Winter Wonderland (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 13)

by Claire Svendsen

  “Got it,” I said.

  I stood there in the empty kitchen, wondering how I was suddenly the responsible one. Only I didn’t feel responsible. I’d been skipping school and no one had noticed or even cared. It would be Christmas break in a few days and then it wouldn’t matter but I’d been off for so long that if I wanted to go back in the New Year, I was going to need a doctor’s note explaining why I’d had so much time off. Only I hadn’t been sick. How was I going to get a note from a doctor if I hadn’t been sick? I thought of Missy in the hospital and wondered whether one of her doctors could write a note for me, after all Missy was a very persuasive person. She could almost talk anyone into anything. For one fleeting moment I thought that perhaps I could pass the baby off as my own. Of course I had to miss school, I was giving birth. But I’d seen the pictures of my fat baby brother. No one would believe that I had ever been pregnant considering since coming to Fox Run I’d actually lost weight.

  Mickey said that the teachers kept asking about me. I told her to tell them that I’d moved to Wisconsin. If they believed it then maybe I wouldn’t even have to go back. But I knew that it was dumb to forgo my education just to hang out at the barn and ride. I didn’t want to go to college but I did at least want to get my high school diploma. I didn’t want to be some loser drop out with nothing to fall back on if this whole riding in the Olympics thing didn’t work out. I just didn’t know how there was ever going to be enough time to do both.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  The kids swarmed to me like ants to a cookie and I just stood there feeling completely overwhelmed. They were all under ten and even though I really tried, I couldn’t tell them apart at all. I had a list of names and ponies but it didn’t help much. Plus they were all talking at the same time, excitedly bantering back and forth about how awesome it was going to be to take a lesson with me. One girl was holding her phone in front of her face, talking at it very seriously and then she pointed it at me.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “Vlogging.”

  “Vlogging?” I said.

  “You know, video blogging. Duh.” She rolled her eyes like I was a really old and uncool person.

  “She has thirteen thousand followers on YouTube,” another girl said.

  “But you’re like, five years old,” I said.

  “I am not, I’m eight,” she said.

  I couldn’t possibly imagine why thirteen thousand people would be interested in hearing what an eight year old had to say or why her parents would even allow her to do such a thing and suddenly I did feel completely old and out of touch. After all, I was fourteen not forty and I had absolutely no idea what most of them were talking about. If it didn’t have four legs and live at a barn then I didn’t really care. Social media sort of went over my head. I went weeks without updating my status because mostly I felt like my life was kind of boring. Posting that I cleaned another stall wasn’t really what I thought people wanted to hear about. Mickey was the one who was into all that stuff. She was the one who told me which new site was hot and where I should sign up to get all the gossip but I guess I just didn’t get it and I didn’t really care.

  “Girls,” I shouted. “Let’s get your ponies out to the ring now, shall we?”

  They completely ignored me, chattering amongst themselves like a flock of birds.

  “Girls,” I shouted, this time louder but it didn’t make any difference.

  I looked desperately at a groom who was walking by. He just smiled and shrugged. How were you supposed to get the attention of a bunch of hyperactive kids? This was going to be the hardest hour of my life. Great. And there was Miss. Fontain, striding down the aisle in her perfectly polished boots with her shirt pressed and tucked into her breeches and a sour look on her face. She was witnessing my horrible kid wrangling skills first hand and when she told my father, I’d never be allowed to teach again. Which I actually would have been rather happy about because I wasn’t there to teach kids, I was there to be taught myself but she didn’t come up and yell at me. Instead she handed me something green and made of plastic.

  “A whistle?” I said, looking at it.

  “Don’t think of them as little kids,” she said. “Think of them as a herd of wild animals. If you don’t lay down the law now they will eat you alive.”

  “Thanks,” I said, surprised that she was being so nice to me.

  “Now keep those brats quiet so that I can concentrate.”

  So she had a secret agenda after all but we both wanted the same thing so it was kind of okay. I blew as hard as I could into the whistle and the sound practically shattered my ear drums. The kids froze and the ponies’ hooves clattered on the concrete as the sound startled them.

  “I won’t say this again,” I said in the sternest voice I could muster. “If you are not out to the ring in five minutes with your assigned pony then you will not be riding today, you will be cleaning tack instead. Is that understood?”

  Then I stormed off to the ring and left them all standing there with their mouths open. They were old enough to get their ponies out there without me watching over them and if they weren’t then they really didn’t have any place being in my father’s group.

  The kids were out there in less than five minutes. I made them line up and matched their names to the list and the ponies they were supposed to be on. I didn’t put it past them to have switched on me but it turned out that everyone was on their assigned ponies.

  “Right,” I said. “Are we going to have any more problems?”

  They all shook their heads and I didn’t have to use the whistle again. They all did as I asked and they actually weren’t half bad. In fact I even had them trotting over poles on the ground by the end of the lesson.

