by Kate Lattey
Pete.
I swallowed past the lump that rose in my throat. I missed my brother. If he’d been here, I could’ve told him what happened last night. He’d have done something about it. I couldn’t tell Dad – he’d go ballistic. He’d already made enough of a scene yesterday at the practice fence; the last thing I needed was round two. Pete would’ve been discreet, but Dad would try to lodge some kind of formal complaint and everything would become public knowledge. My word versus Connor’s, and what could I say he’d done, really? He’d stopped when I told him to. Not right away, but he’d stopped.
I wished he’d never started. I wished I’d never given him the chance.
Dad was still sleeping when I slipped out of the truck, dressed and showered, with only one thing on my mind.
Go see the ponies.
They’d make me feel better. I could put my arms around Buck’s neck, and let Skip blow bubbles in my hair, and scratch Forbes behind his ears the way he liked best, and know that some things were still the same. I stepped down onto the dewy grass and pushed the door carefully shut behind me. The latch clicked, but I didn’t move. My feet were frozen to the ground and I felt the blood chill in my veins, the lingering warmth of the hot shower disappearing fast at the sight of the word scrawled in large black letters on the side of our truck.
SLUT.
It wasn’t even true. Couldn’t have been further from the truth, in fact. My head pounded and I broke out in a fresh layer of sweat, my hands clammy, my skin prickling, all the hairs on my arms standing on end. A small corner of my brain that wasn’t engaged in panicking was focused enough to wonder who’d written it, but there was really only one option.
Wasn’t there?
Hoofbeats thudded on the grass nearby, and a horse whinnied, and someone told it to shut up and behave. I moved quickly, stepping closer to our truck to try and block the incriminating word from anyone else’s view. The rider passed by, and I stood close and stared at the black paint, tears stinging my eyes. Why did people have to be so mean? Couldn’t they just leave me alone?
Didn’t they know that life was already hard enough?
I reached out with a finger and touched the paint, wondering whether it had dried yet. My heart lifted as it smeared under my touch, leaving a black mark on my finger. Not paint, I realised, but boot polish. I could smell it now, and I started rubbing harder at it, using the side of my hand. It smeared, but I could still read it. I rubbed my hands in the wet grass, then scrubbed again at the boot polish, trying to remove the evidence.
It was going to take more than water. I gathered my nerve and slipped back into the truck, then started searching under the sink for something a little stronger. There was a full bottle of Spray n’ Wipe under there, and I mentally praised my mother’s tendencies towards obsessive cleanliness. Grabbing a sponge, I headed back for the door as Dad rolled over and opened his eyes.
“Morning.” He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and frowned. “You’re up early.”
“Early bird gets the worm.” I was right at the door now, holding the bottle of Spray n’ Wipe behind my back so he wouldn’t see it, wouldn’t ask what I was doing. “I’m just going to check on the boys, give them a biscuit of hay each.”
“Okay.” Dad propped himself up on his elbow and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll get up in a minute, make us something to eat.”
“No rush,” I told him. Breakfast was the furthest thing from my mind right now. “Take your time.” And I slipped outside again before he could say anything else.
I knew that I had to hurry. I sprayed liberal amounts of cleaning product on the boot polish, which was all smudgy now but still stubbornly readable, then started scrubbing with the course side of the sponge, designed to get grease off non-stick pans. I rubbed furiously at the side of the truck, hoping Dad couldn’t hear it from inside.
Moments later, I stepped back and surveyed my work critically. You could tell that something was amiss – there was a dark smudge on the side of our truck that definitely wasn’t supposed to be there – but even the wildest imagination would never be able to tell what it had said.
SLUT.
The word wouldn’t stop whirling around in my head, jabbing at me with sharp fingers, making my head ache and my stomach clench.
I am not.
Then why did he say you are?
I threw the sponge underneath the truck, wishing I knew.
