'You don't even have sugar in tea.'
'Nor bicarb, usually.'
Shelby unlocked her seat belt. 'But they are all to do with not hurting people's feelings. This is a bit different.'
'It's a delicate balance,' her mother repeated. 'Part of being a grown-up is finding the line and staying on the right side of it.'
20 Undercover
Shelby helped to saddle up the riding school ponies, but she avoided the trail ride in the morning by offering to get a head start on mucking out the stables. It was not a job any of the girls enjoyed.
The Crooks had arrived back from the Royal Easter Show early that morning, crowing with victory. Hayley and Ditto had won their class, although they missed out on Champion.
'It was a strong field we were up against. All in all it was a good campaign this year,' Mrs Crook told the assembled crowd of well-wishers. 'Next year we'll unleash Scamp. He's our secret weapon. Right, Hales?'
Erin, Lindsey and Shelby had exchanged a knowing smile over Mrs Crook's unconscious military terminology.
Hayley handed out show bags she'd bought for each of her friends.
'Thanks, Hales! You're the best!' said Erin, and then started bartering for all the chocolate in the other girls' bags. 'What have we got here? A plastic whistle! In a fetching yellow! Guaranteed to last a lifetime, while your Chokito will be gone in a moment. How can you lose? I have a medical condition, you know – chronic choc deficiency. I could go into spasm any minute. You'd be saving my life.'
Shelby had swapped one of her chocolate bars for a lollipop and wandered away, leaving Hayley and the other girls chatting before they led the trail ride.
Shelby had always found mucking stables good daydreaming time. The Edels used rice hulls for stable bedding. There was something meditative in the motion of lifting and shaking all the clean rice hulls through the rake's tines, like a big sifter.
Shelby hummed to herself as she worked. Surrounded by the sounds and smells of horses, she could escape into a fantasy world where she had the perfect horse, all the gear she needed, and no catastrophes.
On this day she dreamed of different floats – straight-load with an extended front in dark blue and her sponsor's logo sign-written on it, or a three-horse angle-load in hot pink with silver stars down the side and a built-in saddle-rack. Better still, a sparkly lilac gooseneck with 'Shaw Show Ponies' written on the back, and '5H31BY' number plates.
Soon she had made her way down one whole row of stables. She left her barrow at the end of the laneway and rushed into the feed shed to make up the dinners. She was keen to get out into the Gully, but the Edels let her keep Blue at the stables for free in exchange for her helping out. She didn't want to dodge her responsibilities to them, just because she had a mystery to solve.
Soon she had the trolley full of dinner buckets. She propped a bale of hay on the end, so the evening meals were ready to go. Then she brushed the dust from her hands and ran over to the paddock where Blue was waiting.
Her favourite western saddle was being used for the trail rides, so she slipped on Blue's bridle and then jumped on him bareback.
As she reached the back gate she saw the other girls leading the trail riders across the top of the ridge on their way home. She waved to her friends and they waved back – so did some of the trail riders.
Halfway along the trail she saw that the tree that had obstructed the way, the one she had had to slip under, had been cut down. There was fresh sawdust on the trail and the limb was now in hefty chunks out of harm's way to the side of the trail.
Down at the bottom of the Gully it was shady and the cool air carried hints of winter. Shelby was only wearing a tee-shirt. She dropped the reins and rubbed her arms. Then across the other side she was riding in the sunshine again and her skin tingled, the way it does after a swim in cold water.
Now that the days were getting shorter she wondered if she would still have lessons with Miss Anita. Winter was a pain. There was not as much sunlight, so less time for riding. She would still have to attend to the horses before school. She wasn't looking forward to getting up in the dark and cold.
In the bushes to the side of the track Shelby saw a small grey joey. She pulled up Blue so she could get a better look. Now that it was getting cooler she was seeing far fewer reptiles on the trails, but because she was riding closer to sunrise and sunset she should start to see more marsupials. Winter did have some benefits.
The joey scratched its belly. Shelby thought it looked too young to be out on its own, but then a movement caught her eye and she could see the mother as well. One second they were relaxed, and the next they both stood upright, ears twitching, and then they bounded away.
A few seconds later Shelby heard the hoof beats of a horse cantering. She moved Blue over to the side of the trail.
When the rider saw Shelby she slowed to a trot and then a walk. It was the circus girl – the very person Shelby had hoped to meet. She was riding one of the beautiful white Lipizzans that Shelby had seen in the stables next to Diablo.
