by Janet Rising
“Absolutely wonderful!” she gushed, pulling out her cell phone. “I’ll see who at National Heritage I can track down right now. Leave it to me.”
So we did.
“That’s fixed!” declared James smugly.
“Yup!” agreed Katy. “You’ve saved us all, James. National Heritage will fall over itself to slap some sort of preservation order on the place, the development plans will grind to a halt, and the ponies will all be able to stay here.”
I thought about my Brookdale sash sacrifice. Could it be that Epona was helping us after all? Could it be that my sacrifice hadn’t been in vain, but had done the trick?
“Except for Bambi,” Cat reminded her.
My heart sank and my thoughts returned to Drummer and my beautiful Brookdale ribbons hanging on my bedroom wall. Would they have to join my sash in the flames before we could come up with a plan to save Bambi?
As if to rub it in how time for Bambi was running out, Cat’s Aunt Pam brought her eldest daughter Emily to the stables over the weekend for a ride. And to emphasize how Bambi would soon no longer be Cat’s responsibility, Aunt P took over as soon as Cat had tacked up her skewbald mare and led her out into the yard.
“Thanks,” said Aunt Pam, taking the reins from Cat and pulling them over Bambi’s head. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Don’t you want me to help you?” asked Cat, her face like stone.
“I can remember how to handle my own pony, thank you, Catriona!” Aunt Pam said, testily, leading Bambi toward the outdoor school. Emily clutched her mother’s free hand nervously, keeping a wary eye on her new pony, who neighed to Drummer as she left the yard. Pushing past me, Drum leaned on his stable door and neighed back, unhappy that his treasured Bambi was being repossessed, if only for an hour. In despair, Cat fled to the barn.
Bean gazed out from Tiffany’s stable across the yard, and we looked at each other helplessly.
“Come on,” yelled Bean, closing Tiff’s stable door behind her and making for the school, “let’s see if we can get some inspiration from watching the enemy at work.”
“Hurry up and do something!” Drummer pleaded with me as I locked his door and threw his dandy brush down on the ground outside his stable before following Bean. We couldn’t exactly stand and stare so we walked past the school as though we were going to the field, then doubled back and hid behind the jump store. Since it was old and rickety, and the walls had gaping holes between the planks, it was really easy to spy on Bambi. Emily was lifted bodily onto her broad back, and Aunt Pam adjusted her daughter’s stirrups.
“Emily’s too tiny to ride Bambi,” hissed Bean. “Bambi’s way too wide for her. She’s practically doing the splits.”
The child clutched the reins nervously, holding them too short and too tightly. Bambi, unused to such treatment, put her head down and stretched her neck to get comfortable again, pulling the reins out of Emily’s hands.
Emily screamed.
Screaming is never a good thing to do around ponies—as you know.
“If she was on Tiffany,” Bean gasped, “she’d be in the next county by now.”
Luckily, Bambi was no Tiffany. She just lifted her head warily, her ears back.
Aunt Pam fussed at Emily, adjusted her daughter’s hands, and started leading her around the school while Emily sat as stiff as a board, waggling the reins.
“Emily doesn’t look like she’s ready for a pony of her own,” I whispered.
“Mmmm,” agreed Bean. “She’d probably be better off going for lessons at a riding school for a while, to give her some confidence.”
“I suppose her mom can teach her,” I said.
Emily’s mom, it seemed, wasn’t up for teaching. Whenever I’d seen Cat with Emily, she had shown her young cousin what to do, and Emily had been a lot happier. Her mom, however, didn’t look as though she could be bothered to help—she seemed to think Emily ought to know instinctively what to do in the saddle.
“Don’t lean forward, Em,” she grumbled. “Don’t hold the reins so tightly. Don’t dig your heels in like that.”
Emily didn’t take much notice. If anything, she held the reins tighter and dug her heels in to Bambi’s sides even more.
