Prize Problems

by Janet Rising

  “That’s blackmail!” declared Bean.

  “Is it? I thought it was extortion,” said Amber. “Anyway, I’m only joking.”

  “I told you, she hasn’t seen the clipboard,” yawned Zoe.

  “Oh, I have, I was joking about the Mounds bars,” said Amber, grinning. “Although of course, if you wanted to share them out, Grace, I wouldn’t say no. I’ll help you take another look for Major if you like.”

  At the mention of her missing figurine, Grace gulped.

  “Oh, you are tactless, Amber,” Zoe said, putting her arm round Grace. “Come on Grace, I’ll help you get Shadow ready for the lesson. Take no notice of Miss Foot-in-mouth over there.”

  “What?” asked Amber, a picture of innocence. “I was trying to help.”

  Bean and I hung back as the others drifted out to tack up again.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Bean in her best detective voice. “You’re going to have to get the ponies involved.”

  “What makes you think they know anything?” I asked.

  “Because my gloves disappeared in the yard. Major went AWOL from the yard. One of the ponies may have seen something. Or…” Bean’s eyebrows almost met over her nose as she screwed up her face in concentration. “…the thief may even have confided in her pony. Have you heard them talking about it?”

  “No, I haven’t. When did you figure all this out?” I said. Bean was constantly surprising me—she didn’t get the most basic of concepts, living on Planet Bean for much of the time, but then she came out with all these theories. Clearly, she was on another level. Perhaps it was her artistic side—coming out in a different way to the rest of her family, and to normal people.

  “I told you, I’ve been thinking,” she said. I wondered just how smart Bean would be if she did more of it. “Plus,” she added, looking around, “did you hear Amber say she knew Grace had Mounds bars in her bed-side cabinet?”

  “Yes, I did!”

  “How did she know that? Has she been snooping—does she know what everyone has in their bedside cabinet?” asked Bean.

  I felt a shiver run up and down my spine. “Oh, we have to get this figured out. I’ll ask Sprout,” I said. I felt a bit stupid—I should have thought about asking the ponies. I was just a bit preoccupied with worrying about how Drum was getting on with Cat. How dumb was I?

  I wasted no time. I tacked up Sprout in record time and then, checking that everyone else was busy adjusting throatlashes, tightening girths and strapping hats to their heads or, in Zoe’s case, standing in front of Dot-2-Dot and tweaking her noseband and browband until they were dead straight and parallel, I told Sprout I needed his help with something mega important.

  “I know, I know, you want to win the jumping tomorrow,” he said with a snort.

  “No, nothing like that—although I wouldn’t say no, obviously. No, I need your help with some detective work.”

  “Explain.”

  So I did. I told him about Amber’s silver charm and Bean’s gloves and Grace’s figurine, Major. I explained how upset Grace was, and how things could get totally out of hand if anything else went missing. “Because at the moment,” I told him, “only Major is officially stolen—even though Annabelle is playing it down. Bean hasn’t kicked up about her gloves and Amber still thinks she lost her silver charm, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think everything has been taken by someone, as yet unknown. And that’s where you and the other ponies come in,” I finished.

  “You want me to rat on the thief.”

  “Well, yes. Why wouldn’t you? I mean, someone is taking things which are not theirs. Someone is upsetting the people who have had things taken. Someone,” I concluded dramatically, “needs to be stopped!”

  Sprout said nothing.

  I heard Annabelle shouting at us to hurry up. “Well?” I asked Sprout. “Do you know who the culprit is? Can you tell me so we can get this figured out and cheer up poor Grace? She’s so upset about Major, and who knows what else might go missing! I mean, it’s horrible to steal things.”

  “Let me get back to you on that,” said my vacation pony.

  “Get back to me?” I hissed. “Do you know who it is, or not?”

  “I need to have a word,” he replied.

  “Who with?”

  “Look, it isn’t as easy as all that. You sound very judgmental about the person who’s taken these things,” Sprout said, shifting his weight from one front hoof to the other.

