Pony Stories (3 Book Bind-Up) (Red Fox Summer Reading Collections)

by K. M. Peyton

  During the lesson Faith found, to her delight, that she was posting up and down, working Cloud, at Beth’s command, into a figure-eight pattern. She could almost feel the diagonal on Cloud and she tried to post up with his outside foreleg. Sometimes it worked. Faith smiled. She sat a bounce when they reached the center of the figure eight and sent him around the other way on a new diagonal.

  ‘Good!’ shouted Beth. ‘You’ve got it!’

  Cloud was doing what Faith was trying to tell him. He felt wonderful. Visions of surpassing her older sister, trotting easily and with perfect control, filled her head. Her hands would be light, her legs would be stronger. She ignored the flash of panic the vision stimulated.

  ‘Heels down!’ hollered Beth. ‘That’s better. Now, give with those hands a little. Make them light. Pretend Cloud has eggshells in his mouth. Don’t lose contact. Feel his mouth. And relax, Faith, relax. Loosen up that back. You’re sitting stiff as a soldier . . .’

  Beth hollered the entire lesson. She spent more of her attention on Faith than the four other students, little kids with astonished eyes. But when Faith was through it seemed like she had only been working ten minutes.

  ‘That was much better,’ said Beth with a little smile. Faith slid down Cloud’s side, enjoying for the first time the contact along the length of her body with the firm sides of the horse. The animal person in Faith blinked its eyes.

  Later on, with no Beth around, Faith watched Thundercloud in his field. He flirted wildly with the other horses, plunging into their midst until they were all scattering and chasing each other, charging the air with an electric frenzy.

  She was relieved when Beth put her back on Harold for the next lesson. Although she couldn’t feel diagonals on the big bay, she was surprised at how much easier it was to ride him after Cloud – not smooth, but strong and steady.

  There were only three other students in the class that day. They were all younger than Faith, and she felt pleased and confident to be way ahead of them.

  ‘You’re getting there,’ Beth told her. ‘You’ve come a long way. Time you learned to canter.’ She ordered the others to the center of the ring and Faith to ready Harold. ‘You’ll go counterclockwise,’ Beth said.

  Nervously Faith listened to Beth describe the leg and rein signals that would make Harold surge into the strong, ground-covering pace. ‘Outside rein. Outside leg. That’ll be your right. Don’t yank the rein. Just a light pressure.’ But Faith’s right leg couldn’t work without her left leg. She couldn’t give a strong signal with just one. Harold continued to plod around at a trot.

  ‘I see daylight!’ yelled Beth. ‘Hug that saddle . . . Knees in! Knees in! Use your whole leg!’

  Faith was mortified to be failing before the three younger students. They sat openmouthed astride their horses. There was so much to remember: knees in, outside rein, press with the outside leg. Which was outside?

  Beth grew more irritated. She accused Faith of not wanting to canter and therefore not giving the signal in the right manner.

  Finally Beth plucked a crop from the bin of hats. She cracked Harold across the rump with the little whip. He gave a huge lurch that almost unseated Faith, then shot around the ring at a canter. Fear flapped wildly in Faith’s stomach. She leaned forward and clutched Harold’s tough mane.

  ‘Sit up! Sit BACK!’ shouted Beth.

  Harold’s speed increased, his power exploding beneath Faith. All her control left her. Fear choked the scream back down her throat.

  ‘Sit BACK! You’re telling him to go faster! DON’T lean forward!’

  But Faith no longer heard. Harold thundered toward the fence, swerved, and Faith slid half way down his side.

  ‘Sit UP! SIT UP! DON’T FALL! SIT UP!’

  But down she went into the dust of the ring. Harold’s great, plunging hooves narrowly missed her head.

  She lay curled in a ball while the dust settled around her. Through a heavy numbness she heard Harold’s hoofbeats as he headed toward the other end of the ring.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Beth was crouching beside her, looking at her intently. Then she seemed satisfied and said, ‘Just stay there a minute. Don’t move. You didn’t land very hard.’

  But I’m not okay, Faith wanted to say. I must have broken something, she thought. But at the same time, she knew she was not badly hurt.

  Beth jogged after Harold to tie up his reins and pulled up the stirrups. He stood in the corner, snorting and blowing with excitement. Beth led him back to where her fallen student lay.