The horse was striking. It was pure white with a long mane and full, flowing tail, like a horse from the movies. Its coat was very fine, and clean. She could see the black colour of its skin around its eyes and muzzle where the hair was the finest. It looked pretty fit, as well.
The horse had shoes on. Shelby stared, fascinated, at the nails driven up through the hoof wall – at how small the horse's feet were compared to the barefoot horses at the stables. The bit the girl was using was equally strange to Shelby, with long, curved shanks hanging down from either side of the horse's mouth.
'Great day for it,' said Shelby, dragging her eyes away.
Close up she could see why Erin thought the girl was 'foreign'. She had olive skin, thick black hair and dark shapely eyebrows.
The girl nodded, but kept her horse moving along the trail.
'My name is Shelby.'
'Good for you,' the girl said and rode on.
Shelby watched her retreating back, feeling flustered. Normally she would just ride on, or yell out something rude. More likely she would ride on, and then a few minutes later think of the clever thing she could have yelled out – but she was deep undercover. She had to make friends, otherwise she wouldn't find out what she needed to know.
'Are you new around here? I could show you the best trails. What's your name?'
'Narnia,' the girl called over her shoulder.
'Narnia? I've never heard of anyone called that. Like the movie?' asked Shelby.
'No, like Narnia business.'
'That's a good one,' Shelby said with genuine admiration, pushing Blue into a trot to catch up.
'So where are you from, Narnia?'
'No.'
Shelby paused, 'Oh I get it. You're quick! Why are you working so hard not to be friends with me?'
This time it was the girl's turn to pause. 'Because you're one of those Edel people. You don't want to be friends. You're just snooping.'
Shelby didn't try to deny it. She decided to 'high-light' instead. 'I'm friends with Chad. You're Keisha, right? He told me about you. He said we'd get along.'
They came to an intersection on the trail. Keisha stopped her horse and looked down each path. Even on a loose rein the horse held its head vertical. Shelby admired its muscly crest. Everything about it was majestic and strong. Shelby thought if she had a horse like that she wouldn't even care if she rode it. She could just watch it in the paddock all day long.
Shelby pointed. 'That way leads up to the corner shop. There's a lookout, but you can turn off before that and go to the Pony Club grounds. They have jumps and sporting poles, but they lock it away in a shed so people don't steal them.' Shelby blanched, worried Keisha might think she meant that Keisha would steal the equipment. 'They leave out the cavalletti, though, and there's a dressage arena. If you go straight ahead you'll end up at the causeway over the creek. There's a place we call the dippers, where the trail goes up and down through the water, but it
's better in summer.'
Keisha frowned, but she didn't say anything.
'If I were you I would go left. After a little way there's a windy hill and it's pretty. You'll see a rock face with a spring coming out of it. The water drips down and there's moss and ferns growing underneath it. There's also a waterfall a bit further along on the other side. You can gallop up the hill and there are some good turns. Watch out for bushwalkers, though. Or if you walk up you usually see a family of choughs.'
'Of what?'
'They're birds. They look like a crow but they're white under their wings. They travel in a big family. Have you seen The Princess Bride?'
Keisha nodded.
'Remember the "shrieking eels"? The choughs have a call kind of like that.'
'Thanks,' Keisha said, turning her horse to the left.
Shelby watched her ride away, thinking that going undercover was harder than she had imagined. Now the whole afternoon stretched out in front of her, and she hadn't learned anything new.
21 Stand Aside
'What should I do, Blue? Do you want to check it out anyway?'
Shelby expected the little paint pony to head for home but instead he happily jogged up the hill towards the water tower, past the lounges and around the bend. This time Shelby didn't stop in the trees, she walked straight up to the back gate.
The man who had been wearing the waistcoat (Shelby guessed he was the one Chad had called Zeb) was collecting manure with a rake and barrow.
He nodded to her, and then when she didn't move on he walked towards her.
'Can I help you with something?'
He did have an accent, but hardly the incomprehensible 'Arabic or whatever' that Erin had described. Shelby took a deep breath. Boldness wasn't in her nature, but politeness hadn't worked with Keisha.
'I thought you might like to teach me how to do trick riding,' she told him.
'Why would I want to do that?'
'I'm a natural,' she answered. 'I could join your troupe. I have my own horse.'
He looked at Blue. 'Is he a natural too?'
Shelby nodded. She waited for the man to tell her to get lost, but instead he said, 'What can you do?'
Shelby ran her fingers through Blue's mane. 'The other day I was on a trail and I leaned over to the side to avoid a tree.' She saw that Zeb wasn't impressed. 'Nothing much yet,' she confessed.
