It hurt when he said it aloud like that. Shelby stared out the window, trying to look as though she didn't care. They passed the shopfronts and strolling pedestrians. She recognised a group of girls from the stables that were hanging around the newsagent. They waved to her and she raised her hand in reply.
'Not everyone hates you then,' her father commented.
'Maybe they haven't heard yet,' Shelby mumbled, inspecting her dirty fingernails.
'Heard what?'
Shelby sighed. 'Lindsey hates Keisha because she thinks Keisha stole Diablo. Erin and Hayley hate Keisha because Lindsey does. Keisha doesn't like me very much, or at least I don't think she does. She's kind of weird because she's home-schooled. She wants me to join their troupe anyway, and she said so in front of everyone, now Lindsey hates me, and Erin and Hayley hate me because Lindsey does.'
'I see. And Diablo is . . .?'
'A horse.'
'Right.' Her father nodded. 'Did Keisha steal Diablo?'
Shelby kicked off her boots and folded her feet underneath her. 'I asked Keisha and she said she didn't, but then she changed the subject onto the whole troupe business.'
'Ah!' said Dad, knowingly. 'The old switcheroo.'
Shelby waited for her dad to enquire about the 'troupe business', but he obviously missed it. Never mind. There would be opportunities to bring it up later.
'Keisha wasn't avoiding it; it was as if she didn't think it was worth talking about. I don't think she did it. Chad doesn't either.'
'And Chad is the elusive um friend?'
'He's just a friend, Dad.'
'Good.' They drove for a while in silence. 'Well, it seems to me that Lesley –'
'Lindsey,' corrected Shelby.
'Lindsey,' continued her father, 'is the one full of hate here, so the rest of you should just stop being friends with her and be your own troupe.'
'Lindsey's mum owns the stables.'
'Oh,' said her father, turning into their street. 'Well then, the sooner you find this Diablo beast the better!'
'No, Diablo is back already,' Shelby explained.
'He is? So the problem is . . .?'
Shelby stared at him as he pulled the car into the driveway.
'This is a girl thing, isn't it?' Dad observed.
Shelby nodded.
'Righto. Best talk to Marie, I'd say.'
'Thanks for trying,' she said.
He ruffled her hair, and then pinched her nose. He stuck his thumb between index and middle fingers. 'I got your nose!'
'Dad!' Shelby rolled her eyes.
26 Getting Serious
After having a bath and changing into her jammies, Shelby decided that now was as good a time as any to start her science assignment. She picked up the paper in front of her.
Design an experiment (or series of experiments) to solve a problem. For example – what is the ideal temperature to keep milk? With which household products can you make glue? It must be an original project designed and carried out by you personally. Note: this is an extended section of work, so pick a topic of personal interest.
She was about to phone Erin and ask what topic she had chosen, but then she remembered Erin's face when she called her 'traitor-potato'. Her eyes stung and she felt as though something was wedged in her throat. Erin, for all her thoughtlessness, would not have withheld infor-mation like that from her friends. It made Shelby feel ashamed. She should have found a different way.
Shelby blew her hair out of her eyes, dropped the paper back on her desk and wandered out into the lounge room. She could smell that dinner was almost ready. It was her mum's creamy mushroom pasta served with crusty garlic bread – one of Shelby's favourites.
Dad was at the computer with Blake and Connor on his lap.
'Wow! That's so awesome!' Connor said. 'Where is Kensington, anyway?'
'A Kensington is a type of house,' Shelby said. 'They just built one on top of Blue's old paddock. The Crooks live in a Kensington Regent.' There was a bowl of peanuts on the table and Shelby took a handful. Her brothers stared at her. 'What?' she asked with her mouth full.
'Kensington is also a suburb in London – a very central suburb,' Shelby's dad said. 'We're looking at pictures of the apartment Aunty Jenny has rented over Christmas. Do you want to see?'
'No thanks.' Shelby cracked open another nut.
'It's pretty good,' Dad added.
'It's awesome!' Connor repeated.
'I don't need to see it to know that it's going to ruin my life.' She sniffed.
A shadow of irritation crossed her father's face. 'Quite frankly, we're all tired of walking on eggshells around you, Shelby. The rest of us are inclined to go. Jenny has made us a very generous offer – and this is not the first time. Seems to me you have a short memory, but that's a side issue. I don't understand this belligerent attitude. You told me that your life is already ruined. What's the harm in trying some new place where nobody hates you yet?'