  “That was the best lesson we’ve ever had,” one of them said as they walked their ponies out. “Can you teach us all the time?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I have my own pony to ride.”

  I looked longingly at Bluebird who was standing in his paddock. The show was a week away. I didn’t see how I was going to get time to ride him and Socks with all the extra work teaching and pitching in at the barn and Dad didn’t even seen to care. He just kept piling responsibilities on me like I was his barn employee robot. I wasn’t even getting paid. Well, I was working off Bluebird’s board but all the hours I was putting in were more than covering his feed and housing situation. I was going to have to talk to my father about a raise, if I ever saw him again.

  “Are you ready for us?” Faith asked excitedly. “I can’t believe you’re teaching us. This is so awesome.”

  “Just be warned, I have a whistle and I’m not afraid to use it,” I told her.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Why don’t you introduce me to your friends?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Faith’s group was much easier to teach than the one with the smaller kids. These ones were jumping courses with their ponies and some of them, including Faith, could probably give me a run for my money in a few years. I set up a rather difficult gymnastic for them and they all did so well that I made them do it without stirrups.

  “No stirrups?” Faith said.

  “Haven’t you ever had a lesson without stirrups before?” I said.

  The girls all shook their heads.

  “Okay, line up over here by the fence. I want you all to remove your stirrups.”

  “Remove them?” the girl next to Faith asked. “Like, totally take them off?”

  You would think that I’d asked them to ride a Grand Prix course bareback without a bridle by the look on their faces. Some of them even looked pale and nauseous but long forgotten were my worries about kids falling off and hurting themselves. I was getting into this whole teaching thing.

  I lowered the jumps so that they were less than two feet.

  “I want you girls to go down the line and use your legs. Too many of you are flopping about in the saddle. You lack the strength you need to s
upport not only your pony but yourself.”

  “She’s mean,” the girl next to Faith said.

  “No she’s not,” Faith replied. “She’s trying to teach us to be better. Don’t you want to be better?”

  “Not if it means riding without stirrups.”

  “Is there a problem?” I said.

  “It can’t be done,” the girl said.

  The students were starting to rebel and I was just thinking that maybe I was going to have to use my whistle when Faith said, “Of course it can. Can I go first?”

  “Go ahead,” I pointed to the gymnastic line. “Show them how it’s done.”

  The Fox Run girls may not have had much experience riding without stirrups but Faith had taken lessons with Esther, who was notorious for making you ride without them whenever she felt like punishing you. Or even if she didn’t. There were many times when Mickey and I had left the ring with our legs throbbing, crumpling beneath us as we dismounted after an hour of posting trot with no stirrups at all.

  Faith circled Macaroni at the trot and then came down the line of jumps. The scraggly pony pricked his ears and jumped in, cantering down the rest of the fences with a happy look on his face. Faith had stronger legs than I would have given her credit for. Her position was great and she had a nice release going over the fences.

  “Perfect,” I cried. “Great job Faith. Now who wants to go next?”

  Having seen Faith do such a good job, the others were keen to prove themselves. Of course they weren’t as good as Faith, who from a distance you couldn’t even tell was riding without stirrups but they tried their best and that was all that mattered. Plus none of them fell off, which was a big bonus for me.

  “Okay girls,” I said when everyone had been down the line several times. “I think that’s enough. Your ponies are already starting to look bored and I don’t want phone calls from your parents tonight saying that you can’t walk.”

  The girls giggled and I suddenly felt like the cool older sister. They crowded around me, thanking me for the lesson, which was really nice of them considering I’d pretty much tortured them for an hour.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to teach us again?” Faith asked.

  “Yes, could you?” The others all chimed in.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Oh I do hope you can,” Faith said. “Now I feel even more ready for the show than I was before.”

  As Faith mentioned the show, my stomach did a little flop. I wasn’t feeling as prepared as I would have liked to be. I needed to get on my pony and make sure we were still on track.

  “I was thinking,” Faith said as we walked side by side back to the barn. “It would be nice to do something Christmassy, don’t you think?”

  “Like what?” I said. “I already decorated. I don’t think there is much else I can do.”

  “No, I mean for other people. Like, something nice for people that are less fortunate.”

  I looked at the kid who was kinder and more generous than I was and felt guilty. All I’d been focusing on was winning the show and trying to buy the hurricane horse. All selfish things that were for myself. I was forgetting what Christmas was supposed to be about.

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked her.

  “Well, my Grandma is in this nursing home and whenever we go and visit her it’s all sad and depressing like all the old people are just waiting to die. I thought maybe we could take the ponies and go and sing Christmas carols for them.”

  “You want to take all these ponies to a nursing home to sing carols to old people?” I said.

  The girls all nodded eagerly. I looked around in horror. It was one thing doing something nice for people at Christmas but it was quite another risking the safety of ponies and kids and quite frankly old people who would more than likely get crushed to an early death when the ponies all freaked out.

  “I don’t think that is a very good idea,” I said.