  “Well, yes, I am. I mean, stealing! It just isn’t right!”

  “There may be underlying factors as yet unknown to you,” said Sprout. “Factors which make this case less about stealing and more about—well, I’ve said too much. Leave it with me and, as I say, I’ll get back to you. It isn’t up to me. Come on, let’s get this lesson over with.”

  I had to wait until the end of the lesson when we were waiting our turn to jump before I could tell Bean. I nudged Sprout up beside Cherokee who was grumbling about the flies. I knew Sprout could hear me, and hoped he’d pick up on the disappointment in my voice. And Bean’s.

  “What underlying factors?” she asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Dunno!”

  “When is he getting back to you?”

  “Dunno that either. When do you think you’ll be getting back to me, Sprout?” I whispered.

  “Come to the field later, I may be able to tell you more then,” Sprout said out of the corner of his mouth. I don’t know why—unless he didn’t want the other ponies to hear.

  I would have relayed this back to Bean, only it was her turn to jump and I had to wait for her to return. And then it was my turn and we managed a clear round. I made a lot of Sprout, hoping it would help our case. I told Bean as we put our tack away.

  “Do you think underlying factors could include some kind of illness?” asked Bean.

  “Or maybe the person is insane. Insanity could be an underlying factor.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Bean. “Stealing is stealing. And I want my gloves back—the thought of someone else wearing them makes me crazy!”

  “Mmmm. Let’s hope the ponies decide to spill the beans. Sorry—that sounds funny ’cause of your name!”

  “Oh ha, ha!” Bean replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

  And then a thought whooshed into my head, a thought which hadn’t occurred to me before, but could explain the ponies’ reluctance to tell us anything. “Oh!” I said, staring into space as the thought developed, galloping on like a runaway horse.

  “What?” asked Bean. “You look like you’ve swallowed a fly.”

  “What if?” I began, trying to figure out my thoughts as I relayed them to Bean, “the thief isn’t one of us?”

  “Huh?”

  “What if it’s Annabelle. Or Sharon?”

  Bean let out a low whistle. I wish I could do that. Everyone else seems to be able to whistle except me.

  “But Sharon went to look for Amber’s silver charm Oh. Oh, I see,” said Bean, frowning. “Maybe she found it. Maybe she already had it!”

  “Your gloves were expensive. You’ll be gone after this week and Sharon—or Annabelle, she wears good stuff—could wear them without arousing suspicion. Maybe that’s why Sprout wouldn’t tell us. I mean, Annabelle and Sharon are part of High Grove Farm.”

  “We’re forgetting Major,” said Bean. “Why would they steal Major? Can you imagine Annabelle or Sharon playing with toy ponies when we all go home?”

  “They might like it for their niece, or little sister, I don’t know.” The Major part didn’t stack up, which annoyed me.

  “We can’t discount them,” Bean said. “We can’t discount anyone.”

  Of course, getting away from everyone else once we had turned the ponie
s out and cleaned tack proved impossible. We weren’t supposed to amuse ourselves, but be part of the constant, full-on vacation package at High Grove Farm. First it was dinner—which we had no intention of missing. Then Annabelle and Sharon had a trivia night all planned.

  “Form two teams,” Annabelle ordered, clipboard firmly in hand.

  “Dibs on being with Bean!” yelled Amber. “She won the holiday by winning the quiz in Pony mag, so she’s bound to be brilliant!”

  “OK!” agreed Bean, winking at me as I had answered most of the questions. Grace joined Amber and Bean to form team A, and Zoe, Ellie and I made up team B. Questions ranged from mega easy—name three British native pony breeds, for example—to totally impossible. No one knew the name of Napoleon’s horse, or the color of the horses used by the Canadian Mounted Police, or the name of the 14.2hh pony that won Great Britain a silver medal for show jumping in the 1968 Olympic Games (Marengo, black and Stroller, if you’re interested). It was a fun quiz, though, and Team A won by only two points, giving Amber and Zoe something else to argue about. By the time the quiz had finished and we’d all had some cake and drinks it was dark outside and time for bed.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked Bean as we went up the stairs.