Shelby's lip trembled and then she ran out of the room.
'Honey! I didn't mean it like that!' her father's voice called after her.
Shelby sat on the floor in her room, hugging her knees with her back leaning against the bed. She could feel hot tears slip down her cheeks. She was trying to be brave. She had lived her whole life in this house and now everything was changing so fast that she was numbed by it. It reminded her of the Cha-Cha ride at the show.
You line up to get on, thinking it will be fun, watching other people screaming and laughing. You pick a car and wait for it to start, then you're whirling and laughing and feeling sick in the stomach. At the back of your mind you worry that it's not really safe – that the operator will have forgotten to attach that one simple pin or bolt and any minute the whole thing is going to come flying off spinning in the air and crashing in a spectacular spray of metal and bones. Then it stops and you're stumbling out the exit gate feeling giddy, elated, relieved, and a bit short-changed.
Shelby's mum poked her head around the door. 'Dinner's on the table.'
'I don't want any.' Shelby rested her forehead on her arms.
'Yes, you do. It's pasta – your favourite.'
Shelby stood up, wiping her eyes. 'I'll have it in my room then.'
'There's no eating in your room. You know that. You'll sit at the table and eat with your family.'
Shelby stared at her mother. 'Did you hear what my father said to me?'
Her mother smiled and gave her a hug. 'You know he didn't mean it like that. You are becoming quite the little miss, aren't you? Come and eat up. Things always seem better when you have a full tummy.'
Shelby followed her mother down the hallway. She sat at the table and waited for her father to serve her a plate of pasta.
Connor pulled off half the loaf of garlic bread and put it on his plate.
'Don't you want to share that?' his mother chided.
Connor rolled his eyes and tore the bun in two. He handed the soggy, squished portion to his brother, who shoved the whole lot in his mouth, which then was too full to close. Blake's eyes became very wide as he tried to chew the mass.
His mother frowned. Connor laughed, and then Blake coughed, scattering globs of half-chewed bread on the table in front of him.
'Blake!'
'I didn't mean it!'
'I won't be coming to live with you up the coast anyway,' Shelby announced. 'Keisha asked me to join the trick riding troupe. We're going to travel around western New South Wales for the winter – out to Broken Hill and then back again. Zeb said Blue was the best trick riding horse he had seen. They're going to teach me on the road. We're going to be the grand finale.'
'Hang on a sec. Who is Zeb? I thought it was Chad!' her father asked.
'He's one of the circus performers.' Shelby's mother explained.
'Circus performers? Trick riding?' asked her father. 'Explain to me what that is quickly, because I'm having visions of you standing on the top of a horse, or jumping off, or hanging off the side while the h
orse gallops around,' her father said.
'That's basically it,' Shelby agreed.
'And you didn't think to mention this in the car this afternoon?'
'I did! I told you Keisha asked me to join the troupe, but you were all obsessed about Diablo being stolen.'
Her mother shook her head at her husband. 'That is so yesterday, my love.'
'I said I would go away and learn how to drink unsupervised. Remember?' Shelby reminded him.
'I assumed you were joking!' he replied.
Shelby had been, at the time. She still wasn't serious about it – at least she didn't think she was – but this was a good opportunity to send the trick riding idea out there and see what happened.
'You already know how to drink, silly!' Blake said, perplexed.
'Special drinks, darling,' his mother explained. 'You won't be doing any drinking!' she warned Shelby. 'I think we should start this conversation again from the beginning.'
Blake was still frowning. 'Even if it was a special drink, wouldn't you just put it in your mouth and swallow?'
'You feel you're qualified to give lessons on ingestion, Mr Garlic-Bread Fountain?' asked his dad.
Connor laughed so hard he got the hiccups.
'Keisha came up to me in the Gully today and said they had changed their mind about me. They have shows booked all around the state and they want me to come along. Maybe. If I turn out to be good enough. I'm going over there tomorrow to try out. I thought I might as well since Erin, Hayley and Lindsey are not even speaking to me.'
'Honey, this is well beyond the bounds of Operation Beelzebub!' her mother said.
'Operation what?' asked Connor.
