by Kate Lattey
Why not? I let the stirrups down a few holes and swing onto his back. He waits for my instructions and then steps out when I press him gently with my legs. He’s got a steady, smooth stride, and when I shorten my reins he drops his head onto the bit. Nicely schooled. I test the brakes and find them to be in excellent working order, so on a wider part of the verge I ask him to trot on and he obliges, moving into a smooth rhythmical trot. He’s so well-trained that I feel like a really good rider sitting on this pony. I push him into a canter, which he runs into it a bit quickly, but steadies obediently when I tighten the reins and we have a lovely canter up to the corner. I bring him back to a walk and pat his neck. It feels really good to be riding again. I realise now how much I’ve missed being in the saddle lately.
I start talking to the pony. “Brookfields Ezekiel. What a mouthful. They must call you something for short. It should be Ezee,” I tell the pony. “Cause that’s what you are. Easiest pony I’ve ever ridden. I bet you win everything at the shows.”
He arches his little golden neck and his white mane flutters in the breeze. I reach an intersection in the road and let the reins go slack, letting the pony decide where to go. He turns right and I hear a whinny behind me. I turn in the saddle to see a girl trotting up to us on a tall dapple grey pony.
“Hey!” she yells. I halt the palomino and turn him around. He’s obedient to the gentlest touch on the rein, and I wonder when I will ride a pony this nice again. The girl reaches us and pulls up her grey, glaring down at me.
“What on earth are you doing on my pony?”
Her angry tone immediately gets me on the defensive. “I found him running loose and thought you might want someone to catch him, so he didn’t get hit by a car and break a leg or something.”
She keeps glaring. “That doesn’t give you the right to just ride around on him. He’s not a toy.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I snap back. Sliding off the little gelding’s back, I pat his neck as he sniffs noses companionably with her grey. “You must be Brooke.”
She shakes her head impatiently. “I’m Natalie. Brooke’s my sister. She was the one stupid enough to fall off and let go of the reins.”
“So he’s not your pony then.”
“What?” She dismounts and starts running her hands down the little pony’s legs, murmuring to him.
“He’s not your pony,” I repeat. “He’s your sister’s.”
She glares at me. “He used to be mine, and he might as well still be for all she cares about him.”
At that moment, the palomino tires of the other pony trying to nibble his ears and nips him sharply on the neck. The grey squeals and throws out a foreleg, catching Natalie on the thigh. Natalie yells at him and yanks on his reins, making him run backwards and roll his eyes at her.
“For crying out loud Spider, would you behave yourself for once?” She tries to pull him forward again, but he’s straining against the reins. She bites her lip, clearly in pain and deeply frustrated.
“Hold him for me, would you?” she mutters, thrusting his reins at me. I take the grey and rub his neck. He starts to relax a little, blowing softly into my hand. Like her sister’s pony, he’s well groomed and his matching tack is all clean, new and matching, and I feel a ripple of jealousy at everything she has, and how ungrateful she seems for it.
Natalie inspects the little pony’s legs with a face like thunder, as my mum would’ve said, and I think to myself that she would be very pretty if she didn’t have such a permanently sour expression. She has straight dark hair, dark brown eyes and olive skin, high cheekbones and long eyelashes, and her face is neatly made up, though I have no idea why that’s necessary. I hope I never get so vain that I can’t even go for a ride without putting makeup on.
Eventually Natalie sighs and pulls out an expensive-looking cellphone as she straightens up. She doesn’t look at me but pats the small pony idly while she waits for someone to answer.
“I found Zeke. He’s got a swollen fetlock.” A pause. “Near fore.” Glancing down, I’m forced to concede that she’s right.
“He wasn’t lame when I was riding him,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes at me and ignores me. “Down by the Mackinnons’ place. Some girl found him and was riding him up the road. I know, I told her,” she adds, brows knitting as she intensifies her glare at me, looking at me like I’m something disgusting that she scraped off her shoe. “Yeah I’ll walk him home. No, it’s not that bad. Mum, calm down. It’s not that bad. I’ll just walk him home.” She hangs up with a sigh.
