I looked at the poor pony standing there dejectedly. At the sound of Jess’s voice, he flinched. Then I remembered what Mickey had said about a chestnut pony being loaded into a trailer next door. What if this pony used to belong to Jess? After all, she was the one who said that the auction was where you sent the horses you didn’t want anymore. I was sure Ethan wouldn’t think very much of Jess if he knew she’d treated her old pony so badly.
“You have to buy him,” he suddenly said.
“Yes, I do,” I agreed.
CHAPTER SIX
“Emily Dickenson, if you buy that pony I will make your life a living hell,” Jess said. Her face was bright red and she looked like she was about to cry.
“Why do you even care?” Mickey said. Then recognition flashed across her face and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. That the pony used to belong to Jess and she was hoping that it was going to go for dog food.
“I don’t care,” I said. “I’m buying him.”
“Yes!” Ethan fist pumped the air.
The bidding started at one hundred dollars. I stuck my hand up feeling victorious but I was soon outbid by a dog food man. Then another. The bidding was going up too fast. I only had five hundred dollars but I had to win the pony, I just had to.
“Four hundred dollars,” I shouted.
“Four fifty,” the sweaty dog food man said.
“Four seventy five,” I countered.
I was standing now, bursting out of my skin. I wanted that pony more than anything. I needed to show Jess that she was wrong to throw him away like a piece of trash.
“Going once,” the auctioneer said. “Going twice.”
I held my breath.
“Five hundred.”
The dog food man had outbid me. All the blood rushed out of my face and into my stomach.
“Bid higher,” Ethan said. He was standing too, looking just as excited as I was about rescuing the pony.
“I can’t,” I said. “I only have five hundred dollars.”
The auctioneer was looking at me, waiting for me to make a higher bid but I couldn’t. I had nothing else to offer.
“Now you have six hundred,” he shoved a hundred dollar bill into my hands.
“I can’t take your money,” I said, trying to give it back.
“Of course you can.”
“I can’t.”
My mom was going to kill me when she found out that I bought a pony but it would be even worse if she knew that I’d also borrowed money that I couldn’t pay back. It was a rule in our house and something I just couldn’t break no matter how badly I wanted the pony.
“Think of it as a partnership,” he whispered. “I’ll bet that when you fatten him up and train him, you’ll be able to sell him for a bundle to someone who really wants him. I want to save him, just like you do.”
Jess was standing behind us, looking like she was about to explode. The thought of saving the pony with Ethan was a million times better than saving it on my own.
“Six hundred dollars,” I shouted.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The auctioneer looked at the dog food man who shook his head and sat down. Then Ethan was cheering and Mickey was slapping me on the back. Jess let out a strangled sob and stormed out with her posse close on her heels. And when the dust settled, I’d handed my wad of cash to a thin man with a notebook and in return I was left holding a crumpled receipt and the lead rope of a terrified pony.
“What have I done?” I whispered.
“You just saved a life, that’s what you’ve done,” Mickey grinned.
But as the jubilation wore off, I realized that I hadn’t thought the whole thing through. Where was I going to keep him? How was I going to pay for his board?
“Good luck with him,” Ethan said. “I can’t wait to see how he turns out.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to smile.
He walked off with a group of boys who had stopped by to chat and as he left, I realized that he was the one who’d given me the courage to buy the pony in the first place. Without him and his hundred dollars, I would have ended up with nothing and I wouldn’t be in the big heap of trouble that I was. I wasn’t sure if I loved him or hated him.
“We should call Esther,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Mickey nodded, her face falling a little.
She had trouble getting reception on her cell phone and as she wandered about, trying to get a signal, I looked over my new pony. He was skinny and beaten but underneath it all, I hoped he still remembered how to jump. I felt his legs, trying to remember what the vet book had said about galls and wind puffs and bowed tendons. The pony put his nose down to see what I was doing then sighed.
“It’s okay,” I said, patting his neck. “You’re safe now. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
Mickey came back, looking pale.
“Is she coming?” I asked.
“Yes. But she’s not happy about it.”
I imagined Esther showing up and forcing me to give the pony back. I was pretty sure there was probably some rule about unaccompanied minors buying horses. If she pushed the issue she could probably get them to null the sale. We stood in the shade waiting with the pony between us, picking at the crushed grass and holding it between his lips before spitting it out again.
“We’ll get you some better food soon,” I told him, only now I wasn’t so sure.
When Esther came storming across the fairgrounds with a steely look on her face, I wished for the earth to swallow me whole. That didn’t happen but as she saw the sad state the pony was in, her face softened.
“What have they done to you?” she whispered gently, patting his neck.
“I’m sorry Esther but I just had to save him,” I cried, blinking back the tears.
“It’s okay,” she said, choking on a sob of her own. “Let’s just get him back to the farm.”
The pony took one look at Esther’s trailer and walked right in with a sigh.
“He’s done that before,” Esther said as she tied him up.
“They said he’s done jumping and dressage,” Mickey said.