“Wouldn’t it be better if Aunt P told Emily what to do, instead of what not to?” I said. “She’s not telling Emily what she should be doing, just what she shouldn’t.”
Bean nodded miserably.
“Can you stop pulling on the reins, please?” I heard Bambi say. “And if you could get your heels out of my sides, I’d be grateful.”
“Bambi’s not impressed,” I told Bean.
The trio continued around the school—and no one looked especially happy. Then Aunt P decided it was time to go for a trot.
“Hold the saddle with one hand, Em, until you get going,” she instructed as Bambi launched herself into her bouncy pace. Emily rattled around in the saddle, totally missing her bounce and getting only one rise to the trot in every six strides. It must have been very uncomfortable for her. She’d been OK with Cat helping her. I’d seen her trotting along, laughing with glee with Cat.
I had never appreciated before how patient Cat had been with her younger cousin, but now I could see that with Cat, Emily was far more confident and enjoyed riding Bambi. Now, that confidence had vanished. Aunt Pam seemed annoyed that her daughter didn’t ride as well as she wanted her to. For everyone, including Bambi, it was a frustrating experience.
As Bambi was asked to walk again, Aunt Pam pushed Emily off Bambi’s brown and white neck and back into the saddle.
“Phew,” whispered Bean, “if Bambi was anything like Tiffany, Emily wouldn’t even want to ride her, let alone have her at home with her. She’d be all over the place.”
“I don’t think I can watch anymore,” I said, and we both went back to the yard where James was in conversation with Sophie and Dee-Dee.
“Hey, you two,” James called, beckoning us over, “Sophie has some news.”
“A man from National Heritage is coming over tomorrow to look at where the house was,” Sophie told us triumphantly.
“Yippee!” shouted Bean, punching the air. “That was fast work!”
“Don’t get too excited!” Sophie warned us. “It’s just a preliminary visit to take a look and see what’s around. There are no promises, but the fact that he’s interested is pretty encouraging.”
“Will he have to meet Robert Collins?” asked James, frowning.
“Er, well, I sort of didn’t tell him that I wasn’t actually the owner of the land,” Sophie said ruefully. “He just seemed to assume that I had the authority, so I let him think that. When things progress I’ll get Mrs. Collins involved.”
“She lied,” said Dee, making a face.
“No, Dee, it isn’t technically lying. I just…well…neglected to tell him the full facts at the moment.”
“She lied,” Dee mouthed to us behind her mom’s back, her eyes wide and her mouth open in mock horror.
“Desperate measures for desperate times,” said James, nodding.
“What happens when he finds out?” I asked.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Sophie replied firmly. “First things first. We need to get some interest going, don’t we? If the site is important, it won’t matter who owns it. National Heritage will just refuse to let anyone build on it.”
The sound of hoofbeats heralded Bambi’s return to the yard. Emily was once more walking beside her mother, and Bambi’s stirrups were run up their leathers, her girth slack.
As Cat came out to take Bambi from her aunt, we heard Aunt Pam say, “I think I’d better bring Emily up for some more rides on Bam-Bam before she comes back home, Cat. We’ll say the first week in August, instead.”
Cat just nodded, dumbly, not t
rusting herself to speak. I knew she hated the way her aunt called Bambi “Bam-Bam.” Just calling her that seemed to highlight how Bambi belonged to her, not Cat.
We all watched Aunt Pam drive off with mixed feelings. Things were moving on. Mr. National Heritage was booked to Save Our Stables on Tuesday evening and Bambi had a stay of execution, so to speak. We had another two weeks to come up with a plan for our Keep Bambi Campaign.
Would two weeks be enough?
You know how you always get a picture in your mind of how people are going to be? I had imagined the National Heritage man as pretty old, with gray hair and a matching mustache, wearing faded green tweed and with the air of an old army colonel. You know, all blustery and saying things like, “Well now!” and, “Look sharp!” And because he was from National Heritage, I somehow assumed he’d drive a very old, rather expensive car.