  ‘Well, you’ve had your first fall. That puts you ahead of your sister.’

  My first fall? thought Faith. There’s more to come? She stood up carefully. Her face was burning and her whole side felt stiff and aching. She was trembling and slightly disappointed that there was nothing worse with her.

  ‘We all fall,’ said Beth lightly.

  ‘Even you?’ asked Faith faintly. She didn’t believe it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Beth, ‘when I’m not being smart.’ Then she asked briskly, ‘Now, do you know why you fell?’

  ‘He was going too fast,’ said Faith. ‘You hit him too hard.’ She became aware of the three younger students, faces pale and wide-eyed, at the other end of the ring. Harold stood obediently, but his body radiated eagerness.

  ‘No,’ said Beth. ‘You fell because you expected to fall. You wanted to be on the ground instead of on the horse.’

  ‘I was just scared. He wouldn’t stop,’ said Faith. She was beginning to feel belligerent.

  ‘You were asking him to go,’ said Beth. She sounded exasperated. ‘You were telling him to go faster and faster.’

  ‘I was not,’ said Faith in astonishment. ‘I wanted him to stop.’

  ‘Now, we’ll try it again,’ said Beth. ‘This time you’ll do it right.’

  ‘No,’ said Faith, ‘I won’t. This is no fun. There’s no reason why I have to learn to ride if I don’t like it. And I don’t.’ She thought of the three frightened faces watching them – felt she was speaking for them, too. Like an avenging angel, she cried, ‘This isn’t school. I don’t need a grade in horseback riding. It isn’t necessary!’

  Faith’s mother always left her daughter alone on the rare occasions when Faith balked or complained. Beth showed no such mercy. Her face was pale. Her mouth was straight.

  ‘It is important that you get back on Harold right this minute,’ said Beth. There was nothing soft or gentle in her voice. But her hands were gentle. Her fingertips were soft on Faith’s shoulders as she turned her to face the horse.

  ‘Ready? One . . .’ She bent and took hold of Faith’s left leg. ‘Two . . .’ And hoisted her . . . ‘Three’ up to the saddle. Faith had no choice but to swing her other leg over the horse. It was a comfortable, easy movement. Angrily she sat, staring through the big bay horse, through the dirt of the ring.

  ‘Now walk him, around the ring once,’ said Beth lightly. ‘Then give him the signal to trot.’

  Faith’s face burned along the spot where the fall had bruised her cheek. Tears seeped from behind her eyes. Unwillingly she clicked Harold into a walk. She didn’t want Beth to crack him with her crop again, so she pressed him into a trot. He was surprisingly eager, springing forward as though still inspired by Beth’s earlier swat.

  Sweat dampened the back of Faith’s neck and grew wet tents under her arms.

  ‘Twice around the ring,’ commanded Beth. ‘Don’t let him walk. Keep him trotting.’ But after one turn, Harold stumbled back into a walk.

  ‘I said TROT!’ hollered Beth. ‘I want two full times around the ring at trot. Start again.’

  Faith was furious. She hated Beth. But now, every time Harold showed signs of slowing down, Faith dug into him with her heels. Her knees felt raw. So did her throat from holding back her anger. Sweat was sliding down her spine and her shirt was sticking to it.

  Faith finished trotting two times around the ring. She stopped in front of Beth and glared at her, daring her to make her do
anything else.

  Beth’s face had a cold, closed look. She took a deep breath and sent it out sighing. ‘You can untack Harold and put him back in the field.’ Then she turned toward the other students, dismissing Faith, and said in a cheery voice, ‘Out on the rail, everybody. We’re going to walk and then canter. Now, who can tell me why Faith fell off?’

  As she left the ring, leading a quiet Harold, Faith strained her ears to hear what went on behind her. One student, a thin girl of about seven, piped up in a baby voice, ‘She didn’t sit up.’

  ‘Little liar, nosesucker,’ said Faith fiercely to herself. She felt betrayed. It wasn’t fair. The tears spread up again behind her eyes. ‘I will never get on a horse again,’ she vowed out loud, not caring who heard her, her voice slapping the air.