'Do your parents know you're here?'
'My mother sent me,' Shelby improvised. 'She told me not to come home until I've joined the circus.'
'Well, we'd better get cracking then!' He grinned and opened the gate so that Shelby and Blue could enter. He cupped his hands around his mouth. 'Molly!'
A blonde woman came out of the house and stood on the veranda, frowning, hands on hips.
'This girl . . .' He turned around. 'What's your name?'
'Shelby.'
'Shelby here is going to be our new Keisha.'
Molly shaded her eyes with her hand. 'Have you finished the manures, Zeb?'
'What happened to the old Keisha?' Shelby asked.
'Bad attitude. We had to have her put down,' he joked as he walked towards the fenced arena.
Shelby and Blue followed. In the makeshift paddock the Clydesdale stopped munching on his hay and a sprig dropped from the side of his mouth and onto the head of the miniature pony, like a hat. Those two were clowns without even trying. The miniature trotted up and down the fence line, and gave a shrill whinny. Blue rumbled in reply.
'She's even got her own pony,' Zeb said as Molly approached. 'Look! Festive colouring!'
Molly eyed Blue sceptically. 'Are you sure this isn't just a ploy to get out of poo pickup?'
He shrugged. 'Anyone can pick up manure, but who else has my trick riding skills? It's the burden of my remarkable talent. Go and get a saddle then, girl!' Zeb directed.
Molly disappeared into a shed at the side of the house and Shelby sat astride Blue, silent and awkward, unable to believe that she had bluffed her way in. Up in the stables one of the white horses kicked the door.
Soon Molly reappeared with an enormous saddle. Up close it looked quite like the western saddle that she had been riding in, but flatter across the back, like a roping saddle, and with a large, metal horn on the front.
The saddle was huge on Blue. Shelby helped Molly with the girth, and then Zeb slipped a noseband over the pony's muzzle. It had a leather strap with a clip on the end. He knelt down ready to clip it to the girth.
'What's that?' Shelby asked.
'It's called a tie-down. It stops them from lifting their head up. If you're doing a trick over his neck, and something spooks him, he'll break your nose, or maybe your jaw.'
'I don't believe in tying my horse's head down.' Shelby flicked her hair out of her eyes.
'Do you believe in broken faces?' Zeb asked, holding her gaze.
'How do you know they lift their heads if you tie them down? They might not even do it, and then you're tying it down for nothing.'
'If he doesn't lift his head then it doesn't matter either way.' He started to laugh. 'Listen, little girl, if you want to do tricks he wears a tie-down. If you don't want him to wear a tie-down, you don't do tricks.'
Shelby stared at him. She had always been against side-reins, running-reins, and martingales. Miss Anita often had to re-school horses that had been taught with these kinds of devices. Miss Anita explained that persistent head-tossing was usually due to bad saddle fit, or some other problem, and tying their heads down only punished them for trying to let you know that something was wrong.
'I need to think about it.' She watched as the climate on Zeb's face changed from a sunny day to a brooding storm. He stared at her, and Shelby squirmed but she wasn't going to change her mind.
'Forget it,' Zeb said, tossing his hands up. Blue was startled and took a step backwards. Zeb stomped back towards his barrow.
'Would it make you feel better if you rode one of our horses?' Molly asked Shelby. 'They're used to wearing them.'
Before she could answer Zeb called over his shoulder. 'Forget the whole thing. Safety is everything. If she won't do it, then fine. She'd be a danger to us all.'
'That's not fair!' Molly protested.
Shelby watched as they argued. She didn't think trick riding was right for her anymore. She had always believed that, since Blue had no choice in what they were doing, the least she could do was ensure he would be comfortable. There were pieces of equip-ment that overstepped those bounds and it seemed to her that the tie-down was one of them.
Then Molly said, 'But we do need new riders for the troupe, Zeb. This girl is strong and fit, and she's keen. Why don't we give her a try?'
Shelby's heart started to race. They actually meant to try her for the troupe – for real? Imagine if she could give up school and ride full-time!
'OK, put her on Tex and we'll see what happens,' Zeb finally agreed, changing from cloudy to sunny just as quickly. 'What's your horse's name?'
'Blue.'
'Blue?' Zeb snorted. 'We'll have to give him a stage name.'
While Molly went to saddle up another horse, Zeb led Blue into the arena. Shelby was pleased to see that he had taken off the tie-down. He slipped his leg over Blue as easy as could be and then cantered him around the arena. Zeb rode effortlessly, as though he'd been in the saddle since he was three.
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