Instead of getting better, the day only got worse. I fed the ponies, mucked out their yards and removed their leg wraps, then started plaiting Forbes’ mane. Etiquette dictated that the ponies were plaited for the final round of a Championship, and while not everyone subscribed to that tradition, I knew that Dad would expect me to have done it. My plaits still weren’t as good as our former groom Lucy’s had been, but I’d been practicing at home, and could manage to get them looking halfway decent.
Dad turned up just as I was sewing the last one in.
“There you are. Wondered when you were coming for breakfast.”
I slid the needle through the bottom of the plait and tucked it up into the base of Forbes’ mane. “Almost done.”
“Plaits look good.”
“Thanks.” I felt a warm glow of satisfaction as I pulled the needle through the tight plait, then sewed downwards again, pulling the string tight to check the tension. Tuck the plait under again, stitch back up, and then back down again. Once more in each direction for good luck, then I pulled out the small scissors from my apron and snipped off the thread.
Lowering my aching arms, I surveyed my work proudly as Dad walked around behind Forbes and ran a hand over his hindquarters.
“No lasting lameness from yesterday then?” he asked casually, just as Forbes laid back his ears and lifted his hind leg in warning.
My heart sank like a stone as I realised that I’d completely forgotten about my pony banging his stifle on the jump yesterday. I hadn’t even bothered to check whether he was walking freely before I’d started plaiting him. Even before I had to admit that to my father, before I clipped a lead rope onto Forbes’ halter and stripped his rug off and led him out of his yard, before I trotted him up under my Dad’s watchful eye, I just knew that he’d be lame.
And I was right.
Dad went to scratch Forbes from his class while I snipped the plaits out of his mane. Almost an hour to put them in, and now only a matter of minutes to take them all out. I threw a stable rug back over the glossy dark bay pony and rubbed his ears, then went to check on the other two. Skip was his usual cheerful self, nuzzling me in his friendly way as I ran my hands down his legs and massaged his back and hindquarters, checking for any flinching or muscle tension. Finally reassuring myself that there was nothing wrong with him, at least, I moved on to Buck.
“How’re you doing this morning, old man?” Buck turned towards me and blinked slowly, as though he was only half-awake. I stepped in close and started unbuckling his neck rug, and he rubbed his cheek on my shoulder, though not as forcefully as usual. Sometimes I had to grab onto the railing to prevent being pushed right over when he took it into his head to rub on me. I stripped Buck’s rugs off and looked at him with a critical eye. You’d never know that he was almost nineteen, except…
I ran my hands over his sides, looking at the way his belly was tucked up, showing a ridge below his ribcage that wasn’t usually there, and at the hollowness of his flanks. I checked his water bucket to see if he’d been drinking properly, remembering that my former pony Springbok used to get tucked up like this when he got dehydrated. Buck hadn’t drunk a lot of water overnight, but the bucket wasn’t brimful either, so he must’ve had some. I stood back and surveyed him critically, worried. We always added electrolytes to the ponies’ water buckets when we were away competing, but I couldn’t remember whether I’d done it last night or not.
I threw a rug back over my pony. “I’ll go see if Dad’s got electrolyte paste in the truck,” I told Buck. He wouldn’t be competing today anyway, as I’d
decided to give him the rest of the weekend off, but I couldn’t have him standing around dehydrated. I leaned down to give him a kiss, and had to smile at the shavings stuck to his muzzle. “What’ve you been getting up to?”
I brushed at the shavings, then frowned as they stuck to my hand. Wiping my hand on my jeans, I looked more closely. His short coughing fit from last night came back to me, sucker-punching me in the gut, and I realised that his nose was running with a thick discharge.
Oh no.
This was not good. Buck was clearly sick, and I just hoped that it was a cold, and not something more sinister. I glanced up at the sound of footsteps, and saw Dad approaching.
“Ready for your breakfast?”
“Not yet.” I bit my lip, then told my father the bad news. “I think you need to call the vet.”