  “We’ll have to sneak out when the others are asleep,” she said.

  “What?”

  “We have to keep our rendezvous with Sprout. It’s the only way we’ll find out. You’re not scared, are you?”

  “Er, yes, actually. Plus, the others might wake up!”

  “We’ll have to be totally like little mice. All quiet and tiptoe-y.”

  Everyone seemed to take forever to go to sleep. Amber wanted to talk about the gymkhana tomorrow and Ellie insisted that she had a good chance of winning something. Eventually, one by one, the others drifted off. I dreaded hearing the sounds of crying—I thought Grace might stay awake worrying about Major—but she was soon breathing rhythmically, like everyone else. Except Zoe. She really did snore!

  “Ready?” whispered Bean.

  I wasn’t. I was warm and cozy in bed.

  Have you ever tried to creep around quietly when someone else is sleeping in the same room? Honestly, it’s like everything makes extra-loud noises on purpose. Floorboards suddenly decide to creak, bedsprings ping, doors whine. Everything you do seems to make far more noise than it does in the daytime—because it’s the only noise you can hear, no one else is talking or rustling or making awake, I’m-in-the-room noises. Even pulling on jodhpurs and a sweater seemed to make more noise than a box of monkeys—a box of monkeys with drums and whistles. I was sure we’d woken Zoe up at one point, but then after a couple of gurgles, she was off again, snoring.

  Bean and I let ourselves out of the bedroom and on to the creaking wooden floorboards on the landing. Tip-toeing down the stairs in our bare feet, holding our breath and our boots, we reached the hallway and fumbled our way toward the back door.

  Suddenly, something let out a loud, unearthly shriek and shot past me, brushing my legs. I froze, my heart stopping in total dread. It had to be a ghost. Some terrible spirit we’d disturbed—the spirit of High Grove Farm which had been wandering about all the time we’d been asleep upstairs, blissfully unaware that the place was haunted. Why on earth had we thought a séance would be fun? I mean, toying with the occult was such a totally bad, bad idea; of course these old places had ghosts, evil, vindictive spirits intent on…

  “I think I just stood on Soot,” Bean whispered, cutting short my rambling mind. It wasn’t enough to stop my heart thudding. Surely everyone in the house could hear that?

  “Do you think,” I whispered, “you could look where you’re putting your feet from now on? I almost died of fright.”

  “Well, I would if I could see anything. It’s pitch black in here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Serves Soot right,” I replied, too shaken to be charitable. “A black cat in the dark is just asking to be stepped on.”

  We let ourselves out of the door, pulled on our jodhpur boots and headed off past the yard to the ponies’ field. A huge silvery moon hung in the sky like a beacon. I had no idea a moon could be so bright—it threw shadows from trees and the yard like the sun does, only in shades of black, dark black and even darker black. Everything was quiet and still, the only sound we could hear was the faint rustling of leaves as the trees swayed in the night breeze. The air was cold and I shivered in my sweater. It wasn’t enough to keep me warm in the night air.

  Climbing over the field gate we approached the ponies, grouped together by the trough. I could make out Harry’s cobby frame and Sorrel’s slender build. In the gloom their colors were muted, as though filmed in black-and-white. I could feel my heart thudding again. Would the ponies tell us what we wanted to know? Who the thief was? I shivered. Now we were there, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.

  Chapter 17

  What do you intend to do if we tell you what you want to know?” Sprout asked me. I gulped. Surround by the ponies, I felt as though we’d done something wrong and the ponies were judging us. It was the weirdest sensation. From Sprout’s serious tone, it was as though the ponies were on the side of the thief. It was all very strange. I decided to consult Bean—mainly because she was tugging at my sleeve and demanding I tell her what was going on.

  “Who is it?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know yet. They want to know what we’re going to do if they tell us,” I explained.

