he might have to do another couple of weeks,’ said Caroline, her eyes fixed on the television screen. After his report the presenter turned to a story about a reported sighting of a puma-type animal in the Peak District.
‘See!’ shouted Charlie, bouncing up and down on the sofa. ‘There are big cats in the wild. It’s not just me who thinks so.’
‘I’ll read Charlie his story tonight if you like,’ Poppy offered a grateful Caroline, who had purple shadows under her eyes.
‘That would be brilliant, thanks Poppy. Make sure he cleans his teeth and washes his face. You know how allergic he is to soap.’
‘Will do. Come on Charlie, let’s get you to bed. What do you fancy tonight - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe or Spongebob Squarepants?’
‘Spongebob, of course!’ replied the six-year-old, following his sister out of the room.
Fifteen minutes later Charlie’s face had been scrubbed clean, his teeth had been brushed and he was sitting in bed sucking his thumb, a long-held habit only the family were ever allowed to witness. He took his thumb out briefly to ask, ‘Now will you tell me about Cloud?’
Poppy gave him an edited version of the pony’s history and how he had come to be roaming wild on the moors. ‘Now we need to work out how to keep him safe from this year’s drift, otherwise Blackstone will get his hands on him again and either sell him or, even worse, keep him.’
‘Couldn’t you just buy him?’ asked Charlie, with all the logic of a six-year-old.
‘I’ve got about two pounds fifty in my piggy bank, Charlie. I spent all my money on Chester’s new grooming kit,’ she reminded him.
‘We need to find a way to capture him then, don’t we?’ He went quiet, his thumb firmly in, as he pondered the challenge. ‘I know!’ he said, sitting up suddenly. ‘I can creep up on him upwind, and when I’m close enough I’ll spit a sleeping dart through a straw into his bottom. You can get a headcollar on him while he’s knocked out.’
Poppy’s raised eyebrows were enough to tell Charlie it wasn’t going to happen.
‘Alright then, we’ll dig a massive pit, cover it with branches and put a bucket of Chester’s pony nuts in the middle. Then when Cloud comes over for a nibble, he’ll drop down into the pit.’
Poppy tutted. ‘There’s a saying Dad uses sometimes. Softly, softly, catchee monkey.’
Charlie looked baffled. ‘But we want to catch a pony, not a monkey.’
‘You twit! It means I need to be patient if I stand any chance of catching Cloud. He’s lost all faith in humans - apart from Tory - so I’m going to have to gain his trust and that could take ages.’
‘Please let me help you, Poppy. I promise I’ll do whatever you say, and my tracking skills might come in useful.’ Poppy sincerely doubted it, but she had a feeling Charlie meant what he said, and it might be useful to have an extra pair of hands if Scarlett wasn’t around.
‘OK then. But you must give me your word you won’t tell Caroline,’ she reiterated. She knelt down in front of his bookcase, tracing her fingers along the book spines until she came to Spongebob Squarepants.
‘Why don’t you ever call her mum?’ said a small voice from the bed.
‘Because she’s not my mum and never will be.’ Poppy glanced at her half-brother, still sucking his thumb and looking at her solemnly with Caroline’s big blue eyes.
‘But your mum’s dead so she’s the only one you’ve got. You don’t even seem to like her very much most of the time.’
‘You’re too young to understand,’ said Poppy, neatly side-stepping the question. ‘Come on, shall we see what’s happening in Bikini Bottom?’
Chapter Thirteen
Scarlett fulfilled her promise to find out about the drift and put Poppy in the picture the next morning as they groomed and tacked up Flynn and Blaze.
‘Every autumn all the Dartmoor ponies are rounded up so their owners can check them over to make sure they are healthy,’ she explained. ‘Foals born the previous spring are separated from their mothers and the foals are sold at market. So are any ponies that look like they might not survive another winter on Dartmoor. The hardiest ponies are returned to the moor to breed.’
‘How do they round the ponies up?’ Poppy asked, fascinated.
‘They use local people on quad bikes, horseback and on foot. It’s quite a task because sometimes as many as three thousand ponies need to be rounded up, Dad said.’
‘No wonder Tory decided to hide Cloud. He’d have been completely traumatised and would have stuck out like a sore thumb among all those Dartmoor ponies. He’s at least a couple of hands higher,’ said Poppy.