How wrong was I?
The man who got out of the small, modern, rather boring gray car couldn’t have looked less like an army type. He looked like a student. A bearded, long-haired, khaki-wearing student. Looking around the yard, he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches.
“You can’t smoke in a stable yard!” Katy yelled at him from Bluey’s stable.
The man dropped his unlit cigarette in alarm and gazed intently at Bluey, probably thinking he’d come to a stable full of talking horses. Which he had, only without Epona, there was no way he was going to hear them.
Seeing me in the tack room, the NH man raised his hand in greeting and told me he had an appointment with Mrs. Wiseman.
“I’ll get her,” I told him, running around the corner and yelling for Sophie. Then Katy and I shamelessly eavesdropped.
“You believe you have an Elizabethan structure here?” the man asked.
“Oh yes,” Sophie assured him, switching off her cell phone. Things were that serious!
“Very exciting, very exciting,” breathed the NH man. “Not many of them around. We need all the ones we can get, frankly.”
“Yes,” Sophie replied, “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Katy and I exchanged glances. It sounded promising.
“Too many of these wonderful old places are lost,” Mr. NH Man continued, searching his pockets for his cigarettes. Then, remembering Katy’s scolding, he returned them to a different pocket, running his fingers through his hair instead.
“Well, let me show you,” Sophie said, and they both walked out to the field. Katy and I followed at a distance and leaned on the gate, waving to Dee who was schooling Dolly in the outdoor school. Sophie had instructed her daughter to work on her transitions. Apparently they’d been shaky at her last show, and Dee was thrilled. Not.
“This is totally going to work,” Katy said, her elbows on the gate, chin in her hands.
I sighed. It had to, really.
A few minutes passed. We watched Henry the black Dales pony scratch his rear end on the trunk of the old oak tree. Pippin, the smallest pony in the stables, walked over to the water trough for a drink, droplets of water dripping from his lips as he lifted his head and stared at something in the distance that we couldn’t see, and I could see Drummer standing very still, right at the far end of the field. He was probably trying to act like he wasn’t there so I wouldn’t bring him in and go riding.
“Look out. They’re coming back,” I said as Sophie and the NH man returned at a brisk walk. We skedaddled into the barn, feeling like a couple of (not very good) spies. As the gate clicked shut, we could hear their conversation.
“I do feel you have got me here under false pretenses.” (NH man)
“Absolutely not!” (Sophie)
“I was led to believe the structure was still standing, that there was something to save for the nation.” (NH man)
“I thought you people were interested in historical sites.” (Sophie)
“There’s nothing to see!” (NH man)
Sophie didn’t seem to have an answer to this—which was a first as far as I could remember.
Katy and I looked at each other in horror. It was obvious that National Heritage couldn’t give a hoot about our Elizabethan house. Or, more correctly, where our Elizabethan house had been.
“He doesn’t care!” said Katy indignantly.
My heart sank into my boots. What were we going to do now? Making our way around to the stables, we were just in time to see the back of Mr. NH man’s gray car disappear down the drive, back to where he came from, unimpressed by our historical site.
Sophie was down but not out.
“He’s only interested in actual buildings,” she told us, tapping her toe on the concrete as she went into full rethink mode.
“But that means we’re sunk!” I cried, unable to quite believe it. When the day had begun, the stables were saved. Now, it seemed, all was doomed. And we still hadn’t got a plan for our Keep Bambi Campaign, my memory reminded me annoyingly! AND I’d sacrificed my Brookdale sash for diddly-squat! I felt my heart dip, and I really thought a tear or two was getting ready to drizzle out of my eyes. I’d had such high hopes for National Heritage.
“Only for the time being,” muttered Sophie, still thinking. “Keep at it, girls. There has to be a way to get around this,” she told us as she marched off to continue doing whatever it was she’d been doing before Mr. NH-time-waster-man had interrupted her.