  “But why not?” Faith said, her face falling.

  “Because it could be dangerous and these ponies have a very important show to go to. You don’t want Macaroni to get hurt do you?”

  “I guess not,” she said but I could see that I’d crushed her Christmas spirit.

  “I’ll talk to my dad about it. That’s the best I can do, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said eagerly.

  So I added carol singing ponies to the long list of things I needed to discuss with my father, when I ever saw him again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Dad came home that night looking like he’d spent all day in a war zone. His hair was ruffled and his clothes were all messed up and it looked like he had baby spit up all down the front of his shirt.

  “I made some rice and chicken, if you want some?” I said.

  “You cooked?” He sat at the table with a dazed look on his face.

  “Back before Mom took her cooking classes it was cook for myself or pretend to like whatever she had made and failed at.”

  “It looks good,” he said as I pushed a plate in front of him. “Thanks.”

  We sat there in silence while he ate. I didn’t know what else to say. How is your new baby? Do you like him better than me? I knew it was dumb to be jealous of a baby but I couldn’t help it. I’d only just got my father back in my life and now I was going to have to share him all over again.

  “So,” I said, playing with the edge of the table where a sliver of wood had come loose. “How is the baby?”

  “He’s fine,” Dad said. “Huge but fine. I think that kid is going to be a wrestler when he grows up.”

  “Did you pick out a name yet?”

  Please don’t let it be something stupid, I added silently. I’d had nightmares about them naming the baby something awful like Moonbeam or Espn or some weird jumble of letters that didn’t mean anything at all.

  “We did,” he said. “But I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you. Missy wants to.”

  “But Missy’s not here,” I said. “And she’ll never know. I’ll pretend to be surprised, I promise.”

  “You are hopeless at acting fake surprised.” He laughed. “It would never work.”

  “I am not,” I said indignantly. “How do you know anyway?”

  “Because when you were five, we had a surprise party for you and you walked in ahead of time and saw everything only Mom didn’t know so I told you to act fake surprised and you totally blew it.” He ran his fingers through his hair before pushing his empty plate away.

  “I don’t remember that,” I said. “And besides, I’m not five anymore Dad.”

  He was always comparing me to the little kid I was when he left. I wondered how long it was going to go on for because it was starting to get on my nerves.

  “I know you’re not,” he said wearily.

  Without Missy there as a human buffer or a horse between us there was nothing but the looming cavern of years that we had missed in each other’s lives. We hadn’t talked about it. I’d moved in and we just sort of got on with the business of living and running a busy stable. I knew eventually we’d have to sit down and have a real talk but tonight wasn’t one of those nights.

  “The lessons went well,” I said, steering the conversation back to the only thing we were really comfortable talking about, horses.

  “The girls didn’t give you any trouble?” He sounded surprised.

  “Not really,” I said, not telling him about the whistle. I figured I would keep that as my secret weapon. “And I made Faith’s group ride without stirrups.”

  “You what?” he said.

  “They loved it.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that. They’re not ready.”

  “Of course they are,” I said. “Don’t be such a pushover.”

  “You’re just lucky one of them didn’t fall off because you have no idea what the parents are like when their precious darling goes home with dirt on their butt.”

  “Well t
hey didn’t fall off and they were fine,” I said. “And, they want to know if they can take the ponies carol singing.”

  “Carol singing?”

  “To the retirement home. Faith’s grandmother is there and she thought it would be a really nice Christmassy thing to do.”

  “Do you know what ponies would do to an old folk’s home?” Dad said.

  “I told Faith it wasn’t really a good idea,” I said.

  “You’re darn right it’s not a good idea. Those are show ponies that cost thousands of dollars. You can’t just have them running around the parking lot and God forbid if one of them actually gets the bright idea to take them inside. No. Absolutely not. You shouldn’t have even encouraged them.”

  “I didn’t,” I cried. “I just said I’d talk to you about it.”

  “You should have told them no right from the start. Now you’ve given them hope. They’ll keep going on and on about it.” He put his head in his hands. “I can’t deal with this right now.”

  I got up and left him sitting there stewing in his own misery. I couldn’t deal with him when he was like that. Somehow his words hurt worse than Derek’s even though they weren’t as bad.

  “You know,” I said, turning to look back at him from the doorway. “Once upon a time my father told me that a life with horses wasn’t just about shows and winning. He said that you had to learn something new every day and you had to give back, even if it was just in the smallest of ways. Well, wouldn’t doing something nice for people who are having a pretty shitty Christmas be a good way to do that? Or don’t you believe in things like that anymore?”

  He looked up at me with a strange frown on his face but didn’t answer.

  “You know, all these years I thought I knew who my father was. Now I’m not so sure.”

  I left him sitting there in the kitchen. He wasn’t the man I remembered but then again maybe I had remembered him wrong. But either way I loved him just like I loved my mother. I just couldn’t figure out why both my relationships with them were going so horribly wrong.