“Talk about your overreaction. Calling the vet out for a pony with a mild cold?”
“You know what they say about people with too much money.”
“They shouldn’t have the pony here if it’s got a cold,” someone else said. “Colds are highly contagious, and we’re only a month out from Horse of the Year.”
I ignored them as best I could, walking the course carefully behind the group of riders ahead of me. They had jackets slung over their arms and whips slapping against their boots as they strode out the combinations, talking in loud voices and not caring whether I heard them. I kept my steps deliberately slow, maintaining distance between us, walking unnecessarily precise lines and doing my best to focus only on the course ahead of me.
Skip was waiting outside the ring with my father, fit as a fiddle and ready to go. Buck had been moved to a yard on the end of the row for the rest of the show, a half-hearted quarantine that was making him even more depressed. A local vet had come and taken his temperature, confirmed that it was slightly elevated, given him electrolytes and a dose of Bute, and told us that we had nothing much to worry about. I’d hovered nearby, watching the vet’s calm, precise movements. I still harboured a desire to be a vet myself one day, but the dream seemed more unattainable the more I sought after it. It took four hard years of study, and that was only if you got into vet school in the first place. I knew that the statistics weren’t good. There was only one university in New Zealand that offered a vet medicine degree. Hundreds applied, but only the top sixty got through the preliminary examinations. And then even if you did manage to pass all four years of the degree and make it onto the vet register, you still had to convince people to trust you with their animals’ health. I wanted to be a large animal vet, but considering my reputation, convincing anyone that I was competent to look after their horses seemed like it would be an impossible feat.
I paced out the distance from the grey oxer to the red vertical, then stopped and looked behind me at the subtle curve between the two jumps, memorising it. Too late, I realised that there was someone on my heels that I really didn’t want to talk to.
Anna stopped next to me at the base of the red jump. Her blonde hair was tucked tightly into a hairnet under her helmet, and her grey pinstripe jacket sat elegantly on her slender shoulders.
“I’ve got a message for you,” she said, her blue eyes meeting mine. “From Connor.”
I stepped away, walking around to the other side of the jump. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Anna met me on the other side, one haughty eyebrow lifted. “Well I think you should.”
I clenched my jaw. “Anything that Connor has to say to me, he can say to my face.” I put as much conviction into my voice as I could, but inside I was quailing. Coming face-to-face with Connor was the last thing I wanted to happen today, if only because I knew I didn’t have the strength to punch him in the face as hard as he deserved. “Or maybe he could just leave another note on the side of my truck.”
Anna frowned, looking like she had no idea what I was talking about, then shook off her confusion. “Whatever. He just said to tell you that he’s got someone else looking at Star, so you won’t be able to compete her this afternoon.”
She strode away without waiting for a response, leaving me alone in the middle of the course, wanting nothing more than for this day to be over already.
I rode badly in the warm-up, distracted by the sight of Connor standing next to the practice jump as his sister Grace schooled Summertime over it. His voice rang out as he reminded her to sit up and balance.
“Use your legs, they’re not painted on!”
I could hear other riders chuckling at his jokes, and saw Grace grinning at her brother. I avoided looking at him, trying to focus on my pony, but when I cantered Skip down to the vertical, Connor was still standing next to it. I was three strides away when he took a step towards the jump and rested a hand on the pole, distracting me. I checked Skip hard, and he threw up his head and shortened his stride. We’d been coming in on the perfect distance, and now I’d flubbed it. I kicked on, and my pony put in a huge effort, but he rattled the rail, which tumbled to the ground.
I gave Skip an apologetic pat as I cantered on, glancing over at the jump as we made the turn. Anna had been following me to the jump, and had been forced to circle when Skip had knocked it. She shot me a dirty look as she brought her pony Saxon back to a trot, but I was distracted by the sight of Connor and my dad putting the rail back up. Together. One on each end of the rail, chatting and smiling like they were friends. Connor turned and caught my eye, smirking. He knew I hadn’t told my dad anything – he’d been banking on it. I almost wished I had, if only to wipe that look off his face, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The last thing I needed was to have any more attention drawn to me.