Katy and I sat on a straw bale outside Tiffany’s stable, and I pulled myself together. What a setback! Neither of us said anything. There were no words. From being up there, all positive, we were suddenly plunged once more into despair. I felt a little sick. I could still hear the sizzling sound my sash had made when it had gone up in flames.
“What a bummer!” Katy said at last, ripping pieces of straw out of Bean’s bale in frustration and throwing them to the ground.
Bluey stuck his head over his door and asked us what was up.
“The National Heritage people aren’t interested in the site,” I explained. “They only want actual buildings. Our building is no more.”
“I know. I was there,” sighed Katy.
“I’m explaining to Bluey,” I explained to his owner.
“Oh,” said Bluey. Then, not able to think up any words of comfort, or possibly wanting to return to nosing around his bed, he withdrew again.
“Where is everyone?” asked Katy. It was almost five o’clock, and everyone else was usually at the stables after school by now. As if she’d heard her, Bean pedaled down the drive and threw herself off her bike.
“Has he come?” she asked. “Are we saved?”
“Yes, he came,” I told her.
“No, we’re not saved,” Katy spat out. “He wasn’t impressed. He expected a huge building with turrets and stuff.”
“I thought castles had turrets,” mumbled Bean. “So does that mean we’ve failed?”
“It looks like it,” I groaned, trying once again not to think about my sash. I mean, in the great scheme of things a sash was nothing to worry about, was it?
“Where is everyone?” asked Bean, looking around.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Cat’s not here, and there’s no James yet, and he said he was coming riding with us. Dee’s schooling Dolly in the outdoor school. Are you going to get Tiffany? I’ll come with you and get Drummer.”
Bean put her hands on her hips and stared at us both. “Is that my straw bale you’re demolishing?” she asked, frowning.
We left Katy quietly fuming in the yard as we made our way out into the field to catch the ponies. Drummer was still at the far end so I had a long walk to get him. He wasn’t very excited to leave Bambi, but there was no way she was going to come in with him if she didn’t have to.
“Was that the historical guy I saw out here?” Drum asked me as I led him toward the gate a
fter Tiffany’s white tail.
I nodded. “He’s not interested. Only wants actual buildings or ruins. He was very dismissive of the possibility of a site without any actual bricks and mortar.”
“Oh,” said Drummer. “What are we going to do now?”
“We don’t know.”
“Oh.”
We reached the gate. Went through it.
“What’s your contingency plan?” Drum asked.
“Haven’t got one,” I told him, fastening the gate behind us.
“Oh.”
“Can’t you say anything else but oh?”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t want to hear it!”
Katy, Bean, and I all went for a ride, hoping to lift our spirits. It didn’t work. I just kept wondering how much longer we’d be able to ride on the bridle paths, how many more times we’d enjoy a gallop on the Sloping Field or a charge through the Winding Canter. The mood was somber, whereas before we had been optimistic. Even Tiffany seemed down and shied less than usual.
When we got back, James had arrived—and Cat’s brother Dec was with him. He’d been coming to the stables now and again with James since he’d helped out on our activity ride at Christmas. Everyone knew why. Declan has the hots for Bean. Good looking, despite his hair nowadays being a sort of rust and blond color, he always wore clothes that could fit another person in with him. As usual, he kept staring at Bean in adoration. I don’t know how she manages to ignore him, especially as she’s aware of his crush.
“Where have you been, James?” demanded Katy. “It’s almost seven o’clock. I thought you were coming riding with us.”
“Change of plans,” James told her, grinning.
“How come?” I asked.
“A problem at school.”
“Like?” asked Bean.
“Oh, nothing,” James answered airily.
“Ha!” interrupted Dec, grinning shyly at Bean. “He got three detentions today.”
“Three!” exclaimed Katy, who never gets detentions. “That’s a lot, James, even for you. What did you do?”