‘When are you next seeing Tory?’ Scarlett asked.
‘Tomorrow. Caroline has invited her to tea. I can’t wait to ask her how she managed to catch Cloud every year.’
‘Well, Dad says this year’s drift is less than a month away, which doesn’t give us very long.’
When Poppy arrived home after her ride she let herself in through the back door and went in search of a carrot for Chester. She could hear Caroline talking on the phone in the lounge and, without thinking, inched closer to the open door.
‘I just feel as if there’s this huge black weight bringing me down. And I’m so tired all the time, Lizzie. I can hardly get out of bed in the morning and by nine o’clock in the evening I’m asleep on the sofa. That’s not like me.’
Lizzie was Caroline’s older sister. A secondary school teacher in Bromley with two teenage sons, she was straight-talking but a lot of fun. Although weeks could go by without them seeing each other, the two sisters were close and spoke every couple of days on the phone.
Poppy held her breath as Caroline listened to Lizzie’s reply.
‘I thought moving to Devon would be a new start. Don’t get me wrong, Lizzie, I love the house and Poppy and Charlie adore it here, it’s been so good for them both, but I’m lonely. I miss Mike, I miss you and I miss my friends. I’ve started talking to the sheep, for goodness sake!’ But her attempt at a laugh turned into a sniff.
Poppy could imagine Lizzie in the untidy kitchen of her town house in Bromley 250 miles away. She’d be sitting on the small sofa that looked out onto her immaculately-kept garden. Gardening was one of Lizzie’s passions. Housework was absolutely not.
‘Charlie’s convinced there’s a big cat living wild on the moors and is constantly dreaming up madcap schemes to find it and Poppy spends all her time with Scarlett - the girl from the farm next door I told you about?’
Poppy stiffened at the sound of her name.
‘No, nothing’s changed. I thought leaving Twickenham might be a clean break for us all but she’s still so prickly with me. Whatever I do or say seems to be the wrong thing. It’s like she’s still punishing me for Isobel’s death, after all these years.’
There was silence again as Caroline listened to her sister’s reply.
‘I know, I will. And I promise I’ll go and see the doctor if I still don’t feel any better in a couple of weeks. Anyway, I’d better make a start on dinner. Thanks for listening to my woes an
d give my love to Stuart and the boys. Bye Lizzie.’
Poppy was busying herself by the vegetable rack rooting among the potatoes and onions for a carrot by the time Caroline came into the kitchen. She was wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothes and her hair, usually so shiny, needed a wash.
‘Hello Poppy, did you have a good ride? How was Flynn today - did he go well for you?’ Caroline asked brightly, the light tone of her voice contradicting the weary sag in her shoulders as she sat down at the kitchen table. Perversely her stepmother’s well-intentioned enquiries irked Poppy, who located two good-sized carrots and straightened up.
‘What’s this - twenty questions?’ The words came out before she could stop herself. Even to her own ears she sounded surly.
‘Sorry sweetheart - I was only asking. What do you fancy for dinner? I’ve only got mince so it’ll have to be spaghetti bolognese or cottage pie but you can choose.’
‘Um, bolognese, I guess. I’m going out to groom Chester.’
Poppy heard Caroline sigh as she flung the back door shut behind her. As she stomped out to Chester’s stable she thought about the conversation she’d overheard. How dare Caroline call her prickly? She missed her mum, that was all, and the sooner Caroline realised she could never replace Isobel the better, as far as she was concerned. Her stepmother was always so annoyingly cheerful and capable it was difficult to believe she was lonely and maybe even a bit depressed. Poppy dismissed the thought. She was just exaggerating, knowing she’d get a sympathetic reaction from her sister. A nagging feeling told her Caroline wasn’t the type to go fishing for sympathy but she ignored it, gave Chester a gentle pat on the rump and started brushing the burrs from his tail, all thoughts of her stepmother forgotten.
Caroline made an extra effort for Tory the following day. She baked a chocolate cake - Charlie’s favourite, Poppy thought sourly - and made a quiche which she planned to serve with lettuce and tomatoes from the garden. Tory caught the bus to the end of the drive and was delighted to see a small welcoming committee made up of Caroline, Poppy and Charlie waiting to help her up to the house.