“I didn’t make him lame,” I defend myself. “He must have slipped on the road. He wasn’t sore when I was riding him.”
“You shouldn’t have been riding him. You’re far too big for him, but even aside from that, he’s not your pony. Do you make a habit of riding other people’s ponies?”
Her words cut me deeply, but I snap straight back at her. “Only the ones I find running loose on the road.”
She has no comeback for that one, so just continues to glare at me, running the pony’s stirrups back up and slackening his girth before stepping forward with her hand outstretched to take Spider from me. He’s a nice pony, and I’m a little sad to give him up, but I have no choice. Natalie swings onto Spider’s back, and leading Zeke off him, rides away without even thanking me for saving her pony from getting squashed by a truck.
“You’re welcome!” I yell after her, and she must have heard me. My voice tends to carry. But she doesn’t even turn her head, just taking the ponies out of the gate and back down the road. Rude cow.
After that incident I lose my enthusiasm for exercise, and head straight back to the house.
Dad comes home around one o’clock and brings fish and chips with him, which seems to be the only food he knows. Conversation is slow at first, but Dad gets used to me not responding and keeps talking anyway, most of which I let go in one ear and out the other.
“The shower went cold this morning,” I remember to tell him during a lull in his monologue.
“Ah. Well, the hot water cylinder is pretty small and it’s a bit shot, doesn’t always heat the water properly anyway. Oh, I should mention that we run off a rainwater tank here, and we haven’t had much rain lately, so don’t go using too much water or we’ll run dry. Rains more in the winter, so as long as the pipes don’t freeze you’ll be able to have longer showers then.” He looks at my shocked face and has the gall to grin. “Goes with the lifestyle. I wouldn’t live in a town again.”
“No, that’d be far too civilised,” I comment dryly, but the sarcasm is lost on him and he just laughs and eats more chips. My head is swimming. Clearly any thought of a long hot shower on a cold day is an impossibility here.
“I saw Bill today,” he goes on. “And he said that his girls are happy to take you riding tomorrow morning. I can drop you off at their place on my way into work, they’ll give you a lift back here afterwards.”
“Okay, sure.” I can only hope that they don’t know Natalie, or at least that they have the sense not to be friends with her.
Dad stands up and goes to the sink for a glass of water. “I’ve got to go back into Ratanui shortly for a meeting, and I was gonna get some groceries after. If you want to come along, you can get your school supplies so you’ll be ready for Monday.”
My heart sinks. “I don’t get a holiday?” I ask him and he looks surprised.
“What would you do, sit around here all day? Besides, it’s the first day of term,” he explains. “Makes sense to start when everyone else does.”
Of course. I’d forgotten that school here starts in February. At least I might meet some nicer people. I nod, and he licks the salty grease off his fingers.
“Okay then. We’ll head out once we’ve done the dishes.” He lifts the newspaper that the fish and chips are wrapped in and drops it onto the floor. Chewy leaps out of his basket and rushes over, wolfing down the leftover chips and scraps of fish. I dash upstairs to change, the sound of
slobbering dog and my father’s laughter ringing through the house.
Dad offers to accompany me around town, but I quickly assure him that I’ll be able to find my own way around. He might consider Ratanui to be a big town, but it’s little more than a village. He drops me off near the shop that sells school uniforms, and the first thing I see in the window is a hideous brown pinafore. I’d rather die than go anywhere wearing that. Fortunately I quickly discover that it’s for the primary school, and that the high school uniform is much more reasonable. Dark blue knit jersey, white polo shirt, black skirt. At least I won’t have to wear a tie and blazer like I did back home.
I don’t have a booklist, but the woman at the local bookshop sees the uniform bags in my hands. “Ratanui High School? What year?”
Fortunately I know this one. “Year Ten.”
She gives me a list and I get what I’ll need, which doesn’t seem like much, then head back to the Council office where Dad told me to meet him. On the way I pass a large hardware and feed store, and my attention is grabbed by a beautiful brown jumping saddle in the window. I’m sure his meeting won’t be over yet, so I head inside, where I’m greeted by the smell of hay and leather and feed. Almost immediately I start to relax. Like a bowl of hot soup on a cold winter’s day, these horsy smells are comfort food for my soul.