  Harold seemed placid while she removed his tack. When she opened the gate to let him into the field, he hesitated, then nudged her shoulder gently, breathed into her hair. Faith burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, Harold,’ she whispered as he moved off toward the other horses, ‘oh, Harold, why did you dump me?’ She hung over the gate, watching him amble away. ‘What’s wrong with everything?’ she mourned, half aloud.

  Faith couldn’t look Beth in the face that night. Beth didn’t seem to be angry with her but the quiet easiness between the two of them wasn’t there. Beth was coolly cheerful. She had made a delicious chicken pie for supper.

  Afterward Faith and Gem helped carry grain to the horses and the sheep and paint one of the new jumps that would go into the ring. The anger inside Faith eased away, leaving a little rock of determination half buried inside her. ‘I will not ride.’

  6

  BETH WAS GETTING ready to host a mid-July schooling show. The ring received a new coat of paint, fresh sawdust and bright pots of geraniums. Beth was preparing her students, too. They would be judged on how they trotted and cantered, how they started, halted, how they sat. They would be asked to ride a horse in patterns – a figure eight or a cloverleaf. Advanced students would take a course of jumps as well.

  There was plenty to do without even getting on a horse. After her fall from Harold, Faith managed to disappear at lesson time for a few days. Her absence went unnoticed, or at least unquestioned, during the bustle. She pretended to be so busy stamping and banding the show announcements that time just slipped by her. But she knew she would have to confront Beth sooner or later, and she watched and waited for the smartest time.

  Gem would ride in the schooling show. Eagerly she helped bring in horses for the lessons. She planned on riding in nearly every lesson Beth taught. She was ‘in training,’ she said. She wanted to do well against riders from other schools.

  At night in bed, watching Gem do her nightly exercises, Faith listened to her endless chatter about the coming show. Gem worried about posting on the correct diagonal. Faith was surprised. She had thought Gem had diagonals down prefectly.

  ‘The judge for the show rode with the Olympic team,’ Gem announced each night. In the same breath, she fretted that new boots, ordered two weeks earlier, had not yet arrived.

  After her sister fell asleep, Faith would lie awake for a long time. She wished she were home. Weekly letters came from her mother but they were addressed to both girls and talked about how the twins were growing. The funny lines her dad penned at the bottom made her feel lonely. She missed her mother’s quiet ‘good mornings’ and orderly breakfasts. At home she could enjoy the squirrels and rabbits in their wide back lawn without being responsible for them. Here she was forced to spend time working around horses she didn’t even like. Work, work, work. And Gem’s whisperings at night, which used to bore her into sleep at home, now made her feel somehow crippled.

  Two days before the show, she decided to approach Beth when she came upon her lying beside the lawn mower with the toolbox. A perfect time, Faith reasoned. Beth wouldn’t want to spare any energy on Faith right now. There was mowing to be done.

  ‘I’m not riding anymore,’ she said to the body bracing itself by the mower. Beth’s face was contorted with concentration. Faith steeled herself and said stoutly, ‘I’ve decided I don’t want to ride horses anymore.’

  ‘Just a minute . . .’ grunted Beth. She gave her wrench one last turn and sat up, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. Then, to Faith’s dismay, she turned her full attention on her.

  ‘That’s your decision,’ she said. ‘You’re not an athlete like your sister. Your legs aren’t strong. And you’re not competitive.’

  That’s settled, thought Faith, relieved and insulted at the same time.

  ‘But,’ continued Beth, ‘you’ve a fine rapport with animals.’ She settled back thoughtfully on her elbows. ‘You recognize most of the sheep. Dogs follow you like children. You are easy with new mamma cats and you’re the only one Raccoon will come to.’ She looked intently into Faith’s face. ‘Why not horses?’

  ‘I can’t listen to horses,’ said Faith. It pained her to say it out loud. ‘I know they’re saying things, but I can’t hear them.’

  ‘You’ve got it backward,’ said Beth firmly. ‘Horses are supposed to listen to you. You tell them what to do and make them do it.’

  ‘I can’t talk to them either,’ said Faith.

  ‘Part of talking to a horse is riding him,’ said Beth, standing up. ‘A horse listens to leg pressure – the shift of your body – your control of the bit in his mouth.’ She turned to go, the conversation ended.

  Faith was silent, dissatisfied. Then Beth turned back to her.