His father shrugged. 'I got lost way back at the part where Shelby's going to attempt to kill herself for a grand finale in Broken Hill. Are you sure our health insurance covers that, Marie? I thought they were pretty shaky back when Shelby was attempting to stay on the horse.'
'Are you saying I can't go?' Shelby asked, dropping her spoon on her plate.
'We haven't even met these people, honey,' her mother protested.
'But what if this is my destiny?'
'Yes, let's talk about your destiny. Are you serious, Shelby?' asked Mum. 'Really serious? Or is this fun dinner banter designed to give your father a seizure?'
Shelby didn't answer. She took another mouthful of the pasta. It tasted good, and she was hungry, but her stomach was churned up.
'If you decide you want to be a trick rider and you take yourself out of school, or at least limit your edu-cation to the bare essentials, then you're closing off a whole series of choices that you might regret later. I know you can't see a future without horses, and your father and I respect that, but you're young, Shelby. A few years from now you might want to travel the world, or be an engineer, or a lawyer, or a bank teller, and all you'll know is how to hang off a horse.'
'And if you take a fall,' her father added, 'a big fall, which is likely, you might not even be able to do that any more. And I guarantee you would regret that for the rest of your life.'
Shelby stirred the pasta in the bowl. Her tummy had that heavy feeling, like she always got right before she went into the ring at a show.
'If you are serious,' her mother continued, 'and you want to go, then your father and I will look into it.'
'We will?' her father interrupted.
His wife stared at him blankly. 'For most people the prospect of their child running away to the circus is a joke.' She turned her attention back to Shelby. 'I want you to go into your room right now and make a list of what's good about it, and what's bad. I want you to nut out all the alternatives, and when you've done that we'll talk.'
Shelby screwed up her nose. 'You're giving me homework?'
'I am! Now skedaddle!'
Shelby skedaddled.
27 The List
Shelby sat at her desk with her pen hovering over the notepaper with a horse head in the corner that Erin had given her for her birthday. She reviewed what she had written.
Join trick riding troupe
Good things
Get to travel around.
Ride horses all day long.
Learn heaps about horses, even though some of it might be bad (like tie-downs).
Mum and Dad will probably get me a mobile phone.
Miss school – end up being world famous trick rider.
Won't see E, L & H ever again.
Bad things
Won't be able to see my mum and dad, even if I really, really want to.
Blue has to live in a stable, be in a truck for ages, and wear a tie-down.Miss school – end up getting a job cleaning toilets.Won't see Chad.Won't see E, L & H ever again.
Move to Aunty Jenny's
Good things
Go to London.
Go on a plane.
See snow.
Mum and Dad won't worry about money so much.
Dad can see that Aunty Jenny is OK.
Go to new school and everyone loves me.
Maybe see Chad when he visits his brother.
Everyone in family happy and have opportunity to go overseas that won't come again.
Won't see E, L & H ever again.
Bad things
Move Blue when he is happy and in a safe place with good trails that I know.
No more lessons with Miss Anita.
Have to join stupid camel club.
Go to new school and everyone hates me.
Won't see Chad in Gully.
Won't see E, L & H ever again.
Stay at home
Good things
Stay at a school that I know.
Good agistment for Blue.
Bad things
Never get to see London, or snow, or check that Aunty Jenny is OK.
Have to stay at school where girls hate me.
Edels might kick me and Blue out anyway.
It seemed to her that joining the troupe had the biggest rewards, but it also had the greatest price. Could she really go without seeing her mum and dad for that long? Staying at home, which was the one she thought she really wanted, looked dumb when she wrote it down. It looked like missing a chance. It looked like hiding.
When Shelby reread the last line she took a deep breath. It hadn't occurred to her before she'd actually written it down that if she fought with Lindsey, she might need to find a new home for Blue. It wouldn't be a place that was convenient, or cheap. There wasn't any such place. Shelby had looked before.
She didn't want to pretend to be friends with Lindsey just so she could get agistment. That would be going over the line that her mother talked about.
Shelby didn't want to pretend anyway. She liked Lindsey – or at least she liked the old Lindsey, the poor, unprejudiced Lindsey. She still had qualities that Shelby admired; ones Shelby was sure were real. Lindsey was brave, reliable and tough under pressure. When Lindsey said she was going to do something she did it, and she told the truth.
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