I find the equestrian section and wander around, running my fingers over the shiny leather saddles, picking up hoofpicks and dandy brushes, looking at bandages and rugs. I forget for a moment what a disaster my life has turned into, and think only of ponies. I hold a supple leather halter for a moment, imagining having a pony who could wear it.
I see two girls my age heading my way, talking loudly. I recognise Natalie almost immediately, and I hang the halter back up and duck down to look at the shampoo bottles. The other girl has short bleached blonde hair with pink streaks in it. They don’t notice me, stopping in front of the rack of riding coats. They start pulling some out and the blonde girl tries on a navy blue one. I head in the opposite direction, but catch a snippet of their conversation on my way.
“I can’t believe Mum only gave me two hundred bucks,” the pink-haired girl is complaining. “I don’t know how that’s supposed to cover a new jacket as well as Spud’s new boots.”
“You need another jacket more than Sputnik needs boots,” Natalie replies, quickly confirming my opinion of her. When I have my own pony, their needs will come before mine – every time.
I turn a corner and find a noticeboard with ads of horses and ponies for sale. Dumping my heavy school shopping at my feet, I start looking the ads over. There are a few ponies advertised, and my attention is caught by a photo of a piebald pony clearing painted poles, his knees snapped up to his chest, ears pricked forward. He reminds me of Jigsaw, and reading through the ad I see he’s only seven years old and has won classes up to a metre-ten. I do the mental arithmetic. If three feet is roughly one metre, and four feet is one metre and twenty, then a metre-ten must be three foot six. That’s not bad, for a fourteen hand pony. I’d been intending to buy a slightly bigger pony, but then I’m not exactly tall for my age. The owners are asking six thousand dollars for him, which only equates to about two thousand pounds, so seems very reasonable.
A girl walks up to me wearing a polo shirt with the store’s name on it and smiles helpfully. “Can I help you?” She has thick auburn hair and about a million freckles scattered across her very friendly face. I find myself smiling back automatically.
“I’m looking for a pony,” I tell her, speaking the magic words aloud. “I just moved here. Well, near here, to Clearwater Bay.”
Her hazel eyes light up in interest. “I live there too. You must be Dave Evans’ daughter.” I nod, surprised at being known by a complete stranger, and she laughs.
“Don’t look so worried. Bush telegraph works overtime around the Bay. I know your dad ‘cause he works for the Council. My old man’s always having arguments with the Council. I’m Pip.”
I shake her extended hand. “Jay.”
“Nice to meet you. So what kind of pony are you after?”
“A show jumper. I was jumping three feet back home, but I’m looking to go bigger now that I’m here and can have my own pony.”
Pip flicks a hand towards the piebald pony. “You might like Snoopy then. He’s one of ours. You should come ride him sometime, see if you get on with him.”
I look at the picture again, then back at her. “That would be great. When would suit you?”
She shrugs. “Whenever. Tomorrow, if you’re not doing anything.”
I grin back at her. “Okay, I’ll check with my Dad, see if he can drop me off.”
Pip looks at me askance. “Why don’t you just walk? It’s not far. We live just down the road from you. Shabby old farmhouse, you can’t miss us,” she says cheerfully and I realise that I’m talking to one of the infamous Harrisons. Snoopy must be the piebald pony I’d seen yesterday. He looks very different in the photo from the scrubby little gelding I’d noticed when we drove past. Buying a pony from them would be like an animal rescue, but for six thousand dollars? I backtrack quickly.
“Well, I don’t know yet if I can have a pony just yet, I mean, I haven’t really talked to my dad about it and I only just got here, so…I’ll have to find out.”
Pip shrugs. “Okay. Come by and ride anyway. We’ve got loads of ponies, there’ll always be a spare for you.”
I nod. “Sure, sometime. Bye.” I get out of there and fast. I haven’t yet sunk that low.