Anna cleared the rebuilt jump on Saxon, and I took Skip around for another attempt. I could feel Connor’s eyes on me as I rode down to it, and my hands went tight and clammy on the reins. Skip tossed his head again, slowing down so much that he almost broke into a trot, and I had to really push him on to make it to the jump. He jumped awkwardly, his ears pinned back, and I heard my father snap at me as he lifted the rail back up.
“Get it together, Susie!”
I walked Skip on a long rein, staying as far away from Dad as possible while I tried to recover my composure. Finally, Connor walked to the gate with Grace, who was being called into the ring. Without him staring at me, I might have a chance at getting over the practice jump, and I shortened my reins and pushed Skip back into a canter. He jumped cleanly over the oxer, and I changed the rein and brought him around for the vertical, only to find that it had been lowered to a crossrail.
Lily’s father stood next to it with his arms folded, daring me to object. I said nothing as I eased Skip back to a walk while Lily trotted over the crossrail on her bay gelding Double Happy, who snapped up his knees at the base, jumping it in perfect form. Lily held a textbook perfect position in the saddle, and her father beamed proudly at her as she cantered on. He stepped closer to the practice fence, and called to Lily to come and jump it again.
I knew what he was doing, and I didn’t blame him. But from the corner of my eye, I could see Dad approaching, and I knew he would quickly cotton on to the situation. I didn’t need another confrontation, so moved quickly to divert him.
“Dad, can you go get my gloves from the truck?”
He frowned up at me, squinting in the bright sunlight. “You want to wear gloves, in this heat?”
I shrugged. “He keeps throwing his head.”
“So stop grabbing at his mouth.”
Gone were the days when everything the ponies did wrong were considered my fault – now Dad took the opposite tack, always laying the blame at my front door. Not that he was wrong, but it would’ve been nice to feel as though he was still on my side.
“I’m trying, okay?” I struggled to keep a lid on my temper. “Gloves will help. Bruce always tells me to wear them when I start fiddling too much with the reins.”
Dad’s expression changed at my use of the magical B-word. Anything that Bruce said was gospel in his mind, and he slap
ped me on the leg in affirmation before striding off towards our truck. Relieved to have him out of my hair, I rode Skip towards the ring, watching as Summertime sailed through the treble and made the turn towards the Liverpool. Summer baulked a little on the approach, Connor yelled encouragement and I heard the thwack of Grace’s crop slapping down against Summer’s shoulder as the pony prepared to take off. Summer flew over the jump, then belted on down to the last with Grace clinging like a limpet, left half a stride early and had to stretch to make it, but landed clear.
“All clear for Grace Campbell and Summertime,” said the announcer as Connor and his parents clapped and cheered. “So they’ll be back for the jump-off. Next into the ring and currently sitting in third place overall is Lily Christianson, riding Westbrook Double Happy.” Lily trotted into the ring and gave Grace a high five as they passed each other. Double Happy pricked his ears and looked around the course with interest as the bell rang, and Lily started her course.
“I still can’t believe that she only started riding two years ago,” a woman on the sidelines gushed. “You must be so proud of her.”
The blonde woman standing next to her smiled, her eyes still fixed on Lily as she responded. “Oh we are! As soon as she started taking lessons we realised she was a natural, and when Lil decides to do something, she goes all out. We’ve been lucky, too, to find such wonderful ponies for her to learn on,” she added, sucking in a breath as Lily misjudged her take-off spot to the grey vertical. But Double Happy was a pro, tucking his forelegs up quickly to avoid taking the rail and scraping over cleanly. “Happ is just wonderful, he’s been absolutely perfect for her to learn on.”