“I wouldn’t hold much stock in what auctioneers say,” she said. “Remember, they are just there to make you think the horse they are selling is the best in the whole world.”
“He is the best in the whole world,” I whispered as I hugged him. “Because he’s mine.”
Esther didn’t want the pony to gorge himself on hay in the trailer and choke while no one was watching so she took the hay net away.
“It’s only a short ride,” she said.
“Can I ride in the back with him?” I begged.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “He’ll be fine but you won’t be if we get in an accident. Truck. Now.”
I nodded glumly and kissed the pony on the nose before getting into the back of the truck with Mickey.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.”
When I imagined going to the auction, it had been to buy a gleaming show jumper that Esther and my mother could not refuse me. One that would win ribbons and cups and show everybody how great of a rider I was. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined rescuing something like the pony that was in the back of the trailer.
“What are you going to call him?” Mickey asked. “You can’t keep calling him pony.”
“I wouldn’t get too attached,” Esther said from the front. “Until we get him checked out you don’t know if there is anything wrong with him. He could be sick or dangerous or lame.”
I knew Esther was right but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do about it. Send the pony back to the auction? That was never going to happen.
“Where should I put him?” I asked guiltily when we arrived at the barn.
“In the back paddock,” Esther said. “Even if he wasn’t sick before he went to the auction, who knows what kind of germs he coul
d have picked up while he was there.”
“Okay,” I said.
The back paddock was only a little pen about the size of four stalls. It was just dirt, having had its limited grass eaten away long ago. At least it was shaded by two tall oak trees but that wouldn’t help the poor pony out during the afternoon thunderstorms. I wanted to try and bargain with Esther to get him a stall but since I was currently out of money, I kept my mouth shut.
The pony backed out of the trailer easily and I took him to the paddock, Mickey trailing behind. He didn’t look around or snort at his new surroundings like horses usually did. In fact, I was beginning to think that he was sick after all. I put him in the paddock and slipped off the dirty halter.
“He’s going to need a new one of those,” Mickey said.
“Yeah. Too bad I don’t have any money left,” I sighed.
We leant on the fence and watched as the pony sniffed around in the dirt. Then his knees buckled and he rolled, stubby legs thrown skyward as he scrubbed himself into the sand.
“That means he’s happy,” Mickey said.
“Or really, really itchy,” I added.
The pony looked about as far from a show jumping champion as you could get but he was cute, even in his current state. He jumped up and shook himself, then nickered softly.
“He’s saying thank you,” Mickey grinned.
Esther warned us to feed the pony slowly so that he didn’t gorge himself so we spent the afternoon offering him tiny flakes of hay and watching as he inhaled them like an elephant sucking up water. Esther didn’t want us bringing him into the barn and contaminating the other horses so we stretched the hose and filled buckets with soapy water. We covered him in bubbles and scrubbed until our arms hurt but by the time we were done the pony was clean and we were filthy.
“Just look at those wounds,” Esther said.
She’d wandered over with a jar of her secret salve and she rubbed it gently into the pony’s half healed wounds and the open cut on his nose. The cream was pale blue and so by the time she had finished he looked pretty silly but I didn’t care if it helped him heal.
“Who would do such a thing to a sweet pony like this?” she said as the pony nudged her gently, looking for treats.
Mickey and I looked at each other. We knew exactly who. I hadn’t planned on telling Esther but suddenly it all came tumbling out. What Mickey had seen that day on the trail. How Jess had been furious that I wanted to buy the pony. The things she’d said about offloading unwanted horses at the auction.
“Those girls,” Esther shook her head. “They give horse people a bad name.”
“Can’t we report her or something?” I said.
“We have no proof,” Esther shook her head. “And no evidence.” She put her arms around us as we all stood watching the pony. “Girls, the best revenge is to treat this pony the way he deserves to be treated and see what he has to offer. If he came from where you say he did, I bet that the auctioneer was right. I’ll bet he does have a background in jumping and dressage and when we’re done with him, you’ll have a real little champion on your hands.”
The skinny pony with blue salve all over him stuck his head into the pile of hay, grabbed a giant mouthful and then tossed it all over us. As we fell into giggles, I felt warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that one day I’d show Jess exactly what a diamond in the rough she’d thrown away. But I also had the nagging feeling that she was probably already plotting how to make my life a living hell, just like she promised.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mickey and I spent all of Sunday hanging out at the barn with the pony.
“Fancy? Harry? Magic?” Mickey rattled off names as we hung over the fence and watched the pony eat.
“No,” I shook my head.
“Well, we have to call him something.”
“I know. I just want it to be a special name. After all, he’s been through a traumatic experience. He deserves a really brilliant name. The name of a champion.”
“He doesn’t look much like a champion,” Mickey said.
She was right. The pony had rolled in the night and sand had stuck to all the cuts where we’d applied the salve. We were going to have to wash him again. He was skinny and dirty and even I had to admit that right now he didn’t look anything like a champion but he had a kind eye and he already trusted us. That was enough for me.