  “Oh. I don’t know. I just want my gloves back. We want Grace to get Major back and for Amber to get her silver charm back. That’s all.”

  I turned to Sprout. He and Shadow were the easiest ponies to see in the gloom and they both gleamed silver in the moonlight. Harry and Cherokee’s white patches looked like floating lava lamp blobs, suspended eerily in mid-air. I could see Dot-2-Dot quite clearly—her spots looked like she was full of holes—but Sorrel looked sort of dark gray.

  “The thing is,” interrupted Harry, pushing his way past Sprout and standing in front of me, “we need you to understand that the person behind all this thievin’ may have problems, issues like, that you don’t know about.”

  “Is it Grace?” I said. “I know she has problems with her mom. We don’t want to upset her but it isn’t right that other people have to suffer. Bean wants her gloves back, and Amber’s silver charm is valuable.”

  “Why would it be Grace?” asked Bean.

  “They say the thief has issues,” I explained.

  “Has she got a cold?”

  “What?”

  “What do tissues have to do with anything?”

  “Not tissues, issues!” I hissed.

  “Well, I’ve got issues, we’ve all got issues,” muttered Bean moodily. “I don’t take my issues out on other people by stealing their stuff!”

  “You’re not helping,” I said.

  “Sorry. Only we could all use issues as an excuse!”

  “What I am trying to explain,” Harry continued, “is that just ’cause a person appears to be a pain in the tail, appears not to fit in, appears to behave in a way that puts people against them, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a reason to behave that way.”

  “Sometimes a person is so desperate for friends, their attempts to win people over have the very opposite effect,” explained Sprout, not explaining at all. “It’s a cry for help.”

  I sighed. All this dancing around the issue was making me very confused.

  “Why don’t you just explain everything to us?” I suggested. “Then we might understand what you mean. I don’t understand anything at the moment.”

  “We need you to promise not to be judgmental,” Harry said solemnly. “You must promise not to reveal the secret we tell you tonight—about the thief.”

  I relayed it all to Bean and we both nodded, agreeing to the
terms. I felt a bit spooked—what secret were we going to learn and did we really want to know it?

  Harry cleared his throat. Bean tugged at my sleeve. “What’s he saying?” she asked earnestly.

  “Nothing yet,” I told her. If I was going to translate every word we would be here all night. I half-wished I’d come alone, but knew I’d never have made it past the front door without some moral support. I was too much of a wuss.

  “Do you know that people’s behavior is often a result of how other people treat them?” Harry asked. “And that confident, attractive people get a positive reaction from others, which in turn has a snowball effect, making them even more confident and attractive?”

  I repeated it to Bean and I could hear her nodding furiously. She obviously understood more than I did. I sort of understood. It was a bit like my mom—once she’d had her makeover and felt confident, she had acted more confidently. Since then, she’d had loads of boyfriends. They hadn’t wanted to know when she’d shuffled around feeling sorry for herself. An image of a shiny, hairless man with my mom leapt uninvited into my mind. I shook it out. Not the right time to be focusing on that!

  “Think of the person on this holiday everyone has been most negative about—you two included,” Harry told us. I started to feel uncomfortable. We’d come to discover the thief, not be psychoanalyzed. I translated to Bean. I was beginning to feel like one of those interpreters at the United Nations, only I couldn’t translate at the same time as Harry spoke.

  “Oh dear” mumbled Bean. “I haven’t been very nice to Ellie—but she’s so…”

  “Yes, I know,” I interrupted her. “She’s so annoying.”

  “So you get my point,” Harry said.

  “What’s that got to do with the stolen—oh, are you telling us that Ellie is the culprit?”

  Bean grabbed my arm. “Ellie? Really?”

  I saw Harry’s head nod in the gloom. “I saw Ellie lift Bean’s gloves from the bench and Sorrel saw her take Major from Grace’s grooming kit. She may or may not have Amber’s silver charm. We haven’t seen her with it.”