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning dawns bright and sunny, but after what happened with Zeke yesterday I’m apprehensive about going riding with the twins. Surely they’ll be nicer than Natalie, I tell myself, and besides, they’ve invited me to ride their ponies, so they can hardly get mad at me for doing so. Their orchard farm is hard to miss - we pass several acres of high shelter belt hedging running along both sides of the road. Dad’s truck bumps uncomfortably over a cattle grid as we drive up a gravel road to their house. It’s set back amongst trees and surrounded by a large rolling lawn, neatly mown and tidy. The two-storey farmhouse is painted grey with white trim, and on the other side of the driveway is a matching stable block and schooling arena. We pass a small chestnut pony and its jet black companion grazing contentedly under a stand of willow trees, and I feel an overwhelming sense of relief that there are some people around here who don’t live in perpetual squalor.
Dad stops by the stables and the girl I saw yesterday with pink-streaked hair bounces out to meet us. My heart sinks at the sight of her, but she’s very friendly, so clearly Natalie hasn’t been telling tales on me yet. I’m barely out of the car before the girl is introducing herself.
“Hi! I’m Amy. You must be Jay. Hi Dave!” she calls to my dad. He waves back and tells me that he’ll come by on his way back from town.
“No rush!” Amy tells him. “We’ll take good care of her. See ya!”
She has a sprinkling of freckles across her tanned skin and bright blue eyes. I’m dressed for riding in jodhpurs and leather gaiters, but Amy is wearing pink and white shorts, knee-high striped socks and low jodhpur boots. I wonder if she’s going to ride her pony dressed like that. There’s a dark bruise on her left thigh, and the skin on her shoulders is peeling badly. She rubs at it absently, flaking dead skin off as she chatters. She talks so fast that I can only understand half of what she’s saying, but I nod and smile politely, not wanting to seem stupid. Their stables are in fact three covered yards with two looseboxes at one end and four outdoor yards opposite, one of which has her palomino pony standing in it, stamping irritably at flies.
“This is Topaz,” Amy tells me. “She’s my project pony. We bred her ourselves, and I’m schooling her up for my sister Bianca. She’s going to have her next season and I’m getting a new pony, which will be good because Spaz is really naughty and she bucks me off a lot. Last week she dumped me into the river then trod on me. That’s how I got this,” and she mot
ions to the bruise on her leg. “Little toerag.”
I’m staring into the tack room behind her, which has saddle racks all of the way up the wall. There’s a ladder propped nearby to assist in reaching the highest ones. “How many ponies do you have here?”
“Eleven at the moment. I know,” she laughs, seeing my surprise. “It’s heaps. Well, me and Sarah have two each, and then Bianca has two, and Evie, she’s the youngest, she has one at the moment, but Bee’s getting Topaz next season so that Evie can have Teddy, so then we’ll each have two once I get my new one. Plus we have my mum’s horse, and our broodmare, and she has a foal at foot plus a two year old. Oh, here comes Sarah.”
I’m still trying to sort that out in my head as I turn to see a girl riding toward us bareback on a tall bay pony with a narrow blaze, leading a smaller liver chestnut off the side. The ponies clop into the yard, their shoes ringing against the concrete, and Sarah throws the chestnut’s leadrope to Amy as she slides to the ground.
“This is Jay,” Amy introduces me to her sister and Sarah smiles in greeting. There’s no mistaking that they’re twins, but my concern about not being able to tell them apart is quickly laid to rest. Sarah’s mahogany brown hair rests between her shoulder blades in a long ponytail without a strand of pink in sight. She has the same blue eyes and tanned skin, but her freckles are sparsely distributed and she has a mouthful of braces.
“Hi. I brought Pan up for you to ride. He’s Bee’s pony, but she won’t mind. You shouldn’t be too big for him.” Amy passes me the pony’s lead rope. He blows softly at me and I run a hand down his thin face. He’s a lot more finely built than I’m used to, especially after Jigsaw’s heavy bulk, but he’s very pretty and clearly well-bred.