Mickey’s mom had made us sandwiches and we ate them under the trees while the pony ate his hay. Esther said that the vet was coming out during the week and that he would need to give the pony his shots and pull a coggins, which was the blood test that proved your horse didn’t have infectious equine anemia. All horses had to have one. I dreaded to think how much it was going to cost, especially since I didn’t have any money left.
“When are you going to tell your mom?” Mickey asked with a mouthful of food.
‘Um, never,” I said.
“Don’t be dumb, just tell her. Then she can give you the money for the vet.”
“She doesn’t have spare money lying around. Besides, she’ll kill me.”
“She won’t actually kill you. She’ll just be really mad for a long time and make you do a bunch of extra chores and then she’ll be fine.”
“That might be the way your mom works but mine isn’t like that. Remember what happened when she found out I was riding behind her back?”
“Yeah, she decided she didn’t want to lose you and everything worked out fine.”
“Yes but I can’t play the dad card again. I’ve used it already. It won’t work twice.”
When my mom found out I was secretly riding, she was furious. I was forbidden from going anywhere near a horse until I threatened to go and live with my dad, even though technically I didn’t know where he lived and hadn’t spoken to him in years. It had worked but I knew that was a onetime deal. Suddenly I didn’t feel like eating any more. I tossed the rest of my bread onto the grass.
“Hey, check it out,” Mickey said.
She pointed to the pieces I’d thrown down and there was a small bluebird. It hovered for a moment, its wings fluttering, then landed and cocked its head. It started picking at the bread. It was so small and vulnerable, with a tattered wing and some feathers missing and yet it trusted us enough to come and eat right next to us. I think Mickey and I both held our breath until it finally ate all the bread and fluttered away.
“That was so cool,” Mickey grinned.
“I know, right?” I said. Then it hit me. “That’s it,” I jumped up.
“That’s what?” Mickey looked around, confused.
“The pony’s new name. Bluebird.”
“Bluebird,” she said, nodding. “I like it.”
“Me too. Let’s go tell him.”
The pony didn’t seem too interested in his new name. He was trying to snatch pieces of grass through the fence instead.
“This must be torture for him,” Mickey said.
“I know,” I nodded. “Do you think Esther would be mad if I took him out to eat some grass?”
Mickey looked around. “I don’t see her anywhere. Besides, she only said that we couldn’t take him into the barn.”
“True.”
I slipped the halter on Bluebird and opened the gate. He immediately put his head down and started snatching giant mouthfuls.
“Steady boy,” I patted him on the neck. “There is plenty of time.”
We wandered around with Bluebird as he led us from one juicy patch of grass to the next. Every now and then he would stick his head up, nostrils flared, as he made sure that no giant horse eating monsters had snuck up on him while he wasn’t looking.
I’d given the lead rope to Mickey and was leaning against Bluebird’s warm back, soaking up the sun. Already patches of old dull hair were falling out and beneath you could just catch a glimpse of gleaming copper. I knew he was going to look amazing by the time we were done with him.
I was just about to tell Mickey that we should probably put him back in
his paddock before Esther showed up and started yelling at us when a truck backfired out on the road. Bluebird flew backwards, snatching the lead rope out of Mickey’s hands and sending me sprawling onto the ground. He stood there for a moment, his head high and ears pricked, snorting like a racehorse. Then he took off.
“Bluebird,” I screamed but it didn’t do any good. The pony didn’t know his new name. All he knew was that he was in a place he wasn’t familiar with, something had scared him and he was going to run as fast and as far as he could to get away from it.
“We have to catch him,” I cried, jumping to my feet.
Mickey just stood there, looking like she was about to cry. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t matter,” I shouted at her. “Just help me.”
I ran down the trail after Bluebird but he’d already disappeared from sight. I had visions of him catching a hoof on a root and falling, tumbling over on top of himself and breaking a leg. Or worse, running through the fence and getting off the property. There were roads all around us. Cars that wouldn’t think to stop for a panicked horse running right into oncoming traffic. If something happened and he died then it would all be my fault and I wouldn’t have saved him at all.
The trail seemed so much longer on foot than it did on horseback. I had a stitch in my side and sweat running down my face. I paused and listened for the sound of hoof beats but I couldn’t hear any. The sun shone through the trees, dappling the ground with shadows and light. The scent of something sweet hung in the air. Then I heard laughing.
When I got to the edge of the property, Bluebird was standing there with his rope caught up in a fallen tree branch. His eyes were white and his sides lathered with sweat. On the other side of the fence Jess sat on Beauty, laughing.
“I told you,” she giggled. “You should have let that stupid pony go for dog meat.”
I ignored her and quietly walked up to the scared pony. When I gently patted his neck, he flinched but he let me untangle his rope and stood there looking from me to Jess with wide eyes.
“Why do you hate him so much?” I said. “What did he ever do to you?”
Pony Jumpers (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 2) Page 4