  ‘You ought to learn to lunge a horse, if you want to speak so they’ll listen.’ Faith gasped as visions of forcing a horse to the ground, the way a cowboy twists a steer, leapt into her head. But Beth said, ‘You do it from the ground. With a long rope. It’s a way of exercising a horse without getting on to him.’ She turned back to the lawn mower. ‘Not now – after the show.’

  So, thought Faith, I’m not through with horses after all. A knot of worry lodged itself inside her, but she pushed it away. Beth had said ‘after the show.’

  That night, Faith watched her sister run silently in place, knees chopping up high. ‘Does that really make your legs stronger?’ she asked, sitting up in bed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gem without missing a beat. She wasn’t even breathing hard. ‘I just like to do it.’ She checked her stopwatch, though. Faith knew she believed in getting results from her efforts.

  Faith got out of bed and tried a few jogs. Her feet slapped noisily into the floor. The bureau jiggled, shaking Gem’s bottles and jars.

  ‘Elephant!’ hissed Gem. ‘Keep your weight up! Don’t drop it. How can anyone light as a bird sound like a mammoth?’

  Faith slap-slapped a few more steps.

  ‘Tiptoe it, mouse brain! Tiptoe it!’

  ‘Tiptoe your big mouth!’ cried Faith and flung herself back into bed. Gem began to do hamstring stretches, leaning her weight into her palms against the wall.

  ‘That’s why you’re a good rider,’ said Faith. ‘Your legs are strong from running.’ She looked down at her own thin legs.

  ‘Wrong,’ said her sister. ‘Different muscles for riding. You keep your heels down, remember? Sergeant Beth’s yell? Heels down! Heels down! You need to lengthen the back of your legs.’

  Faith watched. ‘This exercise is good for that,’ said Gem. ‘Or maybe walking upstairs with your knees in and letting your heels push down over the edge of the step . . .’

  ‘Ye gods!’ said Faith. ‘That sounds stupid.’

  But the next morning, while Gem was getting her beauty sleep, Faith tried running in place. She found to her surprise that, in trying not to wake her sister, she could ‘tiptoe it.’ She didn’t last longer than forty seconds by her sister’s stopwatch. She tried it again. She had never realized how long a whole minute was.

  She decided, as she descended the stairway to breakfast, that she would run in place every morning before her sister woke up.

  That night, she climbed the stairs with
her knees together, her heels pushing down over the edge of the steps. It was awkward and she felt like an idiot. It took her forever to get to the bedroom, causing her sister to ask, ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Nowhere,’ answered Faith, which was exactly where she felt she had been.

  *

  The Saturday of Beth’s horse show they all rose earlier than usual, even Gem. Faith skipped her tiptoe jogging. They had horses to get ready. All week they had been mowing extra areas for parking vehicles from other stables. They had been laying down fresh straw in the stalls and cleaning tack.

  Around 7:30 that morning, vans and horse trailers drawn by dusty big Buicks, jeeps and trucks began rolling into the farm. Faith had the job of guiding them to a proper parking spot according to a plan she had helped Beth work out the night before over a hasty pizza supper.

  By midmorning she was high on her own importance. There was a circus bustle of people and horses about the place. Faith barely minded sidestepping the great, sleek bodies being led or excercised or groomed next to the various vans and rigs in the parking lot.

  Guests from other stables, recognizing her as the red-headed parking attendant, asked her for directions. ‘Where’s the water for the horses?’ ‘Where’s the bathroom, miss?’ ‘Where do I find Beth?’ ‘Don’t suppose you’d have an extra lead line.’

  She ran back and forth, finding a clothes brush for riders in their formal jackets, answering the telephone.

  Gem looked elegant in a pale blue jacket with a dark velvet collar, but she pouted. Her hunt cap had a rip in it. Beth had assured her that the judge wouldn’t notice it, but Gem had seen Beth’s best rider in a brown jacket and matching velvet cap. Her name was Cora and she was a talkative show-off.

  There was also a handsome boy from the LilJohn stables riding in the jumping class. He was tall and lean with very black hair. Gem tried to keep the ripped part of her hat away from his view of her. Faith told her, ‘He’s not even looking at you.’ She wasn’t quite telling the truth. The black haired boy was checking her sister over. Boy crazy, thought Faith derisively. But she noticed that Gem was nervous and part of her sympathized with her sister.